Revelations 2 serves as Resident Evil's introduction to the 8th generation of gaming, but in many ways, it feels somewhat stuck in the past. After the extremely polarizing Resident Evil 6, Capcom intended to bring the series somewhat back to its roots, while also taking inspiration from popular contemporary zombie games such as The Last of Us. This can be seen in both the story and game design, with Revelations 2 taking surface-level elements from each and attempting to integrate them into RE's world setting and design philosophies. The result is not necessarily bad by any means. Still, it results in a game that, while a step in the right direction for a franchise with a lack of real identity at the time, can't help but feel derivative and unoriginal. In comparison to Revelations 1, Revelations 2 trades a memorable, tense atmosphere for much more fluid and polished gameplay, resulting in a game that has some of the most smooth and fluid combat in the franchise. Combat feels good to engage with, the dodge is much more fined tuned and feels less like random chance, and feels like perhaps the most pleasantly modern take on RE's action horror game design. Enemies attack fairly with properly telegraphed attacks and the game hardly ever feels unfair. The new stealth mechanic is hardly deep, featuring the most basic of enemy detection and hiding, but I found it to be an entertaining and welcome change. It is revision over reinvention, and I won't lie seeing the design philosophy that felt so fresh in RE4 be used in three subsequent games without major changes begins to grow tiring. Unfortunately, what bothers me is that a lot of Revelations 2's new inclusions feel superfluous as if the series is once again chasing trends. Mechanics such as crafting aren't necessarily new to the series but their inclusion here is functional but needless, failing to add depth or nuance to the gameplay. Despite this, Revelations 2 feels fluid to play, and while the slower pace feels nice coming off of RE6, I just wish that Capcom had gone the full mile and either made it a proper survival horror game or at least found new ways to reinvent the action horror formula the series has milked for so long. Not many complaints gameplay wise, here.
Raid Mode has been somewhat improved over Rev1, with the grind being reduced and the level design more consistent, but I find that it has very little staying power compared to any mercenaries mode. I had fun with the five or so hours I spent with it, but after realizing quite a lot of the maps were just increasingly more difficult versions of one another, the mission based structure of Raid just doesn't feel like a good fit. The weapon attachment system is once again just stat-boosts and don't fundamentally change how you use them, and if you end up sticking to just one character like I did so you could actually advance in Raid mode, if you want to play any other character you have to grind them all the way back up from level 1. It feels like chores rather than the plug-n-play nature of mercenaries, and I just didn't have fun with it despite its improvements.
The game's story was primarily written by returning writer Dai Sato, who previously worked on Revelations 1. I found that game's story to be ridiculous, nonsensical, and more over the top than RE6's, and while I didn't care for Rev2's story much, I can say I could at least take it seriously for the most part. Where the writing succeeds the most are the character interactions, which while dosed with healthy amounts of RE cheese, are pleasant and entertaining. Claire and Moira's back and forth bonding is often amusing and Barry's caring, older dad persona with Natalia is heartfelt and adorable. Claire is somewhat out of character, with her unable to talk to children like Natalia, despite being portrayed as a mama bear for most of her duration in the franchise. Other than that however, I enjoyed Moira's young adult angst even if she swears like a sailor, and the reinvention of Barry's personality as a gruff, older father who is perhaps too tough but comes from a place of genuine love is extremely fitting. What I don't like however, is the virus of the week story, a concept I grow increasingly tired of. While T-Phobos has a potentially fascinating concept of reacting to human fear, unfortuantely I find the game never defines how it works very well and misses out on making it truly scary. Is Capcom seriously telling me that Moira, someone who has never been in a bioterrorism situation and refuses to even touch a weapon didn't mutate into an afflicted at any point in the story? Since Claire and Moira are infected from the get go, why not use this to play with their perception of reality akin to games like Hellblade? Revelations 2 never makes full use of this concept, leading to the fear element to be underbaked and a simple gimmick to make T-Phobos stand out, which it does not. Alex Wesker isn't a very memorable antagonist and if it weren't for that iconic last name she would be yet another eugenicist for the pile. There's an interesting memo where she compares herself to Gregor Samsa from Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, but that's about as much characterization she gets. Revelations 2 might not be downright nonsensical like Revelations 1, but its a story that while improved does very little beyond the bare minimum.
