Written by Jonathan Wojcik
REVIEWING RESIDENT EVIL: REVELATIONS MONSTERS
Okay, NOW we're talking! Now we're talking! Resident Evil on a BOAT! Slimy sea mutants! THAT'S the stuff! It wasn't as exciting a game to play as 4, in my honest opinion, a little too linear and still too heavy on the action, but did it ever have some of the most gorgeous monsters this series has quite possibly ever offered up! A just magnificent selection! Let's take a look!!
THE OOZE
Now, unfortunately, I can't find almost any decently sized images of the main enemies in this game, which is really a shame because I'm sure you can tell just how lovely these things are, the product of a combination between the t-virus and a mysterious new virus discovered in a deep sea fish. The resulting "T-Abyss" virus transforms humans into eyeless, sexless, amphibious mutants with gelatinous skin, a constant secretion of slime and a hidden, leech-like proboscis in their throats.
THE GLOBSTER
THIS, though. THIS IS THE GOOD STUFF. HOT DAMN! Look at THAT!!!! "Globster" is a colloquial term among cryptozoologists for any unidentified heap of organic tissue you might find on a beach, and every single globster ever investigated turned out to be nothing but a dead whale or a basking shark, but these Globsters used to be PEOPLE! People horribly mutated by the first T-abyss outbreak, then stranded ashore - and still alive - an entire year later.
The thought of human beings turning into limbless, faceless meat-clumps is delicious macabre as it is, but the thought of those meat-clumps just floating around alive in the ocean for months is even ghastlier! They didn't really need to have scary mouths, but it's certainly a shock when you approach a nondescript pile of fat for the first time and it rears up to eat you with THIS particular mouth, recognizable distorted from one like yours or mine!
I am just SO about this. The Globster is everything I ever wanted from this series. Now just get me more of them. An entire game of globsters. It could work!!
THE FARFARELLO
We'll get a couple of less amazing monsters out of the way here, but then it's straight back to the GOODS! Not that I'd have these upgraded Hunters taken out of the game, or anything, I kinda like how goth they're looking this time and it's nice to see a series classic show up again. The T-abyss virus has given these hunters the ability to turn transparent, to the point of near perfect invisibility, but has also apparently made them too aggressive to control.
THE SCAGDEAD
I'm not sure why I'm not especially into this one. Maybe I've just seen one too many monsters like this, though I do love its name, and it has two really weird attacks: the right arm's bony blades can somehow spin around, like a big buzzsaw, and it can spit up fleshy blobs that open up into basically organic "bear traps!" Apparently this is what happens to people whose bodies almost successfully fend off T-Abyss.
THE GHIOZZO
A nondescript, scary deep sea fish monster seemingly modeled after a viperfish, but canonically mutated from Arowana infected by T-Abyss. The best thing about them is their ability to maneuver on land like awkward mudskippers!
THE ACULEOZZO
This enemy exists exclusively in the "Raid Mode" side game and apparently aren't considered "canon" to the main story, but I say they're actually extra canon and my evidence is that they have a grumpy squoosh face. They seem like they're based mostly on lumpsuckers, and it makes me love them even more that they don't really fit into Resident Evil's aesthetic in the slightest.
THE SEA CREEPER
HELL YEAH! YEAH!! SEA CREEPER!!!! OH MAN!!!! This thing has some visual similarities to the Ooze, notably the upper teeth and the skin texture, but the fleshy mantle and multiple legs give it a shape like a huge marine isopod, and then it has that gaping, vertical mouth completely dominating its underside. What's weird is that apparently it was mostly men who turned into Ooze, but women turned into Sea Creepers. Dudes got shafted here. I liked the ooze and all but I want to be the sea creeper now that it's an option. Anything that looks like it has hair covering its eyes is kind of automatically the most adorable thing in the world.
THE SCARMIGLIONE
HELL YEAH 2: THE SEQUEL!!! There aren't better images of this one, sadly, but once again we've got a mutant skull face with covered-over eyes again, and this time it's a funky pointy shark skin that kind of ends up looking a little like medieval armor. The limbs even form a "sword" and "shield!" A virus turned somebody into an eyeless skeleton-shark-swordsman. That is positively wackadoo, and I really do love the heck out of that partially concealed face. Look at the the wackadoo from the side, please:
THE MALACODA
Hey, did we mention that many of these names come from Dante's Inferno? A pretty wicked naming convention for monsters associated with an abyss!
In the Inferno, Malacoda was the leader of the demons guarding the eighth circle. Here, it's a collective of humongous, enormous, colossal parasitic worms mutated from Capsalid flatworms and now controlling a host that would have once been a fish. I'm not sure why giant, mutant flatworms look so much like giant, mutant insect larvae, though. Maybe they were really intended to have mutated from some sort of crustacean? They look more like the head ends of anchor worms, honestly.
THE ULTIMATE ABYSS
As usual, a key human character ends up mutating into the game's final boss, in this case a big, beefy Cthulhu Fish Man whose face is split open to reveal an awesomely spooky cyclops eye! There's a more "Comic Book Supervillain" or "Tokusatsu monster" vibe to this guy than other Resident Evil creatures, and I respect that. He even has some pretty over the top superpowers; the ability to control illusionary copies of himself, and move in bursts of such blinding speed that he appears to "teleport."
We are not done here, though.
OOZE RACHEL
U.S. Federal agent Rachel Foley provides some goofy fanservice in an otherwise serious and atmospheric game, but that's not as important as how she winds up turning into the game's deadliest Ooze, so I guess I was right that the Ooze/Creeper thing wasn't consistent. I'm not sure how the mutation so carefully avoids her cleavage area and I really, really don't know how a bunch of mutated flesh would replace her blonde hair in the same shape and color as blonde hair, but I fell in love with the design as soon as I saw where her mouth is now:
THE WALL BLISTER
I've found that almost any monster with wall, floor, or ceiling in its name tends to be a real weirdo, I guess because then you know it's something that does something weird by attaching to one of those surfaces. You're always in for a good time when a monster's name has any kind of blemish in it, too, and the Wall Blister does not disappoint me on either front. It is so named because it often curls up into a globular lump of flesh and attaches itself firmly to a solid surface, and that is because it mutated from none other than my favorite of all possible crustaceans.
This origin isn't strongly communicated by the design, and in fact my first guess might have been that this was some kind of octopus-man, but I can certainly see a trace of Cirripede in the way those irregular pits form its facial features. It's not the only barnacle-like mutant in the game, either...
THE DRAGHIGNAZZO
Here it is at last. At LAST! I've been excited to review this thing since we started! In fact, I've been excited to review this thing since I first saw it more than five years ago! It's by far one of my favorite designs this series has ever done, both in spite of and because of the fact that I couldn't even tell what in god's name I was looking at for most of that time. Can YOU make heads or tails of how this thing is put together? It seems constructed primarily of giant acorn barnacles, with two stumpy feet, one huge arm, a couple of crab-like legs and one of the most beautiful heads in the entire series, a bulbous E.T. Fetus face with a tentacle for a mouth...and one of the other most beautiful heads in the entire series is the one on the other side of Draghignazzo.
Even the art book wasn't 100% clear, so please enjoy another of my Professional Fanned Arts:
It's a heartwarming relationship...and by far the most imaginatively surreal design in the entirety of Resident Evil. A design so surreal that I didn't even know how many of them I was looking at, and I'm sure that was precisely the intention. It's the most "What the hell is THAT" of all the "What the hell is THAT's" I've thus far praised, and if I could have just one kind of Resident Evil monster for a pet, I think it would be a pretty difficult choice between a Chimera and The Good Pals here.
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