The last RE game I had to play to complete the entire series, this survivor game is a big improvement over the first, that said a big improvement over shit isn’t that much better than shit. What Survivor 2 does that the first Survivor did not is embrace the arcade aspect of light gun games. This game is fast paced, there is a timer until Nemesis shows up basically forcing you to keep moving as fast as possible through the levels. At the end of each level you are graded on time, score and bonuses like no damage. This element alone makes the short levels much more replayable.
Seeing that I played this on an emulator I couldn’t play with a light gun, so I had to do the controller method which means it plays just like an old school FPS. You move and strafe around really small rooms while shooting at whatever is in front of you, since there is no gun there is no way to aim at specific parts. The game does this thing where you get a critical if you shoot an enemy up close I think, I don’t know I couldn’t figure it out. You can switch weapons on the fly and even upgrade your weapon pouch to carry more. Levels are taken from Code Veronica and it’s split in small sections. Each arcade level has to be completed in the short amount of time, the goal is to find a key and take it to the exit. The layout has optional rooms you can enter for extra ammo or health, more score, etc. So again all the elements for a score based light gun game is there but it being a poor mans FPS hurts it. It’s also over in a flash, a little over 30 minutes and arcade mode is done.
There is a dungeon mode which seems to be the meat of the game. These take random locations and make a sort of maze out of them. There is no map and rooms don’t make much sense, it’s like copy pasted random locations, your job is too keep exploring till you finish an objective like “kill the boss” or “find all gems”. This mode has exclusive enemies, bosses, weapons and offers way more content than the arcade mode. I played a few levels and they can be tough, some stages have traps, looking for health in these mazes can get that adrenaline going that RE does so well. If the mechanics of shooting were interesting and if they added puzzles and actual level design this could have been something, as it is now it’s a weird version of a 90s FPS with RE characters.
The presentation is mixed bag as there is no voice work, you get text on the screen. I love Code Veronica so seeing all the locations and enemies brings me back. The music taken straight from CV is of course fantastic as it has one of the best soundtracks of the series. I wouldn’t pay much to play this but at the very least I can recommend this game just as a weird footnote in the history of RE, it’s at least playable and entertaining unlike that mess of a first survivor game.
Overall score: 5
Seeing that I played this on an emulator I couldn’t play with a light gun, so I had to do the controller method which means it plays just like an old school FPS. You move and strafe around really small rooms while shooting at whatever is in front of you, since there is no gun there is no way to aim at specific parts. The game does this thing where you get a critical if you shoot an enemy up close I think, I don’t know I couldn’t figure it out. You can switch weapons on the fly and even upgrade your weapon pouch to carry more. Levels are taken from Code Veronica and it’s split in small sections. Each arcade level has to be completed in the short amount of time, the goal is to find a key and take it to the exit. The layout has optional rooms you can enter for extra ammo or health, more score, etc. So again all the elements for a score based light gun game is there but it being a poor mans FPS hurts it. It’s also over in a flash, a little over 30 minutes and arcade mode is done.
There is a dungeon mode which seems to be the meat of the game. These take random locations and make a sort of maze out of them. There is no map and rooms don’t make much sense, it’s like copy pasted random locations, your job is too keep exploring till you finish an objective like “kill the boss” or “find all gems”. This mode has exclusive enemies, bosses, weapons and offers way more content than the arcade mode. I played a few levels and they can be tough, some stages have traps, looking for health in these mazes can get that adrenaline going that RE does so well. If the mechanics of shooting were interesting and if they added puzzles and actual level design this could have been something, as it is now it’s a weird version of a 90s FPS with RE characters.
The presentation is mixed bag as there is no voice work, you get text on the screen. I love Code Veronica so seeing all the locations and enemies brings me back. The music taken straight from CV is of course fantastic as it has one of the best soundtracks of the series. I wouldn’t pay much to play this but at the very least I can recommend this game just as a weird footnote in the history of RE, it’s at least playable and entertaining unlike that mess of a first survivor game.
Overall score: 5