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'Resident Evil 2: REmake' - Good, but Overzealous

Sometimes just updating the graphics is not enough.

By CD TurnerPublished 5 years ago 6 min read
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Those are oddly placid faces for being hounded by the walking dead.

Can we accuse Capcom of selling out when Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was such a surprising success? Though I'd argue that Resident Evil 6: What the Fuck Is This? was certainly grounds for disenfranchisement. However, no game is without its flaws and critiquing a good game is not always shoving flowers up the developers ass. But a few bad mechanics doesn't necessarily weigh out the good and Resident Evil 2: REmake is certainly a contender to be one of the best remakes in the last decade.

So, let me start with the GOOD things I liked about the game. I do appreciate that they didn't clone the older, hardened Leon character model from RE4 and RE6 as a the baby-faced, fledgling police officer. He still has the Korean male popstar fem-hair thing going for him, but it seems to fit this younger model better. The voice acting isn't as stilted and comically absurd as its original property, but it isn't winning any awards either.

You call that a knife?

Now, I didn't play the original RE2 back in its heyday seeing as I was still knee-high to a facehugger. When I was older, I did watch Let's Players play RE2 and it certainly had its creepy moments but I didn't find it terrifying. Though I blame that on how spoiled I was from modern graphics and at that time, only the original RE1 had worse voice acting than its successor. But now, this remake is coming after the truly hair-raising, underwear filling RE7 and Capcom are pulling out all the stops to bring RE2 into the 21st century.

But this wouldn't be a proper review without its nitpicks and poor game mechanics. I mean, a game can be spectacular but that doesn't mean critics are going to treat it any nicer. You know why? Because we're jaded, pessimistic assholes that have to shit on your chocolate gateau. Unless Capcom wants to send me a blank check and a lifetime supply of Pocky, then I will be brutally honest about my initial feelings of the game.

Gimme a kiss!

First off, I have to say that Leon runs like he has a pogo stick up his ass. Seriously, how did he survive the police physical exam running like he just shit himself? Also, trophies. Fucking trophies and achievements for every single objective! Have we become so numb as a generation that we have to receive accolades for the most menial tasks? I half-expected to get one for watching people play the game on YouTube while scratching my ass! Way to be patronizing, Capcom. Bloop-be-doo! "Fought This Creature!" Bloop-be-doo! "Opened a Door!" Bloop-be-doo! "Threw Controller at the Television!"

My next grip is the limited inventory, because it always is. I understand that the original RE2 had such a mechanic, but it was because of the PlayStation 1 memory restrictions. "Oh, but it's realistic!" I don't play games to relive the limitations of reality, I play them to escape my own and take out my obvious rage at society as a whole by shooting fake people because I am a video gamer and therefore, must be a secret sociopath. If you really want some realism in your zombie game, hire a hitman to slap you with a bloody raw steak every time you die in the game. You might smell like a butchery, but now it's so realistic!

I'm going to say this now... I am not impressed by the "improvements" to Mr. X. At most, he has been transformed into Thano's trenchcoat-wearing cousin going out to the stock market. Somehow, I am not fearful of a slow-moving purple guy approaching Leon/Claire like he's going to ask when the next bus leaves.

Out on a Jaunty Stroll to Get the Infinity Stones

Next, why does every character besides Leon have rich facial expressions? He gets attacked by zombies, Inspector Gadget Thanos, and even a fucking mutant crocodile the size of a ship, and the best expression he can muster is one of mild surprise? Leon and Ada Wong in this game might as well be replaced with sentient blocks of tofu for all the depth their severed character arcs display. Also, if may turn into that female reviewer of games for a brief moment: Why is it that Ada's personality has been sapped out of her but the need for her impractical clothing from RE2 has stayed? Claire, at least has been upgraded from the weird scuba suit thing and shorts she was wearing in the original to jeans and red jacket, but Ada Wong is Asian and therefore must wear a slinky, oriental dress to do intelligence work. Honestly, I would have been fine with the dress if they had given her practical shoes. What is it with female characters in survival games wearing high heels!? Are you going to try to impress the zombies with your prominent booty?

One thing I did like is how they made Chief Brian Irons somehow even creepier by threatening Sherry. I mean, that sounds weird, but listen. Chief Irons's seedy story was explored in the original RE2 from a memo so in order to make his story more virtually disturbing, they'd have to display it somehow and this is where Sherry comes in. After all, RE2 is an action horror game, not a psychological horror type like Silent Hill. Do you improve on a narrative by just copy-pasting text logs from game to game? No, you find a way to integrate them into the expository scenes.

I spy with my big bulging eye...

This game's pacing is a little strange. There's sequences of puzzle-solving, fetch-quests, keycard-finding that begin to become monotonous to the point where you're begging something to happen, so it's a little underwhelming when things do happen. Honestly, Detective Thanos shows up too much and he just dissolves into a typical invincible enemy. The main sell of Mr. X in the original was that the tank controls were finicky at the best of times and space was limited, so it was a test of tension and remembering where to go. Sadly, in this game, he's just been reduced to a Pyramid Head archetype which is depressing because technically, the Resident Evil games did the menacing invincible mutant thing first in horror games.

Dr. Birkin, known as the handsome eyeball-shouldered gentleman in the photo above, is the main antagonist and we still don't know much about him for half the main story. Even in the sequences where we play his daughter, Sherry, he's more or less just a fucking weird eyeball on legs for all we know. In the later portions of the game, I'm reminded of Resident Evil: Revelations 2 because it's also a game of dodging zombies, traps, and finding keys.

After Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, I guess I should have expected a lapse in quality in terms of character depth. That's what hype does, to an extent. You think, "Oh, hey, the last game was great, this will also be great!" but such isn't the case. I'm not saying at all that it's a bad game. At best, I can give it the status of incomplete remake, but that's not to say it isn't good. The way you see it is, as always, up to personal interpretation.

horror
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About the Creator

CD Turner

I write stories and articles. Sometimes they're good.

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