Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 Remake Gets Revived As A Better Game
Catching lightning in a bottle is hard, if not impossible, work. Following Capcom’s announcement in 2015 that they were working on a remake of the developer’s hallmark survival horror title, Resident Evil 2, one could be forgiven for being a smidge nervous. Remakes are risky business, what with nostalgia, changes in taste, gaming hardware and more making it difficult to recapture the je ne sais quois of treasured fan favorites.
Enter Capcom’s Resident Evil 2, and they’re telling us, it’s not a remake. The new game is its own beast. RE2’s re-imagining immediately sets out to show you this isn’t your mom’s survival horror game from the first, beautifully grotesque, hyper-detailed game-engine rendered cinematic.
Full disclosure: your humble reviewer is no stranger to this franchise, and I was terrified on my first runs of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 on the original PlayStation console. Both games were revolutionary for their time in their use of 3D environments and ‘Metroidvania’ backtrackable level design. And with more than 4 million units sold for the second entry of the series, the new RE2 has big expectations on its shoulders. The PlayStation classic’s spooky ambiance and innovative camera work made up for its sometimes jarring and camp voice acting (a suspected localization issue back in 1996).
But now, gone is the static camera that was a series touchstone until Resident Evil 4, supplanted by a modern, Uncharted-like over-the-shoulder third-person view like other modern titles. No more tank controls either — they feel slick and polished, with few, if any, movement glitches or hangups (though with how modern RE2 feels, I found myself wanting for a good dodge-roll in Dark Souls fashion). Gluttons for punishment can also opt to play hardcore mode, where yes, you’ll need an ink ribbon to save your games on the old-fashioned typewriter (but only on hardcore).
Underneath the stunning graphics with nuanced facial capture, rich textures, and gorgeous volumetric lighting is tight, well-paced survival horror action gameplay and puzzle solving you’ve come to expect. Many of the classic puzzles, enemy spawn locations, and layouts of key areas of the vanilla game have been tweaked and recombined to conjure a nostalgic but still minty-fresh experience for even the most far-gone of RE aficionados.
Playing as either by-the-book rookie Racoon City cop Leon S. Kennedy or the tough but caring college student Claire Redfield, you navigate the streets, halls, and underbelly of Racoon City amid an outbreak of a virus rendering the city infested with zombies, and worse. Initially the story starts with a bang, giving us a few set piece moments before each first-story campaign (both Claire and Leon have a 2nd story unlocked upon completion of each’s first run, akin to the A and B scenarios of the original) dumps you in the iconic Racoon City Police Department and you’re left to find safety and clues. The writing in particular is of note, with concise story beats fleshed out between excellent voice acting (a welcome improvement from the 1996 entry), especially by Stephanie Panisello as Claire, and an equally competent job by Nick Apostolides (Leon). You’ll find well executed cut scenes and lots and lots of files, notes, and data entries showing us the world of RE all over again. The music works well too, with motif callbacks to the originals, an interesting blend of muted orchestra, synths, and electronica..
RE2 is an easy game to get immersed in; whether you’re trying to find the best way through a corridor clogged with growling, rotten, rain-soaked zombies shambling toward you with a hankering for cop (or college student), or trying to solve an elaborate puzzle that can only be completed with a number of key items. Time melts away in this game. My first play through was nearly thirteen hours long, and that covers just one scenario. There’s easily 30+ hours of content here if you take your time to savor this one, and loads of replayability. On normal, the difficulty feels well balanced (perhaps due to what game creators refer to as “adaptive difficulty” logic), bending up or down to always keep you fighting hard and never too comfortable. The creepy noises and eerie ambiance of RE2’s sound design too, is another tool directors Yasuhiro Anpo and Kazunori Kadoi, and producers Tsuyoshi Kanda and Yoshiaki Hirabayashi wield to great effect to not only give you spine-tingling scares but keep your mind firmly in the story.
Fortunately, you don’t have to be a lifelong RE fan to enjoy this one. RE2 does a great job of encapsulating the situation as a single-serving experience that won’t just rekindle the flames of old love with fans but ignite sparks with new ones (point of fact, this week Capcom said publicly they’ll remake RE3 if we shout loudly enough). RE2 holds its own as a singular survival horror experience, with a solid story that’s easy enough to follow, human characters we can relate to (kudos to the localization team on this one, each characters’ reactions to stressful situations are both colorful and delightfully on-point), and a thrilling final boss fight that’s tough while also being rewarding to complete. There are genuine story beats of high emotion, and the leads all have chemistry with their supporting cast. By the end, it will challenge your assumptions about some of the characters, and even makes old fans ask new questions.
So, what’s the catch? There’s a couple. If you’re coming into this expecting a “res-up” of RE2 that will play note for note like the original, you’re out of luck. RE2 2019 is a brand new game. But in my own opinion as a gaming enthusiast, it supersedes its roots. With vastly more competent technical execution and gameplay.
Overall though, RE2 2019 is a feast of zombie flesh and pulsating virally-infected … biomass, as it were, for any gamer who values a strong single player experience, fun puzzles, and exciting, sometimes stressful survival horror action. As a franchise, Resident Evil is not new to remakes (this is at least the third, if not fourth, depending on how you look at it), but it also changes the definition and scope of what a remake can be, turning the normally cash-grab ho-hum genre into something truly remarkable. With a highly anticipated (overhyped?) remake for Square-Enix’s monumental Final Fantasy VII looming over the gaming sphere, Capcom has successfully thrown down the gauntlet and challenged the industry to up its game.
Capcom has done some amazing things — righting the ship with the franchise after critically-panned fifth and sixth mainline entries to the franchise — revitalizing Resident Evil, but this reimagining is a moment to savor. We can only hope the trend continues (and with free DLC on the way, it seems Capcom is eager to deliver) and we see more content of this grade. The game serves as an excellent entry point into the series and genre as a whole, and is a must-play for anyone even remotely into third-person action adventure/puzzlers.
With that said, see you later, rookie.
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Kay Inoue is a correspondent photographer covering conventions and cosplay for Nerd Caliber, and a dedicated Twitch streamer / gaming entertainer. Follow her gaming antics on Twitch here.
