I was originally going to play Darkside since Code Veronica is a tank control but the copy I have was scratched upon arrival and doesn't work past a certain mark. I had no interest in this one since I had already seen gameplay of all three of its titles but I realized during one of my replays of RE3 Remake that I keep coming back even though I know every nook and cranny as if I'm looking for something that wasn't there before like new content. There will never be an expansion to that game until I started thinking, what about the Umbrella Chronicles version?

So, I bought this game just for that section. Unfortunately you can't just pick one game or the other, with Darkside, it was one continuous story modern day with flashbacks to each game but with this one, it's continuous but doesn't have a main story to tie it all together or add to it so you play these three congruently like they were the actual titles. So I'll just split it up that way.
I was never a fan of RE0, I more or less exclude it from my canon, but I really wish that the train idea would've worked at least as well as Revelations' ship idea. It's the same here but it feels a bit better because you're actually seeing ahead of you.

It's on rails but you can choose this way or that way sometimes and it will have a different outcome with what you encounter. I remember being able to see the opposite player or NPC in Darkside but in this one, it just seems like whoever you choose just talks to themself and the other very rarely responds back or you see them outside of a cutscene which makes it feel a bit lonely. It really doesn't affect gameplay at all other than piece of mind, no different weapons, no swapped out dialogue so it still thinks you're playing as one instead of the other "Go down there" and your character jumps but you're the one that said it. Herbs aren't treated as stock, you pick them up, you use them, first aid sprays are kept until you 'die' and it basically acts as a second chance.

The environments are shootable and through that some give different badges and "points" for a report card at the end of each level, some give items such as ammo or healing too. As far as length of each section, for reference, Resi0 had 3 levels, it was a pretty mummarized (get it?) version of the events of the game though it didn't exactly have a whole lot going on in the first place. The length of those levels can be varied, this is more arcade like so there's constant action. I'm not sure how to gauge that but it took a little over an hour to get the Resi0 portion done and oh, what's this? Once you complete a section, you can either move onto the next or you get "bonus levels" depending on what ranks you got which are based around how fast you mow down since it's on rails, actual number of hits, critical hits, objects destroyed, and files. Which for Resi0 you unlock "Beginnings" or where Wesker was when it was all happening. They don't add a whole lot but if you know the brand then it's like "Oh my, Wesker vs a prototype tyrant" but that's about it.

The game can be off at times, I guess because of motion controls but I'll give a few examples. The final Queen Leech boss has you aim for the mouth but for one thing, this thing is made of mouth so you'd assume it's the one facing you which also happens to be the narrowest. The "head" if you will, but I found myself unloading on this thing, reticle directly in the eye but it wouldn't register as that hit box. Hit a little more to the left of the head and that did the trick but it was finnicky and the monster is always moving so it's kind of like testing to see where the hit box is next and it's not purposely designed that way, watch any PS3 walkthrough or like I said, the characters tell you what to do in that moment, it's just a flaw in its coding. I hit a spider the fell into another spider but the body didn't decompose yet so it was invincible because I was hitting the corpse's hit box instead (why you can do that, I don't know, it should be finished at that point) but that happened a few times.

They take a lot of wrong turns to dead ends and turn around to fight more enemies, it's actually almost comical how lost and in circles you go. Dodge commands won't always appear if you're shooting and really I have no explanation or strategy for that, the point is to shoot. Waving the Wii Remote to dodge (also a reaction command) was hit or miss because you normally have to be completely stopped in order to make it work and be able to catch the entire thing, not just willy nilly or dare even hold the B button while you wiggle. What wording, am I right?

At this point, I wasn't really a fan of the game, I liked seeing some of my favorite scenes in better graphics but it's all nulled by its gameplay and cliffnotes story, making it an FPS takes away from its characters because you never get to see any interaction and that's half of what makes RE work.

As far as the actual RE3 content, like I said, the story takes a dip. But your goal is to get to the helicopter from the very start, first cutscene, but with Carlos and that's your overall goal, there's no "but Nemesis stopped the first helicopter", no "He killed Brad" I don't think, no Nicholai either (except in the collectible notes for some reason??). So while he's big on screen in first person, he's not menacing enough but it's hard not to love his Darth Vader voice in this edition. And it's contradicting that Carlos is there under Umbrella to help, Jill is there under Stars to help but they're both just after the helicopter at the same time.

It slowly but surely made me happy a little bit though because I was getting to see these environments that I was familiar with and how they drew in comparison to the remakes like the police station and the train station as well as what differences there were and the added flashlight for some segments. For the last level of that section, you finally get introduced to and fight Nemy which he follows you for the whole level like he should, really cool. I even played that level twice. The actual battle portion is very reminiscent, you can see where they got some inspiration as far as him running in a circle and stuff.

The bonus isn't "more RE3" which is disappointing for me seeing as I bought it for that, but it's actually an Ada story that I really liked, so there. Weird that it's in this game seeing as it takes place after RE2 but...ok. That's my Ada. I had issues with the way she was in RE4 Remake and to a degree RE4 but this showed me that there's still something out there for her character that I might enjoy.

If you finish all of that including bonus levels and stuff you get one last section of the game that's original. Chris and Jill infiltrate an Umbrella facility that's working on a new B.O.W., and uh...wait is that the scene from the movie? But there's a lot of beeping for the one level that doesn't even stop for cutscenes, I know it's an alarm but it's just stupid to have constantly blaring while you're playing even as loud as your guns are. Wesker pulls the "it was me all along" and you see his perspective for the bonus levels. Yeah, it's all contained so it's nothing all that great other than what was teased a few of the other bonus levels. So you had a continuity side story but you didn't know it because it took place at the end.

Hunk also gets his notorious mercenaries type thing with more dialogue than any other level, can you believe it?

Should you never had played the actual games, you're not going to get the series speedrun that you're hoping for out of this game, which makes me glad I didn't shell out for Darkside to be underwhelmed by Code Veronica's stuff before I knew it at all. I don't regret the buy just because of that but other than a few levels, I didn't really care about it enough, I was glad when it was done.