Showing posts with label games in retrospect. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games in retrospect. Show all posts

Shadow Of The Tomb Raider In Retrospect

Thursday, 11 April 2024

 

There is a very special charm about the Tomb Raider games, that may be a bit difficult to describe to people who are not fans of the series or are unfamiliar with them. Speaking for myself, however, I can say that it is mostly thanks to Lara Croft and her adventures that I not only got into gaming, but also ended up loving this particular type of games. The Tomb Raider saga is one of the most popular among gamers, and one of those titles that are vaguely known even outside the limits of the gaming communities. And this is not only thanks to the movies, because those appeared many years after the first games were released; it is because back when Lara Croft made her initial appearance, the available games were much fewer than today and, most importantly, the way the Tomb Raider games were made was very innovative, as they combined a player-friendly game system and interface with an elaborate and impressive - for the standards of their era - gameplay design and environment setup.

Emphasis was always on the exploration and discovery factor in the Tomb Raider games, without them however lacking story and action wise. Lara would fight fierce enemies of all kinds, climb the highest rocky mountains, jump off the steepiest cliffs while searching for mythical artifacts and ancient treasures, and solving puzzles that, most of the times, were difficult to conceive but rather easy to solve. Although the development team behind the games, as well as the publishers, changed in the course of the nearly 30 (!) years that the games are alive, the spirit and atmosphere of Tomb Raider remained more or less the same, in spite of the seemingly radical change that the saga saw with the launch of the series' reboot in 2013. The graphical environment became more elaborate, richer and realistic, the gameplay grew to be more complex and challenging, Lara's backstory underwent minor changes, but overall the games maintained their original charm and style that captivated so many gamers years ago.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider was the latest of this "new generation" Tomb Raider, released in 2018, following one of the best games in the series, Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016). Developed by Eidos (Montreal) and released by Square Enix, Shadow of the Tomb Raider had Lara return to the familiar environments of South America, while looking for an artifact the existence of which was apparently partly responsible for her dear father's suicide. Her quest leads her to Peru along with her buddy Jonah, where she comes across Paititi, a lost city hidden in the heart of a wild and unfriendly jungle. There she meets Unuratu, the rightful but dethroned queen and her son, Etzli, and discovers that Dr Dominguez, a fellow archaeologist and native of said city who also knew Lara's father very well, is going through not so legit activities in order to supposedly ensure that the place remains safe and untouched from modern civilization. Of course his story is much darker and complex, or at least it takes this turn after he gets hold of the artifact, leading to building his unavoidable paranoia and Messiah syndrome.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a game that one may not be able to fully appreciate on first look. In my early Steam review, I had highlighted certain points which I found weak at that time, some of which may still be valid to a certain degree, but after having played the game a few more times since then, and seen with the prospect of time itself, my overall impression has very much changed. Shadow of the Tomb Raider invests a lot in the action and adventure factors, where it shines, but what you really need to focus on so as to deeply understand it is its story. A story that has much more power, meaning and subtext than what may be obvious with the first or second impression, but which determines almost everything in the game, even concerning minor details that may very well be overlooked at first.

In my original review I described how I felt that Dr Dominguez was a weak villain, especially when compared to the imposing Constantin from Rise of the Tomb Raider. Now I realized that he is intentionally a weak villain because, in reality, he is not really a villain. Surely he got fair share of the infamous Messiah syndrome, as I already mentioned and as we can see from a point and on, but initially his intentions were good, and his ultimate purpose was to protect his home and keep Paititi untouched by the outside world, a purpose to which he remained faithful until the end. The real villain of the story is in fact his second-in-command, Commander Rourke.

