Tuesday, 23 March 2021

Kamen Rider Saber E25-26 Review: I Can See The Future

Kamen Rider Saber, Episodes 25-26


Episode 25: Clad in Smoke, Crimson Assassin
So I tried writing a version of this which was longer, but my computer ate it. And as you might probably guess from the past couple of weeks... kind of not having the time to write particularly elaborate reviews or articles (the Pokemon episode reviews were just proof-read articles I wrote months ago) so... yeah, these two episode reviews are going to be a bit shorter than my regular fare. 

Episode 25 of Saber is... both of these feel like they're just building up for the huge next big arc. This one has a good chunk of the episode revolve around everyone being baffled about the rampaging Primitive Dragon form -- we get a 'worst case scenario vision-dream thing from Touma, little Sora draws a cryptic drawing about a lonely dragon, we get Team Touma discussing Primitive Dragon, we get Team Logos discussing the same thing... I do like the little short bit of Mei about to ask Touma something but seems to be afraid, but otherwise it's kind of a slow episode. Again, I actually don't mind this because it actually lets the status quo settle in a bit. 

Speaking of a slower episode, the main trio finally meet each other -- Mei gives Rintaro his Ride-Book back, and Mei's basically playing peacemaker between Touma and Rintaro. The argument between them is... kind of expected, a typical 'two friends who find themselves on opposite sides' thing, which is neat and all. I really don't have much to say here, it's nice that Rintaro's doubts are being shown but he's still level-headed enough to at least attempt a dialogue with his friend. Again, they're both a bit too resolute, but I can also see their points. The fact that Rintaro's big arguments aren't merely about 'but the organization is my family!' and it's actually about him being afraid of Touma rampaging and hurting others makes their conflict actually pretty palpable. 

(There's also a ghost boy involved in Touma's vision or something, but it's really kept deliberately vague and I really don't particularly care)

Meanwhile, Reika shows up in a pretty awesome looking dress in Northern Base, and gets to pull out the smoke holy sword and 'pass judgment' on the traitors. And at least around this episode she ends up feeling less like a chessmaster and more like a fanatic who just really believes in her cause. Which I can certainly vibe with. She transforms into Kamen Rider Sabela in a pretty cool action scene, and she fights against Buster and Slash. The action is pretty cool, and this being Kamen Rider, of course the brand-new toy gets the upper hand. Sabela's pretty damn cool, though, I have to admit. 

Sora gets the main characters back to the base, and Touma's attempt to transform gets him possessed by Primitive Dragon. He beats up everyone, while Rintaro ends up hesitating in cutting down his friend despite his earlier resolution. Then Calibur shows up, blasts Primitive Dragon back and then Calibur transforms to reveal that it's Kento, who's still alive.

...which kind of is obvious, honestly, in hindsight, but kind of an okay revelation, I feel. 
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Episode 26: Deep Darkness, With A Sword
The cliffhanger of the previous episode is obviously quickly resolved, with Sabela escaping, and Kento also buggering off after an ominous pronouncement about sealing all the holy swords. And... and the episode actually goes into Kento's reasonings pretty well. I'm not sure why he thinks that the dark world that his soul was trapped in the Dark Blade Kurayami shows him visions of the future, but the surprisingly well-done and lengthy montage of Kento seeing the world shatter and shatter and shatter and shatter despite many different events happening does really reinforce that, yes, Kento's mind is broken by seeing so many dark futures and he genuinely does believe that there's only one way to stop the apocalypse. I give Saber a lot of flak, but this one is actually well done. 

There's also a surprise explanation about the past, how a girl conntected two worlds and there are five people that arrived there. Three became the Meggido and went evil, one was the first Master Logos and the other one is Victor! Now known as Tassel! Who has been interacting with Yuri for the past couple of episodes, but shows up in-story here to meet Master Logos and gets vaporized maybe. Actually pretty neat stuff, I kinda wished we learned this backstory bit by bit over the past couple of episodes, but hey, at least we got it. And it's nice that it ties into why Kurayami can seal other swords. Oh, and Master Logos is 100% a villain. 

The entire second half of the episode is just a pretty one-note (but genuinely well-done, especially on Kento's actor's part) angst moment as Kento just talks about how he genuinely has no choice but to seal everyone's swords with Kurayami, and how that's the only way they get out of the dark future that they're about to enter. Again, the montage is pretty well-done and a nice way to get us to believe why Kento's so obsessed with his new goal. The action scene, particularly the initial three-way fight between Sabela, Saikou and Calibur, is pretty cool too. 

After another Primitive Dragon rampage with Kento predicts, we're left with the good guys mourning and crying over Kento. Slash also gets his Sound Bayonet sealed, and he's understandably distraught. Pretty neat episode, actually -- I do find the whole 'Kento is 100% convinced he's right and he might damn well be' plotline to be vastly more entertaining than the honestly pretty predictable Primitive Dragon rampaging mode bit. And we get bits of more interesting stuff trickled in the background, like the current Master Logos' real intentions; or the backstory between Tassel, the Megiddo trio and the original Logos. Again, I do think this show bit off a bit more than it could chew in terms of plot juggling, but at least it's doing better. 

