Flashback

flashback
Game:	Resident Evil Outbreak File 2
Date:	September 1998
Player:	Character optional
Location:	Arklay Mountains, Abandoned hospital
Enemies:	Green Zombie Axe Man Dorothy
Lastlevel:	Underbelly
Nextlevel:	Desperate times

"An abandoned building in a foggy forest. All around us were the echoes of some forgotten tragedy. Enveloped in evil, we pressed onward. 霧深い森の奥、 剥き出しの敵意に満ちた狂気の廃屋。血と毒、愛と憎悪―― 惨劇の傷跡に潜む戦慄の真相。絡みつく魔性を振りほどき、 活路を切り開け。 " — In-game descriptions: English localization and original Japanese script.

flashback, known as Memory (記憶, Kioku) in the Japanese game, is the fourth scenario of Resident Evil Outbreak File #2 (the first being the Outbreak Revisited training scenario), and is centered around an abandoned hospital in the Arklay Mountains.

Plot

When Alyssa Ashcroft takes refuge in an old cabin, Al enters the cabin and welcomes her. He guides Alyssa (or "Lures") her to the Abandoned Hospital, and suddenly disappears once Alyssa reaches the old rope bridge leading to the Hospital. She finds out that not only the old man now transforms into a masked man with an axe, the hospital is being consumed by a malicious plant named "Dorothy". Alyssa must destroy all of the throbbing parts of Dorothy to anger or "Activate" the plant core in the basement. After killing the Dorothy, it spits out Al's dead wife who had died of cancer years ago. Alyssa has to escape the hospital from the backdoor before the hospital collapses.

Transcript

• Official script
• Original script

Al: "I don't get many visitors around here."
I hear the city's in quite a state right about now.
Well, there is an old road through these woods that leads to the neighboring town.
It's easy to get lost, I'm afraid. Let me show you the way.
Let's hope no one gets hurt.
It's not like there's a decent hospital around here, after all.

Alyssa: "Hospital?"

---

Al: おや…客とはめずらしい
街がたいへんなことになっておるらしいな
たしかにこの森には隣町に通じる古い道があるが…
迷うといかん…わしが案内しよう
ケガでもするとまずかろう？
近くにまともな病院でもあれば別だがね

…病院？

---

Walkthrough

Enemies

• Green Zombie - poisonous zombies with plants growing out of it which able to spray poison gas.
• Scissor Tail - mutant insects that appears in the Forest if the player do not cross the bridge before its collapse.
• Axe Man - a Nemesis-like foe that will repeatedly stalk you with an Axe.
• Giant Wasp - mutated wasps commonly found buzzing at the Hospital roof
• Dorothy - a large plant comparable to Plant 42 - it wants people to stay inside so it can consume them.

You start the scenario in a cabin in the forest, and must follow the old man through the mountains, dodging the Green Zombie (and occasionally Scissor Tails) along the way. Eventually, you will lose track of him. If Alyssa is not part of your team in easier difficulties, her AI will pause half way to the hospital, saying she is too tired to carry on when interacting with her and will then give you a FIRST AID SPRAY and her STUN GUN. If you are on harder difficulties, she will simply turn into a Zombie.

Shortly upon arriving at the hospital, the Axe Man's arrival will be triggered. The enemy is comparable with the titular enemy in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis in that he will continue to follow you around the level. You can draw him away with continuous firepower in an encounter, but ammunition shortages may keep you to dodging his attacks.

As parts of the hospital's upper levels are blocked by mutant plants, they must be dealt with first. Collect a chemical-filled syringe (they can be re-filled in a storeroom in the basement) and inject the chemical into the plant's throbbing vines. Doing so on the upper level for the first time will allow access to another room below the main roof, containing a key and empty bottles.

Dropping down to the floor below, you will find yourself next to an exit. However, Dorothy will instinctively wrap its tentacles around the door knob to jam it, leaving you sealed. But you can still inject its weak points with chemicals, and with all of the roots withered, it is now time to fight Dorothy's main core. Proceed down the stairs to the basement area and walk into the Intensive Care Unit. Its weak spot is a red opening on the plant's bulb - if you have any bottles with you, you can throw them at it as well as fire. Be advised, however, that it will use tentacles to protect itself, suspending you in the air for a time or letting rocks fall from the ceiling.

Once the boss has been defeated, the hospital will start to collapse. Run back to the area where Dorothy sealed the door; the vine has withered away and it can now be opened. Staying inside for too long will eventually kill you when the rubble falls down.

Character-specific secrets

When playing as Alyssa Ashcroft, extra cut-scenes will be added. These occur when Alyssa enters a certain room. It shows things that happened there in 1993.

• "Suspension bridge" - An injured man warns Alyssa not to go to the hospital (English: "Turn... back..." / Japanese: "逃げる…").
• "Hospital back gate" - two police officers discuss on if there were any survivors ("…他に生存者は？").
• "Room 201" - Kurt being killed by the zombified Dorothy Lester. He struggles to say "Alyssa" (アリッサ…).
• "Administrator's office" - Al Lester and Kurt discuss the goings-on around hospital, though Al objects to suggestions of misconduct ("…私は不正な行為など一切行っていない").
• If Alyssa collects all of her flashbacks and clues, her special ending will be played showing one more flashback. This only happens if she defeats both the plant and the axeman and escapes the hospital before it is destroyed.

