Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles was a Nintendo Wii title I picked up long ago. I’d always been a fan of the series, though admittedly, I’d never been particularly skilled at it. I’d either get too spooked to properly finish certain sections, or the puzzles and level paths would confuse me enough that I’d get stuck and eventually give up entirely.
Umbrella Chronicles, though, offered a much more casual entry point into the franchise, largely free of puzzles or jump scares. It felt closer to Sega’s House of the Dead than Capcom’s traditional survival horror formula. The game runs on a very similar, if not identical, graphics engine to the Resident Evil 1 remake on GameCube, and essentially plays out as a retelling of most of the mainline Resident Evil games. For a Wii title, it looked genuinely gorgeous and honestly still holds up reasonably well today, even without an HD remaster.
It kicks off with a Resident Evil Zero segment, dropping you straight into zombie-shooting action aboard the train. But rather than the clunky tank controls or the Resident Evil 4-style setup, this plays as a straightforward rail shooter, much like Sega’s House of the Dead. There are plenty of zombies to mow down, and thankfully, the Wii’s motion-pointer controls held up surprisingly well here.
I remember playing through it in co-op with my brother Zach, though I can’t recall if we blasted through it in one sitting or spread it out over several. Either way, I remember genuinely enjoying it, especially the segments revisiting the events of Resident Evil 2 and 3. At the time, those games were still stuck on PlayStation 1, Nintendo 64, and Dreamcast, visually locked into that older era, so it was genuinely cool seeing those environments, characters, and story beats rebuilt for the Wii’s more capable hardware.
The boss encounters were interesting too, if noticeably less intimidating than in the mainline games. If memory serves, ammo was fairly plentiful, and dodging wasn’t really an option anyway, so there was less genuine tension when battling these massive zombie monstrosities. I don’t remember any of them being especially difficult, though my brother was helping me through it, so I honestly can’t say for certain how I would’ve fared solo.
Over 20 years later, I’d nearly forgotten this game existed entirely until I stumbled across it on YouTube recently while watching something unrelated. Looking back, I genuinely enjoyed it, but since it’s largely a retelling with some original content mixed in, it never quite carved out as strong a lasting impression as it maybe deserved. I also had no idea Capcom later ported it to the PlayStation 3, and honestly, I’m glad more people got the chance to experience it, since I firmly believe it’s an underrated, overlooked entry in the franchise.