I'm back, after another impromptu week off I've returned to continue my dive into the 2001 remake of Resident Evil in such minute detail that it just makes my eyes bleed. And in order to celebrate (and in the knowledge that this series is most certainly dragging a bit) I decided to get an extra lot done this episode and propel the story forward so that we can get a look at the bit of the endgame next time around. Today however we tackle the meat of the game as the player is slowly introduced to the more outlandish horrors that the Arklay Mountains hold, but I'm getting ahead of myself, let us start with the bare basics.
Just as with every Resident Evil blog I've written, it all starts with a game of exploration and "I wonder what hole this key fits into." It's one of the core gameplay loops of the game and makes up a good chunk of the playtime. It's so important to the identity of these games, in fact, that you even find yourself partaking in this activity in the midgame, despite how linear 'The Residence' actually is. Of course, this does mean that the exploration is a lot more straight forward, and as such in this part of the game every key you find leads to but a single door, making things a lot more easier. In fact, at this point the game is literally set-up so that one key opens up the way to another, creating a pleasing snowball effect of progression which helps speed up the momentum for this part of narrative which has a closer emphasis on 'encounters' over puzzles.
In the room where the key from the last blog opens, however, there is actually a little bit of lore to explore, so we won't just brush over it. You see there is a rather classically grisly horror image to greet entrants in a hanged man, rotten and decayed, with his suicide note nearby. From this note we learn that those who lived in these tenements were, in some part at least, responsible for this terrible virus and the guilt touched them in different ways. You could argue that such was merely a formality, but it helps to have concrete evidence that the Spencer estate wasn't just a victim of this plague, but the source of it too.
Besides the note comes an interesting weapon in the Self Defence Gun, one of the few Resident Evil weapons to, as far as I can remember, never be featured in a future RE game. Which is a shame considering this dainty little weapon resembles a classic western hold-out revolver, something rather unique in the gaming landscape, although that does raise some questions such as; where the heck did researchers get their hands on a gambler's gun? The weapon itself is also notable for being one of the most powerful weapons in the game despite it's diminutive size, with the draw back being that it contains one shot and cannot be refilled for the rest of the game. (Bummer) So it's just another gun for the 'on a rainy day' fund.
Of course the player wasn't just directed to this room for a bit of lore and a weapon, almost every location in Resident Evil has a direct function or important item within it and that's something to always keep in mind. In this location, the player's prize is in the bath room wherein the tub holds an important item. Capcom didn't want this just to be a fetch activity, however, and so they utilised their top-tier sound effects once again to give the player a shock about what was happening in the room they just left with the hanging body. It's a great 'scare' moment where the player is surprised by the sound before their mind puts together what has happened, showcasing a clever form of audio storytelling without words. Kudos again, Capcom.
As a consequence of my wanton stupidity at the end of the last blog, large chunks of The Residence is now occupied by huge killer bees which will certainly murder Jill if they get the chance. Of course, this is building upon their establishing appearance in the Mansion so you'll be familiar with them, but this is the first time in the game they'll be a constant threat that is presented so that you'll have to deal with it. This is a theme that runs strong in this game and even some of the later Resident Evil games, presenting the player with some monstrosity or situation that seems out of their control, before taking them on the journey to resolving it. What this does is provide a sense of the scale of the task you're about to perform so that when you figure it out and nip the problem in the bud (no pun intended) you feel the weight of your accomplishment. It's the same sort of narrative device that works in games like Dark Souls, when you're put up against a huge boss and have to learn how to put it down. (And trust me when I say that's something I'm intimately familiar with right now; I just beat 'High Lord Wolnir' last night.)
For the moment the bees are beyond you, however, so you'll just have to avoid them and figure out where to go next. At this point returns the usefulness of another staple mention in this blog series; The map. This tool is great for figuring out paths around dangerous rooms in the early game, but in a more linear setting like this one Capcom had to come up with more imaginative ways of making it useful and they did with story hints. Looking at the map, you might notice that in the room where Barry had his little conspiratorial tête-à-tête features a drawing indicating some sort of ladder, and yet there's none in the room itself, just a couple of bookcases... Of course at this point the game has already introduced players to the necessity of the 'push' mechanic in order to deal with that blood-sucking tentacle from the last blog, and so they'll know to do the same here in order to reveal a rather badly hidden secret ladder down in the bowels of the facility. (Yet another example of smartly laid-out progressive level design)
Down here Jill reaches one of my favourite locations from Resident Evil: the Aqua Ring. This place is a damp concrete facility that you'll soon discover is full of a rather large amount of waist high water. Of course, the natural question at this point is exactly what sort of horrible monster could be waiting in such a locale and the answer is both exactly what you were expecting and something you really hoped not be the case: Zombie Sharks. That's right, these scientists were so nuts that they put their stupid virus into sharks to see how it would turn out. Obviously this is leaning off of horror classic 'Jaws' for it's intimidation factor with the slight difference being that the two sharks in this area are visible as they approach you and are annoyingly hard to put down given that they are in water. In fact, the way this whole level is laid out encourages the player to run more than it encourages them to fight.
