Resident Evil: Revelations [2012]
I liked this one! Released in 2012, the same year as Resident Evil 6, I remembered a lot of people telling me that this was actually the superior Resident Evil game compared to RE:6. It's the franchise's first real attempt at 'turning back to the roots' and properly becoming a tense horror, before RE:7 and the two remakes would more broadly bring the franchise back.
The two Revelations games apparently got a pretty significant polish and the fandom regard them as part of the 'major installments' alongside CODE: Veronica and Zero. Particularly this one. So yeah, after a bunch of side-games and retellings, this is technically another main-series Resident Evil game! And it's a sea-themed one!
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The Story:
I actually never completed Revelations, and the summaries I can find online is a bit... wonky. Not helping is that the fact that there are a whole ton of characters running around. But basically here's the abridged version.
In 2005, BSAA head Clive O'Brian sends out Jill Valentine and Parker to search for the M.I.A. Chris Redfield and Jessica, last seen in the cruise ship S.S. Queen Zenobia, where they were investigating Il Veltro's possible reappearance. However, all Jill and Parker find is that the ship is a trap, filled with strange mutations created by a bizarre strain of virus, the T-Abyss. Chris and Jessica, on the other hand, are in the Valkoinen Mökki airstrip, hunting down a lead on an Il Veltro base. Finally making contact with O'Brian, their mission is relieved by agents Quint Cetcham and Keith Lumley, while Chris and Jessica race to rescue Jill and Parker from Queen Zenobia.
Despite being captured and separated, Jill and Parker manage to escape, and find out Veltro's plans and their intention to infecting one-fifth of the Earth's oceans with T-Abyss. As they attempt to escape, FBC director Morgan Lansdale activates a kill-satellite attack on Queen Zenobia, flooding the ship although those on-board are able to keep it from sinking. Chris and Jessica arrive and meet up with Jill and Parker, and in the process Jessica shoots the Veltro operative that was on board right as he's talking about a larger conspiracy. Parker unmasks the operative, finding out that he's his ex-FBC-partner Raymond Vester. Chris and Jill head off to find a way to stop the virus from being released to the sea (and find out that Lansdale worked with Il Veltro all the way back in Terragrigia). Parker and Jessica, meanwhile, confront each other -- Raymond having whispered to Parker that Jessica is a mole for the FBC. Jessica wounds Parker, initiates a self-destruct sequence, and escapes the ship. Parker is presumed killed. Meanwhile, Raymond reveals to have faked his death and had been a mole himself, actually working for O'Brian and the BSAA.
O'Brian informs Chris and Jill that the whole situation had been something he orchestrated to gather evidence of Lansdale's involvement in the Terragrigia incident, and also informs them of the results from the Valkoinen Mökki airstrip -- a sister ship below the ruins of Terragrigia, which was destroyed by Lansdale to eliminate evidence. During the call, Lansdale arrests O'Brian and cuts off communications. Chris and Jill confront the leader of Il Veltro, Jack Norman... who has gone absolutely insane because of prolonged injection of the T-Abyss. Jack Norman mutates into a monster, and after a long, long battle, the two of them manage to broadcast the incriminating evidence, exposing Lansdale, freeing O'Brian and dissolving the FBC. Parker is also revealed to have survived, being saved by Raymond. In a post-credits scene, Raymond and Jessica -- who turn out to be working for Tricell -- meet at a café, having smuggled a sample of the T-Abyss off-boat.
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Ooze
So instead of zombies or Las Plagas zombie-esque creatures, we finally get a brand new basic enemy in the Ooze. Which I feel is a bit of a misnomer since they don't actually ooze around and are just mutated humans, but still a pretty cool and simple name for these guys. The Wiki is pretty good at keeping the control or concept artwork for the Revelations game, and I really do like that it shows us the features of these monsters without me having to trawl through game screenshots for showcases of their features. I like the basic eyeless, jagged-mouth look of these Ooze monsters, with them genuinely looking like they've mutated into some Lovecraftian 'Deep One' bizarre aquatic humanoid monster. Instead of merely being just zombies with a creepier face, though, apparently the Ooze's mouth contains a massive lamprey-like organ that just bulges out of its mouth. Creepy, yet aesthetically still pretty consistent with the running theme of basic Resident Evil enemies having creepy things popping out of their mouths. It's also interesting that the somewhat teeth-looking part of the Ooze's face isn't actually a mouth. All the Ooze will try to suck our the player character's blood, making them like weird aquatic mutant vampires.
