[Intro]
So, Pie and I have finished all the story content in Resident Evil 6. This game deserves a unique bit of honor from me, in that it’s the first game to make me want to write about games, in a long time. Alongside Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, of course, which I can now dedicate an intense amount of attention to. I’ll probably write about that next.
Resident Evil 6 is the black sheep of the franchise, in a way not dissimilar to how Resident Evil 4 was for a portion of the playerbase, who valued the greater tension and suspense of the early games with their fixed camera angles and more deliberate controls which demanded immense focus under pressure.
Just like Resident Evil 4, which commanded the love of the wider Resident Evil community, RE6, for the balls-to-the-wall action romp that it is, has its own support, albeit much, much less than the mainstream adoration RE4 received. After finishing, I’m one of those supporters, because I went in under no illusion that RE6 is meant to be taken as a serious representative of the overall franchise in tone and player-experience. Still, it’s an important part of it. What I would say is, do not skip RE6, but remain aware that it is non-standard and treat it appropriately.
[Player Background]
What’s my experience with Resident Evil? Firsthand, not as rich as it should be. I know things about this franchise, I consider it one of the greats of the industry and you can’t claim to have huge knowledge of games without at least knowing something about Resident Evil. The franchise has always fascinated me and I’ve found things to love about it, even as I hadn’t played them for many years. My first Resident Evil game was Nemesis, long ago, on the PS1 when I was tiny. The Nemesis freaked me out, bad. I never beat it. Revelations 1 on the 3DS was the first RE game I played after that point, years later, and it was the first one I ever finished. Being kind of a middle-point between the Action of something like RE6 and the tension of the traditional Resident Evil games, it was a decent point for me to jump in, and I enjoyed myself much more than I thought I would. At that point I’d considered horror games to not be something I could ever really enjoy. But Capcom makes horror games that are very unique and differ greatly from those of other creators. And I was in. After that, I played Revelations 2′s story mode and a bunch of Raid Mode. I left RE alone for a while because other games seized my attention. Recently, I played the 30-Minute Demo for RE2 Remake, fell in love with it, remembered how expensive RE2 Remake is, and lamented not being able to get it. But… I was hungry for Resident Evil in a very real way.
[Motivation]
I bought two copies of RE6 for myself and Pie so we could burn through that whole game together, after we’d both watched Why Resident Evil 6 Is Awesome by Charlie (TGBS) as well as The Best Bad Game by Raycevick. Those two videos sold me on this game, nigh-instantly. Pie’s RE Experience is even less than mine, and it largely consisted of her playing a bunch of Rev2 Raid Mode with me, watching various design videos on RE together, and checking out my stream of RE2 Remake’s demo.
After seeing the video, I chose for us to play the Campaigns in this order:
Jake/Sherry -> Leon/Helena -> Chris/Piers -> Ada Wong
I rate the campaigns in this order too, best to worst. The gameplay in them seemed to get progressively worse as we played, but they were all cool campaigns that we wanted to see through to the end. The story was something I enjoyed a lot, and it kept us going for its wacky shenanigans and conspiratorial revelations about what kooky shit the bioterrorists of the week are cooking up behind the scenes, all while our heroes are their classic selves, in an iteration of these games that lets them completely unleash the devastating cool-factor each of them have. Seeing these guys and gals in cutscenes just reminds you that this game was, in fact, made by the people who also make Devil May Cry, and every single protagonist in this game is a freaking badass in the specific ways they express.
Here are my thoughts on all the campaigns in Resident Evil 6, the gameplay, the characters, the story, and what my next plans are for this incredible franchise.
[Jake and Sherry: The Price of the World]
Jake and Sherry were the first campaign we were exposed to, and for various reasons I think it became our favorite. I feel we saw enough of ourselves in the character we were playing, and as our first exposure to the cooperative action in the game, it was our first experience depending on each other and using our characters’ unique weapons and moves to our benefit.
Jake is a character I never expected to play in a Resident Evil game but the way in which he fights is emblematic of Resident Evil 6 as a whole. He literally has melee combos with his fists and feet, effectively letting you play Resident Evil as an incredibly agile brawler, slaughtering enemies and dashing to and fro. This is not Resident Evil but Jake doesn’t care. He also doesn’t care about saving the world.
