Resident Evil 5 [2009]
Resident Evil 5 is actually the latest, chronologically, in the main-series Resident Evil games that I've played, and thanks to my PS3 crapping out, I don't think I quite made it past the first big boss battle -- I just really disliked the 'buddy ally' system or whatever it's called here. So while I did read up and watch some gameplay footage, this is going to be the first in a couple of games where I know a lot less about the game compared to the first four games. I think we're already almost done with the main numbered games and at this point it's a 'might as well finish it' deal, but I have to reiterate that a lot of my knowledge about this game is sort of second-hand.
Also, let's put in the typical disclaimer of how... this game raises a bit of a controversy regarding how racist it can come off as? I'll acknowledge that, but at the same time we'll not touch on it at all. I'll just preface this by linking this for further reading.
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The Story:
Abridged from the fan-wiki and the cutscenes I zoomed through online, the story picks up with Chris Redfield, one of the main characters in Resident Evil 1, arriving as part of the anti-bioweapon organization BSAA to investigate B.O.W. smuggling in Africa. working with local BSAA agent Sheva Alomar, they arrive in the Kijuju Autonomous Zone, but arrive too late. They find out that most of the townspeople have been infected by Type 2 Plagas -- unknown to Chris and Sheva, this is a modified version of the Las Plagas parasite utilized by Los Illuminados in Resident Evil 4. Soon, the two find themselves back-to-back against hordes of hostile parasitized townspeople called Majini.
Chris and Sheva escape the village Majini, and encounter the final dying member of Alpha Team who warns them of the bioterrorist smuggler Ricardo Irving, before dying. Chris and Sheva face off against a creature made up of a large mass of worms, which was the cause of Alpha Team's demise. After burning it with an incinerator, they receive aid and intel from other BSAA members before the two hunt down Irving. Irving is rescued by a mysterious hooded figure (actually a mind-controlled Jill Valentine, who had been assumed dead during the events told via flashbacks). As more and more BSAA members and teams are wiped out by the increasingly powerful B.O.W.'s, Chris and Sheva have to fight and deal with these monstrous mutations. While ordered to retreat, Chris decides to continue on to figure out what's going on with all these hints of Jill Valentine being alive and walking around. At around this point, Chris talks about the events leading to Jill's supposed 'death', during an operation to apprehend the higher-ups of Umbrella. During this event three years prior to RE5, they find out that Wesker had killed Umbrella's president Oswell Spencer, and in the ensuing battle Jill and Wesker fell out of a window into a chasm.
Chris and Sheva make their way through the marshlands and the village of the Ndipaya tribe, which have been infected with Type 3 Plagas. As they fight the infected, they discover that the company Tricell is behind the Plagas infection in Africa. They corner Irving, who reveals Tricell's involvement and injects himself with a Plagas species and transforms into a gigantic behemoth that Chris and Sheva take down with heavy weapons. After taking Irving out, Chris and Sheva enter an underground series of tunnels that's home to more Ndipaya tribes, guarding a mysterious flower known as the 'Stairway of the Sun' -- which turns out to be the source of the Progenitor Virus that the T-Virus of previous games were derived from. Chris and Sheva discover an abandoned Umbrella facility there, which has been taken over by Tricell, and defeat a massive abomination. They exchange barbs with Tricell head honcho Excella Gionne, who sics more mutations on them. Chris and Sheva eventually encounter the mysterious hooded woman, who, of course, turns out to be Jill, mind-controlled with a device by Albert Wesker. After a prolonged battle, however, Chris and Sheva manage to rip apart the device mind-controlling Jill, freeing her from Wesker's brainwashing.
At Jill's insistence, Chris and Sheva move on to hunt down Wesker and Excella. Excella is cornered first, and she ends up being infected by the Uroboros Virus, a new strain based on the Progenitor virus and the source of the worm-like monsters they've seen earlier in the game. Wesker betrays Excella and leaves her behind to die, and she mutates into a gigantic Uroboros mutant that gets taken out by the heroes. Wesker monologues about his desire to become god after wiping out most of humanity with Uroboros. Jill tells Chris and Sheva about the weakness of the Uroboros carriers -- they require a regular dose of a serum called PG67A/W to keep in control of their parasite, and overdoses of this antidote will kill them.
