Resident Evil 2: A Memory and Retrospective

[Remilia Scarlet]

Guyton, GA, 2002

 

I was six years old. My older brother was asleep in his bedroom after a hard day at school. I was incredibly bored and wanted something to do other than play Spyro the Dragon. I rummaged through the PSOne games under the TV stand and sighed exasperatedly. I then decided to see what my brother had. I quietly snuck into his room and took out the box he kept his video games in. Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube. Ah, PSOne! I ruffled through the games and saw a case that caught my attention immediately. A hand with long bony fingers wrapped around a door and a vicious looking face swathed in darkness. Resident Evil 2. I grabbed the game and hastily pushed the box back in its place and made my way back to the living room. I looked at the rating. Rated M for Mature. Sweet.

 

I placed the game in the disc tray and waited for the menu to load up. I stared, enthralled, as the title sequence played out, then that iconic logo appeared. 

 

 

I quickly selected New Game and watched as the menu changed to the difficulty selection. Normal and Easy. Seeing as I had never played this game before I selected Easy. I was greeted with the most epic introduction sequence I ever saw. A gas truck exploding. People being set on fire. I was so awed I had not even noticed the game had begun when a zombie attacked me. I panicked and started mashing buttons. I miraculously survived and ran away. It took getting used to, but I eventually figured out that R1 plus X fired my gun an Square let me run. Being only six years old, I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but I was enjoying myself nonetheless. The zombies were scary and running away from them was a thrill no game up to that point had given me, even with the hardware limitations of the PSOne. I was just getting into the groove of things when my brother woke up and figured what I was playing. He gave me a stern what-for and took the game out. I complained and he relented, and proceeded to teach me how to play it properly.

 

Over the years, I have played many, many survival horror games, but the one game I always came back to was RE2. Maybe it's because it was my first experience with a survival horror game, I don't know. But it has never ceased to entertain me and I will always remember the first time I saw William Birkin transform into the hideous monster, or the first time I decapitated my first zombie. Resident Evil 2 was a lot of "firsts" for me that day, the biggest being it was my first time being frightened by a game, and I loved it. When Birkin transformed I squealed and buried my head in my brother's chest, quickly peeking to see the cutscene out of one eye. It was scary, but I loved it!

 

Resident Evil 2 did so much right. The mood was depressing and you felt it while playing. It wasn't in your face but you could feel the gloom in the air. Dead bodies of innocent victims line the streets and buildings and constantly serve as a reminder of the trauma Leon/Claire have to endure, and, as an extension, you as well. The music was foreboding and heavy without being loud and distracting, and set the mood perfectly for each setting, although I do have my personal favorites and least liked tracks. 

 

 

 

The survival aspect of the game really threw me for a loop back then, and I will freely admit that I absolutely sucked at the game. Growing up and playing it multiple times, however, I eventually learned its ins and outs and came to the point that I could beat Leon's A scenario in less than 2 hours. It was thrilling for me to play a game where I never knew if I could make it past the boss with no health and very little ammo - and most often I could not. As a child it never dawned on me that I could just run by most of the enemies and save my ammo!

 

 

When Resident Evil 2 REmake was officially announced I nearly burst with excitement. I replayed the game once again, and just finished yet another playthrough, and decided to write this retrospective. RE2 still remains the pinnacle of survival horror gaming for me, but my nostalgia for the game greatly overshadowed its flaws. 

 

The controls, while greatly improved over their predecessor, have not aged well. While the DualShock version does enable the use of an analog controller, it does not allow free 3D movement a la Spyro. The character must still be moved the same way as if using the D-pad, and with the analog stick's 360 degrees of rotation, it can be a jarring experience and will lead to multiple deaths. Fortunately, the DualShock version does not force analog control. 

 

 

Character interaction is still cringy and the dialogue is still laughably bad, though less ham-fisted as its predecessor. There are no "Claire sandwiches" here, but Leon is most definitely a master of unlocking. I do give props to the translation team for making a much better script than the first game, because no matter how awful the dialogue is in RE2, I can still play it for hours, unlike the first game.

 

That said, the endless backtracking in the game can get tiresome and boring. One of the most annoying things in any game is backtracking over and over, and RE2 is no exception. There are multiple doors that require several trips around the police station in order to be unlocked and as a child it most definitely tested my patience. Throughout the game you will encounter multiple keys that unlock two doors each, both of which will be far away from each other, and most likely in places you already visited over and over. This is perhaps the game's biggest fault. 

 

Resident Evil 2 is a spectacular game through and through, and one of my favorite survival horror games of all time. Dare I say it, the quintessential survival game. It is a game all survival enthusiasts must play. I am looking forward with unbridled excitement to the remake of this classic and I am extremely interested to see what CAPCOM does with it!

Edited September 1, 2016 by Rin Kagamine

[totallycrushed]

If only we could've had the glorious Pepsi® machine in the game.

