On a rainy day in Krimson City, Sebastian Castellanos, a distinguished and educated detective, receives an emergency call while on his way back from a mission with his team. Following the call, his partner Joseph Oda and his trainee Juli Kidman accompany him to the Beacon Mental Hospital, where they see the gruesome result of what seems to be a mass murder. Sebastian orders Juli to stay outside to make sure noone gets in, while he and Joseph get inside to investigate.

While talking to a survivor in the security room, Sebastian has a look at the cameras that seem to have recorded very strange things in the corridors of the hospital. Seconds later, something undefined happens, and he loses his senses. When he comes to, nothing around him seems or feels normal and he embarks on a nightmarish journey where he has to find ways to survive while trying to shed light on all the mystery that surrounds the twisted version of the mental hospital and the city outside.

It is not a typical day for Sebastian and his team

Very few things become clear during the first chapters of The Evil Within, and you may even get close to the conclusion without having realized what it is all about - although, you may start having your suspicions when you get your leg severely hit with a chainsaw to to the point where you can't walk and then a few minutes later you are able to sprint like nothing happened. The game is a few years old now, so there is no need to warn for spoilers as most people already know its secrets and twists. But in any case, let's just say that what Sebastian goes through in The Evil Within is a very twisted and distorted version of reality. To be more precise, he actually becomes part of a madman's reality, which doesn't take place in the literal world but, in some way, manages to affect the outcome of the 'real' events.

The world of The Evil Within by Shinji Mikami (creator of the first Resident Evil games) is creepy, haunting and nightmarish. At the same time, however, it is charming, compelling and captivating. There is a dominating feeling of nausea, distortion and misplacement, like when you are on the verge between dreaming and waking up. Like some dreams that don't feel exactly like dreams, but more like conscious depictions of events that you are taking part in while at the same time you are watching them as a spectator. It is not random that seconds before Sebastian got dragged into the nightmare, he looked through a security camera. This is the first hint that you get about the questionable reality that you are about to enter. While he is watching the gruesome footage that the cameras captured moments before, he gets attacked by something and loses his senses. Interestingly enough, if you alter the field of vision in this scene, you can see very clearly who is about to attack Sebastian, and how.

With the default field of vision, you can only see Sebastian in this scene

Ruvik, aka Ruben Victoriano, the hooded attacker shown in the screenshot above, is the arch-villain of the game. What is intriguing about him, is that he is actually a ghost - or better, a zombie. Once a solitary and eccentric child prodigy with a passion for science, he started an ambitious and quite insane research based on the human brain years ago, hoping to eventually revive his beloved dead sister Laura - the only person who loved him and whom he trusted and cared about. Mobius, a secret organization aiming at taking control over the world, saw potential in Ruvik's research but because he wouldn't abide to their requests, they murdrered him. However, even as a ghost, he is able to use and abuse people and turn them into his own puppets, determined to gain back and complete his research and get to his goal. All of his victims are forced to get inside his mind and face his memories, his fears, his cruelty.

Portions of his past take uncontrollable dimensions and / or the form of bloodthirsty monsters. Several of the test subjects that he had used for his research show up like mutated, unrecongizable versions of themselves. His memories are tangled together randomly and form places that make no sense. His most traumatic experience is connected with a sunflower field and subsequently the sunflowers become his symbol in the game's story, sometimes foreshadowing his arrival or hinting at his presence closeby. At the point where the game reaches its climax, in chapter 9, 'The Cruelest Intentions', everything leads up to the sunflower field in a section that looks and feels completely different from the rest of the game, since it is Ruvik's most wonderful and most tragic memory at the same time: it was there where he had the last happy moments with Laura, and also it was there where they met their cruel fate together.

The sunflower field is a major point of reference from many aspects

Sebastian has to deal with all this in order to survive, while trying to figure out what is happening. All the while, Ruvik chases him and haunts him in several ways. It looks as if he wants to torment and crush Sebastian but at the same time he allows him to see glimpses of his life; it is as if he guiding him to what he believes is the right direction, but when Sebastian gets too close to the truth (or, at least, a part of it), Ruvik does whatever it takes to kill him. It is Ruvik himself who leads Sebastian straight into the memories of his family's estate to witness all the events that happened there and led to his life of insanity, but in the conclusion of this chapter (which refers both to that chapter of the game and the respective metaphorical chapter in Ruvik's life), he takes the form of a blooded man and attacks Sebastian viciously.

