{"id":25974,"date":"2026-11-12T12:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T17:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/retromaggedon.com\/?page_id=25974"},"modified":"2026-11-12T12:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T17:52:15","slug":"resident-evil-zero-gamecube-review","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/retromaggedon.com\/index.php\/resident-evil-zero-gamecube-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Resident Evil Zero (GameCube) Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Resident Evil Zero (GameCube) Review<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Resident Evil Zero Home Page<\/a><\/td>GameCube Game Catalog<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Resident Retcon<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

~by tankMage (November 2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Score: 65\/100 (Poor)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some reason, I was kind of excited to play Resident Evil Zero. I wanted to see how they handled it as a prequel to the very first game, but I quickly realized that my enthusiasm was misplaced when the reality of what this title actually is hit me. Instead of being a relatively standard RE game with a few minor tweaks to its controls, RE Zero is an awkward and failed attempt at innovation. It also retcons the story needlessly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things that surprises me is that Resident Evil Zero was well received for the most part. If anything, I’m a dissenting voice in a sea of fans. To be fair, I can see why many people like it. Controlling two characters adds some pep to a recipe that was getting stale. The graphics are also really nice. But this game is absolutely miserable to control. Much of my time was spent shuffling items between characters and hauling my stash from one area to the next, which is ridiculous because even the first Resident Evil had a storage chest that allowed players to access items from any save room. They also didn’t bother to replace the tank controls with a more modern setup, which should have been possible on the GameCube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People tend to get pissy when I give a game a bad review, so I’ll say a few things before we start. First off, I think this game was made with good intentions, it just needed a good bit of tweaking. Secondly, I’m not here to lie about what I think and feel in these reviews. If you want lies, there are plenty of other places where you can find them. Finally, there’s nothing wrong with disagreeing. If you love RE Zero, that’s cool. No one is going to throw eggs at your house or give you fruit cake for Christmas just because you enjoy a game. So let\u2019s get started\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n

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Wrong mansion Rebecca!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A story that didn’t need telling. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prequels are always a risky proposition. There is a reason Tolkien’s Silmarillion was published after his death: He knew readers didn’t need it to enjoy the Lord of the Rings and that it would demystify aspects of the story. And I say this as someone who enjoyed the Silmarillion. The same goes for Resident Evil: We don’t need to know what happened before the events of RE1 to enjoy the series. Worse yet, the story of Zero is just plain dumb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are greeted with a nice looking cutscene on a train that gets destroyed by a mysterious guy and his pet leeches. By the way, this guy controls his leeches by singing to them. We also meet the ill fated S.T.A.R.S team that died investigating the mansion in RE1. Right here we run into a problem. Resident Evil 1 makes it clear S.T.A.R.S Alpha Team (or was it Bravo?) vanished while investigating the Arklay Mountains and that they died in the mansion, yet their helicopter crashes (for no apparent reason aside from convenience) some distance from the mansion and they end up entering the now zombie infested train. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rebecca is the main character of this story, which is also a problem, because she didn’t say anything about trains and leech monsters in the original game. She was also a side character who was fairly straightforward about being a complete rookie. Well, I suppose she is just very humble, because she spent an entire night gunning down zombies and exploring a completely separate Umbrella facility all before going to the mansion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a new character named Billy Cohen. Ole\u2019 Billy is fine as a protagonist, but he feels really shoe-horned into the plot. Once again, nothing is said about Billy-boy in the original game, yet RE Zero really wants players to believe he was the reason S.T.A.R.S went to Arklay in the first place as he was a soldier wanted for multiple murders by the US Army. He also runs around with a handcuff dangling from his arm until he suddenly decides to simply remove it without tools or a key. I know it’s me being nit-picky, but it really bothered me that Billy went around with an annoying handcuff for a substantial amount of time when he could have yoinked it off at a whim.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t want to spoil the story, silly as it is, so I’ll be vague about the rest of it. We are given a lot of background on Umbrella and the T-Virus, yet it feels extraneous. It’s the sort of stuff you can just infer from the story of the original game. At the same time, Capcom felt it necessary to add a new villain, with his own backstory: Leech Boy. Ok, he’s not called that, but that’s what I call him. Anyway, he’s a dumb villain who doesn’t need to exist. I know Resident Evil is supposed to be campy and not very serious, but a bad guy who controls leeches by singing to them is jumping the shark even by the standards of this franchise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of villains, a certain bad guy figures prominently into the plot without actually doing anything\u2026though this is pretty spot on for his character come to think of it. It wasn’t unreasonable of Capcom to include said villain since he plays a major role in the series, though I think it would have been better if they had simply alluded to him. As the old saying goes \u201cless is more\u201d too bad Capcom never heard it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there’s our buddies in S.T.A.R.S who make brief cameos only to never be seen again. If you were wondering what the first S.T.A.R.S team was like or what travails they faced before dying, keep wondering because RE Zero will give you next to nothing. I suppose Capcom thought playing as a bunch of dudes who get slaughtered by zombies would be anticlimactic and they were probably right\u2026which is why this game probably shouldn’t have been made in the first place. