Fantastic game. It's a hallmark of video game design, incredibly satisfying to explore and uncover all of its labyrinthian secrets. Even though it's not really scary anymore, the game still delivers a tense experience through its mechanics of scarce ammo and health items. Death is always just around the corner.

I especially like the setting, first traversing through a destroyed city infested with zombies, walking past debris and raging fires before finally arriving at the infamous police station. You'll travel through more varied environments before reaching the game's satisfying conclusion.
It feels more grounded than the first Resident Evil with it's Rube Goldberg-machine like mansion and it's quirky death puzzles.

It's a short game that warrants multiple playthroughs to get the most out of it. Well worth the time and effort.

(another replay of a game I last played 10 years ago)

Playing this so soon after the original, there is one thing that I can say I miss about RE1: the isolated and creepy atmosphere of the Spencer mansion, and the more interesting puzzles, which were far more straightforward here.

But this daring change (different characters, different setting) worked so well because it was replaced by something equally compelling. Setting this game in a ruined city and derelict police station gave the locations a much more lived-in feel where every room told a subtle story, from the festive decorations meant to welcome Leon on his ill-fated first day to the main office which is literally crawling with zombie cops. The less isolated feeling also created the opportunity for more side characters, and the fact that so many of them appeared in later entries shows how much of a hit they were. And while the RE series isn't as horror-focused as something like Silent Hill, this does have some very effective subtle scares, like how the camera angle in one of the early rooms you unlock is positioned just right so you can see a licker crawl by outside the window (when you don't even know what a licker is supposed to be yet).

This game also feels infinitely better than its predecessor. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but it's probably tighter controls and more refined graphics which makes navigation a lot easier and more intuitive. On top of this, the game actually features some proper physics - enemies can be staggered, and shoving a zombie into a crowd causes the other zombies to stumble.

Unlike RE4 which delivers a much more action-focused experience, these refinements actually serve to enhance the survival horror aspects. The original Resident Evil had more than enough ammo to kill every enemy (though it's scarce at first), so the best approach was to memorize which order to enter rooms so you would never run out of ammo. But in RE2, dodging around enemies feels much more intuitive and consistent, which adds weight to the fight-or-flight decisions you inevitably have to make whenever you run into an enemy. This lent itself very well to this particular playthrough for me where I still remembered the mechanics but forgot the layout - I spent a good chunk of the game fumbling around, half-lost, low on supplies, juking around zombies and lickers. It felt gloriously stressful!

One exception to the better game feel was the boss fights. They were a little more action-oriented than in the previous game, and unfortunately the claustrophobic feel created by the fixed camera angles became more of an annoyance, never affording me a clear line of sight. The lack of a quick-180 or auto-aim function also felt like a hindrance, ensuring that many boss battles felt anticlimactic because the optimal strategy was to just stand in one place and DPS-race the boss.

Overall this is a fantastic refinement of the RE1 experience, feeling so much better to play without straying too far from the feel of the original. The different scenarios and unlockables gave it respectable replay value too. RE3 is next on my playlist - I haven't played it yet, but this entry will take some beating!

Really good survival horror game, which is more action packed than the first game. Definite improvements here, with more weapon variety, much less lockpicking/key bullshit and changes to the way ammo looks. The RPD is such an iconic location, and the music and atmosphere is top notch too.

My only negatives here are the enemy placement, which feels a bit worse than RE1, and the boss encounters, which are pretty much just Birkin. Granted, this was a Leon A playthrough, so I’ll see if the other routes feel better in that regard.

The first Resident Evil game that I beat. Where to start with this game? it’s pretty much perfect, I love the old tank controls, always make the game more claustrophobic. The pre-rendered backgrounds make Raccoon City come alive, with the neon signs and the burning buildings filled with shuffling zombies filling the streets.

Mr. X and Ada Wong are welcome additions. Leon and Clair are fun to play as, I like how both play throughs are different enough and the ending is absolutely awesome.

If you’ve played the remake and want to see the precursor, then I assure you that after the initial shock of visuals and tank controls, you’ll fall in love with this classic, as I did.

resident evil 2 remake may be one of the best remakes of all time i really can get behind this statement to be honest like it did nothing out of place and remade the entirety of the game from scratch and really refined the entire experience to heaven and back (apart from like the B route paths which were butchered a bit but thats fine i mean it didnt really damage the experience for me probably die hard fans were tearing their hair but i just marathoned everything resident evil this month or so so like i cant attest for that

playing resident evil 3 really showed me how interesting could still be playing the original ones and i can really understand the appeal that these games have to this day and had when they first came out i mean they were definitely monumental for their time