Like with most good hero-villain relationships, the connection between Sebastian and Ruvik is very complicated and has many levels and parameters. This is the main reason why Ruvik doesn't kill Sebastian directly, because he sees there is a connection. Sebastian is very smart and intuitive and responds to stimuli. His clear mind and good heart would offer a good basis for Ruvik's experiments, but because he is sane and thinks logically, he could never be a perfect test subject, since he questions things, he resists, expresses doubts and fears. Still Ruvik, who is able to manipulate people with his mind games, wants to take advantage of whatever potential Sebastian may offer. This psychological aspect is very dominant in the game; several of Ruvik's tricks are based on this and succeed in weakening Sebastian and leaving him vulnerable when facing his enemy.

Sebastian is defenceless against Ruvik's threatening presence

It is difficult to define The Evil Within and categorize it. Technically, it is a survival horror game, but it is also a psychological / metaphysical thriller of a very high class. There are times where the atmosphere of fear, seclusion and the anxiety of not knowing where you are, surpass the general feeling of adventure and survival. Ruvik plays with Sebastian's mind, therefore the psychological and sentimental tension is quite often much more powerful than that created by the actual action.

That said, action is very rich and comes in a great variety. You get to fight standard enemies called The Haunted (although a standard enemy in The Evil Within universe is way tougher than you may expect), mini-bosses and terrifying big bosses. The game is not for the faint-hearted; not only because it can get particularly scary, but also because it is extremely difficult and demanding gameplay-wise. Its lower difficulties are feasible, but its higher ones are insane. Nightmare mode is what its name says; and the legendary Akumu mode (where you die in one hit) is one of the most challenging trials you'll ever go through as a gamer (here you can read a report of my Akumu experience). 

The monsters of the game are incredibly vicious

Sebastian is a wrecked hero, going through a personal drama: his daughter died in a fire a few years ago and a bit later his wife disappeared. The journey inside Ruvik's mind is his own personal journey of self-awareness as well (or rather, it is only the beginning of this journey, which seems to reach a completion in The Evil Within 2). He is intelligent and caring but also hot-blooded and temperamental. Joseph, his partner, is the only person who can deal with his moodswings and can hold him back or back him up when needed. Sebastian is a very real and earthly character. He is brave and strong, but he does get scared and suffers from nightmares. You can easily like him and feel compassion for him. He is designed perfectly, with a handsome face and clear golden eyes, matching his personality like a glove.

Sebastian is an unforgettable hero

His enigmatic trainee, Juli, may appear as cold and uninteresting in the main game, but if you play her missions (The Assignment and The Consequence which come as DLC), you have the chance to know more about her, get to understand her actions to a notable degree and like her as well. However her essential role is further revealed in the The Evil Within 2, where we get answers for her mysterious attitude and we learn to appreciate her and stand by her side.

Joseph, although not much is revealed about him, is a very intriguing character, as he seems to be greatly affected by Ruvik's distorted reality - from chapter 5, 'Inner Recesses', already, we see him briefly turn into a Haunted and attack Sebastian. There is one whole chapter, maybe the most fascinating and frustrating - in terms of gameplay - of the game, namely chapter 6 entitled 'Losing Grip On Ourselves',  where Sebastian unexpectedly finds him unconscious in a field among some ruins.
 

This scene, although brief, is very intense and atmospheric

 You get to play this chapter with Joseph as a partner, which by the way makes your life tougher instead of facilitating it, because you also have to make sure he remains alive. At the end of the chapter, Joseph confesses to Sebastian that he somehow likes it when he becomes a Haunted, and he doesn't want to fight it. In The Executioner DLC, one of the documents that you find is a report about Joseph as a test subject in the Mobius experiment. It says among other things that during the phases of the experiment he demostrated suicidal tendencies and loss of self-awareness and his memories were disorganized. This means that throughout the whole course of the main game, Joseph is in constant conflict with himself; something that becomes even more evident in Juli's Assignment DLC, where he makes quite a few dramatic appearances as a Haunted.

Juli may be able to catch a glimpse of Joseph in STEM's spooky corridors

One of the numerous top-notch elements of The Evil Within is the design of the environments. The interior ones succeed in creating a chilling atmosphere of claustrophobia and decay: the abandoned halls and corridors of the asylum, the dark and unwelcoming rooms of the Victoriano mansion, the empty and half-lit houses in the village, the haunted platforms and train cars in the subway, add up to the general feel of agony and insecurity about your next step. The exteriors, although vast and sometimes even full of light, are even more scary and suffocating. The ruined countryside in chapter 6, with its dusted yellow sky, feels like it leads straight into a nightmare; and the destroyed city in chapter 11 is a compelling post-apocalyptic scenery.

