A technical improvement over its predecessor, but manages to end up being worse off
This game serves to retell the missed games from Umbrella Chronicles and I think this is also Capcom's answer to the want for a Resident Evil 2 remake.
Darkside Chronicles makes some nice technical improvements. The graphics look a lot nicer. Weapon switching is made much easier with use of the nunchuck and pre-assigned buttons. The weapon upgrade feature is cool, but you don't get nearly enough gold to be able to use it a lot.
DC starts off with a pretty boring scenario in South America, revealing how Leon and Krauser knew each other. It has something to do with the Veronica virus, a girl named Manuela infected with it, blah blah blah... it is thoroughly uninteresting. Operation Javier just serves as a way for Leon to recount the events of RE2 and Code Veronica.
I was excited for the RE2 scenario. It is by far my favorite Resident Evil game and this is probably as close as we'll ever get to a remake of it. After playing through it, I just wish they had left it alone.
The RE2 scenario had many things wrong with it. It was changed almost as much as RE3 was in Umbrella Chronicles. I don't like that Leon and Claire were together the entire time. That just didn't work for me. It changed the story too much. I didn't like how Ada was incorporated or how Claire was constantly threatened/annoyed by her. The campy, surreal nature of RE2 was completely lost in this remake and instead was replaced by melodramatic, uninspired, well...... crap. The death of Annette Birkin was almost funny. She was such a psychotic and dangerous character in RE2... total joke in this one. Ada retained her character for the most part which was nice, but like Annette, they made her death scene laughable. It seemed like they were TRYING to make it bad on purpose, to emulate RE2's cheesiness or something... it just didn't work.
Things RE2 scenario got right... the environments were recreated very nicely (the ones from the original RE2 that they actually decided to recreate anyway). With graphics like this and updates to the game play, they really could make an amazing RE2 remake, similar to REmake. But no, this is all we will ever get I'm sure. This uninspired, disappointing, half-assed mess. The only other plus I can think of is that they used the same voice actors as the original. That was pretty cool.
After the RE2 train wreck, we are "treated" to more Operation Javier.
I was a little nervous to get to the Code Veronica story, fearing that it would be just as crappy as RE2.
But I have to say.... the Code Veronica scenarios are near perfect. There must have been different teams working on the RE2 and CV scenarios... that is the only explanation for the stark difference in quality between the two.
Game of Oblivion retells Code Veronica nearly verbatim, highlighting all of the important aspects and cutting some of the more repetitive, unimportant ones. The CV scenarios made me feel like I was playing a properly updated remake, rather than a totally overhauled and confusing reimagining. My only real complaint about it is the lack of Wesker. He was fairly important in Code Veronica but only makes a very brief appearance in Darkside Chronicles.
After the CV scenarios, I chose to finish out Operation Javier just to finish out the game and to see what makes Krauser turn evil. After a few more chapters of bland nothingness, it all ends and we really learn nothing about Krauser. Apparently he thinks the Veronica virus is good and wants to become more powerful and therefore must find Wesker to help him. uh.... OK?
Overall, Darkside chronicles just isn't very good. Operation Javier is similar to the February 2003 scenario from Umbrella Chronicles... it's not horrible, but it's not good either.
Memories of a Lost City was crap, Game of Oblivion was awesome.
I was pleasantly surprised by the music in DC. UC had some pretty bad music and they made sure to correct that this time around. They actually used music from the originals this time (gasp!) and updated them while make them slightly action-y. Well done, Capcom. Well done.
The infinite ammo handgun was actually useful this time. I found myself upgrading that one the most, as it was great for head shots. On that note, the easier head shots in this game were a definite plus.
There was also a distinct lack of ammo in the game too. I found myself regularly running out of shotgun and TMP ammo, as well as grenades. This made the game feel more like survival horror. I found it especially fun when I ran out of power ammo and had to use my hand gun during a boss fight... challenging and epic.
I have a bone to pick with the boss fights though. As you've probably heard by now, the health meters on the bosses are completely useless. You can blast their health down in a matter of seconds but it doesn't matter. They'll keep fighting until they've gone through all of their forms, which is insanely annoying. I found this to be a huge problem in Memories of a Lost City (namely the William Birkin and final boss fights), but less so in Operation Javier and Game of Oblivion. Sometimes you'll just be shooting away at a boss because you have to trigger something specifically (like in the last boss of RE2 or Nosferatu in CV), but it's hard to tell exactly what needs to be done. It got very frustrating at times and I don't know why they had to make it this way.
Zombie sneak attacks were pretty lame. You could be out in a totally open area, nothing in sight, turn for a quick second, and when you look back, BAM! A big group of zombies is shuffling towards you. It's like, where did they come from?? I think it was supposed to be scary, but it was mostly just nonsensical. It's really annoying when you turn around and there's one right in your face because then it gets a cheap shot in on you. If you're low on health, well... hopefully you passed a check point not too long ago!
The graphics look nice for a wii game, especially in Operation Javier, but I have some gripes here as well. The difference between in-game graphics and cutscenes are huge. It's almost the same difference as in the originals (think the differences between gameplay and cutscenes in RE2). Considering the amount of cutscenes, the graphical difference almost makes it feel like two different games.
Also, when you're in-game and your partner is talking to you, their mouth movements don't match their words. How cheap!
At least you never really have to worry about your partner. If you play solo (like I did), they take hardly any damage, so you don't have to worry about using healing items on them. They're equipped with a gun, but it's useless. They shoot every once in a while, but for the most part, you're on your own. Another weird thing I noticed: sometimes they seem to disappear. I especially noticed this in OJ, when you would run into an elevator and Manuela and Krauser seemed to vanish, yet you could still hear their voices.
The lack of bonus scenarios is also disappointing. Whatever happened to Sherry? Where did Ada Wong go after RE4? And what became of Claire? As of RE5, we haven't seen her for 10 years! There is supposed to be a reboot of the series now that RE5 is over so we will probably never know what happened to these characters.
Darkside Chronicles makes some technical improvements over Umbrella Chronicles, but that doesn't make it better. Game of Oblivion was near perfect, but I could have definitely gone without the other two scenarios. DC was entertaining for a few hours, don't get me wrong, but I was glad it was a short-lived experience. Hopefully Capcom can move on from its on-rails Resident Evil phase now and make some meaningful entries to the series once again.