Back Story
Continuing my playthrough of various Wii titles, I fill a gap in all things Resident Evil; the two Chronicles games! Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles were among a bunch of rail shooters for the Wii. They both cover scenarios inspired by multiple mainline Resident Evil titles, as well as original areas of their own!
Back on the Wii, rail shooters felt like a genre long passed since arcade hits like Virtua Cop and Time Crisis. However, on Nintendo's bold gyro-controlled console they got a resurgence. Back then, I didn't give much attention to the genre or the Wii for that matter. After receiving a Wii from a friend last year, read about that here, I've come to appreciate the system and that this rail shooter resurgence would become the last effort in modernising the genre.
We need to explain the tech briefly, as there's a difference to the technology in the classic arcade light guns and the Wii Remote. The Wii doesn't rely on a CRT TV to work, unlike the retro light guns which had a photosensor which picked up the beam drawing the picture on a CRT TV to detect if you hit the target or not. The Wii Remote is simply used as a moveable mouse cursor.
Typically, rail shooter playthroughs are extremely short affairs, focusing on repeated replays to accomplish better high scores. This time around, built for home systems, these two Resident Evil Chronicles titles have a proper campaign. Story driven with longer cutscenes and dialogue, they each clock in at around eight hours.
For those not familiar with the genre; rail shooters follow a scripted first-person camera path. You cannot freely move around. Your goal is shooting stuff with either a light gun or a cursor. It's severely limited and linear gameplay but offers an action-styled entertainment value of their own. Even more so if you're playing coop!
Let's take a closer look at each of the Chronicles!
Review
Played on: Wii
Released: 2007
Admittedly, I was expecting a short arcade affair with a few Resident Evil characters and locations thrown in and be finished within an hour. A quick RE cash-in from Capcom, but to my surprise Umbrella Chronicles, and the sequel, offers a well-presented campaign passing through a lot of famous scenes from earlier RE titles.
Umbrella Chronicles is divided into four main parts, called chronicles, with three chapters within each. Wesker works as a narrator, filling the story between chapters, hence the name Umbrella Chronicles. This retrospective story works well as an excuse for it to jump locations, a needed feature for variety and the large character roster throughout the campaign.
The first chronicle is from Resident Evil Zero with Rebecca and Billy, where you begin on the train. It features most of this part from the original. You then move on to a heavily abbreviated version of the main mansion, with some of the outdoors segments, finally arriving at the industrial lab area which was a part of RE2. The leeches are a bit on the annoying side, forcing you to swipe the knife across the screen to remove them, but otherwise the locations from this are great!
Second chronicle is based on the Resident Evil Remake, which impressively manages to take you through most of the main parts of the Spencer Mansion in a shortened timespan. Including the guardhouse and shark pool, ending up in the lab featuring both Tyrant battles. It's like a REmake speedrun, where you get to see everything from Jill or Chris viewpoint! I was impressed with how well they managed to cover most of the important parts.
The third chronicle is based off Resident Evil 3: Nemesis with Jill and Carlos. Most of its playthrough takes part on the zombie filled streets of Raccoon City, culminating in a boss fight against the Nemesis. It's a welcome nod back to an underrated RE3, but it feels like it's lacking the iconic locations. Ironically, the same mistake the RE3 remake made.
The fourth, and final, chronicle is set in industrial location unique to this game, again with Jill and Chris. Located in a remote and snowy part of Russia, and while the industry parts are bland backdrops, the last part in a high-tech, underground lab, complete with a laser trap like the first Resident Evil movie with Milla Jovovich, visually work well.
My gripe with this chronicle is that the difficulty is ramped up considerably, ending in a ruthless final boss requiring lots of ammo, fast precision and spanning two main parts. Even on easy I struggled and ended up having to go on YouTube to watch the ending as I just couldn't beat it.
Overall, it's nice selection of RE titles to take environments and inspiration from. Cramming their playthroughs into a sort of "best of" compilation. My favourite part being the REmake one.
What's cool is that all the titles it takes inspiration from are fully 3D here, versus the pre-rendered originals. While the 3D in Chronicles isn't quite on par with the detail level of the pre-rendered backgrounds of REmake and RE:0, it's impressive how close they are.
It makes for a unique perspective to see RE0, REmake and especially RE3, as the latter hadn't been remade when Umbrella Chronicles released, from a first-person perspective.
Shooting down hidden bonus coins during levels, usually behind breakable objects, will grant you access to additional bonus missions and basic weapons upgrades. Tactically choosing which weapons you upgrade and bring into chapter replays for those seeking top scores.
The unlockable bonus missions are centred around Wesker's experiences and viewpoint, allowing you to see what he was up to during the titles you're familiar with. Like seeing what Wesker was up to after he was taken down by the Tyrant or how Rebecca & Richard moved through the mansion in REmake for instance. They're a neat insight, even though Wesker's personality borders on the annoying.
Gameplay is classic rail shooter and works surprisingly well with the gyro of the Wii Remote; it's like moving a mouse cursor about and it's faster than expected. Precision is solid, although sometimes it feels as if you're hitting perfectly but not getting any hits. Other times it feels a little lenient on the auto-aim.
As experienced with a lot of Wii titles, there's some latency between the controller in your hand and what happens on screen. It may be that a fast shooter like this is pushing the limits of how responsive the Wii remote is. Nothing you can't mentally adjust to, so it's not severe in any way.
A feature, which the sequel abandons, is that if you can move the Nunchuk analogue stick to turn your head slightly outside of the predetermined viewpoint. It's mostly used for spotting bonus items, but I found that I hardly used it. Perhaps, the reason they scrapped it entirely in the sequel.
