RESIDENT EVIL II [2019] STEAM PC REVIEW

🏆  MASTERPIECE  🏆

The positive:

💗 A masterclass on complete overhauls & might be the best Remake ever made

💗 Modernized graphics & gameplay while retaining the beloved original elements

💗 Close encounters with zombies & horrifying creatures keep adrenaline rising

💗 There is incredible attention to detail both creative design & visual art are supreme

💗 Superb atmospheric presentation keeps players invested

💗 There is a ton of incentives to keep playing the game after completion

The negative:

👎 You need at least an RTX 3080 for stable 60FPS at 4K/RT ULTRA

👎 Mr. X keeps gameplay fresh but suffers from execution flaws

👎 Occasional pacing issues that make certain sections boring

👎 Some puzzles are not properly executed leading to frustration

Resident Evil II is a masterclass on how to do a complete overhaul while retaining the elements that made the original so beloved, it's a great remake of the 1998 classic. Many argue it's the best Remake ever made. Full of impressive visuals, grotesque creatures, sharp gunplay, and an effective plot. Capcom has taken one of its greatest triumphs and successfully modernized the franchise, the potential for future entries keeps getting brighter and more exciting.

HORROR MASTERCLASS

The remake keeps the original narrative frame while introducing new and creative ways to deliver exposition and strong protagonists with proper character arcs. RE2 takes place in the zombie-infested Raccoon City. The story follows rookie cop Leon Kennedy and college student Claire Redfield, who is looking for her brother, Resident Evil protagonist Chris Redfield. 

The game adds tension by making its zombie hordes a resilient and menacing force unlike anything seen in the series before. Once fallen, zombies can quickly rise again. There is a strong focus on high-fidelity action, gore, and violence. It has a very mature realistic approach to horror and this helps propel the combat. The player is grounded in a space and makes threats feel real, even horrifying.

HUNTED

About halfway into the game, Umbrella deploys a Tyrant into Raccoon City called Mr. X, a special bioweapon meant to wreak havoc and withstand the toughest conditions. When Mr. X arrives at the police station,  the entire exploration dynamic changes. He will hunt you and follow you everywhere, chasing you from room to room until he can grab you by the neck and snap your bones. During my 1st playthrough, I have not quite got how the logic of this guy worked, so it turned into some frustrating and game-breaking situations, like trying to place an item into place only to be crushed by Mr. X at the last minute, and that led to some boring repetition. After you get the hang of the AI behind the monster it's easy to navigate around him. 

The game’s bizarre puzzles take me back to my teenage years while sprinting from room to room in search of a diamond-shaped key for a diamond-shaped lock. While RE2's many puzzles root the game to the original, everything else is gloriously modernized. The police station is beautifully, gruesomely realized. Some rooms are dark as night, lit only by the blaze of your flashlight. Emergency lighting reflects off the water in flooded hallways. There is piled-up office furniture blocking pathways everywhere, and it’s all very realistic-looking.

CLAIRE MILITARY CUSTOM DLC

As dumb as it is for me to pay even a cent to unlock a skin for a game Character, playing as Claire with the military custom, made the whole experience more real for me, as a Female Civilian blasting her way on places where many trained security forces perished was a hard sell for starters. But that military custom with the STARS patch on it made sense for me, and the infinite ammo MP5 and Handgun helped me to replay the game several times without grinding for bullets and ITEMS.

CONCLUSION

The graphics and the creative design are the main features here. Inventory management is a mini-game inside the game that kept me compulsively optimizing the space and making fast decisions about which ITEMS to keep or store. There is a ton of incentives to keep playing the game. After completing the 1st and 2nd run with both characters, I got a cheap DLC to activate all unlocks. I was done with the game by that time, but I kept coming back. I have like 120+ playtime hours on STEAM on this game, given it's a linear single-player story, that is a LOT! And that's indicative of the replay value CAPCOM throws at their faithful fanbase.