I played a little resident evil 1 the original after this one and its incredible how they managed to improve a lot of stuff like travelling through the different areas or being able to dodge the zombies or something simpler like how open the different places feel in this one it's. wow

whatever so like the game centers around fan favourites leon and claire and this time i also played leons route yknow i wanted to actually play as claire this time but the horny took my hand and chose leon (im not actually a fan of original leon OR remake leon hes ugly as shit this is just me thinking about resident evil 4 leon)

leon got fucked on his first day on the racoon police department job and claire is looking for his brother chris bla bla bla i already talked about this in the remakes review

as I played resident evil 3 I definitely was not expecting to enjoy these original experiences these much and it was a case for this one too this is fucking incredible

as always pre rendered backgrounds are fucking gorgeous maybe a little less than
the ones of resident evil 3 those are just absolutely jaw dropping but these ones are also pretty competent to make the rpd come to life and making it one of the most iconic places in the entire resident evil franchise

the models are also a downgrade from resident evil 3 (im talking like resident evil 3 came first but its just because I played that came before this one ok im sorry don't take me seriously) limbs are a bit janky but that's to be expected but yknow honestly they're pretty cool and all

in general the storylines and the gameplay are also standard resident evil you got a big virus outbreak and an infodump on the virus itself in the last 20 minutes then some explosions and then a final boss and then some more explosions the end BUT as you know this game got 2 campaigns and if you play as leon you get some insight on femme fatale ada and if you choose claire you can get to know the daughter of the main scientist behind the g virus so ideally you should play both campaigns one after the other since you will get some interesting implications in the different campaigns

umh

yknow what I was not expecting the fact that this game absolutely nailed the soundtrack what the actual fuck there's some BANGERS during the later part of the game that I was NOT expecting like I was dumb founded tbh and in general the sound design is fucking amazing I thought it was a prerogative of the remake because new technologies and such but this game got nothing to envy AND I might say that the ost on this one was definitely more iconic than the remake if that was even possible

all in all I think the argument of "you should still play the original even if you remake something" holds up pretty well and yeah I do beg you to play this game

also yeah this time too I finished the game with loads of ammo whatever it was expected

It was quite the adventure navigating through the Raccoon City Police Department. There were times I got lost or stuck, a few deaths which also resulted in loss of progression but somehow I pulled through. I do prefer the Mansion from 1, however don’t let that negate my love for this game. They built upon the foundations from the first game and improved it on all aspects. It’s a really great game. A beautiful sequel. I’m happy I was able to complete it!

“hey, it's up to us to take out umbrella”
cue rock music

RE2 is really fun game just like RE1 both making for some amazing games and I absolutely adore the style of these games.

First things first, The police building. It is such a joy to explore and an upgrade to the mansion from RE1. I absolutely love the atmosphere of the building and some of the tragic stories you learn while exploring every nook and cranny of this building, for example Leon's desk filled with party hats and decorations and notes welcoming Leon to the team but instead of smiles around you it's just the zombified remains of your coworkers all of them out to kill you. I liked stuff like that even if they are kind of scarce.
While the police building was amazing and really fun to explore, I do feel like the game did drop in quality after leaving the police building to escape but that part was still fun nonetheless, albeit not on the same level as that feeling of exploring the police building for the first time.

Next up, it's the combat, which has also gone up a bit by filling the rooms with more zombies and more difficult variants to deal with but at the same time hitting that perfect balance where you're getting swarmed by zombies while also having a chance to fight back if you have the means (which you probably will since this game has ammo everywhere lmao).
Mr. X for Claire's campaign was also scary and a real threat the first few times but he just stops being a threat after the 3rd time he appears because you can just find ways to avoid him by that point while also being loaded with bullets and such which just gets rid of any panic and fear he made you feel at the start which was kind of disappointing.

The voice acting also got an upgrade and by that I mean instead of sounding like a parody, everyone now sounds like a Spiderman 2 NPC.

This game was honestly a fun ride from start to finish and this game is a must play for anyone who enjoyed RE1 no doubt about it.

The opening of RE2 evokes a much different feeling than the one in RE1. Instead of slowly building up to an encounter with a single zombie, RE2 has you frantically running through an entire horde of them as you make your way to the police station. It's here that RE2 establishes a much more action oriented tone that's present for the entire game and it's so damn fun.

I had a blast going through the Police Station. It's much more linear than the Spencer Mansion and progression can be boiled down to getting a key, opening 1 or 2 doors, getting another key, rinse and repeat with some rudimentary puzzles along the way. This should bother me considering how much I liked the non-linearity of RE1 but it's honestly too fun for me to care and that's largely due to how much you'll be killing enemies in this game. RE2 loads you with ammo and it is usually very easy to clear out an entire area of up to 7 zombies and it is sooooo cathartic. The game as a whole is very streamlined and easy compared to the first game. Ink ribbons are abundant, I never felt like I was lacking ammo and the hallways aren't nearly as suffocating here as they were in the mansion so dodging zombies is much easier. Because of this, I never had to carefully think about my approach, but I had fun throughout so I can't really say that the game being easier ever felt like a flaw to me.

Though the game ramps up the action, I wouldn't say it's any less scary than RE1. I was startled a few times here, like when you first see Lickers crawling on the window or when Mr X bursts through a wall. Limping has also been added and characters will slow down when low on health which makes some parts really stressful as you're trying to get away only to start moving slower and slower as you're being chased.

Another reason why I was so hooked was because this game has my favourite story from all the RE games I played so far. There's way more cutscenes so it's easier to latch onto the characters and learning about how corrupt Brian Irons is or seeing how Birkin is constantly mutating was more memorable than anything from the first game. Each character having 2 separate scenarios is also great, it gives the game replayability and both characters are about as capable as eachother (though the weapon parts make Leon's campaign my favourite by far). Depending on what scenario you're doing, you'll see a slightly different perspective on some of the characters you meet which is pretty neat.