Sherry’s campaign starts with Jake injecting himself with Chrysalid-Virus and being completely unfazed. When he tries to eat an apple, he’s rudely interrupted by an infected soldier in the group he was fighting in, and he doesn’t take kindly to being denied his snack. After he takes the monster down, Sherry arrives and tells him that his immunity means his blood is needed to protect humanity. He asks an absurd price for a pint of his blood, which carries antibodies to the C-Virus. Sherry is tasked with extracting Jake and bringing him back to her handler Simmons so humanity can be saved by making a vaccine from Jake’s blood. Easy enough. Jake quickly learns that Sherry has had run-ins with engineered viruses herself, after she heals from what should be a fatal wound. There’s a problem, though. Other actors in Resident Evil’s world want Jake’s blood too, and an incredibly resilient pursuer, Ustanak, reminiscent of the Nemesis and Mr. X, is at their heels. This enemy is encountered by Jake and Sherry in every mission, which are each chunked off from each other with menus in between, and they have to find a way to overcome his presence together. Jake is comparatively overpowered next to Sherry, who’s capable of defending herself and him owing to her training, but the overwhelming damage he can apply to the undead makes him end up feeling, at times, like her protector, which was an interesting twist in some ways. An escort mission is less aggravating when your charge is your co op partner, potentially a person you really care about in real life. Though, technically Sherry’s the one escorting Jake out of Edonia.
The story here was the coolest, as Jake and Sherry intersect with everyone else’s campaigns in possibly the most impactful ways, even fighting alongside Leon Kennedy, which is always a freaking cool moment for any Resident Evil player — like fighting beside Snake or Raiden is in MGS.
Jake and Sherry have one of the two final bosses in this game that feel appropriately Resident Evil-y. In this campaign, because Ustanak has chased you throughout the entire game the player has a strong incentive to take him down for good in a final act of self-defense. The invincible pursuer being felled by the player in the end is something I really like in Resident Evil games, I’ll probably never get sick of the idea. It feels appropriate taking down Ustanak together, Jake keeping Sherry’s hand stable for her as she fires the killing shot from a high-powered pistol, both of them saving each other. By refraining from using the Rocket Launcher as the iconic boss-killing weapon here, RE6 kind of ‘codes’ these kids, who are of the ‘next generation’ of RE protagonists, as distinct from their mentors. While it was bittersweet seeing Jake and Sherry go their separate ways, because seeing them together was so warm and enjoyable, it was also heartwarming to see that Jake agreed to help the world, and that Sherry managed to melt through his cynical, steeled exterior to show him the value of caring about others. It was satisfying, we both hoped to see Jake and Sherry return in future games, and Leon’s campaign was next.
[Leon and Helena: Like The Bad Old Days]
Leon and Helena evoke the closest sense of classic Resident Evil that you’re going to get in this game, dredging up deja vu and bad memories from days Leon thought were long behind him, back in Raccoon City. Helena is someone who’s got secrets of her own. It starts off claustrophobic, slow, with limited resources and an incentive to use melees much more strategically, sometimes even running past enemies. Barring the obligatory Wave Defense sections in the city, the early stretches of Leon’s campaign are the tensest the game ever got, at least in a good way.
Leon’s campaign was, for me, the first time I really had to step up my combat skill. I found I was running out of bullets quicker, after being so excessive in Jake’s campaign, and I learned the value of stunning and running past enemies more often, as well as applying a Stun to open Contextual Melees. Helena and Leon are more equally-matched than Jake and Sherry, offering a different feel to this storyline. Here, relying on each other was tenser for me, not only because of the increased difficulty and slowed pace of killing zombies, but because we were roughly equivalent in training and ability, it made any danger more frightening. The only thing Leon’s really got over Helena is that he potentially has more experience fighting BOWs throughout his life, and this once again mirrored Pie and I in my mind. I’d played more Resident Evil than she had at this point, but she now knew enough to be just as competent as me in 99% of situations, sometimes pulling off her own clutch moments when I needed them most. Leon Kennedy is at this point a strong candidate for “Main Character of Resident Evil,” he’s definitely the character people know about most these days, if you were to ask around. Playing as this legendary figure in the RE universe was a cool experience, especially after playing the RE2 Remake Demo, and seeing how this capable but terrified rookie cop on his first day eventually turns into a dual-pistol slinging badass who keeps his cool (and still crashes cars) was a really nice contrast for me.
Also… My real name is Leonid, I could’ve easily chosen to nickname myself Leon rather than Leo. My last name starts with a K. You can imagine, playing as Leon Kennedy is always a wild ride for me. Contrasted against Jake’s standoffish antihero vibe, Leon is straight-up a Hero. He is a good, good guy in nearly every way you can be a good guy, and because I don’t normally play this kind of character, it was interesting to let myself relax into that mindset of being as heroic as I can be. He’s always going to try saving people who need saving, even if it’s a risk, or will take too long. He’s gotta try. That’s just who he is.
Leon and Helena’s campaign ends with an utterly ridiculous final boss who you fight over the course of an entire chapter, and the final third of the previous one. Yes, that is how bonkers RE6 chooses to end its most ‘traditional’ storyline, and it all caps off with an amazing moment where Leon jumps in to keep Ada safe, and she, him, and Helena all fight off their most dangerous enemy’s progressively-mutating form as a hell of a team. The three of them working together make for a very Rule of Cool vibe and I appreciated every moment.