Of course, running is the smarter option in this location as there is one monster who more faithfully lives up to the example of her Hollywood cousin. Take too long to get through this water logged facility and you'll hear rumblings from deep in the facility to tell you that you need to get a move on. Ignore them, however, and you'll incur the wrath of the monstrous Neptune, mother of those smaller zombie sharks from earlier. Once again this is an example of being shown a seemingly insurmountable threat (like a giant shark) in the knowledge that you'll have to face that and should probably figure out some sort of stratagem. As is the case in most introductions, however, the key right now is to stay on the move until you have the upper hand. Doing so will eventually lead the player to a little closet on the far side of the ring which is damp and- filled with another bunch of Plant 42's tentacles? Lame. Of course, Plant 42 is the main issue of this area that needs to be dealt with, and for that reason Capcom reinforce it's presence by having it show up so very often in this moment. (In fact, an offshoot of him even popped up in the mansion as one of the obstacles towards getting the death masks, if you remember.)
Unfortunately 42 makes that room unassailable, so Jill has to brave the Ring once again to find the only other room away from the Sharks; the control room. (At which point it's handy to have that key from earlier, which you can absolutely miss if you're not paying attention) The next scene is one of my favourite 'Boss fights' in the series as Jill goes up against Neptune in one of the most unique ways that this franchise has to offer. Basically, the player enters an underwater observation deck and becomes acutely aware of the fact that they cannot progress unless they drain the water of the ring. Doing so will not work yet as the safety is engaged, but apparently the T-Virus did a number on Neptune's intelligence, as she notices the second her life is in danger and begins ramming into the glass of the observation deck, putting Jill on immediate notice.
Now we all know that Resident Evil games end with a race against the clock, but rarely do we get an off-the-cuff 'panic against the clock' moment like this one, and that makes this moment really quite unique. Jill has to race to the right terminals in order to figure out the way to lower the shutters before Neptune can crack through and drown her, and this is a moment that still gives me the slight shudders even now, knowing what was coming. It taps into that innate 'scramble' mechanic that we all have in situations when a timer is drawn under us, and that's the kind of scare that really hits its home. I can't tell you the amount of time I've accidentally clicked the same terminals in this section, especially as the glass begins to give. It's another really well done scene.
After draining the water and defeating Neptune, Jill is then free to go down to the floor of the Aqua Ring and observe her handy work with the water-deprived corpses of Neptune and her children. Around them lies the one thing that Jill had to go through all this in order to get, an emergency box containing... A key to The Gallery back in The Residence. (What in all the hells is that doing here? This is one of those contrived Resident Evil moments that really does give me a whole new type of pause) Of course, Capcom wouldn't give us such a prize without one final surprise and so the 'corpse' of Neptune thrashes once again to throw the Player in danger, adding yet another split-second duel against the monster as they have to figure out how to put her down for good. I love this 'fight through puzzle' approach to boss monsters and really wish that more Resident Evil bosses went this route instead of the traditional straight-up fight.
After a lot of backtracking we reach The Gallery, and it's rather an interesting locale indeed with it's 'looking glass oddities' aesthetic going on. In fact, this location seems to resemble more of a laboratory than a gallery, and I suppose that might be truer-to-the-bone in hindsight. Unfortunately this location is also directly connected to the beehive that terrorises the corridor, and the only way to move anymore forward is to finally deal with that menace. Luckily that seem rather straightforward considering the very same hallway where the bees are alighting from boasts a corpse outside grasping an Insecticide gun. (I mean, he's clearly been stung to death but I'm sure that's a good sign.) Capcom presented another puzzle with this act and I have to say I do rather like this one, it's straightforward but makes up for an earlier blunder that a lot of players will have fallen for.