When Commander Rourke first enters the scene, during the beautiful and immersive opening in Cozumel, he gives the impression of yet one more henchman, following the lead of Dr Dominguez whom he always seems to accompany. At this point, he appears to be a civilian, and we only get a hint about his identity during a dialogue that Lara overhears, when Dr Dominguez calls him "Commander". On first look, he is an imposing, handsome man with an apparently no-nonsense attitude, but as soon as the actual adventure unfolds, and as Lara can hear the soldiers' dialogues over her radio, it becomes more and more obvious that Commander Rourke is a relentless and cruel military man who doesn't have the slightest sense of morality and totally lacks sentimentality. Whether his character was such by default or it was shaped this way because of his profession, is something that remains unclear, as unclear remain his actual motives for aiding Dr Dominguez. We are never sure if he wants to find the artifact out of mere sense of duty since he was hired specifically for that mission or if he secretly hopes to use it for his own personal gain, but this is yet one more element that adds to the eery mystery that surrounds him. 

 

Commander Rourke is not the typical arch-villain in that the game's final confrontation is not with him, but with Dr Dominguez. But what is essential both for the story and his underlying importance in the plot, is the fact that he has an extremely violent death in the hands of the Crimson Fire, the Yaaxil priestess and primordial spirit who also acted as some kind of alter ego for Unuratu. A few chapters before the finale, Lara comes across the Crimson Fire, in a peculiar confrontation where the priestess lets her go without hurting her. A bit later Unuratu explains to Lara how the Crimson Fire is her own destiny, essentially identifying her own human self with the priestess's spiritual presence. If you take note of this and understand its importance, the subsequent succession of events acquires a most chilling dimension: Commander Rourke shoots and kills Unuratu in a scene that is very brief and may not gain the attention it deserves, but if you consider Unuratu's previous explanation about her connection to the Crimson Fire, you can literally feel something unearthly is slowly waking up at that point.

Close to the culmination of the story, Dr Dominguez, having the artifact in his possession already, is setting everything up for a ceremony that will supposedly restore order and save Paititi, while Commander Rourke and his men are guarding the temple where he is by all means. In a race against time to prevent all this from happening, Lara comes across the Crimson Fire once more and they form a silent pact to work together, this time with the Yaaxil on Lara's side, to rid off the common enemy. Of course Rourke's men are unable to battle against the super-powerful spirits of the Yaaxil and his team is soon eliminated. On her way to confront Dr Dominguez, Lara encounters Commander Rourke and they are intertwined in what seems to be a rather unfair fight since he is manning a lethal mounted gun which is almost impossible to win over. At that crucial point, the Crimson Fire arrives in person, and in a scene that is just as brief as the one with Unuratu's murder, but equally important and far more compelling, she violently attacks the Commander and kills him with her own hands - literally. Given that the Crimson Fire was Unuratu's destiny, it is clear that the deceased queen's spirit had now become one with the Crimson Fire, and the one killing Rourke is in fact Unuratu, avenging her own murder by slaughtering her killer with the hands of her primordial alter ego.

With Rourke gone, Lara rushes to confront Dr Dominguez in a battle where everything seems to be against her, but in the end, moments before his demise and as the effects of the artifact's power are starting to die down, Dr Dominguez confesses that he only wished to keep Paititi safe and has Lara swear to him that she will work to that end, essentially reconciling with her. Dr Dominguez had been Lara's counterpart throughout the whole story, while Rourke had been Unuratu's counterpart. This aspect of duality is not random, as the core of the game's story is built around such connections: the heron and the eclipse, the Chak Chel and the Ix Chel, Dr Dominguez as Amaru (his real native name) and Sayri, his deceased beloved brother with whom he shared a very special bond.

Another interesting aspect of Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the presence of archaeologists that Lara meets in her quest. It is not the first time that this happens, as we had met several of Lara's colleagues in older games, but they were very few and most of the times her rivals: Werner Von Croy, her mentor, was the most notable character, and then there were others who were not exactly archaeologists but their passion was treasure hunting and this made them cross paths with Lara in more than one occasions: Pierre in Tomb Raider 1 and Chronicles, Tony in Tomb Raider 3, Kurtis Trent in The Angel of Darkness, are a few such examples, and we should not forget Margot Carvier from the same game, a professor who worked at the Louvre and was a friend and colleague of Von Croy's. But it is in Shadow of the Tomb Raider where the profession is in full swing, as Lara comes across some quite interesting archaeologists and treasure hunters on the way.

