After the release of Resident Evil 1 remake in 2002 (colloquially called REmake) a lot of the series fans expected to see the same treatment to the second and third game in the series on GameCube. But it was not to be and GC releases of RE2 and RE3 were slightly updated ports of the Playstation versions of the game, which left a lot of people requesting Capcom for more remakes in the following years. It was so consistent and so determined that, perhaps, only the requests for Final Fantasy VII remake were more notorious. So in 2015 after asking the community if they are still interested in seeing Resident Evil 2 remade, Capcom announced their decision with the “We do it”.
Three years have passed since that surprise announcement…
While not my personal favorite in the series, original Resident Evil 2 from 1998 (and its several ports and updated versions, which added new bonus modes and control methods, but left the core game unchanged) was an amazing game nonetheless. Like all Resident Evil games, it had a defining feature about it design – it wasn’t as non-linear in world design as the first game, so instead it had its 2 playable character campaigns have 2 distinct variations, depending on which character completes the “Scenario A” and which character is left to play “Scenario B” to get the whole story. It was a brilliant idea, enhanced by the rather underdeveloped, but still welcome “zapping system” where some choices from your A playthrough would affect your options for the B playthrough. But even without that, it was one of the few, even to this day, games to have 2 playable characters with stories that compliment each other, explain some events, flesh out their chronology and finish it all up with an extended true ending. Oh and gameplay had some fun new challenges added too.
After the full announcement of the new Resident Evil 2 (also known as Resident Evil 2 remake or REmake 2, or RE2make, or just RE2 2019, time will tell what sticks) developers openly stated that they planned to not have Scenario A/Scenario B design, instead focusing on bringing those canon story elements to each character playthrough and making them unique in that way. This wasn’t surprising, given that the original, with it’s 4 distinct story playthroughs, often felt like playing if not 2 games at once, at least a game and a huge expansion at once. And revisiting that approach could’ve meant huge budgetary and time concerns with the modern approach to development. So instead making both characters have unique complimenting scenarios sounded like a good idea. And it was. But that’s where the biggest issue of the RE2 2019 lies as well – it seems like Capcom couldn’t implement it the way they planned.
So just to get this out of the way immediately, Scenario-wise new RE2 is a huge downgrade to the original. While each character does have completely unique story elements, unique locations, unique encounters and final boss fights, independently of the order you play them in, it seems that Capcom simply ran out of allocated time budget to make this vision consistent. Meaning that after 70% of the game being not particularly contradictory, the last stretch plays exactly the same for both characters (up until the very end where different boss fights happen). Meaning that you see same characters die 2 different ways, fight the same bosses in the same rooms for the same reasons and solve the same problems. Which makes the final section of the game mechanically exciting, but exactly same for both characters, short and story-wise disappointing. Oh and the “2nd Run” mode, that positions itself as the “other side of the story” only starts as such, but later follows the storyline found in the usual New Game mode. In the end, it works more like a fun “Arrange mode” with new challenges and updated puzzles, rather than the distinct story.
With all this said, I’ve spent 40 hours replaying this game over and over already and don’t plan to stop. Why? Because this game is absolutely fantastic. For the first time in almost 15 years I feel like I’m playing a “Real Survival Horror” game. What Survival Horror used to mean back then – it’s an action adventure with heavy focus on limited resource (ammo and healing) management, puzzle solving, exploration in an interconnected world (aka metroidvania design) and extremely smart enemy design to work against and for your limitations. In fact, new RE2 is even more interconnected than the original, with only one distinct point of no return and otherwise a proper ability to return to the main police station hallway at any point.
Level design in general here is brilliant. It takes the maps of the original game and expands them in smart ways to accommodate the over the shoulder view and ability to quickly transition from room to room without any loading screens or special animations. Which, in my opinion, led to an even better updated map design than what we had for the REmake, as some of the REmake’s new additions were dead end branches or awkward changes meant to screw with those who played the original. New RE2 is instead designed from the ground up based on the original game. Which positively leads to subsequent playthroughs being much faster due to player knowledge of where everything is and how to solve each puzzle most efficiently. Completely new areas, a lot of which were actually originally planned for both the so called Resident Evil 1.5 (scrapped original vision for RE2) and were in the script drafts for the final RE2, are also welcome and nicely done, though disappointingly short. Even more surprisingly, Capcom managed to retain the colourful feel of a lot of rooms and characters, despite the overall darker and more realistic look of the new game. Of course, colours are more muted this time around, but I was glad that the more brown and rusty look of REmake wasn’t retained for this game. Oh and even bonus games have been expanded in several of fun (and silly) ways.
