Resident Evil 2 Remake review

Reviewed on: PC

REmembering

    The year was 1998. While thousands of Brazilian girls swooned over DiCaprio aboard a big ship on the big screen, a portion of young people, the gamers, would turn their attention to another protagonist sporting the “90s undercut” on the small screen: a certain Leon S. Kennedy. I was going to be part of that group and, as a Resident Evil fan, I could hardly believe it when my friend Maciel showed me the box of the game Resident Evil 2, sequel to the 1996 hit Resident Evil, freshly acquired. So many questions! What was that hairless creature with its brain exposed on the back of the box? Did the game come on two discs, one for each character? What was this Zapping System? THERE’S A GIANT ALLIGATOR IN THE GAME?
All of this crowned with a quote in quotation marks from a specialized magazine of the time: “The Gaming Event of 1998. Nothing Else Even Comes Close”.
Impossible not to get excited.
And how satisfying it was to find out later that this excitement was fully justified, since when I could finally play it, it would not only become my favorite Resident Evil but one of my favorite games of all time. To this day.
We fast-forward 17 years and in 2015 Capcom finally speaks up about a remake of the game, confirming development and ending the long wait of RE2 fans who were waiting for the same treatment given to the recreation of the original RE for the Gamecube, in 2002.
Let’s go ahead another 3 years of pure silence from the publisher and anguish from the fans until finally at E3 2018, during Sony’s presentation at the event, we could get a first visual contact of how the game would look and, as a freebie, even the release date. Total euphoria.
Today, with the game finally in the hands of longtime fans of the series as well as newcomers, can we confirm whether the hype and the long wait were worth it?
Short answer: yes. Long answer: here we go

REmaking

    The 2019 RE2 is undoubtedly a remake in every sense. If we start the comparisons between the versions with the differences, we can begin with the most obvious one, which is the visuals. RE2 uses the same graphics engine used in RE7, the RE Engine, which prizes presenting more photorealistic graphics. The engine has already proven its quality in RE7, but there is an additional delight in being able to revisit the original RE2’s locations and see them again presented in a more detailed and believable way. The characters also received a complete reinvention, from the physical models to the voice actors. The final character models still cause a certain strangeness (something already seen in the character model of Mia in RE7, mainly in the eyes). Here, in this case it was Claire’s, which besides being based on a model with a face completely different from the classic character’s, for some reason in the cutscenes always looks like she has just sucked on a lemon. In contrast, Ada is perfect, getting both the model and the voice acting right. She is, by far, the best representation of the character in the series. But obviously this is just a personal opinion.
One factor that helps in contemplating the graphics is the camera, the second most obvious difference compared with the original game. Here, the over-the-shoulder camera was adopted, implemented from the fourth title in the series and remaining until then (except in RE7). Even while inciting the wrath of the series’ more conservative fans, who defended the return of the classic “security camera” view of the original trilogy, the final decision proved entirely correct, since besides improving the visibility of the scenery as mentioned above, the new perspective brought the horror closer to the player, making the experience more intimate. Being caught by zombies now results in a close-up of the action where you can notice all the beauty of the details of their torn and putrefied bodies as they sink their teeth into your lovely little neck. Good stuff.
To avoid being a carbon copy of the original, several other changes were implemented, but some, being more subtle, may only be noticed by those who had contact with the original work. Changes such as certain events in the game that were included, removed and even had their order of appearance altered, like the orphanage segments and even the introduction, which feature entirely new areas.
Another more notable change is perhaps the way Mr. X is introduced into the game. The T-00, a Tyrant of the T-103 series, who here looks like a gray Dolph Lundgren in a fedora (good luck trying to see him any other way from now on), in the original only showed up in the B scenarios, in search of Sherry Birkin’s pendant and in finishing off any officer of the Raccoon City Police Department, including our protagonists. Here he appears in all 4 scenarios, a fact that clearly shows Capcom didn’t want to segregate the brute to only the “hidden” secondary modes, since as could be confirmed by his enormous success all over the internet, his presence and function in the game is a fundamental part of the experience that is playing the RE2 remake.