Apart from Dr Dominguez, who is the main antagonist and is present throughout the whole story, there are also several others who cross paths with Lara, either randomly or during explorations and quests. Near the start of the story, Lara finds a local archaeologist in Mexico whom she saves by killing Rourke's thug who is about to execute him. As it turns out, Dominguez's team had hired him to guide them to the dig site, but as soon as he did they attempted to silence him by killing him in cold blood. Lara arrived just in time to save his life, and subsequently learn from him important details about the dig and the team that was after the artifact.

Later in Mission of San Juan, Lara meets three archaeologists and friends, Guillermo, Sara and Isabella, who are exploring the local mysteries and are searching to find a legendary crypt that is famed to be hidden in the depths of a hostile cave outside the town. There is a kind of "rivalry of love" going on among them, as Guillermo and Isabella seem to be an item, and Sara is their closest friend. Although Sara and Isabella are very good friends, they are constantly bickering, mainly because Isabella's view of the profession and its methods are rather radical. 

After such a quarrel, in which all three were involved, Isabella left in a fury to find the crypt the existence of which was seriously doubted by her friends. Soon after she went missing, and Lara, whom Guillermo and Isabella recognized as the illustrious archaeologist that she was, set out to find her. As it turned out, Isabella was right all along, as Lara managed to locate her, wounded but well, in the depths of that infamous crypt.

And then there is Manu, an old man and amateur raider who has lost his sight, apparently an avid treasure hunter in his youth, who sends Lara to reveal the location of a tomb, then return and describe it to him in full detail. Manu is accompanied by a group of local children to whom he narrates stories of his past adventures and who, like little raiders in the making, are in their turn looking for treasures in the grounds of the nearby cemetery.

This more human approach of Lara, her profession and the dangerous lifestyle that goes with it, is unique in the Tomb Raider world, and it offers a much more realistic insight of the heroine and her environment. Of course we had seen her more genuine side in Tomb Raider: Legend, but it was not as much highlighted there, and it was used mostly as a means to support certain events and (re)actions. Her more human depiction essentially started with the Reboot in 2013, but her character was not that much elaborated there and in spite of the game's many good elements, it did not manage to give that much needed boost to Lara's story. This happened with the excellent Rise of the Tomb Raider, but although overall I still believe that the latter is the most complete and most powerful of the three games of Tomb Raider's new era (Reboot, Rise and Shadow) what with its fantastic supporting cast (Jacob and Sofia), its fascinating arch-villain (Constantin) and its great Byzantium-themed story, I believe that Shadow of the Tomb Raider has reached a point that no other Tomb Raider had achieved before, that of the complexity in its character development and the multi-levelled interpretations of the story it narrates.

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness in Retrospect

Wednesday, 3 August 2022

The Angel of Darkness is maybe the only notorious game in the otherwise much loved and acclaimed Tomb Raider saga. Released in 2003 following a great hype and even greater promises, it unfortunately featured innumerable flaws alongside its good elements. Core Design, the historical development team that had been responsible for the first five (eight with the gold expansions), now classic, Tomb Raider games, had very intriguing plans for both the game and its possible sequels but sadly all went down the rabbit hole after The Angel of Darkness saw the light and all of us saw how much more work it actually needed before getting a release. Several problems led to this, and since the release date of the game had already been postponed more than once, the sixth Tomb Raider installment eventually had to appear in the market while, in reality, it was still in development.


The story of the game takes place a few years after the events in The Last Revelation. In the fourth game's dramatic finale, Lara got trapped in the depths of the Great Pyramid and, as we can see during most of the fifth game, Tomb Raider Chronicles, was presumed dead for a certain period of time. Her old friend and mentor, however, Werner Von Croy, followed his clues and subsequently located her, while she was still alive and breathing. 

