Reviewing Monsters - Resident Evil Code Veronica

Resident Evil CODE: Veronica (2000)

With us being done with the seven main numbered Resident Evil titles, let's go through as many of the side-games that I can find enough to talk about! The very first non-numbered Resident Evil game to be released was CODE: Veronica, a game released initally exclusively on the Sega Dreamcast (hence why it was not given a formal 'number') and meant to depict events that take place after the Raccoon City Incident of RE:2 and RE:3. 

Admittedly, I don't actually know too much about this one and despite it being remastered during the PS2/Gamecube era (and again a couple of years later in PS3/X-Box 360), I don't think I've actually ever seen this one being played or really talked about. It's actually in these sequels that a lot of the actual story revolving around Umbrella and Albert Wesker get somewhat fleshed out; since the 'numbered' games tend to be really fixated on telling a survival story and setting the mood; the back half of RE:5 and most of RE:6 notwithstanding.

Code: Veronica, as far as the fandom is concerned from a brief jaunt into fan forums, is apparently pretty well-regarded, if nothing else by having the Redfield siblings actually star in a game together and being one of the games that builds up the Chris/Wesker rivalry. Interestingly, this was actually meant to be the actual third installment of the series, with Nemesis being meant as a spinoff to Resident Evil 2. Huh! 

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The Story:

Again, I'll be somewhat brief with this one, taking entirely from the fan wiki. Three months after the destruction of Raccoon City (the events of RE:2 and RE:3), Claire Redfield's search for her missing brother leads her to an Umbrella facility in Paris, causing her to fight against Umbrella's soldiers. Despite her attempts, claire gets captured by the military commander Rodrigo Juan Raval, and is shipped to Umbrella's Rockfort Island Facility. However, an unexpected raid by Umbrella's rivals causes the destruction of the facility's infrastructure, allowing Claire to escape... but also a massive amount of T-Virus samples (making more zombies) and the B.O.W.'s stashed there. As Claire is thrust into zombie-survival mode, she makes an ally out of fellow prisoner Steve Burnside, and ends up facing off against the twin rulers of the island, Alfred and Alexia Ashford. Claire and Steve end up escaping the Ashford twins, but ends up being diverted to Umbrella's Antarctica base. In the process, they manage to wound Alfred, kill the powerful mutants under the Ashford's employ, and very nearly escape with a snowmobile but ends up getting attacked by tentacles deployed by a mutated Alexia. 

Meanwhile, after the events on the Spencer Mansion (the first Resident Evil), Chris Redfield has been in hiding with the surviving STARS members. Claire's capture by Umbrella in Paris ends up being told to him by Leon, however, and Chris races off to reach Rockfort Island to rescue Claire. As Chris arrives on the Rockfort Island base, he finds himself face-to-face with a man he thought to be dead during the Spencer Mansion incident -- Albert Wesker, who also exhibits superhuman strength and speed. Wesker's plans are enigmatic, but he tells Chris of Claire's location in Antarctica. 

Eventually the two paths converge and Chris ends up reunited with Claire in Antarctica. In the process, Steve gets killed by a tentacle. Ultimately, Chris ends up fighting against Alexia Ashford's mutated forms, and manages to slay the villain with a prototype weapon and sets the Antarctica base to self-destruct. The Redfield siblings, reunited, evacuate the base. 

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And now let's talk about the monsters! 

Black Widow

As usual, I'm going to skip over a lot of the common enemies. The T-Virus Zombie and the ever-popular Zombie Dogs make a reappearance in this game, as do generic Umbrella soldiers. And we'll start off with another enemy that is sort of a repeat, but gets a distinct look. The 'Black Widow' is ostensibly Umbrella's attempt to use a different spider basis for their arthropod bio-weapons, using black widow spiders instead of the tarantulas seen in RE1 and RE2. They don't quite look perfectly like actual Black Widows, though, especially those two club-like chelicarae... but the general shape of abdomen, spindly legs and lack of hair does make them similar enough. That official artwork makes the creature look positively bizarre with that face, though! Not much to say here, a larger one with an abdomen textured like rotting flesh (named "Giant Black Widow") acts as a minor boss. 

Another enemy I'll acknowledge but not cover here is the 'Sweeper' drones, which are basically little robotic drones. 

Moth & Moth Larva

I tend to talk about the 'just a zombie animal' first in these reviews, and Code: Veronica features a return of the moths -- albeit ones that look a lot less distinctive and a bit more boring compared to the cooler colours of the gypsy moth inspired giant moth from the original RE:2. Code: Veronica's moths aren't quite as large, and look pretty mundane (other than being larger than usual) but are potentially more terrifying. They feature the Pokemon-esque trope of butterflies and moths spreading clouds of poisonous powder... but that's nowhere the most terrifying thing about the Moth. 