The absolute last moment of it all was incredibly cathartic, seeing that classic Rocket Launcher waiting at the helicopter for us to shoot at the boss with and silence his terror is something you just have to grin at if you know the tradition of Resident Evil’s final bosses falling to an ally passing you a clutch Rocket Launcher right in the eleventh hour. After a harrowing journey of scrounging for simple bullets and items, you blow the horrible monster that is the final boss to blood and flame with the most powerful armament in the game.
I never, ever want this tradition to die. It can be twisted by some games and stories, like giving the player a powerful pistol, or one with special ammo, right as their character seems hopeless and needs it most, but the last-minute Super Weapon to land the final shot on the monster with is a Resi trope that is god damn iconic. Leon’s campaign was an incredible chance to pull that iconic moment off with a partner, and both of us ended up pulling the triggers on our Rocket Launchers simultaneously. Resident Evil’s optimistic endings return in full force here, as not only are Helena and Leon free people, their innocence and bravery recognized, Helena gets a position on Leon’s team, fighting beside the person she got used to in her first outing as a Resident Evil protagonist. Chris and Piers next.
[Chris and Piers: The Chains of the Past]
Chris Redfield and Piers Nivans’ campaign is the saddest one in the game. Sorrow and trauma permeates it from beginning to end, beginning with a broken hero, whose loyal friend still believes in him. Chris is content to drink what remains of his life away, in part because he doesn’t remember what horrible event befell him a long time ago. Maybe he doesn’t even want to remember. If it was bad enough to forget about then… Why not? But when duty calls, Chris has no real choice but to answer that call.
As they fight to track down the apparent perpetrator of a great tragedy against them, Chris regains his memories all while Piers, despite being his subordinate, pushes him to stay strong and keep moving, one foot in front of the other. It’s a tale of brotherhood against any hardship, and if I’d played it with my best friend I might’ve found it much more profound and touching. Eventually, Chris finds out that a major Resident Evil character apparently caused the deaths of his entire squad, everyone except him and Nivans, and he struck his head at the end of that already horrific ordeal, giving him amnesia. When he remembers who he is and what happened, a great deal of his drive returns, but worryingly to Nivans, it manifests in a very self-destructive, suicidal manner. Chris begins to throw himself into every situation with reckless abandon and disregard for himself. He fights hard and fast, and relishes in the vengeance of killing BOWs. Tragically, his men continue to die around him, even in the present day, to powerful monsters and awful situations. Through it all, Piers is right there, trying to get his captain back, make him see sense.
The gameplay here is for me, best characterized by the word Endurance. Chris’ campaign is exhausting, moreso than any other, I felt. You can really feel how hard he’s pushing himself, and by extension, Piers beside him, when he throws himself into these grueling combat encounters, seeming to only survive because his skills just barely edge out over his death-wish. Time after time, we were placed in scenarios where we just had to hold out, against encroaching waves of enemies. This storyline started out almost resembling a low-mobility cover shooter in the beginning, and like every other, wove into the Resident Evil, anti-BOW, grand-stakes stuff near the end. Enemies in this campaign, for various reasons, felt even more resilient than those in the previous ones, taking longer to be killed or at least coming at us in more overwhelming numbers. We probably died more times here than in the other storylines, and the many horde-based defense sections really tested our ability to dig in and control space.
After saving Jake and Sherry in the latter part of their story, Chris and Piers face off against HAOS, which is basically the end of the world, as the game explains it. This monster’s function is to essentially act as a biological nuke, infecting the entire world with C-Virus if it manages to escape and detonate itself outside. If Chris and Piers fail here, humanity is well and truly dead, so these are the grandest stakes throughout the entire game. I didn’t enjoy this storyline as thoroughly as I liked the previous two we played, but this final boss was a very worthy opponent, even if it wasn’t as awesome on a personal level as Ustanak, or Leon and Helena’s enemy.
This time the unique superweapon that HAOS must be killed by was very unique, because it makes very direct use of the nature of Resident Evil 6 and how it was developed as a co-op game from the ground up. Seeing that they have failed, that Chris is being killed by HAOS, and with his arm crushed under heavy debris, Piers does the only thing he can think of; injects himself with an intense dose of the C-Virus… In an incredible moment of courage, he sacrifices his humanity and his chance at survival, all so he and Chris can have a chance right now. As a result of this, Piers’ arm mutates, and he gains the ability to fire uncharged or charged lightning-beams at HAOS, at the cost of his own Health Bar. Doing this allows him to break HAOS apart into pieces, which Chris can then take advantage of, using his Combat Knife to deal a point of Damage to the creature.
