Resident Evil 2 Remake (2019) — Perfection in level design worsened by game design.
It’s clear that Resident Evil/Biohazard is a beloved series. It started long ago and featured games, movies, animated works, and more. 1996 produced a significant game, influencing the horror genre decades ahead, being constantly referenced and remembered for being truly “scary”. For example, many people still consider the famous “Turning Zombie” scene the scariest in-game moment.
Resident Evil 2 (1998) only made the series stronger, making everyone fall in love with new characters, the setting, and, more importantly, the survival horror genre. It’s clear that in our times, a remake was inevitable, especially after the series finally made a great game with Resident Evil 7 after several failed attempts to revive the franchise (series 5 and 6 are considered a low point of the franchise despite it arguably being more fun at times).
I won’t compare the game to its remake, since I didn’t get to play the original (something that’s frequent with old survival horrors, ironically enough). I will, however, try to review the remake for what it tries and succeeds to do.
Characters are the highlight of the series. Leon Kennedy was one of the favorites of the franchise, getting multiple successful appearances in media based on the game. This is his first appearance and, ironically enough, I don’t enjoy his portrayal too much. I liked the voice acting and Leon is fun when he’s around Ada, but when he’s on his own, he plays more like a generic action hero, rather than someone truly special. That said, it’s more of a nitpick, rather than actual criticism. His character is not nonexistent and I like to read the plot like he’s inexperienced and grows more sure of himself by the end of the game (hence why he has a more defined personality and motives in the finale). I like that the character got to grow even more in the subsequent games.
Claire Redfield, as a deuteragonist is definitely a little more colorful at the beginning of the story and stays so throughout the game. She is the sister of Chris Redfield — the protagonist of the first game. She gets to Racoon City with the intention of finding her brother (something she never does in the game and ironically, she completely forgets about it afterward). Claire’s mission changes to save the kid, Sherry, that she finds inside the police station. Sherry is the daughter of Annette and William Birkin — the scientists that started this mess with the G-virus. Claire has some non-annoying quips and she comments on what’s happening a lot more, despite her story being a little worse than Leon’s at times.
Ada Wong is a fun character that seems to be completely out of nowhere, however. She’s sent as a spy from Umbrella’s rival corporation, but she introduces herself as an FBI agent. She’s Leon’s partner in this game, although their little love story is way too forced. My read is that Ada’s using Leon throughout the game, and forces the love angle to gain more of his trust instead of actually having feelings for him. I think there are a few hints of that. That said, in the original game she dies in the finale, which is not true here.
The rest of the characters are mostly one-dimensional, which isn’t as much of a downside, unless you play the game as intended (which I will cover later).
The gameplay is very satisfying. You’re dropped into this hostile environment with just a 9mm pistol, however throughout the game, you find upgrades and new weapons. RE2’s reliant on your ability to aim for the zombie’s heads, as it deals the most damage. I played on Normal, which meant that 3 shots to the head can down a zombie and after another three shots they’ll most probably stay dead.
I say “most probably”, because, ironically enough, this was not the case at times. Zombies’ health depends on their constitution and types, which means some zombies will only go down in 5 headshots. Lickers — fast and deadly enemies need heavy weaponry to get rid of them. However, the game has a lot of inconsistencies around zombies’ health. For example, due to something, that I would personally call a scripting error when a zombie is getting up, it may take a lot more shots to kill it. Another issue is when a zombie is laying unconscious on the floor, you can walk on the body, and it will awaken. This usually works as intended. But sometimes, a zombie can wake up to three times as if it’s unkillable.
Actually, I prefer to think of it that way, but at the same time, the game benefits from allowing you to kill zombies permanently since it can lead to both satisfaction since you killed all of them or more decision-making (should I kill it now or just avoid it when it wakes up). It’s a shame that the game is plagued by some weird scripts, but it’s not too big of an issue, so I’d call it a nitpick too.
Apart from combat, the Resident Evil 2 remake has a great exploration design. The rooms on the map become blue once you’ve cleared them of all the resources, which leads the player to want completionism. It also keeps things fresh with several puzzles (mostly based on exploration), where you need to find key items to open doors and get new resources. Resources can vary from ammo and herbs to weird boxes and jewels.