The music also plays a major part in the game. Masafumi Takada's original compositions, with their low tunes and echoes, form a perfect soundtrack, while the prompt use of classical pieces intensifies the overall distorted vintage feel. Especially the segment from Claude Debussy's 'Claire De Lune' which is heard in specific sections, is as beautiful as it is eery, as soothing as it is agonizing. The ambient sounds and effects are adding to the overall immersive atmosphere of the game.

On the technical side, The Evil Within has a good and flowing gameplay system, with the close 3rd person view being very effective in creating an element of suspense in several scenes of the game. Sebastian starts off with nothing in his inventory, but he is able to fill it up with enough weapons, ammo and other items throughout the course of the adventure - that said, ammo doesn't come in  generous drops, so you have to be cautious in what use you make of it and use stealth movement and attacks as much as possible. There is also an upgrade system thanks to which you can boost up his health, energy and armory, and which takes place in an isolated wing of the mental hospital to which you can go back and forth via vintage mirrors.

From whichever aspect you decide to view it, The Evil Within offers material for plenty of analysis. You can just enjoy the fantastic game that it is, but you can also devote some time to dig deeper into it and give it all the attention and thought that it deserves.

Connections between Leon Kennedy and Sebastian Castellanos

Coming from the imagination of the same mastermind, Resident Evil's Leon Kennedy and The Evil Within's Sebastian Castellanos have naturally several things in common. At times, the impression that I was getting while playing The Evil Within was that Shinji Mikami shaped Sebastian with using traits and attributes that he maybe had wanted to add to Leon but for some reason didn't back then. It is interesting to see some of these things and analyze them a bit, since both Leon and Sebastian are wonderful characters, put to life with great detail and being among the finest elements of the games in which they appear.

Wherever Leon is, there are always zombies somewhere nearby. I guess this drops dramatically his chances for a successful romantic date: one can never know when a zombie will suddenly pop up from around a corner or from the back of a car or from inside a dumpster.

As early as in his first day as a cop in Raccoon City (Resident Evil 2), Leon had to deal with hordes of zombies while struggling to survive in the infested town.

Things didn't become any better in his other great mission to find and rescue the USA president's daughter in Spain (Resident Evil 4). Although the infected people were not zombies there, they were equally dangerous - lethal even.

And as old loves never die, he bumped onto zombies again in his Tall Oaks adventure (Resident Evil 6), where a whole town got infected again and there were classic zombies everywhere (which appeared again later in China, where he went with Helena to look for Simmons).

Trapped inside STEM, Sebastian has had his very fair share of zombie encounters so far. Although truth is that the zombies that Leon had to deal with were a joke compared to what awaited for Sebastian. While tangled in Ruvik's twisted web of memories (The Evil Within), Sebastian came across several terrifying and extremely strong zombie-looking people, called The Haunted.

Years later, while exploring Union inside STEM (The Evil Within 2) he had to face a whole town full of aggressive and persisting monsters called The Lost.

Almost from the beginning of his adventures, Leon had a guardian although he never actually realized it. There was always a mystery surrounding the spy Ada Wong, and it was not so clear whether she was working for the good or the bad guys, but she has always been there to help him through, and her assistance ranged from mild interventions, like shooting a few zombies out of the way to clear the path for him (Resident Evil 6), to major life-saving risky actions, like disobeying orders from above and stopping a hired mercenary from murdering him (Resident Evil 4). Ada's real identity still remains top secret, but it's pretty clear now that she is on the good side.

Sebastian has always had a secret helper, although he was ignorant about it for a long time. Juli Kidman was a rookie whom he was training during his detective days, but she was also a spy working for Mobius. Sebastian found out that she was playing a double role (The Evil Within), but it was not until somewhere midway through his Union adventure (The Evil Within 2) that her true mission was revealed to him. It turned out that Juli was on his side all along, and everything she did was to aid him through those really tough times. She went as far as defying the almighty Administrator and risking her own life to save Sebastian.

While Leon was on his mission in Spain (Resident Evil 4), the diabolical and twisted Lord Saddler infected him with the Plaga virus. Subsequently he started having symptoms of the infection, that were rather severe.

Still inside Ruvik's mind (The Evil Within), Sebastian temporarily became a Haunted himself, with all the consequences that came along. He even had the chance to see how he looked like, through a reflection in a glass.

It is also worth noting that in the beta version of Resident Evil 4 which never saw the light of publicity, the story had Leon wandering in a spooky house while suffering from hallucinations caused by the infection, a situation which resembles the one Sebastian is going through while being connected to STEM in the first Evil Within.

