I'm just warning you now, this entire review is all complaints. I have almost nothing really positive to say about this game. I stopped playing after the first half of Episode 3. There is a TL;DR at the bottom as usual.
1) Skill Points
Why is there a goddamned SKILL SYSTEM in my Resident Evil? Who thought this was a fun design choice? Just because Shinji Mikami put it into his shiny new horror game a year before doesn't mean it'll work just as well in yours, Capcom.
Another big issue I have with the Skill system is that they use BP, but BP is the SAME currency you use to unlock bonus art/figures/etc in the main menu, basically making you choose one over the other during your first run, and of COURSE, you're gonna use them for Skills, why WOULDN'T you? In the same vein, why even bother waving these collectibles in my face? Who in their right mind would sacrifice BP for skills to use for a collectible I'll only look at once or twice? Stupid design. It's also really plain bold of them to assume anyone would bother playing this game a second or even third time to accrue the BP necessary to comfortably spend them on collectibles AND Skills.
I know the game is balanced around you chunking BP into Skills, making the game I guess supposedly better to play? For example, your Evasion window without any upgrades to the skill is TINY. Monster Hunter has more forgiving dodge frames by default. Even after putting some points into the skill, the proper timing for a good Evasion still feels really off. I had an issue like this with Oneechanbara Z2 Chaos as well actually. The Skill system also seems to encourage some bizarre strategies, such as swapping partners, and then immediately back again to get a damage boost for your first shot fired after switching partners. So am I just supposed to be CONSTANTLY swapping Partners in between every single shot so I can get the most optimal damage? Or how about another one giving you higher damage for firing while crouched? So I have to turn around, run a decent ways from the enemy, turn, and then crouch for the bonus damage? That'd be a pain in the ass! I really wish they had just cut that junk out let me invest 3000 BP into a 10% general damage buff instead. Give it to me straight if you HAVE to put some half-baked Skill system into your game like this.
This all reeks of them KNOWING the Skill system is inane but them trying to spice it up anyway; like taking a plate full of shit and sprinkling some Italian seasoning & salt on it, as if that will somehow make the shit on the plate more palatable.
I despise it.
2) Partners
Moira
Every time I played an episode, it was the Claire/Moira half I always became increasingly frustrated with. Swapping to Moira whenever I need to focus a flashlight beam on some sprinkle in a dark corner is an annoyance. I get she has trauma with guns, and that's why she doesn't have one. And you know what? That's fine! Having characters with different backgrounds and personalities is good! But Capcom REALLY couldn't come up with anything better for her other than fucking flashlight duty? It feels tacked-on, so much so that I'd almost swear to have a Partner wasn't originally planned, but then they hastily shoved it into the game at a late stage for...whatever reason.
In regards to the flashlight, the mechanic (taken straight out of Alan Wake) where Moira can focus the flashlight beam to stun/slow an enemy feels worthless. It takes a decade for it to stagger an enemy for just a second before they get over it and she starts it all over again. In Alan Wake, it worked because even after you burned the Darkness off (which happens faster in AW than in this one) would not only stagger an enemy, but you could also BRIEFLY make them stutter by focusing it on them again even after the Darkness had been burned off. It doesn't work remotely that well in RER2.
What really started to get over on me was also having to swap to her just to pry wooden planks off of doors just so I can swap back to Claire and sit around with my thumb up my ass. Sometimes they give you enemies to shoot while Moira does her thing, which, she will inevitably get interrupted because even with headshots, one or two enemies will get past you and interrupt her, so then you have to kill them, swap BACK to Moira, start using the crowbar again, and then switch back again to Claire to refocus on the enemies that are still coming. Oh, and if she didn't pull off the first board, it's basically just restarting the whole thing, so you have to wait even longer. It isn't even very difficult, but it's an absolute NUISANCE. Also, her melee swing doesn't really do shit. It has garbage range, trash damage, and doesn't present itself as being worth investing BP into. She's 1000x more annoying than Sheva or Ashley EVER were from a gameplay standpoint.
A non-gameplay-related issue I have with Moira is just her as a character. She acts like a child. She is 20 years old. She is a grown adult college-aged woman, but she talks & sounds like an angsty 15-year-old highschooler. I absolutely cannot stand it. Almost every time she opens her mouth I wish she'd just close it.
