Customer Reviews

Resident Evil Archives

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you like Resident Evil, this is a must. The book explains everything from the games, including each game story with selected scans, characters, creatures, weapons, items, Umbrella's timeline, very cool concept art, all files, the story of Racoon city, S.T.A.R.S police, Ashford family and tons of extras. Filled with scans and drawings from Resident Evil to Code Veronica. Don't expect to find about Resident Evil 4 because this book is about Biohazard archives only. This is the best Resident Evil book available, no doubt.

Resident Evil Archives is a fantastic compendium of all things Resident Evil, but it's hardly perfect. For what it's intended for - to be a veritable encyclopedia for Capcom's hit series - it succeeds wonderfully, but there are a few things that might get on a few stickler's nerves. First the good: tons of pretty high-res pictures, screenshots, concept art, excellent page layouts, and all the info you could ever want to know about Resident Evil (sans RE4 and the spin-off games). Story synopsis, character analysis, detailed information on all the game's creatures and items, and a treasure trove of concept art and commentary to top it all off.
However, there are a few things wrong with the book that really degrade the overall presentation. For one, the writing is marginal at best, often using repetitive adjectives and phrases (the word "beloved" seems to be one of the writer's favorites). Additionally, the editing is abhorrible. There are numerous typos, misspellings, and careless mistakes; some of the biggest offenses are instances where sentences are cut short altogether and words are missing a good four or five letters. There's also a small error that by itself would not be a big deal, but speaks volumes about whoever wrote it.
At one point the book transcribes a line from the end of Resident Evil 2, which goes something like "A biohazard has been detected." The book actually changes the word "biohazard" to "Resident Evil," the writer obviously thinking that because the Japanese title of the game (which was Biohazard) was changed, it means all instances of the word must also be changed. How much sense does the phrase "A Resident Evil has been detected" make? It's a few goof-ups like this that give me the distinct impression the writer or writers were not intimately familiar with the game they were writing for, which I personally find unacceptable for a book of this nature.
Despite the effort I've gone through to detail the book's downfalls, most people will easily see past them, as did I. I just hope that in the future a similar book will be written and edited a little better.
So in summary, this book is a great collection of images and information with some shoddy editing, but the good greatly outweighs the bad. A must-buy for any Resident Evil fan, without a doubt.

If you've never played the Resident Evil videogames, then Resident Evil Archives won't mean much to you. It's basically an official, painstaking recap of the storylines found in Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, and Resident Evil Code Veronica. The stories are dissected in miniscule detail and offer hints to where future stories may be headed. There's also a certain insider's insight offered from the authors that fans may have missed casually playing through these games. It's so detailed there are actually charts depicting how the characters relate to one another in all the games. There are also breakdowns covering every single item and weapon that can be obtained in each game. The individual levels are also gone through in ridiculous detail.

In addition to the story, character and item/weapon details, 'Archives' features character concept sketches, various costume variations, and individual, detailed character bios. This book only covers the first four games in the series, which excludes everything after 2005's Resident Evil 4 - so don't expect any coverage from the later games. If you're a Resident Evil fan, and want to get your facts about the series straight, then Archives is what you need. The book offers information overload. Most of the illustrations and images in the book are high resolution graphics taken directly from the games, and they never looked this good on your TV screen or computer. The book itself is printed on thick, high quality coated stock paper, and is bound in a "Manual-like" cover.

I love resident evil more than anything else, im a huge fan. And when i saw this, i instantly bought it, not knowing what it was. Luckily, it was good. Showing Most of the Resident Evil games, it also had Character section, a monster section, weapons section, i mean, this was cool. Plus the book weighed a ton, over 300 pages of resident evil goodness that i couldn't have passed up. bla bla bla, ya, i think if you're into resident evil, you should definately buy this. If you're not, then try out a resident evil first, and if you don't like it, then don't bother getting this book. Im just saying you have to know what resident evil is to enjoy this book.

This thing is amazing and anyone who barely likes the Resident Evil games let alone the die-hard fans. It doesn't talk about the side story game(gaiden,dead aim, etc.) which kinda bugs me but most people hate those games any way this covers everything you need to know about the series including charater relations, weapons,and timelines. Anybody who loves RE should get it right away even if you don't like the games just the story

If there is anything in the Resident Evil/biohazard series that ever confused you, this booke can answer it, it has absolutely everything through the resident evil series up to RE4, it even includes code veronica information, and has concept art for resident evil 1.5 (the original resident evil 2 that was dropped)It also has profiles for about every single character ever mentioned in the series, even the paintings of people in the Ashford mansion, its a great buy, and I suggest it to any hardcore Resident Evil Fan!

A 5... out of 5!

If you love Resident Evil you owe it to yourself to have this book.

This book is huge and is loaded to the brim with drawings, screenshots, bios, lists, etc. Its amazing high quality will keep you interested for a long time.

But beware. This book only contains Resident Evil 1-3 and Code Veronica. It doesnt contain the recently hugely popular Resident Evil 4.
Hopefully when part 5 is released they will publish a Archives vol 2...

Although it doesn't explain everything, it does reveal to you the basis of the Resident Evil stories, characters, enemies, items, etc. I couldn't think of anything that they really forgot. It is very interesting, and it is a product that I would recommend to Resident Evil fans and collectors of gaming memorabilia, like myself.

At first glance, the RE Archives is a must-have for any die-hard RE fan! However, after reading through it, there are many things that should've been considered before releasing it in the States.

First off, there are too many mistakes and many misspellings that just become ridiculous. (It took quite some time for this to be released in the US, come on you guys, if you're going to take so long in releasing a product, get the basics down!)

They also mislabeled titles of games (for example: The sketches for Code Veronica were labeled as "Resident Evil: Zero") throughout the archives. The "top secret" sketches weren't what I expected. It was only a page of rough sketches!! Come on, people!

I also hoped to see more visible sketches of the characters instead of those small reprints on those huge pages of the archives.

And their small section on HUNK, what's that about? The Archives should've had more on him, maybe even better in-game screenshots of him; perhaps include all the special endings of all the characters at the end of RE 3: Nemesis.

For something labeled as "The Archives," it sure misses the mark.

Bought this about 6 months ago. Being the huge RE fan that I am this was a must have. Very cool if you love the series!