When Leon started his Spanish mission, he was wearing a fancy leather jacket with white fur.

After he is being captured by the villagers, one of them steals his jacket and he goes on the rest of the adventure without it, offering generous eye candy.

Upon visiting the Beacon Mental Hospital to investigate a mysterious massacre (The Evil Within), Sebastian is wearing a long trenchcoat.

Soon he gets attacked by Ruvik, loses his senses and gets captured. After waking up, he has lost his trenchcoat and he proceeds in the adventure without it. This is done for practical reasons, but also for our viewing pleasure.

Very early in the Spanish village (Resident Evil 4), Leon gets captured by the village chief and when he wakes up, he finds himself tied up back to back with Luis Sera, in a rather sexy-looking composition.

After Ruvik attacks Sebastian (The Evil Within), Sebastian wakes up in the Sadist's lair only to realize that he is tied and hanging upside down. His situtation is extremely frustrating and, unlike Leon's, not sexy at all.

For a rather long time in Spain (Resident Evil 4), Leon is chased by a disfigured psycho. Ramon Salazar is everything that Leon isn't: short, ugly, stupid and deranged. Most of these traits are a result of his Plaga infection (quite possibly some kind of side-effect), although he doesn't seem to be aware of his situation and apparently thinks too highly of himself.

Trapped in STEM without knowing it (The Evil Within), Sebastian is haunted by a deformed lunatic. Ruben Victoriano (aka Ruvik) was a relatively decent-looking kid, but a painful tragedy that he experienced scarred him for life, both physically and (senti)mentally. Now he is an ugly, frightful and sadistic ghoul who wants to do as he pleases with Sebastian (his own words).

Leon's mission in Spain (Resident Evil 4) was to rescue the USA president's daughter who had been kidnapped. Ashley Graham was a 20-year-old girl who was almost always frightened (with a few surprising exceptions), hiding behind Leon and constantly screaming his name for help.

While trying to make sense out of what was going on after the Beacon mystery (The Evil Within), Sebastian meets Leslie, a 20-year-old boy with a mental health problem who used to be a patient at the hospital. Leslie is constantly terrified and calls Sebastian's name in the most inconvenient situations.

After Leon finds Ashley in the village church (Resident Evil 4), they get ambushed by villagers and are forced to lock themselves up in an isolated cabin. As it turns out, Luis is also hiding there. Seeing that the infected villagers are approaching the shack and are about to burst in, Leon and Luis have no other choice but to defend their temporary shelter by enganging in a fight against the lethal intruders.

At some point during his journey in Union (The Evil Within 2), Sebastian mysteriously finds himself in a hut where he also meets a soldier girl. Esmeralda Torres informs him that the cabin is surrounded by Lost enemies and together they do their best to defend the place and defeat the zombies.

Luis Sera, the ally that Leon finds in Spain (Resident Evil 4) is a scientist who helped Saddler develop the Plagas. Luis is not proud of his creations and will do whatever it takes to make up for what he did. He offers Leon valueable information about the experiments and their results, and his notes prove to be extremely useful.

After Sebastian gets separated with his team (The Evil Within), he arrives at a Haunted-inhabited village where the only other human being is Marcelo Jimenez, a mysterious scientist. Dr Jimenez, who is actually Leslie's doctor, accompanies Sebastian for a brief time, although, unlike the brave Luis Sera, he prefers to remain hidden while Sebastian deals with the zombies.

Although Leon gets to know Luis for a rather short time (Resident Evil 4), the two become very close friends. Unfortunately, Luis gets killed by Lord Saddler just as he is about to hand the Plaga sample over to Leon. But like the good friend that he is, he gives Leon a handful of pills with the antidote just before he dies.

During their attempt to destroy Father Theodore's device with explosives (The Evil Within 2), Sebastian and Esmeralda get seriously hit by the explosion. A heavily wounded Esmeralda carries the unconscious Sebastian out, and subsequently sacrifices her life to protect him from a horde of attacking zombies. It's also worth noting that, just like Luis Sera, Esmeralda is Spanish too (or Latin American maybe, but Latino anyway).

While trying to locate Ashley on Saddler's island (Resident Evil 4), Leon bumps onto an old friend. Jack Krauser, whom he had met and befriended during a mission in South America (The Darkside Chronicles: Operation Javier), is now back and is also a bad guy. Krauser has been ordered by both Wesker and Saddler to murder Leon, and he seems rather enthusiastic about it. When he finds Leon, he greets him with the blade of his knife, leaving him a deep scar on the cheek.