Random Notes:
  • The transformation jingles for Saber hasn't been something I am particularly fond of. I don't dislike them, but they're nowhere as memorable as the previous four or five series. But FLYING SMOG! STING STEAM! Konchuku Dai-hyakka~ is easily my favourite one out of every single jingle in this series.
  • The visuals of her transformation is also extremely cool, and the book she transforms with is literally an insect encyclopedia. In addition to me liking the insect theme, hey, that sounds like an actual book title! 
  • So yeah, I guess them having that screaming Kento face after he dies is a neat little foreshadowing that makes his reappearance here nowhere as random as something like Ex-Aid's "nobody can die" mentality.
  • There's a little joke about Mei going "wait, is this turning into a love confession???" in regards to Touma and Rintaro's huge emotional moment which caused the internet to apparently explode. I don't really think it'll lead anywhere, though it certainly is funny.
  • With Kento back, and Reika seeming pretty adamant about treating him as an enemy, we get a shot of poor Ren's conflicted face. Yeah, we're going to get him to defect next episode or something, huh?
  • I've finished watching Kiramager. Pretty charming little series, although I genuinely don't think I have too much to talk about Sentai shows in general. I might give the new show, Zenkaiger, a pass, though, for the simple reason that it's a Zi-O style show and I don't know enough Sentai to really get that. I've also recently finished Garo: Versus Road. Pretty cool stuff, the action scenes were pretty well-choreographed and the ending is... interesting. Not really going to review either of them in this site, but they sure are neat. 

Sunday, 21 March 2021

Pokemon S01E81-83 Review: Oak's Parcel

Pokemon: Episode Orange Islands, Episode 81: Pallet Party Panic; Episode 82: A Scare in the Air; Episode 83: Pokeball Peril


Kind of busy IRL, so have a bunch of old articles I never posted and only edited recently.
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So... yeah. The Orange Islands arc. I have to confess that I don't remember much of it, beyond the Lapras arc and the Dragonite fight at the end? This is about the time that I sort of didn't get any real new VCD's of the show, and the best I could hope for was maybe to catch the show on air... which isn't something I could do every day. This is actually the first time that I actually watched all three of these episodes, and for the longest time I only knew about these episodes from Serebii.net synopsis pages.

And, uh... the set-up for Ash leaving Kanto to go off on some journey through the Orange Islands is sort of just pretty random, huh? "Pallet Party Panic" sort of shoehorns two entire episodes' plotlines together, and it's... it's just kind of there. The first part of the episode is admittedly a nice, necessary thing to cap off the Indigo League as Pallet Town's residents throw a party for Ash. The Team Rocket spicy takoyaki bit is dragged out longer than it should, but I did like the little gag with the transforming food stand, the instant-deploy Meowth balloons, and the bit with the show acknowledging that Charizard's a massive asshat. Not enough of an ass to let Pikachu plummet to his death, but enough to still disobey Ash and wreak havoc and only fight when his favourite cake gets destroyed. Anyway, Team Rocket's bomb assault doesn't work on Charizard and he sends them blasting off again.

There's a bit of random intermezzo scene where Oak tasks Ash and company to head to Valencia Island in the Orange Archipelago to pick up a mysterious Pokeball that can't be transported digitally. Okay, we have our quest, as little as this is honestly going to matter down the line. Our heroes and Team Rocket both find their way into a forest and basically find themselves smack dab within a bird gang war, where a bunch of Pidgeys and Pidgeottos are hiding in a tree while a massive Fearow leads a gang of Spearows around. Turns out that Ash recognizes the Fearow as the very same Spearow from episode one, and this Fearow has a bit of a blood-feud against Ash.

The conflict, though... isn't all that interesting. After Fearow attacks Ash and drops him into the Pidgey tree, Ash realizes that the Pidgeys and Pidgeottos are being afraid and being bullied by the Fearow, so Ash unleashes his Pidgeotto (which the episode flip-flops on building up... it's less powerful than Charizard, but it's way more obedient) who fights the Fearow and gets knocked on the ground. And then Pidgeotto evolves into Pidgeot. We get a pretty dang cool bit where Ash rides around on Pidgeot and even tries to capture Fearow mid-air -- Ash forgets that he can capture wild Pokemon so many times in the series that it's nice to see this little bit shown on-screen. Pidgeot showing off his strength ends up causing the flock of Pidgeys and Pidgeottos to join in the fight and they drive away Fearow's flock. Ash then parts ways with Pidgeot, releasing it and leaving it to protect the Pidgeys and Pidgeottos in the forest from the Fearow.

And... I dunno. It's the third Pokemon Ash has released after Butterfree and Primeape, but unlike those two, Pidgeotto/Pidgeot hasn't really been shown to develop much of an emotional attachment to the local Pidgey squad or anything, and I really wished they had cut the Team Rocket spicy takoyaki bit short in order to facilitate a better exit for Pidgeotto. As it is, it feels like the two plots are just glued together and as an exit for one of Ash's longer-running Pokemon, it's kind of a poor one? Granted, the show really forgets Pidgeotto exists most of the time, but he deserved a better exit, y'know? At least it manages to reach its final form and show off some badassery, for what little it means.
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Episode 82 is... complete filler, even by Pokemon standards. We do get to see Giovanni, though, which is a neat treat, including the surprisingly dark bit of Giovanni assigning Jessie, James and Meowth onto the 'Dirigible Brigade', when he's planning to basically have the blimps crash to cash in on the insurance policy. The show straight-up implies that Giovanni is willing to let three of his employees die in an insurance fraud... forget the genetic experimentation and Pokemon trafficking, this is a true villain!

The episode itself is just there, y'know? Ash and company win a lottery to get a blimp ticket, Team Rocket and their disguises ham it up and get Ash to ride their ramshackle blimp, Jigglypuff gets on (groan), we get some 'oh what terrible service' hijinks as the blimp literally falls apart, and there's some bland not-comedy bit of Jigglypuff sneaking on-board and stumbling around covered with a sheet and everyone thinks it's a ghost. There's a battle against Team Rocket that involves a hilarious bit of Geodude clashing against Weezing, culminating in Geodude tossing Weezing like a goddamn boomerang, sending the poor tumourous gas bag zipping around and ripping holes in the blimp. Oh, and also Togepi escapes and walks around like the fool baby that it is, while Jigglypuff threatens to put people to sleep at a precarious time. Both "Togepi escapes!" and "Deus ex Jigglypuff" are starting to get old and repetitive (and we're barely out of Kanto, oh no), and it's just a huge eye-roll now whenever they resort to any of these.

