Resident Evil 2

i spent as much time screaming and running away as i did staring at leon and ada's ass. 10/10 would recommend

Great story & characters, but who needs a compelling storyline or engaging characters when you can spend hours collecting green, red, and blue herbs? I mean, let's be real, that's the real goal here. Find all of the colors and then combine them into that beautiful mix then stash them in that safe chest where you can ogle at them every time you try to sort your inventory. The zombies are just a silly little obstacles trying to stop you from building your herb collection especially that big guy with a coat chasing you everywhere for your lovely G+R+B herb product.
But seriously, the remake is amazing and the gameplay is so smooth. And those herbs? They're just so... collectible

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☑ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☑ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

Resident Evil 2 is a remake of the original 1998 game and for me is my first adventure in the series.. i have watched all the movies and now i have the complete games collection on my library. So why i don't start with resident evil 1 or zero?
It's my choice to skip them because i don't like the fixed camera angle, now that i explained my reason let jump back to my review.
This remake brings an important change for the camera , the third-person perspective retains the survival horror essence and improves it by making everything more immersive.
The story can be played with two protagonists : Leon and Claire and after if you finish one playthrough the other is slightly different and for those hungry for more content there are extra stories and a lot of challenges to complete. It's impossible to finish everything in one run or two, i decided to complete the campaigns without touching the hard achievements but more of that later in the cons section.
From the moment i entered the gas station i was impressed by the graphics ..it's a great feel to be able to play at this level of quality a game released so many years ago but now with modern textures and effects.
Character models, particularly for Leon, Claire, and the various monsters, are incredibly rendered. The facial animations are detailed and expressive.
I really liked the gore elements ,you can dismember enemies and wounds can look amazing ..there is blood everywhere and the enemies look fantastic..but they're not so smart ..you can't have both i suppose!
The tension and the fear element is present and you can really feel it, i believe its mostly due to how vulnerable you feel, but don't worry once you get to know the game areas and how to avoid enemies it becomes a lot easier.
My problems with this game was the puzzles and the stupid backtracking and the inventory management where you need to run half of the map to put a item inside an item box just to have the necessary spaces to solve another puzzle. The ammo is scarce and for greater difficulty runs you need to learn everything inside out, i also didn't like how i needed to repeat the same puzzles in my second playthrough that's lazy level design if you ask me.
In conclusion Resident Evil 2 deserves all the positive feedback it received on steam, it's a great horror game and if there are people like me who haven't played it yet ,try it and have patience because it's worth every second of your time !
My scores
Graphics 9
Gameplay 8
Story 9
Sound 10
Overall 9

Such a good game. I remember when this game was first released in 2019, I had it pirated and it would run so bad on my old PC. 40 FPS on low/medium. It looked so bad, but I had so much fun playing it. Finished it 3 times actually back then, and promised myself the next one I'll play it, it will be on a better PC.
Few years later, I bought it on Steam, and actually played it on Max settings at 100 FPS haha. And damn, it is as fun as it first was.
One of my favourite Horror games of all time. Though the game is quite old, it still looks so good. The rain, the textures, the characters, the reflections, the gore, it is an amazing game. So far my favourite Resident Evil game. Maybe Resident Evil 4 Remake will change that.
And not gonna lie, as I grew older, horror games and movies stopped getting a reaction out of me. This damn game, and its subtle jumpscares which are so damn predictible, got me so many times. I still remember this one time, recently, since I forgot most of the game. There was a zombie sitting on the bench in the women's bathroom. I was so expecting him to attack me, but he simply collpased as I got nearer. I literally stood still for like one minute trying to process what the Hell happend. I was so expecting him to jump me, but he didn't. And then there is MR X. He is not scary. But I remember playing as Claire, I was sitting in the Clock Tower room, and it was so quiet, the only thing you could hear was MR X's foot steps. Actually terrifying. lol
Overally, great game. Would recommended it to anyone who loves Zombie games, survival Horror, or just third person games. Looks great, runs great, only had a bug the entire game, and that was because I was playing on DX11. It's cheap too. And you'll get lots of content out of it, so I think it's worth buying even in 2025.
Also, small rant. I was close to finishing the game on S+ rank on Hardcore in 2 hours. I go killed right at the end. I uninstalled the game. Nope. Never gonna attempt this again. For at least the next 24 hours.

