Line #50 VideoGame/ResidentEvil1


1	[[quoteright:600:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_4091_9.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:600:Welcome to the world of survival horror. Good luck.]]
3	->''"Itchy. '''Tasty.'''"''
4	-->-- '''[[ApocalypticLog Keeper's Diary]]'''
5
6	''Resident Evil'' (''Bio Hazard''[[note]]Later games in the series would spell the title as one word (''Biohazard'').[[/note]] in Japan) is a horror-themed game released for the Platform/{{PlayStation}} in 1996 and the first entry in the ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' franchise. Creator/ShinjiMikami conceived the game when his superiors at Creator/{{Capcom}} requested an updated version of their horror classic ''VideoGame/SweetHome1989''. With graphics and game design inspired by ''VideoGame/AloneInTheDark'', ''Resident Evil'' spawned one of Capcom's [[Franchise/ResidentEvil most iconic franchises]], which now includes several video game sequels and spinoffs as well as other media tie-ins. This game also [[TropeNamers gave us the term]] "SurvivalHorror".
7
8	The story begins in the [[EverytownAmerica fictional American town]] of Raccoon City in July 1998. Tourism has taken a hit recently thanks to a spate of murders in the Arklay Mountains--each of them cannibalistic in nature. Bravo Team, one-half of Raccoon City's Special Tactics and Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) squad, flies out to investigate the area. When the team makes no radio contact a day after their departure, Alpha Team deploys to find them.
9
10	When Alpha Team arrives at the scene, they find a wrecked chopper, a dead pilot, and no one else from Bravo Team, dead or alive. A pack of zombified dogs chase the team members into a nearby mansion. A handful of survivors--team leader Albert Wesker, weapons specialist Barry Burton, and {{Player Character}}s Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine--agree to comb the house for stragglers from Bravo Team. Wesker decides it would be a smart idea to [[LetsSplitUpGang split up]], and that's when the shit ''really'' hits the fan. The mansion's architect, [[NerdInEvilsHelmet being a fan of spy movies]], has enhanced their [[DeathTrap home security]] in elaborate ways--but all of the mansion's booby traps don't present nearly the same kind of omnipresent threat as the bio-engineered murder machines shambling down the hallways...
11
12	Players choose to control either Chris or Jill, and this choice determines which characters will show up during the campaign: Chris will run across piano-playing [[TheMedic medic]] Rebecca Chambers in his scenario, while Alpha Team's Barry accompanies Jill. Jill also comes equipped with a [[MasterOfUnlocking lockpick]], which saves you the trouble of juggling keys.[[note]][[MenAreTough She has less health]], though.[[/note]] The game {{limit\|edLoadout}}s how much ammunition and how many healing items players will find during the game to heighten tension, and players can only carry a limited amount of items at a time (which is mitigated by the [[HyperspaceArsenal item boxes]] scattered around the house). Item management and knowing when to flee are essential skills for finishing the game.
13
14	[[CapcomSequelStagnation In true Capcom fashion]], the original ''Resident Evil'' received numerous re-releases. The UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn and PC both received ports of the original game with some exclusive new content in 1997, while the [=PS1=] received a revised edition titled ''Resident Evil: Director's Cut'' (which added a new difficulty setting with different item and enemy placements and came packaged with a playable demo of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2''). Capcom released a third edition for the [=PS1=] in 1998 (''[[ColonCancer Resident Evil: Director's Cut: Dual Shock Edition]]'') that added vibration and analog support for the [=DualShock=] controller as well as a different soundtrack. The Platform/NintendoDS received its own version of the game in 2006 titled ''Resident Evil: Deadly Silence''; this version added an enhanced Rebirth mode, numerous touch screen puzzles, and multiplayer game modes.
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16	In 2002, Capcom produced a completely [[VideoGame/ResidentEvilRemake revamped version]] of the game for the Platform/{{Nintendo GameCube}} in an effort to bring the main series to Creator/{{Nintendo}}'s new home console. This new version featured revamped character models set against full-motion backgrounds, CGI cut scenes (which replaced the cheesy live-action versions from the original), a brand new soundtrack, wholly redone (but still cheesy) voice acting, updated gameplay mechanics, and story line revisions that bring it in line with the sequels released up to that date. The remake was exclusive to Nintendo consoles for many years (it was re-released for the Platform/{{Wii}} in 2008) until Capcom announced an HD remaster of the game for the [=PlayStation=], Xbox and PC platforms as a digital download. The Platform/{{PlayStation 3}} and Platform/{{Xbox 360}} versions were released in Japan in November 2014 (the former has an exclusive physical release in the region), while the Platform/{{PlayStation 4}}, Platform/{{Xbox One}}, and PC versions achieved [[MemeticMutation complete global saturation]] alongside the overseas releases of the other versions in January 2015. Upgrades from the [=GameCube=] version include fully remastered graphics, the ability to switch between widescreen and "standard" screen sizes, an option to choose between the original's "tank controls" and a modern control scheme inspired by more recent entries in the franchise, and [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil5 B.S.A.A.]] outfits for Chris and Jill. A UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch version was released on May 21, 2019.
17
18	Along with the second entry in the series, ''Film/ResidentEvilWelcomeToRaccoonCity'' uses this game as partial source material. It also has a FanGame {{Prequel}} in the form of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilREVisited.''
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20	----
21
22	!! ''Resident Evil'' contains the following:
23	----
24	* AbilityRequiredToProceed:
25	** You won't get anywhere without those keys, cranks, or crests, and some of them require you to solve a puzzle before you can even get the items.
26	** The flamethrower in Chris' scenario is required to proceed further in the underground caverns due to certain doors only unlocking when you place the weapon on the latches.
27	** The battery needed to give the elevator leading to the heliport power is done in this way so that you will have one free space in your inventory to pick up the signal flares, which you need to signal Brad to rescue you. The flares also double as a way to keep one slot open in your item list so that you have room to pick up the rocket launcher during the final Tyrant fight, which you need in order to beat him. However, in ''Director's Cut'''s Arrange Mode, you get the battery sooner, which means that you will have to plan in advance for that.
28	* ActionGirl: Jill, Alpha Team's B & A specialist and a Master of Unlocking, stated in some material to be a former member of the Delta Force.
29	* AdaptationDyeJob: Sort of. Chris canonically has brown hair, but the actor who plays him in the original game's live-action sequences is a redhead.[[note]]Although not naturally. A fan interview found [[https://raccoonstars.blogspot.com/ here]] reveals that he's got naturally dark brown hair. He gave them permission to dye his hair for the live-action scenes, but they used straight peroxide to bleach it and it ended up almost red.[[/note]] It wasn't apparent in some versions of the live-action sequences, due to being changed from color to black-and-white to hide the '80s grade amount of blood and gore.
30	* AlternativeForeignThemeSong: The Japanese version of the original version uses [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQk53jFSA-g "Icy Gaze"]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52mytd4pMts "I Won't Let This End as a Dream..."]] as the opening and ending theme, both sung by Fumitaka Fuchigami.
31	* AlwaysNight: The game begins sometime in the evening and finishes at dawn.
32	* AmericanKirbyIsHardcore: The covers for all versions of the game (the original release, ''Director's Cut'', the remake, ''Deadly Silence'') have differences overseas. The Japanese versions all use a minimalist approach, such as having a shot of the empty main hall for both ''Director's Cut'' and the remake. The North American versions meanwhile, emphasize the horror and action you should expect, to the point of exaggeration. For example, ''Deadly Silence'' depicts Jill dual wielding a pair of pistols, something that is impossible to do in-game.
33	* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: Chris' scenario briefly lets you play as Rebecca when you have to destroy Plant 42, depending on whether or not [[spoiler:Richard dies of his poisoning]], and/or if Chris gets poisoned during his first encounter with Yawn; Barry doesn't get the same treatment in Jill's Plant 42 scenario.
34	* AndThenJohnWasAZombie:
35	** In Advanced/Arrange Mode, the remake, and Rebirth Mode in ''Deadly Silence'', [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091108082807/residentevil/images/4/4a/Ct93_lg.jpg Forest Speyer]] comes back from the dead after being pecked to death by T-Virus infected crows.
36	** A zombified [[spoiler:Wesker]] appears as an enemy in the Saturn version's Battle Mode.
37	** Taken literally with the letter to Ada Wong from John, who was turning into a zombie.
