Video Game / Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles

Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is a sequel to earlier Resident Evil rail shooter The Umbrella Chronicles.

Set in 2002, The Darkside Chronicles covers Leon S. Kennedy's backstory with Jack Krauser (which Resident Evil 4 hinted at) as they search through South American jungles to investigate infamous drug lord Javier Hidalgo, who made contact with an underground Umbrella researcher. The duo discovers that Javier bought a considerable number of B.O.W.s to use as weapons against his enemies — as well as samples of the T-Veronica virus, which he used to unleash a plague of zombies upon the countryside. With the help of a mysterious girl named Manuela, the two men work to discover why a drug lord has begun to dabble in bio-weaponry.

The Darkside Chronicles features three levels subdivided into a number of chapters. "Operation Javier", the main level, covers Leon and Krauser's efforts to battle Javier. "Memory of a Lost City" adapts the events of Resident Evil 2 and frames them as Leon recounting his previous experience with biohazard outbreaks to Krauser. "Game of Oblivion" appears to retell Leon's recollections/near-drowning induced fever dream of the story of the T-Veronica virus, as told to him by Claire Redfield after the events of Code: Veronica. In the game, "Memory of a Lost City" occurs after the first chapter of "Operation Javier", and "Game of Oblivion" occurs in between the second and third chapters of "Operation Javier". Chapters 6 and 7 of "Operation Javier", sometimes referred to as "Darkness Falls" or "Krauser's Hidden Story", retell the events of Chapters 4 and 5 from Krauser's point of view.

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The Darkside Chronicles contains examples of the following tropes:

• Adaptation Personality Change: Alexia Ashford (the real one, not Alfred) in her debut game, was a more classical high-class villainess who enjoyed a good dose of Evil Laughter and spoke fairly maturely. Here, she's still got the evil laughter but she's now more along the lines of a psychopathic little girl who refers to the T-Veronica Virus as a separate person (calling it "Veronica" and referencing how it's "angry") and even kills Alfred outright, a stark contrast to how she cradled his body gently and attacked Claire and Steve in the original game as revenge for his death.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Claire is shown to be much more fearful in the retelling of Resident Evil 2, freaking out over the zombie outbreak and showing more emotional turmoil in her voice when searching for Sherry.
• Adaptational Villainy: Alexia lacks the sympathetic and redeeming qualities (such as her love for her brother) she had in Code: Veronica, and her evil is noticeably worse.
• Anti-Villain: Javier Hidalgo counts as Type III. He is a drug lord and knows what he's doing is wrong, but he genuinely loves his daughter, Manuela, and after suffering the death of his wife, Hilda, and learning his daughter contracted the same disease, desperately turned to whatever means he could to keep her alive. Of course, that meant he was willing to use the T-Veronica virus and abduct girls about Manuela's age to transplant their organs.
• Ascended Extra: The Linear Launcher was given a backstory in this game. It was actually created by Alexander Ashford as a last resort should his daughter plan to spread the T-Veronica Virus into the world.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Many enemies have a spot that they take extra damage from, usually the head or mouth. With bosses, this is usually the only way the player can actually hurt them. Examples include the head and heart for Tyrants and the Jabberwock S3s, Nosferatu's heart, and the open mouth of Hunter Gammas.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The unlockable Linear Launcher has a ridiculously slow recharge rate per shot unless it is fully upgraded.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: Played with by Manuela Hidalgo. She really does have a lovely singing voice (which is even shown to soothe her mother Hilda—transformed into a B.O.W. by the effects of the T-Veronica virus—if she sings the lullaby her mother used to sing to her), but her singing causes Krauser to chastise her, as it'll bring attention to the group. The second time Krauser comments on her singing (this time during his perspective of the second and final battle with Hilda), he doesn't even note the quality of her voice, but the possibility that Hilda's strong reaction to the song was due to her previously being human.
• Blood Knight:
  • Krauser's reason for joining SOCOM is because he doesn't think he could actually function in normal society, and this work actually gives his life meaning.
  • Steve likes to take his aggression out on zombies, and given recent events, he has a lot of it.
• Boom, Headshot!: Identical to the version used in The Umbrella Chronicles, except the target zone is wider and so it's easier to pull off.^note This is subverted in the Hard difficulty, which reduces the headshot zone to the same level as The Umbrella Chronicles. True headshots result in the head exploding, while misaimed headshots will cause more damage and result in a neat little spurt of blood.
• Boobs-and-Butt Pose: In the first chapter of "Game of Oblivion", after explaining her story to Steve, Claire insists that he tell her his story - all while looking over her shoulder at him, bent over in front of a computer, with her butt stuck out. This moment is even funnier considering that Steve was admiring that particular view of her at the beginning of that scene.