Working on the backlog
Even with AAA games we tend to have a big list of games we still need to play. And some great titles such as RE 2 can easily end up on this list. I purchased this one 2 years ago but I have only managed to play it recently. Initially, I wanted to use the word "complete" but I only did one story run with Leon from start to finish which is nowhere near when it comes to the things you can this in this remake.
Biohazard
The first RE was number 4 for me. But when it was initially released for PC... boy did it look ugly! Then we played number 5 with a friend at least 3 times. 6 was a chore and we hated it. I had enough of the series after that, to be honest, but with 7 I enjoyed it once again. In fact, RE 7 was the one where I have all DLCs. I was reluctant to continue with number 8 for some reason. I didn't like the direction they went with but the remakes were more interesting to me.
Comparison
I checked some videos and in addition to the technology (which is obviously an upgrade compared to the 1998 version) I understand they retained the A and B scenarios. Story-wise, you play the same campaign with Leon and Claire but you take different routes. In order to see the true ending you need to complete both. There are character-specific alterations so once you complete the story with Leon (scenario A) you can switch to Claire and pick the "2nd run" option already (scenario B). This is already an interesting concept, something that increases longevity and additional options / modes will be available after you have done the 2 scenarios. But more on them later.
Controls
Oh yes, no more tank controls and this also means no more fixed camera angles. Are we feeling comfortable with controlling Leon then in his fight against hordes of zombies? Well, yes and no. I mean, close-combat became more and more interesting in later episodes. I think in number 6 you could hit and even kick. There were ways to do melee combat without wasting any bullets.
But remember those games had more sophisticated enemies! We are back to walkers here, most of the time. And you have those clickers and zombie dogs that can quickly jump at you. Headshots with the zombies are a must. You can also destroy their knees and try to get around them. The game is a pure survival horror where every battle can be deadly and conserving ammo is a must!
An interesting concept while holding different firearms is to equip so-called sub-weapons. You need to hold SPACE and after that you can throw a flashbang, a grenade or just melee with your combat knife. In case enemies capture you, you don't necessarily get hurt but you have the option to use the aforementioned tools to push away the enemies. It's fun when you stab a zombie only to remove the knife later on from the corpse. Or you put the grenade in its mouth which can explode with a well-aimed shot.
Graphical evil
The game looks fantastic! Zombie come in many forms (as in body shape and clothing). Shots hitting them can chip away pieces of their bodies (heads can be blown off, hats can fly off, limbs can be torn off). The way their body interacts with the environment is just great! That includes us: for instance, imagine that we do a headshot and the zombie in front of us immediately dies but its body falls onto us. Leon feels the weight of the dead body and pushes it away with audible disgust in his voice.
Scripted evil
Some of the dialogues are as cheesy as they get. Especially, when we team up with another person later in the story. Other than that the game has a lot of cutscenes with great voice acting and 3 main locations to go through. It's best not to rush the story as backtracking can be very rewarding when you find a special keycard or any other item that allows us to access a new location (e.g. a room, a locker) with a new weapon. Upgrade parts can be found in safes that make our weapons deadlier. Our inventory is limited: be on the lookout for hip pouches to increase its size.
Longevity?
Yes, multiple playthroughs are needed for all achievements. You can do a fast run to get an S+ rank (my "casual" run granted me a C rank only) and there are achievements for completing the game on hardcore difficulty setting. So if you complete Leon's and Claire's 2nd run, too, and a hardcore walkthrough that is at least 6 playthroughs.
Then we have "The Ghost Survivors". 4 additional but short campaigns with different NPCs we met with Leon and Claire, all of whom died. These stories are a sort of "What if?" scenarios: they are all given a chance to escape and go through locations we got familiar with during the main journey. Only 3 are available at the beginning - the last is a bonus with a guy who needs to eliminate 100 zombies instead of reaching an extraction point. All these focus heavily on the action.
Any annoying bits?
Of course, it's an RE game! Puzzles can be interesting but the backtracking for a new weapon or weapon upgrade can be tedious sometimes. Going back to locations previously cleared can make some new zombies spawn or those already shot will just wake up. Even with the hip pouch upgrades, inventory limit is often reached so it's best to look for the typewriter (which allows saving) as it is usually in rooms where there is also a big chest allowing us to store what we cannot take with ourselves. Try to store these items instead of discarding them which is always an option.
I found the police station the best and most interesting part of the game and I was annoyed to meet a creature later on in the story that keeps patrolling and chasing us. It is impossible to defeat this monster but we can only immobilize it for a short period of time to escape. After progressing with the story it disappears for good and we can still return to RPD to collect anything we left behind.
Summary
RE 2 is a fantastic game. Is it better than the original? I don't know, I never played that one. Hardcore fans have probably already shared their view on this. If you liked recent entries (and don't mind switching back from the first person perspective), don't hesitate to play this one.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☑ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☑ 9
☐ 10