In the end, Piers ends up forcing Chris to leave him in the underwater facility, knowing he’ll mutate completely soon, and performs one final act of selflessness. As HAOS chases Chris’ escape pod, Piers kills it with one last stream of lightning so powerful it rips the entirety of his life away. With his courage, faith and loyalty to his captain, Piers ends up teaching Chris an agonizing but beautiful lesson that he shouldn’t blame himself for the deaths of those who follow him. They may die, especially in a world as harsh as this one, but he shouldn’t doubt his ability to inspire, to give hope to others. He shouldn’t hate himself for losing them. Honoring Piers’ hopes and wishes, Chris is seen rejoining the BSAA after the credits. Piers’ death was an emotional moment and it definitely feels like Chris walks away from this game having been handed the roughest deal. It was time to wrap things up, and see what Ada had been doing this entire time.
[Ada Wong: Chasing Her Shadow]
Ada Wong is well-known as one of the most capable characters in the Resident Evil franchise. She’s that mysterious character you see in a lot of Japanese games, manga and anime that appears, lends a hand in all the right moments, instantly kills all the worst enemies in the most stylish, efficient ways, and always gives you the only weapon that can save you, right when you need it most. Ada’s campaign is the only one that was designed as a solo venture, and I let Pie take the lead as her character, while I played as… Agent.
Agent is a non-character, he’s a faceless, generic soldier who appears in none of Ada’s cutscenes, doesn’t have any dialogue at all, is unnecessary for completing puzzles or opening doors, and he’s purely there so Ada’s campaign can be played in Co Op, being completely absent from her story in any way, and basically just acting as a second gun to help her kill enemies. I was interested enough in Ada’s story and had taken the front seat as the leading character in all the other campaigns, so I was more than happy to sit back as Agent and help us carve through Ada’s search for the truth. A doppelganger of hers had been created in a lab, with a virus, by someone who just couldn’t let Ada go, which is an aptly unsettling plot-point that makes a certain villain all the more reprehensible, and made me all the more happy I shot a Rocket-Propelled Grenade into his face.
The gameplay in Ada’s campaign was definitely the worst, excepting certain key moments which felt awesome. Even with two players, some scenes felt unreasonably difficult due to grab animations certain enemies have that are very difficult to stay away from, as well as puzzles, which would normally be fine in classic RE games, slowing down the pace here of what should be this game’s grand finale, since you’re meant to play Ada’s campaign last. Pie enjoyed Ada’s campaign a lot, because her Crossbow is insanely powerful, and satisfying to shoot, and she’s actually good at puzzles, unlike me, so she was fine.
Nonetheless, despite the stumbles, we persevered, and there were two or three very interesting scenes. Ada even gets her own boss to kill, though it being designed for one player and me being there applying my full second player’s damage onto it meant Pie maybe killed that boss faster than she was intended to.
Over the course of Ada’s campaign we see all the moments in which she stepped into the other characters’ storylines, and it felt kind of cool seeing an alternate perspective of the other stories, as we help Leon and Helena defeat their enemies, save Jake and Sherry from a terrifying attacker with sniper rifles from afar, and finish the entire game by setting up that classic Rocket Launcher for Leon and Helena then disappearing into the shadows again. It felt kind of mythical being that benefactor who gives the Rocket Launcher to the hero this time, delivering on the logical extreme of the premise of Ada’s campaign; showing us what it feels like to be that other character who helps out from behind the scenes and vanishes again. Her story ends with her tying up every loose end, then receiving a call from an employer who’s got more mercenary work for her.
Off she goes, to presumably do badass Ada things somewhere else, and we get a final cutscene of Jake protecting a kid from BOWs for the price of… A single apple, the fruit he never got to eat in the very beginning. It felt cool that for the two of us, Resident Evil 6 begins and ends with Jake Muller.
[Next Steps]
I really liked Resident Evil 6 as a whole experience. Despite the campaigns becoming slightly less enjoyable as they went on, I do recommend playing them in that order. If I were to play RE6 again with a fresh mind, after having wiped my memory, I would still choose to play everyone’s routes in this same order. I feel it just works best that way.
Resident Evil 2 Remake is still too expensive for me to consider buying right now. Resident Evil 5 was a game that still featured co-op play, and though it’s strange to go backwards, I think we’ll play that next, to continue exploring the Resident Evil universe, taking a step toward the horror-action pace and speed of gameplay that, ideally, ends up with us playing (or watching me play) RE2Remake.
Thank you so much for reading, this post will likely be made into a video on my channel sometime, and I’ll see you again when I scribble up my experiences with Resident Evil 5.
This rogue’s outta here.
~ Leo K
