Resident Evil 2 Remake Review
After playing and finishing Resident Evil Requiem in 9 hours, it became my mission to go through all the Resident Evil remakes and Ethan’s entries. The first one after Requiem is Resident Evil 2 Remake, and I finished it completely (both first and second runs combined) in 9 hours! It took me 5 hours and 30 minutes for Leon’s side, and 3 hours and 27 minutes for Claire’s side of the story. My experience with Resident Evil 2 Remake was incredibly positive, and most of my concerns are with the second run of the game.
Third-Person Survival Horror, Less Action
Having played Resident Evil Requiem, and being a long-time bystander fan of the Resident Evil franchise, it felt just right to circle back to the game’s roots. I know it’s not the very first game in the franchise, but it’s still one of the origins of two of the most recurring main characters: Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield.
While Resident Evil Requiem seemed to take elements from both Resident Evil VII and Resident Evil 4 to create both a first-person immersive horror and a third-person action-survival experience, Resident Evil 2 Remake sits almost in between the two, but not quite. Following the original, Resident Evil 2 Remake takes a third-person approach with more focus on horror and survival than action.
The main concept and gameplay loop remain the same: exploring the Raccoon City Police Department, solving puzzles, and avoiding or defeating monsters along the way.
There are both major and minor changes in the remake that really impressed me. These changes allowed for a smoother and better experience, which catered to both older and younger generations.
The biggest change the developers made in the remake is dropping the original’s fixed camera perspective in favor of the third-person over-the-shoulder view. While the older camera perspective offered a sense of creepiness in the vein of voyeurism, the over-the-shoulder perspective provides a much tighter view that still allows the same level of tension to be conveyed to the players. This is also, in part, thanks to the claustrophobic level design in Resident Evil 2 Remake, from the Raccoon City Police Department and its Underground Level to the Sewers and beyond.
The change in camera perspective also freed up combat to a higher degree by allowing players to aim shots more accurately than in the original. This also meant changing how zombies react to gunshots and how they move around. Hitting zombies in different body parts gave different reactions, and so players are given choices in where they aim. I took priority in aiming at their heads or their legs, making them stagger or fall down. This creates windows of opportunity to slip past enemies, even if they are grouped up. Slipping past zombies in tight corridors and spaces are little “wins” that add up and make players feel clever.
Hitting enemies to stagger or make them fall instead of killing them also let me save more bullets and resources. Friends of mine who were watching were really making fun of me for “hoarding” bullets, which I honestly was not planning on doing. In my mind, all I was thinking was how much of a waste the bullets were if I just shot them at zombies that I could simply ignore or dodge. As a fan of resource management games, I really wanted to save up. Still, I think I took it too far. By the end of my first run, I had 7 unused Wooden Boards. I was getting laughed at by my friends when I was walking past 7 or 8 zombies in corridors where I could have boarded up the windows and completely avoided creating an undead army guarding the halls.
Still, those choices I made really intensified the horror experience, and I do not regret anything at all by the end of the game.
Another large adjustment, or group of adjustments, the developers made in the remake are the layouts of each level, how certain paths are opened, the locations of item boxes and safe rooms, as well as story beats or NPC locations. Having not played the original, I cannot give a proper evaluation of these things in comparison to it, but as a standalone observation, I thought that everything made sense and nothing about the location of key items, NPCs, and whatnot gave me much frustration. Maybe saying everything “made sense” is a bit of a stretch, but nothing too off-putting that took me out of the immersion and fun.
Continuity, Story, and Characters
Despite all the praise I gave to the changes made in the remake, there seems to be one change that a lot of people—both original fans and newcomers—did not like, and one I did not like as well. In Resident Evil Requiem, you first play as Grace Ashcroft and then as Leon in multiple levels of the game. Whatever actions and changes you made in that level using the first character would remain in that level when using the second character. This means there is something I call “joint progression,” or more simply, continuity.
I expected that to be the same in Resident Evil 2 Remake, but that was not the case. All the stuff I did as Leon in the first run seemed to have no effect on my second run with Claire. All the boards are missing, the doors unlocked are reset, zombies killed are alive again, and so much more. The original fans called the continuity system I am talking about “Zapping.” Why Zapping? I have no clue.
What made this feeling of lack of continuity worse are key moments during cutscenes or boss fights as well. Repeat boss fights happen, and locations that were already trashed and destroyed seem to magically get fixed.
Simply put, the second run of the game felt really undercooked, and I assume they put a great deal of the effort and time they had into the first run and just wanted to finish things up in the second run. While it was a disappointment, I had tons of fun in the first run, so I can forgive them for this blunder.
For the overall story, it is not that deep, but it gets you hooked in many ways, from Leon’s struggle to keep levelheaded and budding romance with Ada, to the dysfunctional family of the Birkins and Claire’s growing courage as she protects Sherry Birkin. Personally, I was more interested in Leon’s interactions and reactions with Marvin and the entire RPD. Moments of weakness and his encouraging himself really put him in different emotional states that make him realistic.
I would even joke with my friends that I would definitely not live more than 15 minutes if this happened to me, but I can see myself trying my hardest to crack jokes and keep things light, especially with other people, because that is how you would try to keep yourself from despair and insanity.
Honestly, I think my inclination to Leon’s story more than Claire’s is a bit unfair since the game seems to put more emotional moments in his playthrough than Claire’s. There are Ada, Marvin, and Robert Kendo that gives him more breadth of emotions and interpersonal interactions, as opposed to Claire, whose main interactions are only with Sherry and Chief Brian Irons.
Is Resident Evil 2 Remake A Good Game? Is Resident Evil 2 Remake Worth it?
Yes, Resident Evil 2 Remake is an incredible game, and one I wish could have had more replay value.
The story is simple but interesting, the characters are charming, the combat and survival mechanics are well done, and the level design.
The developers only really dropped the ball with the Zapping system and continuity, as most of it really did not make sense.
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