We assume that Lara was then rescued and it is implied at the start of The Angel of Darkness that she was still holding a grudge against Von Croy for supposedly leaving her to die in the pyramid. And this is where the problems of the game actually begin. Because we do know very well from The Last Revelation that Von Croy didn't really abandon her. For starters, he was possessed by the evil god Seth for most of the game's story, during which he acted as an enemy. But at the end, after Lara locked Horus in his temple inside the pyramid, Von Croy was not only set free, but he also desperately tried to help Lara get past the collapsing rocks, something that Lara knew because well, you know, she was there to witness the whole thing.


So the initiation of the scenario in The Angel of Darkness is actually based on a concept that isn't really true, and this is something that both protagonists know, and also something that we know. This somehow sets the pace for the rest of the story, but in fact the story itself is much more interesting, much more intriguing and much more complex. Von Croy asks Lara to find an artifact for him, a certain painting, but while they are in the middle of an awkward argument, something happens, Lara loses her senses and when she comes to, she sees that her hands are full of blood and that her mentor is lying dead in front of her. Doing her mathematics in seconds, she realizes that she will be accused of Von Croy's murder, even though deep down she knows she wasn't the one who killed him. Feeling that the death of Von Croy has a lot to do with the painting he wanted her to find, she begins her quest which leads her first to the criminal underworld of Paris, then to the very Louvre Museum itself and a secret dig site at its basement and eventually in Prague where she finally locates the culprits and puts an end to their evil plans. All this, not before she solves some fascinating, old-school puzzles and not before meeting a mysterious stranger who happens to have a connection to the painting as well and whose own story is also very interesting.


Said mysterious stranger is Kurtis Trent, a new character with whom we have the chance to play two chapters and carry out a nasty boss fight. Core Design had some pretty awesome plans for Kurtis, but with how things turned out, he prematurely became part of the game's past mythology. Kurtis was met with enthusiasm from a decent amount of Tomb Raider players, and it's almost certain that if all had gone smoothly and The Angel of Darkness hadn't been such a hell to play, he could very well still be active in the saga somehow.

But as I just mentioned, The Angel of Darkness is a hell to play. Technically, the game is not much different from the previous ones. The control system is pretty similar, and there are also a few new cool moves, like the commando crawl or the stealth attack. The problem is that the way Lara and Kurtis are programmed, they respond to the commands as if their whole life bores the hell out of them, and their movements are so slow that you so feel the urge to fast-forward everything somehow. For some insane reason, they always - and I mean, ALWAYS - make a few walking steps before they start running. I don't know if this was supposed to be there for realism, or if it was a left-over, or a feature that was going to be present in certain occasions only, but it still is one of the most problematic things that I have seen in gaming. There is a sequence where Lara must go through a hallway trapped with deadly lasers while taking cover in doorways in the way. At the end of the hallway, there is a strong enemy waiting to shoot at her. While Lara is trying to make it from one doorway to another in a zig zag manner, she must also take care to not bump onto the lasers so as to not trip them. In the course of doing that, she'd better not have her weapon out because her scripted combat moves (another hell, to which I will refer later) are the worst thing that could happen to her in such a situation. Because of that, she has to move along as usual, but regardless the enemy will start shooting at her as soon as she steps out of a doorway. The most logical thing at that point would be to run as fast as you can. But NO. Because Lara is scripted to ALWAYS take a few walking steps before running, even in this critical, life-threatening situation she will AGAIN casually walk her few steps before setting off to running. And guess what, she will have already been shot several times, all this while trying to make just a few frigging steps to the next doorway.

And now the combat moves. Oh my, the combat moves. When there is no enemy around, Lara and Kurtis can walk and run (preferably walk because that's how heroes do it obviously) normally. But when an enemy shows up, even if he is behind a barrier, they will start hopping around in circles, resulting in you shooting in panic and losing your orientation in the process. And what to say about the upgrade system. Lara will refuse to push a tiny glass case if she is not "strong enough", but she may very well kick open a heavy door without the slightest shame.

