In an attempt to keep an already struggling series afloat, Capcom brings the Resident Evil series to the Nintendo 3DS with Resident Evil: Revelations–more notoriously known as Resident Evil: Revelaitons. Released 7th February, 2012 Revelations is the first canon Resident Evil to grace the handheld console market and was the first game to include Nintendo 3DS circle pad pro ash tray support. Resident Evil: Revelations is set in between the fourth and fifth installments and covers events previously unknown to many long time fans.
Resident Evil: Revelations Box Art
The story depicts the events shortly after the establishment of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance, more commonly know as the BSAA from Resident Evil 5. During the game’s events, Jill Valentine and Parker Luciani are sent to search for Chris Redfield and Jessica Sherawat, whose last know location was on the SS Queen Zenobia, which serves as the game’s primary setting. The secondary setting takes place one year before the Queen Zenobia incident during the fall of the floating city of Terragrigia. During the Terragrigia incident, the BSAA and Federal Bioterrorism Commission (FBC) sent agents to help evacuate the city since the break out of a new strain of the T-virus began infecting the people of the city. Behind this outbreak is the bioterrorist group “Veltro” instead of the series usual villainous organization Umbrella. In charge of the evacuation is the leader of the FBC, President Morgan Landsdale, who approves the use of the satellite weapon “Regia Solis” which completely destroys Terragrigia. Flash forward to 2005 and the aforementioned SS Queen Zenobia incident. With the disappearance of Chris and Jessica it seems that Veltro has returned with a surviving strand of the T-virus that was used to start the outbreak at Terragrigia. Now, Veltro is hellbent on bringing the truth of Terragrigia public and infecting the world’s oceans with the virus. At the same time, Chris and Jessica are actually in the north at an old Veltro base. After getting in contact with the BSAA, the plot begins to unfold, leading the games characters to believe that the FBC might be behind the reappearance of Veltro.
Resident Evil: Revelations Gameplay
Rated M for mature, this installment in the Resident Evil series is sure to please old and new fans alike with a fine mixture of classic and modern day series mechanics with a return to elements such as limited supply of ammo, emphasis on exploration, and puzzle solving. The game’s camera keeps an over-the-shoulder view from behind the playable character. The player may move the protagonist while aiming a weapon, and has the option to switch between a first-person and third-person perspective. A new element implemented to the series is the genesis gun. Players can use the genesis gun to explore every room of the Queen Zenobia to find hidden caches of ammo and health items. The genesis gun can also be used to scan enemies which will fill up a progress bar and once that bar is filled, the player will receive one health item. Some enemies will fill the bar faster then others; for example, a boss may fill fifty percent of the bar compared to a regular enemy which may only fill ten or fifteen percent of the bar. Resident Evil: Revelations makes use of the Nintendo 3DS’ StreetPass feature to send other Revelations in-game supplies for the games raid mode. The Raid Mode is the multiplayer mode for Revelations in which two players have to fend off wave after wave of enemies.
Overall, Resident Evil: Revelations translates excellently to the Nintendo 3DS. The game is able to port console quality controls and executes them almost seamlessly. The only problem with the controls is the dodging mechanic. When dodging, the player has to run up to an enemy as they are attacking and then right before they hit the character, the player has to hit the B-button at the precise second it appears on the screen before it disappears and you die in a hail of failed glory. The graphics are just about on the same level as Resident Evil 5 but are definitely much better then Resident Evil 4. For a portable handheld to have such a high degree of graphics is actually impressive since it was only a few years ago that we had portable games that looked like Nintendo 64 games. So if gamers are looking for a great survival horror game that they would like to have on the go, then one should seriously consider picking up Resident Evil: Revelations.
