Years ago, I tried Resident Evil Remake, and quickly bounced off due to the "inventory full again, backtrack all the way to one of the two item boxes in the entire mansion" thing. It was not a fun time. Years later, I became a massive Resident Evil fan, and am one to this day. That not only includes the modern games, but I also greatly enjoyed the original RE1 & RE2. On RE1 in particular, I amassed over 15 runs in a row, as I had a lot of fun speedrunning the game and seeing how much time I can shave off. I also did this, as I felt like when the time came to revisit the remake, I would appreciate it a lot more.
That time has come. I started off as Jill, got a mod that upscaled the graphics, removed the door loading animations, and got to work. The atmosphere was phenomenal. It's no understatement to say that the pre-rendered graphics have aged like a fine wine, they're still incredible to this day. I enjoyed the new additions and puzzles. However, I still wasn't too happy about the backtrack-heavy nature of the mansion, and the occasional (but not as frequent as the original) instances of not knowing which items are essential to bring along with me at the present moment.
And, here's the thing. With the original RE1, this was also a problem. My first playthrough of that game was anything but smooth-sailing, and it contributed to more frustrations than a feeling of dread. Once that 2nd run started however, things immediately clicked as I started cutting corners, optimizing routes, and carrying my knowledge of which items are most important to bring out of the item box for the next chunk of exploration.
2nd run onward, Resident Evil (1996) becomes an incredible game once you know what you're doing. And I figured that this would've also happened with the remake. Miserable first run, godlike second run. So, I cleared the game, thought to myself "some gripes aside, it was worth playing this," began another Jill run after a short break, and started getting around the mansion overall faster... but then, a soul-crushing realization hit me. "I don't wanna do all of this again."
Looking back on what Resident Evil 2002 aims to do, it's to do more. More areas, more puzzles, more items to lug around, more mechanics and more things to worry about. On one hand, I think it's good to expand on your game when you're remaking it. On the other, I'm so used to just how fast-paced the original game felt, remake feels much slower in comparison, and demands much more out of you.
A puzzle that I could've done in two steps in the original, now demands four or five steps. Zombies aren't as easy to dodge as they used to be, and killing them is more likely to cause you more trouble later on. That is, unless you backtrack to your safe room to bring out your lighter and fuel, backtrack to the zombie you want to burn, then backtrack again to the safe room because the lighter and fuel takes up two damn inventory slots, then backtrack again to the next point of progress. Jesus christ, the handling of that burning mechanic sucks in particular.
These things add up over time, and I'm just kinda sad thinking about them. Because generally speaking, there is so much to appreciate about the remake, but its newly introduced mechanics do not lend themselves to a game that's as appealable to speedrun as the original was. It's a much more methodical experience. One that I could see myself revisiting someday in the future, but for the time being, I'm not scared, just exhausted.
That time has come. I started off as Jill, got a mod that upscaled the graphics, removed the door loading animations, and got to work. The atmosphere was phenomenal. It's no understatement to say that the pre-rendered graphics have aged like a fine wine, they're still incredible to this day. I enjoyed the new additions and puzzles. However, I still wasn't too happy about the backtrack-heavy nature of the mansion, and the occasional (but not as frequent as the original) instances of not knowing which items are essential to bring along with me at the present moment.
And, here's the thing. With the original RE1, this was also a problem. My first playthrough of that game was anything but smooth-sailing, and it contributed to more frustrations than a feeling of dread. Once that 2nd run started however, things immediately clicked as I started cutting corners, optimizing routes, and carrying my knowledge of which items are most important to bring out of the item box for the next chunk of exploration.
2nd run onward, Resident Evil (1996) becomes an incredible game once you know what you're doing. And I figured that this would've also happened with the remake. Miserable first run, godlike second run. So, I cleared the game, thought to myself "some gripes aside, it was worth playing this," began another Jill run after a short break, and started getting around the mansion overall faster... but then, a soul-crushing realization hit me. "I don't wanna do all of this again."
Looking back on what Resident Evil 2002 aims to do, it's to do more. More areas, more puzzles, more items to lug around, more mechanics and more things to worry about. On one hand, I think it's good to expand on your game when you're remaking it. On the other, I'm so used to just how fast-paced the original game felt, remake feels much slower in comparison, and demands much more out of you.
A puzzle that I could've done in two steps in the original, now demands four or five steps. Zombies aren't as easy to dodge as they used to be, and killing them is more likely to cause you more trouble later on. That is, unless you backtrack to your safe room to bring out your lighter and fuel, backtrack to the zombie you want to burn, then backtrack again to the safe room because the lighter and fuel takes up two damn inventory slots, then backtrack again to the next point of progress. Jesus christ, the handling of that burning mechanic sucks in particular.
These things add up over time, and I'm just kinda sad thinking about them. Because generally speaking, there is so much to appreciate about the remake, but its newly introduced mechanics do not lend themselves to a game that's as appealable to speedrun as the original was. It's a much more methodical experience. One that I could see myself revisiting someday in the future, but for the time being, I'm not scared, just exhausted.