Button mapping is a little on the strange side; there's not that many actions but somehow, they manage to map things awkward. For instance, holding two buttons simultaneously for grenades? Which are incidentally the same ones used for melee and the gun trigger. In addition, there's zero options for mapping them separately either.
Difficulty is uneven, at times it's incredibly easy to clear levels while certain boss fights are very tough. Especially, if high precision is needed for small vulnerable points on a boss, which can be a bit of a pain to accomplish. It becomes a little unclear what to aim at and the impreciseness in the aiming becomes apparent with small targets.
It's not a must-play in the massive Resident Evil catalogue; it's a playthrough which appeals to those familiar with the titles depicted in its chronicles. It's a genre which feels antiquated compared to just making a regular first-person shooter.
The appeal is having nothing to worry about except hitting stuff and not having to find out where to go. It may seem like a game to sit back and relax, and in a way, it is compared to hectic first-person shooters, but the tricky bosses and hectic time limit of a moving camera can make it a fast-paced affair, nonetheless.
What's positive is that it proves a rail shooter can appeal alongside modern releases, well modern for the Wii era at least, and have a lifespan past the 30-40 minute playthroughs like Virtua Cop and Time Crisis. That said, does the whole genre always have to be about the camera moving impatiently along? Just allow us more time to shoot the enemies before forcing the player along!
It's a niche genre, which historically has changed little with gameplay, but these Chronicle titles innovate within that frame. Having the genre in the Resident Evil franchise allows for re-acquaintances with the mainline releases and seeing parts of the classic games from a first-person perspective. The bonus side missions give a clever insight in what happened between events during the main titles too.
For what it is, I was positively surprised. I could complain about the limitations of the genre, but it wouldn't be fair. I'm happy to see it support two players too, for added firepower and fun!
Review
Played on: Wii
Released: 2009
Considering the popularity Umbrella received, Capcom followed it with a sequel called Darkside Chronicles two years later. This time around, it's four new chronicles with new sets of main characters. As with the first game, you can choose between two characters in each chronicle; I recommend choosing to play the one you least prefer, as your favourite character will be on screen!
Rather than simply being linear structured into four chronicles, where the last one is a new addition, Darkside Chronicles has its own unique chronicle serving as an arc story interweaving each flashback chronicle.
The main chronicle is focused on Leon Kennedy and Jack Krauser, the knife wielding bad guy from RE4. They collaborate on a mission for the military in South America on a drug lord with ties to the Umbrella Corporation, following a lead after the events of RE2. In general, this scenario reminds me visually of RE 5.
Woven into the main story we have the chronicle flashbacks, beginning with Resident Evil 2, starring Leon and Claire Redfield. This is an interesting scenario as it sees RE2 in fully 3D visuals, prior to the much newer remake. It's interesting revisiting a lot of the old locations from the 1998 original, even more so these days as a different depiction compared to the 2019 remake.
Next, we have a heavily abridged version of RE: Code Veronica, where we play Claire and Steve Burnside. Which again is interesting to see as it's remade visually, before we receive the newly announced 2027 remake which is currently in production at Capcom. Seeing the locations in 3D isn't quite as novel, as the game originally was in 3D and cleverly utilised viewpoints too.
Code Veronica is a large title to cover, so expect this chronicle to quickly pass through main events and skipping many others. That said, I'm impressed with how it seems to cover most the memorable sections. Including the awful boss battle on an aircraft, sadly.
Darkside Chronicles ends back at the main part in South America and finishes with the new storyline with Leon and Krauser. This main part is cleverer and more comprehensively interwoven with the chronicles than the first game. Making the whole playthrough more cohesive with less jumping between random events, even though the narration to Wesker in the first one explains why.
I'm a little sad to not see a third game covered here, not sure what that could've been as the story is set prior to RE4, which would've been an awesome title to add for an on-rails experience. Perhaps a revisit to the later parts of RE3 would've been possible?
Darkside Chronicles makes some gameplay adjustments compared to Umbrella Chronicles, which for the most part are for the better. Gone is the underutilised ability to turn the camera with the Nunchuck stick, resulting in less hidden items offscreen.
Herbs can now be consumed at you own peril at press of a button, allowing you to store them up for when you actually need them. There are also shortcuts for various guns on the Wii Remote d-pad/nunchuck analogue, which allows you to quickly swap weapons. In addition, the button assignment screen allows for more freedom as to which buttons do what, although gun trigger and knife are still locked to the trigger button on either the Wii Remote or Nunchuk.
The upgrade system to weapons is also upgraded. With individual categories like firepower, reload time etc., rather than a simplified one upgrade stat which Umbrella Chronicles had.
Overall, slightly more refined gameplay experience which removes some of the smaller annoyances of the first game!
The returning factor of an impatient camera, too eager to just keep moving along, instead of allowing me to finish killing all enemies is ever present. In combination with an overdone shaky camera movement, it feels unnecessarily stressing at times. Leaving behind enemies as I'm constantly just pulled along for the rail ride and being disoriented from the camera being moved all over the place.
As such, my score retains for the sequel too. Indeed, it refines everything to an overall better experience, but it's subtle changes. It's equally an entertaining playthrough, avoids the annoying end boss difficulty spike, but perhaps has fewer interesting chronicles of the classic RE titles.
A more comprehensive and linear story replaces the more mission select structured original, for good or worse. Darkside is better for your first playthrough, while Umbrella is better for replays and unlocking bonus missions.
