PixlBit

Since the Resident Evil series in back in the news, with announcements of Resident Evil Village Gold Edition and Resident Evil 4 Remake, I thought I should revisit one of my favorite survival horror genre series. I have many of the games I’ve yet to touch and would make great picks for any given Octoberween season. I still have yet to play all of Resident Evil 6, 7, 8 and even the recent remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3. There’s the PS2 offerings with the Outbreak series, as well as the Gun Survivor series. In all honesty any one of those titles mentioned above would make a great pick. But in the end I decided to return to an older side story series that doesn’t seem to get as much love as it used to. Despite the games being ported to prior and last gen systems, I found myself gravitating toward the original release of this Resident Evil title. Sure I do own a copy of the HD versions on the PS3 and the Wii U but something captivated me in wanting to play it on where it all began. I’m talking about none other than Resident Evil Revelations on the 3DS.

 

Resident Evil Revelations was the second official 3D release of the series on the 3DS, The first being Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, but unlike that game Revelations was a more story based game expected of the series than a bunch of mini-games in Mercenaries 3D. Taking place after the events of Resident Evil 4 it tells the backstory of yet another Raccoon City level event when the ocean city of Terragrigia is wiped out by an orbiting solar energy beaming satellite after the city was attacked with B.O.W.s (Bio Organic Weapons) by a bioterrorist organization called Il Veltro. The fears mentioned in RE4 (something later that’ll be realized in RE5) prompted the Federal Bioterrorism Commission to initiate the destruction of the city to ensure the B.O.W.s don’t escape the city and confirm that terrorists have access to B.O.W.s. A year later with rumor of possible B.O.W. activity near the ruins of the City the  Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance send in Agents Chris Redfield and Jessica Sherawat to go investigate, only for them to go missing. They then send in Agents Jill Valentine and Parker Luciani to locate their missing agents at their last known coordinates which leads them to a ghost ship called the Queen Zenobia. It’s from there that the adventure truly begins.

 

When I played this title I was expecting it to be more like Resident Evil 4 and 5 with its focus being more on action than survival horror. I have to admit that I was in error when I found the game to be more about evasion and exploration than anything else. You do get your fair share of ammo, weapons, heath herbs and the like that is expected from the series but indeed Revelations was trying to go back to the survival horror aspect of the series with it’s scary atmosphere, mood lighting and jump scares from the various B.O.W.s you face off with in the game. You don’t exactly find zombies but actual creatures that you’d come to expect with biological experimentations. You’ll even find some mutated dogs and hunters, albeit updated, from the first game. Combat is even more streamlined where you have the ability to go into first person mode to use your laser sighted weapons but unlike in RE4, and later used in RE6, you can actually move around in first person than being locked into one spot. I wasn’t expecting that kind of movement in a handheld Resident Evil title, something that makes me wonder if it was also used in Mercenaries 3D. Also carried over from RE4 was the use of secondary weapons like your trusty combat night along with standard and BOW grenades: all of these accessible with either a push of the D-pad or lower touch screen of the 3DS.

One of the reason why I wanted to try the 3DS version of this game was to see how the touch screen was implemented into the game given the system having dual screens. It works surprising well, helping you to avoid needing to push the menu button to pull up the info screen like other mainline titles. It even includes a map to help you navigate the areas better, complete with a big yellow circle showing you where to go to progress the story. The only concern I had initially with the game was the fact that it recommended the use of the Circle Pad Pro to allow dual stick control. Thankfully the New 3DS I’m using allows for the use of the small nub controller located near the A/B/X/Y buttons to be used in its place. While not ideal it does the job well enough to make the game fully playable. One day I’d like to use an actual Circle Pad Pro when I can get ahold of an original 3DS unit that supports it. The second reason in wanting to play this version of Revelations was so I can experience the game in the glasses free 3D function. The later HD re-released remove this feature so I wanted to experience it to see how it handled. While it’s not exactly a game changer it does increase the wow factor in seeing a title such as this use 3D. It doesn’t come off as gimmicky like some 3D enabled games on the system nor is it overly give you sensory overload. If anything the only downside to using the 3D function is the drain on the system’s battery.

