Introduction
Let's talk about Resident Evil and the year 2002. At the end of April, a remake of the original game, affectionately nicknamed REmake, was released in the U.S., bringing the poorly-aged game into a new generation of consoles. In November of that year, the first announcement of Resident Evil 4 was made. The version we saw then never saw the light of day, but an improved RE4 would later be released to great critical acclaim, bringing new life to an aging series. Sandwiched between these two events, in June, was the American release of a spin-off for the Game Boy Color developed by M4 Limited, one of those small groups who do cheap spin-offs and licensed crap and never get to produce anything of value. Like RE4, it was very different from the "normal" REs. Unlike RE4, it was not so universally well-received, and will never be remembered. We will be discovering why. This is...
While Gaiden doesn't have many meaningful connections to the rest of the series, I'll be making a lot references to the rest of the "plot." If you aren't familiar with it, and don't want to play the games, you could check out the previous LPs of the series by The Dark Id. All of can be found on the LP archive, but the following are most relevant to Gaiden:
Resident Evil 2 (Racoon City Jamboree)
Resident Evil 1
If you're reading them all, start at RE4.
Resident Evil Gaiden features an all-star team of characters from previous games(A character Capcom has forgotten, a character nobody cared about until RE4, and some girl). Let's meet our heroes.
Barry BurtonBarry was a member of the S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team, who ended up stuck in a spooky Umbrella Corporation mansion/research lab when searching for their missing comrades in the original game. In reality, Barry was being blackmailed by Umbrella to help kill off the other S.T.A.R.S. members. Nowadays, Barry is armed with a new hair color, and is part of a secret anti-Umbrella organization. You can get Barry killed in Resident Evil 1, but I'm pretty sure he's supposed to be alive in the official canon. Not that it matters, as Resident Evil characters are not known for staying dead. Barry doesn't even appear in Umbrella Chronicles, which is supposed to tell the story of all the major games in the series, suggesting that Capcom simply does not care about him anymore.
Leon "Mister Leon Scott Kennedy" KennedyLeon was one of the playable characters in Resident Evil 2. He was a rookie cop in Raccoon City, but on his first day as an officer, the entire town was engulfed in a horrific zombie holocaust. In Gaiden, he's also a member of the hidden anti-Umbrella group, but he's managed to go missing while on a mission. The manual says he's a former member of S.T.A.R.S., which is not actually correct. Later, Leon will go on to star in a game which is actually good. Leon is also absent from Umbrella Chronicles, because Capcom didn't really feel like making three whole levels for RE2.
LuciaA little girl who is moving in with relatives of her adoptive family to get away from the kids who make fun of her at school. Instead, she gets caught up in one of Umbrella's weekly T-virus outbreaks. She is totally distinct from Sherry Birkin because she has red hair.
And now that you know what's up, let's play!
As the tiny GBC speakers bark out their best attempt at an ominous "Resident Evil," the door to safety is shut. There is no turning back. You enter the world of Gaiden...