See, the Moth also come with their itty-bitty larvae, except instead of laying eggs and making caterpillars like regular moths, these guys spit out... what are those? These T-Virus Moths have cocooned up the humans in the Antarctic base, and lays eggs in them that hatch into these hideous things that don't even look like a real-life bug anymore. It's got an upraised abdomen, little bug legs... and then what appears to be a tiny human torso that terminates in a head that would look more at home in a weird bee or something, and two giant arms that end with huge hooks -- not even the popular praying mantis scythe-claws either? What's going on here? Is this some sort of Xenomorph-style "the implanted parasite takes over aspects of its host DNA" deal going on here? 

I ended up going a bit down a rabbit hole trying to figure out if any moths actually lay parasitic larvae... and there actually are! At the very least, the Epipyropidae family of moths lay eggs to parasites that act as ectoparasites to planthoppers, but ectoparasites means that they latch onto the host outside the body, like a flea or a tick. This is something more akin to a parasitic wasp that lays their larva that grow inside an immobilized host and burst out of it once it's matured. And even then, no insect to my knowledge looks like that, least of all anything relating to a moth. It's admittedly partially because of my own fascination with bugs, but that sure is a pretty unexpectedly fun enemy. 

Ant

So apparently ants are a huge motif to the main villain of the story, judging my brief skimming through the character profiles; although it's merely a motif and it doesn't get explored enough -- I would've liked a couple of extra ant variants if it was actually meant to be a proper main theme of the villain. Unlike the moths and the black widows, though, the enemy that the game calls simply 'Ant' only has the vague silhouette of its real-life inspiration. Just look at that warty, multi-layered abdomen, and that eyeless face, and just how bizarrely the head sort of scallops backwards over the thorax. I mean, I don't know there are a lot of ants in the world and I don't know all of them, but look at this bizarre thing that looks like an ant but also looks so different at the same time. By the time the Redfield bro-sis team arrives on Antarctica, these T-virus Ants have created a massive anthill that serves as one of the centerpieces of the level. Some of them can fly! Although they're not quite big enough to actually count as a 'giant monster insect' the way that the giant spiders and moths in this franchise can. 

Hunter II

One running theme about a lot of these early games is that they like to throw in 'variations' that are meant to represent the iconic bioweapons from the core series games in different stages of development. Hunter II here is, of course, a variant of the iconic Hunter Alpha enemy from the first Resident Evil, also known as the "Improved Hunter". The Hunter II's are honestly pretty dang identical to its inspiration (especially since the Hunter Alpha have gotten a fair bit of changes and tweaks over the years).The big difference here is that Hunter II has a differently-coloured eye connected to an earpiece.

The backstory for Two here is at least interesting -- Wesker sold Umbrella secrets and a bunch of Hunter Alpha embryos to a rival company, and these are basically ripoff third-party Hunter Alphas instead of Umbrella-branded B.O.W.'s, and the Redfields just happen to be trapped between this unnamed rival organization's strike team of Hunter Twos as they assault the Rockford Island base. 

Sweeper

The Hunter II's earpiece connects it to a specialized Hunter unit called the Sweeper, which, in gamer's terms, is just a red palette swap of Hunter Alpha. It's got poisonous claws, and is meant to clean up survivors in areas already attacked by other B.O.W.'s. Not much to say here, it's honestly pretty basic and the Doylist explanation is that the game designers wanted to reuse the Hunter Alpha assets but wanted to spice things up, but at least they put some thought into it. 

Bandersnatch

This, on the other hand, is the sort of B.O.W. variant I am all up for. The Bandersnatch here is a failed prototype Tyrant -- the Tyrant, by the way, is yet another one that these spinoff games loves to latch on to and make variants of. Bandersnatch (named after the creature in one of Lewis Carroll's poems) here is one of the cooler ones, though, in that it truly looks different. Look at those tendrils of melted flesh connecting the upper part of his face to his torso! Look at that utterly misshapen set of arms, which is an intense exaggeration of the regular Tyrant's "one powerful arm". Sure, the Bandersnatch has a massive arm with a huge shoulder that is as long as he is tall, but his other arm has atrophied into a little dangling little bit of flesh. It also stretches around like a whip or allows it to Spider-Man around using the massive tentacle, hence the 'snatch' part. 