38	* AndYourRewardIsClothes: After completing the game by saving both of your partners, you can restart the mission with the Closet Key in your inventory, allowing your character to change into casual clothing. Later versions of the game feature other sets of alternate outfits as well:
39	** The PC version featured different casual clothes for Jill and Chris in addition to the ones that were in the [=PS1=] version.
40	** The Saturn version has a different set of alternate outfits that are just redesigned versions of the default S.T.A.R.S. uniforms.
41	** The ''Director's Cut'' version has the same outfits from the original release, plus new default outfits (not just for Chris and Jill, but also Rebecca) for the Arrange mode.
42	** ''Deadly Silence'' has a ninja outfit for Chris, a policewoman costume, complete with sexy miniskirt, for Jill and a cheerleader suit for Rebecca.
43	* AnimeThemeSong: The original Japanese [=PS1=] version has two vocal songs: an opening theme titled "Kouri no Manazashi" ("Icy Gaze") and the ending theme "Yume de Owarasenai..." ("I Won't Let This End as a Dream..."). Other versions, including the Japanese re-releases (such as the original ''Director's Cut'' and the Saturn port) use the instrumental "Still Dawn" instead. Both Shinji Mikami and Creator/HidekiKamiya admitted that the songs were only included in the Japanese version due to a contract Capcom had with a record company for ''[[VideoGame/MegaMan8 Rockman 8]]'', which was released shortly afterward and featured vocal intro and ending themes. The developers didn't want any vocal songs in the game, since they felt they clashed with the horror atmosphere they were trying to set up.
44	* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
45	** Did you get poisoned by an enemy, but the last known blue herbs you spotted or stored in a box are a distant jog away? Look around your current location or the adjacent room. Chances are, there are some conveniently placed blue herbs, right around the corner. Unfortunately, this is not the case if you get poisoned by Yawn during the first encounter, since the blue herbs haven't appeared yet, so you'll have to get the same serum you used on Richard for yourself.
46	** The exit within the room where you fight the Black Tiger is covered in thick spider webs that can be burned away with Jill's flame rounds from her grenade launcher or Chris' flamethrower. If you happen to run out of ammo for either weapon, you can also use the knife to cut down the webs. Forgot to bring the knife? No problem! There's an extra knife sitting on the floor for you so you don't have to backtrack to an item box.
47	* ApocalypticLog: Tons of these are scattered around to provide backstory, clues, and general atmosphere. Also, the saving mechanism consists of using ribbons on a typewriter, technically making an apocalyptic log of the player's exploits.
48	* ArrangeMode:
49	** The ''Director's Cut'' adds the Advanced/Arrange Mode, which rearranges enemy placements and moves key items around.
50	** Rebirth Mode in ''Deadly Silence'' includes puzzles that utilize the Nintendo DS' touchscreen and microphone.
51	* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
52	** Yawn is repeatedly described as being poisonous. Since Richard is dying from the snake biting him and not the other way around, this would make it venomous.[[note]]For those asking what's the difference, according to proper medical/scientific nomenclature, ''poison'' is ingested, while ''venom'' is injected through a bite.[[/note]]
53	** In real life, every attempt to keep great white sharks in captivity has ended in abject failure - after a few days, the sharks seem to enter a state of depression where their natural aggression gets ramped up to eleven. The behavioral pattern can perhaps be {{Hand Wave}}d since they're ostensibly zombie sharks, but Great Whites also require huge aquariums to themselves and a ''lot'' of live prey.
54	** The wasps are clearly [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet Japanese giant hornets]], which aren't wasps to begin with, but also wouldn't be found as natives anywhere near the American Midwest.
55	* AttackOfThe50FootWhatever:
56	** Yawn is an infected snake that's grown to about the length of a bus.
57	** The Web Spinners are infected spiders that have grown to the size of a pony, and there's an alpha spider, the Black Tiger, that's about two or three times their size. Possibly justified, at least in the Black Tiger's case, as Umbrella was trying to create a bio-organic weapon out of them, as with Neptune (giant sharks).
58	* AuthorAppeal: {{Inverted}}. In contrast to Jill, who is his favorite, Shinji Mikami has stated multiple times Rebecca is conceptually his least favorite character ever. However, due to being beloved by the rest of the development staff, he begrudgingly added her into the game.
59	* AwesomeButImpractical: The Flamethrower that Chris can get is indeed awesome, but it burns through all of its fuel very quickly. It is really only useful in one boss fight and even then you have to get right up to the boss and risk getting hurt, and there are no refills for the fuel.[[note]]There is an unused 3D model of one in the original version's files, however.[[/note]] The Rebirth Mode in ''Deadly Silence'' puts a Flamethrower in the mansion basement that has the same purpose in the original mode (opening a door), but you get to roast several zombies along the way...
60	** From Umbrella's perspective, the Neptunes, a fabulous example of the company's ForScience attitude. Though the experiment was technically a success as it proved that the T-Virus works on marine organisms, the researchers then found that... well, there's not much you can actually ''use'' giant zombie sharks for. And then there's the issue of transporting the things. So the poor creatures were just left in a big aquarum in the basement to live out their wretched unlives.
61	* BadassNormal: All of the main characters. Greatly supported by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXutugd67DA this live action cast intro sequence]].
62	* BeeAfraid: In the guardhouse, one of the rooms is infested with mutated bees and you have to approach a nest in order to get the key underneath it. Luckily, the bees barely do any damage with their sting and serve as nothing more than a minor annoyance.
63	* BigBad: More directly in this game, [[spoiler:Wesker]].
64	* BigBoosHaunt: The mansion could be considered a more "mundane" version of this. No ghosts, just zombies and some other critters.
65	* BigNo: [[spoiler:Wesker, when the Tyrant turns against and kills him.]]
66	* BlackDudeDiesFirst: Played with. The first casualty of Bravo Team found by the player is Kenneth J. Sullivan, [[TokenMinority the only black member]] of S.T.A.R.S. However, Joseph Frost is the first character to be killed onscreen and before that, Alpha Team finds the disembodied hand[=/=]mutilated corpse of Bravo Team's pilot.[[note]]Implied to be Edward Dewey in the [=PS1=] version, but later shown explicitly to be a different character named Kevin Dooley in the remake.[[/note]] When put in canonical order, the deaths are: Kevin Dooley, Edward Dewey, as shown in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil0'', Forest Speyer, Joseph Frost from Alpha Team, Kenneth J. Sullivan, Richard Aiken, and Enrico Marini.[[note]]Alpha Team's helicopter pilot, Brad Vickers, gets killed off in ''Resident Evil 3''.[[/note]] According to supplementary material, the gunshot heard in the first in-game cutscene was shot by Kenneth, so by this, the black dude died ''fourth''.
67	* BlindIdiotTranslation: The original game is notorious for its bad translation and Z-grade acting. Subsequent games - and the remake - toned this down, mainly due to better budgets. Some lines actually became iconic and were kept as continuity nods. What's more ironic about this is that, apparently, they didn't have someone on-staff for the original game to provide a proper translation. They just wrote the dialogue in Japanese and translated it into English as best as they could. Adding to the irony was that English voice actors were used throughout the game, and yet, the cast read from a script that obviously had improper English.[[note]]Pablo Kuntz, Wesker's voice actor, has gone on record stating that this is because the cast had all been living abroad in Japan for years by the time recording took place. By then, they had gotten used to the locals speaking in oddly phrased English and thus [[GotMeDoingIt didn't see anything odd about the lines they were asked to read]].[[/note]]
68	* BlockPuzzle: Four puzzles require you to push statues or boxes around.
69	* BlownAcrossTheRoom: In the Tyrant's second phase, it makes a charging claw-swipe attack that will send the player across the arena and deal massive damage if it connects.
70	* BodyHorror: The zombies and the B.O.W.s.
71	* BoldInflation:
72	** Barry is particularly prone to this.
73	** Wesker gets a moment of this earlier on, where he seems to be channeling Barry:
74	--> '''Wesker:''' STOP IT! Don't OPEN that DOOR!
75	* BonusFeatureFailure: The ''Director's Cut'' contains many improvements over the original 1996 version. However, despite what the subtitle implies, it still retains all the censorship of the earlier version, [[http://kotaku.com/how-the-first-resident-evils-been-censored-and-changed-1680436651 apparently due to a localization error]].
76	* BossAlteringConsequence: You have the option of using V-Jolt against Plant 42. Using it as Jill lets you skip the fight entirely, while using it as Chris significantly weakens it.