RE2 is the Aliens to RE1's Alien. It ramps up the action while also not abandoning its horror roots and it makes for a game that is easily my favourite of the classic bunch of RE games.

Let me preface this by saying that I don’t like giving games 5 stars unless I believe they’re genuinely flawless or exemplary. A game really has to wrestle and claw its way to 5 stars.

Let me also preface this by saying that I didn’t even love Resident Evil 1. I played the remake on PC to dip my toes into “the world of survival horror,” and I enjoyed it fine. It didn’t blow me away. I’ve outlined my experience with survival horror as a genre in my Signalis review previously – and I liked Signalis too! – but my impressions were also colored by the fact that I was still earning my stripes, so to speak. I was still trying to “understand” survival horror.

With Resident Evil 2, I feel like I not only “understand” survival horror now, but I’ve also been endowed with the Goddess Athena’s gift of divine wisdom or something. I don’t know what the hell they were doing at Capcom in 1998 but I firmly believe that Shinji Mikami and Hideki Kamiya both obtained forbidden knowledge and decided to channel that knowledge into crafting a survival horror masterclass. If I was a university professor teaching survival horror game design, I would tell my students to pick up Resident Evil 2 and play both Leon and Claire’s A/B routes. That’s it. No written assignments or anything. Just finish the game.

The obtuse, puzzle-heavy labyrinth of the first game’s iconic Spencer Mansion is condensed into the sequel’s Police Station. This is one of RE2’s many examples of less being more. Whereas RE1 had a lot of backtracking, even well into its latter half, once you’re finished with the Police Station, that’s it – the chess plug puzzle (or the painting puzzle) is the only thing standing between players and the latter half of the game, which is then a mostly linear rollercoaster from there until the finish line.

Resident Evil 2 is a lot like Sonic the Hedgehog in that you can’t fully appreciate the game after one simple playthrough, and the game reinforces this in two ways: most obvious are the two protagonists, as well as their respective A/B routes; additionally, the “ranking system” which encourages players to save less, heal less, and be quick about it.

I thought that having two characters in the first Resident Evil wasn’t groundbreaking. I mean, if you want more Resident Evil, sure, there you go; Jill and Chris’ stories aren’t awfully dissimilar. Personally, I didn’t feel like finishing Chris’ story after Jill’s enriched my experience at all – it was just the same game, again, but with less inventory space, and a few key differences in puzzles and story beats. The A/B routes work much better in Resident Evil 2, as they complement each other and are sufficiently short as well. Specifically, the B route for both characters boasts much beefier bosses, new enemy locations, and even Mr. X (he’s intimidating at first, but once you learn his behavior, he’s just a fun lil set piece).

After your first A/B run, I strongly encourage another A/B run (LeonA/ClaireB or vice versa). My second A/B run was also when I started trying for rankings, and that’s when it got really fun. Experiencing the different variations in story beats and encounters made each route unique and engaging in their own ways. Really though, the ranking system does what any good ranking system should do (imo), and pushes players towards the most interesting and rewarding playstyles. The game wants players to play conservatively, but it also wants players to take risks. Once players understand the general sequence of events, that’s when they’re able to predict, plan ahead, and be bold in their decision making. That’s when interesting play emerges.

It’s also remarkable in how economic its levels are, the sewers are like maybe five or ten minutes (not counting cutscenes) as long as you’re not backtracking; there’s maybe like an hour between when you fight the second boss and the final boss. Surprisingly, it also never feels like it’s sprinting towards the finish line, either.

So tightly-packed with razor sharp survival horror game design that it’s basically the genre’s Super Mario Bros. 3 for all I care. Maybe it didn’t write the book on survival horror, and maybe it wasn’t the first worth reading – but it was the first one I read that I not only loved, but one that left me with a deeper appreciation for the works I’d read already.

An astonishing follow-up to Resi 1 in many ways. Kamiya's reworking of Mikami's classic formula is more streamlined, perfectly paced, and features considerably more punch in its action. Kamiya's future output can be felt here, for sure. The pre-rendered backgrounds blow the first game's out of the water, dripping with atmosphere, perfectly accompanied by an unnerving score. The voice acting is an improvement, while remaining uncanny enough to unsettle in a Lynchian sort of way (though likely less deliberate). The A/B scenarios, while not perfectly synchronous, offer considerable replay value, and are frankly better implemented here than in the remake. Finally, the plotting (distinct from moment-to-moment writing) is damn excellent, unveiling details at the perfect pace to keep energy and curiosity levels at a high throughout.

resident evil 2 is a bizarre sequel when you sit down and chart it out. its cast is entirely new with no returning characters and barely any of the RE1 cast being plot relevant, the gameplay feels miles different with the game having a stronger emphasis on combat than RE1, and instead of having 2 character scenarios, RE2 doubles it and makes it 4, to its own detriment. RE2 even utilizes the john-ada password thing from RE1 and makes her a character, which is a nice little bit of slow-burning. one of the best things i can say about the series is that, regardless of how i feel about the direction this game goes compared to RE1, it had a clear vision and concept, and, for the most part, executed that well.

