Capcom’s first Resident Evil handheld release has something of an interesting past, with a background that’s just as interesting as the final game.
Gaiden
was predominantly created by British developer M4, making it the first title in the series to be created outside Japan. It’s also linked to the
Dino
Crisis
series, as M4 was working on a demo for that particular franchise, before Capcom
asked it to go ahead with a standalone
Resident
Evil
game (a Game Boy Color remake of the original PlayStation game by Hot Gen Studios was cancelled in favour of M4’s game). Despite what you may have heard,
Gaiden
is nowhere near as bad as reports suggest, thanks to a huge tanker to explore, Barry Burton getting some much-needed limelight as one of the main characters, and a slick combat system that switches to first-person whenever the player engages zombies (the perspective was inspired by the hit game
Dungeon
Master).
It was never going to capture the atmosphere of the PlayStation original, but
Gaiden
remains a resoundingly solid adventure. Just be aware that it’s now quite pricey to procure.