Resident Evil 2 has a nostalgic place in my heart…The remake did not disappoint, as seen in the review below.
Below is a transcript of the Resident Evil 2 Remake video review.
Hey, how’s it going, internets? Nathan from This And That Tech. So it is finally here, the Resident Evil 2 Remake. I don’t want to waste your time; let’s get right into it.
Story
So you can play as either Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield. You choose your character at the beginning of the game. And Leon is looking to get back in contact with the Raccoon City Police Department. He is a rookie that is about to start there and he hasn’t heard anything for a few days. Claire Redfield, on the other hand, is looking for Chris Redfield, her sibling, who again is missing, she hasn’t heard from either. And he is a member of the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team, which is part of the Racoon City Police Department special forces unit. Leon and Claire cross paths near the beginning of the game and they’re linked together for a short period of time, but then separated, of course. And then it is your job to figure out what is going on with this mysterious outbreak and the horror show that is known as Raccoon City.
Controls and Elements
Now, as far as controls and elements, this is very much like what you experienced if you have played Resident Evil 2. It’s a survival horror, there’s not a lot of ammo, and you’re trapped in these dark, ominous corridors with the sounds of these creatures in the darkness looming about you.
Now, these paths can be typically unlocked by either finding a key, finding a password, or maybe solving some kind of puzzle. And you can solve these puzzles by looking at the map. The map is actually very generously laid out because it shows you these different color schemes, and typically it’s red or blue, and it will tell you which room you haven’t explored yet fully, what items may still be on the map that you can pick up, and what room you need to be in next.
Movement is certainly quicker when you compare it to the original Resident Evil 2, because you don’t have those abysmal tank controls anymore. It’s that’s over the shoulder cam that first came into play in Resident Evil 4. I will say, though, the sprinting seems just a tad bit too slow for me. I would have liked to see a little more speed in order to navigate around some of the baddies, but on the other hand it might have made the game too easy. But you can still dodge attacks somewhat by running around certain creatures.
Inventory management is also back, which means you only have a small grid to put all your weapons and items in. Otherwise, you have to take them to like an inventory management storage box or something like that. But something you always have to consider because you can easily run out of room. You can expand it eventually, but it always has to be in the back of your mind.
As I said, the ammo is scarce, so it’s one of those situations where you always have to determine how much ammo you’re actually willing to use on an enemy. Should you just stagger them, should you kill them, how should you approach these situations? And you can get more ammo by either finding it around, for example, the Raccoon City Police Department or whatever area you’re in, or you can create it by finding gunpowder around the environment and then combining it.
Speaking of combining, RE2 Remake still has that herb system using red, green, and blue herbs and you can combine them in order to get different benefits, maybe get rid of poison, or just heal your character.
Weapons and Upgrades
As far as weapon types, we have the standard Resident Evil fare. You have a lot of handguns, there are some submachine guns, you have subweapons like grenades, flash grenades, regular grenades, grenade launchers. And the one new addition this year, though, is that of the combat knife. And typically in Resident Evil the combat knife isn’t very useful. It’s kind of a last-ditch effort if you’re out of ammo. But in this one you can in fact use it to attack enemies, it doesn’t do a lot of damage, but the one thing it does do for you is if you run around a corner, let’s say, and get attacked, it gives you basically a quick-time-event where you can use the knife right away in order to get the enemy to let you go. And I don’t believe you take any damage when that happens. It does make the combat knife break a little bit quicker, so that is something you have to be aware of. And you actually lose the knife, too, when you use that to save yourself. It sticks in whatever enemy attacked you and then you have to defeat the enemy in order to get that combat knife back. But that’s a cool, little addition.
And speaking of enemies, the bosses are definitely bullet sponges, so that’s something you gotta be very aware of. So are the general zombies, so I mean any handgun ammo you have, it might take four, five, six shots just to defeat an enemy. In terms of weapon upgrades, this is probably my one complaint with the Resident Evil 2 Remake. And purists might think differently, I’m not sure, but I personally like Resident Evil 4 & 5’s upgrade system for weapons, where you get currency from attacking enemies, finding it, et cetera. And then you can determine what individual weapon you want to upgrade. Well, it’s different in the RE2 Remake because the only thing you can do is find upgrades around the environment. Usually, they’re in safes, sometimes you find them in lockers. You can also expand your inventory too by finding these little hip pouches to put on. So it works fine, there’s nothing really inherently wrong with it, and that’s obviously what they were aiming to create, but I would rather see a different type of upgrade system.
Second Playthrough
Another thing that’s returning with the RE2 Remake is that of the second playthrough, which if you played the first one, which was just epic by those day’s standards, you were shocked that all of a sudden, after you beat the game, there was a second playthrough that was different, using the other character. And same thing here. In fact, a lot of the footage you’re seeing right now is the Claire Redfield second playthrough. And there’s not really some spoilers here or anything, I tried to avoid those as much as possible, but in a lot of respects it looks the same as you’re traversing the environment, and even some of the boss battles and things like that are still the same, but it does give you a different view on what’s going on.