That's it. That's the whole episode. It's pretty dang boring, and I really think they could've thought of a dozen different ways to spruce it up.
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83 finally lets us enter the titular Orange Islands as Ash and company crash-land on Valencia Island, the first of many islands. They meet up with Professor Ivy, who enteres the scene on a skin-tight one-piece while cavorting in the water with a Gyarados. Brock's smitten instantly, but only for that one moment -- while the decision to leave Brock with a bunch of ladies is an... interesting one, at least the show doesn't make it look like Brock's trying to stay behind to mack on the sexy professor but out of genuine admiration for Ivy's scientific dedication, while also proving that Brock's kinda serious about wanting to be a 'pokemon breeder' by knowing all about the food that Butterfrees would like or whatnot. And also because he's found a new batch of people to be a parent to, I guess, since Ivy and her triplet assistants are apparently shit at house-cleaning.

It's a pretty cool introduction to Ivy, though, actually showing her interacting and trying to study Pokemon, instead of the doddering gag that is Professor Westwood from a couple of episodes back. Ivy's shown swimming with a Gyarados, feeding the various Pokemon of Valencia Island, observing a Vileplume's sporing rituals and rescuing a Raticate from the spore... we're not going to see Ivy a lot after this, but it's still neat to actually show a Pokemon Professor actually being like Poke-biologist or whatever, y'know? Oh, yeah, and the Orange Islands have 'regional variants' with differently coloured Pokemon, and they did this some 18 years before the games even thought of it.

We also get the set-up of the GS Ball. It's never explained how Ivy got it, just that it exists, it is gold and silver (well, gold and white, but Brock wants to be dramatic) and it has letters engraved on it, and also it can't be transported or opened. Ivy hands it off to Ash to bring it to Professor Oak. Oh, a fetch quest, except it's a bit farther than the parcel you had to deliver from Viridian City's mart in the games.

After the aforementioned Vileplume incident, Brock... decides to stay behind with Professor Ivy, serving as both their assistant and their multi-purpose housetaker. It's a bit of an awkward exit, but unlike Pidgeotto, it's handled with a fair bit of buildup that lasts throughout the episode as Brock is clearly enamoured with Ivy's lab and what they do.

Oh, and we get a B-plot of Team Rocket fixing their blimp because they are so convinced that this is the most important thing that Giovanni has entrusted them, and we sort of shoehorn a three-minute "let's try to get Pikachu again through a metal cage" plot at the end of the episode, which is ended with yet another instance of deus ex Jiggly.

Episode 83 sort of kick-starts our Orange Islands journey proper, after 81 is more of a coda to the Indigo stuff and after 82 being filler. It's a pretty interesting leg of the Pokemon anime's history as they're clearly trying to do something different, shuffling around the cast members and working off of a bunch of brand-new concepts that're not based on anything in the games. The results are... going to be interesting, because I certainly watched some of the Orange Islands episodes, not a lot of them really ended up sticking out to me.

Featured Characters:
  • Episode 81:
    • Pokemon: Oddish, Diglett, Poliwag, Butterfree, Voltorb, Bellsprout, Mankey, Raticate, Togepi, Pikachu, Onix, Vulpix, Psyduck, Zubat, Staryu, Geodude, Goldeen, Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Pidgeotto, Charizard (flashback and present), Meowth, Arbok, Pidgey, Spearow, Fearow, Mr. Mime, Pidgeot
    • Humans: Misty, Brock, Ash, Professor Oak, Delia, Jessie, James
  • Episode 82:
    • Pokemon: Togepi, Pikachu, Meowth, Arbok, Persian, Jigglypuff, Arbok, Weezing, Geodude, Bulbasaur, Zubat, Vulpix, Onix, Squirtle, Staryu, Psyduck
    • Humans: Brock, Misty, Ash, James, Jessie, Giovanni
  • Episode 83:
    • Pokemon: Pikachu, Togepi, Chansey, Gyarados, Cloyster, Poliwhirl, Magikarp, Meowth, Vileplume, Paras, Nidoran F, Nidoran M, Weepinbell, Raticate, Butterfree, Onix, Geodude, Zubat, Vulpix, Jigglypuff, 
    • Humans: Ash, Misty, Brock, Nurse Joy, Ivy's Assistants, Professor Ivy, Professor Oak, James, Jessie