Chris and Sheva hunt Wesker through the wilderness, eventually arriving at a hangar where Wesker is ready to unleash planes with plague-carrying missiles over the planet. During the ensuing battle, Wesker is weakened by an injection of the serum, and the battle continues in Wesker's main bomber plane where he's about to unleash Uroboros globally. After being injected with the serum yet again and blasted out of an airhole, Wesker falls into a volcano, although not before an attempt at dragging Sheva down with him. Wesker survies, however, and merges with an intact Uroboros missile and goes insane, ranting as he fights Chris and Sheva. Ultimately, Wesker is defeated via helicopter misslies and sent tumbling into magma, while Chris and Sheva are saved by their BSAA ally from earlier in the game, Josh. The end, until the next game!
Majini (and Type 2-3 Plagas)
The basic enemy this time around, the counterpart to the 'Ganado' of Resident Evil 4, is the Majini (the Swahili plural form of 'jinn', or roughly 'evil spirit'). Which means that just like the Ganado, they basically look like regular villagers that try and murder you with guns or clubs or spears or whatever they have nearby. These guys are infected by a modified version of Las Plagas, known as 'Type 2' or 'Type 3' Plagas. Interestingly, this is done by splicing Las Plagas with leech DNA which gives it a faster time of taking over the host -- which, if you remember RE4, the Plagas in Leon Kennedy's body taking an entire day to take him over ends up giving him enough time to murder roughly one thousand Ganados and dismantle the Illuminados.
The drawback is that Type 2 Plagas has to apparently be administered while the parasite was already matured, so instead of injecting an egg into the bloodstream, Tricell's agents just force-fed the villagers matured Plagas parasites... but at least they take over their host within minutes, and are not weakened by sunlight. Okay. Unlike the Ganados, unless truly 'activated', I think it's also a significant plot point that the Majini are able to pretend to be regular humans going through their lives, making the spread of the Plagas across Kijuju a lot more comprehensive.
Again, we get a bunch of variants as the game goes on and on, including equivalents to last game's miniboss Ganados -- the Chainsaw Majini and the Gatling Gun Majini, among others.
Even moreso than the Ganados and regular zombies, I'm not going to go too deep into describing these common enemies. Just know that there are several sub-types depending on the locale of the level, including townsfolk, marsh villagers and base militia. Most of the 'lesser' Majini can have the parasite reveal their 'true' form by showing off a pretty cool petal-tentacle ensemble tipped with fangs, a visual that is so cool that the live-action Resident Evil movies took painstaking time to show them off a lot in what is honestly one of the low-key cooler visuals for a non-boss enemy. It's honestly a whole lot less impressive than any of the three head-replacing Plagas in Resident Evil 4 visually, but still I do really like this a lot visually as an enemy that's just an enhanced version of a regular human. Besides, the Type 2 and 3 Plagas still replace the heads of their hosts, just... later on.
I'm also going to briefly go through some of the minibosses, like the Big Man Majini, the Giant Majini and the ever-memorable Executioner Majini. Apparently some versions of the Plagas can cause a surge of growth hormones in their hosts, turning them larger and more powerful. I don't have much to say about the first two, but the Executioner Majini just looks pretty damn cool, huh? With that executioner's hood and a bunch of nails jutting out of it, and his bizarre, large, jagged axe-hammer thing with chains wrapped around it... no wonder they chose to use him in the live-action movies, too! Insert your own Pyramid Head comparison here, whatever, but it's still one of the cooler minibosses.
Bui Kichwa
Named after the Swahili words for 'spider' and 'head', the Bui Kichwa is basically this game's equivalent of Plaga C from RE4, being a spidery parasite that bursts out and scuttles around after its host's death. RE4's obvious-Facehugger-copy Plaga parasite is kind of far cooler than the messier-looking mass of flesh bits (again, sorry about all the comparisons but the game's monsters just invite them!). Still, I do appreciate this design having two obvious 'attacking' legs raised up, sort of like the threat posture that some tarantulas have.
Cephalo
Far, far cooler than 'hey, look at these angry people, but they are big' minibosses are these variants, which are the equivalent to the alphabet head-replacing Plaga. The Cephalo ("head", obviously) here is first seen via a plot-relevant character called Allison, and... and it's basically a combination of Plaga A and Plaga B from Resident Evil 4, huh? We've got a giant swarm of centipede-esque legs twitching where the Cephalo has burst out of the neck, but instead of an insectoid parasite head we get just this huge mass of tentacles ending in a creepy tumourous flesh-club. It sure is a flesh-beast, but I honestly kind of prefer the more unique look of (again) the previous game's Plagas or even this game's 'Hatchling' Plagas in terms of visual design. Still, a pretty cool extrapolation of RE4's Plagas.