If there's anywhere where Revelations 2 outright flops however, its the visual presentation. Rev2 really doesn't look much better than the console versions of Rev1, also resembling an enhanced 3DS game. However, Rev2 was developed first and foremost for consoles and PC, and when RE5, a game that released 6 years prior on the same systems looks at least ten times better than Rev2, there's a huge problem there. Character models look weirdly flat, with reduced detail compared to RE6, which was a game that already reduced character detail compared to RE5. Facial animations are simple and choppy, resembling puppets rather than people speaking. Texture quality is highly variant, with clothing on characters featuring pin-sharp detail but many parts of the environment looking almost like low-quality JPEGs. The game struggles heavily with outdoor environments, with the mountanous rocks that populate the island being little more than poorly textured and flatly modelled geometry. Piles of trash even resemble brush geometry from the original Half-Life. Indoor environments do fare better, and I enjoy the urban exploration vibes it presents, but they don't feel very lived in, rather just rooms where a couple of dressers were thrown around in. If there's any tech positives, its that the FXAA works well with the simplisitc visuals, producing less shimmering than other MT Framework games. The FMVs are much nicer however, while they do animate somewhat stiffly and the facial animation could use some work, they're leagues better than the game's actual presentation and I have to wonder how close the game could have looked like that with a proper budget.
Revelations 2 also feels extremely artistically pedestrian, if not a bit tryhard even. The game's monster designs for example are simply creatures with gory visages wrapped in barb wire with creepy smiles and stitched together apperances. Some of them such as the iron heads even blatantly rip off other, more creative games, such as Silent Hill 2's Pyramid Head. While I enjoy the vibes of abandoned buildings out in the forest, I can't pretend like its anywhere near as memorable as the Queen Zenobia from Rev1. The game just isn't very scary, because while it can produce a competent atmosphere its just simply things I have seen before in much better games. Areas like mutant Alex's hideout simply try too hard to be scary, with impaled dolls and "spooky" graffiti adorning the halls. Things like this prevent the game from being scary or even memorable, as its clear Capcom wants to scare its players again, but perhaps has forgotten exactly how.
At the very least, the soundtrack is often quite good, certainly better than Rev1's often unfitting score. The composition team wanted to metaphorically represent iron and water with their music and I'd say they achieved that goal admirably. From the droning electronic synths of the prison, to the Akira Yamoka-esque industrial grinding and pounding, to pulse pumping action tracks when needed, Revelations 2's soundtrack is up to the task. While it's somewhat reliant a bit too much on traditional horror compositional technique, such as rising violins for tension, they feel like much less of a crutch like they did in Rev1. Raid Mode even gives us a sick remix of RE6's Heat on Beat 2012, which I might even prefer to the original. Distant Memories, the game's results theme, is perhaps one of my favorite "safe haven" themes in the series, with its orchestrial flourishings while keeping the water-like production of the original Revelations.
Revelations 2 was undoubtedly a step forward for the series after RE6's poor action heavy exercize in excess. It's fluid action horror gameplay, entertaining character dynamics, slower pace, and effective soundtrack make it an entry that RE fans should check out, especially with how cheap it often goes on sale for. However, the game's lack of genuine scares, lack of invention, mediocre and trite story, poor visuals, uninspired aesthetics, and still-overly-grindy raid mode prevent me from recommending it more broadly. Both an improvement and a downgrade over Rev1, Rev2 still manages to be a decent, short romp nonetheless.
Raid Mode has been somewhat improved over Rev1, with the grind being reduced and the level design more consistent, but I find that it has very little staying power compared to any mercenaries mode. I had fun with the five or so hours I spent with it, but after realizing quite a lot of the maps were just increasingly more difficult versions of one another, the mission based structure of Raid just doesn't feel like a good fit. The weapon attachment system is once again just stat-boosts and don't fundamentally change how you use them, and if you end up sticking to just one character like I did so you could actually advance in Raid mode, if you want to play any other character you have to grind them all the way back up from level 1. It feels like chores rather than the plug-n-play nature of mercenaries, and I just didn't have fun with it despite its improvements.