Random Notes:
  • It's a bit... complicated because Pokemon isn't divided into 'seasons' traditionally, but "Pallet Party Panic" is recognized as the official start of the Orange Islands Arc (or Episode: Orange Islands as the Japanese calls it). It's kinda weird, but I'm just going to continue using the Japanese 'season' system because that's how most websites order it and it's easier to track. 
  • Orange Islands Butterfree.png
    • The English dub makes its first theme song change in these three episodes, changing "Pokemon Theme" to "Pokemon World" -- although this was only done on the DVD versions. 
  • One thing that does catch me slightly off-guard in these three episodes is how much Ash, Misty and Brock love to pull out all of their Pokemon out of their balls -- they do this a lot in later seasons, but in the Kanto season, usually only one or two Pokemon get sent out other than Pikachu and Togepi. I guess they now have the budget to animate a bunch more Pokemon on-screen? (Also, hey, Zubat! The show-makers remember it existed!)
  • So the Orange Islands are basically completely random new islands created just to fill up episodes as the franchise slowly moves to the release of Gold & Silver. The concept of an archipelago of islands near Kanto would be revisited, in some way, with the Sevii Isles in FireRed/LeafGreen. 
  • Episode 83 introduces to us the concept of alternately-coloured Pokemon and regional variants. It took the games nearly two decades after this episode's debut to introduce regional variants as a proper mechanic into the game! Of course, Valencia Island's regional variants are basically slightly different swirls and patterns, which actually sort of fits more to the likes of something like Shellos or Vivillon. 
  • The GS Ball that's introduced in episode 83 is... well, we'll discuss it later on if it ever becomes relevant, but let's say that this is supposed to lead to a huge, huge arc that's meant to tie with an event for the games, a way to obtain the mytical Pokemon Celebi... but the anime wouldn't quite follow through with it. The GS Ball would be explored to a slightly better degree in Japan's version of Pokemon Crystal via a telephone event, and in the Adventures manga. 
  • Episode 81 establishes that, yes, despite Kingler and Muk being available, Ash still only carries five Pokemon on his person. Why be such a dick to Kingler and Muk, Ash?
  • Gary's noted to be off on another Pokemon journey. Maybe he's gone off to Johto or something. 
  • Episode 83 has Professor Oak... uh... what is he doing to that Magikarp? Is he really studying the brain waves or something? That's actually kinda funny. 
  • Dub Changes: [These are going to be a lot less, because, uh... I'm lazy]
    • Thanks to a dub flub, in episode 81 Professor Oak refers to Professor Ivy as a 'he', but none of the other characters' dialogue have this error. This error obviously didn't happen in the Japanese version. 
    • Ash never says "I'll come back for you" in the Japanese version, making the farewell a bit more definitive in the Japanese version. 
    • Episode 82 was briefly renamed 'Spirits in the Sky' thanks to the 9/11 incident, although the original title would be used in later broadcasts. 
  • Thanks to stock footage usage, Brock and Misty toss out a less amount of Pokeballs than the Pokemon they send out. 

Saturday, 20 March 2021

Reviewing Monsters - Resident Evil Zero (and Survivor games)

Resident Evil 0 (2002)

Surprise prequel time! Originally released in 2002, Zero here is the ninth game in release order (including the three numbered games and Code: Veronica, we've got a remake of RE1; plus two arcade-style Survivor games, and the Gaiden retelling of RE1 in the Game Boy Color) and the last one in the franchise to have the 'multi-view' system before Resident Evil 4 changed the franchise into a third-person 'above the shoulder' view. I actually played a bit of the HD remaster of Zero, although I didn't get too far into the game. The story and the monster concept here is pretty damn cool, though, and between this game's leech vibe and the next produced game, Resident Evil 4, having a huge parasite theme for its monsters, I do get the sense that they are really trying to branch out into other biohazards at this point in time. Both Code: Veronica and Zero are still usually counted in the "major" Resident Evil games.

I do like Zero's plotline, from what I've seen. It really is one of those entries that feels utterly standalone (especially compared to Code: Veronica, which really feels more like a "Resident Evil 3.5") but I really do like that it expands a lot on some of the major supporting characters in the first two games, as well as giving us a bit more of a backstory to Umbrella and the T-Virus itself. A shorter bestiary here, but I do like what we got. 
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The Story:
Again, I'm going to summarize the story because I feel like it's kind of fun to talk about, as well as it being kind of important to get a sense of what is going on in-universe to birth out such bizarre horrors as the ones we see here. The events of Resident Evil Zero takes place on 23 July 1998, a full day before the events of Resident Evil takes place. A train owned by Umbrella, the Ecliptic Express, drives through the Arklay Mountains, comes under attack by a swarm of monstrous leeches commanded by a mysterious singing man, and its passengers are all killed.

Hours later, S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team (the team lost in action prior to the start of RE1) arrives to investigate a series of cannibalistic murders in the Arklay Mountains, but their helicopter crash-lands. While Bravo Team picks themselves up, they search the immediate area and find out an abandoned prisoner transport vehicle, and Bravo Team's captain, Enrico Marini, sends the team out to apprehend the escaped prisoner, ex-Marine Billy Coen -- who Bravo Team finds out is allegedly a psychotic mass murderer. The team's medic, Rebecca Chambers (a supporting character in Resident Evil and your player character in this game) also discovers the ruins of the Umbrella train... and ends up smack dab in a group of monstrous bloodstained men that don't appear to be quite human. Rebecca escapes them and ends up finding Billy Coen (who's your other player character), who is armed and refuses to be detained. Billy escapes, while Rebecca finds out that many of her Bravo Team comrades were killed by 'zombies and monsters'. As Rebecca navigates the train, Billy saves her from a bizarre monster that resembles a man but is actually a creature made out of leeches. 

As Rebecca and Billy end up getting trapped in the train and fight against leech-zombies, they discover that the train is part of an operation by Umbrella Security Service, headed by Albert Wesker (RE1's villain) and William Birkin (RE2's villain). As the train starts to move and accelerate, it eventually crashes despite Rebecca and Billy's efforts. They find themselves crashing near a large building that used to be an Umbrella Pharmaceuticals training school in the '70's. They find out quickly that it was the site of biological weapons development, pioneered by Umbrella founder dr. James Marcus; and find out that Marcus has been using his students as test subjects for his bioweapons. They also discover that there's a dispute between Marcus and Umbrella's CEO, dr. Oswell Earl Spencer, because Spencer had attempted to steal Marcus's research on the T-Virus and the Progenitor Virus. 