It is such a pity that you can see all the flaws, but at the same time you can also see all the potential. The graphics are fantastic (keep in mind that the game was released almost twenty years ago, so the standards were very different), and there are sections that are unforgettable. You can imagine these in a better setup and see how amazing the game could have been. The whole dig site under the Louvre is one of the best stages in the whole Tomb Raider saga. It is a huge hub consisting of a main area and four puzzle areas that are based on the four elements - a reminiscent of the Lost City of Tinnos from Tomb Raider 3. But my most favorite is definitely the stunning Bio-Research Facility, a vast area made of several rooms that connect with each other via security doors, and said rooms host beautiful but deadly plants and a creepily calm atmosphere.

The facility rooms are in fact greenhouses, but their carnivorous plants and poisonous mushrooms are only a facade for what truly goes on underneath. Evil masterminds, crazy scientists, power-hungry madmen are again present, as is always the case in our beloved Tomb Raider games. By the way, this whole section holds a cunning resemblance to Javier's greenhouse from Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. I guess all villains have some things in common after all.

Puzzles are not very difficult, but they do require some thinking. The aforementioned element areas under the Louvre involve a series of trials that are easy to understand but rather difficult to execute, but definitely one of the most memorable moments of this section and maybe of the whole game is the room at the top of the Hall of Seasons with the one-of-a-kind boss "fight" against the red ghost that guards the painting: it is not a typical fight in that you cannot battle against the boss, but rather you have to carry out a timed process in order to be able to take the painting and leave without the ghost messing with you. This sequence was one of those stages that back then had players, including yours truly, pulling their hair in anger and despair, but somehow now I managed to do it with my second attempt. Draining the water in the Louvre sewers is an ingenious process, as is the whole sequence with distracting the mutant fish in the Aquatic Research Area. Among my favorites is surely the puzzle in Vasiley's library in Prague, set in a lovely environment which makes you wish there was more to explore there.

The lab in the final stage is also a beautifully made setting involving a series of cleverly thought puzzles. It is in fact an Alchemy lab, as the game's backstory has mainly to do with Alchemy, and it is where the plot reaches its climax and you begin to see where all this is going. The arch-villain is a man that does not come from this century, and everything in his lab betrays that. Vintage decoration, old-time equipment, even zombie skeletons, comprise the compelling environment of his secret laboratory. Don't you just love those beautiful vintage items in games? I know I do.

Character-wise, the game is doing pretty well, although there was still room for a lot of improvement and development. Now that I got to play the game again after so many years, I saw that there is a lot more depth in both the characters and the story than I thought back then, as I also noticed details in the dialogues and the notes that I previously missed. There are six villains in the story, although only three of them actually become threatening, and Lara finds out in the end that the real evil mastermind was someone that, up to that point, preferred to move mostly in the shadows.

As I mentioned a few paragraphs above, Kurtis is a very interesting character and he had a lot of potential. Core had plans for him to be the protagonist in a possible spin-off and maybe even become a recurring character in future Tomb Raider games. Kurtis is a demon hunter, coming from a long line of ancestors that shared skills similar to his: he has some sort of telekinesis and can see very far away by using his special power. He has a powerful weapon, a Chirugai, which however he only uses in a cutsene at the end of his boss fight. I want to believe that if the game had been more complete, we could have been able to use it in gameplay as well. Kurtis can control his Chirugai with his mind and the weapon essentially "senses" his presence even if he is hidden somewhere around. Such great elements that would fit so well in the Tomb Raider world. The levels that we get to play with him take place in a sanatorium, also a secret experiment center of the bad guys, which now is a nest of creepy, blood-thirsty mutants. The bonus is a boss fight with one of the mutated evil masterminds, which, like the aforementioned red ghost sequence, used to be a nightmare for us back then. Now, after having played so many difficult games in the meantime, I realized that what truly made those sequences tough in The Angel of Darkness was the broken control system, because otherwise they were very straightforward and easy.