They don't actually do it quite as often as I remember it, but these Ooze guys gain their name because they secrete an ooze-like substance that allows them to more easily slip through cracks and gaps while hunting humans. Also, they have a zombie-esque shuffling gait because their legs have mutated into weird-looking stumps, and their arms are encrusted in coral. This is presumably because of the influence of the T-Abyss Virus, which is a variation of the good old T-Virus with some mysterious deep sea fish DNA tossed in -- doesn't explain why non-fishy aquatic animal biology show up in these creatures, but okay, it's not like the rest of Umbrella's alphabet viruses ever really made complete sense.
Pincer Ooze
As with the Las Plagas and J'Avo, we've got a bunch of variations of the regular enemy! The Pincer ooze here has two gigantic arms that are completely made up of nasty-looking spikes, better shown in that concept artwork where it's clear how the two main fingers are 'kept' within the arm before they are deployed. I also like just how much that head looks like a mass of spikes together, and apparently the Pincer Ooze still has that 'head unhinges to reveal a lamprey mouth within' gimmick that the basic Ooze has. I'm not sure if the arms are supposed to resemble any specific aquatic creature or if it's just vague spiky Resident Evil monster anatomy, but pretty neat.
Chunk Ooze
I like this one! The actual in-game animation is creepier and more pathetic, but the screenshot of the Chunk's model looks a lot more hilarious, just a big, blobby tumour with two legs running around. There's some vague insect-like face, I think, there... or is it just part of the random spikes that jut out of it? The Chunk Ooze is just there to literally self-destruct, running towards the player characters and blowing themselves up. A common trope among video game enemies, but I can't think of a specific Resident Evil enemy that can do that on top of my head.
Tricorne Ooze
"Tricorne"? As in the hat? Okay, this one's a weirdo and the CGI model doesn't really show the anatomy particularly well. Again, thank goodness for the concept art! The Tricorne Ooze has had one of its arms mutate into a giant spiky-spine organic bone-crossbow, which is... actually a mite less ridiculous than the Ubistvo's bone chainsaw arm from Resident Evil 6. I'm actually pretty neutral about this one, I like the other three Oozes and while I do acknowledge that they need a 'ranged' attacker among the basic ones, this one feels underwhelming.
Sea Creeper
We're jumping around a bit, since these guys show up a bit later on in the bestiary, but while all of the Oozes clearly don't have any genitalia left, apparently all of the four basic oozes are created when human men are infected by the T-Abyss. Meanwhile, women (or at least any women who mutated near a large enough body of water) actually go through a completely different mutation that turns them into Sea Creepers. Deep sea fishes like anglerfish actually have some of the natural world's most extreme sexual dimorphism, so it actually sort of makes sense.
The Sea Creeper here is... there's a lot going on here, huh? Six prawn-esque bug arms that are nestled within her chest. What looks like a spine running down behind the arms... which is apparently a vertical mouth. Thin, finned legs. An organic 'cape' almost resembling hair of sorts (it reminds me of Pokemon's Pheromosa). And that face! The upper half of a skull just grinning at you, and the 'cape' parts covering the Sea Creeper's eyes? A very, very cool and unsettling looking monster, and you can actually just imagine this creature moving pretty silently and fluidly through the ocean, like the most monstrous mermaid you can think of in your nightmares. I didn't actually like the Sea Creeper a whole ton on my first glance through the bestiary, but I think it's actually my favourite monster design from this game now.
Globster
By definition, a globster is any unidentified organic mass that washes up on the shoreline of any large body of water. It's any mass of vague organic tissue that look weird and tend to be the speculation that they are some undiscovered creature (all of them always tend to just be like, dead sharks or whales or seals whose body just decomposed weird). Revelations' Globster, on the other hand, is literally an unidentified mass of flesh that's pretty damn huge. And like, flesh-glob enemies are pretty much a dime a dozen among Resident Evil monsters, but the Globster being based on a real-life phenomenon makes it extra interesting... and I definitely love that bizarre, reverse-T shaped mouth with very, very human-looking teeth. It's so much more disturbing than if it had some G-Birkin style fangs or whatever, yeah?