Their progress through the facility is watched by Wesker and Birkin. Wesker and Birkin, however, find that they have to contend with the mysterious man that attacked the train earlier. Assuming that the man is a reanimated James Marcus, Birkin plans to set off the base's self-destruct sequence. This mysterious man sends out some of the B.O.W.'s in the facility to kill Rebecca and Billy. As they fight the B.O.W.'s, Billy reveals his backstory, that he was a Marine that refused to kill civilians and was turned into a cover-up scapegoat by his commanding officers. Rebecca and Billy continue to explore, finding more and more signs of the horrific experiments being done in the facility, eventually entering the NEST, the underground site of Birkin's bio-weapons research. She meets with the other Bravo Team survivor Enrico Marini, who had entered NEST through the subway tunnels near Arklay Labs. Rebecca stays behind to find Billy, and takes out a Tyrant prototype in the process. 

Ultimately they meet the mysterious singing man, and 'he' turns out to be the Queen Leech, a mutant test subject created by Marcus in the 80's. Marcus himself was actually dead all along, killed by Wesker, Birkin and the USS. The Queen Leech had entered Marcus and consumed his brain and memories, essentially 'fusing' with Marcus, and vowing to destroy the world with his creation. It's revealed that it's this Marcus-Leech fusion that caused the nearby outbreak in the Spencer Mansion as well. This leads to a confrontation as the Queen Leech reveals its true form, but with the aid of weaponizing the creature's weakness to light, Rebecca and Billy send the creature tumbling into an elevator shaft and it is destroyed alongside the rest of the training school. Billy runs off into the forest, having faked his death in the incident, while Rebecca Chambers heads off to the mansion to essentially get wrapped up in the events of Resident Evil 1. 
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Returning Enemies!
As with a prequel game, we've got a bunch of returning enemies. I'm including the remake's model of the Giant Spider because it's a nice zombie monster-spider CGI model -- look at that mottled flesh on the abdomen with half the abdomen exposed! -- but we've got the T-virus zombies (obviously), the iconic Cerberus, the Giant spiders, the Crows and Hunter Alpha back for the ride. 

Progenitor Leech
As you can probably tell by the plot summary, the main theme of the villain of this game are the leeches. Which is one of those creatures that aren't always parasitic, nor does it spread as many diseases as many other invertebrate vectors, but the fact that they look like weird lumpy worms and stick on you and suck your blood; plus they're pretty rare for anyone who doesn't live near swamps but the chances of meeting one in your life isn't that far off -- means that leeches is pretty high up on a list of icky animals that make people feel uncomfortable. 

These leeches turn out to be the origin of the T-Virus, because as we learn in this game, the Progenitor Virus was injected into these leeches, upon which the T-Virus was eventually distilled out of. The result is kind of these weird slug-like or tadpole-like creatures with a domed head and a creepy sideways mouth (that's completely different from a leech's own creepy mouth) that makes them look a whole lot more alien. They also kind of remind me of the G-babies from Resident Evil 2, which is another tadpole-slug flesh-creature. As the originator of the T-Virus, yeah, these Leeches are pretty damn important in the grand scale of things, since it's the only reason that all the events of the first three Umbrella-related games could even happen in the first place, and, indirectly via Lisa Trevor, how the Nemesis-Alpha Parasite and G-Virus were ultimately weaponized. Since these leeches are carriers of the T-Virus, they are also able to transform people into zombies -- which makes me wonder why Umbrella didn't go for leech-vectors. I suppose being spread by contaminating water sources or by human zombie bite aren't that much more complex, though. 

The leeches are more of an 'ambient' thing important in cutscenes and as the basis of more powerful monsters in Resident Evil Zero, which is fine. More creepily is how they are used in the story itself. We get to see them turn into pretty nasty monsters throughout Zero's story, but suffice to say is that these leeches are actually smart enough to learn from their experiences as a hive-mind. Which, again, is pretty out there if you know anything about real leeches, but these are mutant leeches. Knowing that they're the basis for the more over-the-top mutations that this series would give us... yeah, sure. 



Mimicry Marcus
So these are what the Leeches turn into. "Mimicry Marcus"! Taking over as the 'elite zombie' counterpart, these guys are absolutely creepy in execution. Definitely the ur-example of a 'this only looks like a human, but absolutely not a human' enemies in the future like the Regenerators, the Molded or the Raskaplanje, Mimicry Marcus here only looks like a human, but is actually a mass of leech that swarm together and cover themselves with a layer of slime that both holds the leeches together and gives it the texture that can fool you into thinking that this is a human... at rest. When a Mimicry Marcus starts to move, the lack of actual bones causes it to wibble-wobble around, and especially since they will start stretching their arms to grab you. I do like that this is an interesting take on a traditional shambling zombie gait. And being made out of leeches, they will also explode into a swarm of them upon dying, making this another typical video game enemy that dies to fire for a good reason -- you burn all the leeches to death! 

We don't meet the Queen of the hivemind until later, but turns out that all of these leeches having a huge, huge fondness about Marcus that they all make him stems from the Queen Leech really liking -- and eventually thinking that it is -- Marcus.  I also really like that later on, when the leeches don't see a point in pretending to be human to fight you, they will show up in their 'true' form without that layer of faux-human dress-up, and that mass of leeches trying to pretend to be a human shape is a pretty damn nasty looking sight to behold. A great concept for sure! In retrospect, these leech zombies being created from the first 'prototype' version of the T-virus, while Resident Evil 5's Uroboros monsters being supposedly the 'perfect' form of the T-virus, and both of them being masses of worms arranged into a quasi-humanoid form makes a bunch of thematic cohesion, huh?