It took me a while to realize that those green wires on his official artwork are meant to be blood vessels, too. Actually a very cool variant, and I do like that even these weaker, imperfect variants could work as enemies in this franchise since even an imperfect Tyrant can still pose at least a miniboss-level of challenge to a regular badass human. The story here is that the Bandersnatch was an attempt to circumvent the whole 'only one in a couple thousand humans has the genes that will cause it to mutate into a Tyrant', but with cost-efficiency, you get the imperfections that a creature like Bandersnatch has. 
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BOSSES

T-078: Tyrant "Mass Produced Type"

And here is the "Mass Produced Type" of Tyrant, codenamed T-078 (in contrast to the T-002 from the Spencer mansion and the T-103's from Raccoon City). It sure looks like a middle ground between the more messy mutations of the original Resident Evil Tyrant and the more complete 'final form' of Resident Evil 2's Mr. X, huh? At least, the original version of that form with two giant clawed arms and black body armour. I do like this one's chalky skin and the fact that one arm has mutated into a knobbly club and the other into the standard spiky arm. T-078 here is cloned from the more successful T-103, sans the power limiters (i.e. Mr. X's swanky mystery-man fashion) so I guess deploying Mr. X in Raccoon City actually did provide Umbrella with data that they can use. Overall I do find this one kind of underwhelming compared to the Tyrant, Mr. X, Nemesis and this game's Bandersnatch; although still a nice little variant. 

Nosferatu

"Nosferatu" here is actually the father of the two twins that serve as the game's primary antagonists, the fucked-up billionaire Ashford family. Nosferatu is actually dr. Alexander Ashford, the father of the twins, and a scientist for Umbrella. While attempting to research the Progenitor Virus (which the T and G viruses were derived from), Alexander attempted to resurrect his family's matriarch, the titular Veronica, and instead created a pair of twins (his children)... who ends up growing up as sociopaths, with Alexia in particular rising in power within Umbrella rapidly. The children used Alexander as a guinea pig in experimenting with the T-Veronica virus, and instead it turned him into this creature, the Nosferatu, who they keep chained up in their dungeon. 

Nosferatu is sure a Resident Evil body horror boss, although in a refreshing change of pace compared to most of his ilk, I do like that his colour palette isn't just gross fleshy red meat but is a shade of chalky green-gray that ties into his 'bound prisoner' vibe. With his arms tied (or fused?) onto his back, and a bunch of massive claws bursting out of his back (I love that one is just larger than the other) Nosferatu isn't anything overly special even in the context of the state of the franchise at this point, but a serviceable 'first act' boss for sure. 

Gulp Worm

I feel like the earlier-released Grave Digger from Resident Evil 2 is a far cooler giant worm monster, but this guy's cool too! Ostensibly a mutated earthworm, the Gulp Worm has an appropriately hideous knobbled body with a mass of finger-like rods forming a face, and massive spheres running down his body. The mouth opens up like a flower, again, something that I really enjoy and fits extremely well in the series. It's certainly big enough of a maw to, like its name implies, swallow humans in a single gulp. Apparently the Gulp Worms that Claire and Chris fought in this game are also prototypes that aren't perfected just yet, and are actually used so Umbrella's goons have some practice against B.O.W.'s. An interesting little backstory for what could've been just a random giant worm enemy they tossed in the middle of the game.  

Albinoid

A huge weirdo! The Albinoid is a bit of an oddity, but the game identifies it as being mutated from a salamander. That tail is certainly recognizable, and it's fought in a pool, but the rest of the creature looks so weird. The gangly limbs aside, just look at that face! It's just two bumps that seem to be more shoulder muscle than any sort of head, and its real head seems to be this featureless mass with two 'feeler' tentacles tucked in-between the huge sholder muscles. Some albino cave salamanders are famous for being blind troglodytes, and I suspect that it's probably the inspiration for Albinoid here, but what an  interesting way to communciate that this is a blind creature. Just look at that artwork in particular, though... there really isn't any reason for this thing's limbs and torso to look so much like a human, but it does. There are also a bunch of extra bizarre features here. The Albinoid's mutations means that it has to live exclusively in water, and it can pull an electric eel and zap anyone who comes into his pool. 

Also, apparently salamanders are just that receptive to being mutable by these bioweapon viruses... and I wonder if the same team that designed the Albinoid was also responsible for Resident Evil 4's Del Lago... who looks just so mundane compared to this abomination. Honestly, I feel like this might be one of the stronger entries from the franchise, the more I look at it. It's so disturbing without feeling like an over-the-top gore-fest; its anatomy isn't overly reliant on cramming too many details into it, and yet it just looks utterly disgusting and disturbing. 

