Play Biohazard Gaiden Online

Summary

Resident Evil Gaiden feels like a hidden gem on the Game Boy Color, swapping the series’ usual over‑the‑shoulder view for a top‑down map that flips into a first‑person duel whenever an enemy appears. The combat uses a sliding reticle that darts left and right, a mechanic the developers say was lifted straight from the 1987 RPG Dungeon Master, and it forces you to time your attacks rather than mash buttons.

The game’s origin is almost a side story in itself: after the success of Dino Crisis, Virgin Interactive asked a tiny British studio, M4, to prove they could port a Capcom title to the handheld. Capcom liked the demo enough to hand them an original Resident Evil script, but stayed hands‑off, leaving M4 to build the whole experience with their own tools. Even Shinji Mikami only chimed in to suggest the sliding reticle.

When the Game Boy Advance hit shelves in early 2001, M4 tried to shift development to the newer system, but Capcom and Virgin stuck with the cheaper GBC route, citing re‑tooling costs. The game finally rolled out in Europe in December 2001, then Japan in March 2002, and North America in June 2002.

Critics were split: the graphics and limited save points drew fire, and some felt the puzzles boiled down to key‑collecting. Yet reviewers praised the clever twists in the story and the fresh battle system, and Retro Gamer even crowned it a "superb actioner" and an underrated classic among Game Boy Color titles.

Storyline

Resident Evil Gaiden (Biohazard Gaiden) drops you onto the luxury cruise liner Starlight, where a viral outbreak has turned crew and passengers into zombies. The underground group tasked with curbing Umbrella’s global reach sends Leon S. Kennedy to investigate, but contact is lost and veteran Barry Burton is dispatched to find him. On board Barry meets an orphan girl, Lucia, who can sense Umbrella’s new bio‑organic weapon (BOW) and shows mysterious abilities.

The ship erupts in fire and explosions as the BOW, a green‑blooded monster, sabotages the fuel converter. Leon and Barry eventually team up, defeat the creature and rescue Lucia, only to discover that Barry had pretended to hand her over to Umbrella to lure the corporation onto a submarine. There, surgeons extract a parasitic BOW growing inside Lucia; the parasite breaks free, turns the crew into zombies and matures into a shape‑shifting monster that impersonates Leon. After a frantic battle, the real Leon is implied dead, the BOW masquerades as him, and Lucia—now powerless—accepts a place with Barry’s family as the Starlight sinks.

The game’s plot is non‑canonical, contradicting the main Resident Evil timeline and is treated as a standalone side story.