Eliminator
We don't get a whole ton of 'common' enemies in this one,  thanks to the reusage of enemies from Resident Evil 1 and the fact that they can't really afford to go over-the-top since this chronologically happens before RE1, which is why we mostly got enemies like the Eliminator here, which is Umbrella's attempt to test the T-Virus on primates before they decided that, hey, they don't care about ethics, why not test them on the humans? These are all right, harkening back to the days of Resident Evil 1 where 'zombie animals' just meant the regular animal, just mottled and feral with patches of exposed sinew and muscle. In other words... not that much different from regular monkeys.

Plague Crawler
The obligatory bug monster this time around is also pretty neat, even if it's significantly a lot less over-the-top compared to other bug monsters in later-released titles. The Plague Crawler is one of the first results of dr. Marcus trying to modify creatures genetically, using the T-Virus to 'bond' the DNA of different species, in the process that would later lead to the creation of things like the Hunter models. I do like that the Plague Crawler does look like a bizarre fusion of some sort of fusion between a fly (that face), a mantis (those claws), a mole cricket (those 'clackers') and some sort of like, mosquito or dragonfly judging by the shape of that abdomen. I do like that the Plague Crawler simultaneously looks like a bunch of insects but not any single one, and yet feels like a 'natural' chimerization of its component parts unlike the more grotesque Chimera or Drain Deimos or the more obviously-modified Novistadores or Reapers. 

These guys are explicitly noted to be failures, though, due to being uncontrollable (a problem that Umbrella's other bug B.O.W.'s tend to also have) and the Plague Crawlers that you meet in this game are actually escaped specimens. A pretty cool bug-monster, I really love those two pairs of 'bug arms' between the mantis scythes and the mole cricket digging arms. 

Lurker
Another failed experiment is a giant frog, presumably before they went to create the comparatively more successful amphibian B.O.W.'s like Hunter Gamma and Albinoid. The Lurker is just a big frog with a lashing tail, though. I like frogs, but I kinda wished they did something more? At least this one looks decently aggressive with those clawed toes and the eyes that seem to be blind and glazed over. Blind, lashing tongue... it's Kind of a cleverly organic way for the game designers to give us a "Licker" enemy while keeping the biotechnology believably rudimentary compared to the rest of Umbrella's B.O.W.'s, huh? Not the most interesting enemy here by a far stretch, though. 
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BOSSES



Stinger
One of our first bosses in the game is the Stinger, a surprisingly mundane name for a giant scorpion boss. Like, you called the common monkey enemy "Eliminator", but couldn't think up of a better name for the huge boss fight? Like Lurker and Eliminator, though, this is just a giant version of its base animal. Which fits with the 'before Resident Evil 1' vibe of things, but kind of feels somewhat underwhelming. Insomuch that a giant scorpion boss could be called underwhelming, anyway. At least this guy has a unique face, with nothing but a bunch of overlapping chitinous 'scales' or something instead of a face. That does admittedly make the Stinger look so much creepier. An all right 'first boss'. 

Infected Bat
Just "Infected Bat"? Really? You can't call this the "Vampire" or the "Blood-Drinker" or something along those lines? Infected Bat here is just a zombie bat, just, well, far, far larger. Bats are cool but just a mite too mundane. It doesn't even have the creepy blob-face that the Stinger has! At least the boss fight for this one feels like a fun atmospheric one, where you fight this dinosaur-sized bat in an abandoned chapel. Not much to say here, it's a giant bat!

Centurion
Finally, a good name. Centipede, Centurion? Okay! The Centurion is also just a giant version of its base animal, although centipedes are cool and this one is also a giant burrowing Graboids-style creature, somewhat similarly to the later-seen Grave Digger. I do really like centipedes, and this is the franchise's first centipede. I like the slight mutation the centipede's front stingers are, looking more like they're closed lobster claws than stingers. Again, a pretty cool set-piece because scorpions, centipedes and bats are pretty cool enemies,  but they are really hammering home how these are just prototype animals that haven't quite transformed into hideous mutations just yet. This ain't Star Wars, the prequels can't show off more advanced (bio)technology than the originals!

Proto Tyrant T-001
So turns out that the Tyrant in Resident Evil is "T-002",  and there is a prototype, the T-001. The 'mass produced' Tyrants and the Bandersnatch from Code: Veronica were more of an attempt to replicate the success of T-002 and T-103, but this is a true prototype.  It's honestly something we've seen many times in the franchise so far, but it's a pretty serviceable boss for a prequel game. It does look a lot less complete than the T-002 from the first game, with its skin looking so sickly, pockmarked with pustules and having a pretty nasty growth that sort of gives him the impression of a hunchback. Like the T-002, this dude also has an exposed heart (actually a weak point, unlike T-002). Proto-Tyrant is also noted to 'exfoliate its epidermis' at an extreme rate, which ends up exposing its spinal cord, its true weak point. A pretty interesting way to introduce a huge flaw to the T-001, while also keeping it visually similar to the other spiky-armed Tyrants in the series. 

Queen Leech / dr. James Marcus
Thankfully, we get a pretty fun giant-Resident-Evil monster, and... and this are forms that are made up by masses of writhing leeches, and I actually definitely prefer a design like this than RE:5's Uroboros mutations. James Marcus himself is an... interesting character, looking far, far more like a Final Fantasy villain in his human form (the Queen leech creates a body based on 'young' Marcus instead of the old scientist corpse that died because of reasons) than someone who came from the same universe as Albert Wesker and Rebecca Chambers. I guess that's the thing about these spinoff games, between Alexia Ashford and James Marcus, all its villains are a fair bit more over-the-top. 