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Great Graphics <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there is one thing I really love about Resident Evil Zero, it’s the graphics. Just about everything in this game is gorgeously detailed. Cutscenes, environments, monsters, items, and the heroes are all beautifully made. I know the GameCube was capable of impressive visuals by the standards of its time, but this game stands out even among its peers. If there is one thing I can criticize, it’s that some of the areas later in the game are very drab and tend to resemble one another, but even that’s not a big deal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Double Trouble<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you played one of the older Resident Evil games, then you’re familiar with the series\u2019 signature combination of combat, exploration, puzzle solving, and resource management. Resident Evil Zero still has players scrounging for ammo, blasting zombies, and collecting key items to open doors, but there’s a twist: You control two characters at the same time. Well, technically the player pilots one character while the computer controls the other. This concept opens up a lot of possibilities and could be very fun in theory. Sadly it sucks in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Players usually have access to both Rebecca and Billy throughout most of the game. You can switch between them and set them to split up or stay together. If you split up, the other character will remain idle until you switch or regroup. Switching heroes is important because Billy and Rebecca have different skill sets. This made for some fairly interesting puzzles possible and it was kind of fun blasting bosses with the help of a second character, but the system gets in the way far more than it helps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First off, the AI isn’t super smart despite being pretty good for the most part, so it’s easy for your partner to get killed if he or she is with you. It’s game over if one of the heroes dies, so you gotta be really careful. It’s also more difficult to run past zombies with two characters. Consequently, I tended to explore with Billy who was a lot tougher than Rebecca. This meant I had to sort of leap frog between heroes to solve puzzles. This alone made the game feel backtracky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also had a difficult time choosing what to bring with me, because the game would often separate Billy. There were instances where one character had all the good weapons while the other was stuck with next to nothing and had to explore dangerous areas. I guess this was supposed to be an innovative way of making the game more challenging, but it’s more annoying than anything else. It’s like Capcom expected players to be able to predict the future or wanted them to use a guide, because some of the scenarios where the heroes were separated were impossible to predict. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another annoying thing about the two character system was that the idle character could be attacked even if they were in a separate room. This only happened a few times, but the game doesn’t warn you quickly enough and you can pretty much assume your other guy is being munched on by a zombie when they call for help. Overall this mechanic felt really cheap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While managing two characters at once could be a headache, it also made the game too easy. Billy and Rebecca could pop zombies really fast while together. To be fair, ammo and herbs are scarce, plus you have to share them between two people, so there is some balance. That said, scarcity forces the player to split the team up, which brings us right back to the team management and backtracking issues. It’s the RE Zero ouroboros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boss fights are also really weak. In general, bosses are underwhelming in this series, but they are especially bad in this installment. One boss follows a preset path that basically has it doing little more than going around in circles, which is just pathetic. Most other bosses can be stunlocked with the shotgun as long as you time your shots carefully which isn’t hard to figure out. I only had trouble with two bosses. In both cases I didn’t have the right weapons and was able to beat them after doing some backtracking. In fact, I don’t think I’d have had any issues at all if not for the awful inventory system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capcom also failed to utilize both characters in its puzzles for the most part. While there are a few puzzles where the player has to use Billy and Rebecca as a team to move forward, they tend to be somewhat uncommon and are often very simple. If anything, most of the puzzles were simply variations of puzzles from earlier games. I’d say Capcom missed an opportunity here, but I’m kind of glad they kept it simple considering how the rest of the game turned out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tragically, there\u2019s a decent game underneath all of the backtracking and pitiful bosses. I wouldn\u2019t say RE Zero had the potential to be good, since it merely rehashes things that were done better by its predecessors, but it could have been OK. The zombies, area designs, weapons, and even the puzzles all fit into the series even if they fail to deliver, so the game isn\u2019t a complete failure.