And the thing is, the Globsters are actually originally people, mutated by the first T-Abyss attempts, tossed into the ocean and mutating into basically nothing but massive blobs of meat with mouths. They're literally just slabs of meat with a mouth!
Fenrir
This is a Resident Evil game and you got to have zombie dogs. Two variations (the balck ones are tougher) show up, but they're basically even more zombie-looking wolves than usual, actually showing off their hollow abdomen through those jagged ribcages. At this point we've seen so many zombie dogs that unless they have something unique like the Adjule or Colmillos it's just the same thing with an updated model. Fenrir, of course, borrows its name from the famous giant wolf (and son of Loki) from Norse mythology.
Hunter & Farfarello
Speaking of a familiar face returning, Revelations also sees the return of the ever-popular Hunter, something that's actually pretty damn appropriate for a water-themed game. In an ideal world both Alpha and Gamma would probably show up, but most sources bizarrely list "Hunter" here as a completely different being than the identical-looking "Hunter Alpha". I think the only difference is semantics -- these Hunters are created by Il Veltro instead of Umbrella, and are a bit larger.
Far more interesting is the Farfarello, named after a devil from Dante's Divine Comedy. It looks basically near-identical with the Hunter, albeit with larger lower arms, but also have the capability to become invisible. Or I guess do some chameleon or octopus esque instant-camouflage? Apparently, the T-Abyss virus made the Farfarello way too feral, and are completely uncontrollable without sedatives, and end up massacring a lot of their terrorist handlers. Okay, sure.
Ghiozzo
The Ghiozzo (Italian for goby) looks pretty cool, it's a zombie with with a hideous set of exposed ribcage, claw-like fins and a mouth that looks like some sort of horrifying anglerfish or viperfish from deep beneath the ocean. But... instead of some sort of deep-sea creature, or even the goby that it's named after, the first Ghiozzo is canonically mutated from Arowana? I own an arowana and the idea that they'd mutate into something so monstrous is pretty dang bizarre. Apparently the game also shows that any sort of fish mutated by the T-Abyss will turn into a Ghiozzo since at one point the virus gets spilled into a random aquarium and every single fish turned into a Ghiozzo, so the Wiki speculates that the T-Abyss just basically 'reverts' all fish into the nameless deep-sea fish that the T-Abyss is derived from. Interesting!
In addition to being demonic fish that can, obviously, shred humans into bone within seconds, the Ghiozzo's fins are developed enough for them to awkwardly shamble about on land like mudskippers or something. Neat!
Scarmiglione
Taken from yet another named demon in Dante's Divine Comedy (which was made famous because Scarmiglione also lends its name to a recurring Final Fantasy monster), the Scarmiglione ends up being one of the most powerful non-boss T-Abyss creatures. It seems like we went through the bestiary pretty quick, although I feel like this game does hit that neat spot similar to Resident Evils 2 through 4 of having just the right amount of variety without oversaturating the monster pool. The Scarmiglione is apparently a T-Abyss mutant that also has shark DNA tossed into it just because.
I'm not the biggest fan of this one at first, but I do find it to be pretty cool. That mournful face which, like the Sea Creeper, also has the eyes covered by an organic 'cloak', and the fact that its arms have mutated into a massive organic sword-and-shield combo? Sure, it's just a bit corny, but at the same time I also think it's pretty damn cool. There's definitely a vague sense of some sort of fantasy evil warrior or some shit. The concept art showed a bunch of different iterations, including a more shark-like head than what we got, but the most interesting part is that it was originally intended to split into two if you damage it hard enough, with the lower body growing some sort of weird coral tentacle and the upper body turning into what I can describe only as a starfish-dragon. It's all right, it's sort of like the Tyrant of this game, isn't it?
