Why Capcom Shouldn't Skip a Resident Evil: Code Veronica Remake

ign.com:

Resident Evil: Code Veronica starts ominously.

An opening crawl tells us a mid-western town, Raccoon City, has been completely decimated due to a T-Virus outbreak. Helicopters fly towards a mysterious island where Claire Redfield’s unloaded and then knocked out – she was captured by the Umbrella Corporation while infiltrating a Parisian lab. She was looking for her brother, the infamous police officer Chris Redfield. In a flashback, Claire sprints down a hallway, a machine gun firing at her, shards of glass going everywhere. She’s soon cornered and captured, but not without setting a few Umbrella employees on fire.

It’s an opening cutscene as instantly iconic as they come; a brazen, action-filled beginning inspired by Face/Off director John Woo’s movies. As Claire wakes up in a dingy prison on Rockfort Island, the game’s creepy atmosphere envelops you. Unlike the previous three Resident Evil games, the environments are not pre-rendered but fully 3D. And while the tank controls are present, Code Veronica has quirks that leave a lasting impression; for instance, around the midway mark, there’s a point of no return, and if you carelessly save before the next boss – the Tyrant-078 – without any ammo, there’s almost no way to defeat the monster and no way to go back to get more bullets. If you’re a serial save-over-the-previous-save-er then prepare to start the whole game all over again. It’s part of why Code Veronica is often cited as the most difficult classic Resident Evil game.

For some of the series’ undead disciples, these elements are part of what makes 2000's Code Veronica so special. For others, however, CV’s simply too dated and the gameplay rankles with our modern expectations of gaming. Those players are missing out