Retrospective - Resident Evil 2 - The Beginning Of The Remake Era

 

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For the followers of TL;DR
Chronicles Conclusion:
Recommended 

Pros:
Graphical enough combat
Diversity of Weapons
Story is more interesting
Puzzles
Atmosphere
Sound on top
Mr.X

Cons:
Scenarios A/B are almost the same
Zombies tank a lot of headshots even on normal

Hello dear readers welcome to the new installment of the Old Glory series, this time we will talk about the precursor of the recent remakes of RE, I know that the remake of RE 1 was highly praised and sold well.

To this day this game has sold the double of the prequel and started this cycle of remakes with 3, 4 and probably will follow with Code Veronica or 5, to this day we don't know .

We will review this game as is sole entry, we won't be comparing versions or details with the original, this will be a self-contained review because I feel that is more correct to see this game as a tribute.

This game is dark, really dark

A personal note: I am a fan of the saga, I absolutely love 2&4 original versions and the new duo-logy of 7 and 8 but I don't have this nostalgic viewpoint.

As a kid these kind of games bored me a lot, I played a ton of the original 2 and 3 and never made too far because I didn't know English or had the knowledge to solve the puzzles so my first glance with the saga was a big bad opinion.

For starters, graphics differences are abysmal so the comparison simply don't work, they're products of different eras of the industry.

The Story:

Let's talk about the structure, for anyone who don't know the original, we have 2 campaigns with 2 variations each one for a total of 4 campaigns, Leon A&Claire B or Claire A&Leon B.

Starting with this point our way will be Leon A&Claire B for the sake of the analysis.

The campaigns start in different ways and you will get different items, upgrades and weapons, for example with Leon you get a pretty straight forward weaponry with a normal pistol, a shotgun, a revolver, things little that and a little bit different weapon in the final section.

Every weapon has it's optimal use, the shotgun still one shot kills with a clean head shot near the                                                                                     enemy

Claire for it's part get better overall gear, things like a small revolver, a grenade launcher with different types of ammo, a small machine gun, more crazier weapons but nothing out of the context.

As a note, those aren't all the weapons in the game, and adding the upgrades that you can find exploring the different sections of the map, the combat still simple but fun and diverse for the sake of options to aboard the combat.

The Gameplay:

You have 3 difficults:

Assisted: Work's with a lot of helps for those people who wants to play the game but aren't that proficient with the control or don't wanna have a very hard time.

Standard: Work's with no helps, the enemies have a little more help and it's a pretty straight forward survival horror experience.

Hardcore: The enemies tank more than in normal and you need a item to save (that is limited) but nothing to worry about if you have a good experience on this type of games

Also on some point of the game in any difficult you will be chased by a invincible enemy that will roam around the RPD and make you pass some serious moments, this is a great implementation because on the original this enemy apparition was limited, it makes you feel anxious and stressed but nothing to hard.

When you come around and learn how to dodge him that will be no problem but sometimes he will appear in pretty bad spots for you so you can blind him with a grenade or stun him hitting him hard enough to brought him to his knees a few moments 

You can do a kill all enemies run but that will be hard being the ammo limited, not impossible but the necessity of exploring will be a lot more tangible or you can blow the legs of the zombies in the rooms you constantly roam and avoid them every time you're here, lowering the ammo use but elevating the danger of some rooms.

The start is different for every campaign but on certain point the game will be the same with little vague differences and a couple of different boss fights but that's it, for me the worst part of a                                                                              otherwise great game

We have a classic over the shoulder view, a normal 3D movement with a button to aim with your equipped weapon, one for shooting the previously aiming weapon or attack with any equipment, one to unsheathe the knife and hotkeys in the directional pad , pretty straight forward.

 The game forces you to learn by surprise how to defend yourself

The enemies with exception of some bosses and certain attacks from more advanced enemies, will be always a grab.

If you get in contact with an enemy or for starters a zombie grabs you, you will enter a scene where you take damage, once you make contact the only way to mitigate or more specific, counter the grab is to use a knife or a throwable, completely avoiding damage and stunning the enemy in the process.

These resources are pretty limited and for example the knife loses a lot of the durability with this move and if it don't break, will stay impaled on the enemy body and you will need to kill him to recover it, the other way you lose the throwable but for example if is a grenade, will stick to a part of the body, almost always the mouth and you can shot it to begin an explosion.

Knife durability will drop slashing an enemy or impaling on defense of a grab, they're fragile but there's a lot of them so explore

The map comes improved by the use of the colors, you will see each room in red or blue, all the locks, items that you identified but not took them and the name of each room.

The red tells us that there's something else in the room or that you haven't been there, the blue says that all of a room as been explored and no item, ammo or anything at all have been forget here.

This incentive the backtracking a lot because you're always tempted to go to that room with mysterious resources on the other side of the building, but also drops the no sense backtracking because you will always have the knowledge of the items positions.

      Pretty easy to use it and plan ahead of getting yourself in dangerous places

The crafting come back from 7, you will find the classic herbs to make the original compounds to recover health with a little addition, if you use the blue herb(anti poison) and the red herb(enhance the effects) will make a new compound that makes you temporarily resist more damage, especially useful in boss fights.

The ammo crafting also come back, works the same but you will use gunpowder combinations instead of chemical fluid, you can make pistol ammo, shotgun ammo, revolver or grenade shells, this make a nice complement to the rewards of exploring and making useful your findings to make you feel safer or stronger enough to tackle new areas.

The Puzzles:

All of them were reworked, some of them are a reference or tribute to the original ones but even if you have them fresh on your memory, you will have to put the brain on the works, also here I will have to put a couple of boss fights.

No spoilers but a couple of fights you can use the context around to your benefits and invest lower ammo on the boss and beat them faster so always stay aware for your surroundings and anything that can help you get the edge of the fight.

The examination of items and the interactions/combinations came back so you will be constantly checking what's new and examine every one of them.

       Also you will meet these minor puzzles that exploring around will get you the combinations, some hold rewards pretty basic but others may surprise you so try to get them all.

In Conclusion:

The game is great and an excellent entry point to the series, maybe because they started on 4 or they don't like the view/controls of the originals, without a doubt have their certain problems.

Things like the 4 possible campaigns having 10 to 20 minutes worth of unique gameplay and the same game from a different entry point plays a lot on their bad side.

Also the enemies, in more detail, the normal zombies, tank a lot of damage that seems very unnecessary, some times you will land a critical shot that blows their head off but the average one will tank ten to fifteen shoots to the head and maybe fall off but don't die.

                                              When this happens it's lottery winning day

You will need to land maybe a couple more shots to a grand total of around 20 pistol bullets to a single normal zombie on standard difficult, considering that the ammo is scarce and the more powerful weapons are more ahead on the game, I think that a little balance issues where not detected on time.

I know that I didn't talk about the extra modes but those are meant to be played after the main story and be a different experience, for those interested we have :

4th survivor(Just like the original): A speedrun mode to get out of the sewers all the way to the streets with Hunk and a limited variety of resources, lots of enemies and small rooms with little space to work with.

Tofu Survivor:

Almost the same as 4th but you will be playing as a giant Tofu with nothing more than a lot of knives to defend yourself, interesting but I played it maybe two or three times.

Also as a Dlc we got the ghost survivor, 4 scenarios similar to Tofu and 4th with different characters like Kendo or the officer from the story at the beginning of the story, no canon stories but worth the run.

Thanks for reaching the end! we hope that you continue supporting our work and sending feedback or commenting your opinions.

See you on the next one, take care!

The Chronicles Team.

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