the biggest flaw w/the game imo are both the A scenarios. they feel incredibly... action-heavy, which is weird to say about a 1998 horror game! but you spend so much of the beginning portion actively killing zombies, not to mention rooms are more packed with them. whereas a busy room in RE1 might have 3-4 zombies, in RE2 you'll regularly run into rooms with 5+ zombies in them. it all seems reminiscent of someone in a board room going "they liked that resident evil game? well we need to make the sequel BIGGER and BETTER. we need MORE zombies!!" which misses a lot of what made RE1 great. sure, throwing 7 zombies in a hallway is stressful, but you essentially guarantee that dodging zombies is a skill that players no longer can use to be efficient, thus alienating a lot of the original fanbase. that and i just find it really tedious to have so many ammo checks in earlygame. when i was struggling with ammo in RE1, it was because i wasn't aware of where to go or what i really should be spending ammo on. in RE2, if i was struggling for ammo, it's because the game was smothering me to death with enemies.

for all my gripes with the game, i did still enjoy it. much like RE1, this is a game that feels fun to speedrun. i got an A rank on Leon's B scenario and i had a blast challenging myself in that way. ammo was tight and healing was stricter, but it felt like an earned challenge considering it was the last of the four scenarios i tackled. one of my favorite things about classic RE games so far has been that knowledge is more important than skill or reaction time. knowing item locations and efficiently routing will always save you more grief than any amount of competency with the game's combat systems, which is a game design choice i wish i saw more often.

as much as i think the scenario choices in this game hold potential, in execution i do feel as though they should've just been cut down to one per character like we had in RE1. 4 scenarios is cool on paper, but the bosses are the same for both A and both B scenarios, and while some minor details change (i.e. whether or not claire and sherry are being chased by mr. x, how characters like brian irons die, etc.), the larger story beats are identical. on a gameplay level, i found both characters' B scenarios to be more enjoyable too; part of that is probably because neither of them have that extended tutorial in the city, but the scenarios themselves also feel leaner and give the player freer reign to figure out where to go. i think this game suffers from, like i mentioned, trying to be bigger and better than RE1, when RE1 was extremely tight and meaningful in that brevity. where RE2 overextends, RE1 was a complete gameplay experience with basically no fluff. i can't say that about RE2, which is disappointing.

all caveats aside, i still think this is a worthwhile game to play, and most of my qualms with this game are rooted in some way to being a sequel to RE1. it would be very difficult to make a sequel to RE1 that i would've liked. this game isn't a bulls-eye, but it's close. i suspect this game may grow on me in time now that i've gone through the ringer of every scenario, so i do expect to revisit this with softer expectations and fonder experiences.

I gave the sewer section a bit of a hard time in my re2make review, but in comparison now I feel like I may have gone a little overboard. the sewers here are so much worse. drab coloring, utterly pointless spiders, and that obnoxious steel bridge you need to repeatedly reorient all combine to make this section such a slog. on my claire A playthrough I got to the corpse with the eagle medal without any room in my inventory, and thus had to loop through the entire main section of the sewers a second time purely to grab the medal and leave the area. that includes turning the large fan off, running through its vent, dropping off items at the item box, running all the way back around through the spiders again, bringing the bridge back down to the first level, running over the bridge and moving it back up to the top level, then running through the whole crocodile tunnel and then up the garbage chute ladder just to grab one item, all because they didn't put an item box next to typewriter at the end of the bridge. a pure time-waster all around, with nary an interesting setpiece in the whole place other than that crocodile. to be clear: it is totally sweet to blow up that air canister in its mouth and sever the top half of its maw cleanly off. still though... not worth the rest of the hassle.

that's blowing things out of proportion a little bit given that the other sections generally fare better, but compare the sewers to a comparable area from the original resident evil: the guardhouse. this area is equally brief but features a slew of little brainteasers and unique rooms to keep your interest, such as the billiards/keypad puzzle, mixing V-JOLT, various block-moving puzzles, and fighting plant 42. there are multiple rooms out of the gate to explore, which lends a proper sense of discovery to the exploration you perform. the sewer has a miniature sherry/ada segment consisting of a single box puzzle similar to the basement one from the guardhouse (here you arrange three boxes as a bridge and then raise the water level, whereas in the prior game you simply push the three crates into pre-raised water for a bridge) and the crocodile boss, but otherwise it's bare. the only real detour you can take is collecting a bit of ammo from the storage room where sherry had previously been, with everything else being exactly on the main path. it's certainly the low point of this game as a whole.

the police station is the obvious analogue here to the mansion from the original. I've struggled a bit to characterize its puzzle design relative to the mansion... my gut instinct is that re2's structure is more linear than re1's, but expressing evidence of this is difficult. each area is built around collecting a set of keys to access an exit: the natural element stones to exit through the storage shed of the mansion, and the animal stones to exit through irons' office in claire A / the chess keys to exit through the sewage maintenance area in leon B. in both cases the individual keys are locked behind puzzles strewn through various rooms that are otherwise auxillary to progressing the plot, encouraging the player to thoroughly explore the environment. progression is blocked off by another set of related keys that open up chunks of the area, represented by medieval armaments in re1 and card suits in re2. the structure of re2 in this first section feels so closely wed to the original's to make any sort of delineation a struggle.

