I played on Standard difficulty as Claire, then Leon.
This game nails survival horror. It brings back everything that made the first game great and nothing that made the first game bad. The remake looks incredible. The combat is very good. My only complaint about the combat is that it can be awkward to dodge boss attacks. I'm not a big horror fan, although I am slowly getting more into it, and this game has made believe that video games are the best medium for horror. I'm very excited to continue playing through this series.
The rest of this review only concerns the second run (after you beat the game, you can play through it again as the other character).
I'm not usually interested in playing a game a second time immediately after beating it. I only played through RE1 once. After looking online, it seemed like many people believed doing both runs in RE2 is necessary to consider the game "beaten". There are many differences between the runs, and you have to do both to unlock the true ending so I decided to do both for this game. For the most part, I enjoyed the second run. It's mostly the same places but the enemies therein and the path you take are different. The story is also different, but it can feel awkward. At times I can see where Leon's story and Claire's story match up and it feels like they are happening together. At others it's impossible for both stories to be happening together. The true ending is fine, but nothing to write home about. All in all, I would prefer they either committed more to the second run, making it clear that it's a core part of the game and making the plot actually line up with the first run, or just not have the second run and put more content into the first. Luckily the game is good enough that playing it again is still a lot of fun.
This game nails survival horror. It brings back everything that made the first game great and nothing that made the first game bad. The remake looks incredible. The combat is very good. My only complaint about the combat is that it can be awkward to dodge boss attacks. I'm not a big horror fan, although I am slowly getting more into it, and this game has made believe that video games are the best medium for horror. I'm very excited to continue playing through this series.
The rest of this review only concerns the second run (after you beat the game, you can play through it again as the other character).
I'm not usually interested in playing a game a second time immediately after beating it. I only played through RE1 once. After looking online, it seemed like many people believed doing both runs in RE2 is necessary to consider the game "beaten". There are many differences between the runs, and you have to do both to unlock the true ending so I decided to do both for this game. For the most part, I enjoyed the second run. It's mostly the same places but the enemies therein and the path you take are different. The story is also different, but it can feel awkward. At times I can see where Leon's story and Claire's story match up and it feels like they are happening together. At others it's impossible for both stories to be happening together. The true ending is fine, but nothing to write home about. All in all, I would prefer they either committed more to the second run, making it clear that it's a core part of the game and making the plot actually line up with the first run, or just not have the second run and put more content into the first. Luckily the game is good enough that playing it again is still a lot of fun.