Code Veronica Discussion Topic

[Smiley]

I had no idea this game was talked about to this day.

Well the game had an amazing soundtrack. Great characters that were detailed and fleshed out through the game's progression. A prominent survival horror game set on zombie island. And a worthy followup of Claire and Chris' adventures that directly follows the first two games.

[BeefWellington]

Its a great game and great addition to the series. It angers me when people call it a shitty spinoff or a crappy love story

[ElusionM]

People have no idea of what they say when they try to bash the game. If anything, it's a near perfect game in it's own genre/time/RE legacy. A great story filled with great characters who moved with awesome music, killed badass enemies using a large and customizable pool of weapons, and had dramatic confrontations with all bosses. It also introduced many new features including double-wielding, cinematic panning/following camera angles, made health items available for use if inventory was full, and best of all, fully 3D backgrounds!

Not to mention getting surprised by a determined Chris scaling a cliff out of nowhere, then getting to play as him through areas Claire already visited, but now being able to expand the map and search places Claire did not have access to. The level designs were amazing, everything left by Claire had to be undone by Chris using new routes, to the point the level designs were puzzles themselves!

There's absolutely no reason to hate the game. Dislike by opinion, sure, but the game is simply not to be hated. And all the haters and those who dislike it, almost always either have no actual reason to their claim, or if they do, thy are terrible. "Steve was just a terrible character!". No. In fact, Steve was actually a great example of character development. Whiny 17 year old in the beginning, determined and courageous young knight in white armor by mid-game, and a mature young man by the end; capable of admitting his mistakes and distrust in close ones to Claire, and maturely confessing his love for her.

Wake up Capcom, do a full-scale CVXREmake already.

[News Bot]

Great music
Great story
Great presentation
Great horror
Great atmosphere

It's a great game, and a particular marvel considering that it was CAPCOM's first real attempt at developing a game for the Dreamcast and it went through quite a lot of issues as a result. It is also the only game which actually stays true to the style of the first game, apart from its remake and later Zero.

[Canas Renvall]

The only complaint I can think of with this game honestly, is that for me personally, I just feel it didn't age as well as the previous three. That's not to say it isn't a great game, it is, but I just found the other three more replayable. All opinion of course.

[Rombie]

It showed how poorly it aged in just over a year when the X reissue took place... it had just been so long in development that the texture and modelling work just didn't hold up to the leaps that happened just during 2000. The HD port with it's weird camera depth of field tried to make it look better but kinda just made it look worse really.

Code Veronica's other crime is one of pacing and length, the game frequently artficially creates further length by just plain bad fetch questing which breaks consistant pacing of narative. The first 3rd and the final 3rd are the better parts, the middle is the part that gets affected the most but the whole game is reasonably uneven.

I still to this day enjoy the story line and getting a A/S rank in the game is still a challenge of top level in the franchises history though. Plus the mini-game, set forth by the games director from his work on the Saturn, obviously set forth a standard of more competitive mini-games - as it was planned before the Mercs mode in Nemesis/Last Escape.

[Darkmoon]

I like CV bar two details;

- The Cannon Fodder. That is, Steve and Alfred. I know Alfred was never meant to be as smart as Alexia was, but he was still genius level bright if I remember correctly. I never got that impression from him. Mostly, I got 'spoiled rich kid who thinks he's a soldier' and later 'fucked up loony asshole whose good with make up.' It sucked they decided to put his whackiness over his intelligence, because he did have a few bright moments, leading Claire into traps and such.

And Steve...oh dear lord, how I wish the monster in RE6 turns out to be you. A perverted, hormonal teenage idiot with ego problems. I'm not fond of peeping toms trying to stare down ladie's shirts. How the hell is he meant to be a likable character? When he admits his love for Claire I wanted her to back away, and start scrubbing her skin in disgust. I'm just thankful Claire never shows anything but tolerance for him in life and slight regret he died once he's dead. If they'd actually tried making that into a Leon/Ada style romance...

