--Jack Norman, Resident Evil: Revelations
"We must bring hell to the people, or the scales will not fall from their eyes."
--Bernard Corti, Resident Evil: Revelations
I've had this game for about seven months, yet I never got around to finishing more than the opening two hours when I first purchased it. I had always heard great praise directed towards it--but now I've been able to spend far more time immersing myself in Resident Evil: Revelations. Below you'll find me explain how the game succeeded in the usual four categories!
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Production Values
The graphics surpass those of Capcom's previous Resident Evil game for the 3DS (The Mercenaries 3D). Jill's character model and the reptilian Hunter enemies in particular look great, especially for such an early game on the 3DS. I must add that sometimes the colors are quite dull and could have been brightened or presented with more vibrancy, and during some elevator trips the game slows significantly (loading times?), these two things unfortunately marring the otherwise splendid visuals.
Although the dialogue is sometimes bland and generic, the sound itself remains amazing. The enemy sound effects especially aided in immersion.
Capcom certainly appears to have done its best to produce a stand-alone game for the 3DS that is truly console-quality--and it succeeded beautifully. In fact, this is supported further by the fact that the game was later ported to consoles like the PS3 and Wii U.
Gameplay
This game is a well-crafted shooter and survival horror game. The gameplay largely involves exploring the large interior and exterior of a ship called the Queen Zenobia, shooting enemies, and collecting items, using a new device called the Genesis scanner to discover some of them.
Some moments in this game in particular deliver exactly what you might desire from a game of this type. For instance, escaping a bedroom you are locked inside along with a creature near the very beginning when you have no weapons. Or fighting a specific boss as she crawls through the ship's ventilation system, with you entering a completely dark (besides what your shoulder-mounted flashlight illuminates) and fairly narrow bathroom only to hear her emerging from the vents, realizing that you have little room to maneuver and diminishing ammo. Or swimming around in both large and tight spaces with limited oxygen as infected creatures latch on to you, forcing you to release some of your air and dragging you down unless you complete a rapid quick-time event. Or standing in a locked hallway right next to another identical hall, glass allowing you and your partner in the other hall to see each other as a bipedal beast with some sort of shield and a blade cuts its way into your claustrophobic hallway. The gameplay is varied and engaging, with the story finished in episodes about 30 minutes to an hour in length that always end with cliffhangers, adding more incentive to continue.
The campaign took me just over 11 hours to complete on normal difficulty, and I spent a portion of that time scavenging as much ammunition and locating as many weapons, reserve ammunition extension cases, and attachment kits as possible. When three consecutive episodes of the single-player story mode are completed, multiple areas are unlocked in the brilliant additional feature called Raid Mode.
Co-op Raid Mode is awesome and rewarding. Really, Raid Mode is a great mode even when playing solo. As of this time I have spent almost 10 hours playing it, have reached level 40, have played several online cooperative matches, and have purchased and found some wonderfully powerful weaponry. Unlike the largely monotonous gameplay in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, which was released before this game, Raid Mode has significant depth and can be very addicting. As I just mentioned, you can level up (with myself currently being at 40) and thus obtain higher-level weapons and attachments. With 25 Raid Mode achievements, 21 levels on Chasm difficulty, 20 on Trench difficulty, and (I believe) 20 on Abyss difficulty, scores of weapons, enhancements, new characters, skins, and multiplayer, Raid Mode was a very intelligent and fun addition. The unlockables alone might compel you to play for hours--and drastically improve your character's statistics. For example, "Body Armor 4" grants an 18% reduction in damage taken. "Decoy Holder 3" allows you to carry 50% more Decoy grenades than before. Upgrades for the carrying amount of healing herbs, miscellaneous grenades, weapon storage space, body armor, and ammo capacity of all types abound.
You can place your 3DS in sleep mode by closing it and, if you walk by someone else doing the same, you can receive bonuses. Even playing online co-op will grant you additional items for the single-player campaign and will unlock new achievements for Raid Mode.
About the achievements (called "Missions"): in Raid Mode there are 25 slots for the achievements. Many of them involve killing a certain number of specific enemy types, and these missions will be offered more than once even if you've already completed one of them. Do not worry. I initially thought I had encountered a glitch and proceeded to save an older file over the one I was playing, but found the same "glitch" later on. You can delete the unwanted missions to clear room for new ones, so don't panic over this.
Story
Two government agents, Jill Valentine and Parker Luciani, use a speedboat to travel to a cruise ship called the Queen Zenobia afloat in an ocean somewhere on the globe. Their superiors have dispatched them to retrieve two missing operatives, Chris and Jessica, whose last reported location matched the ship's current coordinates. But the Queen Zenobia's interior does not reveal anything promising. Corpses lay in various spots. A thick white liquid substance is spotted several times. More intriguingly, something inside the pipes above you moves and creates loud noises. A mutation of some sort attacks Jill and Parker, indicating that something atrocious may have happened.