Just like Jack Krauser, the twisted photographer Stefano Valentini (The Evil Within 2) has a weird fascination with knives. After teasing Sebastian long enough, he captures him with his camera, during which time he cuts Sebastian's cheek with his beloved knife.

It is very rare to have a video game hero without a bromance, and Leon is no exception. His legendary bromance with Jack Krauser started back in 2002, when the two first met in the South American jungle (The Darkside Chronicles: Operation Javier).

The two became close friends and were getting along greatly but things got a bit out of hand when Jack was heavily wounded during a fight and realised that his military career was soon going to be over. Feeling jealous about Leon getting a position he was always dreaming of, he succumbed to his dark side and became one of the bad guys. Following Wesker's orders, he chased after Leon (Resident Evil 4) and attempted to kill him.

Sebastian's bromance with his partner Joseph Oda (The Evil Within) is even more prominent, because the two share plenty of on-screen time together and we have the chance to see how much they care for each other. Sebastian is always there to boost Joseph up and support him and at some point, when Joseph is seriously hit, Sebastian even risks going through an extremely dangerous area to get him a blood bag and save his life.

While in Union (The Evil Within 2), Sebastian finds a slide showing himself and Joseph, and it is revealed that all this time he was unable to deal with the fact that Joseph was dead, refusing to come to terms with this painful memory.

Juli however informs him that Joseph is alive, and promises to give all the necessary explanations after all is over.

It may not be obvious on first look, but Resident Evil 6's Leon looks a lot like Sebastian from the first Evil Within. Leon has a fair complexion and light-colored hair and eyes and, aside from the scars and wounds acquired during missions, is rather fresh-faced.

Sebastian is darker, with dark hair and golden eyes and although he is very handsome, the personal tragedies he has been through have left a mark on him.

Despite these differences however, they resemble each other very much, and if you notice their individual features, they are very similar.

Resident Evil: Code Veronica as a Bildungsroman

Although Claire Redfield made her first appearance in Resident Evil 2 and was already popular, it was not until Resident Evil: Code Veronica that her character gained more substance and depth, setting the ground for further development of her personality. This was also aided by the progress on the technical and graphical field, which favoured the realistic design of movements and expressions, as well as the creation of the necessary atmosphere thanks to the better environments and visual effects. 

 

These were the ideal conditions for Claire to live one of the most fascinating and unforgettable adventures in gaming history. Code Veronica takes place shortly after the events of Resident Evil 2. Claire had been to Raccoon City looking for her brother Chris, and as soon as she arrived there she found the whole area inhabited by zombies. While struggling to make it out of the nightmare alive, she met Leon Kennedy, who was a rookie then, and later little Sherry Birkin. By the end of the game, Claire left Leon and Sherry and continued her quest for Chris.

Putting several puzzle pieces together, she arrived in Paris and infiltrated the local Umbrella headquarters. Her presence is noticed soon, and she gets arrested and sent in a solitary prison, on the Rockfort Island, somewhere in the Northern Atlantic. Upon waking up in her cell, she realizes that nearly all the humans on the island (prisoners and guards) have become zombies. This is quite familiar to her, however she soon finds out that she hasn't seen anything yet.

Code Veronica has more common elements with the very first Resident Evil, but goes one step further, adding in its cast enemies with deranged psyche who are unable to explain or rationalize their obsessions. If Albert Wesker in the first Resident Evil was a conceited power-hungry man with a twisted Messiah syndrome and William Birkin in Resident Evil 2 was a deluded scientist who became the victim of his own research, Alfred Ashford in Code Veronica is a half-crazy obsessive officer who lives with the ghost of his beloved dead sister and goes to such extremes as to impersonate her from time to time. So Claire has to face a rather complicated enemy, who may not be famous for his intelligence but has such an unstable and perplexed character that he can become dangerous before you can blink an eye.

Throughout her development in the game, Claire carries the characteristics of a Bildungsroman heroine. A Bildungsroman, aka a 'coming-of-age story', is a a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood in which character change is extremely important. Its basic characteristics are the following:

• A search for meaning for the young hero
• An inciting incident puts the young hero into the journey
• The journey won't be an easy one
• There is an epiphany that changes everything
• The young hero finds his/her place into society.

Claire, who is 19 years old at the time of the Code Veronica events, has a warm and loving relationship with her brother, and the two are very close. She is proud of him and he has taught her several combat moves and how to use weapons. However her essential role in life starts as soon as she is urged to go looking for him after he disappears. Chris's disappearance is the inciting incident that marks the beginning of Claire's journey.