- Wesker's return. This starts the shift away from Umbrella as the villain, ending in the ultimate failure of RE4's intro and Umbrella Chronicles big reveal that, actually, Wesker was the one who took down Umbrella...not any of the heroes. The huge focus Capcom placed on Wesker with CODE: Veronica, Wesker's Report, Separate Ways and Umbrella Chronicle's, retroactively shoving him into every major event in the series it felt like, is part of why RE5 ended up being so meh - they just aren't good enough to live up to the hype they created.

I do love some of the stuff in CODE: Veronica, though. Alexia is one of the nastiest female villains, and the only real one in Resident Evil. The Bandersnatch was a cool enemy. And it was nice to see some really weaponized Hunters.

[CrimsonElder]

Theres two problems with this game, how it has aged and the constant backtracking. This is quite possibly the smallest RE game specially in the main series. It is only the back tracking that makes this game as lengthy as it is. If you take that out then this would be a very short game.

Even with these two problems I still like this game and was thinking about this earlier after seeing it being discussed in the RE6 thread. I found that after the initial playthrough when the game was released I enjoyed it and then went on a downhill slope with my feelings for this game however after playing it twice in the past year my feelings for this game have peaked again. The story in my opinion is very cool. I love the creepy palace where Alfred lives it is a spooky game and has that classic RE tension. It is not the best RE game but I think its far from being called a poor RE game.

It has a good soundtrack, characters (with the exception of Steve), B.O.W.'s, files, boss fights, a very good story. I dont see whats not to like but I wont go there again, dont want to bore people with 'shit topics'.

I am however basing this on the Code X version. Looking back now at the normal version without the adaption of Wesker then I can see peoples problem with the game. I think Code X really did save the day for this game and propel it into a classic RE game.

I also want to mention that to this day this is probably the toughest RE game, puzzle wise (Because of the backtracking) and gameplay wise. The boss fights are super tough and can be insanley unforgiving. Recentley after playing the PS3 version with the trophies I found this game alot easier so I dont know if it has been toned down for the PS3. Did anyone else notice this? I forget if it was Gamecube or PS2 version but one of them I found amazingly difficult. I ended up having no health and killing Alexia with my very last bullet. On the PS3 I had a shed load of health and plenty of ammo for every gun.

[AsteroidBlues]

My only qualm with the game is this....

Spoiler:

show spoiler

This wasn't a zombie fish.

[Dracarys]

Aside from the story there is little very little positive about the game.

- The games difficulty options, or rather lack of them was a major downer. Only get a normal difficulty and it offers little challenge.
- RE3s great ammo combination system was removed, it added a lot of replay value to RE3 and CV could have benefitted from it.
- Small things like inability to walk up/down stairs freely which RE3 added.
- Lack of detail on environements, I would guess the move to 3D caused this but pre-rendered backgrounds just offered so much more detail to the world that CVs bland walls and surroundings.
- Violence/gore toned down, no blowing heads off zombies in any way. No RE game is this censored. Even other non human enemies couldn't be damaged, everything is a solid shape, always.
- Fogging in environments. Just made verything dull, espcially in combination with bland environments.
- The weapon/ammo balance is awful. You find so much ammo for the handgun it is unreal, other weapons have a major lack of ammo (18 Magnum rounds the entire game!), the shotgun gets a fair amount but the shotgun only appears late in the game for Chris and its power is pathetic anyway, worst shotgun of the entire series.
- No unlockables besides the Rocket Launcher, no infinite ammo, no other special weapons, no alternate costumes (even though one exists for Battlemode they could have used).
- No replay value, aside from the unlockables problem it is a single campaign game, though unlike RE3 and Survivor before it there were no branching paths or alternate ways to do things that keep repeat playthroughs fresh for longer. You do the game once and you've seen everything. Also no harder difficulties as mention already.
- Battlemode was crap, aside from Wesker there was zero challenge to it.
- Set-piece scares were lacking and the few it had were made overly obvious by long pauses while the game seemed to wait for it to happen, the Bandersnatch that jumps through the window a perfect example, was like the game was suffering slowdown or something.
- The general pace of the game/characters/animations was slower compared to RE3, combined with fogging, bland detail lacking environments just made the game depressing, and who wants to be depressed playing a game?
- Easily the most backtracking of any RE game.
- Steve. Self explanatory.

