biohazard gaiden

BIOHAZARD Gaiden was the only title to be officially released on the Game Boy Color. It follows BIOHAZARD veterans Leon S. Kennedy and Barry Burton as they investigate the Luxury Ocean Liner “Starlight”.

PLOT

The story features Leon S. Kennedy as he searches for a new type of B.O.W. presumably carried on the Starlight.

His organization quickly loses contact with Leon and dispatches Barry Burton to search for his current whereabouts.

Barry discovers Lucia, whom can apparently sense the new B.O.W.

FEATURES

Created exclusively for the portable market, after the failed attempt to bring the original BIOHAZARD to handhelds Gaiden features a top-down presentation for environment exploration. When attacked by an enemy, the game switches to a first-person view which has a reticle swinging from side to side, having the player fine tune their timing in order to deliver a precision strike.

Another first for the series, Gaiden attempted to create fear and dread for portable players. Unfortunately, due to the severe hardware limitations presented by the Game Boy Color Gaiden suffered in terms of style and atmosphere.

DEVELOPMENT NOTES

BIOHAZARD Gaiden was the first official handheld release in the series, its development was outsourced to M4 Limited.

CAPCOM’s previous attempt for a handheld BIOHAZARD on the Nintendo Game Boy Color was handled by HotGen Studios. It was an earlier attempt to bring the original BIOHAZARD to the handheld market, after its initial delay this led CAPCOM to cancel the project. Thus CAPCOM decided to create a new adventure which would be written by Hiroki Kato, the director of Code Veronica.

M4 Limited was brought onboard to develop this new entry in the series. CAPCOM viewed their experience as developers due to their portfolio which predominantly featured titles for the Nintendo Game Boy Color. Shinji Mikami was brought on as an advisor for Gaiden, helping M4 limited in the development of their first horror title. The top-down perspective and golf-meter system which was used for enemy encounters were a first for the series, it was also the first title in the series to (then) feature Barry Burton as the main character.

ATTACHMENTS

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

DEVELOPER M4 Limited

GAME ENGINE Unknown [Presumably in-house M4 Toolset]

DIRECTOR [Unknown]

WRITTEN BY Hiroki Kato

ORIGINAL RELEASE PLATFORM Nintendo Game Boy Color