Duvalia
Duvalia is created by Type 3 Plaga, and is named after a genus of South African milkweed. Instead of merely replacing the head, the Duvalia Plaga basically causes the entire upper half of the body to burst open into, well, this abomination resembling its namesake flower. It's a bit hard to see what's going on, but they've basically became sort of like a giant flesh-flower, and can use its petals to 'cover' its central body, which now takes the form of a bulb-like mass of flesh and teeth. I do kind of like that trailing behind the Duvalia is the remains of its human anatomy -- you could see a ribcage and eyeballs trailing uselessly behind... which is actually its weak point. Really should have discarded it, parasite man.
Not a bad concept at all, although a design that I'm honestly a bit indifferent towards.
Kipepeo
Oh, shit, this is a cool one. The Kipepeo (Swahili for 'butterfly') burst out and utterly transforms their host into this... this massive giant moth-like fleshbeast, and I absolutely like what they're going on here. The Kipepeo actually burst out of the backs of the remains of their human host like butterflies out of a cocoon, which is a pretty awesome visual. The Plagas parasites always had some form of arthropodal features to them anyway, and while they've mostly had a vaguely spider or centipede like vibe, turning into this butterfly-esque thing is pretty awesome, too. I like that the large wings are made out of flesh, there's a mass of nasty-looking pustules on their back, and their lower half of their body is just a mash of whip-like tentacles and a huge, nasty lamprey-mouthed claw-arm.
That more cartoony artwork from Clan Master also shows the details of their 'head' a bit better, with two tiny cute slug-like eyestalks and a torso that almost resembles some sort of moth or butterfly abdomen. Also, clearly whoever made the live-action movies loved the Kipepeos, because they also show up a fair bit in the last one! It's a bit of a shame that, bosses notwithstanding, the Kipepeo is basically the last common enemy that I really like from this game's bestiary.
Adjule (taken for a term for African wild dogs) are this game's obligatory evil dog enemy. And they look boring as hell other than the fact that they used a different dog base... until they show off just how much the Plagas have transformed them. The twist here is that the entire front halves of the dog split sideways to reveal a massive maw of flesh and teeth, and that's a pretty neat and unexpected visual. Otherwise, I have nothing much to add here other than the fact that the Adjule also show up as live-action Wesker's pets in Resident Evil: Afterlife and look pretty nasty there, too.
I'll also note that at one point you fight crocodiles, but since they seem to be regular crocodiles without any Las Plagas tentacles or flesh-parts or whatever, I won't really talk about them.
Reaper
Unlike last game's Novistadores, the Reaper aren't actually humans who were transformed by Las Plagas, but cockroaches that got transformed with the Uroboros virus. And... they sure are cool bug-people, although they don't really look too cockroach-y other than those iconic roach antennae that now stick out of their backs. They're cool because they are four-armed bug-people, but in these main-numbered-games alone we've already had a couple of far cooler-looking bug monsters in the Chimaera, the Novistadores and the Drain Deimos, so I'm surprisingly ambivalent about this one. Nothing that I outright dislike, but it's just that this franchise has given us cooler enemies, y'know? Still, I'm happy that they consider creepy bug-men as important to be an 'obligatory enemy that has to show up every game' like zombie dogs.
Licker Beta
Oh, hey, it's the Licker! We haven't seen one of these in a main series game since Resident Evil 2, actually. I... I still don't know how I feel about this one, if we're being honest. It's cool that we're getting a new version of the Licker, and apparently these are created by Tricell after stealing data from Umbrella because there is, apparently, a high demand on the black market for these creatures. Licker Beta here is created by injecting the Uroboros virus to a regular Licker and... instead of looking like it's a flayed man, now it looks like a meat-man? At least they still kept the massive claws and the exposed brain. Design-wise it's kind of a shame that I have to say that I prefer both the original Licker from RE2 or the newer revised Licker from the RE2 remake... but this is a decent design.
Licker Beta also has an exposed heart on its chest that acts as a weak point, but considering it moves on all four all the time it's probably hard to get a bead on it. It's also apparently developed to its own species that it can actually reproduce. It's a bit of a small detail and the Licker Betas are such a small part of RE5 that it's a detail that gets buried in the Majini uprising or Wesker's plan for complete global saturation, but I do like the idea that this 'progenitor' virus is so much more powerful than any of its strains and is actually able to straight-up create a brand-new species.