I do like the backstory of the Queen Leech, though, giving the main bioweapon a fun little story. So when James Marcus split from Umbrella and got himself killed, his creation, the Queen Leech, consumed Marcus's brain and, in a pretty anime moment, 'consumed Marcus's memories' when it ate his brain, essentially fusing itself with Marcus's persona and believed itself the "divine reincarnation of Marcus" and I think it's implied that she doesn't even quite 'get' that she's just a leech with some memories implanted in her. Now she seeks sought to punish Umbrella and the rest of humanity. Okay, kind of over-the-top, but a pretty decent backstory that feels different and brings bioweapons to the forefront without making me go 'but where does Umbrella get to profit from this plan?'

Marcus has two boss forms, although you meet him first in his 'human' form, but then she abandons this for a more extreme version of the "Mimicry Marcus" leech zombies you've been fighting throughout the game. Pretty cool to have all those whiplashing tentacles and tendrils, and I do like that head. Those horns are apparently supposed to be two leeches that look like slug-eyes, and it's hard to tell on this CGI still, but there are supposed to be rows of teeth and extra mouths running down its arms and chest. This Clan Master artwork illustrates the Queen Leech's first form in a far, far more coherent and cooler-looking way.

But clearly the far more memorable form is its 'final' form, this giant, monstrous being with two giant hulking arms and a mass of a lower body that is just a huge gooping giant-slug slime-mass of nothing but leeches. A lot of the anatomy don't really correspond to anything in a leech, like those weird spiky tongue-like protrusions from his shoulders and back, but that sure is a pretty cool lamprey mouth, huh? I also like the wacky flower-mouth on its back, even if it also has nothing to really do with leeches. Again, the Clan Master artwork or this overhead shot actually shows the anatomy a lot better. Overall... it's a fun final boss to end on, a mass of leeches that have formed this giant Raremon-esque kaiju hive creature. Honestly, both of Marcus's forms are designs I find a lot cooler than Resident Evil's attempt at other similar creatures, like, again, the Uroboros monsters from RE5. The rest of the game has been pretty subdued in terms of monster designs, but the leeches are definitely a huge a-okay from me. 
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Bonus time!

Resident Evil Survivor (2000); Survivor 2 (2001); Dead Aim (2002)


Since this is actually a shorter article, I'll squeeze in the new creatures from the three "Gun Survivor" games, meant to tie in to the gun-shaped gaming peripherals, going for a first-person view and making it feel like an arcade game... although the American release for the first Survivor game instead changed it into a regular exploration game due to a recent school shooting. The second one wasn't even released outside of Japan, and the third one, Dead Aim, was met with a mostly lukewarm reception although it's notable for being made out of a rejected RE:4 script. 

The plot for these two games are technically standalone, but are essentially treated as literal side-projects with no attempt to tie it into the main canon in the way that Zero or the other major spinoffs do. The first game follows an agent called Ark Thompson, who's a buddy of Leon Kennedy, who infiltrates an Umbrella facility in Sheena Island. Ark gets amnesia after waking up from a crash, thinking that he's local Umbrella commander Vincent Goldman. He fights and shoots a bunch of zombies, rescuing two children, regaining his memory and escaping a powerful Tyrant in the process. Survivor 2 is a very loose adaptation of CODE: Veronica, although it's been noted that this is just a 'fever dream' that Claire had while mis-remembering the events of the real CODE: Veronica when flying away from Antarctica. No one has gone out to explicitly say that the events here are non-canon, but no one's ever mentioned anything that happens here.

Dead Aim, meanwhile, focuses on an Umbrella ocean liner, the Spencer Rain, which was contaminated by the T-Virus by yet another renegade Umbrella employee, Morpheus D. Duvall, causing havoc when zombies and other Umbrella B.O.W.'s were released. Morpheus holds the world hostage, threatening to launch T-Virus missiles all over the world, and U.S. government agent Leon Kennedy Bruce McGivern is sent to deal with him, alongside Chinese agent Ada Wong Fong Ling. The two fight and make their way all over the liner, ultimately finding an Umbrella facility in a nearby island, having to deal with escaped bioweapons and a mutated Morpheus (who injected himself with a 'T+G Virus'), and ultimately blowing up the Umbrella facilities.

Being a lower-budget game, a lot of the enemies are just a combination of 'best of' from the past four Resident Evil games, though we do get some unique ones here and there.

Giant Sweeper & Neticia
Some of the enemies are just variants of existing Resident Evil creatures, like this Giant Sweeper here... who is a Sweeper, but giant. Neticia is a giant zombie spider with two nasty eyeballs on its abdomen, apparently getting a backstory where it's a mutated spider that a guard in Umbrella's Rockfort Facility raised like a beloved dog or cat, explaining why it's so big.  There's also a "Chameleon Licker", but I can't find any images of it. Must be a true chameleon. 

Undertaker
No, not Hunk! Or any of the gas-masked Umbrella goons. These Undertakers (or Under Taker, or Trashsweeper, or the Cleaners) are B.O.W.'s in the first Survivor game, and are meant to be an anti-biohazard force... albeit comprised entirely of cloned B.O.W.'s themselves. They really are just an excuse for you to fight gun-toting humanoid enemies, and they're basically sqauds of these weird, monkey-armed silent people that obey a single human operator. An interesting concept -- a bunch of disposable clone commandos. It would certainly be picked up by the live-action movies, but in the game universe the existence of the Undertaker would certainly be a glaring oddity considering one of the things that made the Nemesis and Las Plagas infected was the fact that they were able to operate guns... and Umbrella having a massive squadron able to do that would be bizarre. Still, a neat little concept, and I do like that they're just a bit shorter and ganglier than a regular human, making them look sufficiently unsettling. 