[rabbit-ko]

in my opinion...
the best RE game ever made!!! the one i enjoyed the most and kept replaying even on PC emulator when my PSX died!
i hope for the remake to make its release!

[Undead Wolf]

An absolute classic! One of the best survival horror games ever created. It's influence on me growing up cannot be understated. It's still a total blast to play to this day.

 

Does anyone remember this guy?

 

 

I really hope they bring back everybody's favourite Tofu in the remake. 

[Remilia Scarlet]

An absolute classic! One of the best survival horror games ever created. It's influence on me growing up cannot be understated. It's still a total blast to play to this day.

 

Does anyone remember this guy?

 

 

I really hope they bring back everybody's favourite Tofu in the remake. 

 

Playing as Tofu was ridiculously fun, although unlocking that mode was certainly a test of skill and patience!

[Conker]

My favourite RE game, can the remake just be here already

[CrimsonWarrior90]

ah yes i remember playing it, with my uncles back 1998. On ps1 i was hooked and i love it, hope cap com does not mess it up. the remake

[MesopithecusUK]

This is a great retrospective and makes me ashamed that I haven't played any of the Resident Evil games, even on PSOne

[Ruliya]

Great writing ^^ and an interesting look. RE2 was certainly my fave of the series. I still remember getting the Demo disk with the Official UK PS Magazine back in '98. I played that demo so many times! And indeed I played the game many times . Great game, and one I look forward to playing again with the Remake.

[NetEntity]

Ah, memories. I remember getting this game in some backwater gaming kiosk - there were no licensed games or proper gaming shops in the 90s here, see, and won't ever be for a long time, until the time of PS3 and XBOX 360 - plastic case proudly bearing the "Fully Translated" label... 

Well, the label turned out to be a load of shite, as after I've brought the game home and set it into my PS1, I was greeted with not Resident Evil 2, but Biohazard 2 - that's right, an untouched Japanese version, with English voices and Japanese text... 

I've managed to get as far as the police station on my own, but the rest of the game was locked to me until I've found a walkthrough in the gaming magazine... Oh, and it had only one disc - Leon's campaign. Maybe that's why I was so interested in RE4 above all others until it came out - Leon was the only one I had any ties with.  

[The_Blackout_Kid]

I remember the day it came out was a really big deal. At the time I worked a night job (315 pm to 1145 pm) so I got my copy that morning prior to work. I was so eaten up with curiosity that I had to boot up the game and give it a spin. I only played to the point just after the gun shop owner gets scragged (Leon's game) before shutting it off. I figured since the demo let you play that already, no harm no foul, right?

 

I didn't even save my game just so I could have that "new game" experience all over again later when I could properly play it.

 

Anyway, I went to work and talked to my friend Kim about it. Kim was this big, muscular body builder type but he was a die hard geek (video games and comics esp.) He had gotten his copy too but he was more disciplined than me and hadn't opened his yet. Secretly I think he was tsk tsk'ng me for being so anxious

 

Hey, I couldn't help it, I was at home with Resident Evil 2 and too much time to kill before work 

 

We spent the rest of the shift talking about what we thought was going to be in the game, how it would play, if Chris or Jill would show up, and how this "zapping" thing Capcom put in the game would work.

 

This is one of my fondest video game memories

Edited September 1, 2016 by The_Blackout_Kid

[PostalDudeRus]

Sorry, bad english here.

When Resident Evil 3 came I thought it's best game from RE series, but after few years (when Code Veronica came out) I changed my mind about it. I still think that Resident Evil 2 is best: game did everything right, improving gameplay,story,music and desing from first game on new level. Resident Evil 3 have more "arcade" feel about it, it feels like...you can beat game in 2-3 hours + Nemesis is cool on first 5-6 runs, then he more frustrates,than scare players. Also, 2 discs feature is awesome for replay value. I still playing it sometimes, even got PC version, which is ..well..not good, comparing to original PS version.

[KiDdViRuS53]

I still go on this from time to time just because of how incredibly awesome it was. I use to watch my brothers play this when I was young and then went ahead and tried it myself and I still fall in love with this game in the series to this very day. Now that I play this so much, I have gone ahead and attempted speedruns for in which my best time was 1:20:57 (Leon A; PS1).

 

Leon A being my favourite just because of it being the easiest scenario in the game. Scenario B I was never great at due to how the items were in other locations which have ruined most of my speedrun attempts lol. Anyway, I do hope Sony do something in order to have the function to play this game as well as other many great PS Classics, hopefully streaming these runs too

[Pumpkin Head Cthulhu]

right now i am worried they are going to change it to suit the "new" fans rather than the older ones.  What is funny is that on Gamefaqs (not the best site i know) there are only 2 people insisting that making it like the original would kill the game because "fixed camera angles and tank controls are outdated". Yet their only "proof" is that they do not like those 2 things. Look at Final Fantasy 7 it is no longer a Remake but a Re-imaging, yet they keep calling it a Remake.

