8 Video Game Spin-Offs That Broke EVERYTHING
3. Resident Evil Gaiden
Teaming up Leon S. Kennedy and Barry Burton, Resident Evil Gaiden is often mocked despite being a well-meaning attempt at bringing the series to the extreme limitations of the Nintendo GameBoy.
The main beastie in Gaiden is a Tyrant-like bioweapon that has the insanely overpowered ability to shapeshift. As with most classic media on the subject, the one way to know for sure that someone is human is checking the blood as the creature bleeds green. At one stage the monster takes the form of Leon before Barry rescues his actual partner and they team back up together.
However, at the game’s close, it’s shown that Leon is bleeding green from the neck.
It’s quite a bold move to imply one of your series' major heroes has been replaced by a bioweapon body-double. Furthermore, the next time we see Leon is in his most defining starring role in Resident Evil 4!
Then again, the shift of his personality from naïve boy scout in RE2 to confident, one-liner spitting Government agent in RE4 might make more sense if it’s not the same Leon.
Developers M4 Ltd, at the time, fully intended for the game to fit into the wider story but "Gaiden", being the Japanese word for side-story, means that largely Capcom can and have ignored this entry. And, despite it being charming in its naffness, it’s probably a good job too considering it tells us that a monster has been playing the part of one of the franchise’s leading men for the last twenty years.