Kinda bought this on a whim expecting to kinda like it but wow Resident Evil 2 was great. I played through Leon A and Claire B within a few days - like this is the most I've played video games since 2020.

Great combat and level design, the tight hallways combined with the ray tracing make a good argument for the RE engine being one of the best engines out right now. Everything is disgustingly beautiful, which really helped to make Resident Evil 2 actually scary at times. Bullet sponge enemies aren't usually at all fun but here it just adds to the overwhelming dread where you really feel like the last survivor in the apocalypse. The puzzles were fun enough, they weren't necessarily difficult but they felt satisfying to solve, or rather to obtain the items necessary to open a door. The few boss fights sprinkled throughout were challenging and fun, but they lacked the on the toes puzzle solving that really makes for a great boss battle - but some of these designs are so sick that it doesn't really matter.

Story wise, Resident Evil 2's tongue and cheek corniness help to make for a near perfect tone that overtakes the generic story present. Leon and Claire are both fantastic but most of the supporting characters are pretty unmemorable - even Ada who I understand becomes a recurring character throughout the series.

At a certain point this game did become a bit tiresome though - particularly with the repetition of enemy types and how drawn out the ending was - but never to the extent that the experience felt spoiled. Overall, as a newcomer to this franchise, Resident Evil 2 was really great - and since I drunk purchased every other mainline game in the franchise aside from 5 and 6 I guess I'll be stuck with this series for the next month of so.

I've never played Resident Evil 3: Nemesis so my disappoint here doesn't come from this serves as a remake but more as it serves as a remake of Resident Evil 2. Sure, all the things that make Resident Evil 2 are here - the game feels great, the game looks great, the game sounds great (probably better music) but everything that Resident Evil 2 exceled at is lacking here. Hardly any exploration or puzzle solving, it's mostly a linear roller coaster that occasionally will give you a street to vaguely explore - but here they really smother you in resources. Never once did I feel overwhelmed by the enemies because I always had at dozens of bullets at my disposable, and combined with the sheer amount of save rooms and checkpoints really make Resident Evil 3 pretty easy and not at all scary.

Nemesis is lame as hell. Annoying and not at all scary - just a worse Mr. X that became very tiresome from literally the opening. That being said, the second to last boss fight with the fella was pretty fun and challenging, but the actual final boss fight was such tacked on bullshit that it really soured the game overall - like the last 20 minutes or so was such a slog. Speaking of which, the first half an hour or so is also pretty terrible, like you don't go more than a few seconds without a cutscene at points - which have literally no tension cause like you cant exactly die in a cutscene. Man.

Also for how short this was it feels very bloated somehow. Maybe it's because of the repeated locations and lack of enemy variety - especially coming from 2 where everything felt fresh. The ending suffers from this the most where these flat characters are spewing the least charming one liners against some major bullshit. Also Jill and Carlos were pretty boring protagonists. I mean, Carlos is kinda funny at times and I probably enjoyed his sequences the most but he's still generic military man at the end of the day.

Oh well. From what I know this seems to be the black sheep of modern Resident Evil, so hopefully I'll enjoy the other games a whole lot more. On to 7 next. Or 1.