If you think you've heard of Resident Evil: The Mercenaries before, then you're probably right. For the past few games in the Resident Evil canon, Mercenaries has been an unlockable mini-game that consisted of shooting zombies within a time limit. That same concept is back in the form of Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, and this time it's a standalone title for Nintendo 3DS.

As soon as I jumped into this game, I was digging the presentation. The music sounded right, the menus looked nice, and the 3D effects worked well too. At first glance, I felt that this was going to be more than the Mercenaries experience I've played for years now. Oh... how wrong I turned out to be.

It seems like the presentation is the only thing this game nailed, because everything else felt as though it was a quick cash-in to get as much out of unsuspecting gamers until the 'cream of the crop' known as Resident Evil: Revelations arrives for the system. Heck, the inclusion of Revelations as a demo should be a clear indication that their focus and future is in that game and not really on this one.

For those of you who have no idea, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D has you selecting one of many characters, and each character has their own set of weapons. The game is played looking over the shoulder of your character, and you use the items in your inventory to kill and survive waves of zombies. The missions start off with the basics to learn the controls, but the action picks up quickly. You also unlock more characters and costumes as you rampage through missions. Yes, rampage, because the difficulty of this game is not very high at all.

Graphically, the game suffers from some spotty areas and enemies that move like cardboard cutouts when seen from afar. This becomes a big issue while playing, especially when you're trying to continue a combo or going for accuracy to save bullets. This I found to be the biggest challenge throughout the whole game.

Before you know it, you have cleared every mission, but what does keep you coming back for more is using different characters and trying to top your high scores. To top it all off, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D does not allow you to delete old saves files. Some have been pretty upset that the game does not include this feature, but, honestly, it doesn't even matter. This isn't a game where there is a narrative or a huge sense of accomplishment when unlocking stuff, so I don't really see any issues picking up a used copy of a game like this.

Something new introduced to the Mercenaries world is the ability to use the skill system. This allows you to equip up to 3 out of 30 skills to your character and you can level them up as you play with them on. These skills include advantages such as weapon handling and how you take damage. It's a cool concept, but definitely still not enough to make this a worthwhile buy with or without previous Mercenaries experience.

Co-op play is included in this title, and can be done off and online. This, again, doesn't add much, and works much better on the console version of the game anyway. Lag and disrupting load times also ruin the flow of a game that should be arcade-like and fast paced. I also found a hard time getting someone to play with me online, which may or may not be my fault because of what time I was playing, my connection, etc. My only defense is that if I can get an online game of Super Street Fighter IV going with little to no hiccups, this shouldn't be THAT much harder.

Don't get me wrong, the game is fun to play, but it is too much of the same of what we've seen for years. The fact that this game has been pretty much included as a freebie in previous Resident Evil games for so long is an undeniable factor as to why this game falls far below average. Fun? You'll have a good time. Worth the price? Not even close.

  • Title: Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D
  • Platform Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS
  • Developer: Capcom & Tose Co., Ltd.
  • Publisher: Capcom
  • Release Date: Available Now
  • MSRP: $39.99
  • Review Copy Info: A copy of this title was provided to DualShockers, Inc. by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D
4 / 10

Franchise
Resident Evil
Platform(s)
3DS
Released
June 28, 2011
Developer(s)
Tose
Publisher(s)
Capcom
ESRB
M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Violence