It is notable that said journey is both literal and metaphorical. It is literal because she is actually travelling to France but it is mainly metaphorical as she is transported to a different world, where fear and horror dominate, a world where she will have to battle all sorts of obstacles and face insane enemies in order to make it through.

Claire's coming-of-age journey is far from being easy. Alfred Ashford, who is the prison supervisor on the island, sees her as an enemy from the start and is determined to make her suffer and eventually kill her. Luckily for Claire, however, he is quite timid and cowardish, which keeps him hidden in the shadows and he resorts to setting traps in his attempts to discourage her. The several zombies that emerge from all sides are his unintentional allies. However Claire is not alone in this nightmarish journey. Early on in the game, she meets Steve Burnside, a young boy who was a prisoner as well, but for some reason wasn't affected by the biohazard attack and is still human. Steve becomes her ally and friend and it's not long before he falls in love with her (the Redfields are irresistible); and although the main concern of them both is to escape, later Steve's feelings will be responsible for their adventure taking a rather fatal turn later on.

After passing through Alfred's painful trials, they manage to get on a plane and leave the island. However the plane crashes and they find themselves in another Umbrella facility somewhere in Antarctica. There, among frozen rooms, poisonous moths and zombies coming to life, they struggle to find a way to escape once again. Eventually they come up with a plan, which involves operating a crane carrying a mining drill which will break open a wall of ice, creating an exit. While at it, Steve is distracted gazing at Claire, the mining drill gets momentarily out of control and crashes on a pipe, breaking it in half and releasing toxic gas in the room. As a result of this complication, Claire and Steve's escape gets postponed for a short time, during which however not only Alfred is able to catch up with them and they are forced to fight with him face to face, but moreover Alexia awakens from her slumber and attacks them, trapping them in the facility.

Meanwhile Chris arrives at Rockfort Island looking for Claire and finds the prison grounds almost completely destroyed. Chris has his fair share of the Bildungsroman hero in his part, although his story is not a coming-of-age one. Chris is already an experienced officer and is totally conscious and aware of the situations he is called to face. But as far as he is concerned, he witnesses a revelation when he discovers that Wesker, his former captain in S.T.A.R.S., is the evil mastermind behind the destruction of the Rockfort Island and the events that followed as inevitable consequences.

Eventually he flies to Antarctica where he finds Claire trapped in a coccoon inside a construction which looks like a replica of the Spencer Mansion. Chris frees Claire like a proper knight would do, and the two siblings finally reunite. Still, their problems are not over; now they have to face Alexia and they also need to locate Steve.

Claire goes searching for him and when she finds him, it's the last thing she wanted to witness. Alexia has injected Steve with the Veronica virus and now he is infected, which causes him to mutate and attack Claire against his will. This is the epiphany in Claire's story: her former friend becomes an enemy who wants to kill her, but because his love for her is very strong, he manages to control himself and refuses to do it at just the last minute. This causes Alexia's rage, and she hits him lethally. Steve manages to express his feelings to Claire just before he dies.

Considering Claire's later life choices, we can safely say that the events in Rockfort Island and Antarctica formed her personality, boosted up her perception and awareness and were significantly responsible for her decision to enroll in Terra Save, the organization that offered help and support to victims of bioterrorism. Thus Claire found both a meaning and her place in society, completing her role as a Bildungsroman heroine.

But it's not only in the major points that Claire's story has the features of a Bildungsoman. Several of Claire's in-game decisions and actions may affect the way things turn out both for her and her co-protagonists.

At the start of the story, while she is in her cell, her guard Rodrigo is seriously wounded and is losing blood. This is a minor plot point which the player can either ignore or take into account. While looking for clues in Alfred's Training Facility, Claire finds a bottle of hemostatic. It's up to her (and the player) to decide whether or not she is willing to take a detour at that point and go back to Rodrigo to give him the hemostatic. If she does go back, Rodrigo will use the hemostatic and he will be cured, and to show her his gratitude, he will give her his lockpick - an item which is not necessary for the completion of the game, but which opens several briefcases and lockers that contain very useful items. Claire then will give him her lighter, as a thank-you gift. When Chris arrives on the island, he will meet Rodrigo, but soon after the poor guy will be attacked by the Gulp Worm, Alfred's mutated pet. There is no cure for Rodrigo this time, but before he dies he will give Chris the lighter that Claire had offered him. With the lighter in his inventory, Chris will gain access to a couple of very rewarding spots.

