Review #697: Resident Evil 2(2019)

 In which Capcom finally made a proper horror game.

 When it comes to Resident Evil I find myself in a very peculiar place, as I happen to enjoy both classic and modern styles. While a chunk of the fanbase got disenchanted with the franchise as it veered more and more into the 'action' territory, I didn't really mind. Heck, I'd argue that the only real 'horror' game was the very first, as subsequent games had ammo to spare and explosions up the wazoo. Regardless, ever since Revelations Capcom has tried to go more and more horrory with their games, and Resident Evil 2 might be their first horror Resident Evil since 1/Remake. Ammo is scared, enemies are tough and you're better of turning tail and running through.

 More than a remake, this is a reimagining. While it follows the same plot from Resident Evil 2, Leon a rookie cop on his first day of duty and Claire Redfield searching for his brother, and how they arrive into Raccoon City only to find it infested with zombies.... it takes quite a few liberties with the plot. Some things were removed, some things where shuffled around and some things were added. As is to be expected of a game of this era, the writing is much better, the script is better, and it's much more cinematic than it ever was. The Scenario A/B feature from the original is still here, with some caveats. A and B scenarios for both characters don't actually change the story. For instance, and without spoiling too much, during Claire B, a certain character would get infected with the new G-Virus, but that wouldn't happen during her A scenario. In this game the story of either character is exactly the same, but the puzzles and item locations are shuffled appropriately, so it still works. Losing the alternate story bits is kinda disappointing, but at least we get a single, solid storyline while also getting alternate ways of playing the game.

 All four scenarios are pretty similar between each other, although both Leon and Claire are privy to different weapons, a different cast of secondary characters as well as slightly different puzzles. Each run should take about 5 hours to complete on your first time through, although the game rewards you with infinite-ammo weapons by beating it in under 3. Scenario B is a bit shorter, but it's much tougher, with less places to save your game, the constant presence of Mr. X stalking you and a new weapon(different for each character) that uses a different type of ammo from your other guns, so you might have to shuffle your armament a bit more to survive. There are three difficulty settings, the Standard difficulty is pretty alright for a survival horror game. I found myself reloading whenever I felt I could've done something more effectively, I got a few honest game overs, but by the end I had healing items and ammo to spare, although, to be fair, I was being pretty darn stingy with my ammo. I also tried the easier difficulty setting, 'Assisted', which grants you an assisted aim, which can be kinda annoying when you want to target a specific part of the zombie, as well as regenerating health, making healing items pretty much obsolete as long as you can avoid damage. Honestly, it's pretty decent for more leisurely runs, although the assisted aim kinda sucks.

 Gameplay is pretty much what you'd expect, fixed camera angles have been changed for a behind-the-shoulder camera, and now you can walk while aiming, instead of rooting you to the ground. Controls in the game feel great, characters have this nice weight to their movement and even dashing, by pressing L3, is pretty slow, so it's not like you can just zip through enemies. Aiming while moving decreases your precision, but as long as the enemy is withing your sights you're free to take the gamble. Landing shots and handling weapons in the game feels great thanks to how weighty everything feels. Enemies in this game are pretty much bullet sponges, and you can never trust a zombie to be dead unless its head pops, so a lot of time it's a good idea to try to move around them or just pop in a few shots to down them or distract them and move around them. Eventually the game introduces other nasties, like the Lickers, which are blind so you can only walk around them lest you alert them to your presence.

 The knife sub-weapon has been nerfed and buffed at the same time. It breaks with use, and deals pitiful damage, however... if an enemy grabs you, you can press the L1 button to counterattack, before you get hit, and stab the knife into them. If you want your knife back, however, you'll have to down or kill the enemy before it'll let you retrieve it. You can also equip grenades as a sub weapon, and use those instead of the knives. Naturally, you can't retrieve those. As a whole, the gameplay works pretty darn well. Enemies can soak up a ton of damage, but you don't need, and are not expected, to kill them all, so just kill the ones you need, distract the ones you can, or just trade a little bit of health in order to conserve bullets for other unavoidable threats. Anything goes as long as it works.

 That said, your biggest enemy will be your inventory, as you start with a pitiful amount of space that you'll have to juggle in order to carry key items, something to defend yourself with, ammo and pick up items you come across. Item Boxes, which are magically interconnected between each other, are rather plentiful, so you'll have to learn how to deal with your inventory. As you go through the game, you'll more than double your inventory space, so it stops being a problem later on. The game has made the map more useful than it's ever been. You can access it at the tap of a button, and it will tell you if a room has any item left to find or if there's anything left to solve by its color, a red room means you still haven't done everything while a blue room is a room that has nothing left for you. Trying to open doors will also make marks on the map appear which shows which key you'd need to open the door with, which is pretty darn neat and makes pixel-hunting a thing of the past. That said, be sure to press 'Examine' with every single key item you come across, as many hide their true purposes behind this menu screen!

 As for the rest of the game... it's classic survival horror stuff: Medium-sized areas full of puzzles to solve, key items to collect and shortcuts to open-up. The puzzles were pretty fun to solve, none were too obscure or hard to figure out. The game also lets you know when a key item has served its purpose, so that you can discard it and stop wondering if there's something else you need it for. I think part of the reason I think survival horror gameplay is so good is because it's pretty much a Metroidvania, only instead of abilities you find objects that you can then use on places you may have come across before. It's a fun progression system, and seeing how pretty much every new room you come across has SOMETHING to find or solve, makes exploration very rewarding all the time.

 On the other hand, one thing I didn't enjoy, but one thing that had to come back because the classic had it, is Mr. X. I know that part of the horror is that he can pop up anytime, anywhere, and this time around he even pops up in A scenarios, but it's pretty annoying having figured out a puzzle or the way through, only to have him appear in front of you, forcing you to run away until he gets lost so that you can then try to make you way back to where you were trying to get to. It feels like a very annoying waste of time. I understand, it's part of the scares, yadda, yadda, but I really hate having my time wasted.

 Beating the A scenarios unlocks the B scenarios for the other character. Beating at least one A and one B scenario unlocks Hunk, in which you have to backtrack from the sewers up to the Police HQ's entrance with a finite amount of ammo and health-restoring items. Manage to beat Hunk and you'll unlock TOFU, yet another mode with another character, and you can unlock other skins for TOFU. Besides, you can also unlock costumes for Leon and Claire, as well as weapons with infinite ammo, if you are good enough. The short length of the campaign, as well as all this goodies makes the game highly replayable.

 I think Capcom has done it. I think they found their perfect blend of horror and action that'll keep most people happy. It's not as actiony as 6 got, since ammo feels more scarce as it won't 'randomly' drop out of enemies and it doesn't have melee attacks or crazy QTE dodges, no punching rocks either. But it's also not as quaint as to have tank controls or fixed camera angles, which mind you I actually like those. I'll admit that the game managed to pull a few jump-scares on me that I didn't see coming. All in all, I loved Capcom's new take on Resident Evil 2. I'm a bit more of a fan of how Mikami evolved the formula with The Evil Withing, but I think this works perfectly for Resident Evil.
 9.5 out of 10