It goes without saying, Resident Evil is an absolute juggernaut of a franchise. The de facto leader of survival horror, it has delighted and terrorised for almost three decades now, and individual games sell in the multimillions.

Not every entry is a surefire hit, however. To some, Resident Evil 6 was a betrayal of the series’ foundations, eschewing any sense of tension for rip-snorting bombast. Others may point to 2020’s undercooked Resident Evil 3 remake, a truncated affair that stripped much of what made the original so iconic. Others still would insist that Umbrella Corps was the true low point, and to be honest, they’re completely right.

One black sheep that proves the very definition of divisive stands somewhere in the middle. Initially released for the GameCube in 2002, Resident Evil Zero was the last title that maintained the traditional formula; typified by fixed camera angles, a gradually expanding map to explore, and an emphasis on pure terror.

Its release timeline is interesting, insomuch it was originally intended as an experimental project for the Nintendo 64. Development began in 1998, beset with technical limitations and leapfrogged by entries on competing consoles — Nemesis on the PlayStation in 1999, and Code: Veronica on the Dreamcast in 2000 — before eventually being scrapped and restarted for the upcoming GameCube.

As evidenced by 2002’s Resident Evil remake, this seemed the perfect platform for the franchise. At last, the hardware could keep up with the scope of ambition, powered by the massive technical upgrade offered by the sixth console generation. The notion of an entirely new, bespoke RE landing on a Nintendo console that played to its advantages, while also reestablishing the timeline? Sounds great to me, except for one complication.

It’s no surprise that the GameCube was a commercial disaster for Nintendo, shifting approximately 22 million units, as opposed to over 155 million PlayStation 2 consoles. Perhaps not coincidentally, Capcom’s sales charts indicate that Resident Evil’s sparkling remake sold 1.35 million copies, approximately half of what Resident Evil 3 had achieved (3.5 million) on the dying PS1.

If Resident Evil was going to survive in its current form, Zero was going to have to be a critical and commercial triumph. And… with 1.25 million GameCube discs sold and a less-than-stellar reputation, it’s perhaps no surprise that Resident Evil 4 would leave its origins in the dust, never to return.

So what went wrong with Rebecca Chambers’ turn in the limelight, exactly? It’s pretty easy to determine.

First off, it was becoming clear that the classic fixed camera style of gameplay was growing antiquated. What seemed revolutionary and visionary one generation earlier was now feeling arbitrary by most accounts. Even more damning, Zero rehashed much of the previous RE remake’s concepts, but executed them less effectively.

The Umbrella Training School was an inferior Spencer Mansion. The Eliminator monkeys were inferior Cerberus hounds. Removing item boxes was inferior to… not removing item boxes. So on, so forth, you get the point. Zero was dismissed by many as being “a poor man’s Resident Evil remake”.

Despite this, I saw fit to appoint it a respectable seventh place when I ranked RE games, good enough to land it in the (admittedly arbitrary) B-tier. And after years of derision, I want to give RE0 its flowers, and reaffirm the notion that loving this game is not a crime. You’re no Billy Coen, friend, we won’t try to hunt you down.

First, its sense of atmosphere is absolutely pristine. The opening Ecliptic Express area is perhaps the most unique in all of Resident Evil; claustrophobic without feeling restrictive, featuring catered gimmicks perfectly suited to a locomotive setting. I’m a fixed camera apologist, but throughout the game’s duration, there are some particularly poignant moments where this perspective allowed for spectacular jump scares.

There’s one Hunter specifically that pops out from behind a corner in the water treatment plant, and despite being an otherwise routine moment, it stands out to me as one of the most genuinely startling moments in the series’ history.

As mentioned, scrapping item boxes in favour of being able to drop items anywhere is an interesting concept that requires further refinement. There are countless times while playing these games when I’ve thought to myself how obtuse it is that these highly trained operatives can’t simply jettison an excess object when they run out of pocket space.

This alternative item management system does have merit in some instances, creating a strategic balance when trying to determine what to leave behind. With that being said, the same is true of the item boxes in the first place, and without them, you end up dumping every single tool on the floor of a large room like a child who refuses to put their toys away.

Then, when you proceed to the next major area, you’re forced to ferry your bounty from one place to another, loading Rebecca and Billy’s 12 slots up, back and forth until you have a new trash room. Couldn’t the same effect have been achieved by keeping the pickup/drop mechanic, and then having item boxes at limited intervals? You could even have a finite amount of transfers between them, if you really want to maintain that superficial challenge. Real Survival mode strips the interconnectivity, so we know it can work.

Besides, item boxes are beautiful and special things that I always love to see, and my beloved safe rooms are incomplete without them. Yes, the sole purpose of that sentence was to add in some extra links. I regret nothing, or at least, not that.

Resident Evil Zero is also undeniably goofy. That may not be to everyone’s taste, and yes, the major antagonist magically controlling leeches while dancing on a mountaintop is a rather inglorious way of kicking off the bioterrorism timeline. But gosh, it is so much fun.

Albert Wesker remains his usual campy self, while William Birkin is portrayed without any nuance whatsoever. In the flashback where their colleague James Marcus is assassinated before their very eyes, Wesker snarls that it’s “time to die, doctor”, before Birkin gloats how “I will take over your research”.

Like, what? That’s very much in-character for pesky old Albert, but it is hilariously out of character for obsessive lab geek William Birkin to even be there in the first place, let alone cackle malevolently while Marcus takes his dying breaths.

Then, Marcus’ precious leech test subjects assemble to carry on his brain cells, resulting in the shapeshifting Queen Leech who set the wheels of chaos in motion. She is clearly the most bizarre of Resident Evil’s many curious villains, and that’s what makes her so distinctive.

And who stands in the way of this malevolent creature? Rebecca Chambers and Billy Coen, a pair of heroes who could be best described as, umm, competent. Personally, I love Rebecca as a character, though her starring role in Zero opens up a bevy of plot holes in regard to her behaviour in the Spencer Mansion. Billy I can take or leave, of course, but controlling two characters at once with the ability to freely swap between them was definitely a clever wrinkle.

In practice, it’s hit or miss. Most playthroughs will be spent piloting Billy through the dangerous corridors, thanks to his generous health pool. Rebecca would be best placed not by his side, but waiting in the corner of a different room like a naughty child in timeout. The AI isn’t exactly reliable, after all, so it’s a more sensible strategy than working in tandem. But hey, collaboration is there if you’re feeling game, and don’t mind having to restart when one of them gets gnawed on.

As far as additional game modes go, Zero continues to march to the beat of its own drum, offering the Leech Hunter adventure, or in the HD remaster, the option to turf crummy old Billy by playing in Wesker Mode.

One mode that replaces a protagonist with the series’ greatest villain, and another that basically tasks you with collecting neon boogers en masse? It’s peculiar, but once again, Resident Evil Zero is a peculiar game.

I’ll openly acknowledge that this piece has mostly been a lot of fluff, and I doubt it would convince anyone on the fence to dip their toes in the leech-filled well. Similarly, haters will just see a lot of praise that they disagree with, alongside some criticisms that they’re all too aware of.

But like the title suggests, this piece isn’t necessarily for the detractors. It’s for those loyal, faithful few, who appreciate this game’s beauty, and lament the fact that it would mark the end of classic RE. Although Resident Evil 7 beautifully recaptured the spirit of the franchise, that pure sensation lives on only in the form of indie tributes.

Maybe in some ways, I love Resident Evil Zero more for what it represents than for what it accomplishes. But when that threshold of adoration is so darned high, it is at least sitting atop the shoulders of some very treasured giants indeed.