Resident Evil: Revelations

Resident Evil: Revelations is a game of two halves: the first one is effective in building a horror atmosphere in a claustrophobic environment, but the second offers mediocre action sequences with endless amounts of similar enemies to be defeated.

The story begins when Jill Valentine and Parker Luciani – agents working for a counter-terrorism group – are tasked to investigate a drifting vessel on the high seas, a luxury ship named “The Queen Zenobia”. Bizarre carcasses carrying a devastating virus have appeared on a nearby beach and their colleagues, Chris and Jessica, have gone missing: their last know location is on the Zenobia. When Jill and Parker arrive on the ship, however, they discover the return of a terrorist group called Veltro, who wish to spread the virus into the world and cause terrible mutations in most living beings.

The setting is the highlight of Revelations. The Queen Zenobia functions as a haunted mansion, with narrow hallways and tiny rooms packed full of monsters, corpses, blood and goo and, of course, locked doors and secret passages. Its locales are varied, too: there’s a casino, a hidden lab, luxurious lounges bathed in a golden light, and the flooded bilge even functions as the obligatory sewers level.

Their design is also typical Resident Evil. For example, in the bilge, you have to find a missing cog to unlock a contraption that hides a key to a machine: it’s contrived, sure, but feels like a classic game with its strange puzzles that prevent the adventure from becoming too mindless and linear. While you explore these places, the camera also slowly and softly moves up and down to simulate the heave and sway of the ship.

The 3DS version and the portable mode on the Switch work better for Revelations, as their small screens decrease the size of the environments, increasing the feeling of confinement. The Queen Zenobia is supposed to feel claustrophobic, and these versions amplify this feeling.

The game’s first moments greatly succeed in building tension. The first monster you find appears behind a case – its details are obscured by it – and it immediately runs away. You follow its movements through the vents, with rats appearing out of broken machinery to provide some jump scares. When you finally arrive at a room tinged with blood, a cutscene plays out with Jill and Parker investigating a corpse while the camera frames the action from strange angles, as if from the perspective of a thing lurking in the shadows. The sequence naturally concludes with the monster’s point of view – which covers the frame with an aggressive red tinge – as it approaches its prey.

In other words, this sequence is build-up done right: parts of the monster are first hidden behind a case so to make its reveal suspenseful, the sequence builds and releases tension with the noise in the vents and the jump scare with the rats, and it concludes with the monster appearing in all its glory in a scene that frames the main characters in a vulnerable position.

There’s usually great build-up to the boss fights as well: when you arrive at a large open area – for the game’s standards, at least – you can immediately hear a voice repeating a mayday message – but it’s a distorted, growling voice, which is coming from inside a locked room. The area is full of healing herbs and the game has just given you a new weapon: so you know the source of the voice is a monster, and you can now also guess that the fight will be harder than normal. All this increases tension as you approach the door and see the chains blocking it, knowing that you yourself will have to free the monster to get the key it holds.

But when it’s finally time to shoot at the monsters, the horror mostly dissipates. The creatures in Resident Evil: Revelations seem to be made of sponge, rarely reacting to your shots. The fact that you’re firing at them, but they keep coming anyway, could heighten the horror aspect of the game and make the scarcity of ammunition even more felt. But for that to work, you must see that you are indeed hitting and doing damage. Here, however, the creatures barely react to the damage they receive: the moments when they will stagger or their limbs will move, responding to the damage, are rare.

This means that it’s always a surprise when the monsters finally die, as some of them can absorb tons of bullets – especially from weaker weapons – and you have no visual indication of their health. It’s no wonder that in Raid Mode, which is just action, the game adds health bars and damage indicators: without these elements, after all, there’s almost no feedback to the action.

The first hours of Revelations are Resident Evil in its most Resident Evil: they’re scary, but also incredibly goofy. Right after dispatching the first gooey monsters, for example, Jill comes across a room with what appears to be Chris inside – tied to a chair – and she immediately begins to search for a key to the room. The problem is that the barechested person inside the room is clearly not a person, but a doll: Jill, nonetheless, is fooled by this doll – which even displays a clear line on its neck connecting the head to the body – and falls into a trap.

The scene that introduces one of the first bosses in the game follows suit: Jill arrives at her destination, but the body of the woman she was looking for is missing. In its place, there’s a diary revealing that the woman had been infected before her death. Sure enough, her disfigured, monstrous form appears out of the room, saying something creepy, and goes away – but you know she’s going to be waiting for you in the next room. It’s a tense moment, but this exchange immediately follows:

Jill: Found the target, but she’s a zombie.

Parker: Isn’t that always the case?

When it’s alternating between horror and goofiness, Revelations works. Unfortunately, there are times when it decides to double down on the comedy aspect and focus on action. The scenes in which we follow agents Keith and Quint – which are exploring a snowy region – are the most egregious part of the game for this reason.

First, there’s the matter that their episodes are about action alone, being designed around arenas filled with waves of enemies: since combat is not Revelations’ strongest suit, these sequences fall flat. Secondly, the comedy is either too silly (one of them warns that they should be quiet while the other promptly stumbles and knocks over several objects) or downright creepy: Quint reveals that he stalks one of his female colleagues, for example, trying to find out where she lives, but this is played for laughs.

It’s a pity, then, that Revelations often leaves Jill and Parker – and The Queen Zenobia along with them – to put the spotlight on other characters in a generic setting that has nothing to offer compared to the ship. Even when we are following Chris and his partner Jessica, things still don’t quite work, because the focus is solely on action.

It doesn’t help that characterization is thin. There’s a scene in which Chris is exploring the same snowy region with Jessica, and while he’s the tough guy, she just complains about everything: her feet hurt, she didn’t expect for them to be out there for too long, the cave is too cold, and so on. Chris, meanwhile, just bears everything silently, providing some laconic answers now and then: “You should’ve worn your thermal underwear,” he says to her with a rough, serious voice that makes everything hilarious. There’s also a moment when they’re being attacked by mutated dogs and Jessica says, “See, that’s why I like Chihuahuas,” which doesn’t make any sense, since everyone knows Chihuahuas are fury incarnate, actually.

The story tries to hide its simplicity with a contrived structure, which keeps jumping from one point of view to the next, and from the past to the present. Its twists are still fairly predictable – the villain has villain signed all over him from his first scene – but Revelations – despite its title – doesn’t rely on surprises to work, as its story is much more concerned with its theme.

Revelations’ story is about terrorism and how it is a very lucrative business for those that fight against it: it’s not a coincidence that the villain is from The United States and one of the characters highlights this information just a bit after the “big reveal” in the final chapter. Meanwhile, characters like Jill and Parker are framed as pawns: they’re soldiers, expendable tools sent to fight the wars of others. They are used by the powerful and wealthy, who want nothing more than increase their power and wealth even more. As opposed to the people in charge, Parker is a soldier that believes wholeheartedly in the cause, but that just makes manipulating him easier.

Finally, it is worth noting a mechanic of scanning the environment for items or scanning enemies for points, which are automatically exchanged for herbs after a certain amount. This leads to a risk-reward dynamic, since to scan something, you have to equip the scanner and use it like a gun, which leaves you vulnerable. And it also makes you constantly wonder if scanning a monster that is coming right for you is worth the extra points that you get compared to scanning its corpse, when it’s no longer a threat.

Resident Evil: Revelations is a game of many ups and downs. The game excels at building tension and crafting an interesting setting, but unfortunately good chunks of it take place elsewhere and focus on mindless, unsatisfying action.

July 28, 2021.