however, I think I've come to two conclusions regarding this that I feel are plausible. the first is that re2 is better than re1 at using aspects of the environment to imply routing. a subtle example of this is the east hallway on the 2F where a helicopter has impacted the building and exploded. when walking into this corridor for the first time, a zombie is placed in foreground to the player's left with a door in the background to the player's right; the average player will run to the door and thus avoid going into the dead-end with the helicopter. this door leads to the roof area with the stairs to the shed, where you find not only the bowgun but a valve that can be used to extinguish the helicopter's flames. other examples of this design practice exist as well, such as the massive swam of zombies outside the 1F east main office implying you should take the other route which leads to the grenade launcher. the second conclusion is that re2 is worse than re1 at providing optional areas and puzzles in its main hub. because there are not different endings, the game lacks built-in incentives to take one's time and thoroughly explore individual rooms compared to more-hidden items like the mansion MO disks or the magnum in re1. this suits the game to some extent because each room here tends to have only a single objective, but at the same time it ruins the interconnected feel of the station. puzzles in general tend to be simple lock-and-key affairs more often than re1, which more often tested the player's ability to make logicial deductions about the behavior of the environment in puzzles such as the gas room or opening the waterfall. re2 does have a couple instances of optional content, specifically the shared weapons locker that requires both a key card and power to open, but I feel like this design pattern isn't as pervasive as it is in the first game. much more running from keyhole to keyhole in general without much need to take stock of your surroundings and determine what to do with the items you have.

that shared weapons locker is one of the primary components of the zapping system, which links one playthrough with each character together via viewing the same series of events through the eyes of both. in most cases this amounts to either simply witnessing events you performed with one character indirectly with the other, but in other cases the player must weigh decisions based on evaluating short-term/long-term benefit. examples of this include deciding which group of window shutters to close with the loose wires, which will cause one hallway to get swarmed with the zombies part of the way through the A campaign (these will be present from the get-go on B) and the other to remain sealed until part of the way through the B campaign. I enjoyed this one and felt vindicated by my choice (sealing the east hall), but other choices felt less substantial, like choosing which character gets to enjoy the effects of the anti-BOW gas that seems to do very little (I did this during leon B). the most disappointing of these to me was the culture experiment room, which requires both characters to individually descend to the deepest part of the lab past an inexplicable moth miniboss to register their fingerprint on the lab's security system, followed by ascending back to the floor above to use said fingerprint on the culture experiment room lock. after doing this with your B character, you get to enter into a swarm of buffed-up lickers, for which your reward is the SMG... maybe I would've felt less disappointed by this if I didn't have leon as my B, who already had the C. Magnum and felt unstoppable, but at the same time I don't know what I expected otherwise. I was hoping for something like a rocket launcher given the amount of effort required, but I got one during the final mr. x fight anyway so whatever.

as for the novelty of actually playing the game twice back to back, I again feel mixed. the B campaign enters the station via the shed to the side and witnesses the helicopter crashing, a neat touch. past this the station is basically executed the same as during the A campaign with the order slightly changed at the beginning to require getting a key card from the east main office to unlock the west side. unfortunately the changes in key locations leads to some routing awkwardness: for example, I did the entire west side of the building in one clean sweep and thus felt cramped in the east side for most of the rest of my station playtime. the unicorn medal/spade key also feel utterly useless during this section given that the only door it opens is for the filing cabinet room where all that remains is a first aid spray and an ink ribbon... the crank was here in the A campaign which justified the excursion. leon at least has an expanded basement with the prison to explore and part of the sewage disposal where he exits the building, but all the puzzles are the same regardless and his sewer/lab sections are pretty much identical as well outside the addition of the power room floor for the latter. what he does have is Mr. X, who is suitably menacing even with his appearances being scripted. in theory I prefer the AI stalker of the remake, but considering that I rarely was hindered by him during my playthrough of that game, I think this deterministic approach works just as well. he's not really truly scary given that he's effectively a free ammo dump every hour or so, but a couple of his appearances actually made my heart skip a beat, specifically bursting through the wall of the room with the cog in it. I had that exact same interaction in the remake and it got me there too (I assume it's semi-scripted there as well given that it opens up a new route).

what I will give to re2 across the board are its improvements to combat. tilting the protagonist's head towards enemies makes fighting off-screen or obscured enemies less taxing, and the ability to shove a zombie off of yourself in order to knock down a whole set is incredibly useful in group scenarios. the lickers perfectly replace the muppet-ass hunters from the prior game, with a disgusting exposed brain, some unsettling breathing, and a particular sensitivity to noise making them much more interesting to maneuver around and away from. the plant monsters are relatively goofy in comparison, but show up infrequently (not remotely as fear-inducing as the chimeras though). bosses still pretty much consist of shooting off rounds until they get too close and then running five feet away, but I didn't expect more or less given how simple combat is regardless. while I'm describing positives for this game, I also have to praise how much more proficient the modeling of the background environments is here. compared to the garish reds of re1's mansion, this game presents a bevy of places that feel properly lived-in with an ambiance to match. significant increase in graphical fidelity for the character models as well, though I can't really say I like the CGI FMVs more than the live-action ones.