Soon, a flashback to a year earlier (2004 according to the game) shows Parker fighting alongside the now-missing Jessica. Inside a floating aquatic city called Terragrigia that utilizes solar power and Eco-friendly technology, they find themselves confronting biological weapons--a terrorist organization named Veltro has assaulted the city. Terragrigia is eventually destroyed in what becomes labeled the "Terragrigia Panic". But after its decimation, strange organisms, some alive and some deceased, wash up on a nearby beach.
As the game progresses, evidence mounts suggesting that Veltro seems to have resurrected or perhaps never died to begin with. Interestingly, many of the terrorists think they are doing something objectively morally good by engaging in their biological terrorism. They seem to have found some moral fault(s) in humanity at large that are great enough to warrant catastrophic retaliation. This is discovered from their notes and journals and the televised words of one of Veltro's members, a man named Jack Norman. Bernard Corti, a Veltro agent, wrote, speaking about the opulent Queen Zenobia and its sister ships, that "These luxury liners are symbols of the degradation of humanity, and will be fitting vessels for the distribution of the virus that will purge humanity." "We must bring hell to the people," he writes, "or the scales will not fall from their eyes."
Apparently Veltro operatives, or at least some of them, believed they were morally obligated to carry out some sort of purge.
The rest of the story is somewhat complex--and I also want to avoid spoilers about some of the revelations (see what I did there?) uncovered during the second half.
Ironically, the Dan Brown book Inferno (the movie adaption of which was just released this year and starred Tom Hanks and Felicity Jones), named after Dante's first entry of the same name in his Divine Comedy, also has a story about someone fixated on the poem Inferno who quotes it while referring to a virus he created. And that wasn't the only thing that seemed familiar about the game. The Genesis scanner reminded me of the scanning mechanic in the spectacular Metroid Prime series (I must have played those games about seven years ago!), which at the time was revolutionary, and that wasn't even the only thing that reminded me of Metroid. Jill Valentine's blue diving suit resembles the zero suit of bounty hunter Samus Aran in the Metroid series. And of course, since I just posted my review for Dementium Remastered very recently, the parts in Revelations where a flashlight is needed to penetrate otherwise complete darkness seemed familiar. But I'm not calling these things negative, just noting parallels.
Intellectual Content
The tremendous danger of bioterrorism stands out as a major theme of much of the game. From the bioterrorism assault on the city of Terragrigia to the eventual possibility of a ship carrying the "T-Abyss virus" sinking and thus infecting at least large amounts of the globe's oceans with the virus, the campaign provides examples of the devastating effects of viruses and biological weapons in the hands of evildoers.
The virus in the story does not necessarily create "zombies", though the behavior of infected organisms can appear very zombie-esque. Technically, many of the beings you fight in the game are not zombies because they are not corpses that were reanimated post-mortem; on the contrary, many of them are living things infected with the T-Abyss virus. A few enemies, like the boss/sub-boss Rachel, may be legitimate zombies, though, as they appear to have died before receiving the infection.
Another thing that may deserve recognition here is the repeated use of references to Dante's epic poem Inferno. Each of the 12 campaign episodes opens with a quote from a canto of Inferno. But the presence of the poem does not stop there, as multiple characters quote the poem at various points, especially the renowned words the poem ascribes to the gates of hell: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here". You can find more such quotes in journals of Veltro members. A primary NPC (non-playable character) protagonist has a copy of the Divine Comedy on his desk. Bernard Corti's notes about bringing "hell to the people" probably have to do with Veltro's quotation of the classic work. Since only last semester (the fall of 2016) I read all three entire books in the Divine Comedy, I appreciated these references!
Conclusion
Resident Evil: Revelations is a very impressive game, the fact that it was originally a 3DS exclusive before it traveled to consoles only testifying to its great quality. It showcased the ability of the 3DS around a year after the system's release and proved just how graphically and technically superior the 3DS is to the DS before it. The boss fights are spectacular. The story is serpentine and complex. Raid Mode is an extremely wise addition that will extend gameplay time potentially by many hours. If you have a 3DS, do not own this game, and do not mind some survival horror, obtain this game soon.
After investing 20 hours into beating the campaign for the first time and playing Raid Mode, I'm still playing--and now I'm strongly inclined to purchase Resident Evil: Revelations 2 for my PlayStation Vita!
Content
1. Violence: Expect to fire many bullets into various grotesque creatures, blood appearing upon their deaths and often while you are hitting their living bodies.
2. Profanity: Words like "Sh-t" make infrequent verbal appearances.
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