REVIEW

Resident Evil 2 Remake Review

by Jake Stewart, February 27th, 2019

Remaking a fan-favorite game is a dangerous endeavor. Millions of voices will clamor that they want it to happen, that they don’t want it to happen, that they want this or that. Some of these remakes are lost to the times, forgotten as an unfortunate business venture that didn’t pay off. When executed correctly however, a brand-new experience is crafted that holds the spirit of the original at its core but boasts a fancy new coat of paint. Luckily, Resident Evil 2 Remake falls into the second category.

A strange infection falls upon Raccoon City, changing the citizens into cannibalistic zombies. As with the original, you are given the option between choosing Leon Kennedy, a rookie police officer at his first day on the job, or Claire Redfield, a tough biker returning to Raccoon City to look for her lost brother. The pair’s paths converge as they explore Raccoon City and search for the cause of the mysterious zombie outbreak. The story is a dot-for-dot remake of the original, mirroring nearly every scene very loyally, and only lightly adding new scenes. Right off the bat, the most notable difference you’ll find is the absolutely beautiful graphics. My copy was played on the Xbox One X, and the detail put into the characters and environment is stunning.

The main draw of the remake is the fantastic new visuals and mechanics. Exploring the Raccoon City Police Department has never looked better, and movement feels like a truly modern experience. The camera takes the form of an over-the-shoulder third-person view, similar to what was found in Resident Evil 4. Similarly, you are now able to move when aiming, rather than being tethered to the same spot while your gun is drawn. However, there is a massive accuracy loss to shooting while on the move, promoting a slow and steady style to your exploration. This mechanic is used to mirror the moments from the original where mixing combat and mobility simultaneously is heavily punishable, forcing the player to lock their feet to the floor and fire for the best results.

Guns come in a variety of different forms, being pistols, revolvers, SMGs, grenade launchers, etc. This adds a nice level of customization to the setup that you bring outside of the safe room and promotes different types of playstyles. Additionally, some weapons offer upgrades that can be equipped, speeding up fire rate, reload times, etc. This extra level of upgrades makes exploration feel incredibly rewarding and forced me to tread off the beaten path to see what I could find. However, in most instances, ammo is fairly scare, however, a crafting mechanic similar to the future Resident Evil games has been added, allowing for gunpowder to be combined with other ingredients to craft other types of ammo. Depending on what you mix it with, the ammo output comes out differently, which lets you pick and choose which guns to care to have ammo for. Aiming feels smooth, and the way that enemies react to bullets realistically makes every shot feel impactful and heavy. As great as the gunplay feels, you’ll want to try and avoid encounters when possible, as even a few shots could save you in a future engagement.

Avoiding encounters isn’t as easy at it sounds however, as there are plenty of infected roaming the halls that are more than happy to dig their teeth into you whether or not you’ve instigated them. Along with multiple enemy types, including massive tank-like creatures, and hunters that crawl on the ceilings, blind but looking for sound, you must know when to run and when to slowly creep. No new creatures are introduced that weren’t present in the original, but the monsters that do fill the halls feel varied enough that it didn’t bother me. Certain enemy types are easier to simply run away from but breaking into a sprint to get away may lead you into a trap of another creature, much faster who reacts to sound.

Along with the regular enemy types is Mr. X. A giant tyrant-creature in a black trench coat and a nifty hat. This beast roams the halls, following the sounds of your footsteps and striking fear into everything that you do. His method of attack is a swift punch to the face, dealing high amounts of damage and completely stopping you in your tracks. Poor navigation can lead you into a situation trapped between him and a crowd of zombies, making it even more important that you keep track of where you are going. Mr. X was present in the original title but takes a much bigger role in the remake. Rather than a minor nuisance that occasionally stops you in your tracks, Mr. X is constantly on your tail, only outmatched by clever maneuvering.

As you progress, between running and shooting is an abundance of puzzles. I’ve always been a fan of the Resident Evil style puzzles that generally consist of just looking at something in a way you hadn’t before, slight brain-twisters, rewarding exploration with the right keys, etc. Resident Evil 2’s remake is no different, there are few things quite at satisfying as solving a puzzle in this game, only rivaled by the immediate relief you gain from juking out Mr. X. Most puzzles are solved by searching for the correct item to progress or searching for a certain code to be scrawled on a wall or sheet of paper to crack open a safe.

Once you finish one of the character’s campaigns, the option comes to play the other character’s story, following a similar path but with major story differences, harder difficulty, different puzzle solutions etc. With each campaign taking around 7 hours to complete, and some nifty post-game content, you can expect about 15+ hours out of the game as-is. Luckily, Capcom has announced a series of free DLC stories coming out to add even more to the value, and give players more reasons to return to Raccoon City.

Overall, few games can master the tension and feeling of a survival-horror game quite like Resident Evil can, and it truly shows in the remake. With a compelling story arc, interesting characters, tight gunplay, and fun puzzles, the Resident Evil 2 remake is an absolute blast from start to finish.

Resident Evil 2 Remake is an absolute must-play for fans of survival horror or other games in the series. Being that it is a remake, you won’t find anything groundbreaking here, but it is easily the most enjoyable survival-horror game out there currently.