3/5 ★ – jamoygali's review of Resident Evil 2.

Just finished the first run through with Leon. Honestly, i was kind of in love with the atmosphere and exploration aspects of this game. Its perfectly setup to give that mystifying vibe, where you don’t know exactly what lies behind each corner, and your vulnerability is ever more enhanced by scarce resources and knowledge. The puzzles were simple and to the point, and the sound design was spectacular. You can hear the floorboards creaking above you, only trodden out by far footsteps, desperately trying to keep you on your toes at all times. Even while solving puzzles, or examining at items in your inventory, you can hear the faint shuffling in the room next you, with light thunder roaring in the distance. And easily my favorite part of the game, is Mr. X, or the Tyrant if you will. He is so bone chillingly threatening, that I would actually tense up every time I turn a corner and hear his footsteps pace louder and louder. And the fact that this mechanic was implemented AFTER thorough exploration of the map? Genius. You’re traversing the known halls and map not out of tedium anymore, but with a new, eerie mechanic that only heightens the tension. My only gripe with Mr X was the ending battle with him was rather anticlimactic. Yes, it ends in explosions, but it almost seems like the game to me is insecure about its endings. Like its just screaming EXPLOSION without actually having any depth or stakes to it. The ending overall was rather rushed and watered down at this point with over-exaggerated action set-pieces. This last act was a bore in comparison to what came prior. And that segues into my next point, which is the story. The story is kind of doodoo. Especially the characters (and their dialogue 🤮). Look, I get it, I’m sure it’s just trying to be faithful to the original, in terms of narrative, character, etc. But damn, I cannot go more than one minute without cringing at what Leon or Ada have to say! Even their climactic moment where they both kiss made literally no sense and had no setup nor buildup. I guess you could argue that it was within Ada’s motive to lull him in order to manipulate him, but it isn’t in service to what may seem like a broader and larger story. I just wish they had literally fleshed out the characters more, and made them actual human beings! In my opinion, it’s totally fine to deviate from the original’s writing, as long as it is in service to its new medium in an effective way. The atmosphere in this game is so dark and eerie, but anytime it cuts to a character cinematic or dialogue sequence, it’s horribly contrasted with these campy, predictable, one-liner characters. I honestly just felt like I was watching a bad horror movie at this point, where I was more inclined and excited to skip the cutscene and move on to the gameplay. There are no dimensions given to either of these characters, and I feel like if both characters were fleshed out and given real personalities, this game would’ve been a near perfect horror game for me. But really, I can only immerse myself through the atmosphere and gameplay rather than its one-dimensional story and character. I’m definitely gonna play Claire’s side of the story, but these are my thoughts as of now. Update: I just played Claire’s side of the story. Can’t believe imma say this, but my disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined (ly reviewbrah ❤️). It really seemed like Claire’s side of the story was branching into a totally different path within the first 30 minutes or so. I saw that her exploring the same paths that Leon went through was interesting, even though it bugged me a little bit with its consistencies, but I let it pass. I wondered, where could her story go from here? Will we explore new buildings? Investigate new secrets and puzzles? See how her story coincides with Leon? No. You get pretty much the same exact run through of Leon’s. What was expected to be a different path, turned out to be the exact layout, puzzles, and even bosses that Leon had gone through. Nothing made sense continuity-wise, and EVEN if I tried really hard to think about and piece together how Claire could have gone through the same branching paths of puzzles and lore, the consistency of environment and timing was just too off-putting to be immersed again. Seeing something I did as Leon, and doing the EXACT same puzzle with Claire was NOT fun, in fact, I felt myself just rushing through to get to the stupid plot of a story this was. I was severely disappointed in almost every aspect of Claire’s gameplay. Even her arsenal of weaponry was lackluster, everything besides her grenade launcher was either too weak, or too slow to reload. Hell, even my favorite part of the game, Mr. X, felt essentially bogged down, and felt more like an annoyance rather than a compelling game mechanic. All in all, this game still holds that special charm of that first 3-4 hours of exploration and atmosphere, but is quickly swept away by its shallow story telling, character, and repetitive nature (specifially in Claire’s run). 3/5 cya later kiddo, I’ll probably play Resident Evil 3 after a while once I forget about its core mechanics and refresh my taste with something different