77	* {{Bowdlerise}}:
78	** The intro cutscene was heavily censored and altered by taking out scenes with blood in the Western releases. The PC version, some PAL releases of ''Director's Cut'', and some copies of the North American Saturn version contained the original cutscene. Notably, Chris' intro and ending were altered, both which originally has him [[SmokingIsCool lighting a cigarette]]. The Japanese version, however, did have the uncut cutscene albeit in black-and-white to hide the amount of blood and gore.
79	** There's a brief snippet of the first game's zombie dropping Kenneth's severed head when Chris/Jill finds him. This was cut from the international releases until ''Deadly Silence''.
80	** A smaller edit was to make severed heads and limbs instantly vanish upon hitting the ground. Originally, they were to remain visible. This was even taken out of the original Japanese retail version, so only the Japanese demo version and the PC edition left this detail in.
81	* BraggingRightsReward: Finishing the game in three hours or less unlocks a rocket launcher with infinite ammo. You know what would be handy on a speedrun? A powerful weapon which would quickly finish any impassable enemy, and didn't require you to spend time looking for ammo. This is downplayed in the ''Director's Cut'' releases, where you unlock an infinite ammo Colt Python simply for getting the best ending, which you can then use to do an easy speedrun.
82	* BroadStrokes: How this game's events are taken by the rest of the series. [[MergingTheBranches Canonically]], Jill, Chris, Barry, Brad, ''and'' Rebecca all survived, but it's impossible to get this outcome while playing the game since Barry never makes it to the mansion in Chris' scenario, leaving his fate ambiguous, while Rebecca is completely absent in Jill's. The novelization actually does its best to try and reconcile all of the members of S.T.A.R.S. being in the mansion at once.
83	* ButThouMust: Attempting to leave the mansion from the front door will have the player character confronted by a zombie dog. A PreRenderedCutscene plays where the dog sticks its head through the door and the player character hurriedly yanks it closed. They'll refuse to try opening it again after that.
84	* CameraAbuse: In a couple of locations, you can literally [[BreakingTheFourthWall break the fourth wall]] by turning your gun to the camera and shooting, at which point bullet holes will appear on the glass of the "camera". This is harder to do in one location in Advanced/Arrange Mode due to the slightly different camera angle.
85	* CaptainObvious:
86	** "It's a weapon. It's really powerful -- especially against living things!" Why, thank you for that very insightful observation, Mr. Burton, but that's sort of the definition of a weapon. If it was for non-living things, it'd be called a ''tool''. Although, Barry probably meant that the acid rounds would be more effective against Yawn and the Hunters rather than the undead (as in "non-living") zombies and dogs.
87	** Depending on when she gets there, Jill may run into Barry in the room where Martin Crackhorn's letter is found, [[spoiler:likely destroying evidence on Wesker's orders since only half of it is found]]. After reading the remaining half of it, Barry then asks Jill what she makes of it...to which Jill just remarks that she's "been thinking there's something WRONG with this HOUSE". Barry's pause and somewhat strained "...Right..." comes across as "[[SarcasmMode Gee, I hadn't considered that yet, Sherlock!]]".
88	* ChoiceAndConsequenceSystem: There are several interactions that will determine whether the secondary character associated with your player character (Barry for Jill, Rebecca for Chris) will survive, as well as an optional side-quest to collect 3 MO disks to allow the unchosen player character to survive.
89	** Barry: After killing Yawn in the library, there comes a sequence where Barry will lower Jill down a hole, only to then drop the rope. If Jill waits for Barry to return, this will set up an encounter between the two in the caves beneath the mansion. If Jill does not wait, she will encounter a mortally wounded Barry when she finally reaches the lab, who will die in front of her. When they meet in the caves, Barry will ask Jill two questions; does she want to go with him, and does she want him to go first. If Jill says "Yes" to both questions, Barry will automatically live. If she agrees to go with him but asks to go first herself (Yes/No) or refuses both suggestions (No/No), he will walk away and then Jill will hear a shot from the direction he went; if she follows Barry, she will find him fighting a Hunter, and he will live if she kills it -- if she fails, or simply doesn't follow, then he is killed, with a unique cutscene. If Jill refuses to go with Barry, but tells him to go first (No/Yes), then he will be encountered dying in the lab, as if she refused to wait when he dropped the rope.
90	** Rebecca: Chris's interactions with Rebecca are even more complicated, depending on whether he goes to the Medicine Room first or towards Yawn's first fight first. If Chris says that Rebecca can come with him upon meeting her in the medicine room, or retrieves the serum for Richard in time, she will survive the events of the game. If he says no, or fails to retrieve the serum fast enough, then when Chris returns to the mansion with the Helmet Key, there will be a new event with Rebecca depending on where she was met first. If she was met in the medicine room, she will have returned there; if Chris goes directly there, she will be found inside and will live, but if he picks up the battery first, he will find her outside the medicine room being attacked by a Hunter; whether she lives or dies depends on if the player fights the Hunter. But if she was met with Richard, Chris will hear her screaming, as she is under attack by a Hunter in the 2nd floor study -- if he goes there quickly and kills the Hunter, she lives, but otherwise, she'll die. Also, leaving the mansion for the caves without trying to find her will result in her dying.
91	* ClownCarGrave: Zombies will sometimes pop up in rooms after you have already cleared that room and even any surrounding rooms. Where are they all coming from? Yes, they can open a few doors, but there are still instances where the player character will come from a completely zombie free area, and then have a zombie come into the room from right behind them.
92	* ConvenientlyInterruptedDocument: The letter written by Martin Crackhorn is normally missing its top half. This is subverted if you find the letter quickly enough, as it will still be intact and you can read the first half to find out [[spoiler:that the author couldn't meet with the note's intended recipient because a "guy in sunglasses" forbade it]].
93	* CreepyCave: Near the end of the game, the protagonists explore a series of caves accessed from the courtyard of the Spencer Mansion, which are inhabited by infected snakes, Hunters and Web Spinners. The largest of these spiders, the Black Tiger, is fought as a boss.
94	* CruelAndUnusualDeath:
95	** Joseph is mauled to death by zombie dogs.
96	** A zombie chews Kenneth's head off, and he was alive and conscious for most of it. If the player triggers the alternate encounter with Barry, the zombie has [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe torn off Kenneth's lower body]].
97	** Forest is killed by being pecked to death by infected crows. This is after he was already heavily injured by either the zombies or Cerberuses.
98	** Richard dies from a combination of blood loss and envenomation.
99	** Edward Dewey gets it even worse than Joseph, who at least was still whole last we saw of him, as it's heavily implied that he was literally torn to shreds by the same pack of Cerberuses.
100	* CustomUniform: Every single S.T.A.R.S. member wears a different uniform that follows a basic style, but the individual looks and color schemes are all unique, including M69 flak vests in half the colors of the rainbow.
101	* CutsceneIncompetence:
102	** Chris is the only one to actually lose his handgun in the opening intro.
103	** Jill has an unerring ability to get herself in trouble and needing Barry to save her, such as with the ceiling trap or if she gets bit by Yawn in the first fight.
104	** When Enrico is shot and killed right in front of them, common sense would dictate that Chris and Jill/Barry immediately pursue the shooter and, considering the confined space and limited escape routes of the cave they're in, have a good chance of identifying and even capturing him. Instead, they just mope over his corpse and let the shooter get away.
105	** If you trigger either of the "zombie attacks Jill and Barry" scenes at the start of the game, it takes ''three'' shots from his Colt to put it down -- if you can get your hands on the gun's cousin, it's normally a OneHitKill to any enemy in the game. Made worse in the remake because, whilst he blows the zombie's head off in the original game, it now survives the shots and goes back to where you first met it.
106	* CutscenePowerToTheMax: A few cutscenes show Hunters and even zombies opening doors by using the door knobs, something they're completely incapable of doing in-game (the Director's Cut Arrange mode has another encounter with a zombie that opens a door and lets itself into the room from offscreen, but this is also a scripted event). In the remake, the zombies and Hunters just bust the doors open by slamming into them instead. Then there is Barry kicking in a locked door, something neither Jill or Chris will even attempt.
107	* DamselInDistress: Rebecca, a new recruit to Bravo Team, who is almost completely helpless and even has a scripted event where she gets killed off by a Hunter if you don't arrive in time. This is slightly rectified in the remake.