The switch to over the shoulder does affect how the game feels and plays, of course. While it’s still important where you stand during an encounter with enemies, and which weapon you use during the situation, your aim and quick fingers play bigger role. Which meant a change to the enemy design as well. They are all slightly faster, all slightly harder to aim at due to somewhat unpredictable movement and almost all have increased damage resistance. Of course, blowing zombie head off will still kill them immediately, but shooting them elsewhere might not even stagger them enough, depending on the difficulty level. Bodies do not despawn as well. In fact, some enemies will do the ragdoll animation upon being knocked out, not killed, only to spring back to life when you least expect it, unless you hit them again to double check. It’s a fantastic idea that builds up tension and makes every single enemy a huge threat if you’re not careful.
To combat this, players get some helpful new and updated features as well – the concept of “defense items” that you can use to avoid being hit previously exclusive to REmake returns, now in an even more interesting format. These items can now be used as is – as you’d normally use knives and grenades. Which adds a new layer of resource management, since knives can break upon use and grenades obviously cannot be reused. Another important feature that returns to the series after years of absence is the full zombie dismemberment, which, if you don’t have enough ammo to kill a zombie, can be a lifesaver since you can at least make a zombie less mobile by shooting their legs off. And finally and very importantly for those who suffered through some bs in Resident Evil 6, while some grabs and attacks do home on the player very consistently, player animations and enemy death/ko are prioritized over that. Meaning that an enemy can die or get knocked off you before they damage you and it won’t count as a hit. I’m glad Capcom figured it out this time.
To sour the mood a bit again, I need to mention the music and story design. Music yet again follows the modernistic approach of “very ambient, no music most of the time, but very orchestral cinematic tunes in cutscenes” that plagued the series for 10 years. And it even wouldn’t have been worth mentioning if not for several standout tracks that might be some of the best in series history, like the amazing new Terminator-esque theme for Tyrant (colloquially named Mr. X) or the fantastic theme for the 4th Survivor bonus game. Additionally, while I can usually accept that more ambient music fits the tone of the game better, in addition to these standout themes that work fantastically well in the game, if you enable the Original music option (sadly, sold as a paid DLC) it fits the mood and gameplay 90% of the time really well. So I really hope Capcom will re-review their take on music in these games and make it memorable and standout again, at least as an additional option in the menu.
And the story design in the new RE2 is just kind of weird. Most RE games tend to go for something distinct, like RE7 was going for the smaller scale southern US kind of horror, while the original RE2 was a very bombastic adventure with a ruined city, torn family, super spies, evil corporations and exploding escapes. New RE2, while making every single character absolutely amazing, tends to under-utilize some of them, has few rather big jumps in tone and overall feels a bit muddy and without something of its own. To the point where I wonder if I didn’t know the story so well already, if I would’ve been able to care about some of the characters as much and if I would’ve even understood some of the events.
Which is an important point to make – I knew and loved RE2 as it was back in 1998 and played it often since then. Which cannot not make me both more critical and more loving of the new RE2. To the point, where I feel like if this kind of remake would’ve been released in 2004 or 2005, hot on REmake heels, it would’ve been met with love, but less excitement due to those downgrades mentioned. But with absolutely not a single game like this released in the last 15 years, with “close but not quite” examples being Alien: Isolation and RE7, this is the return of survival horror long overdue.
Abstracting myself from my experience with the series, I can definitively say, that Resident Evil 2 (2019) is an amazing game to play. If you like tense exploration, horror themes light puzzles and inventory management, if you played and loved other “metroidvania”-type world design games and love the feeling of discovering new paths to familiar places, Resident Evil 2, both classic and new one, will be a delicious treat for you. With its 3 difficulty modes, it’s welcoming even to those who have not experienced this type of gameplay or over the shoulder aiming action before. If you’re a longtime fan of the series – prepare for some disappointments and things that you probably would’ve liked Capcom to do differently. Those shouldn’t be encountered often, but are simply unavoidable if you have a lot of emotional attachment to the original. But also prepare to spend a lot of time playing and replaying this and making very excited noises.