Hypnos T-Type
This game's obligatory Tyrant boss is the Hypnos T-type, which... again, we've seen a bunch of Tyrants at this point that I never quite realized what a breath of fresh air the Tyrant-less RE:4 and RE:5 would be. "Hypnos" here has three forms because of course Resident Evil bosses do, and... he's basically half of Marvel comics' Venom, huh? Starts off as just a naked pale-white man with a giant black-muscle arm with claws, then he gets a bit more buffed and has a fanged mouth, and then he gets even beefier with more fangs and claws. The story is that this is a variant of the T-virus that will 'weed out' any lesser cells in the human body and leave the strongest cells alive after a period of incubation, leading to a far more powerful Tyrant monster. It's a neat description of why the Hypnos mutates so much... but maybe they could've done more? Not a terrible monster design, though, particularly Hypnos's final form. 

Hunter Elite
We're entering Dead Aim territory, which has more newer monsters. First up is the Hunter Elite (you know this is a spinoff game when they're not allowed to use Greek numbers), which... is just the Hunter with a bizarre cartoon shark-man face, and it's got different fingers on each hand. One has long mean dinosaur claws and the other has soft rubbery Kermit fingers that allows it to open doors. A pretty neat variant, I suppose, although I must say I'm kind of indifferent to this one. 

Glimmer
Where the Hunter Elite were noted to be 'perfected' Hunter Alphas, the Glimmer is more of a prototype for the frog-like Hunter Gamma... and a prototype for Hunters in general. Umbrella never had too much luck with frogs, though, with Hunter Gamma, if you remember, being a failed product. It sure is a funnier-looking monster than the Lurker above, being a wacky frog-man, and it's got a mass of nasty tumour-like eyes completely covering the upper half of its head. A bit of a weirdo, but I like him. 


Halbert
A giant Queen Halbert with a swarm of little drone bugs... not terrible for a bug enemy, actually, although giant hornets did show up a couple of times already in the franchise. I do like that the Queen Halbert's front body seems to have mutated a fair bit, looking a lot less like a bee's anatomy and more like some sort of weird cockroach. 

Nautilus (& "Torpedo Kid")
The island that Dead Aim takes place in is apparently an Umbrella waste disposal facility, and the Nautilus is a typical 'mutant monster that thrives in the trash'. Apparently, the Nautilus used to be a mutant Sea Squirts. I'm not sure about the anatomy of this creature because it's not really shown that properly and there aren't a whole ton of videos and screenshots of this game. It's apparently this monstrous polyp (the organism, not the human body growth) that constantly spits out these 'Torpedo Kids', ghoulish tadpole or sperm-like young that somehow have screaming human faces on it? Not going to lie, that's kind of so over-the-top and feels like something out of Devilman or something instead of Resident Evil. Actually low-key really like this one, if nothing else because the screaming faces on the torpedo kids are so unsettling. 

Pluto
Our first real 'boss' in Dead Aim, Pluto here is... an all right giant monster man design. It's this corpulent, fat creature with his left arm mutated into these bizarre giant-but-flat hand that looks like someone got a bunch of wooden planks and fused them together into a hand. It's all right as a boss, although Pluto actually comes with some pretty sad descriptions about how this is a prisoner who got essentially 'shuffled' into Umbrella's hands and was the subject to some very nasty descriptions of the experiments to try and make this dude into a viable mutant weapon (among others, the removal of his eyes to see if he would compensate -- and Pluto developed sensitive hearing in the process). Pretty sad story and sad-looking as well.  

Tyrant 091
So this was created after T-103, despite his code number, and was an attempt to fuse the T virus and G virus together. So I guess Umbrella got their hands on the G-Virus after all? Tyrant 091 basically swaps out his spiky death-hands for a bunch of whiplashing flesh-tentacles which I actually associate more with the Nemesis instead of the G-Virus, but okay. Treated as kind of a failure, T-091 apparently mutated so badly that his heart poked out of his back as a weak point. Quite burned out on all these Tyrant variants, but at least this one looks different, and his face is memorably missing the entire skin between his nose and mouth. 

Morpheus D. Duvall
There's a decent amount of story with Morpheus, but he's basically the scapegoat within Umbrella for the Arklay Mountains incident and this drove him mad and obsessed with getting revenge against Umbrella. While he went out to secretly take over some of Umbrella's facilities, he became obsessed with beauty and perfection, wanting to destroy the world and transform it into a beautiful and elegant world and all that jazz. A dime a dozen among anime and J-RPG villains, if we're being honest, and Morpheus's human design even looks like a cheap Sephiroth cosplay. He got the hair dye and the coat, but can't find a good set of shoulder pads, huh. 

Morpheus's first transformed form with the 't+G' Virus turns him into this bony Tyrant-esque creature that looks so much more unique than all the other Tyrant spinoffs we've seen before, although Morpheus turning himself feminine is one of those 'look at this unsettling gender-bender' stuff that wouldn't fly today. It's a pretty cool look, though! That hollow porcelain mask face, those bony ridges running down the front part of his body, and those bony ridges somehow giving him the appearance of knee-high boots... his massive flesh-and-bone-spike Tyrant hand somehow allows him to lob lightning bolts. Oookay, that's a bit bizarre even for this franchise. Still, random electrical powers aside, 

Morpheus's final form is a typical Resident Evil flesh-glob, apparently a result of the G-Virus in the cocktail he injected to himself, a mass of mutated flesh with two giant bone-claw hands and a mass of exposed ribs making a 'mouth' on the back, but that addition of Morpheus's face being upside-down and screaming. I don't have much to say here, at least that upside-down face does make it look distinct from the other fleshglobs in the series.
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And we technically covered four games in this one! Huzzah! Next up would be the two "Outbreak" games, before I slowly sort through the five or six other minor releases until we close the book on Resident Evil monsters with the two Revelations games.