108	* DescendingCeiling: The origin of the immortal "Jill Sandwich" quote. Jill can grab the shotgun early and escape with Barry's help, whereas Chris, who has no backup up to this point, will have to replace the shotgun with a broken replica, ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''-style.
109	* DevelopersForesight: The grenade launcher's acid rounds are less effective against poisonous enemies.
110	* DifficultyByRegion: The Japanese version of the original game has an auto-aiming function, more ink ribbons, more ammo available and enemies took less shots to kill. The overseas versions were made harder so that the game would be harder to complete during a rental. Thankfully, the overseas versions of ''Director's Cut'' has the auto-aim option added back and the non-''Dual Shock Ver.'' uses the enemy health of the Japanese version.
111	* DistressBall: Both Jill and Chris are subjected to this at various points; Jill needs Barry's help to escape the ceiling trap, though it's possible for him to not show up, forcing you to do the puzzle to keep the trap disarmed, and she also needs his help to kill the first zombie at the start of the game. There's also a possible scene with Plant 42 where Jill gets snared by the monster and Barry comes in with a flamethrower, killing it. Chris gets captured by Plant 42 when he encounters it, thus requiring Rebecca to make the poison needed to kill the roots in order to save him. Chris can also have an optional scene where Rebecca is suddenly trapped by a Hunter and will die if he doesn't kill the creature quickly.
112	* DoomedByCanon: The Rebirth Mode in ''Deadly Silence'' allows Chris or Jill to give Richard CPR to save him, but he'll still die anyway. Succeeding the CPR minigame has Richard give you a hint about a secret in the clock in the dining room.
113	* DullSurprise: None of the characters save for Barry say their lines with much enthusiasm or emotion in general.
114	* EarlyInstallmentCharacterDesignDifference: Jill actually had long hair under that beret of hers, as seen in the endings. But thanks to that beret, and her alternate outfits giving her her now familiar bob, it can be a surprise to see all of that hair tumbling out when she does pull off her cap.
115	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
116	** The live action opening and ending sequences in the original [=PlayStation=] version. They were redone entirely in CGI in the remake in order to bring it in line with the rest of the series. Additionally, a cast roll call is included, something no other game has done since, not even the remake.
117	** This is the only game in the series where there are no automatic weapons[[note]]Unless you're playing the PC version, which adds a Minimi machine gun for Chris and a [=MAC10=] for Jill as unlockable weapons.[[/note]] or weapon upgrades, although given the setting, it wouldn't make much sense. This game also lacks the "near-death" animations (i.e limping) that appears in some form in every other game, had very limited ammo, and oddly enough, it probably has the ''most'' enemies that can inflict poison on you.
118	** The game lacks a proper physics system for pushing zombies off you when they bite you. You shove them away, but they slightly stagger back and can potentially latch onto you yet again. It wasn't until ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' that pushing zombies can knock them back quite far, onto the floor, or even get shoved into other zombies and make them stagger at the same time.
119	** The "check" function for items allows you to examine the item as a 3D model with some flavor text, only needed to use receive a pair of PlotCoupons. This feature was dropped in ''Resident Evil 2'' and ''Resident Evil 3'', but was brought back in ''Code: Veronica'' and the remake.
120	** There's no quick turning, and a button press is required to climb stairs. This would continue in ''Resident Evil 2'', but with the release of ''3'', quick turning has been a feature in every game since, while other than ''Code: Veronica'', walking up stairs no longer needs any extra input.
121	** All weapons, except for the Rocket Launcher and the Grenade Launcher, are labeled with real life weapon names. The sequels gradually shifted gun names to be the standard generic names (Handgun, Shotgun, etc.) and then shifted towards the AKA47 trope to avoid licensing issues.
122	** The game is the only one to have difficulty that is based on the characters; Jill = Easy (8 inventory slots, lock picking desks and certain doors Chris needs a key for, she can brute force her way into getting the shotgun early, and an exclusive weapon) and Chris = Hard (6 inventory slots and a flamethrower that has limited use, more enemies and they take more damage, less ammo and other resources, some resources are locked in desks that require keys to open, and he needs Rebecca's help with a couple of puzzles). Jill compensates a bit by having less health than Chris. The remake ironed this out a lot by making enemy health and placement consistent across both characters, and giving Chris some advantages like higher headshot chances and faster running speed. The rest of the series made all characters equal in performance apart from some sensible gender-related distinctions like durability and strength.
123	** The environments in the original game are extremely bright and colorful, being heavily inspired by [[Film/TheShining the Overlook Hotel]] and ''VideoGame/SweetHome1989''. Later games, including this game's remake, would have a more [[RealIsBrown conventional horror aesthetic]].
124	** The mansion having traps that could kill you was an element that wasn't used again until ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilCodeVeronica'' and later where the traps made more sense. It was HandWaved by the developers saying that Spencer loved spy novels and wanted his mansion to have hidden rooms and traps. The idea of a mansion having deathtraps was a concept used in ''Sweet Home'', which is where the developers got their inspiration from when it came to creating this game. Likewise, the characters in this game refer to the zombies and other bioweapons as "demons" on occasion whereas they just call them zombies or monsters in later games. ''Sweet Home'' had demonic creatures.
125	** The monsters themselves were fairly mundane compared to later games, possibly as a result of them being based on monsters or creatures from horror movies. Later games would have more bizarre and original creatures.
126	** Health dropping to yellow would still be labeled "Fine". Later installments would use "Caution" for both yellow and orange health, though ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2Remake'' would go back to using "Fine" for yellow health.
127	** Being poisoned wasn't obvious unless you checked your health directly and even then, the color did not change. Later games would change your health to purple when poisoned and your character would always limp.
128	** Most games in the series give you a graded rank at the end of a completed game, which also determines what you can unlock. The first game did not have such a system and the method used to unlock the rocket launcher with infinite ammo was based on how long you took to beat the game.
129	** Handgun ammo is portrayed as a pistol magazine (incorrectly called a clip) rather than a box of bullets like the rest of the series. The remake kept the loaded magazines for old times' sake.
130	** The original Japanese version of the game used J-Rock style opening and ending themes by Fumitaka Fuchigami. Later versions went with instrumental pieces by the game's composers.
131	** While there is still a mid-game temporary character swap, it's only for one character (playing as Chris may make you switch to Rebecca briefly) instead of both character scenarios having such set-pieces, and it's entirely optional.
132	** The final fight with the Tyrant on the helipad is dependent on what ending you're going for, with the fight being skipped if your character's partner (Barry[=/=]Rebecca) is dead. Later games force you to fight the final boss no matter what.
133	** The "Orders" file has the Umbrella Corp sign off as "White Umbrella." Later games had them a lot more open with naming themselves, including the remake's version of this file.
134	** In Chris's campaign, he only has a knife at the start of the game due to him losing his gun on his way to the mansion, though he would find Jill's gun very early on. Later games would always start the player character with a handgun or at least justify not having one the first few minutes of the game.
135	** The concept of the amount of inventory space being character dependent was used only in the first game and in the remake. Future games would have inventory space be consistent between characters.
136	** Player characters had no animations for standing still (unless they enter their idle stance if the controls aren't touched for a few seconds), which made them look like they weren't breathing. Later games would give player characters breathing animations in their idle state.
137	* EasierThanEasy: Both versions of the ''Director's Cut'' have a difficulty mode called Training Mode, with double ammo, double ink ribbons and fewer monsters, along with a secret option to enable double ammo and ink ribbons in Advanced/Arrange Mode.
138	* EndGameResultsScreen:
139	** Clearing the campaign in the original game ends with a picture of Jill or Chris continuing with their normal lives after the Mansion Incident along with the player's accumulated play time and total number of saves. Jill is shown relaxing in her apartment with her hair down, while Chris is watching a news report about Umbrella on a giant screen in the city.
140	** The result screens in the ''Director's Cut Dual Shock Ver.'' shows Chris going out on a night walk and Jill shopping.
141	* TheEndOrIsIt: When you beat the game without saving your supporting character (Barry for Jill and Rebecca for Chris), you'll get an extra cutscene after the credits roll that shows that the Tyrant is still alive, watching as you escape in the helicopter.
142	* EnterSolutionHere: An upstairs door in the mansion in the original version only opens with the correct code, and only after the player learns it in-game. However, the player doesn't actually enter the code; the door opens automatically. Also, only Jill can get the code.