The game's story was primarily written by returning writer Dai Sato, who previously worked on Revelations 1. I found that game's story to be ridiculous, nonsensical, and more over the top than RE6's, and while I didn't care for Rev2's story much, I can say I could at least take it seriously for the most part. Where the writing succeeds the most are the character interactions, which while dosed with healthy amounts of RE cheese, are pleasant and entertaining. Claire and Moira's back and forth bonding is often amusing and Barry's caring, older dad persona with Natalia is heartfelt and adorable. Claire is somewhat out of character, with her unable to talk to children like Natalia, despite being portrayed as a mama bear for most of her duration in the franchise. Other than that however, I enjoyed Moira's young adult angst even if she swears like a sailor, and the reinvention of Barry's personality as a gruff, older father who is perhaps too tough but comes from a place of genuine love is extremely fitting. What I don't like however, is the virus of the week story, a concept I grow increasingly tired of. While T-Phobos has a potentially fascinating concept of reacting to human fear, unfortuantely I find the game never defines how it works very well and misses out on making it truly scary. Is Capcom seriously telling me that Moira, someone who has never been in a bioterrorism situation and refuses to even touch a weapon didn't mutate into an afflicted at any point in the story? Since Claire and Moira are infected from the get go, why not use this to play with their perception of reality akin to games like Hellblade? Revelations 2 never makes full use of this concept, leading to the fear element to be underbaked and a simple gimmick to make T-Phobos stand out, which it does not. Alex Wesker isn't a very memorable antagonist and if it weren't for that iconic last name she would be yet another eugenicist for the pile. There's an interesting memo where she compares herself to Gregor Samsa from Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, but that's about as much characterization she gets. Revelations 2 might not be downright nonsensical like Revelations 1, but its a story that while improved does very little beyond the bare minimum.
If there's anywhere where Revelations 2 outright flops however, its the visual presentation. Rev2 really doesn't look much better than the console versions of Rev1, also resembling an enhanced 3DS game. However, Rev2 was developed first and foremost for consoles and PC, and when RE5, a game that released 6 years prior on the same systems looks at least ten times better than Rev2, there's a huge problem there. Character models look weirdly flat, with reduced detail compared to RE6, which was a game that already reduced character detail compared to RE5. Facial animations are simple and choppy, resembling puppets rather than people speaking. Texture quality is highly variant, with clothing on characters featuring pin-sharp detail but many parts of the environment looking almost like low-quality JPEGs. The game struggles heavily with outdoor environments, with the mountanous rocks that populate the island being little more than poorly textured and flatly modelled geometry. Piles of trash even resemble brush geometry from the original Half-Life. Indoor environments do fare better, and I enjoy the urban exploration vibes it presents, but they don't feel very lived in, rather just rooms where a couple of dressers were thrown around in. If there's any tech positives, its that the FXAA works well with the simplisitc visuals, producing less shimmering than other MT Framework games. The FMVs are much nicer however, while they do animate somewhat stiffly and the facial animation could use some work, they're leagues better than the game's actual presentation and I have to wonder how close the game could have looked like that with a proper budget.
Revelations 2 also feels extremely artistically pedestrian, if not a bit tryhard even. The game's monster designs for example are simply creatures with gory visages wrapped in barb wire with creepy smiles and stitched together apperances. Some of them such as the iron heads even blatantly rip off other, more creative games, such as Silent Hill 2's Pyramid Head. While I enjoy the vibes of abandoned buildings out in the forest, I can't pretend like its anywhere near as memorable as the Queen Zenobia from Rev1. The game just isn't very scary, because while it can produce a competent atmosphere its just simply things I have seen before in much better games. Areas like mutant Alex's hideout simply try too hard to be scary, with impaled dolls and "spooky" graffiti adorning the halls. Things like this prevent the game from being scary or even memorable, as its clear Capcom wants to scare its players again, but perhaps has forgotten exactly how.
At the very least, the soundtrack is often quite good, certainly better than Rev1's often unfitting score. The composition team wanted to metaphorically represent iron and water with their music and I'd say they achieved that goal admirably. From the droning electronic synths of the prison, to the Akira Yamoka-esque industrial grinding and pounding, to pulse pumping action tracks when needed, Revelations 2's soundtrack is up to the task. While it's somewhat reliant a bit too much on traditional horror compositional technique, such as rising violins for tension, they feel like much less of a crutch like they did in Rev1. Raid Mode even gives us a sick remix of RE6's Heat on Beat 2012, which I might even prefer to the original. Distant Memories, the game's results theme, is perhaps one of my favorite "safe haven" themes in the series, with its orchestrial flourishings while keeping the water-like production of the original Revelations.
Revelations 2 was undoubtedly a step forward for the series after RE6's poor action heavy exercize in excess. It's fluid action horror gameplay, entertaining character dynamics, slower pace, and effective soundtrack make it an entry that RE fans should check out, especially with how cheap it often goes on sale for. However, the game's lack of genuine scares, lack of invention, mediocre and trite story, poor visuals, uninspired aesthetics, and still-overly-grindy raid mode prevent me from recommending it more broadly. Both an improvement and a downgrade over Rev1, Rev2 still manages to be a decent, short romp nonetheless.