If however Claire decides to not go back to Rodrigo with the hemostatic, the man will die, she will never get the lockpick and thus Chris won't be able to receive the lighter, automatically losing his chance to fill his inventory with extra guns and ammo.

Another example of the bildungsromanesque character of secondary events is the boss fight with Nosferatru in Antarctica. Nosferatu, who is in fact the mutated father of Alfred and Alexia, is not a tough boss, but he is very toxic (literally) and if Claire doesn't kill him quickly, he may be able to poison her. His poison is not like the standard one from the spiders and moths, so, unlike that one, it can't be cured with a blue/green herb mix. If Nosferatu succeeds in poisoning Claire, when Chris arrives in Antarctica and frees his sister from the cocoon trap, she won't be able to go on and the game won't progress unless he goes back to the Armory room and finds the Serum that is needed for her to be cured.

Most Bildungsroman stories have a happy ending; even if there is loss and death connected to it. Reaching the conclusion, the young hero/heroine has learned a life lesson and has become mature enough and ready to follow his/her own path. Code Veronica has a generally good finale, with Chris and Claire flying away from Antarctica towards freedom. Both of them, however, have a thorn in their side. Chris, after his confrontation wih Wesker minutes before, knows that his former chief will be his sworn enemy from now on and that he won't give up until he manages to realise his evil plans. And as for Claire, she won't be able to forget Steve so easily; the life lesson she learned was a tough one and affected her completely, leaving several marks on her, both physical and emotional.

Resident Evil: Vendetta

Vendetta is the third Resident Evil CGI movie, preceded by Degeneration (2008) and Damnation (2012). Degenaration was a fairly good movie with a familiar plot and an interesting cast of characters, while Damnation was a solid and impressive piece of work, the one that felt closest to the spirit of the games, while having a very deep and well-developed emotional background for the characters thanks to how Leon's connection with Alexander Kozachenko was portrayed in the movie, a connection that was thoroughly backed up and was, for a good deal of the film - if not all - a major driving force.

 

And now we have Vendetta, the highly anticipated sequel. Vendetta is the third movie to have Leon Kennedy as a lead, while featuring Chris Redfield and Rebecca Chambers as co-protagonists. Its plot revolves around a race against time where the three characters are struggling to stop an embittered and ruthless man before he releases a virus upon the whole world. To begin with, the CGI movies are way better than the live action movies. That's a given. If anything, they are faithful to the spirit and the atmosphere of the series, and they rightly have 'Resident Evil' in their titles. The live action movies have always been way off; constantly ignoring the trademark characters of the saga, and when they did use them in the plots it was in such a bad way that it degraded them, good and bad guys equally (not implying anything about the actors here; they all did a decent job for their part); and not to mention the impossible character of Alice who became some sort of overpowered superheroine, putting everyone else to shame.

The Resident Evil CGI movies were some kind of answer to the mess that were the live action ones. Casting original characters of the games as the main protagonists, they managed to maintain the spirit and feel of the games, while having plots that were connected to them one way or the other. Interestingly enough, though, I always found that the plots of some of the games were way superior. Code Veronica, for example, had an incredible plot, a story that could be a perfect material even for a live action movie. Sure some of its elements were used in the live action movie Apocalypse, but were extremely poorly treated and altered to such a degree that they became almost unrecognisable. Unfortunately, same goes for the CGI movies. Although much better than the live action films, they were still surpassed by the games, plot-wise.

Vendetta, although still better than the live action movies, seems to be inferior to both Degeneration and Damnation from many aspects. All the great elements are there; you can see them. The animations are very good - maybe not as good as they were in Damnation or the Resident Evil 6 game, but still they are fine, and at times quite impressive. Leon's stunts with the Ducati are fantastic, and the battle scenes have good old Resident Evil written all over them. The environments are built with detail and realism and the atmosphere in some scenes is compelling and immersive. Where the movie limbs is in the plot and the character developement.

 
Although the premise is intriguing, the story never becomes strong enough to justify the movie's title. When I first saw the title, it gave me the impression that the 'vendetta', the revenge, would have to do with either of the protagonists (Leon or Chris) on a personal level. That it would be either their revenge against someone else, or a revenge aimed at them, coming from someone from their past. This was even more stressed with the very imposing and atmospheric teaser trailer, which had a good deal of Hannibal (the series) spiced into it (if you have watched Season 3 and its trailers, you know what I mean). As it turned out, the movie was about the revenge of a new bad guy, Glenn Arias, against a whole state and, subsequently, the world. Surely he had very serious reasons to hold such a grudge; but this is never analysed enough to give him a bit of justice or give us some further insight for his actions. The scenes where we get to see why he became so evil are very brief and presented in a rather rushed way, while they could have been powerful and unforgettable.
 