143	* EliteMooks: Hunters appear inside the mansion once you've explored the Residence, replacing many of the (much slower) zombies.
144	* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: Chris is an ex-USAF fighter pilot and Jill is ex-Delta Force. S.T.A.R.S. itself is essentially the Raccoon Police Department's equivalent of a SWAT team.
145	* EverybodysDeadDave: Whether you choose Chris or Jill, you still spend most of the game running around on your own. Whenever you find another member of your team, they're almost always either dead or dying (except for each other and Rebecca/Barry). You can end the game with the playable character and Brad being the only survivors as well.
146	* EverythingTryingToKillYou: The original and remake had the most ways to be killed in the series. Monsters, traps, poisoning, even going the wrong direction in the aqua ring could result in an instant game over.
147	* EvilIsHammy: [[spoiler:Once he reveals himself to be the traitor in the original version, Wesker does this]].
148	* FaceRevealingTurn: Famously, the first zombie encountered in-game.
149	* FakeDifficulty: Though still demonic spiders in every appearance, Hunters are at their worst in the original version for one major reason: they are completely invincible when leaping at you for the entirety of their attack animation. Note this is, in fact, an example of malice on the developers' part and not a programming bug, because the Japanese demo ''does'' allow you to shoot Hunters out of the air in mid-leap, meaning the ability was deliberately taken out of the final version just to make things harder.
150	* FauxActionGirl: Rebecca, who despite saving Chris a couple of times from Yawn's envenomation and Plant 42, cowers from a lone Hunter and can go the whole game without firing a shot. She doesn't even have the excuse of [=REmake=] Rebecca, who had been pushed to her limit by then, as this game saw Alpha team come in as soon as Bravo team went down.
151	* FinalGirl: Jill, if Barry dies and Chris is left behind. Likewise, Rebecca is the sole survivor of Bravo Team.
152	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
153	** Chris' and Jill's S.T.A.R.S. membership cards at the character select screen have Brian Irons' (the police chief from ''Resident Evil 2'') signature on them.
154	** A note left for [[EarlyBirdCameo Ada Wong]] can be found in both versions, but in the original game, the password to unlock the laboratories is [[spoiler:[[TheMole MOLE]]]].
155	* GameFavoredGender: In Jill's scenario, to the point that she is essentially easy mode. Her only major flaws are the fact that she runs and readies her weapons slower than Chris and can take fewer hits. Some re-releases (such as the PC version giving both Chris and Jill automatic weapons) and the remake tones down the discrepancy. Her advantages, on the other hand, include:
156	** Having eight item slots; Chris has six.
157	** A lock pick as her personal item, which allows her to bypass a few doors and access to any locked drawer. Chris needs to find the Sword Key and a few small keys for these, which is a hassle with his smaller inventory space.
158	** Starting off right away with her gun; Chris loses his, and he has to find the zombie eating Kenneth and report it back first (Jill's gun will be on the floor for him to take).
159	** Can get the grenade launcher, which is probably her biggest advantage, since (provided you weren't stupid about ammo conservation) she'll already have a OneHitKill weapon handy for when [[EliteMooks Hunters]] start showing up in the Mansion, while Chris has to make do with just the shotgun until he can fight his way to the [[HandCannon Python]]. Meanwhile, Chris briefly has an exclusive [[VideoGameFlamethrowersSuck flamethrower]], but it runs out of fuel quickly, is really only available to use against a single boss, and he needs to discard it shortly afterward anyway to proceed through the game.
160	** If you take her to get the shotgun right after finding the first zombie, she doesn't have to detour and find the broken shotgun first (the shotgun weighs down a ceiling trap); Barry will rescue her if she does so. Chris has to obtain the broken shotgun no matter what, so he'll need to get through about the first third of the game before getting his hands on the working version.
161	** She can avoid directly fighting Plant 42 with Barry's help; depending on your actions, Barry will also instantly come to her rescue if Yawn poisons her (although she can also be left to find the serum on her own).
162	** Barry himself is far less prone to danger than Rebecca is. The only time he falls into trouble is if you (optionally) split up with him in the undergrounds or don't wait for him to get a new rope after the second Yawn fight.
163	** On a meta level, if you feel squeamish about visiting the first zombie, you can try to leave the dining hall, and the zombie will come in for Barry to kill.[[note]]Say goodbye to the free ammo on Kenneth's body if you do this[[/note]] Chris will always have to see the zombie and either fight or run from it.
164	* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: There is one other advantage to playing as Chris if you remember that Rebecca is a CombatMedic. Go to her and she will heal you up.
165	* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: The Black Tiger, which is a giant Australian funnel web spider.
166	* GiantSpider: The Web Spinners make their first appearance in the guardhouse then take up residence when you return to the mansion. Advanced/Arrange Mode has a surprise in that it adds more of them.
167	* GreaterScopeVillain: The Umbrella Corporation who is responsible for unleashing the various abominations.
168	* GrenadeLauncher: Jill gets one from Forest's corpse.
169	* GuideDangIt:
170	** When you encounter a fountain with hollows on its east and west sides that contain carvings of an eagle and wolf, respectively. By now, you've already obtained the Last Book Vol.1 and Vol.2 but have no clue what to do with them. It turns out that you have to examine them in the inventory screen and rotate it at the right angle to open them (something that no other puzzle in the game requires you to do), revealing the needed medals. The remake makes it a little easier to guess the solution, given that, ''way earlier'', you had to check the back of a book to get the Sword Key.
171	** The MultipleEndings. Depending on your actions and where you explore, you could have your support character killed off as early as mid-game. For example, answering no to both of Barry's questions in the caves will get him killed by a Hunter shortly after you run into Enrico. There's another scene in the game where Jill gets trapped in a hole and Barry runs off telling you to wait until he comes back, which is exactly what you need to do in order to save him and get the good ending. There's one problem: the game lets you control Jill the very moment he leaves and the next thing you find is a secret passage to an unexplored area, and considering it takes a good while for him to show up again, there is no indication that you should wait for him to come back.
172	* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: One possibility if you fall victim to Plant 42 is having it pick Chris or Jill up by the waist with one of its tendrils and ''[[CruelAndUnusualDeath slowly]]'' [[CruelAndUnusualDeath pinch them in half]].
173	* HandWave:
174	** Chris, Jill, Barry and Rebecca all survive the Mansion Incident. This is 100% accepted canon in the sequels. However, in every iteration of ''[=RE1=]'' available (the original, the ''Director's Cut'', the remake, ''Deadly Silence'', the ''[=RE1=]'' scenarios of ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvilTheUmbrellaChronicles The Umbrella Chronicles]]'' and the HD remaster), it is impossible to have Barry and Rebecca in a scenario simultaneously, and Capcom has never offered a concrete explanation for what happened in their surviving aside from, "They just ''did''." A pachislot adaptation of the game that finally features all four of them together exist, at least.
175	** A comic book adaptation of the game takes a MindScrew approach. During a recap with all four S.T.A.R.S. members present, Chris states that he found Jill in a cell in the Umbrella lab. When Jill tries to correct him that ''she'' rescued ''him'', he cuts her off.
176	* HeKnowsTooMuch: Enrico knows that Umbrella set the S.T.A.R.S. team up to die and that there's a double-crosser in their ranks. [[spoiler:Wesker kills him before he can reveal more.]]
177	* HiddenSupplies: The save points in the game are mostly hidden, out-of-the-way places with good lighting and calming music where your supplies are stashed. After you've been battling zombies for a while, finding a safe place to relax can be an incredible relief.
178	* HisNameIs: Enrico is shot by an unseen assailant ([[spoiler:Wesker]]) moments after he reveals there's a mole.
179	* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Chris is much bigger than 5'3" Rebecca and Barry is much larger than Jill, who is of average height.
180	* IHaveYourWife: [[spoiler:Wesker]] claimed to have [[spoiler:Barry's]] family at leverage in order to get him to work for him during the Arklay Mansion incident. However, while gloating, he admits that was entirely a bluff, which [[spoiler:Barry]] overheard before knocking him out. It still doesn't stop the family moving to Canada to hide after the whole ordeal.