Wall Blister
Only showing up in the 'HD' versions of Revelations are these unique enemy. The first image on the left really isn't impressive, just showing me yet another long-limbed ghoulish enemy, but actually realizing what this is made it so much cooler! It's official CGI artwork shows how bizarre this thing is when it moves, as well as those wretched-looking eyestalks and the bendy tentacle arms. The Wall Blister is a barnacle monster, so this is what a realistic Barbaracle would look like. I'm someone who spent a good chunk of my life growing pretty near the seaside, so I'm very much familiar with barnacles and their utterly bizarre anatomy. Those arms, in particular, are a very stylized adaptation of the long, winding Goose Barnacles, albeit swapping the sharp shells for just straight-up spikes.
The Wall Blister, as its name tells you, can actually pretend to just be curled up into a chunk of hard barnacle-flesh and stick to the wall. Except unlike real barnacles, these ones can turn into a humanoid figure and chase you down. I love just how much that face has a very visible set of eyes and mouth, but at the same time also really evocates the bizarre 'mass of rock around weird squirmy fleshy things' that defines a barnacle. Look at how nasty the wiggly barnacle-tentacles look as they wiggle out of the eye sockets! A very cool monster.
Aculeozzo
The Aculeozzo (a corruption of the Italian 'aculeo', meaning spiny) here is actually more of a bonus enemy, only appearing in the multi-player 'raid mode' and is apparently considered non-canon by the series. They're neat and I absolutely love the goofy bucktoothed angry pufferfish face, but they definitely don't really look like they belong in Resident Evil.
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BOSSES:
Scagdead
We're going into bosses now, and hoo boy, as usual, these bosses represent an 'over the top' mutation of the T-Abyss virus. The Scagdead here shows what happens when the lamprey mouth basically takes over as its own head, pushing half of the human torso into a screaming, wailing mess growing on the side of the torso. Its right arm has apparently mutated into some sort of... weird organic dual-buzzsaw thing? Between the red fleshy human parts and the bloated-corpse aesthetic of the body, I find the Scagdead to be a bit too gross-looking for my tastes, although certainly fitting! I can totally see this being somewhat inspired by similar looking bosses like G-Birkin's third stage, U-3, some of the J'Avo mutants or Nyx. I can't find any images, but the Wiki describes the Scagdead as spitting out 'clam-like oragnisms that function like bear traps'. Cool!
The lore given to us in the game tells us that the Scagdead is basically what Lickers are to regular T-Zombies; it's when the T-Abyss finds itself in a rare one-in-a-thousand host that has a resistance to it, allowing it to mutate further. And while the mutation is extremely grotesque, apparently the human part of the Scagdead is still conscious, begging for you to stop shooting at it.
Ooze Rachel
As over-the-top as Resident Evil's monster designs can get to be, sometimes the human character designs raise a bit of an eyebrow. Like Rachel Foley, a supporting character that runs around with a skin-tight wetsuit that is unzipped all the way to the navel, and having one of those impractical anime hair that covers the entire upper half of the face. Rachel gets mutated into an Ooze, though, as you can guess here, and apparently she wasn't near enough of a mass concentration of water to become a Sea Creeper... or maybe this is sort of the halfway point to becoming one? It's the case of "the named character gets a more drastic mutation than everyone else", and Ooze Rachel briefly takes a Nemesis/Mr. X-esque role of being a 'stalker' enemy.
And... I dunno, I find it particularly hilarious that the game designers somehow felt like it was extremely important to keep Ooze Rachel's torso and unzipped cleavage to be utterly unblemished by her mutations. I honestly have to respect that sort of dedication for fanservice. Her mutations are pretty standard -- clawed fingers, an extra arm on her right side, tentacles that wrap out her right leg... but it's the head that really wins me over. It's there in the CGI artwork, but it's so easily missed until I took a look in the concept art. The lamprey ooze mouth pops out not from Ooze Rachel's mouth, or replacing her neck like a Plagas monster, but instead the head splits open around halfway down her fringe like some sort of hilarious Pez dispenser. There's even a groove on her character model! That changes things so much and makes this design one of the more hilarious ones in the franchise. I can't dislike this one. It's so over-the-top.