Blob
Not actually seen in the main story taking place in Africa and only during the flashback segments when Chris and Jill storm the Spencer Estate in the past, the Blobs are... interesting creatures? They sure don't look blobby at all, but are very humanoid. They have a huge mass of tumours on their shoulders and back, and their head (which is hard to notice at first glance) has been replaced with a lamprey like mouth... but they're just kind of a generic humanoid 'big man' enemy. I do like that they swing around rusty anchors, which is always a fun, wacky visual. Not much to say here, they're apparently just a 'palette swap' of the Executioner Majini. It's sure an interesting humanoid abomination, but at this point we've seen a lot better. Sorry, Blob.
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BOSSES:
Uroboros Test Subject
The first couple of bosses in the game are actually the Executioner and Chainsaw Majini, but... yeah, I really can't say too much about them which is why I lumped them with the 'elite' Majini above. The first real monstrous boss is this giant 'Uroboros Test Subject', otherwise called 'Test Subject #1' in some sources. It... it sure is a mass of tentacles arranged in the shape of a man! That's not a bad look for an enemy, and one that feels like it gives the Uroboros virus at least something unique going on for it. It sure looks better in motion! We've had tentacle-themed parasites before with both Nemesis and Las Plagas, but this is a creature that's nothing but tentacles shambling around, with its 'core' moving around in its writhing mass of a body. Not a bad look for a boss, and you actually fight a couple more Uroboros-mutated people later on. This unnamed test subject is just the beginning.
Popokarimu
Okay, this one is cool. The Popokarimu (a rough Swahili translation of 'bat silkworm') is a Plagas-infected bat that fused with a silkworm, and somehow this ends up with a four-winged draconic monstrosity. Perhaps a bit too fantasy-monster, but I like it a lot! I also kind of like just how mutated the face of this creature is. The upper jaw certainly looks like a gross bat, but the lower jaw has mutated into a nastier looking underbite. It's a bit easier to see in that official artwork, but the bat's lower half has been fused to a massive, mutated silkworm that spits sticky silk to grab your characters in place. I do really like that they end up with a creature that, in flight, looks so much like the Kipepeo's silhouette. An all right combination of mutated animals.
Ndesu
Ndesu (a mis-transcription of the Swahili word 'Ndevu', meaning beard) is... El Gigante from the previous game. But with a beard. I really didn't care all too much for El Gigante in the previous game, beause that's just a big Lord of the Rings troll man. Ndesu is also a big troll man. I do like that its parasites will burst out from its stitches, but otherwise ehhh.
Ricardo Irving
The first half of the game's main human villain is the "Merchant of Death", the black market dealer Ricardo Irving. Irving, from what I remember, is the game's attempt to catch lightning in a bottle twice with Ramon Salazar from the previous game, but they perhaps steer too much into the 'obnoxious' side of things this time around. I won't say too much about his character because I haven't played through the entire game, though I find him kind of a serviceable annoying enemy for the part of the game I played through. Of course, as something that's on par with most of the enemies in this franchise, Irving eventually injects a Dominant Plagas onto his own body, which... turns him into a massive... thing?
And I do mean massive. Here's a screenshot to make you appreciate just how utterly large Irving is, because that's Irving's monster form 'head' next to poor Sheva. It's far, far bigger than any of the giant enemies we've fought in this franchise, up to and including the likes of Plants 42 and 43; Del Lago; the Salazar/Queen Plagas fusion; and both of Birkin and Nemesis's final fleshglob form. It sure is a giant creature for sure, reminding me of something like a kraken since Chris and Sheva fights Irving while on a decent-sized boat, and for the most part all you can see of Irving are his massive spiky tentacles or that one tentacle that ends in a massive chitinous mouth.
A pretty cool cinematic boss battle if admittedly Irving's surprise transformation into such a titanic beast so rapidly with nothing but a Plagas parasite doesn't really make sense with all of the information we know about the Plagas as well as all the other mutations we've seen.
U-8
Its name, I think, is supposed to remind us of the previous game's U-3, but other than being a Plagas monstrosity there really isn't much between them that's super common. U-3 is like this bizarre human-lizard-bug centaur who later manifests a second parasite head. U-8 is... a giant crab monster with giant tentacles ending with claws. His name is apparently short of "Ultimate 8" and there aren't any real good screenshots that show off U-8's anatomy particularly well other than Clan Master's artwork here. I do like the multiple lower jaws, the little snappy arms and the two massive tentacles, but ultimately... I just don't find it all that impressive? It sure is a neat giant bug monster. It's face is easily its best feature and I do like how its massive tentacle-claws also basically help it to suspend itself in the arena that you fight it, but... I dunno, I can't work up too much of an enthusiasm about this one, but it is a cool bug-crab kaiju monster. It sure is a cool setpiece, but otherwise... I do like it, just... not that much.