Your characters even get to go through the laboratory where the Albinoids are bred, where they are essentially 'tadpole' versions of the matured boss, with tiny tadpole legs... but still with the weird butt-face. That concept art also shows what's going on with Albinoid anatomy that also applies to the mature stage; it's got a nasty lamprey mouth underneath that butt-head!

 

Steve Burnside

One of the bosses is Steve Burnside, Claire's short-lived love interest and the child of a renegade Umbrella employee. The poor chap gets injected with the T-Veronica virus and gets turned into a monster and Claire is forced to kill him. Design-wise it's a competent-looking 'bulked up' form, and he sure has a bunch of spiky growths and some monstrous bug-man limbs. An all right monster design if nothing that particularly strikes my fancy and it's pretty tame by the standards of 'named character gets mutated' in this franchise, although I am pretty sure that I would definitely have cared more if I played through the game.

Alexia Ashford

And here we have the final boss and final mastermind of the game's story, Alexia Ashford, who has a pretty long backstory which I talked about a bit with her 'dad' Alexander up above. She's the result of an attempt to clone the matriarch of the Ashford family, Veronica Ashford. She's extremely smart for her age, sadistic, and completely obsessed with ants, creating the T-Veronica strain by combining the T-virus with queen ant DNA. Her backstory is actually quite detailed for such an early game in the series, which is neat. 

Also, I didn't quite realize this, but Alexia Ashford is actually the franchise's first final boss that is so intelligent that she's actually talkative throughout the battle. Sure, Nemesis is 'smart', but he's a silent murder-machine and more of a force of nature than a character. Alexia is a full-fledged character with a personality and everything, and as she transforms into her monster forms she continues to talk and taunt the Redfields. Considering that this was the intended third main series story, having the final bosses go from the bestial Tyrant, to the cunning-but-animalistic Mr. X and G, to a fully intelligent being like Alexia is a neat progression of concepts. 

Alexia's first transformation is actually not that interesting in-game, it just features part of her naked body (I won't actually complain; we've had naked muscle-men in previous installments) turning into this weird gray organic crust... but the artwork makes it look like she's turning her legs and arms into some sort of insectoid part... or is it meant to evoke an insect nest? I also do like the weird tentacle-esque 'hair' that she's got going on. In this form she's able to ignite her own blood, or control giant plant vines called 'Alexia Pods'. 

Alexia, predictably, mutates even further, and... wow, that original concept art was certainly... uh... it sure looks Giger-esque, yeah? The remains of her humanoid torso is just fused from the waist down with some bizarre phallic/yonic fusion of weird organic cement that wouldn't look out of place in one of those creator alien ships from the Alien franchise. Thankfully they decided to go against this idea, and go for a more obviously insect-themed form. 

Alexia Part 2 is a nice combination of the somewhat-tired 'giant bloated queen insect abdomen' trope and making part of her body a flower. Alexia, if you couldn't guess, is one of those anime villains obsessed with beauty and perfection, and she sees this in her ant friends. And also flowers, because the progenitor virus has a vague plant theme to it (Resident Evil 5 would confirm that the very first progenitor virus is, in fact, a flower). With three giant long mantis claws and a body that sprouts out of a huge flower, this is actually a pretty neat plant-insect creature. It's just that, well, as I mentioned earlier, I kinda wish that the 'ant' and 'plant' theme was communicated a bit better, perhaps in a couple of extra monsters. 

Alexia's "perfect" form is a fun one, too, and I like how the artwork and the in-game model has the same silhouette and major anatomic features but give such a different vibe. The general look is the same -- humanoid head and torso, but the arms are replaced with bug wings and the pelvis and legs are replaced with a stinger. It's just that in the original artwork, Alexia looks pathetic and decrepit. Her lower body looks like incomplete bone, the vessels streak across her chest like nasty vines, her expression is forlorn and the wings are tattered. 

Compare it to the in-game model. The wings aer straight, complete and proud. Her humanoid chest is flawlessly armoured in chitin. Her face has a little crown of flower. Her lower body is a mixture of venus flytrap arranged like a pelvis and a massive bug stinge, none of which look knobbled and nasty as the original artwork. I do like that as monstrous as the form is, the in-game model goes for the 'cool' factor, giving an impression that Alexia did achieve the bug-plant-person perfection that she's looking for. 

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A surprisingly fun bestiary for a pretty fun story, and even though I did complain about a lack of cohesive theming, we did get a lot of great designs and neat concepts out of this one. Time will tell if Capcom will remake the spinoff games as well (Code Veronica seems to be beloved enough that I wouldn't put it past them to have this be branded like Resident Evil 3.5 or something) but it's been a fun jaunt down the line.