Name: Resident Evil 2
Item: Resident Evil 2
Rating: 9
Author: robiu013

These Resident Evil games are like crack, I just completed my third RE game within a month and a half. Now, you might assume that going backwards in the series as I did, the games would have gotten worse or lack some polish the newer games have, but while there are certain aspects that RE4 had that were missing here, I could still argue that this is a good entry point to check out if you are new to the series (atleast considering my current track record with it).

The game starts out with you choosing which story to play. You have Claire who is the sister to one of the main characters in RE1 and gets caught up in the madness looking for him, while the other is Leon - hero of RE4 - who is on his way to his first day at the police station. I had a bit of a vibe that the character selection boils down to a gender choice initially and my earlier experiences validated that, as the choice would in fact just swap Leon and Claire's involvement in the story, but upon doing research after completing my first playthrough there are a couple areas exclusive to each character and their choice of weapons differs as well.

Anyway, the two protagonists meet at a tank station that is sooner or later revealed to be a gathering spot for the infected. They run off to seek shelter at the police station, but uh oh... the station is even more of a zombie meet'n'greet hot spot.

One big pro RE2 has over it's other two sequels I played is that it just works much better as a horror game. Leon and Clair while capable are still far from the action heroes Leon is in RE4. They're slow, humanly agile and bogged down by camera movement and angles. Going into a new unexplored hallway there is always a sense of anxiety what may wait behind it. The areas are dark and claustrophobic and the zombie growls... loud and sometimes unexpected.

The level design I honestly prefer to RE3 as well. In particular I liked the police station section and how much exploration could be done. Looking at the map and trying to figure out where the next puzzle piece for progress might be hiding, detecting unexplored rooms and remembering the challenges you had to face in the rooms required to get there, as they might repeat themself again... yeah, it's oddly immersive. I guess RE3 had the same elements, but it had wide open areas, that were at times well lit and there was less of a respawn danger for the minor enemies.

Again, I can't complain about the graphics. The PS5 version of RE2 also looks great and only lags behind RE3 in that it doesn't have as big of a scale of final boss battle. The characters are expressive and I guess well acted and as I mentioned the level design and area looks are pretty great as well.

I guess much like with RE3 my main complaint is that it's just a short and sweet game, that could do more nowadays if it had the ambition to. The enemy diversity is small and like Nemesis in RE3, there is only one recurring major boss. I guess there is this Mr. X guy who is pretty hyped by the fandom, but in my experience, he was just there walking behind me. Not doing much. Nemesis can surprise you in RE3 with it's elaborate arsenal, but Mr. X just punches you in the face, if you're too close. He popped up three times, I ran into a safe area and he couldn't do sh\*t. I don't know. I'm sure he could be a bigger threat on harder difficulties.

It took me 8 hours to finish the overall game, which is a bit longer than RE3, but still only 3/5th's the lenght of RE4. I guess I could double that if I played Leon's story as well, but I assume half of it would be a repeat of Claire's story. But overall I enjoyed almost every minute of the 8 hours (except for the storage room puzzle with the chess pieces). Now excuse me there is this 100+ hour open world game, that just dropped which needs my attention next.

These Resident Evil games are like crack, I just completed my third RE game within a month and a half. Now, you might assume that going backwards in the series as I did, the games would have gotten worse or lack some polish the newer games have, but while there are certain aspects that RE4 had that were missing here, I could still argue that this is a good entry point to check out if you are new to the series (atleast considering my current track record with it).The game starts out with you choosing which story to play. You have Claire who is the sister to one of the main characters in RE1 and gets caught up in the madness looking for him, while the other is Leon - hero of RE4 - who is on his way to his first day at the police station. I had a bit of a vibe that the character selection boils down to a gender choice initially and my earlier experiences validated that, as the choice would in fact just swap Leon and Claire's involvement in the story, but upon doing research after completing my first playthrough there are a couple areas exclusive to each character and their choice of weapons differs as well.Anyway, the two protagonists meet at a tank station that is sooner or later revealed to be a gathering spot for the infected. They run off to seek shelter at the police station, but uh oh... the station is even more of a zombie meet'n'greet hot spot. One big pro RE2 has over it's other two sequels I played is that it just works much better as a horror game. Leon and Clair while capable are still far from the action heroes Leon is in RE4. They're slow, humanly agile and bogged down by camera movement and angles. Going into a new unexplored hallway there is always a sense of anxiety what may wait behind it. The areas are dark and claustrophobic and the zombie growls... loud and sometimes unexpected.The level design I honestly prefer to RE3 as well. In particular I liked the police station section and how much exploration could be done. Looking at the map and trying to figure out where the next puzzle piece for progress might be hiding, detecting unexplored rooms and remembering the challenges you had to face in the rooms required to get there, as they might repeat themself again... yeah, it's oddly immersive. I guess RE3 had the same elements, but it had wide open areas, that were at times well lit and there was less of a respawn danger for the minor enemies.Again, I can't complain about the graphics. The PS5 version of RE2 also looks great and only lags behind RE3 in that it doesn't have as big of a scale of final boss battle. The characters are expressive and I guess well acted and as I mentioned the level design and area looks are pretty great as well. I guess much like with RE3 my main complaint is that it's just a short and sweet game, that could do more nowadays if it had the ambition to. The enemy diversity is small and like Nemesis in RE3, there is only one recurring major boss. I guess there is this Mr. X guy who is pretty hyped by the fandom, but in my experience, he was just there walking behind me. Not doing much. Nemesis can surprise you in RE3 with it's elaborate arsenal, but Mr. X just punches you in the face, if you're too close. He popped up three times, I ran into a safe area and he couldn't do sh*t. I don't know. I'm sure he could be a bigger threat on harder difficulties. It took me 8 hours to finish the overall game, which is a bit longer than RE3, but still only 3/5th's the lenght of RE4. I guess I could double that if I played Leon's story as well, but I assume half of it would be a repeat of Claire's story. But overall I enjoyed almost every minute of the 8 hours (except for the storage room puzzle with the chess pieces). Now excuse me there is this 100+ hour open world game, that just dropped which needs my attention next.

Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil 2

Player Score

robiu013