Resident Evil Zero



Resident Evil 0 is a prequel to Resident Evil 1 and the first Resident Evil game produced exclusively for Nintendo (as it was released on the Game Cube in 2002).

Bravo Team, one half of Raccoon City Police Department's elite STARS unit, is heading into the Arklay Mountains to investigate recent "cannibal murders" before a mechanical failure brings their helicopter down. Bravo Team searches the nearby area and discovers a crashed military police van; it contains the van's murdered drivers and a transport log for former Marine Lieutenant Billy Coen, scheduled to be executed for twenty-three murders. When Bravo Team separates to search for Coen, new team member Rebecca Chambers finds her way to a broken-down train -- the Ecliptic Express -- in the middle of a forest.

Rebecca's got incredible luck for her first day on the job: she not only encounters Billy, but also finds herself face-to-decaying-face with scores of zombies, who force Rebecca and Billy to work together in order to survive. After escaping the train, Billy and Rebecca find Umbrella's Management Training Facility at the end of the tracks, where their struggle for survival pits them against hordes of Umbrella's nightmarish bio-weaponry and the mysterious Dr. Marcus (who bears his own grudge against Umbrella).

This game has a Shout Out page.

This game includes examples of:

 * Action Girl: Rebecca Chambers, sort of. She's certainly much braver and more capable then her earlier/later self from Resident Evil 1. Easily justified considering that by that Resident Evil 1 she's been up for several days straight and is running on nothing but fear and adrenaline in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse. However in Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles we find out she has at the very least had a nap.
 * And Your Reward Is Clothes: Rebecca gets her cowgirl ensemble from REmake, plus a new leather outfit, Billy gets a suit. Since the closet is located only in the train at the beginning, it becomes impossible to change back outfits after reaching the research facility.
 * Always Close: No matter how quickly you get to Rebecca, she is always saved just in time when she's dangling from a ledge.
 * Awesome but Impractical: The Hunting Gun. Powerful, but only holds two shells at a time and takes up two precious inventory spaces like most of the other heavy weapons. Most players will likely dump it for good upon reaching the Training Facility, seeing as the other Shotgun can be found relatively soon after which can hold five more shells.
 * Badass: Billy Coen, a former Marine. In the Umbrella Chronicles version of the game, he uses his handcuffs as makeshift brass knuckles, and is also capable of dropkicking a full grown man in the face.
 * Behind the Black: Inverted with the Leech zombies purely for shock and surprise. There's a few rooms you'll enter and the layout of the room means the Leech zombie should see you as soon as you're in the room, but it won't start attacking until the camera angle changes to show it, at which point the Scare Chord and Psycho Strings start up.
 * Big Creepy-Crawlies: The bosses include a giant scorpion, and a giant centipede with smaller-but-still-giant Biological Mashup insect-things (the Plaguecrawler B.O.W.s) as regular monsters. And let's not forget all the leeches.
 * Body Horror: Marcus is probably the best example. Narmful as his dialogue in his final scene is, there's still something repugnant about a guy vomiting several dozen fist-sized black leeches and copious amounts of slime, after which they crawl all over him and fuse with him to change him into the Queen Leech.
 * Chained by Fashion: Billy only managed to break one arm free when his truck overturned and spends the entire game with his cuffs hanging off of his left wrist.
 * Clown Car Grave: Justified in that not all corpses reanimate at the same time and there were dozens of people on the train when it was attacked. You can see corpses still in their seats or lying on the floor all over the train, so it makes sense that the "fresh" zombies are passengers finally completing their reanimation and shambling off to hunt.
 * Continuity Nod:
 * Rebecca at one point visits the turntable and the entrance to Birkin's lab from Resident Evil 2 (Video Game). Of course, this makes literally no geographical sense with the rest of the game.
 * The opening text crawl goes out of its way to not only mention Raccoon City and Rockfort Island, but also Sheena Island from Resident Evil: Survivor as locations of T-Virus outbreaks.
 * A subtle one. Rebecca is unable to operate the piano to get the battery, justifying why she had to practice in the first game.
 * Creepy Centipedes: Centurion, who's big enough to devour people whole.
 * Death Faked for You:.
 * Demoted to Extra: The zombie dogs make just two appearances during the entire game, and only on the train.
 * Door to Before: You don't deposit spare items in the item box anymore. You just drop them on the ground and have to backtrack to pick them up. To make this easier, nearly every stage of the game has shortcuts that let you go back to an earlier part of the game (except the train, obviously).
 * Easy Mode Mockery: Beating the game on easy mode will not earn you the special costumes.
 * Episode Zero the Beginning
 * Everything's Better with Monkeys: Horribly averted with the Eliminators, psychotic albino apes that make very good Demonic Spiders.
 * Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Most of the bosses. At least the scorpion was explained away in a file that says the researchers on the train were studying it, prior to the whole "attack of the killer leeches" thing. It was probably being transported on the train and got broken free during the whole mess.
 * Grappling Hook Pistol: Reasonably subverted. The hookshot is quite large (taking two blocks of inventory space to have, similarly to large guns), it can only hold 80kg without getting damaged, and is slow.
 * The Greatest Story Never Told: The only witnesses to the events of Resident Evil 0 besides Rebecca are Billy Coen and Wesker, and to a lesser extent, Birkin, who was watching the training facility's security feed for at least part of the game. There's no indication that Rebecca told Chris or Jill what happened.
 * Hand Cannon: The magnums, as usual.
 * Handguns: As usual, the staple weapon, though the ones Billy and Rebecca start out with are subtly different. Billy's is slightly more powerful and will randomly headshot zombies, and either gun can be upgraded later on for more power and faster firing.
 * Hidden Depths: Gruff, short-spoken Billy.