Natalia
Alternatively, whenever I played as Barry/Natalia, I barely ever have to swap to Natalia. It's so much less frequently required for me to swap to her that it doesn't bother me in the least. Shiny sprinkle in the darkness? Barry has a flashlight, got it. Gotta bust down a wall with the Drill? Barry's got that too!
I can mostly forget she's there. She's so unobtrusive as a partner but is still actually useful by being able to see enemies through walls. She still has to be the one to open chests, but since she's pretty useful otherwise, I don't mind as much. Just as well, Natalia's brick throws are a LOT more useful than Moira's melee swing since it's ranged. I swear the stun damage is more too but I can't (and won't bother to) properly confirm this again.
3)Other Things
Inventory
I don't have a problem with the inventory space itself or swapping items between characters. What bothers me is this: Why can I only hold 1 Empty Bottle per inventory slot while I can have a whole stack of Exploding Bottles? The same goes for Cloths, Gunpowders, etc. The base ingredients can only be just ONE per inventory slot, but then the crafted items can collect into a stack. It's inconsistent and is a constant pain.
Evasion Goofs
I mentioned this above when talking about the Evasion move, but I'll reiterate again that the dodging feels very dodgy, and not in the kind of way you want it to. Even after putting BP into the Evasion skill, it was still funky. Sometimes I'd dodge moves I was FOR SURE I wouldn't actually dodge, and other times get hit by attacks I was sure I'd properly dodged.
Weird One-Off
Another weird thing that happened, really only during this one occasion, was during a certain boss fight. The boss was on a catwalk and attacked me with a stretchy grab attack THROUGH the bottom of the catwalk. And this wasn't just a part of a boss-only part of the arena, you can walk ON that catwalk DURING the boss fight. But his arm magically phases itself right through it to grab you? Kinda whack, but easily my least-important gripe.
TL;DR
This game seems promising but has many design-related nuisances and odd inconsistencies that would grate on my nerves more and more as time went on. If you enjoyed Resident Evil 4, 5, and Revelations, I say avoid the fuck out of this game. The issues it has are not worth suffering for the little good the game has, as they pervade the main gameplay aspects of the game, constantly.
The issues this game has are akin to a rat dying in your attic, and you start to smell it throughout certain rooms in the house, but you don't know where it's coming from, and no amount of air freshener will mask it for very long. At least in the case of the dead rat, you can locate & remove it from your attic, but you can't fix this game.
1) Skill Points
Why is there a goddamned SKILL SYSTEM in my Resident Evil? Who thought this was a fun design choice? Just because Shinji Mikami put it into his shiny new horror game a year before doesn't mean it'll work just as well in yours, Capcom.
Another big issue I have with the Skill system is that they use BP, but BP is the SAME currency you use to unlock bonus art/figures/etc in the main menu, basically making you choose one over the other during your first run, and of COURSE, you're gonna use them for Skills, why WOULDN'T you? In the same vein, why even bother waving these collectibles in my face? Who in their right mind would sacrifice BP for skills to use for a collectible I'll only look at once or twice? Stupid design. It's also really plain bold of them to assume anyone would bother playing this game a second or even third time to accrue the BP necessary to comfortably spend them on collectibles AND Skills.
I know the game is balanced around you chunking BP into Skills, making the game I guess supposedly better to play? For example, your Evasion window without any upgrades to the skill is TINY. Monster Hunter has more forgiving dodge frames by default. Even after putting some points into the skill, the proper timing for a good Evasion still feels really off. I had an issue like this with Oneechanbara Z2 Chaos as well actually. The Skill system also seems to encourage some bizarre strategies, such as swapping partners, and then immediately back again to get a damage boost for your first shot fired after switching partners. So am I just supposed to be CONSTANTLY swapping Partners in between every single shot so I can get the most optimal damage? Or how about another one giving you higher damage for firing while crouched? So I have to turn around, run a decent ways from the enemy, turn, and then crouch for the bonus damage? That'd be a pain in the ass! I really wish they had just cut that junk out let me invest 3000 BP into a 10% general damage buff instead. Give it to me straight if you HAVE to put some half-baked Skill system into your game like this.
This all reeks of them KNOWING the Skill system is inane but them trying to spice it up anyway; like taking a plate full of shit and sprinkling some Italian seasoning & salt on it, as if that will somehow make the shit on the plate more palatable.
I despise it.
