Resident Evil 2’s remake was a long time coming. Ever since the early days of the Gamecube’s remake of Resident Evil, fans have been clamoring for the sequel to get the treatment. Well, it took almost two decades, but we’re finally here. Honestly, it was probably better that we waited, because RE2 Remake is excellent and it looks frickin’ amazing.
Resident Evil 2 has a weird place in my gamer’s heart. It was the very first Resident Evil game I ever played, yet it was never my favorite. It was up there, but for whatever reason it never grabbed me the way that others did.
I didn’t own a Playstation until years after it had come out. I was always a Nintendo guy, and while the Playstation intrigued me, it was never high on my priority list, despite the fact that I routinely went to a friend’s house to play Final Fantasy 7 and Parasite Eve. My first time experiencing Resident Evil 2 as on PC. I bought it from Toys R Us, and that might have been what affected my enjoyment of it a tad. I didn’t know any better back then, but apparently the PC version of RE2 was… not good. To be honest, I couldn’t tell you what about it was bad, but hey, I didn’t finish it. The game actually played well enough with a keyboard due to its classic tank controls, but at the end of the day, you’re still playing an engaging survival horror game on a keyboard. I just couldn’t get through it.
To make this story even more pathetic is that I probably owned RE2 more times than any other Resident Evil ga-… Well okay I’ve owned RE4 like, nine times, but still. RE2 was ported to practically every platform available at the time. I can’t seem to find my PC copy, but I still have my Dreamcast version of the game, and somehow over the years, I acquired the infamous N64 cartridge, though I’m positive I never bought it.
Long story short, I had plenty of opportunities to beat the game, and I think I actually did when I got it for the Dreamcast. I know for a fact I at least beat Leon’s A scenario.
Anyways, wow, this got derailed fast. Back on track.
Okay, fast forward to 2019, and we finally got our remake of Resident Evil 2, and as I and many others have stated, it’s awesome. Capcom reworked the story a little bit, and changed some events around, but it works. This one’s still pretty fresh in everyone’s minds, so I’ll leave the analysis at the door and just touch on some things that I liked and didn’t like about this shiny new Resident Evil 2.
Mr. X is a pain in the ass. I had very little experience with the original Mr. X. I remember running from him a lot, but I don’t remember it being random. In the original RE2, I’m pretty sure his appearance was scripted, though I could be wrong. He was a pain in the ass then, but at least he was confined to the B scenario (again, if I remember correctly). Since I only really played through the A scenario, I didn’t have quite the sore spot in my soul for the old Mr. X, but the new guy more than makes up for it. His constant hounding is borderline annoying. I do a lot of my gaming with the sound turned down, and being unable to hear the doors opening and Mr. X’s heavy footsteps getting closer led to many more Green Herbs being spent than was probably necessary.
To be fair, my general disdain for him isn’t entirely his fault. I don’t have much tolerance for invincible enemies. They’re enough to make me want to put down any game for good. I didn’t like them in Silent Hill Downpour. I didn’t care for them in Outlast. I don’t really want to deal with it in Resident Evil. This is a little bit of a conflict for me, because the Tyrant has always been an integral part of Resident Evil 2, just as Nemesis is engrained in RE3. You can’t have the games without them. Ironically enough, RE3 Nemesis was one of my most-played RE games ever. I played the shit out of that game, despite the constant badgering. So who knows, maybe I’m just talking out of my ass and don’t really know what I want.
Leon and Claire’s redesigns are.. fine. This was never really going to be an issue, but I figured I’d touch on it anyway. While Claire made the rounds most recently in RE: Revelations 2, Leon’s been a regular in the both the games and the animated movies. The results are fine. Since he is supposed to be a younger version of the Leon we’ve come to know in RE4 and (ugh) RE6, it makes sense that he’d be a little softer in the cheeks. I think they did a good job of making him look more “normal.”
Claire is an interesting case. She’s probably remained the most consistent. She looked fine in Resident Evil Code Veronica (for what’s it’s worth anyway, the graphics were pretty basic), but in RE: Revelations 2, she just looked… off. I could never really put my finger on it, but I’ll be hitting that game up in due time, so maybe by then I’ll know just what it is.
For Resident Evil 2 Remake, they went with a younger, girl-next-door vibe for her, and it works, mostly. Every so often she’ll come really close to having “derp face” but manages to pull it back just before it gets there. It must be an animation thing because I saw the model that Claire is based on and she… looks like a model. I have noticed that both Claire and Leon have baby faces, i.e. fat cheeks. Almost like they were rounded out a bit on purpose.
Maybe that’s for them to appear younger? Longer, thinner faces usually make people look older so maybe it’s a trick they used on purpose. I’ve seen mods out there that are intentionally thinning their heads out to make them appear more aesthetically pleasing (and also putting Claire in practically any skimpy outfit you can think of.) Kinda makes me wish I had a gaming pc. Anyways, it’s not a deal breaker by any means. The character models work fine, and that’s all that really matters.
I don’t know how I feel about bullet-sponge zombies. I mean, they’ve always been kinda spongey, but they cranked it up to eleven for RE2 Remake. Because damn. It’s one thing to know you have to aim for the head if you want to kill a zombie, but for RE2 they just went and threw that logic out the window. Shooting a zombie in the head doesn’t seem to work any quicker than shooting them in the torso, and you’re much more likely to waste extra ammo when you miss. The zombie heads bob and flop around a lot. If you’re a terrible shot like I am, just aim for the chest. If you have any of the special weapons with unlimited ammo, go for the legs. Not only do they keep the zombies from chasing you at full speed, but you get to see their limbs shatter and fall off, and that’s always fun.
Why so serious? Sometimes I lament the more serious Resident Evil. It’s so much more fun to laugh at the hokey dialogue and cheesy set-pieces. It really does make finding things to talk about a bit tougher.
Where the hell are they? Raccoon City has never had a specific location, sometimes being referred to as a “small midwestern town” then also being shown as a sprawling metropolis, complete with downtown skyscrapers. There are mountains and forests, but also a desert? At the end of RE2 Remake, if you play through both scenarios, Leon, Claire, and Sherry walk down a lonely highway after escaping the city. And damn if it doesn’t look like they’re in a desert. Now, I’ve always kinda felt they were in Colorado, and there is a dry side of Colorado due to the mountains, so maybe I’ve been right? Raccoon City could also be one those mythical locations similar to The Simpsons’ Springfield, which magically changes geography depending on what the story requires.
WAS THE REMAKE NECESSARY?
Yeah. I mean, I’m not going to be the only person on the planet that would say “Nah, the original RE2 was fine just the way it was.” RE2 did not age well. Not many Playstation games did. Everything about the game was obsolete. A remake was definitely the right way to go.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
RE2 is excellent. It’s crazy to think of how long its been since the original came out. I still remember hearing the zombie moans through my side-mounted monitor speakers back in the late 90’s. While Capcom certain nailed the disturbing zombie noises, I admit I did kinda miss that tell-tale moan and crunchy shuffling noise whenever I entered a new room.
