Did they change anything to warrant the release of this game?

Just some waggle controls. The game is identical to the original.

Exactly, so it shouldn't say "remake" in the article. It's literally nothing but a port of the GameCube game. No new content at all and the exact same graphics as the 2002 original..

NPC RE0?

waggle to attack?
thats all they did? Why didn't this game come out 2.5yrs ago?

If it's anything like Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil, it won't even have waggle controls. While you could play the game with the Wii Remote, you didn't actually use any waggle motion. You moved using the analog stick and pressed the buttons for actions. So the game did not even get new controls. From what i've read of the Japanese copy, it's the same with this one. At least the "New Play Control!" games get new controls and stuff like widescreen support (the port of Resident Evil stayed in 4:3). So Capcom is charging $30 for a port of a 6 year old game.

I never played RE0 or RE:Remake much on Gamecube so I am open to buying them, but not adding something like widescreen is a little sad.

as far as I knew, the archives are non waggle, not a single addition, they are just re-releases on the wii disc format, this is okay by me because the games may be able to be sold to other audiences again.. maybe its a test for the market?  maybe not.  but at least the games can get into the hands of other people.  Finding used gamecube games isnt as fun as buying a new product for 20-30 dollars.    which is fine. still a solid piece of software.  its how you VC the gamecube games.

And people say there aren't many good games to get on Wii this holiday. This is the blockbuster we've been waiting for!

We don't need anymore tests. RE4 proved that RE-type action games sell on Wii. RE Umbrella Chronicles showed the RE brand sells on Wii. Plus this is not a real test. Releasing RE5 on Wii would be a real test.

I agree with what you said that this is just a way to VC the Gamecube library.

Well, at least Resident Evil Zero appeared only once before so far and didn't sell all that well, so there are probably quite a few people who'd want this, at least a lot more than yet another re-release of Resident Evil. But I'll bet a port of Resident Evil 5 would top sales of even Resident Evil 4.

Maybe, but why would this game take 3 years to be dumped on Wii? they should have re-relesed the entire series by now if that's all the effort they were gonna put into it.

Probably, but that's only because us Nintendo loyalist have never played RE5 when we had already owned RE4 on GC and re-bought it on Wii for better controls, the Ada storyline and because of the promise of more Resident Evil to come.... which didn't lead to RE5 so far.

They want to space out the releases to give people a chance to buy each one. It's similar to how every Nintendo game isn't available on the Virtual Console yet or how the seasons of television shows aren't all released on DVD at once.

They could have released one every 6 month starting back in Jan 2007 and we would be all ready to go for RE5 Wii in Jan 2009.

Aside from the convenience of the whole game being on a single disk, there is NO REASON to buy this over the ass-cheap used GC original.

But the ass-cheap one may not work as good. Hell, you may buy it and it not work.