And since we’re talking about second scenarios, or B scenarios, a criticism to be made when comparing them with their implementation in the original game: if before the experience of playing the second scenario was strongly influenced by your gameplay in the first scenario (the already mentioned zapping system), here the influence is practically nil and even predetermined events in the first scenario that should have been represented in the second scenario were also completely ignored.
For you who are lost with all this talk of first scenario, B scenario, zapping system, etc., a brief attempt at an explanation:
In the original game, the A scenarios played with both protagonists shared basically the same route, except for a few segments, different bosses and different companions in the campaign. After finishing any A scenario, you unlocked the B scenario, which consisted of the possibility of playing another campaign with the second protagonist, AT THE SAME TIME as the first experienced their story.
By itself, this was already a very interesting concept, but what made it brilliant was the fact that certain actions and decisions you made in the first scenario were carried over to the second scenario and experienced accordingly: certain puzzles already solved stayed that way for the second character and even items picked up or not in scenario A were present or not in their respective places when playing scenario B.
It was a truly original and clever mechanic that, at least as far as I know, was never replicated.
The remake kept the B scenarios, but all the influence of scenario A gameplay (predetermined or from the player’s own actions) was trimmed away and, if analyzed more deeply, the changes don’t make sense even chronologically, if we consider that the events take place at the same time as scenario A.
The producers lacked a bit of attention in this regard and although it is a step back from the original, it is nowhere near a detail that compromises the experience.
Still on altering the experience, this time in a positive way, we can point to the new perspective, which besides having brought the player closer to the horror as already mentioned, directly influenced the game’s difficulty and gameplay.
In the original, headshots on zombies were always treated as more damaging (when not critical). That’s because there was a trade-off between risk and reward: landing a headshot meant letting the enemy get too close to the character, since the character had only three aiming angles within his own axis: high, medium and low, which meant a faster kill and consequently ammo savings. But it could also result in bites if you failed.
The remake threw that rule out the window, since it’s not rare to have to spend more than half a dozen shots on a zombie’s skull, sometimes just to knock it down, and in some cases a couple of dozen to kill it, as has already happened to this writer.
This caused some strangeness for players who expected a festival of popped melons, but it is completely justifiable if we consider how much easier it is to hit any desired part of the enemy when we have full control of the aim thanks to the over-the-shoulder perspective, even at long distances.
As a bonus it lets us aim at isolated limbs of enemies, culminating in dismemberment if the attack is focused there. In fact a tactic even more advisable in certain cases, since enemies unable to move (read: having their shins shot off) are easier to deal with than a zombie that refuses to die after nine shots to the noggin, especially on the higher difficulty. Curiously, this gameplay trait is more similar to the Dead Space series, where dismemberment was more effective than focusing on the enemy’s head. Anyway…

Another really cool thing that the camera change improved was the use of audio in the game. With the fixed camera, sounds couldn’t have their direction differentiated. Now the environment is three-dimensional, so with the help of 360° binaural audio, it’s possible to determine exactly where the next threat is lurking or even if it’s chasing you, as is the case with the zombies you left behind (yes, now they chase you through rooms, breaking down doors) and our friend Mr. X. There’s nothing more nerve-racking than hearing his heavy footsteps through the police station, looking for you.
With an average duration of 7 hours per campaign (I took almost double that on my first playthrough with Leon, because I explored the game to the fullest) counting the 4 available scenarios, it can be said the game doesn’t fall short in replay value, especially considering the bonus material that includes extra modes such as the 4th Survivor (a kind of Time Attack played with Hunk, a character known to the series’ fans) and its variation Tofu, which is basically the same minigame, but played with a conscious piece of tofu (yes, you have to see it to believe it…).
Capcom recently released a free DLC containing 3 more extra modes, played with 3 new characters. Finishing each of them unlocks one more new mode with a new character. They don’t differ much from the 4th Survivor in structure (leave point A and reach point B alive, with a limited inventory), but they serve to quench the fans’ thirst a bit until the likely announcement of a Resident Evil 3 Remake. Capcom has already spoken up, declaring that it depends on the fans for that to happen. And considering the great reception RE2 Remake got, all signs are it will only be a matter of time.

REkilling

    If it hasn’t been clear so far, the hype and the long wait were indeed worth it. RE2 remake is far from a perfect product with no flaws, but it was notably made by RE2 fans for RE2 fans, and they knew how to improve every aspect using current technology, without allowing the detriment of the original’s essence, responsible for making it the classic it was. There is a bit of everything here for fans from any phase of the RE series and if you are a die-hard fan of the 1998 Resident Evil 2 like me, just one word: essential.