Draghignazzo
Yet another one owing its name to a Divine Comedy demon, the Draghignazzo is... uh... it sure is a giant barnacle monster. I'm going to cover Draghignazzo and its smaller multiplayer-exclusive counterpart, Baby Draghignazzo, together... mostly because I don't really know what I'm looking at. I mean, I kind of do. It's a giant barnacle B.O.W., comprised of a bunch of different interlocking giant barnacles. But I kind of can't make heads or tails of the anatomy -- Baby Draghi looks like it's got a vaguely humanoid look, but even after looking up the boss fight, I'm still sort of confused about the main Draghignazzo. It sure is a giant barnacle thing, and it splits up into two barnacle things halfway through the fight? And it sort of walks around with... stumpy legs? There's a vaguely turtle-man vibe to it, except it really is me grasping at straws trying to describe this thing?
It's basically the crustacean version of one of those monstrous 'flesh-blob' enemies, except made of barnacles. And knowing how rapidly and how bizarrely barnacles can grow, I guess it's appropriate? Through the fight you get to see a gigantic tumorous mass of acorn barnacles, giant crab-claws, the feather like 'cirri'... and a bunch of weird looking eyeballs and mouths that don't look like they belong on a barnacle. It sure is something, and I definitely appreciate a giant formless barnacle monsters whose anatomy gets more and more bizarre the more you see it. I feel like it's good, though. I've grown so numb to just shrugging off so many Resident Evil enemies as 'oh, it's a flesh glob with weird anatomy', and this one actually threw me for a loop. It's not my favourite thing in this game, but it sure as hell is the weirdest.
Malacoda
So the only good CGI image I can find of the Malacoda is of its first form, where it looks already pretty cool, albeit something we've sort of already seen before. It's a giant worm with a nasty, tumorous texture to its head, and it's got two giant centipede-esque pincers and a spinning-buzzsaw-doom-mouth that juts out from its worm head. A pretty cool giant worm enemy, and of course it's large enough to wrap around an entire cruise liner like the most horrifying fusion of a kraken and one of those Dune giant worms!
Again, another one who borrows its name from a Dante's Inferno demon, the Malacoda here is actually mutated versions of a parasitic flatworm from the Capsalidae family... although, again, the actual monster worms don't look anything like the flatworms -- they look more like a nightmarish fusion between a centipede and a tapeworm. Turns out that the giant sea-worms, as impressive as they are, aren't even the full Malacoda and are more like 'limbs', so to speak, and the true form of the Malacoda is actually an entire colony of these mutated parasites that inhabit a giant fish. Apparently and perhaps a bit more terrifying than the giant kraken-sized aquatic worms, the Malacoda still start their life as tiny larvae that can infect hosts, allowing it to grow within the host, growing larger depending on the size of the host. Our heroes encounter non-giant Malacoda as random lab specimens, before finally fighting the 'boss' Malacoda -- which is an entire colony inhabiting a whale.
We don't really get a properly clear shot of the creature until Clan Master decided to give us a neat chibi drawing of it (here's a gif from Revelations), but in addition to the giant worms, the whale itself has mutated to grow fangs, and its lower body has a mass of claws that function somewhat like a suction cup that allows it to grab onto the ship that it's trying to sink. It's not exactly our first super-giant enemy, but somehow I find a giant zombie whale with an army of giant mutant tapeworms to be a lot easier to swallow (and cooler!) than H.A.O.S.
Jack Norman / Ultimate Abyss
The final boss of this game is sort of a letdown, but mostly because the Malacoda looks so impressive and the Draghignazzo is just so utterly weird. Jack Norman isn't actually the evil human mastermind and more of a minion, but he gest mutated into what's basically the T-Abyss version of a Tyrant, a big beefy superhuman with an exposed heart. He's actually a pretty cool fish-man monster, all things considered, with those webbed arms and that snazzy single eye, but sort of underwhelming compared to so many of the other monsters in the game.
Apparently fighting this dude is a bit of a pain in the ass, and he's got some Albert Wesker style comic book superpowers, able to create 'afterimages' of himself and even teleport around while fighting you, both powers something that's handwaved by super-speed. I actually like this a lot, just not as much as most of the creatures here.
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Overall? This might actually have my favourite bestiary of the Resident Evil games, with only RE:4 and RE:6 coming close... and Revelations has the benefit of apparently actually being a good game, unlike the latter! I'm honestly very much considering dropping money to play this game in HD since I've long lost the 3DS cartridge I played this in. A very fun bestiary!
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