I gotta stress that I did enjoy playing this, just that I had a lot of reservations while doing so. I'm not sure playing both scenarios pretty close to each other particularly helped either. other than usual gripes I list throughout here that I could probably apply to other psx-era survival horror titles, I legitimately feel like re2 is a step-down in stage/scenario design from its predecessor, by inches perhaps but still in a noticable way. re1 tied all of its areas together in a way that made them feel like all part of a whole, where exploration in one part would yield results in another. re2 instead frontloads many of its best moments in the mansion and then features two cloistered areas afterward that feel overly self-contained, along with the factory section (super undercooked compared to the catacombs from re1). I guess part of this is brought on by higher expectations given its legacy, but I also just expected a full-on improvement in every way from the first, and re2 doesn't quite stick the landing in that regard. I could also see how someone takes the negatives from my review and sees them as standout aspects of the game - i.e. someone who prefers their survival horror less rooted in point-and-click and faster paced overall. totally valid.

This game took me four years and multiple restarts to finish. I've been going at trying to finish just one story route since RE2R's announcement but I just couldn't adapt for the longest time. Only just now though, after RE4R's release, through a half decade's worth of trial and erroring throwing my head at the wall, did I finally finish Leon A.

I want to stress that I did actually enjoy my time playing the original RE2. I've played some Resident Evil titles before but never finished them, and I want to express how unique these games are and how much of a learning curve it was to play by its rules. Resident Evil 2's distinctive blend of non-linearity, juggling multiple routes of progression simultaneously, inventory management and crushing punishment for death cost me many rage quits and entire restarts for a long, long time. It was only after restarting ten times over was I starting to click with its direction.

Resident Evil 2 strikes an upset to your typical search action fare by layering multiple keys of progression in a single run. This is what confused me for the longest time: your Card Set Keys actually have nothing to do with the Chess Plugs or your Medals or Virgin Hearts, but instead every key item is used to find more key items. It's less unlocking access to big new areas and more slowly unlocking room after room until you've made it out. This, in turn, despite me restarting over and over again due to getting stuck or frustrated over time lost, made every single playthrough of mine different. Every restart I decided to grab things in a different order, and after attempt after attempt did I finally get a grasp on what goes where, and when I finally got out of the Police Station for the first time, I played through the entire rest of the second half in one sitting. I still got a D rank with a time of 5:01, but just completing the game was the bigger victory for me.

Alas, but it wasn't just RE2's non-linearity that stumped me for years, but also its crushing sense of oppression and constantly-dangling-by-a-thread sense of danger. There's never enough bullets to kill everything; I already knew that going in. What I didn't expect was how RE2 turns even saving your progress into a finite resource. Most save points come with 2 Ink Ribbons, one consumed each time to save progress. Surviving Raccoon City isn't just an exercise in reserving ammo for God knows what, you'll only truly survive if you know when to set your checkpoint flags. Only once I made the rule to always have at least one Ink Ribbon on me did I finally make it to the end. What makes the decision to save at points even more crucial is the constant fear of being set back. Dying in Resident Evil 2 can be brutal, even moreso in a game where sometimes you have to just take a hit or two to keep moving forward and health is only identified by a color in your status screen. Being set back ten, twenty, or even thirty or more minutes can be demotivational for anybody, and even moreso when you're lost and you don't even know how much progress you've lost. What makes Resident Evil 2 a truly scary game is how it emphases that you really are surviving. Where even other games in the genre its pioneered make you feel like an unkillable God Swatter amongst zombie flies, Resident Evil 2 takes every moment possible to remind you that you are, (mostly) alone; it's you against the world and the whole world wants you dead.

It's those triumph-over-oppression aspects of Resident Evil 2 that made me really appreciate it in the end. It's confusing and it's punishing, but it wants to be. It's my fault for being a dipshit who couldn't read a map and realize that all the locks and keys were color coded. It's why I could never cope with abandoning it for a half-decade, I had to beat this game at some point, and the relief I got from finally escaping Raccoon City felt as real to me as it did Leon and Claire. That's absolutely why Leon thinks he's such unkillable hot shit in Resident Evil 4; because I would too.

The original Resident Evil was a game that, aside from some odd design choices and lovably bad voice acting, aged quite well when I played through it back in May, and it made me interested in checking out its two direct follow-ups. Despite the amount of praise I've heard about the remake from 2019 (along with it featuring a much more conventional control scheme), I wanted to stick with the original game so that I could see how the series evolved with each entry, and it would only make sense to play the PS1 version of Resident Evil 2 after playing the PS1 version of Resident Evil. Maybe it's because I didn't need as much time to adjust to the controls and the gameplay loop this time around, but it only took me three play sessions (roughly 235 minutes) to beat this game as opposed to the seven hours spaced out across ten-ish days that it took me to beat the original game, but even in that short amount of time, I could tell just how much better Resident Evil 2 was than its predecessor, as it improved on that game's general formula while also retaining what made it unique and engaging in the first place.