 * I Can't Use These Things Together: Some items have very specific uses. For example, early on there's a room you can get trapped in because there's something stuck in the keyhole, and the character mentions they need something sharp to poke it out. The knife doesn't work, and if it's Rebecca, neither does her mixing kit which is shown to include syringe needles. The only way to open the door is to find an ice pick and give it to the character.
 * I Gave My Word: Invoked by Billy when saving Rebecca.
 * Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Billy, a former Marine who just survived going through a water treatment facility's river with a zombie shark, cannot swim across a three meter gap of water to get a valve handle.
 * Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: One way of emphasizing Billy and Rebecca's "unlikely partner" status.
 * Inventory Management Puzzle: Pretty much the whole game. Each character can only hold six slots worth of items, and the series-standard item boxes are nowhere to be found. If you don't know what's coming, you'll probably have to trek back and forth to whatever room you've designated your item room to resupply.
 * Invisible Backup Band: inexplicably has instruments playing in the background when he's singing during the opening scene. Later on, he sings with no backup whatsoever.
 * I Won't Say I'm Guilty: Billy Coen refuses to confirm or deny whether or not he really did commit the murders he was sentenced for..
 * Kill It with Fire: Flame grenades and molotov cocktails are the best weapons to use against leech zombies; not only do they inflict the most damage, they cause them to die without exploding.
 * Knight in Sour Armor: Billy
 * Let's Split Up, Gang!: Can be done by the player as part of the partner system.
 * Loads and Loads of Loading: Permissible on the Gamecube version, because of the time of release and the high end graphics. On the Wii, however, this becomes frustrating very quickly.
 * Made of Iron: Billy, when compared to Rebecca.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Eliminators. Zombie monkeys.
 * Never Split the Party: For the most part, the game's easier if you keep Billy and Rebecca together, since it lets you put out twice as much firepower quickly. However, there's parts where you have to split them up, and others where it's easier to sneak by monsters if there's only one of you around. Particularly anything with leech zombies.
 * Odd Couple: An innocent, delicate-looking, 18-year-old rookie of an elite police force teams up with the escaped convict she is supposed to be arresting - a gruff, cynical, rather intimidating-looking ex-Marine who was sentenced to death for murdering 23 people. Their relationship starts as Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, but they eventually become Fire-Forged Friends after he saves her life repeatedly, proves to be a decent guy, and she.
 * Prequel
 * Psycho Strings: The leech zombie theme.
 * Puzzle Reset: Near the end of the game, there's a puzzle that requires you to push wooden crates to one side and fill the thing with water. Two catches: One, there's a metal one in there too that needs to be dealt with. Two, there's also a grate thing that impedes how you move the blocks. Thank goodness this trope is the case.
 * Refrigerator Ambush: A zombie pops out of the refrigerator in the dining car after you've solved a few puzzles.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The "mysterious youth"/, as he is sure to announce in every single line of dialogue. His rampage sets in motions the events of the rest of the series.
 * Scare Chord / Psycho Strings: Whenever a leech zombie shows up.
 * Scary Scorpions: The first boss, the Stinger, is a scorpion the size of a pickup truck.
 * Selective Memory:
 * Inverted. At one point, the player has to split Rebecca and Billy up. The one who goes upstairs (by using the hookshot) will find a file that hints at the combination to a locked room. It is explained how the other character gets the dial (which is inexplicably off) to enter the combination, but not how they know about the file, let alone the password. And that knowledge is needed for the other character to progress.
 * Just before Billy has to save Rebecca from falling into a chasm. In order to unlock the door, Rebecca needs to pick up a note that says what the power settings need to be. But, when she falls into the chasm, Billy needs that note, because it hints that  So he really shouldn't know that. Both of these instances, though, are because the characters are both controlled by one person.
 * Rebecca gives Billy one of her walkie talkies, which is how they communicate when separated, shown in use when one finds the cable car, and multiple times in-game amidst cries of "BILLY, HELP!"
 * Semper Fi: Billy Coen, badass former Marine.
 * Shotguns Are Just Better: You get two in this game: a "Hunting Gun" over-under shotgun that only holds two shells but is slightly more powerful (and actually fired correctly, from the shoulder), and the usual pump-action shotgun, which holds more shells but is slightly less powerful.
 * Solve the Soup Cans: The train's E-brake system. There's no possible rationale for the puzzle that doesn't make it even crazier.
 * Stock Video Game Puzzle
 * Suspicious Videogame Generosity: Right before the final boss you find some ammo and healing items.
 * Take Your Time:
 * The player can take as long as they like on the speeding train until the sudden urgent need to slam on the brakes appears.
 * Getting to Billy, after he's nearly drowned is also a moment to take your time.
 * Averted at one point when Billy must save Rebecca from falling into a chasm. If he dawdles for too long, Rebecca dies. This requires a good portion of time and not realizing
 * The Medic: Rebecca, as the field medic of S.T.A.R.S.
 * The Worm That Walks: The leech zombies and.
 * Those Two Bad Guys: Wesker and Birkin, who show up at several points in cutscenes watching the events on the security cameras and attempting to contain the situation.
 * Timed Mission:
 * Stopping the train before it crashes.
 * Saving Rebecca before she falls, although most players won't realize it unless they wait around long enough.
 * The final boss fight.
 * Unresolved Sexual Tension: Billy and Rebecca. As an exception to the series' pattern of shoehorning in romantic subplots, it's strangely and arguably more believable.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Billy hasn't been heard from in the series since, and neither has Rebecca after the events of the original game.
 * Wicked Cultured: ... talented opera singer?
 * Zombie Apocalypse