Back into the Spencer Mansion we go as we delve ever deeper into the Resident Evil franchise. Due to my weekly approach to this topic, this will likely be the last blog that I get out before the launch of the 'Resident Evil 3 Remake', but that doesn't mean I'm scaling back on these blogs, nor did it mean that I half-assed my time with this one today. Indeed it would seem that the prospect of diving into the decimated Raccoon city invigorated me today as I pushed a bit further in the game than I originally intended to in order to hit a specific moment to cap off this blog. I even did the unthinkable and actually saved midway through this playthrough section in order to ensure that I didn't have to stomach a lot of backtracking for my own foolishness, but I'm confident enough in my own abilities to withstand this game so I'm sure that won't come back to bite me in the ass down the line... (Famous last words if ever there were ones.)
For me I've found that the most ideal way to plan out your weapon use on a Jill playthrough would be to save as much ammunition as possible (obviously) and avoid fighting enemies altogether. I mentioned this in my last blog by talking about the tactics involved in juking enemies, but it takes paramount importance in this stage of the game. By forcing players to make such decisions of fight or flight, I think that early-day Capcom were intending to invoke the same feeling of vulnerability that is inherent in another great survival horror classic; Silent Hill. Although in that game the player was usually encouraged to run away altogether, whilst here you have to face your enemies sooner or later, even if it is just to sneak behind them or under their grip.
Luckily there is some margin for error which Capcom introduced when they remade Resident Evil in 2001 with the introduction of defence items. These are items that the player can discover laying all over the mansion and collect in a separate pool to their core inventory. (Meaning you don't have to worry about keeping them or your precious keys.) Defence items can be activated by the player in the brief struggle they experience just after being caught in a grapple by a zombie, but the player can choose to ignore this opportunity in order to save up on items as they are just as limited in quantity as everything else. Through this, Capcom introduces this thrilling little moment of split-second decision making in the player as they have to gamble the cost of saving item currency with the cost of saving your neck from some over-friendly zombie munching.
One of the details that I really love about how the Spencer Mansion was realised over other horror locations was the way in which it dealt with tangible presentation. Oftentimes in horror games it can feel as though all the spooky asylums and rundown houses that you delve through make up little more than set dressing for the horrors within. They don't feel like real, lived-in spaces and exsist merely to drum up atmosphere. Now there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but I always prefer my game worlds to have that little bit extra in order to make me feel that immersion I so desperately crave for like a junkie. Of course, Spencer Mansion doesn't necessarily feel like a 'real' location, (All the puzzles in order to reach the toilets would make that a living hell to have to deal with in the real world) but with all the subtle design details it does feel oddly visceral, if that makes sense.
By this I'm referring to the way that the player can enter into a new location and see a room full of portraits, and actually interact with those portraits to get a description of what they're looking at. It sort of mixes the written medium for tension building alongside the visual and also allows for some interesting moments of foreshadowing such as with the wall scratchings. Whilst opening doors with our latest key, one of the hallways sports a defiled wall that they player can observe and assume that a zombie went hogwild around here. Actually examine the wall marks, however, and Jill will point out how the scars were made by claw marks, even noting that this couldn't have been made by "one of those rotting freaks." Now this could be an indication to the Crimsonhead folk that we've met already but I think this actually hints even further to something that we'll get to see up close in the third act of the game. (Way to keep me on my toes!)
As the rising dead have become such an issue this time around, it only makes sense for players to go out of their way to manage their routes, which is something that I've bigged up a lot thusfar. Much of your explorations at this point will take you from opposite ends of the mansion, and you're in for a nasty surprise if you don't know the quickest way to cross Mansion wings. One such surprise is that the door just adjacent to the eastern item room is actually damaged to the point where the handle will fall off after only a couple of uses, rendering it only openable from the outside in. (This means that the player can enter the east wing ground floor from that item room but not return to the safety of that item room. Quite the issue to have to deal with.) Additionally, with so many doors opened at this point it helps to consult the map every once and a while in order to figure out exactly which doors still need to be addressed in order to safely get rid of your current key.
In such pursuits it's a matter of time before you come across one of the most abstract puzzles in the game; this being a room full of fishing themed equipment such as bait and lures. As far as what the game usually offers I will admit that this section is beyond the pale a slight bit, but that's only because the reward on offer is actually an optional objective. That's right, not every puzzle has to be solved in order to progress and Capcom intentionally put some of their more weird one's up front when it came to the cooler rewards. That being said, this particular puzzle is more weird than it is difficult, with the required acts on the player's part being rather straightforward. It does make use of the dual interaction process that the developers like to abide by however, by interacting with the environment, then examining in your inventory before touching the environment again. (Although I have no explanation for the giant killer bee that pops up as a reward.)
On the topic of environmental interaction, once I was done exploring it was time to go investigate that room from last time in which you couldn't search without lighting a candle first. The obvious hurdle this throws in the player's face is that they have to use up one of their inventory slots in order to hold a lighter, but this merely reinforces the sacrifice/reward mechanic that the inventory slot concept introduces. In this particular area lies a necessary item to continue, and this is the beginning of what I like to call a puzzle chain. This is the term I use to describe it when a series of investigative riddles greet the player with the solution of one leading to the starting of another, all until you hit that key item to progress. It creates this immensely satisfying 'landslide' feeling for the player that helps to break up the monotony of revisiting areas as you are touching on them again from a new dimension with a puzzle to solve. (Sometimes solving puzzles that you didn't even know were there originally.)