The Angel of Darkness has its peculiar charm and its own cult merit but unfortunately its flawed gameplay system is a curse that it will always carry on its back. Regardless, it's an experience that left and will always leave good memories to Tomb Raider players, at least; if anything, it was the last game made by Core Design and this alone is a reason to consider it historical anyway. The Angel of Darkness stands in the middle of the two eras of  the Tomb Raider saga, after the end of the classics and before its rebirth, first with Legend, Underworld and Anniversary by Crystal Dynamics and then with Reborn, Rise and Shadow by Square Enix. It was an unlucky game because at the time of its production the gaming technology had taken big steps compared to the previous decade, but still it had not reached the jaw-dropping heights that became a standard a few years later. It had so many innovative and interesting elements but its technical flaws prevented it from making a breakthrough to a bigger fanbase and thus creating its own legend in the Tomb Raider universe.

Resident Evil 6 In Restrospect

Saturday, 11 September 2021

 
Now that the classic Resident Evil saga - that is, from the very first game until the sixth, including the side games - has seemingly come to a halt, for the time being at least, it looks like a good time to view the highly underrated Resident Evil 6 in retrospect, and under a different light. I had written an extensive review several years ago, but now that it's been almost a decade since it's initial release, and taking the remake of Resident Evil 2 into consideration - since this is very important, as I will explain in the article that follows - I feel that I have more specific feedback to offer, seeing how I also came to realize a few things which did bug me from the start that I couldn't exactly distinguish back then, although I loved the game and it still is one of my favorites of the series.
 
Resident Evil 6 is, on first look, an impressive game with a stellar cast, featuring four characters that belong to its classic core: Leon, Chris, Ada and Sherry come from the long past of the series, each one of them being connected to some of the most memorable stories of the saga. We could also include Ingrid Hunnigan in this dream team, since she is also a character who has appeared in Resident Evil 4 alongside Leon and established herself as a memorable part of the cast. But the four aforementioned characters, since they are protagonists in their own plotlines, are the ones who star, and inevitably attract most of the limelight. Each of them has a different story to tell, although at certain points their paths cross and they experience the same things from a slightly different aspect. Technically, this has its pros and its cons, but I am not going to go there in this article, since I will focus exclusively on the story from a "literary", so to speak, point of view.
 
What happens in the game plot-wise is that we have one main story which is split in four parts. Its core is a linear development of a series of events, while the additional storylines offer extra insight concerning certain characters and sub-plots. The very essence of the game's plot revolves around Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin, who find themselves stranded in war-torn Edonia after Sherry tracks Jake down among other mercenaries that are fighting in the civil war that is gradually devastating the region. Jake is Albert Wesker's son, and thanks to this heritage he has antibodies that can help fight the C-virus. Sherry has been sent to find him and bring him to her boss, Derek Simmons, naively believing that the latter wants Jake so as to use his blood for the development of an antidote for the virus. At some point they fall in a trap set by Carla Radames, a mad scientist who has cloned herself into an Ada Wong lookalike and whose intent is to use Jake's antibodies in order to make the virus stronger for her own gain. After spending six months imprisoned in a luxurious facility in China, Jake and Sherry manage to escape, at which point Sherry finds out the evil plans of her boss and decides to ignore all orders so as to save Jake and prevent the bad guys from taking advantage of his precious blood. 
 


In their long journey, Jake and Sherry come across Chris and his men, first in Edonia and later in China, Leon with his partner Helena and Ada who, however, never reveals herself to them. The campaigns of Chris, Leon and Ada explain how the three of them got involved in Jake and Sherry's story, each one of them following a very different path up to the point of each reunion. 

