by: Michael Barnes

It’s not hard to imagine Capcom’s long-running RESIDENT EVIL series making the transition to the tabletop as an adventure or tactical miniatures game, but the lack of atmosphere, narrative, and context that the post-DOMINION deckbuilding genre is characterized by would seem to all but shut down any possibility of the game bringing forward any of the qualities that made this series one of my very favorite video game franchises. The big surprise is that the RESIDENT EVIL deckbuilding game, despite coming from an unusual publisher (Bandai) and from an unknown designer, is actually very good and I’d go so far as to call it my favorite game of this type. The theme is still fairly shallow, but it’s appreciable and I’ll gladly play a game where I get to be Ada Wong blowing away Albert Wesker with a rocket launcher over building a generic medieval castle any day.

The game retails for a very reasonable $30 and includes 250 cards bedecked with artwork from every major game in the series. The cards depict favorite characters, weapons, events, and of course all kinds of hideous monsters ranging from the standard zombie up to the Ourorbourus Aheri from the most recent game. The Merchant also puts in his mandatory appearance, and if you’re the kind that’s going to say “Whaddya buyin?” every time he shows up, then this game is definitely for you. Make no mistake, the fan service is thick and rich in this game, and as a fan of the property I loved seeing cards like “Master of Unlocking” and “Inventory Management”, which shows an actual screenshot of the suitcase-like item storage.

It all looks great, but that doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t deliver in the gameplay department. Mechanically, the game is probably closer to DOMINION than most of its clones. Players start out with a simple set of ten cards: a handgun, a couple of knives, and some bullets. On each turn, the player generally plays a weapon or two and any ammo cards. If there’s enough ammo to use a weapon, it can be used in combat. Ammo cards also provide gold, which is used to draft new cards into the deck. These cards come from an array including more guns, more ammo, healing items, and a number of special actions that may give the player bonuses to weapon damage, ammo use, or additional purchase or cardplay actions.

However, unlike DOMINION, there are some new elements that introduce substantially more setting, atmosphere, and narrative. Each player chooses a character at the start of the game from among ten available, all with special abilities that can increase in efficiency as the player earns “medals” for killing enemies. Characters also have a health value, so there is a much greater sense of in-game player presence than in previous deckbuilding games.

There are three different “modes” of play that all offer greater player interaction and context than expected. The basic story mode introduces a Mansion deck that represents players exploring a mansion a la the first RE game, with each turn culminating in exploration. Most of the Mansion cards are monsters, but occasionally a yellow herb or a weapons case can be found. If the player didn’t do enough damage with the weapons and ammo selected for the turn, they’ll take damage from whatever Hunter, Licker, or El Gigante that happens to be behind the door. It’s a simple way to introduce a light adventure game element and it works, but it does feel like more could have been done with this concept with Mansion events or perhaps items or keys that could be found through exploration.