I will note, too, you actually see in the second playthrough with Claire, I don’t know if the second playthrough with Leon would be different, but the Tyrant chases you around a lot. And if you’re not familiar with the Tyrant, you probably saw it in the thumbnail, it’s this big baddie with a trench coat and a giant hat and he just – he walks around the environment trying to find you and it creates such a sense of, I guess, angst, horror, whatever you want to call it, because you can hear him above you and below you opening and closing doors and quickly moving around in order to find you. And the thing is, you can’t kill the guy, so it’s something you always have to be aware of. And I think it’s great for the horror experience, but – I suppose you could say that’s my other complaint too with the Tyrant is that he shows up so much when you’re just trying to complete your next objective, that you end up running in circles to get rid of him. And it’s just kind of – I don’t know, to me that’s not that exciting. And the other thing is too, you can run into the save areas, which are these little side areas where you can put your inventory in. And you can also save on a typewriter, which was a nice callback to the previous games in the series. But the thing is, the Tyrant can’t actually go through that doorway into the storage save area you’re in, which, granted, offers you a nice respite from everything, but it just kind of takes you out of the experience a little bit. So I don’t know, not really a big fan of that myself.
Unlockables
Along with unlocking the second playthrough, there’s also unlockables for costumes, game artwork, supposedly infinite ammo, which I haven’t done yet, the 4th Survivor game mode with Hunk, which was just like the previous Resident 2, originally you could unlock that. I think Tofu is even there too. I just don’t see myself really replaying that many times, though, to unlock everything just due to time restrictions.
Graphics
As far as graphics, I mean you’ve already seen it with this other game footage, but the game is gorgeous. It’s dark and visceral and gross seeing all these different zombies, especially some of your first interactions with them. The character animations are fantastic, the looks on the different zombies faces are all unique. It’s just – it’s on another level and it’s what you want to see with a remake like this. I do have one complaint, though. They have this type of grainy film setting that you can turn on and off, and it’s on by default. And I was playing on the original Playstation 4 here and I’m gonna try to find you some video of it, but when you would turn a corner and see some wet floors, it would almost make some of the floor disappear entirely or the wet area. So I don’t know if that’s a glitch or, who knows, maybe my Playstation 4 is finally biting the big one, but just a minor complaint, doesn’t break the game, but just something to be aware of.
Pacing
I think many are going to find the pacing in Resident Evil 2 to be one of the strongest aspects of the game. As soon as you get into the Racoon City Police Department, you’re tasked with opening all these different doors that are locked and it’s always pushing you to the next objective. You’re always pulling up your map, your map usually indicates at least what room you need to be in, which is very helpful. So you might be going to the right side of the building, then to the left side, and then back to the right side to backtrack a little bit, but there’s always a good reason to do that. I do believe when I was in the sewers that some of the pacing, it seemed like the game was slowing down a bit for me, but I was also struggling with finding out what my next objective was going to be. And I found with the second playthrough I enjoyed the pacing even more.
Now, that could be because I already knew where to go for the most part because the game still plays out fairly the same, I would say. But it just seemed more satisfying, maybe because I knew where some of the enemies were, that helped as well. But I think most people are gonna play this and the experience they’re gonna have, they’re gonna feel like they’re getting pushed forward to the next objective. They may get frustrated a little bit here and there because some of the puzzles are a little difficult to solve, I would say, for the beginning, particularly the one with the chess pieces, I think, was kind of confusing and obtuse at first. But that’s just because I wanted to get all the items, so if you’re not obsessive like I am in those type of situations, you’re probably gonna think the pacing is absolutely fine and nothing to complain about at all.
Conclusion
So is it worth it? You know I have to say, even though it’s early 2019, that this for sure is gonna be on everybody’s potential game of the year list. Depends on what happens, of course, with the rest of the year, but this is a great remake. A lot of times remakes, people are not as excited about them. I think this ticks all the boxes for Resident Evil fans. Even if you haven’t played the series, you can actually jump into Resident Evil 2, it doesn’t really matter that much, in my opinion, and still get a great experience. Honestly, there might not even be a point in playing the original now. Unless you’re looking for a historical perspective, this way of playing is just far superior. You have the over the shoulder cam, you don’t have the tank controls, you have the better lighting, more ambitious bosses, they’re unique, they chase you around. It’s honestly the better experience for Resident Evil 2, so I say you definitely should check it out. But that’s pretty much it for my review today. Please leave a like, comment, subscribe down below. I’d love to know what you think. Thanks for watching. Have a good one.