Before I had even gotten past the intro section in Raccoon City, I was impressed by just how much better Resident Evil 2 looked than the first game, especially when I considered how there was just a two year difference between them (although it's technically closer to less than a year if you don't count the time they spent working on the Resident Evil 1.5 build that eventually got scrapped). Instead of cheesy live action filled with Party City costumes, Resident Evil 2 features a solid amount of prerendered FMV cutscenes that were all filled with action and energy, and that cinematic approach made both the plot and the events surrounding it feel more compelling. The in-game textures and models were also much more detailed, which made the different rooms and areas within the run-down city streets, decrepit central police station, and sleek underground labs feel unique in both their looks and the eerie and often tense atmospheres that they evoked, with the returning fixed camera angles especially adding to this during combat encounters with the grotesque and fleshy enemies. Although the core gameplay loop of exploration, puzzle-solving, and combat hasn't changed, I felt that its execution was much smoother here thanks to the Raccoon Police Station being significantly smaller than the Spencer Mansion from the previous game, as that made backtracking and swapping items at the nearest item box far less tedious due to how much closer everything was while also making the individual areas stand out more. The tighter, more claustrophobic rooms and hallways also strengthened the game's emphasis on action, as it not only made the increased combat encounters intense by not always giving you the option to run past your enemy, but it also made coming across ammo and healing items more gratifying due to how much more often they're needed and how scarce they felt to come across.

On top of having a more interesting plot and more well-written flavor text, I also thought that Resident Evil 2 featured much better characters, and more of them at that. While he isn't quite the lovable, one-liner-spouting himbo that he becomes in Resident Evil 4, I still liked playing as Leon Kennedy, and the relationship that he develops with the mysterious Ada Wong over the course of the game was especially compelling. While the voice acting and dialogue weren't as hilariously awful as what was in the original Resident Evil, they both still retained at least some level of campiness, even if none of it made me laugh like it did in the first game. The idea of having certain actions from your first playthrough affect the ones in your second playthrough was also very interesting, and it gave a lot more replay value to the game rather than having the choice between two characters simply be a difficulty select screen like in the previous game. Resident Evil 2 was a great survival horror game that massively improved on the ideas present in its predecessor, and despite how I was already excited to eventually play Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, my enjoyment with this game has made me look forward to the next one even more.

If you were to ask me what game I’d pick to represent the survival horror genre in its entirety, I’d probably go with the Resident Evil Remake based on personal preference. However, the original Resident Evil 2 is what I would consider the quintessential survival horror game. Everything about what it means to be a survival horror game is found here in its absolute prime. But before talking about RE2 in particular, I want to go over what I believe to be the most important aspects of making a survival horror game, Restriction, Resource Management, and Level Design. Restriction can be done in many ways, through a puzzle you have yet to solve, a locked door that you need a key for, or even just more enemies than you can shoot or heal for. Resource Management is a lot more self explanatory, being forced to consider whether or not to use something is the true cause of tenseness in this genre. Should I risk shooting this guy with handgun ammo and taking the hit or should I use my shotgun that I only have 2 bullets left for. Should I wait till I hit red health to use a full heal or should I use it now to not risk being killed? Level Design is the most Umbrella(heh) term, as it encompasses a majority of aspects in game design. What I really want to focus on is how good level design is used to place Restriction and Resource Management. Knowing where to place puzzles, locked doors, as well as ammo, heals, and even saves are crucial parts of how a survival horror game flows. Now that I’ve said all that jargon, watch me show how RE2 cooks in every single one of those categories.

While watching me play through the game, a friend of mine said “if you were to take out those long ass door animations, the game would still feel modernly designed.” Resident Evil 2 aged better than the finest glass of wine, so much so that I can’t believe I’m playing a game made in 1998 and not some retro-inspired survival horror game that was released last year. The level design is impeccable and shines the absolute brightest in the police station, which I’m very glad takes up most of the game’s runtime. Everything flows together beautifully and the brilliant restriction of where you can go guides you naturally into solving well-thought out puzzles and finding your way through, turning the Police Station into one giant puzzle itself. You never feel as though you are lost, instead slowly learning where everything is until the moment everything clicks and you know exactly what to do. As for the sewer and laboratory sections, they take up much less time than they do in the Remake, which arguably works in OG RE2’s favor. You never have that moment where you’re thinking “God I wish this section would end already” and instead get a really comforting “Wow, that wasn’t so bad and actually pretty fun.” Both are much easier to navigate, and at that point in the game you’ve gotten comfortable enough with your weapons and movement that you can almost breeze through, it’s a really nice way of “showing” player growth. These latter stages become more focused on the resource management aspect of survival horror rather than the restriction, as you’ll be fighting more dangerous enemies upon reaching the laboratory. RE2’s impeccable level design just never stumbles, even for a second.