There’s also the strategizing that comes in the form of route-making since the game’s arguably biggest challenge is the immortal Tyrant or Mr.X as people started calling him after the game’s release. A large trenchcoated figure follows you throughout the map, never stopping for more than half a minute, and only unable to reach you in saferooms. This creates a lot of tense moments in gameplay and allows for creative use of your surroundings. I remember several times when I passed Tyrant in a hallway, laughing at him as he starts to go faster trying to catch up to me. It’s a shame that the game’s other “bosses” ruin its flow.
I’m obviously talking about William Birkin, a character that appears for a cheap boss fight where you have to shoot his weak spots (eyes). It’s actually funny that Resident Evil completely fails in this, and then reiterates the fight a max amount of 5 times.
So what’s so terrible about this fight? Well, it’s never a good idea to throw in a boss fight in a game where you need to control your resources. Yes, there is always ammo inside the arena so you will have a chance to refill, but those refills won’t always have the ammo you used or need. Then there’s the movement. Bosses move slowly, but surely and they’re always in a small cramped-up area. This reduces your ability to move around them even more because the defensive options don’t have even the infamous dodge roll. All you can do is just change between running and walking away from the monster to not let him kill you. It’s definitely faithful, but is it good?
In my opinion, it’s not. In fact, a lot of the time bosses break up the tension, ruining the game further. The game’s insistence on fighting boss enemies that are comically disfigured so that their arms reach a lot further than those of a human being is disappointing. Tyrant, for example, is great because it’s always there during regular exploration, you can’t stop it, but it’s still just a modified humanoid creature. It can walk faster at times, but that’s it. But what does the remake do in the end? It makes a boss out of it. With a large hand.
Enemy variety is never important in survival horror, but the lazy boss design always gets on the player’s nerves, as seen with other games repeating their boss fights. And it’s so sad, too, because otherwise, the G or Birkin character design is superb, reminding f The Thing and being its own thing too. It’s a shame that those designs never get interesting.
But then again, it’s still fun. Right? Well, it is for the most part, but by the end, it became more hilarious than scary, that Birkin follows our characters everywhere, constantly falling from the ceiling in completely different parts of the map, like a Looney Tunes character. It felt silly, and it was a strange decision, especially since the game already had a system for making bosses follow the characters.
But the biggest design flaw ironically comes from the game’s unique mechanic. The Second Run. It’s a feature that allows the player to complete a story a second time with a different character, which was intended to create a sense of an interconnected story, something I’ve seen Half-Life 1 expansions get correctly, or a worse example would be the connected stories of characters in David Cage games.
The concept is great, it allows the exploration of both characters and their stories, while gameplay-wise it provides a radically different experience, with other weapons and challenges. Before playing the game, I had an impression that the second run is completely different from the first, that both characters have isolated sections in their own maps. But I was wrong.
The first disappointment came in the form of open doors and resources I left behind in my first (Leon) playthrough. On the 2nd run, none of those exist anymore. Moreover, there are “new”, slightly changed puzzles in their place. The layouts are relatively the same apart from the two or so unique chapters that you get for different characters. The doors are now closed in places they weren’t before, keys are in different places, there are fewer savepoints, and the Tyrant appears much earlier… And that’s just the start. During the story you get a feeling like you’re behind the first character, then you’re ahead of them, then you’re supposed to be in one place simultaneously.
The game which had such a great level design before has completely crumbled down, as you navigate the same corridors in a different order. It’s still good level design, believe me, it’s just that the story doesn’t carry it further anymore. What’s worse, the characters can appear as different people entirely throughout the two sides of the story.
Take Annette, for example. In Leon’s story, she’s vengeful, borderline crazy, trying to kill the characters all the time, and then not redeemed in the end, but doubling down, dropping Leon into the boss fight with G/Birkin and shooting Ada in her arm, resulting in her death (not really). Then, there’s Claire’s side, where she’s a little lost, but she cares deeply for her daughter, calmly explains her motivation, tries to stop Claire from fighting Birkin because it’s suicide, and then heroically saves her daughter from the virus and dying soon after.
The inconsistencies are one thing, during the game you can witness the same Tyrant killed off differently in Claire’s and Leon’s versions. But the characters changing themselves to fit the story more ultimately ruins this mechanic for me. This is a shame since the idea is wonderful, it’s just that its presentation isn’t.
In the end, all of this still results in a fun game, wonderful in some places, borderline abysmal in others. The Resident Evil series gets a lot of things right and wrong, but after all, it’s extremely satisfying to go through the stories and incredible levels. I highly recommend this game for people who love Survival Horror and also for those who enjoy great level design. It’s a solid 7 that might be an 8 with a fitting mood.