 

Lets hope that the REmake 2 can keep the feel of RE2 just like REmake did for RE1 and maybe we will get a REmake 3.

 

I still Remember Tofu and Fourth Survivor man those were hard mini-games. Lets not forget about getting to the Police Station without killing anything to get Brad to appear for the key.

Edited October 14, 2016 by DarkHarmonixer

[Remilia Scarlet]

right now i am worried they are going to change it to suit the "new" fans rather than the older ones.  What is funny is that on Gamefaqs (not the best site i know) there are only 2 people insisting that making it like the original would kill the game because "fixed camera angles and tank controls are outdated". Yet their only "proof" is that they do not like those 2 things. Look at Final Fantasy 7 it is no longer a Remake but a Re-imaging, yet they keep calling it a Remake.

 

Lets hope that the REmake 2 can keep the feel of RE2 just like REmake did for RE1 and maybe we will get a REmake 3.

 

I still Remember Tofu and Fourth Survivor man those were hard mini-games. Lets not forget about getting to the Police Station without killing anything to get Brad to appear for the key.

 

I wouldn't mind them keeping the fixed camera angles, but I do want the option to play with an over the shoulder perspective.

[DestroWOD]

My Story about RE is also a bit of a "love letter" in a way. 

 

I was in juvenile detention, had been there for around 6 months or so, i had an N64 at home that i had for a couple months before going there, only had a couple games including Mario 64 but i had ranted Goldeneye and some wrestling games, also played a ton of those at friend's place. Anyway, so there was that guy who was a "step 3" , wich was a ranking system we had, the better you behave, the highter you could get but at that time they where very picky on step 3. (I was a 2 myself for a long time before getting my 3 much much later) So that guy because of it had acces to a "step 3 local" where you could play N64, while us we only had an SNES. He had also acces to a sound system, personal tv/dvd player while us in the group had only a VCR. This was in 2000, around january or so. Anyway so that guy managed to get RE2, i can't remember if it was a rental or he owned the game at home or whatever. Anyway he talked to us about it and how good it was. The "fun line" was "you could kill cops in this game". Wich obviously for guys in juvenile detention looked interesting. ?

 

So when i got out of there, i rented the game. At first like everybody i was shit at it, eventually i switched my control scheme to "D" and this is what made it easier to play for me. Dunno why, anyway these days i play with the default control and im fine. Unlike many peoples i love tank controls and don't feel they "aged" at all. I like that type. Anyway back to the rental of RE2, i played for a while during those 2 days, had fun but i made it just far in the police station. Saving was on the cartridge so i didn't expect my game to still be there if i rent it again, so i didn't do it.

 

A short while afterthat,  the dreamcast, wich i also heard about in the juvenile center, was getting cheaper and cheaper, it was in 2001. My grand father bough one to me for under 200$CAD wich was not too execessive for a system at that time. The console was on the decline but PSO was still going super strong but thats a story for another time. So when i got my consol i got PSO with it (part of an used bundle) and i also bough RE3.  I remembered how cool was RE2 but the DC version was not at the store, and i had seen the third game at the video store for rental. Tough the "big monster" on the cover looked awesome so for around 30$ or less, i got that game as well. 

 

I really enjoyed it, had ton of fun. So much i wanted another RE game right away. I had already seen Code Veronica in video stores as well so i got that one and damn i loved it. Even more than 3. Then it was time to get back to 2 but again, no DC version in stores near where i live. I settle back on getting the N64 version, wich i still had the console, and i had lots of fun once again discovering that game entirely exept maybe for the fact that the graphics was very subpar compared to me now being used to the dreamcast.

 

Eventually i did find a RE2 DC version in stores. 

 

It took me a long time to get to RE1 because i had no PS1. Yup, one of the few peoples who don't associate RE with PS1 but Dreamcast. lol. Eventually i got a very cheap PS1 wich i played only a few games on. RE1, RE Survivor and Metal Gear Solid are some that i remember playing entirely. But it was hard for me to go back on a very very dated system. I didn't grew up with PS1, i had an N64 wich is superior graphically (double the bits, released 2 years later too) and by that time being used to the dreamcast i just couldn't stand the graphics. So the first time i did RE1 i had trouble apreciating, just because it didn't aged as well as 2, 3 and CV on dreamcast. The fun thing is the remake of RE1 came like 6 months later and then i LOVED that game. 

 

Nowadays i apreciate RE1 for what it is, its campiness and such, Gotta play it on an old TV tough because PS1 looks even more shit on modern TVs lol. I really wish the OG or should i say the director's cut (the one i had) would be ported to modern system. I love having the RE1 remake (or as we call it on the french side, REbirth) but i wish the OG trilogy would be released enhanced for modern systems. 2 and 3 still looks fantasic on game cube by the way, i played 2 on the Wii via backward compatibility a month or so ago.