Stripping Resident Evil 6 off its many plotlines and focusing on the core of its story, all loose ends basically lead to Jake: he is Albert Wesker's son, which automatically makes him an extremely intriguing character, and he carries the antibodies that can help eliminate the virus. Simmons wants him in order to kill him or maybe keep him under control so as to prevent the discovery of a potential cure, Carla wants him so as to experiment on his antibodies and make the virus stronger and Sherry has been tasked to accompany him throughout his dangerous journey, putting her own life into great risk. All the surrounding stories eventually lead up to Jake one way or the other; Carla has even created a specially trained monster, Unstanak, that is able to sniff out and locate him. People die and sacrifice their lives for him, even unbeknownst to them. Chris himself crosses paths with him many times, helping him out on several occasions and eventually rescuing him from Carla's underwater facility. Ada literally watches over him, intervening whenever it is necessary to offer a hand. Leon, with his valuable intel, provides information about him that helps push the story forward, and he as well aids him in practice at a certain point. Jake is the leading key character in the game, he is essentially its driving force. His part of the story is the most important, and in my opinion it deserved more screen time and needed to be more complex and elaborate than the others. Leon's story is great and brings back memories of the older games, Chris's story is powerful, touching and heart-breaking, Ada's story has a mildly interesting plot with excellent gameplay - all of them have something to offer to the main story, but it is actually Jake's campaign that is to the point, it is the one where the "hot-stuff" happens, and Jake is the character who basically leads almost everyone's steps, although most of the times he is unaware of it and the game is structured in such a way as to (un)intentionally conceal it. When there is so much to do in the other three campaigns, it is inevitable that the main focus is lost, and Jake's story is considered on the same level of importance as the others - or less, even.

I could perfectly see an extended version of Jake's campaign, maybe with flashbacks of his childhood, his mercenary past and memories of his father, as the main game with all the other three stories as accompanying DLCs; and moreso since now we have more insight concerning certain of the characters involved.
 
 
The release of Resident Evil 2 remake put Leon and Claire's relationship in a new path. The emergence of a more than notable amount of fanart featuring the two of them as a "couple" after the remake, is on its own a strong proof of the impact that this unexpected but welcome change had. I don't know if this was done intentionally by the developers or it just happened randomly in the making of the game, but it looks like the remake simply highlighted what has always been there but the creators ignored, for some mysterious reason: Claire has always been the perfect choice of a female love interest for Leon, and not only because they look so good together on screen: Claire is the sister of Chris Redfield, a character as strong, charming and fascinating as Leon, and she has gone through a series of extremely dangerous adventures that she has carried out with impressive bravery and skill. So she is pretty much like Leon on that matter, their only difference being, up to a point, their social status: before Claire joins Terra Save, she is a civilian, while Leon is introduced to her as a police officer before he becomes a government agent. 
 
As much as I like Ada, I always felt that, excluding Resident Evil 2 where she made her first appearance, she was thrown in the stories mainly as a plot device and much less as an independent character. Although she did have her separate plots in Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 6 plus a small part in The Umbrella Chronicles, her mysterious and constantly vaguely explained (if at all) intentions seemed to be simply a cover-up for her real role: she was there as a distraction for Leon, acting the same way towards him every single time, secretly helping him in a way (although, in practice, her help was not really of much use, unless you take the infamous Rocket Launcher drop into consideration), and always disappearing in the end. Even in Damnation, the second of the CGI movies starring Leon, her role, albeit seemingly crucial, was in fact nothing more than a series of expected stunts; and although there is a mention at some point of "something" that she and Leon started but never finished, this stays in the air and, considering that Damnation took place just before Resident Evil 6, we cannot even be sure that it was indeed the real Ada in the movie, or if it was Carla, her evil "clone"; on the contrary, the story focused discreetly on Leon's connection with Alexander, something that became more and more obvious as the movie progressed, and especially in the finale.

Claire has always been there by Leon's side, obviously the ideal companion for him but constantly ignored by her own creators. Just think of Degeneration, the first CGI movie: Leon would flirt with Angela as if this was the only expected prospect for him, while Claire would again be his "buddy". Not surprisingly, this changed in the brand new series, Infinite Darkness, which came right after the Resident Evil 2 remake: you can definitely catch the undertones in the interactions between Leon and Claire, and although there is another female character in the story, Shen May, Leon has no romantic interest in her, nor her in him;  she seems to be quite smitten with the ill-fated Jason, although she expresses it a bit too late; and in fact the one who ends up fascinated with Leon is Patrick, the young agent whom Leon saves early on from the attack of a bloodthirsty zombie.
 