181	* IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels: Selecting your character affects the game's difficulty. Jill can carry more items (eight instead of six), has an exclusive weapon (the grenade launcher), earlier access to some rooms thanks to the lockpick and can completely skip at least one boss battle thanks to Barry. On the other hand, Chris can sustain more damage than Jill and has Rebecca around to heal him, but Jill's advantages outnumbers Chris'. The difficulty of each character are actually shown in the Japanese version from the get go (Jill = Easy, Chris = Hard), but they're not as obvious in the overseas versions unless you've played the game before.
182	* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: The cause of [[spoiler:Wesker's]] "death" is being impaled on a Tyrant's claws in all scenarios except for [[spoiler:the Barry Burton Lives ending]].
183	* ImpendingDoomPOV: A quick, live action intro shows Chris being attacked and (possibly) killed by some unknown monster in a dark hallway. It's shown from the perspective of the said monster and all ''we'' see and hear is Chris's [[OhCrap horrified reaction]].
184	* InfinityMinusOneSword: Jill's Grenade Launcher is this. You can find a good amount of ammo for it (assuming you only use it on boss monsters or tough enemies like the Hunters) and you'll probably be using the weapon far more often than the Magnum due to ammo for it being very scarce. Most people save the Magnum for the FinalBoss. For Chris, most people get more mileage out of the Shotgun (since the Grenade Launcher isn't available to him. On the other hand he gets a lot more ammo for the Shotgun as a result; pretty much every Small Key drawer has Shotgun Shells in it) while still saving the Magnum for the bigger nasties.
185	* InfinityPlusOneSword:
186	** The Rocket Launcher is needed to kill the FinalBoss, and beating the game in three hours or less lets you start a new game with the weapon plus infinite ammo for it. Most enemies will die in a single hit because rockets are just that damn powerful and explosive. Sadly, it can't kill crawling enemies, so you'll still have to bring a gun with you.
187	** The Magnum revolver is the only other weapon in the game as powerful as the Rocket Launcher, as it too will kill most enemies in a single shot. Getting the GoldenEnding in Advanced/Arrange Mode even rewards you with an infinite ammo version.
188	** The full-auto weapons from the PC version are essentially reskinned, fast-firing versions of the Beretta, meaning they pack significantly more firepower per shot compared to the automatic weapons featured in later games and they stunlock enemies. Even the fearsome Hunters are reduced to a complete joke with these guns.
189	* InsurmountableWaistHeightFence:
190	** Those locked doors sure would be an easy bypass if you could kick them in like Barry does in one cutscene.
191	** This applies to enemies to some extent. The player can use certain barriers and crates to prevent enemies from reaching them, even though they could be only two-feet tall. This actually make the knife useful in the early game, as the statue in the second floor dining room and the banister the next room over prevents zombies from grabbing you, but not you from stabbing them. Furthermore, zombies and Hunters are blocked by ''staircases'' until you reach them.
192	* {{Irony}}: Brad's retreat in the original game actually helps S.T.A.R.S more than it hurts them -- Joseph was already being attacked by the time he left, most of Bravo Team were already dead before Alpha Team even showed up, Richard is doomed [[ForegoneConclusion no matter how the player attempts to save him]], and the Mansion Incident actually leads to [[spoiler:the exposure of Wesker as TheMole and the discovery of Umbrella's heinous actions]]. In fact, the only reason why Rebecca escapes alive is ''because'' Alpha Team was left behind, meaning his cowardice actually saved a life.
193	* ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure: The laboratory has a self-destruct device, though whether it is intended to prevent the virus from spreading or to destroy the evidence is uncertain. Knowing Umbrella, it may have been for both reasons.
194	* KickTheDog: Specifically invoked in one instance: while Rebecca is in disbelief over [[spoiler:Wesker admitting to his deception and killing off all her friends]], she's shot in the chest. Fortunately, she survives thanks to her bullet-proof vest.
195	* KillItWithFire: Fire grenades are the best weapon against Plant 42.
196	* LamePunReaction: After killing Plant 42, Chris will make a truly dreadful pun regarding it ("So much for him! We got to the ROOT of that problem!") Rebecca just stares at him before changing the subject.
197	* LargeHam:
198	** Barry "WHAT IS THIS" Burton.
199	** Wesker, [[spoiler:especially after the truth is revealed]].
200	** Chris is one in some instances.
201	* LateArrivalSpoiler:
202	** Wesker is a mole working for Umbrella. It is sort of hard to avoid knowing this now, especially since he is the BigBad of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'', as well as several of the live-action films, and appears in a villainous role in ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3''.
203	** Chris, Jill, Rebecca and Barry surviving the Mansion Incident. It can't be done in the game itself, yet it's recognized as canon.
204	* LetsSplitUpGang: Three of the S.T.A.R.S. team members make it to the mansion together, then promptly decide to split up. Seems like a bonehead move [[spoiler:until you remember it was Wesker's order and he's working against the others]].
205	* LiveActionCutscene: The original game used live-action actors in its opening and MultipleEndings cutscenes, as well as a character gallery.
206	* LockAndKeyPuzzle: Several puzzles require you to collect items from widely separated locations.
207	* LonelyPianoPiece: There is a piano in the mansion, and Jill and Rebecca (for Chris) use it to melodically play ''Moonlight Sonata'' (so they can unlock a hidden door).
208	* MadeOfIron: The most basic attacks involve zombies trying to chew out Chris or Jill's throat, and it still takes three to five hits to kill them.
209	* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: More due to the [[BadBadActing hilariously lifeless line-readings]] of Richard's actor in the original; he reacts to the blood spurting from the giant snake-bite on his shoulder with a soft little ''"ouch"'' that sounds more like he banged his hand against something.
210	* MalevolentArchitecture: Mostly in a platonic sense, but there are a few deathtraps, ridiculous puzzles, and secret passages scattered around.
211	* ManEatingPlant: Plant 42 was contaminated and mutated when the Neptune tank was broken, flooding one lab with T-Virus contaminated water. It managed to devour several researchers in the confusion before people figured out what was going on. Fortunately, it's immobile. Unfortunately, it covers most of the Residence and its main bulb takes up most of a room.
212	* MasterOfUnlocking: Jill, given by Barry.
213	* TheMedic: Rebecca. She will treat Chris if he is injured.
214	* {{Minigame}}:
215	** The Saturn port was the first title in the series to feature a minigame in the form of Battle Game, which was later resurrected and refined in ''[=RE2=]'' and ''Code: Veronica''. Said minigame featured a few unique enemies such as a [[spoiler:''zombified'' Wesker]] and a golden Tyrant.
216	** ''Deadly Silence'' adds Master of Knifing mode and two multiplayer minigames. These minigames are the only time in the series where Bravo Team members other than Rebecca are playable characters.
217	* MirrorScare: In the Advanced Mode in the ''Director's Cut'' version, looking in the mirror in the bathroom causes a zombie to sneak up behind the character.
218	* TheMole: [[spoiler:Wesker]] is an Umbrella employee [[spoiler:leading the S.T.A.R.S. team to destruction]] to test the [=B.O.W.s=].
219	* MoodWhiplash: In ''Director's Cut Dual Shock ver.'', it can be quite jarring to play through the mansion's basement (one of the game's gloomiest and creepiest areas) while [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kcF7E69C6Q this]] plays.
220	* MultipleEndings: There are seven different outcomes, albeit all of them end with the players escaping via helicopter:
221	** In the best two endings, the player-character (Chris or Jill) saves both their partner (Barry for Jill, Rebecca for Chris) and the other protagonist (the one who was not chosen spends most of the game in a prison cell), and the mansion is destroyed.
222	** In the second endings, the player character saves only their partner, and the mansion is destroyed. In the ''Dual Shock Edition'', the ending music is triumphant when the mansion is destroyed, and tragic when it remains intact. [[spoiler:[[SoundtrackDissonance It seems weird having that music play when Jill realizes that Chris was in that mansion that just blew up or if Chris is recounting what happened in the mansion, meaning that Jill blew up with the mansion]].]]
223	** In the third ending (the only one that's the same for either scenario), only Chris and Jill survive, and the mansion remains intact.
224	** In the worst endings, only the chosen player-character survives, and the mansion remains intact.
225	* MythologyGag: The American version of the box art for the ''[[Platform/NintendoDS Deadly Silence]]'' port depicts Jill dual wielding a pair of pistols, something which is impossible in the game, but was something she did in the [[Literature/ResidentEvil novelization]] of the game.
226	* NextSundayAD: The original was released in 1996 and takes place in 1998. When the sequel (which takes place two months later) came along, it ''was'' 1998, so the whole near-future angle was dropped from the series until ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil6''.