Uroboros Mkono & Uroboros Aheri
Y'know, I tried to separate these but I can't really say much about them? Basically at this point in the game the bosses in order are "Uroboros Mkono", then you fight the mind-controlled Jill Valentine, then you fight "Uroboros Aheri". Uroboros Mkono (Swahili for 'arm') is basically just a larger version of the first Uroboros boss, with the ability to extend its arm and attack you from distance. It's also got two cores in its body instead of one. Not too much to say here, a worm-person is still pretty cool and disturbing for a boss. Using it so much in a single game does make it lose its luster, though.
Uroboros Aheri (Swahili for 'end') is formed out of one of the main villains, Wesker's lieutenant Excella Gionne, who he betrays and leaves to the mercy of the virus in her body. Unlike the two lesser Uroboros, Excella ends up consuming a bunch of dead Majini during the process of her mutation into a giant video game boss, and thus achieves a completely different form which looks like a massive, multi stalked plant. Considering that the Uroboros Virus is apparently salvaged from an ancient plant, I guess this is what they are going for? It's a neat giant boss, I suppose, but also kind of underwhelming. I dunno. I really want to like these vine/tentacle/worm masses, but they're just sort of there for me. Being the mutation of a major character in the game does give Uroboros Aheri a significant amount of 'oomph' to her than just being yet another mutation, but I guess I expected something more... unique? A combination of these Uroboros designs just being black writhing masses does make them all look pretty samey. At least they do have a consistent theme to them, which I respect, but compared to other bosses in the franchise I feel like these are kind of underwhelming.
Albert Wesker
"Wow. What a mansion!" Sorry, Albert Wesker. The franchise in its many, many media may have built you up as this utterly badass cold-hearted mastermind with a god complex, a treachery complex and a complexity addiction who dresses like those villains from The Matrix, but to me you'll always be that dork who gets excited at an abandoned mansion's stairs. Wesker has been a recurring enemy that's involved in some capacity after showing up as the obligatory treacherous teammate in the first game, basically taking over Umbrella as The villain for the franchise. It's in Resident Evil 5 that you really contend with him as a major factor in the story instead of being the man pulling the strings or whatever, though, and... and you know what? I am totally up for Wesker's comic book supervillain ensemble right there with the glasses and the long coat and the gloves and whatnot. For a game that tries just a bit too hard to be serious, I do like that Wesker at least is allowed to ham shit up to the hilt and the voice actor does a great job hamming him up.
Honestly, Wesker's comic-book plan (Chris Redfield's words, not mine) translates to his first boss fight with him acting as a comic-book villain. In that he basically wanders around the hangar, monologuing as he shrugs off grenades, machinegun barrages and RPG's while super-speeding around and picking up helicopter missiles and chucking it like javelins. While Resident Evil 5 does start at a pretty dour and honestly too-dramatic-for-its-own-good opening, I do love that its climax allows Albert Wesker to ham shit up as much as possible.
Wesker's 'final form' is a bit less over-the-top compared to other main villains in the series, and I'm surprised he doesn't turn into a big fleshglob. That's two Resident Evil games in a row where it's the secondary villains that turn into a massive fleshglob and not the main one. Huh, am I mis-remembering the trope? Oh well. Uroboros Wesker is... he's all right, I suppose. He jabs his arm in an Uroboros missile and the black writhing tentacles wrap themselves around Wesker's arms and back, and rips out part of a the missile so Wesker has a giant metal scythe-arm that can extend in this chaotic tendril of flesh and metal. He's also go metal spikes jutting out of his back, giving him a look somewhat similar to RE4's Krauser and RE2's Birkin's first form. Also, did I mention that you fight him in a volcano. Honestly, while design-wise Wesker's final form is kind of just all right, it's the location, the voice acting and Wesker's impact to the franchise that really makes him a pretty suitable final boss material.
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Ultimately, an utterly mixed bag, huh? The idea of the Uroboros bosses is actually something I find cool, but they really don't do much with it despite repeating an Uroboros-themed boss four times in the game. A lot of the enemies feel underwhelming despite me really liking the generic Majini and the simpler mutations like the Adjule, Kipepeo and Duvalia. But yeah, I dunno... RE5 is just a weird mixed bag in general as far as monster designs go for me, I guess. Fortunately, there's the next game.
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