In the dark room lies the missing sheet of music that can be inserted into the original music book to create a full sheet for Jill to play with. Again, this is rather silly as any mildly competent classical pianist doesn't need sheet music to play 'Moonlight Sonata', but we'll just pretend that Jill was having a brain fart due to having to battle for her life or something. What I cannot excuse, however, is the extra hoops that the player has to jump through to achieve this same objective as resident S.T.A.R.S. meatslab; Chris Redfield. Chris, you see, is much to much of a big burly solider type to know how to read sheet music and instead has to rely on the help of 19 yr old Rebecca Chambers (The rookie, let me remind you) for that most simple of tasks. (And even she has trouble playing a single line.) This is one puzzle that did have me slightly cross at Chris by the end of it.
The piano does open the way to a secret room in the wall and one of the most significant pieces of new lore introduced by this 2001 remake. We learn that this room is actually a makeshift holding cell in which the former lord of the house, Mr.Spencer, trapped a Mr Trevor for some unknown reason. From the diary that Trevor left behind there are only the scant hints at the larger story, but what's most important to note is his prayer for his family at the end, and you'll know why later. Immediately, however, there is the Emblem puzzle to contend with as the room contains a golden coat of arms which cannot be removed for if it is then the door to leave immediately shuts itself. This is the first time that Capcom throws a puzzle at the player without any environmental clues on how to solve it, and instead they expect the player's memory to kick in. And it likely will if they happen to be the type of player who pay attention to the rooms they visit like this game has been reinforcing all this time. (See, this type of design is full to the brim with pay-offs.)
This Emblem is identical to one that was above the fireplace inside the very first room that the player entered, you see, and that is the callback you need to remember. With a little bit of backtracking you can receive this wooden emblem and replace it for the golden one in the trap, just like what happened with the Armour key. (Once again building on established puzzle solving rules.) This gives the player a golden Emblem which they are then able to hang above the fireplace where the wooden one used to be, an action which activates another step of the puzzle as the ticking grand clock in the hall springs it's casing open so that the player can fiddle with it. (See what I mean by this 'landslide' effect?) The clock itself bears no numbers for it's hands but instead has four pictures for the player to work with. Now initially this is one of the most confusing puzzles as the player has no idea as to the significance of these pictures beyond that they match the names of the keys that you have been collecting. Luckily, however, the fixed camera angles do most of the legwork in solving this conundrum. You see the camera cleverly doesn't focus squarely on the clock, but merely displays it off to the side whilst making sure that the adjacent portrait is fully in frame. An observant player who has learned about how useful the background can be at this point will surely notice this picture and examine it closely, at which point things will start to make sense. The picture shows two swordsmen skewing each other, one with a long sword to the head and the other with a shot sword in the breastplate, corresponding directly to the pictures of the helmet and the armour for which clock hand should point where. It's a great little visual puzzle that rewards attentiveness and makes the player feel smart for conquering.
Your reward for this little puzzle chain is a key that opens but a single lock, and at that point you are due for the attic and another classically spooky horror environment. The attic is a dark room full of cobwebs and fraught to the occasional flash of lighting from the outside. It's also one of the few locations with no ambient sound from the get go so you know something is likely to go down here at some point. And if you paid attention to Richard's story from outside, you probably won't be too shocked when the giant Snake called Yawn leans down from the ceiling to confront you. This actually marks the first mutated monster in an entire franchise renowned for it's mutated beasts, and this is one of the few that didn't need some gross mutation in order to be threatening. It is a giant venomous snake, afterall.
Thus begins the very first bossfight against Yawn, and probably the point at which the unprepared player is due for a butt kicking. Yawn basic attack pattern is to slither after the player until it's close enough for a short lunge, so the player is encouraged to run around objects in their environment in order to tangle Yawn up, sort of like a more serious game of Snake. In the time that Yawn takes to catch up, you can steal the odd potshot at it until it catches up, at which point the whole dance continues again. For Jill, however, this process is made quite the bit easier if you were quick enough to rescue Richard earlier, because then the wounded soldier charges in with his assault shotgun and a score to settle, allowing the player to focus on avoiding Yawn whilst he does all the damage. Of course, this couldn't last forever and halfway through Yawn's health pool a little cutscene arrives wherein the snake plays dead only to strike at Richard and maul him to death in front of your eyes. "So the whole act of saving Richard was a waste then?" Actually no, because not only does he help you with this bossfight but upon his death he drops his assault shotgun for Jill to pick up, which is the only way to acquire said-shotgun as Jill in the entire game. (Who says good deeds don't go unrewarded?)
Upon beating Yawn, the giant snake slithers off leaving the player with a spooky attic to explore and the growing worry that Yawn will return some day. (And it will) For now you can retrieve your reward, however, being the Death Mask without a nose, marking 2 out of 4 for the required masks. However, there is an added complication to this chain of events if you were foolish enough to be hit be Yawn even once, for now you are poisoned and on death's doorstep for the foreseeable future. What follows is another callback moment as you have to again rush to the western item room as you did in order to save Richard, only this time you are the one in danger and a single strike from any zombie is enough to put you down for good, making things a lot more tense. (Especially since you'll have to face that Snake again if you die.) Curing yourself is only one trial in mansion full of many more, however, which we will delve further into next weekend.
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