Update!... Sort of.

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Resident Evil Zero beta cutscene link.

Rather than make a new thread I'd figured I'd bump this one since it's somewhat related. Just some early footage of the CG cutscene in the GC version of Rebecca encountering her first zombie. Pretty clear that's a different voice actress for one, though it also helped me notice that, oh, right, Rebecca's wearing a beret? Seems like a weird design remix given that Jill Valentine, AKA the only other lady in STARS, wears one. Makes it seem as Wesker had a real thing for berets and therefore demanded that all female operatives wear one.

In any case it's one of Jill's most iconic bits of fashion, so it seems strange that they at one point where considering having Rebecca mooching on in to try and contest for Best Use of Beret. There's also the fact that she doesn't wear one in the original Resident Evil, though it's possible she was supposed to lose the beret during the story.

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Now there had definitely been screenshots of the footage released out there, primarily in magazine scans I believe, though I think this is the first time it's ever been shown in action.I know I've never seen the part with Edward in its original form anywhoo. Really interesting stuff, especially in conjunction with how it eventually came about on the GameCube.

That said, I do wish this prototype version could have somehow become finished and fully playable, as I've always loved the original PS1 polygonal graphics of these games, complete with all of their crazy exaggerated body language. Plus the voice acting looks to feature the same laughable quality of the PS1 games at that.

Some observations:

• Good touch in opening it up with Billy's playing of the piano.
• Looks like it may have let you choose the blood colour. Not many of these games do that and it's more commonly seen in Silent Hill. Only one I can think of is Resident Evil: Deadly Silence, which actually has its blood colour set to green by default.
• Speaking of which, even though it's also in the complete version, the radio immediately brought Silent Hill to mind.
• The zombie models look bloody jacked. Seems they were using the RE2 zombie moans for placeholders, too.
• Rebecca's pistol just has the absolute weakest firing sound effect, though.
• Gah, I bloody love the prototype's menu system! Practically just a slightly reworked version of RE2 & RE3's, complete with the same ''byon'' sound effect.
• Ha, Billy's tribal tattoo looks even more stupid in red.
• I think Billy is still in fact voiced by the same guy in the prototype as he is in the proper game?
• Those zombie dog animations look to be real smooth.

Maybe when they get around to doing something with RE2 (if ever) they'll give RE 1.5 the same presentation.

Wow, this isn't even a leak. This is straight up from Capcom.

That animation in which Rebecca turns the corner after meeting Billy is still pretty dope.

Wow cool, I remember seeing this in magazines back the day, never saw it moving NOSTALGIAAAAA, it actually also looks pretty damn amazing in motion for a n64 game.

And I believe the n64 version of RE1 let you choose blood color too btw.

It's pretty cool Capcom put this out. I wish more companies would do stuff like this, I find it super fascinating.

Yup, pretty awesome. I kinda like Capcom when they're all cornered & desperate like this; made them seem rather humble - out of necessity mind you.

I think you're referring to RE1's sega saturn version? I'm pretty sure RE1 never made it onto the N64. RE2 & RE3 definitely did, though.

Absolutely. Especially for older games, or games that actually crossed generations mid-development.

@yummylee: Only RE2 made it to the N64 (no RE3), and I can confirm that you could change the blood color in that version too. The N64 version of RE2 is really interesting/weird.

This footage is pretty neat, even if it doesn't show us anything that wasn't known already (seems like RE0 stayed mostly the same in the transition from N64 to GameCube). And boy does that HD upgrade look nice! Too bad it's still the same game I played like 7 months ago and was underwhelmed by!

That would explain why they're using the RE2 zombie moan sounds. Though I coulda sworn RE3 made it to N64. I know that there's some extra 'EX' files you can read, like Brad Vickers's dairy, in a later port of RE3 that wasn't the GameCube, so I assumed that RE3 also made it to the N64. Maybe they're in the PC version? EDIT: Or more likely the Dreamcast version!

And yeah, it all mechanically looks the same, which is indicative of how little these games actually progressed from game to game. Until of course it went through what was basically a gameplay reboot with RE4.

@jaytow: It definitely wasn't the GameCube version as I own that one. It's between the PC and Dreamcast, and I would wager it's the Dreamcast version given the precedent with the original RE on Sega Saturn having the option to change blood colour.

Interesting. It would have definitely been a game we (as in my brother and I) had gotten if it were released on that. I like how it all looks and sounds like the originals. Kind of makes me want to re-install Resident Evil HD on PS4 and Revelations 2. I didn't really care for Revelations 2 though.

You mean RE2. RE1, nor three was on N64.

@ntm@yummylee: I never owned it myself, only saw it being played once and I remembered the blood being a different color, guess it was 2 then :)

@yummylee: I'm just going to point out how damn weird It is that I can read "same ''byon'' sound effect" and immediately hear that noise in my head.

One of my all time favourite RE sound effects!

Resident Evil 2 on N64 let you also set the blood colour to Green or Blue, but maybe that was only in Europe.

i own re 3 on gamecube i can check if you can change blood color right now :P

yeah it does not have the option

@alistercat said:

To which has already been clarified in the thread.