The third reason I wanted to try Revelations on 3DS was its portability factor. Sure you can get that now on the Nintendo Switch, with better visuals and battery life I’m sure, but playing on a smaller 3D screen on the go in a smaller form factor appealed to me given my current busy life on the go. Not many handheld games can pull of a survival horror feel and with the right dark room setting and stereo headphones, help to better immerse you in a more intimate way than a larger screen variant. If I had one complete with playing on the 3DS is how cramp it can feel playing the game for longer periods. The placement of the R/ZR, L/LR buttons can get troublesome since you might find yourself accidentally throwing a grenade or using a melee attack since the R trigger is used for that vs the ZR trigger is used for firing. If I had it my way I’d reverse those buttons to have R shoot and ZR use melee attacks. Perhaps there is a function to switch that but I was too lazy to find if that was the case.

I’m assuming due the nature of the handheld and its heavy use of the system’s battery, the game was split up into several episodic chapters. This helps the player to pace themselves between levels where you could just spend one chapter a day playing Revelations and go back to it later on. It even gives you a “Previously on Resident Evil Revelations” recap cinematic as if it was a TV mini-series. It gave me an “Alan Wake” kind of presentation that I was tickled to enjoy. This is a game you don’t have to plow/invest a whole lot of time in all day, but I wouldn’t exactly put it down and not return back to the game in two weeks.

Not that you would mind you. Shockingly the game looks very good on a handheld I wasn’t expecting this kid of level of console graphics from the 3DS but it looks and plays like you’d expect from a modern Resident Evil title from the time. I’m sure it would look dated in the HD ports on actual consoles but the downsized version of their MT Framework engine does wonders. You can tell that Mercenaries 3D was more of a proof of concept game to see if Revelations could even run well. The only downside to this game though is that you don’t exactly get the wide open playfields in other Resident Evil titles. The game focuses primarily on the Queen Zenobia, with its tight ship corridors and bulkheads, but the game does branch out into different areas like snowy areas with Chris and Jessica and even flashback scenes to learn how to use the new BOW scanning tool called Genesis and what went on during the fall of Terragrigia. The areas still play like linear corridor shoots that you’d expect in RE4 but you’ll be finding yourself doing a lot of backtracking back on the Queen Zenobia to find better weapons, upgrade kits for said weapons and keys to open new areas to progress the story.

If you can’t guess there’s more to the game’s story about what really happened back on Terragrigia and why a long though dead terrorist organization thought to be wiped out back then has somehow returned back from the dead? I haven’t gotten far to learn the full truth but it’s enough of a story to make me curious to see if the events that happened in RE4 play off into what we are seeing now in Revelations. Will these new creatures be based off the Las Plagas variant from RE 4 or will it be another T-Virus variant that Umbrella was unable to keep under wraps.   

 

In the end Resident Evil Revelations was an original Resident Evil title in the series that offered a more compact, bite-sized survival horror adventure on the go. I’ve enjoyed playing a chapter or two while I’m out and about. I could get through at least three chapters before my New 3DS battery started to give away, two if I had the 3D slider on. I have to admit it was a nice change of pace to have the series try to go back to its survival horror roots than its action packed console counterparts. You don’t feel fully gimped with the new evade mechanic but you get enough tension between enemy counters to make you think twice if you want to burn ammo or make a run for it. The tank controls from the past are gone, giving you a better sense of control all around. Some may miss tank controls to justify the heightened tension between encounters but this game is better off without it. And given Revelations can still wreck you otherwise just the same will still kept me on my toes.

As much as I wanted to own this title physically I ended up caving in when I saw it on the Nintendo 3DS’s eShop on sale for only $4.99. Not bad of a price when physically it can still go for around $20 to $40, cart or CIB depending where you shop. It might go back on sale before the eShop officially closes in March of 2023 but it’ll be difficulty to buy since one can’t use Credit or eShop cards to buy games on the 3DS’s eShop anymore. The only way to now would be to link your Nintendo ID from your Switch, if you own one, from your 3DS thus linking the accounts to be able to share digital funds in your respective Switch Account. If not your only option would be to pay the higher fee for a physical copy but that just goes to show the downsides to digital games distribution on a soon to be dead handheld, but that’s another story for another time.

If you like your survival horror on the go, and don’t want carry around or don’t happen to have a Nintendo Switch around with you, the 3DS still can offer more thrills and scares like it’s console counterparts. It’s why I chose Resident Evil Revelations as my Number 3 pick for this year’s Octorberween Game Title of 2022. It maybe old, it may not stand toe to toe with newer entries in the franchise like Resident Evil 7 and Village, but it still a good old if only in bitesize portions out of battery necessity.      

#5: Castlevania Advance Collection - $19.99 digitally, $60+ physically.

#4: Control Ultimate Edition - $50.00 physical, $20-$40 used   

#3: Resident Evil Revelations (3DS) - $20 to $40 used, loose or CIB. $4.99 (on sale) eShop