Now Playing - Resident Evil Zero

Hello everyone and welcome back to Tiro Finale for a new installment of the Now Playing series. It has been exactly a year since the last time we had a new chapter of the Now Playing series and it is less to do with the fact that I have not been playing video games. Rather I have been playing non-Japanese video games which in return meant that they would not qualify for the Now Playing series. And that also meant that I was in open violation of my resolution to play more Japanese video games. With that in mind, I decided to pick a whole new title to play recently which I believe would be a perfect fit for the Now Playing series. 

Ladies and gentleman, I introduced to you Resident Evil Zero. Or also known as biohazard 0 in Japan. The one I will be playing is the PC version and is the remastered Resident Evil 0 HD Remaster that was released back in 2016. Being nearly two decades old now, this game would surely have no problem running on my PC but, we will see throughout my play-through is there are any niggling performance issues that you should be made aware of. 

Having originally launched in 2002 for the Nintendo GameCube, the HD Remaster version has the option for players to play in both the updated "Wide" 16:9 aspect ratio version and the "Original" 4:3 aspect ratio that debut with the GameCube. I really like that Capcom decided to include the 4:3 aspect version of the game via a simple option in the Display Menu as opposed to having to fiddle around with resolution and aspect ratios in the video settings. Fans of the original GameCube version would probably appreciate the Original version but, seeing as to how this is my first time playing the game, I chose to stick with the Wide version.

Moving on, we have a fairly simple audio options which include a poorly explained "Listening Mode" and "Subwoofer" setting. I am not exactly sure what these options dictate and rather than mess around with them too much, I decided to keep them as they were. Below it are the options for BGM and SFX & Voices volume. 

Then, there are the options for Controls which for the most part seem fairly fleshed out. Just like the Display option, Capcom have decided to include two types of control schemes. One being the original and another alternate control scheme which is supposed to be more suitable to modern controllers. It defaults to the alternate control type and from the first few minutes of gameplay, no real issue stood out to me about it.

Lastly, we have the settings that certainly mattered to me the most, the Video options or, as it should be rightfully named, the graphics settings. The game defaulted to a Windowed 1280 x 720 resolution when it first launched and I quickly made some changes to bring it up to speed. The graphical settings on this HD Remaster is short but covers many of the important bases such as texture, shadow and anti-aliasing qualities. I also love how Capcom has included a frame rate limiter just like all their other entries in the Resident Evil series. While this certainly would not match the laundry list of graphical options that we see in the newer Resident Evil titles, it is certainly very servicable. 

With the options out of the way, it was time for me to step right into the campaign. I tried browsing around the Extras in hopes that I would be able to browse the DLCs that I have purchased but those seemed to be locked away somewhere else. I figured they would have probably be unlocked once I progress further through the game.

Just as the game begins and we are introduced to the opening cut scene, the biggest issues of remasters and console ports immediately rears its ugly head in the form of pre-rendered cut scenes. In this case, we are looking at extremely low resolution (576p maybe?) cut scenes locked at 30fps. The entire thing looked incredibly unpleasing and certainly made the game show its age.

Fortunately, things take an immediate turn for the better once you are actually loaded into the beginning gameplay portions of the game. Everything is gorgeously rendered in high quality textures and the shadow and lighting work is give a great atmosphere that we have come to love and expect from the Resident Evil series. 

Even the cahracter models are off a very high polygon count as we can see her with out protagonist, Rebecca Chambers. In fact, the game even supports frame rates higher than 60fps as I kept it locked to my monitors 75Hz refresh rate with no issue whatsoever. Coupled together with AMD's FreeSync and a locked 75fps, the entire experience felt really smooth with no perceivable screen tear whatsoever. 

That is until you jump back to the cut scenes which remind you all over again how far things have come. While I may be a self professed Resident Evil fan, I have never actually played any of the older Resident Evil titles especially those which utilize the tank controls and fixed camera angles. Resident Evil Zero, in that way, would be the perfect gateway game and also the perfect title to continue upon the Now Playing series. So, I sure hope you will be able to join me and Rebecca on our adventure in RE0. Until the next time, thank you so much and have a wonderful day ahead!