Learning how to deal with specific enemies types is one of my favorite parts when first playing a new survival horror game, and the weapons you’re given in both discs play heavily into that. With the different enemies, your main task is learning when is the best time to shoot the slowly approaching zombie, poisonous giant spider, or pissed-off plant monster. The second half of it then lies in how to respond with the weapons at your disposal. With Leon, you have the Handgun, Shotgun, and Magnum. If you’re like me, the magnum is off-limits and only to be used during the final boss, so that leaves only the handgun and shotgun. Knowing when to use which and successfully executing it is immensely satisfying, I can’t even begin to describe how awesome it feels blowing a zombie’s head off with one shotgun shell by waiting till they get up close and aiming upwards. Then there’s Claire, who’s a fucking Spec-Ops soldier compared to Leon. She has the Handgun. Bowgun, and Grenade Launcher. I don’t even need to explain how stacked this makes Claire, so instead I’ll talk about the Submachine Gun, Flamethrower, and Spark Shot. These are “special weapons” in the fact that they have limited ammo that can never be refilled. These just kick so much ass and really feel like power weapons with how limited yet powerful they can be. Then we have the boss fights, which aren’t anything too special but act as a nice test of skill and to see if you’ve properly managed to save enough resources from everything leading up to the fight.

RE2’s story is camp perfection, it’s just plain fun and I adore it. The twists and turns in both character runs are like a wooden roller coaster that’s about to fall apart, but manages to not and give you an exhilarating ride to boot. The characters play a major part in this(as is with most RE games), with the charm and wit from the protagonists Leon and Claire, and the memorable nature of all the side characters. Lore also serves as a layered aspect of the narrative and gives the player purpose in searching every nook and cranny for more information on what really went on behind the scenes at Umbrella. To tie this already world-class game together into a neat bow, you have the soundtrack which by god slaps to an unhealthy degree. The imposing nature of the police station theme, the exhilaration during the escape from the laboratory, and of course the magical save room theme, in its sober and droning noise instills a peace inside as you save and prepare for your next venture out. The atmosphere in this game is already top-notch, but the soundtrack elevates it into another plane of existence. Any time I listen to it on my own time, I feel instantly transported back to zombie-infested Raccoon City. And of course, I can’t end this without talking about T-00 Mr. X himself. I spent the whole first playthrough thinking my game was bugged because he didn’t show up at all in the police station, only to learn that he only shows up on a second playthrough. Not only is this an extremely smart way of making the additional playthrough fresh(in addition to the level design and story being altered), Mr. X is bone-chilling. I knew already that he couldn’t be killed and would just run whenever I saw him, but the scripted events where he shows up while you think you can relax are some of the most well done jumpscares period. RE2 is a world-class buffet of goodness that’s aged better than games that have released within the past decade. Everything that survival horror stands for is here at its best, and is an absolute must to anyone who loves the genre.

The magnum opus of the franchise in my opinion. More zombies, more ammo, more locations, and more bosses. It does everything right while going bigger than RE1. The design of the RPD is near flawless in enemy/item placement and navigation flow. The sewer and labs are less exciting but quick enough to get through that there's no time to get tired of them. The zapping mechanic is very light but still cool nonetheless, adding extra layers and variation for replayability.

I don't replay games often but the classic RE games are fantastic at encouraging it while keeping things fresh and fun. It scratches an itch in my brain going through this with the prior run's knowledge; being able to zone in on single-pixel corners for specific items and beat the game in two hours makes you feel like a human cheat code. Zero complaints other than maybe the puzzles being toddler-esque fit the square in the square hole kinda stuff.

The moment that the fixed camera angles really clicked for me was when I got to the Chemical Plant platform, with Claire and Sherry gazing at the full moon in the sky. There were times beforehand where I recognized the added tension of danger being just around an unseen corner, but it was around that scene halfway through the "Claire A" campaign that I appreciated just how cinematic the visual style was as well. It's the unique perspectives that make the locations that much more memorable and the exploration even creepier.

Probably my favorite game of all-time. I love everything about it from top to bottom. My cousin and I rented this from Blockbuster during a sleepover when I was barely a teenager. I had no context for anything, so I remember "Raccoon City" and "Umbrella" making me laugh. The giggles melted away and turned into abject terror. They thrust you into the thick of it with no explanation of the controls or anything. I love it. And the jump scares had me literally jumping from a sitting position. Made a serious impression.

The police station has got to be my favorite locale in all of gaming. If you built it in real-life, I could navigate it with my eyes closed. The music is soo haunting. Of course I mean the save room theme (GOAT) and the Main Hall. The atmosphere is perfect and ludicrous. An art museum turned into a police station mid-apocalypse. Bro WHAT?!

OH GOD, the dialogueee. It's a MAJOR step up from the first game, but it still feels like a B-movie, which I objectively love. Especially Robert Kendo. "I ain't got no clue, darlin'!" YO LMFAO

Nothing sparks joy for me like this. I distinctly remember walking a mile or two downtown to the old comic/games shop and dropping $20 I earned mowing grass for my Nintendo 64 copy. I have an original promo poster, at least three copies of the game, and a framed vinyl record of the OST. GOAT.

This was my first time out of close to 15 runs playing Leon B. I've played every other scenario but this one for some reason. Guess I never got around to this one as a result of preferring to do Leon A > Claire B and platform hopping (this game has so many ports).

More of my nearly endless yearly Resident Evil game replaying. This has always been my least favorite of the original trilogy and it still is but having come back after playing the remake this grew in my favor a decent amount.

Things like the A/B scenario with actual differences of substance, non-adaptive difficulty, decent boss encounters, a soundtrack that you'll remember things from... All things I took for granted. Not all games (see the remake) have such elements.