 
Instead of devoting time to the bad guy to get us acquainted with his background and his inner motives, the creators of the movie thought it would be better to give us some never-ending sequences with Rebecca in the lab, covering nearly one hour of movie time. Rebecca Chambers, the once timid rookie with the amazing medical skills, is now an established professor carrying out important researches. She is a renowned scientist and she is even the love interest of Aaron, one of her colleagues. All of a sudden however she becomes the target of the evil guy just because she looks like his dead wife, so he kidnaps her to relive his ill-faited wedding with her. All good so far. A deranged mind could think of anything impossible, and we have seen far more insane things in actual movies. The problem is that Glenn Arias never seems determined enough for what he does. As easily as he had Rebecca wear his wife's wedding dress, as easily as he approached her with mellow style to mock-propose, he equally easily tied her down in the lab to inject her with the most dangerous virus. So it looks like the whole idea of him obsessing over Rebecca was developed rather superficially; he could have kindapped her anyway to serve his purpose, and moreso since she was the mastermind behind the creation of the vaccine that could fight his virus - and he knew it.

As a side-note, I would have liked Rebecca to make at least a subtle mention of Billy Coen. When Aaron asked her what made her change field, I was certain that she was going to say something about Billy. It would have been a nice tribute to the man who helped her out during the Ecliptic Express incident and later in the Umbrella Training Facility adventure. If you have played Resident Evil Zero, you know how obvious it was, judging from her lack of experience and overall weakness at the time, that she wouldn't have survived without him. 

Then, it's the character development, which seems to be lacking essential stuff. The movie begins with Leon talking in first person, which somehow creates the impression that the movie will be centered around him. Well, it is not. Leon appears again about close to the middle of the film, and we see him in an isolated hotel, drinking his sorrows away. When Chris and Rebecca go to talk to him, he is borderline rude to them. This is so incredibly out of character, that it is as if he had a secret split personality disorder all along, which now decided to demonstrate itself. Leon has always been such a great character, so balanced and gentle, refraining from bad habits and ready to offer a helping hand. Sure life is hard and people change. But this is fiction we are talking about. It is supposed to create solid characters that won't easily change. It is called fiction for a reason. Leon has been through thick and thin, yet he has always maintained that great personality. Turning him into a grudgy alcoholic won't make him more human or realistic, simply because it's not himself. Consequently, we see him one step before total resignation because his team got betrayed in a mission and his comrades were killed. Is it possible that the 'vendetta' of the title refers to his revenge for this? It is unclear. The clues and hints leading to such a conclusion are almost non-existent. Basically you waste more time trying to figure out where this new Leon came from, that there is barely any room left for other thoughts concerning him.

 

On the other hand we find Chris, whom we saw in Resident Evil 6 being in absolute despair, resorting to drinking and constantly grieving about his lost soldiers, reaching a tragic peak at the end with Piers's death, and whom we saw moments before in Vendetta witnessing the zombification and demise of one more partner and her son, now susprisingly cool and collected in this stressful situation, in admirable control of his temper and anger. Where is the cool, smart, cocky Leon of Resident Evil 4 or the quick-thinking, fair and clear-minded Leon of Resident Evil 6? And where is the hot-blooded and fiesty Chris we know and love? It's as if, in the movie, Chris and Leon switched characters, for whatever mysterious reason.

Glenn Arias equally has a lot of hollow points; we get to know only a few things about him and these things are not enough to either hate him or like him. He could have been a very powerful character, he had so much potential, and if only some of his scenes were more extended and supported better. Same goes about his trusty helpers, who could have been developed a lot more. You can't have a character like Maria in your cast and make so little use of her, even if it is implied that she plays a great part in Glenn's plans. The only character who sees some development is Rebecca, but this is mainly due to the fact that the last time we saw her she was 18 years old, and now she is in her early thirties and she is supposed to have undergone a change after all.

I can see Vendetta as a prelude to a game. As a game, that is, it would have been great. I can picture it already, with three playable characters (Leon, Chris and Rebecca), complete with epic action scenes and the necessary drama in the cutscenes. There were times when I felt I wanted to grab the controller and lead the character somewhere. Vendetta is a good and well-made movie, but it gives the impression that it is incomplete, because it lacks many things that could make its story memorable. Considering how rich and action-packed Resident Evil 6 (the game) felt and was, with its hollywoodesque plot and its excellent character development, Vendetta feels quite a few steps back, in relation to both the games and the other two CGI movies.