• Boring, but Practical: The standard pistol may be all the player ever needs for all the difficulties besides Very Hard. It has unlimited ammo and, when fully upgraded, has enough firepower to utterly destroy any single boss the game throws at the player. Plus, it's the only weapon capable of One-Hit Kill-Boom Headshots.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Inverted. The Jabberwock S3 looks like some variant of the Tyrant right down to the exposed heart, perhaps incorporating spider DNA, but otherwise is just an ordinary enemy.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Getting the Linear Launcher as a weapon that the player can use in any chapter.
• Broad Strokes: Basically how the adaptations of Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica should be seen. Even beyond the strong application of Never Split the Party compared to the original's predominance of Let's Split Up, Gang!, the cutscenes often change events. The most blatant change happens in the retelling of Code: Veronica, which displayed Alfred and Alexia Ashford as disturbingly close. Here, Alexia cares little for Alfred and even kills him for being "useless".
• Character Blog: Krauser had a Twitter account where he updated several things that went on during the mission as part of a marketing campaign before the game's release.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Both Claire and Leon get to duke it out on who's more snarky between the two.
  • Krauser more than holds his own; banter between him and Leon are veritable snark-fests:
    Krauser: I don't care how much they're paying [Leon]. This job sucks.
    Krauser: Maybe they don't like door-to-door salesmen.
• Determinator: The T-078 in "Game of Oblivion" gets caught in the waist by an activated missile. It wrestles with the rocket-propelled explosive, almost succeeding in holding it at bay until its ignition sequence stops but loses its footing and is carried out of the cargo bay. This is after being shot to death once, left behind on an exploding island, and then it somehow clung onto the escape plane's exterior until it was halfway over the ocean.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Some of the final bosses are ridiculously huge and powerful. The player may need a special storyline weapon for some of them, but most will go down to the player and their pistol. Specifically, the player needs to use a rocket launcher to defeat Combat Mode Mr. X (a.k.a. "The Super Tyrant"), the Linear Launcher to defeat Alexia, and a missile to defeat the T-078 Tyrant. The biggest and nastiest of them all, Javier's T-Veronica form, goes down quickly to Manuela's flammable blood, but could theoretically be taken down by the player alone. Unfortunately, using the former gets the player the bad ending.
• Dying as Yourself: Manuela's mother, signified by her eyes turning blue and shedding a single tear as she hugs her daughter with one of her tentacles.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Javier. He harvests the organs of countless young girls to keep his daughter Manuela from dying.
• Evil Counterpart: Inverted. The game really hammers home that Manuela is the good counterpart to Alexia. They are each carriers of the T-Veronica Virus and play a major role in the deaths of their criminal fathers. They are also associated with berceuses, but while Alexia's is ominous to reflect her megalomaniacal nature, Manuela's is comforting and can pacify her mutated mother.
• Fake Difficulty: The creatures, particularly in "Operation Javier", keep having their health boosted as the chapters go by. A maximum damage handgun will take out a Hunter Gamma with one shot in the first chapter, but half a maximized clip is needed in the fourth chapter. Couple this with the increasing amount of helmeted zombies who need two shots to remove their helmets and the fact that they seem to get even tougher in the special Krauser missions.
• Fallen Hero: Krauser. This is the game that sheds some light into his Start of Darkness.
• Foregone Conclusion: This game takes place before Resident Evil 4. It has Krauser in it, in a heroic capacity.
• Framing Device: Operation Javier provides both the main story and the frame for the two other levels.
• Freaky Is Cool: The secret chapters, a retelling from Krauser's perspective after finally reaching Javier's mansion, reveal he has begun to admire the Umbrella viruses and the power they can bring, particularly after seeing what Manuela can do with her T-Veronica infection.
• George Jetson Job Security: This is Krauser's ultimate fate by the true end of the game, as despite his distinguished service in the military, SOCOM discharges him because of an arm injury he received during the mission that never really recovered. He doesn't take this news very well at all.
• Giant Spider: This game has the most variety of any Resident Evil game to date. Giant jumping spiders called Jumping Maneaters in "Operation Javier", the tarantula-like Web Spinners in "Memories of a Lost City", and giant Black Widows in "Game of Oblivion". Did we mention you encounter these all in first person?
• Green-Eyed Monster: The main reason why Krauser pulled his Face–Heel Turn. He was envious that Leon was so special in the eyes of the government despite being "employed" against his will, while Krauser was not, despite being a willing member of SOCOM. The mission with Leon also ultimately turned out to be his last mission in SOCOM, something he was very much displeased with as he viewed serving in the military as his life.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • In the case of the Combat Mode Mr. X near the end of "Memories of a Lost City", the player needs to time the rocket shot so that it hits when it leaps and lands. Shooting it at any other time causes it to swat away the rocket or catch and return it at the player.