The new lighting in the HD port actually goes a long way to improve the atmosphere of the game, hiding crappy bland environments that lack detail, give the lighter a nice use it never had before and so forth.

I still enoyed the game but by far the weakest of the main series games, though I probably prefer it to RE4.

[Tyrant Rose]

Code: Veronica expanded RE beyond Raccoon City and set the stage for all the games to come. It's certainly the most Gothic RE game, it cemented the conflict between the Redfields and Wesker and was also the most atmospheric game in the series until RE4. Argue about game mechanics all you want. I liked it.

[AsteroidBlues]

Code: Veronica expanded RE beyond Raccoon City and set the stage for all the games to come. It's certainly the most Gothic RE game, it cemented the conflict between the Redfields and Wesker and was also the most atmospheric game in the series until RE4. Argue about game mechanics all you want. I liked it.

This. All of it.

[Wrathborne]

(re-posting this)

CV was not a great game, it felt like it was all over the place and really, Alfred Ashford as a Norman Bates inspired character was pretty lame. I didn't like the twist then, and I don't like it now. It felt like they were trying to hard to make him weird and creepy.

I didn't really like Alexia that much either, there was a lot of build up to her as a character and I didn't think she really got to deliver. Kind of felt like 20 minutes after finally shows up that she turns into the final boss.

I think that because the story jumped around between protagonists and antagonists so much it didn't flow very well.

[Kaiser]

There are many things that I like about CV(X).

-The return of Claire and Chris
-Parallels between the Redfields/Ashford siblings
-Slower pace
-Backtracking
-The ability to check items
-Unique weapon choices (BOW rounds, Explosive bolts)
-New BOW designs

I understand that this was maybe too much backtracking, but I honestly liked it. It gave the player ample opportunity to search around the island. I also disagree with the slow pace comment some have made in comparison to RE3. You were being stalked the entire game, so of course the pace will be faster. CVX I think had perfect pacing.

[Smiley]

The game design felt structured to be a hybrid of the first two games which Code Veronica follows. Yes there's a lot of back tracking, but it was intended as to replicate the amount you would do during the mansion incident and then some. They even included a mansion inspired by that of the Spencer estate from the first game. Where it goes into RE2 territory is that the actions of Claire and Chris dictate how the each other progress. This was improved upon depending on what Claire chose to solve or leave behind. The amount of effort you put in solving as many puzzles and riddles as you can will pay off as you progress.

And sometimes they're optional and not required in order to finish the game. Do you take the extra time to give Rodrigo your lighter in exchange for the lock pick? Or do you choose to save time and cut your losses short. Either way you can still beat the game without the extra handouts the game will offer you.

I started Code Veronica on Dreamcast. I didn't have a PS2 at the time so the only way I could play the X version was to wait till it was ported to Gamecube. The extra scenes with Wesker do flesh out his appearance, but either way the outcome is the same in the sense that Wesker gets away, Steve is a corpse and Chris rescues Claire. What I noticed though was that the changes were made to make Wesker much more cooler and confident. At least in terms of the English versions I own.

"Chris!? You're here!?" becomes "Chris!? Oh little fishy, come see my hook". He doesn't pause to reflect Alexia's power before running from the fight. Instead he throws in a punch and takes the time to put Chris on the spot before leaving the fight. The extra scenes where he also beats up Chris and Claire add more menace to his arrival turning him from cameo to full on supporting villain. Then you have the pay off at the end that sets Chris and Wesker's postponed fight to eventually become RE5.