What's the difference between Resident Evil and Resident Evil Zero?

[Svante.]

I've played the other remakes, and RE: 5. I Just feel like something is missing so I'd like to play the first one.

[Коржик(busy)]

Resident Evil Zero is a prequel to Resident Evil 1. If you don't need spoilers, play RE1 first.

[James.Havoc]

RE0 takes place a few hours before RE1 and its main character plays only a side role in one of RE1s campaigns.

Its also a little different in terms of gameplay. In RE1 you play as one character all the time. In RE0 shortly after the beginning you have to controll two characters. You can switch between them most the time and a (simple) A.I. will take the controll for the inactive one.

Asides from that, RE1 has the same item boxes as RE2R and RE3R, while RE0 ditched that concept and allow you to drop and pick up items wherever you want. Its an interesting feature but it will almost guaranteed mess with you later in the game if dont use a guide.

In terms of game quality RE1 has clearly the edge over RE0. RE0s Story and its main villain tend to be outright weird. Its enemies (especially the bosses) ranging from uninspired to downright annoying. The locations (asides from the train) are more of the same mix. When RE0 came out, RE1, RE2, RE3, RECV, and RE1R where already thing and pretty much anything in RE0 has been seen by that point.
The only thing that RE0 did better than RE1R is the technical aspect. It looks way better than RE1 since RE0 data never felt vicitim to the issue that RE1 had.

[Skeeka]

Apart from 0 not being as good of a game as RE1 and it's story being dumb even by the RE standards of the time, Rebecca (0's protagonist.) is an entirely different character than she is in 1. And no amount of handwaving "Uh, she was still in distress from what she lived through in 0 and so she kinda just changed personality and forgot everything about Umbrella!" is gonna change that.

RE1make is a must play if you wanna catch up on the series, 0 is more like "Hm, I've played all the other REs but now I still want some RE even if it's not very good."

[solidap]

0 is the reason Mikami completely rebooted RE4 to be the game we got lol

I still enjoy it though. I still enjoy that game style (as much as I love RE4). And I still think it's worth playing if you like the classic REs

[Nachtmahr]

Problem is that developers, and especially publishers, always see the wrong reasons why we didn't like one entry to justify a series' death or reboot. I think the partner system was the worst part about 0. It would be only half as bad (or mediocre) if we had the chance to play the game RE1 style, where we would pick either Rebecca or Billy at the beginning. Now we have to deal with a walking punching bag that is mostly there to carry items for the player

[Lanzagranadas]

RE0 and RE(1), different entries of the same franchise, listed by timeline order. RE0 events take place one night before those of RE1.

Originally posted by solidap:

0 is the reason Mikami completely rebooted RE4 to be the game we got lol

RE Remake was the reason, RE0 had nothing to do with it https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/26/resident-evil-4-came-out-of-the-commercial-failure-of-re-remake