Speaking of which,

And

And while I had already responded , I figured I'd add it anyway just to prove my point.

...I mean, really, doesn't anybody ever actually read thread responses anymore. Christ.

No... who... are you. This is really cool. Visually, the prototype actually looks pretty good for something that was supposed to be on the N64. I think it kinda looks better than the PS1 games, too in a way.

Maybe I should actually go play more of that REmake HD thingy. I've wanted to play it for years and figures that once I finally get the chance, I'm far too afraid of it to get more than like 30 minutes in.

I'd say it looks about on par with RE2 & RE3, though the animations look much smoother for some reason. And yes, always be playing REmake HD thingy! I recently finished it on Hard mode, and despite playing it as Jill I literally only had a single handgun bullet left by the end of it. Das some real good shit there mang, das what I'm after!

Maybe das why I'm so happy with how I finished Resident Evil 2's Claire A scenario. Despite those games spooking the heck of me both with their spooky spookiness and scarcity of ammo, I always breeze through the endgame. Generally that's cause I'm always saving like, magnum + grenade launcher rounds and first aid sprays for when stuff starts to get really crazy. The final Birkin (?) fight in Resident Evil 2 and had me limping the entire time (and to the finish) with like, no ammo and zero healing items. Nowdas exciting, mang!

...maybe I'll play the REmake Remastered-for-Gamecube-Remastered-for-HD-1080p thingy tonight.

@ajayraz: One of the problems I've always had with RE2 is that it's pretty easy for the most part. So's the remake if you want it to be, but it at least has a Hard mode that lives up to its name. Anyone that throws the criticism against these games about how easy it is to hoard all your ammo or whatever (which is definitely an issue with some of them, again like RE2), needs to play either the remake or RE0 on Hard mode. Hell, RE0 on Normal mode is quite the challenge as well.

@yummylee: I don't remember being Resident Evil 2 all that easy, but I finally finished Nemesis at the beginning of the year and apart from the clock tower Nemesis fight, I pretty much breezed through that thing with little issues.

I'm not really playing the classic Resident Evil games entirely for the challenge, but it's a significant part. They help keep the tension in check and the spookiness even spookier. With that said... ammo hoarding was not something I was any good at doing when I tried to play Code Veronica X. That whole boss Tyrant fight on the plane is where I stopped playing because I had no healing items and hardly any ammo. I wouldn't call that fun... more discouraging, cause I haven't gone back to it since. REmake is hard enough for me, because Crimson Heads keep me on edge constantly and the limited canteen stuff really doesn't help.

Heh, funny thing abou Veronica, as I fairly recently recompleted it again and I was swimming in ammo. For a first playthrough, or if it's been too long to intimately remember every little detail, Veronica may prove a toughie. But because of these games' static nature it's near impossible for me to really tell anymore :o Though don't get me wrong, the cargo Tyrant boss is a colossal wanker, and there has definitely been a pattern of players reaching that boss without ammo. Which sucks because, as I discussed in this blog here, classic RE bosses shouldn't be difficult, they should simply exist as a means to force players to expel their ammo. So as to halt any aforementioned ammo hoarding. Though of course if you already have none, in the tyrant's case you should be able to rely on catapulting the tyrant over and over. In a more modern context the game should be able to detect how many supplies you have on hand and could then adjust how much health the Tyrant is; so if you have like zilch for ammo, it should only take maybe one or two catapults.

Crimson Heads are real nasty business, but they're a necessity for the game design. They're hard, but of course if you kill a zombie with a headshot (which is rather easy once you collect the shotgun), you're fine. Crimson Heads themselves can also still be killed the same way with an upwards shotgun shot, but even besides that they still effectively make backtracking a really anxious experience, which is fantastic! It works to the game's favour as you slowly accrue better weapons and more ammunition; common zombies you avoided one moment may make for an easy dispatch later on, hence why Crimson Heads are important to not ever make you feel too comfortable in your position. Then you also of course get the Hunters to really put you back in your place despite most likely now having your own magnum at the ready. The limited kerosene also perfectly fits in with survival horror's limited quantity of stuff, and I think it's beneficial that there's only a very finite amount of kerosene in the game, otherwise you'd of course have dedicated players that would just burn every corpse.

That was a cool comparison. REO is probably the only one, I never got around to playing and that remaster looks real nice.

Wow the remaster looks amazing. Cool to see the prototype version, too.

That was cool! I only played a portion of Zero when it came out on GC, so I'm really looking forward to playing the remaster version. It looks goregous.

@thesecondagent said:

Yup! There's been talk that it's actually been done up to such a degree that it looks a fair bit better than the remake remastering, too. Be interested in checking out a Digital Foundry sort of comparison between the two. Would be a bit unfortunate had RE0 actually have more effort put into sprucing it up, as it's not nearly as good as the remake.

@yummylee: Woah. I did not know it was that much ahead of the REmake remaster. A comparison would be great to see.

Bumped for (somewhat related) update!