227	* NintendoHard:
228	** The original game is pretty difficult for a number of reasons:
229	*** Ammo isn't plentiful, so you have to watch how you used your supplies.
230	*** Limited inventory space discourages you from picking up everything, as you might not know when to bring something along and when to leave something behind for later. The item box lets you put things away for safekeeping, but they're few and far between.
231	*** Zombies can take you down from fine to caution status in just a few bites (or even ''danger'', for the slightly weaker Jill), zombie dogs are fast and hard to evade, the boss monsters hit very hard (including one that can poison you early in the game), and the Hunters can do a OneHitKill on you if you're anything less than in perfect health.
232	*** The controls don't help you as you can't run and shoot at the same time. The original American version of the game doesn't have auto aim, though the ''Director's Cut'' versions added it in.
233	*** To top it all off, saving could only be done on typewriters by using the limited-in-number ink ribbons.
234	* NoBodyLeftBehind: This is almost totally played straight, as monsters' bodies disappear once you leave a room after killing them.
235	* NoFinalBossForYou: If your partner is killed (Barry or Rebecca), you skip the final fight against the Tyrant and the ending reveals that it's still alive.
236	* NonStandardGameOver: If Chris gets poisoned by Yawn, you'll take control of Rebecca (if you had her accompany you and meet her in the safe room) and get the serum to cure Chris. If you take too long to do this sequence, Chris will die.
237	* NotQuiteSavedEnough: You end up being too late to save Richard from dying from poison even if you do deliver the serum in time.
238	* NotSoInvincibleAfterAll: OneHitKill attacks like Hunters and Boulder traps will bypass [[NoFairCheating Invincibility cheats]].
239	* OffWithHisHead:
240	** Hunters can [[OneHitKill slice your head off in a single stroke]] and Rebecca can suffer the same fate if she is not rescued in time.
241	** Chimeras have a move where they hoist the player character up and decapitate them if not shaken off.
242	** The best ending for Jill sees finding [[spoiler:Wesker's]] decapitated corpse if she goes back to the power room.
243	* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: [[spoiler:Wesker got Barry Burton to aid him in luring several STARS to their death]] because he threatened to hurt his family if he didn't do so. Ironically, he had no intention of carrying out the threat, which [[VillainBall bit him in the butt when he admitted it]].
244	* PainAndGain: The Tyrants are humanoid creatures created by the Umbrella corporation to serve as biological weapons. When a Tyrant is seriously injured, the T-virus will trigger a secondary mutation which increases their strength and durability to the point that only heavy weaponry can reliably destroy them.
245	* {{Permadeath}}:
246	** If you leave Rebecca alone for too long after refusing her plea to come with you (which only happens if you met her for the first time in the left save room on the first floor), a Hunter will kill her in either the library on the second floor or in the hallway leading to the same save room where you first met her.
247	** Splitting up with Barry in the undergrounds outside the lab (answer "no" twice to the two questions he asks) will result in him being killed by a Hunter as well (he'll live if you answer any other way). He also will die if you immediately go in the mansion basement secret passage without waiting for him to get a new rope (this time, he will die in the laboratory after the Tyrant has been dealt with, next to the ladder where you came from).
248	** In all versions of the game, leaving [[spoiler:Chris/Jill behind in the laboratory cell]], as it will explode along with everything else in the mansion, or slowly starve to death with no one to free them.
249	* PersonalSpaceInvader: The zombies will grapple and try to eat you.
250	* PersonalityBloodTypes: The intro includes small character bios, including blood types. Interestingly, most of the villains in the series, [[spoiler:Wesker included]], have Type O blood.[[note]]For the rest: Chris is also Type O, Jill is Type B, Barry is A, and Rebecca is AB.[[/note]]
251	* PlotlineDeath:
252	** Richard dies whether you gave him the serum or not; your decision only determined whether you'd get his radio sooner with Jill.
253	** With Chris, however, it also changes what happens to Rebecca depending on if you gave him the serum on time or not (she can be killed by a Hunter later if you did not). And even then, [[GuideDangIt you have to meet Rebecca for the first time while she's trying to save him]] in order to do the whole thing.
254	* RaisingTheSteaks: The zombified dogs are a series mainstay. This is justified in that they were one of the experimental lines of B.O.W.s being created in the mansion. The crows also make an appearance here, though due to the fact that they only attack under very specific circumstances, it might be hard to realize they're zombified unless you're extremely familiar with crow biology. The same happens with the infected adders. Things become more obvious with the bees, which are exceedingly large in comparison to normal bees, and even more with the Web Spinners and Black Tiger. This game also has Yawn, a giant snake, and Neptune, mutated sharks.
255	* RespawningEnemies: There are 3-4 zombies in the main lab area that will respawn whenever you reenter the room. This can be very annoying because the player needs to revisit this room quite often.
256	* TheReveal: When exploring a monster-infested, puzzle-and-trap-filled mansion, players would have had the frame of mind of perhaps a 1950s-inspired supernatural problem. Even if they considered mad science, they would have assumed it was a Frankenstein-style "they called me mad!" experiment gone wrong. But when they reach the laboratory under the mansion, the cause turns out to be something never considered in pop culture before: ''corporate'', capitalist-fueled mad science gone wrong, best exemplified by the WhamShot where a room with a slideshow shows all those horrible monsters upstairs are carefully manufacture and branded products intended to be shipped out as weapons of war.
257	* RewatchBonus: Barry acting strange around Jill makes more sense once you discover that [[spoiler: he's being blackmailed by Wesker.]]
258	* SayMyName: '''''REBECCAAAAAAA!''''' [[spoiler:This happens if Rebecca gets killed by a Hunter.]]
259	* SchmuckBait: Go ahead and open the mansion's front door, despite being chased by zombie dogs through the forest during the game's opening. See what happens. One of the dogs will try to get inside and the player character will immediately slams the door shut.
260	* ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: In the uncut version, Joseph does this when he gets bitten in the leg by the zombie dogs.
261	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Brad does this after Joseph is killed. [[spoiler:He does come back to rescue the survivors at the end.]]
262	* SelfDestructMechanism: The mansion is rigged to explode in order to either prevent a major biohazard outbreak or destroy evidence. Naturally, this is triggered at the game's end.
263	* ShakyPOVCam: The first appearance of the Hunter, and the zombie that attacks the player in the kitchen.
264	* ShoutOut: [[ShoutOut/ResidentEvil See here]].
265	* SkippableBoss:
266	** In both scenarios, you can skip the first fight with Yawn by madly running around it and getting the Moon Crest. It will still be there until his second appearance, though.
267	** In Jill's scenario, you can skip the Plant 42 boss fight under certain conditions. When you enter its room after poisoning it, Barry will burst in and destroy it with a flamethrower.
268	** When it comes to the fight against the Black Tiger, you can skip the fight by burning the cobwebs blocking the doors with Chris' flamethrower or using Jill's flame rounds in her grenade launcher, and then leaving since there's nothing important in the boss room. If you don't have ammo for either of those weapons, you can try to use the knife, but it will take longer and you'll leave yourself open to the Black Tiger's attack. Or if you ''really'' trust your reflexes, you can trick the Black Tiger into spitting at the door and destroying the webbing that way.
269	** [[spoiler:If you got your supporting character killed before the fight with the Tyrant, you only have to face it the one time.]]
270	* SleepCute: Any of the endings with both Jill and Chris has the former sleeping on the latter's shoulder (this makes sense in a Jill playthrough too, given that she had been dealing with B.O.W.s the entire night while Chris was in a cell during that time). Chris' version of the best ending also has Rebecca doing this.
271	* SmokingIsCool: In the original Japanese [=PlayStation=] version, Chris smokes a cigarette during the uncensored cast roll. A haphazard attempt at censoring this in other versions merely overlays footage of Chris from the intro over a still of Chris just standing there. The audio is still the same, and sharp-eared people can still hear Chris lighting his cigarette.
272	* SolveTheSoupCans: The game is notorious for its bizarre puzzles, which often require several components scattered all over the mansion. A {{handwave}} is offered by explaining that the owner was an almost {{otaku}}-like devotee of old spy[=/=]horror movies and had the resources to hire an architect who would design the place that could live up to the owner's dreams.
273	* SoundOfNoDamage: In ''Deadly Silence'', during the knife fight against Yawn in the guardhouse, attacking it when it has its mouth closed will create a harmless spark and the sound of scraping metal as if the snake's body is armored.