  • Third Form Alexia in "Game of Oblivion" needs to be shot with the Linear Launcher to end the battle, but she moves too fast for the player to get a proper shot. She can be stunned with any other weapon when she launches her needles, giving the player a brief opportunity to switch to the Linear Launcher and hit her.
• Guns Akimbo: Since the player can play this game with only the Wii remote, they can play with one in each hand.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Linear Launcher requires the player to complete every chapter on Hard difficulty, but it's worth it. It has the most damage and stopping power of any gun in the game (both S rank, and each can be upgraded to S+ rank for 22000 gold), a massive splash radius, and infinite ammo. The only drawback is that it needs to recharge in between each shot... but, this is an upgradable stat and, at maximum, it takes something like two seconds to charge.
• The Internet Is for Porn: Steve mentions to Claire that the guards used the computers for games and porn.
• Jiggle Physics:
  • Claire gets a little of it in "Memories of a Lost City". However, even if you're deliberately paying attention, it's hard to see it. Female zombies, on the other hand...
  • Mutated Alexia. Understandable, since regular Alexia wears modest, classical ballgowns and her initial mutated form wears... well, nothing.
• Jitter Cam: Used to add to the atmosphere. However, it also makes it harder to aim than in its predecessor.
• Killer Rabbit: The secret level has all the zombies replaced by tofu. Monstrous tofu that can't be headshotted, need at least three shots to kill, and can kill the player in three hits. Fortunately for the player, these tofu also possess the qualities of... tofu.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  Steve: Zombie, zombie, zombie, zombie, zombie! It's like a damn video game!
  • After going through a door puzzle that has the player removing (via shooting) dolls so a boy can get to his lover, Steve says this gem that hangs a lampshade on all of the nigh-ridiculous or nonsensical puzzles in the series:
    Steve: Well, that's a complicated way to open a door.
  • Also:
    Leon: This is like a horror movie...
    Claire: But you don't have to do this many stunts in a horror movie.
  • And...
    Claire: Shoot [T-078] in the head, that's his weak point!
    Steve: When did you find that out?
    Claire: Oh, about five hundred zombies ago.
• Lazy Backup: Averted in that the player's partner will shoot and kill enemies on their own even when there's no second player. The downside is that they also have a health bar and can be attacked or even killed by enemies as well.
• Love Makes You Evil: Javier, upon learning his daughter was infected with the same incurable terminal disease that killed her mother, infected her with the T-Veronica Virus. He then began preparing to spend the next 15 years abducting and murdering girls so he could transplant their organs into Manuela in order to keep her from becoming a mindless T-Veronica mutant, and has already killed 50 innocent girls by the time the game starts.
• Male Gaze: Steve gets a nice POV of Claire's butt in the first chapter of "Game of Oblivion".
• Man-Eating Plant: The Ivy B.O.W. returns in the Resident Evil 2 chapters. "Operation Javier" has the Ivy XY, a tropical variant, as well as the V Complex.
• Missing Child: In the "Operation Javier" scenario, a lot of girls from the village have gone missing. This is due to them being used by Javier as unwilling organ donors to save Manuela.
• Multiple Endings: Two endings are possible, with a third that simply adds to the good ending. Beat V Compound in under 10 minutes, and Manuela lives and manages to remain human. Fail to beat it in that time, and Maneula loses too much blood and burns up from the T-Veronica Virus. And then there's the secret ending (the aforementioned expansion on the good ending) revealing that Wesker is watching the fight and Krauser's thoughts on the subject.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: According to the director, this is the ultimate result of Leon's refusal to give up on Manuela. In saving the girl, he unknowingly helped set the stage for the events of 4, 5, and 6. Because he saved Manuela, Krauser went to work for Wesker and helped him gain a sample of the Dominant-strain Plagas. And because the American government took custody of Manuela, Simmons was able to obtain a sample of the T-Veronica virus, which was used to develop the C-Virus.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse:
  • The ending cutscene of "Memories of a Lost City" shows why Leon joined the government to become their agent prior to this game, and where Sherry is. While Claire somehow wandered off after Raccoon City was destroyed, Leon and Sherry were captured by the government and Leon was given the choice; work for them, or be imprisoned while Sherry is taken off for experimentation, due to being the last source of the Devil Vaccine. As Resident Evil 6 reveals, the government secretly went and experimented upon Sherry anyway.
  • Krauser gets a variation of this when he realizes that his career with SOCOM is likely over, and Wesker is the only one who can let him continue doing the only thing he's good at.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: Monster Steve's theme, Alexia's themes, and both of Hilda's themes. Even more ironic because the second is a mimicry of the lullaby that Manuela sings.
