Kombo’s Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don’t waste your time. This is why we’ve split our reviews into four sections: What the Game’s About, What’s Hot, What’s Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game’s About
Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles is an on-rails shooter in the same spirit as Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. This time around, you play different scenes from the past games including Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil Code: Veronica. The gameplay is that of an on-rails shooter, but Capcom makes it feel like you are in the action with a guerilla-styled camera system that bumps and moves with your character. Atmosphere is important to any RE game, and the more personal visual style that puts you in the boots of Leon Kennedy, Claire Redfield and other supporting characters adds to the atmosphere full of moments where you jump in your chair.
What’s Hot
On-rails shooters, light-gun games, whatever you call them, they are making a resurgence as of late. Darkside Chronicles is one of the best games of its type out there. You feel plunged in the action rather than hovering over the shoulder. The zombies and other infected creatures are a mix of slow and fast moving, so you have to be on your toes and prioritize what you want to shoot on the fly. Like any good suspenseful game, lighting is used to augment the feelings of fear and uncertainty. There is a moment when you enter the Raccoon City sewers and the screen is dark and all you have to see with is a tiny flashlight that only sheds a little bit of light. It is totally unnerving as you are taken on a path as you frantically scan the horizons to spot any glimpse of zombies. It is one of the game defining moments that shows the power of gameplay even though you are “confined” to your on-rails shooting. This game looks great by any standards and the cinematics look even better.
At no point do you actually feel like you are on rails because Darkside Chronicles doesn’t abide by the same on-rails conventions as other games or classic arcade titles. There is the guerilla style shaky came quality to the game that is both a blessing and a curse (more on that curse later). The positive contribution it has for the game is that you feel part of the action rather than on some Disney ride. It comes down to the presentation that is much like Blair Witch Project and District 9 with the shaky camera during the gameplay and low-fi, broken approach in the menus.
There is a multiplayer component to Darkside Chronicles that makes the game more enjoyable. The stories from past RE games in Darkside Chronicles weren’t multiplayer games so it is fun to retread old stomping grounds with additional firepower. That firepower can be upgraded with the money you pick up while wandering the zombie infested streets. When you do play multiplayer, the game feels more balanced since the partner AI doesn’t help out all that much. The stories told in Darkside Chronicles are sectioned off into manageable chunks, and at the end of these chunks, you are scored and graded. Those scores can be uploaded with the Nintendo Wi-Fi and put on a leader board to see where you stack up.
What’s Not
The camera was mentioned to be a blessing and a curse. The curse is that it moves around way too much. It not only will make some gamers physically nauseous, but it also will make some of the game impossible to follow. Some of the fast moving segments are impossible by design, but with the camera constantly moving, it’ll be hard to zero in on those all important zombie-leveling headshots. It is hard to appreciate all the beautiful graphics when it is impossible to focus on something for more than a couple of seconds.
Boss battles are frustrating. You’ll get into a room with a giant zombie creature and shoot the daylights out of it. If you are playing solo, pray you saved your herbs to heal yourself with because all the weapon switching in the world won’t save you from some of the cheap shots if there isn’t another gun helping you out. The health meters for the bosses don’t really mean anything either. Once they are depleted, they’ll either go into a second form or just disappear. It cuts the satisfaction of downing a gigantic creature when you don’t see them actually die. You might even feel like the game was built for arcades to eat more quarters.
Resident Evil fans are sure to get the most out of Darkside Chronicles. I’m not all that familiar with the complex backstory of Resident Evil with the Umbrella Corporation and all the characters but thanks to the magic of YouTube and friends who are certified super-fans, I’ve got a pretty good understanding of what is going on. However, if you are going into this game as a newbie, expect to not follow the story that well. The action sequences are good enough to carry the game up until a point. The real treasure here is being given a second look at how some events transpired and that is going to be lost on gamers not familiar with the rich histories in the Resident Evil universe.
Final Word
Darkside Chronicles is one of those games that plays much better than you’d expect. Resident Evil fans will really enjoy the retelling of the past stories and the new mission with Krauser and Leon set in South America that ties into surrounding events in the RE timeline. This is one of the finest examples of how on-rails shooters can put gamers into the action without having them always in the driver seat.