274	* SoundtrackDissonance: The Japanese [=PS1=] version features an alternate ending credits in which a montage of character and monster deaths are shown while a triumphant J-Rock song (Fumitaka Fuchigami's "Yume de Owarasenai..."/"I Won't Let This End as a Dream...") is played. The PC version uses the localized track "Still Dawn" but keeps the more violent credits montage. Both are strangely incongruous.
275	* SpeedRunReward: Finishing the game in three hours or less unlocks a [[InfinityPlusOneSword rocket launcher with infinite ammo]] for the NewGamePlus.
276	* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Sweet Home''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpiYBDjvIJE An early trailer]] even features a rendition of the ''Sweet Home'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsUdzKuXMFg battle theme]]. Elements from ''Sweet Home''--a mansion filled with deadly monsters, characters with personalized inventory items, limited supplies, and deadly puzzles--definitely inspired this game. The original game's loading screen doors are also a nod to the opening door animations used in ''Sweet Home''.
277	* SquashedFlat: While the shotgun trap has the capability to crush Chris to death on his route, on Jill's route she can be saved by Barry before she becomes a Jill Sandwich. However, this is only if Jill did not encounter Barry after they split up in the main hallway; if Jill did encounter Barry or has already obtained the Armor Key (which unlocks the Broken Shotgun storage room), he will not appear, and Jill must also use the Broken Shotgun to avoid being squashed.
278	* TheStarscream: [[spoiler:Wesker]] is an inversion. Wesker is the leader of the entire S.T.A.R.S. unit, and [[spoiler:Enrico]] is the second in command to Wesker. [[spoiler:Wesker ends up gunning down Enrico in cold blood while the latter is distracted.]]
279	* StopPokingMe: In ''Deadly Silence'', Jill and Rebecca will jolt and look around if you tap their breasts or buttocks, while Chris will react in an annoyed way if you tap his hair or be surprised if you tap his butt.
280	* StoryBranchFavoritism: While Jill and Chris generally have the same gameplay, their stories are quite different with Jill getting most of the lion's share. Jill has a lot of interactions with Barry and he can save her hide twice (once from the ceiling trap, letting her bypass the shotgun exchange puzzle, and the other having him burn Plant 42 with the flamethrower, skipping the fight entirely). You also get to see Barry acting suspiciously around Jill due to [[spoiler: Wesker blackmailing him]], which adds some conspiracy to the story. If Barry gets killed, his death is played up as very tragic when he leaves behind a photo of his family. By comparison, Chris doesn't interact much with Rebecca and the two of them are more focused on trying to escape the mansion. If Rebecca dies, her death is heavily downplayed compared to Barry's and she's quickly forgotten.
281	* SunglassesAtNight: Wesker is given these simply for RuleOfCool and to establish his badass credentials.
282	* SuperSoldiers: This is the whole point of the Tyrant and B.O.W. program in general.
283	* SuperTitle64Advance: The subtitle of the DS version ('''''D'''eadly '''S'''ilence'').
284	* SurvivalHorror: This game both originated the term and popularized the genre.
285	* SwallowedWhole: Yawn has a OneHitKill where it grabs the player character and devours them.
286	* TakeYourTime: When the self-destruct system is activated, the announcement system will constantly blare that you need to evacuate. You can take as much time as you need. Only when you get to the elevator leading to the heliport you will actually need to hurry up thanks to the countdown timer appearing.
287	* ThreateningShark: The Neptunes, mutated great white sharks.
288	* TitleDrop: There ''was'' supposed to be one, but you'd never notice thanks to the BlindIdiotTranslation:
289	--> '''Chris:''' Now, the worst possible situation has occurred: The failure of the experiment created a virus, a ''biological weapon'', polluting the entire lab.[[note]]He was actually supposed to say "Biohazard".[[/note]]
290	* TimedMission:
291	** Jill/Chris has a limited amount of time to get Richard the serum. While you won't get a game over if you take too long, and you have to intentionally take your time due to how long it takes for Richard to die on his own, you will miss out on his radio and pistol ammo (Jill) and Rebecca could potentially be in danger later in the game (Chris).
292	** If Chris is poisoned by Yawn, you get to play as Rebecca to get the serum to Chris. However, taking too long will result in Chris dying from the poison and earning you a game over.
293	* TooAwesomeToUse: The Magnum revolver has only 24 spare rounds. Acid rounds are also very rare. There are only twelve rounds.
294	* UniqueEnemy: [[spoiler:Zombie Forest]] in ''Director's Cut'' and in Rebirth Mode in ''Deadly Silence''.
295	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: If you examine the hole in the room right after you've killed Yawn, Barry will walk in while the giant snake's corpse is dissolving, and ask "Jill, have you found anything interesting?"
296	* UpdatedRerelease: This game received a bunch. There are ports of the original version for the Saturn and Windows PC platforms, each with exclusive content, the ''Director's Cut'' and ''Dual Shock ver.'' re-releases on [=PlayStation=] and ''Deadly Silence'' for the Nintendo DS.
297	* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: It's possible to get Rebecca killed, but it involves ignoring her for over 10 minutes, much longer than most players will. A much easier way is to exit the room once you find her without killing the Hunter, which will immediately kill her the moment you leave.
298	* ViolationOfCommonSense: Imagine the following situation: You are in the middle of nowhere, you are completely surrounded by deadly monsters, you have no contact with the outside world, and your friends are possibly dying. ''Why would you stop to practice your piano skills''?
299	* WaitingPuzzle: When Barry says to wait while he goes to fetch another rope, it'd be a good idea to listen [[spoiler:if you want him to make it to the credits]].
300	* WithThisHerring: Jill starts out with a loaded pistol, (maybe) one extra magazine of ammo, and a knife. Chris doesn't even start ''with'' a gun at first despite having one in the intro. The story justifies this: you're a cop who wasn't expecting to be locked in a mansion crawling with bio-engineered horrors and you just ran a marathon to escape a pack of killer zombie dogs, firing wildly at them in an effort to avoid being eaten.
301	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
302	** Rebecca is a supporting character for Chris's game and a main character for ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil0 Zero]]'', but she hasn't been mentioned in the main games since, save for a report found in ''Resident Evil 2'' about the Mansion Incident. She did get some expansion in ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvilTheUmbrellaChronicles The Umbrella Chronicles]]'', but it's an interquel showing how she got from the Training Facility at the end of ''Zero'' to the library where Chris meets her in this game. She also appears in ''[=RE5=]''[='=]s Mercenaries Reunion DLC, but that is non-canonical. As of the 2010s, she's been revealed to still be alive, working as a college professor in Australia and is one of the main protagonists in ''[[Anime/ResidentEvilVendetta Vendetta]]''.
303	** In Chris's scenario, Barry disappears soon after the opening and is never seen or heard from again. Wesker heavily implies that he's dead, but no one ever mentions Barry again after that.
304	* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: Raccoon City is "Somewhere in Midwestern America"... except [[TheMountainsOfIllinois the high, mountainous terrain]] doesn't really match that region of the country. Fanon sometimes puts it in Pennsylvania or Colorado, which makes a lot more sense geographically, and the overall vegetation and rolling mountains tend to lean more towards Pennsylvania.
305	* WomenAreWiser: This is implied, as both Jill and Rebecca are capable of playing piano, though Rebecca does need some practice with the piano first, and messing with chemicals, which Chris can't do. Jill is also blessed with [[MasterOfUnlocking knowing how to use a lockpick]] and, [[AllThereInTheManual supposedly]], defusing bombs. Contrast with Chris, who loses his handgun in the intro for no apparent reason and is forced to take care of himself with only a knife.
306	* YouAreTooLate: Alpha Team arrives at the mansion with most of Bravo Team dead or dying.
307	* YouHaveToBurnTheWeb: When playing as Chris, you can get a flamethrower to fight Black Tiger, which you may then use to burn through the webbing that's holding the door closed. Jill has to settle for chopping it down with her knife or unloading on it with an Incendiary round.
308	* ZombieGait: The game plays this straight; the zombies even have the ability to occasionally make a DeadlyLunge.
309	* ZombiePukeAttack: Zombies sometimes do this if the player runs by them in a hallway or staircase, or otherwise isn't able to be grabbed (e.g., if the zombie is on a slightly lower platform).

Context VideoGame / ResidentEvil1