 
I have the impression that in their attempt to establish Ada as a main character in Resident Evil 6, the developers came up with the whole part involving Simmons's obsession with her which eventually led to the creation of her evil twin and his own tragic fate. Because this way, Ada would be essential for the story, and where she would simply appear and disappear again as a supporting character, like so many times before, instead she became the one who actually caused the evil mastermind's outrageous actions (albeit without her knowing), gaining more power as a character compared to her co-protagonists. This could have been an interesting standalone plotline, had Ada a game of her own. But in the whole context of Resident Evil 6, it is as if this specific story is there to minimize the importance of Jake's part and shift to Ada the focus that should have been all on him. In a different context, had the whole story been more elaborate and differently structured, Ada's "interlude" with Simmons could have been an ideal red herring. This basically means that if Simmons was "just" an evil guy without any interest in Ada, there would have been no need to create her clone; Carla would have simply been a genious-turned-crazy scientist (like Sherry's father), aiming at taking over the world (like Jake's father); and if Ada still appeared in the game, her role would have been very limited, and additionally Helena's story in the game would also have been unnecessary, at least as far as her sister's part was concerned. 

Chris's story, on the other hand, was more than strong enough to get a separate game on its own. For what it's worth, Chris deserved it. We have witnessed instances showing the strong bond that he shared with his comrades - like in the first game with Richard, for instance, but never before have we seen our beloved marksman in action with a group of soldiers under his command, until Resident Evil 6.

This was the first time that we saw him as a leader of his team, and his relationship with Piers was very intriguing, to say the least. Most of us have noticed the desperate subtle confession that Piers mutters to Chris at the tragic finale of the story, and how sad and devastated Chris is in the concluding scenes. It would have been extremely interesting if the ending was extended, and we, as Chris, could get to choose between two possible endings a-la Life is Strange with a dramatic "Save Piers or Save the world" kind of moral dilemma. I confess I would have chosen to save Piers without the slightest remorse.

Speaking of which - and this is something I have mentioned also in my review - I love the character development in this game, although now, after having replayed it recently, I wish it stood out a bit more. We see Helena becoming more compassionate thanks to Leon's influence; Jake ends up far less cynical thanks to Sherry, and Sherry gains more confidence in herself because of Jake; Chris gradually frees himself from the ghosts that haunt him thanks to Piers's support, while his unexpected meeting with Leon seems to play a highly important role in him admitting that he was indeed trying to hide from his past: Leon somehow connected him with his "original" self, the "legendary Chris Redfield" like Piers calls him, since Leon came from a time in his life when everything was different. It is not random that it is after this specific encounter that he comes completely to his senses; and then bumping onto Jake, his archenemy's son, brings out his real, heroic and just character. Piers and Leon, for their own part, are by default positive and balancing characters, with their sense of duty and kind heart always showing, never losing their nerve and constantly being ready to face any situation with calm and insight. Only Ada seems to be totally detached throughout the whole story, just momentarily showing a hint of emotion during her meeting with Leon, and then going back again to her cold self. The sole moment when she really seems emotionally overwhelmed is at the end when she destroys Carla's lab; but this is probably due to the fact that Carla stealing her identity was something that personally affected her deeply.

What is more interesting, however, is that in spite of the presence of so many known characters, it is actually Leon who represents the spirit and essence of Resident Evil (the whole first chapter of his story is a tribute to classics like Resident Evil 2 and Nemesis), while at the same time being the link that connects all main characters: he personally knows Sherry, Chris and Ada and he is the one who sends Chris to rescue Jake and Sherry. Leon functions as an invariant in the Resident Evil saga, much more than the other classic characters, and this is something that becomes much more evident in Resident Evil 6, if you view the game with the distance of time and taking into consideration the power and gravity of Leon's presence and his emotional and intellectual development throughout the games.

 

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