• Palette Swap: Subverted. The Jabberwock S3 was based on Steve's monstrous form and has some of Nosferatu's attributes as well (the three extra limbs on the back, for example). Its arms and head, however, are designed to resemble those of spiders.
• Press X to Not Die: When facing a boss, there are only two ways to avoid being hit. The first is to disrupt the attack by shooting it (e.g. blasting Birkin 1 in the head to avoid being clubbed, or blowing up Alexia's fireballs), or pressing the right button combo to dodge, which is only valid against certain attacks (e.g. the Giant Alligator's lunge).
• Rank Inflation: Most Resident Evil games have a rank system that goes from D to C to B to A to S. The Darkside Chronicles has "+" versions of all of those ranks in between the lower and higher rank, up to S+ as the highest rank.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Manuela's mother has blue eyes which turn red when she is rampaging.
• Rewarding Vandalism: As in The Umbrella Chronicles, shooting stuff gets the player files and also gold, which is used to upgrade their weapons. It doesn't count towards the player end-of-level score, though.
• Rule of Funny: The unlocked minigame seems to be one part this, one part Shout-Out to Resident Evil 2's Tofu Survivor, as it depicts Claire having to escape from the RPD building while fighting her way through swarms of man-sized vicious blocks of tofu which are blown into ludicrous fragments by the player's gunfire.
• Sequential Boss: The player has to fight William Birkin's 2nd, 3rd, and 4th form in a row with no breaks in between, and his health bar fully replenishes for each form. The player has to conserve their ammo and healing items.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Krauser. He considers the military to be the only thing that gives his life meaning and does not take it well when he is forced to retired from the military after his arm is permanently damaged by the Hilda creature.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Subverted. The shotgun's sole virtue is its spread shot which allows it to hit multiple targets at once, though it does have good hitting (A+) and stopping (S+) power. It's an average gun at best but has one of the worst reload times in the game, with only the rocket launcher taking longer. What's more, its reload time is a fixed stat so it can't be improved. Increasing its capacity is generally not advised as reload times increases as well.
• Shout-Out: In the ending of "Game of Oblivion", Wesker is seen looking up from the flames of the island facility that Alexia was inside as he watches Chris' helicopter flying away, similar to Sephiroth.
• Sidetrack Bonus: The player will occasionally come across forks where they may only choose one path. One of the paths may lead to shortcuts, while the other will lead the player to rooms filled with destructible objects that reward gold, weapons or files. Nonetheless, both of these paths will converge to a same point, advancing the story.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Both Leon and Claire never drop any F bombs, but they do swear quite a bit in the Memory of a Lost City when stressed out.
• Stab the Scorpion: Krauser sneaks up on Leon with a knife, only to toss it at a snake that was about to attack Leon's back.
• Start of Darkness: For Krauser, leaving him somewhat of an Anti-Villain once Resident Evil 4 rolls around.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: After finding Ben's body, Ada suddenly disappears while Leon and Claire are reading a message written on the wall by Ben.
• Stock Footage: Claire and Steve use Billy and Chris' counter animations from the previous game.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: The very high stopping power of the shotgun is all but necessary to survive some bosses, who need to be stunned during very short windows of opportunity in order to avoid damage. The wide spread also helps with the tricky aiming on those very important shots.
• Too Dumb to Live: Ada approached a dazed, kneeling Mr. X to put her gun to his head and take the time to bust out a Bond One-Liner. The Tyrant immediately grabbed Ada and slammed her into the power generator.
• Tragic Monster: While almost every single zombie you slaughter is this to an extent, special mention goes to Steve and Hilda, as they both retain some sentience in their mutated forms and ultimately pass away peacefully in the arms of the people they loved.
• Unreliable Narrator: A possible explanation for the differences between how Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica originally happened, and how they're depicted here. Leon is telling the story secondhand (in the second game, he never even met Chief Irons, let alone witnessed his death, and he wasn't present at all for Code: Veronica), and is getting some of his facts mixed up. This is justified in that he and Krauser are in a life-or-death scenario of the worst kind, and Leon is recalling similar experiences Claire had: babysitting first a little girl and then a teenaged male who acts like a little boy at times. It's likely Leon's letting his own experiences bleed into the retellings. Leon's memory can't and shouldn't be expected to be sharp when he's retelling a traumatic experience in a small break during a traumatic experience.
• Vine Tentacles: Alexia shares a symbiotic connection with plants that have been infected by the T-Veronica Virus. This enables her to telepathically control the vines, which he uses to ensnare, strangle and impale her enemies.
• Was Once a Man: The unidentifiable amphibious B.O.W. that the player fights in the first and second to last chapters of "Operation Javier"? That's Manuela's mother, Hilda, transformed into her present state with a severe overdose of the T-Veronica Virus by her husband.

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