You see the sheer number of bees makes it impossible to approach the hive directly in order to commit mass bee-murder, so instead you have to find a way to apply the insecticide without putting yourself in danger. Of course, the solution is to use that pesky hole-in-the-wall that we revealed last blog when we took down that map. (See, I'm not a total idiot.) For that our reward is another key and some unfettered exploration, the only true things of value in this thing we call life. One of the first things that'll likely draw one's eye here is the keypad locked door, which is one of the only of it's kind in this game, and the odd eye-shaped symbols that accompany it. This unravels another one of those 'mystery threads' for the player to wander about as they continue through the house to a plant-wrapped bedroom and onto an ominous wardrobe.
Okay, maybe that's a little unfair. The wardrobe itself is not ominous but more the information it contains. Upon interacting with the easily noticeable white book, players are greeted to another situation report regarding Plant 42. Once again the mystery hooks are latched onto the player as they are informed of the fact that Plant 42 should be susceptible to a substance known as UMB No.20, (or V-JOLT) as that can instantly kill the abomination upon nature. (Handy information) What follows is perhaps, in my opinion, one of the strongest examples of intelligent game design in this whole act. We have a simple to figure out puzzle of a bunch of disordered red books missing one of their numbers. Now it doesn't take a great leap of logic to realise that the red book from earlier fits in here, but what this does do is reintroduce the games room where you found that book into the minds of the player as they consider the other mysteries that have come their way. It's a subtle way of pointing towards the solutions of puzzles that don't seem so obvious right now.
But that's all a problem for later Jill, because on the other-side of that bookshelf lies the much built-up Plant 42 itself and one of the only multiple choice boss fights in the entire franchise. As meathead Chris Redfield, there is only one solution to this encounter and that's fighting the giant plant with giant guns, but Jill was a chem student and therefore has a little more choice at her disposal. Sure, she can go the Rambo route, or she can make use of the lore provided earlier, regarding V-Jolt, and travel around The Residence to figure out just where to get such a useful substance.
Now the reason I bought up that slight hint with the books earlier, is because the room that hint directs you to actually contains the solution to that annoying keypad puzzle albeit in a rather obscure manner. Follow that thread to the games room and there's some rather high-level environmental puzzles to figure through. First there are the strange lamps which Jill can light with a lighter in order to reveal the same eye symbols from the door, only coloured differently, and secondly there are the billiard balls that Jill is still convinced were lain deliberately. Now in perhaps one of the most contentious leaps-of-logic in the entire franchise, it turns out that the player is somehow supposed to figure out that they need to match the colour of the eye symbol from the lamp with the colour of a billiard ball in order to figure out the corresponding number associated with that eye. Now disregarding how contrived that is, can we just ask the question; who in their right mind designed that? Who thought it was smart to, instead of just tell folk the passcode, tell them to run around The Residence lighting lamps and trying their hardest not to play billiards? So does that mean the billiards table was completely off limits to the staff during their entire stay here, for fear of messing up the code? Or was it someone's job to specifically arrange them this way at the end of every working day? (I love the set-up for this puzzle, but absolutely hate the solutions.)
Finally comes the hardest challenge in any Resident Evil game ever: Chemistry. You see the room behind the keypad is home to a chemistry station with several empty beakers, two jars of indeterminate liquid and a tap. There's no hint to tell you the solution, no secret method to getting it done, just a lore dump telling you that your goal is UMP No.20 and all the time in the world to play around with combinations until you get there. This can either be the easiest puzzle in the game or the most frustrating if you go about it the wrong way, but it really is as simple and straight-forward as it sounds in the end. Just synthesis yourself some V-JOLT and look for the perfect injection vector to finish off Plant 42 without spending a single bullet. (Which is all the way back down in the Aqua Ring room with the Plant tentacles in it. See, it all comes full circle in the end.)
Of course, Resident Evil wouldn't be itself if the boss were to just die from the thing which was definitely said to kill it (within 5 seconds the document said!) so upon coming back you're treated to a cutscene where the plant shrivels up only to attack Jill again. But the player is still saved from an actual fight as this is when Barry makes another one of his just-in-the-nick-of-time appearances in order to save us from the deadly killer plant with his- flamethrower? Where in the heck did Barry get a flamethrower? Regardless, he saves Jill's life (although I guess he was really saving his own, Jill just happened to be there) and finally we are free to collect that which was the goal of this entire adventure away from the main mansion. Can you guess what it is? I bet you can. Cue the dramatic Ocarina of Time chest opening music... dah dah dah dah: it's the mythical Helmet key! (Whoopie) And with that the second Act is wrapped up as we are set to trek back to the Spencer Mansion and get to the heart of the Arklay Mountains incident. But that'll have to wait until next time because I love a good cliffhanger.
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