“Resident Evil with dinosaurs.”

That’s always been the predictable and dismissive answer for those who’ve never really experienced Capcom’s Dino Crisis. And to be fair, that’s part of the game, for better and for worse. But, as fans of the series know, that’s not a reason to overlook the game. And on the original’s 20th anniversary, with fans pining for a return by Capcom to series (either by sequel or remake), it’s only fair that Shinji Mikami’s birth of Panic Horror gets noticed for what it did to distance itself from Resident Evil.

In 2009, the Secret Operation Raid Team (SORT) sends an agent to investigate a research facility on Ibis Island. The research facility is home to Dr. Edward Kirk, a world-renowned scientist who was reported dead three years ago, but is very much alive, and leading a secret weapons project within the facility. SORT sends four agents (Regina, Gail, Rick, and Cooper) to acquire Kirk and return him to custody. However, on arrival, the team find themselves being hunted by creatures thought extinct for millions of years. As Regina, the player must not only complete the mission, but survive.

After the wild success of Resident Evil, Mikami and his team wanted to move away from the fantasy elements of that series, and make something more realistic. Citing films such as The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Aliens as influences, Dino Crisis replaced the visceral horror of slow-moving zombies with persistent unease and tension brought by the more mobile and intelligent dinosaurs. Furthermore, unlike the zombies, the dinosaurs would pursue Regina from room to room, and were aggressive and quick. Eschewing the label of Survival Horror, Capcom marketed the game as Panic Horror in Japan to separate their new game from its already-established RE brethren, but also not neglecting elements that could be carried over.

This change in genre also included the idea of having more gameplay changes, such as a greater focus on physical puzzles. Gone were the “find the key to fit the door” or “get the gemstones and place them in this wall” puzzles. In their place, players had to match up electric fuses, reroute power grids and switch laser gates on and off. To add an extra layer of complexity, many of the locked doors in the facility use a digital disc key (DDK) system. The system requires players to obtain both a code disk and an input disk in order to decode a door’s password. Some passwords were simple enough, but eventually grew to be more difficult. This also potentially required players to have a pen and paper handy to write down DDK clues and solutions.

Another change was the level design. Instead of being stuck in a cliché mansion, Dino Crisis not only put players in a mix of a futuristic metallic facility and the dense jungles of the island, but balanced it all with a mix of linear and open areas. These areas also forced you into tense encounters, where you’d have to rely less on your sparse Anaesthetic Darts supply, and more on the facility’s laser fences to deal with lethally-quick raptors.

Speaking of which, prior to Resident Evil 3‘s ammo creation system, Dino Crisis players could mix a variety of different ammo types, both lethal and non-lethal. Which, given the scarcity of ammo in the game, provided another layer of strategy to avoid combat. Dino Crisis also features branching paths, which is another innovation prior to RE3 doing it. In fact, the quicktime “Danger Events”, where players would have to push buttons quickly enough in order to avoid an instant death, preceded Resident Evil 4‘s use of the mechanic!

Further developing the mechanic of Resident Evil 2‘s Chris or Clair limping as they received damage, Regina also received the same mechanic, but was expanded upon. On occasion, after receiving enough damage, Regina would start “bleeding out”, resulting in a trail of blood following her and her health gradually dropping. No amount of med packs will stop the bleeding, requiring the player to use hemostats to stop bleeding injuries.

As mentioned, Capcom didn’t entirely abandon everything that Resident Evil did. The familiar (though obviously antiquated) tank control scheme is here, alongside the door opening/stair climbings to mask loading times and inventory management. The story is also schlocky B-Movie goodness, although Dino Crisis‘ script was more refined. There’s also not as much cheese in the delivery as in the first two RE games, but the deadpan delivery of lines does creep in during some cutscenes. On the other hand, thanks to the hammy delivery, Dr. Kirk is made an even bigger prick.

Surprisingly, apart from the obvious knocks that one could make about the game being too much like its forbearers, the audio is also one of Dino Crisis‘ shortcomings. While the score by Makoto Tomozawa, Sayaka Fujita and Akari Kaida accentuates the tension and horror, the score is often too loud during cutscenes, forcing you to strain to hear the dialogue. That’s obviously less of a knock against the sound team, and more of Capcom not mixing the audio correctly.

In spite of the innovations and attempts to try and differentiate Dino Crisis from being just another Resident Evil clone (which it did), the game was still overshadowed by the presumption that it was just that. It also didn’t help that the game was pushed to the side once Resident Evil 3 showed up the following year. Thankfully, Dino Crisis did see a sequel, but Dino Crisis 2 took on a more action-oriented tone than Panic/Survival Horror. Ironically, this preceded Resident Evil 4‘s shift in the RE series to a similar action vein.

The question of whether Dino Crisis deserves a return is obviously moot for fans. The incredibly successful remake of Resident Evil 2, coupled with Capcom’s interest in exploring other remakes/revivals, leaves DC fans in a tortured state of hope and wondering. There would be no doubt that Capcom would be able to modernize and innovate with either a Dino Crisis remake or sequel. But the question of whether there would be a large enough audience that would see it as more than that “Resident Evil with dinosaurs” moniker is another question, entirely.