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Inventory System and Controls from Hell<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want to know why I dislike Resident Evil Zero, here it is: The inventory system is brutal, most of the heinous things that ruin this game are caused by it. Rebecca and Billy have six slots of inventory each for a total of twelve slots. By the standards of the series, that\u2019s a lot of space. However, much of that room is gobbled up by key items and weapons, many of which take up two slots. Remember that shotgun from RE1? You wanna carry it? You\u2019ll need two slots instead of one now. I suppose they did this to make the game more difficult, but it just makes it more tedious. Much of my time was spent dropping and sorting through items instead of exploring. While inventory was a minor issue in the older games, it\u2019s ten times worse in this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the decreased carrying capacity of the two heroes wasn\u2019t shitty enough, Capcom decided to eliminate the storage boxes that were in all of the earlier RE titles. Instead of plopping things you do not need at the moment in a global box that will have your items no matter where you access it from, you have to put your stuff on the ground. Stupid, just stupid. Not only do you have to leave things on the floor in rooms you may or may not revisit over the normal course of the game, but you are also limited to leaving only ten items in each room. This is where a lot of the awful backtracking I complained about earlier comes into play. Let\u2019s say you got a piece of a puzzle an hour earlier and had to drop it in order to carry some ammo or something, then you find the room where you are supposed to use the puzzle piece. Guess what buddy, now you gotta go all the way back to where you left the puzzle item to fetch it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You will also have to constantly relay items to new parts of the game unless you are cool with trekking through potentially monster infested rooms to get the mixed herbs you left near the start of the game, which isn\u2019t something I would recommend doing while wounded. All the item swapping and backtracking made me want to quit. There were days where I found excuses not to play RE Zero because I knew I had to move all my crap from a room on one side of the map to a room on the other side. It often took two or three trips to move all my junk. And you better take your stuff too, because you might need a shotgun or something to deal with a pest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resident Evil used to get criticized a lot for its controls which were limited by the technology and design philosophy of the time. I understand why Capcom stuck with the notorious tank controls in the days of the PlayStation 1 since they worked and were fine once you got used to them. What I do not understand is why a game made in 2002 for the GameCube used tank controls. There are analog sticks on the GameCube controller! Why, didn\u2019t they fix the controls!? Was it laziness? Stupidity? Spite? I suppose we will never know. Ironically, I gave up on trying to control Rebecca\/Billy with the stick after about thirty minutes and just stuck to the D-Pad, which felt surreal on the GameCube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music and Sound<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, the music and sound effects are really good, so RE Zero has that going for it. However, the voice acting is pretty weak, but not in the hilarious way RE1\u2019s voice acting was bad. No, the voice work is stilted, robotic, and dull. It was like the actors were bored reading out their lines and just wanted to go home. I don\u2019t blame them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Thoughts<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look, I know a lot of people like Resident Evil Zero, but I thought it was a chore to play. Maybe I\u2019m just dumb and don\u2019t know how to plan ahead or maybe there\u2019s a trick to avoiding all the backtracking that I did not know about. Even if that\u2019s the case, I still would not give this game a pass, because players shouldn\u2019t have to spend so much time and energy figuring out how to carry first aid spray and bullets, especially when the inventory system for this series had been figured out back in 1996!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe Resident Evil Zero is enjoyable if you are unbothered by its flaws or like running back and forth through the same hallway a million times. On the other hand, the story also sucks and there is nothing new or interesting to see, so I\u2019m not sure what this title has to offer. Resident Evil 1 with all its flaws is still a far better game than this one, so you\u2019re better off playing that or any of the other PS1 entries into the series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually I try to recommend the games I review based on their virtues and how they fit into their genres\/franchises. When it comes to Resident Evil Zero, I\u2019m having a really tough time trying to think of who should play it and why as well as why it should get priority over other survival horror games. To be honest, I can\u2019t think of a good reason to play it. If you are curious about the story, you will likely be disappointed. If you just want to nostalgically revisit the Arklay Mountains you will also be disappointed. I can\u2019t even recommend this to super fans of the series who absolutely have to get their fix, because Resident Evil Zero just sucks. The Zero stands for \u201cZero Fun\u201d is all I have to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for reading my review of Resident Evil Zero on the Nintendo GameCube!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RetroMaggedon.com \u00a92026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Resident Evil Zero (GameCube) Review Resident Evil Zero Home Page GameCube Game Catalog Resident Retcon ~by tankMage (November 2026) Score: 65\/100 (Poor) For some reason, I was kind of excited to play Resident Evil Zero. I wanted to see how they handled it as a prequel to the very first game, but I quickly realized … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-25974","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromaggedon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromaggedon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromaggedon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromaggedon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromaggedon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/retromaggedon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25975,"href":"https:\/\/retromaggedon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25974\/revisions\/25975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromaggedon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}