2) Partners
Moira
Every time I played an episode, it was the Claire/Moira half I always became increasingly frustrated with. Swapping to Moira whenever I need to focus a flashlight beam on some sprinkle in a dark corner is an annoyance. I get she has trauma with guns, and that's why she doesn't have one. And you know what? That's fine! Having characters with different backgrounds and personalities is good! But Capcom REALLY couldn't come up with anything better for her other than fucking flashlight duty? It feels tacked-on, so much so that I'd almost swear to have a Partner wasn't originally planned, but then they hastily shoved it into the game at a late stage for...whatever reason.
In regards to the flashlight, the mechanic (taken straight out of Alan Wake) where Moira can focus the flashlight beam to stun/slow an enemy feels worthless. It takes a decade for it to stagger an enemy for just a second before they get over it and she starts it all over again. In Alan Wake, it worked because even after you burned the Darkness off (which happens faster in AW than in this one) would not only stagger an enemy, but you could also BRIEFLY make them stutter by focusing it on them again even after the Darkness had been burned off. It doesn't work remotely that well in RER2.
What really started to get over on me was also having to swap to her just to pry wooden planks off of doors just so I can swap back to Claire and sit around with my thumb up my ass. Sometimes they give you enemies to shoot while Moira does her thing, which, she will inevitably get interrupted because even with headshots, one or two enemies will get past you and interrupt her, so then you have to kill them, swap BACK to Moira, start using the crowbar again, and then switch back again to Claire to refocus on the enemies that are still coming. Oh, and if she didn't pull off the first board, it's basically just restarting the whole thing, so you have to wait even longer. It isn't even very difficult, but it's an absolute NUISANCE. Also, her melee swing doesn't really do shit. It has garbage range, trash damage, and doesn't present itself as being worth investing BP into. She's 1000x more annoying than Sheva or Ashley EVER were from a gameplay standpoint.
A non-gameplay-related issue I have with Moira is just her as a character. She acts like a child. She is 20 years old. She is a grown adult college-aged woman, but she talks & sounds like an angsty 15-year-old highschooler. I absolutely cannot stand it. Almost every time she opens her mouth I wish she'd just close it.
Natalia
Alternatively, whenever I played as Barry/Natalia, I barely ever have to swap to Natalia. It's so much less frequently required for me to swap to her that it doesn't bother me in the least. Shiny sprinkle in the darkness? Barry has a flashlight, got it. Gotta bust down a wall with the Drill? Barry's got that too!
I can mostly forget she's there. She's so unobtrusive as a partner but is still actually useful by being able to see enemies through walls. She still has to be the one to open chests, but since she's pretty useful otherwise, I don't mind as much. Just as well, Natalia's brick throws are a LOT more useful than Moira's melee swing since it's ranged. I swear the stun damage is more too but I can't (and won't bother to) properly confirm this again.
3)Other Things
Inventory
I don't have a problem with the inventory space itself or swapping items between characters. What bothers me is this: Why can I only hold 1 Empty Bottle per inventory slot while I can have a whole stack of Exploding Bottles? The same goes for Cloths, Gunpowders, etc. The base ingredients can only be just ONE per inventory slot, but then the crafted items can collect into a stack. It's inconsistent and is a constant pain.
Evasion Goofs
I mentioned this above when talking about the Evasion move, but I'll reiterate again that the dodging feels very dodgy, and not in the kind of way you want it to. Even after putting BP into the Evasion skill, it was still funky. Sometimes I'd dodge moves I was FOR SURE I wouldn't actually dodge, and other times get hit by attacks I was sure I'd properly dodged.
Weird One-Off
Another weird thing that happened, really only during this one occasion, was during a certain boss fight. The boss was on a catwalk and attacked me with a stretchy grab attack THROUGH the bottom of the catwalk. And this wasn't just a part of a boss-only part of the arena, you can walk ON that catwalk DURING the boss fight. But his arm magically phases itself right through it to grab you? Kinda whack, but easily my least-important gripe.
TL;DR
This game seems promising but has many design-related nuisances and odd inconsistencies that would grate on my nerves more and more as time went on. If you enjoyed Resident Evil 4, 5, and Revelations, I say avoid the fuck out of this game. The issues it has are not worth suffering for the little good the game has, as they pervade the main gameplay aspects of the game, constantly.
The issues this game has are akin to a rat dying in your attic, and you start to smell it throughout certain rooms in the house, but you don't know where it's coming from, and no amount of air freshener will mask it for very long. At least in the case of the dead rat, you can locate & remove it from your attic, but you can't fix this game.