Alyssa can also unlock a locker in the Locker Room and obtain a First Aid Spray. She can also obtain a newspaper hidden inside a bucket in the Main Building 2F Hall.

When playing as Yoko Suzuki, she can obtain a secret file in the Administrator's Office in the counter of the table. The same thing happens with George Hamilton as he can obtain a secret file under the bed in the Examination Room.

Special ending

Once the masked axe man begins to attack the character after defeating Dorothy, they can either run away from him and escape or damage him enough to make him flee for good (when a scene is played with him backing off then running away). An extra scene is added to the ending after escaping the collapsing hospital. The scene shows the player character running out of the hospital, then Al holding his dead wife with happiness that he can finally see her one more time, when a huge piece from the ceiling falls on them, crushing both.

Side-quest and alternate ending

The player can choose to turn back once they reach the front of the hospital, and return to the cabin. Once there, wait outside the cabin for an extended period of time. Eventually the bridge leading to the hospital will give out, barring access. Once the scene is triggered, a non-infected woman named Regan appears inside the cabin. Upon ad-libbing to her, she explains that her daughter Lucy is lost somewhere in the woods. She gives up her Pendant, which she says will make Lucy more willing to trust you. After going through the woods, avoiding Scissor Tails along the way, a select path will lead to the shore of a river, where Lucy will be waiting for you. Talk to her and show her the Pendant, she will go back to the cabin herself without escort. Upon returning you are rewarded with a Grenade Launcher loaded with three Flame Rounds on EASY, a fully loaded Shotgun E on NORMAL, a HANDGUN on HARD and a HANDGUN SG on VERY HARD.

From here, the player can take another suspension bridge to escape the woods, leaving the mystery of the hospital behind. Alternatively, the player can skip the Regan and Lucy quest altogether and simply leave once the bridge to the hospital gives out. Either way, many Green Zombies and Giant Wasps crowd the second bridge, making the trek across very difficult, at its worst on VERY HARD. It should be noted that they cannot be killed, only stunned. Choosing to leave without doing anything will result in a poor score for the scenario, naturally. However, it must be done in order to achieve a 100% Event Checklist, as it features the ending An End To Wandering.

Files

• Kurt's notebook
• Doctor's confession
• Botanist's notebook
• Raccoon Today
• Anesthesia memo (George only)
• Daily Raccoon (Alyssa only)
• Sealed Letter (Yoko only)

Characters

• Alyssa Ashcroft - Appears whether part of your team or not.
• Al Lester - The "Axe Man". Killed by being crushed by falling debris in the secret ending.
• Dorothy Lester - The wife of Albert, later became a zombie. A plant has grown and consumed her.
• Kurt - A reporter and colleague of Alyssa. Killed by zombie Dorothy in 1993.
• Regan and Lucy Mallet - A mother and her child who fled into the Arklay Mountains and got lost.

Further notes

• Other than Sherry Birkin from Resident Evil 2, Lucy is the only small child ever present during actual gameplay in a Resident Evil title.
• This level is very similar to The Hive in the original Outbreak. They both are the third story level, taking place in a hospital, and both feature invincible enemies trying to kill you up to a certain point.
• This is the third scenario in the Outbreak series where the player must die in order to receive points for the Event Checklist. This happens if the player stays inside the collapsing hospital for a certain amount of time after defeating Dorothy.
• Also this is one of the two scenarios that can be done by an alternate way without confronting the final boss; the other being in Outbreak, where the player can avoid the main street confrontation. This happens if the player stays behind in the Forest Area without going to the hospital in under fifteen minutes.
• Alyssa makes an appearance in this scenario, regardless she's an AI or not, however her fate changes depending on the mode it is being played; If the player is on EASY or NORMAL, Alyssa will go after Albert wondering into the woods, however she becomes tired and if the players talks to her, they'll get a Stun gun and a First aid spray, however on HARD and VERY HARD, Alyssa will be found dead near the end of the maze and will reanimate as a super zombie that can only be incapacitated.
• Looking at both Outbreak games as a collective (as it's assumed all PCs make it out alive), it can be assumed this level is Alyssa's canon. This is due to her special ending and her appearance (and death, if not played by or teamed with the player). It would then be assumed she either found survivors later and escaped or (as the hospital is in the forest) stumbled across safety and help on her travels (though this is unlikely due to the high number of creatures that have escaped into the woods).

Gallery

Pre-Release Gallery

A few screenshots exist of Flashback during its time as part of the first outbreak before it was dropped. Some of these images actually made it into the official Japanese website for file 2. others were found elsewhere. A lot of the screenshots are hard to tell from the finalized version outside of lighting and possibly slightly different textures, as it seems the level didn't change very much at the time of development.

There aren't really any differences here, but the lighting looks a little different

The main difference here is that there aren't any Green Zombies. Instead, regular zombies of the "sewer" variety are shown. Green Zombies must not have been finished at the time of this image.

Not much is different about this location, but it seems that the textures might be brighter or completely different. This could be related to the lighting though.

Preceded By	Position	Succeeded By
Underbelly	Scenario	Desperate times