I feel really, really good when I walk away from a game and I realize I can't think of a single thing that I disliked about it. Not one! Everything here, from top to bottom, is a complete delight. There was once a time where the Capcom logo at the start of a game was an immediate sign of quality, and then a time after that where it was the sign that you were in for something middling, and the pendulum has now firmly swung back towards the side of quality. It's been so long since I've seen something execute both the building and the relief of tension this well. Resident Evil 2 rules.
Where to even start? The design of this game is masterfully crafted around player expectations, both presupposed and taught. Zombies that tank enough bullets will collapse motionless to the floor, and it's impossible to tell if they'll get back up again without you spending/wasting a resource for peace of mind. Corpses that litter the ground will sometimes sit there for hours as you walk past them over and over again, and then leap at your ankles the very second you break into a sprint. Safe rooms are havens where you're completely protected from the walking dead around you, but only mostly; some safe rooms can be invaded by zombies and made unsafe, and it's never clear if or when this will happen until the exact moment that it does. Every scare, every moment of suspense, and every little victory over the undead felt so completely earned. There were countless times that it felt like I could have been the one behind the controller for the E3 teaser footage; I'd solve a puzzle, run down a hallway into a horde, uselessly empty a magazine into them, sprint the other way, and slam my face into Mr. X's chest. Some of the scripted moments were a lot more obvious than others — previously absent monsters will literally spawn in from nowhere solely for the sake of a scare — but it never feels cheap in the moment. Through some theoretical lens of objectivity, it might literally be cheap, but it helps to build the sense of dread and the catharsis of the inevitable scare so well that I couldn't possibly care.
The sound design is some of the best I've ever heard in a game, especially in recent memory. There's something primally satisfying about hearing a bullet casing clatter across the floor in time with the booming of your pistol echoing through tiny, cramped hallways, ending in the disgusting, wet squelch of a zombie's head exploding in a shower of gore. Footsteps over the police department's wooden floors come with such soft, warm clunks and creaks that it's easy to forget you're playing a horror game until you hear something shambling in the adjacent room. Water trickles and sloshes in the sewers in a way that makes it sound as if something is rising out from the muck to grab you. There's a sterile, fluorescent buzz lingering over every room in the laboratory. When this ambience gets broken by the reports of guns or the shrieks of zombies, you feel it. Your enemies do, too. Managing sound is such an important factor of gameplay; being too noisy will attract more and more foes to your position in a vicious cycle until you smarten up, save your ammo, and stop sprinting through every room. You're punished hard for being careless, and it forces you to soak in the atmosphere of these areas. Nothing has satisfied me nearly as much as the soundscape of flicking the lights of a safe room on and hearing the theme music swell.
Gunplay is tense and heavy, and you're robbed of even having a reliable melee attack to fall back on now that knives are breakable. Loot is both sparse and too plentiful; long droughts without any new items will eventually be met with more than you can carry, and something is going to need to be left behind or used up. The set-piece puzzles are often incredibly simple to solve, but there's a stronger metapuzzle (and please forgive me for using the term "metapuzzle" unironically) in here of inventory management, ammo economy, and enemy placement that persists throughout the entire game. Your solutions of bullets and grenades and combat knives get rid of the problem of zombies in front of you, but you're so limited in these supplies that it requires that you weigh up which enemies you're willing to leave alive, and which need to die right now. Obviously, this is the basis for most every survival horror game, but the way that all of these pieces fit together here is immaculate.
The story is schlock, who cares. It's the worst part of the game and entirely inconsequential. I do like Leon's character a lot, though. There's something endearing about how hard this baby-faced dumbass preaches about being a just man and how a good cop ought to help innocent people, and then is left completely disillusioned when he sees how hard everyone in a position of power willingly ruined the lives of every civilian in Raccoon City. It's hard to keep his character in a bubble here, knowing that he later goes on to be the Biggest Baddest Secret Service Super Soldier Ever™, but he's unambiguously a sweetheart if you limit your scope to this game.
There's so much to love here, and so little to hate. Resident Evil 2 is an incredibly easy recommendation to make, and it proudly screams that Capcom is back at the top of their game. Let's hope they stay there for longer than they did last time.
Where to even start? The design of this game is masterfully crafted around player expectations, both presupposed and taught. Zombies that tank enough bullets will collapse motionless to the floor, and it's impossible to tell if they'll get back up again without you spending/wasting a resource for peace of mind. Corpses that litter the ground will sometimes sit there for hours as you walk past them over and over again, and then leap at your ankles the very second you break into a sprint. Safe rooms are havens where you're completely protected from the walking dead around you, but only mostly; some safe rooms can be invaded by zombies and made unsafe, and it's never clear if or when this will happen until the exact moment that it does. Every scare, every moment of suspense, and every little victory over the undead felt so completely earned. There were countless times that it felt like I could have been the one behind the controller for the E3 teaser footage; I'd solve a puzzle, run down a hallway into a horde, uselessly empty a magazine into them, sprint the other way, and slam my face into Mr. X's chest. Some of the scripted moments were a lot more obvious than others — previously absent monsters will literally spawn in from nowhere solely for the sake of a scare — but it never feels cheap in the moment. Through some theoretical lens of objectivity, it might literally be cheap, but it helps to build the sense of dread and the catharsis of the inevitable scare so well that I couldn't possibly care.
The sound design is some of the best I've ever heard in a game, especially in recent memory. There's something primally satisfying about hearing a bullet casing clatter across the floor in time with the booming of your pistol echoing through tiny, cramped hallways, ending in the disgusting, wet squelch of a zombie's head exploding in a shower of gore. Footsteps over the police department's wooden floors come with such soft, warm clunks and creaks that it's easy to forget you're playing a horror game until you hear something shambling in the adjacent room. Water trickles and sloshes in the sewers in a way that makes it sound as if something is rising out from the muck to grab you. There's a sterile, fluorescent buzz lingering over every room in the laboratory. When this ambience gets broken by the reports of guns or the shrieks of zombies, you feel it. Your enemies do, too. Managing sound is such an important factor of gameplay; being too noisy will attract more and more foes to your position in a vicious cycle until you smarten up, save your ammo, and stop sprinting through every room. You're punished hard for being careless, and it forces you to soak in the atmosphere of these areas. Nothing has satisfied me nearly as much as the soundscape of flicking the lights of a safe room on and hearing the theme music swell.
Gunplay is tense and heavy, and you're robbed of even having a reliable melee attack to fall back on now that knives are breakable. Loot is both sparse and too plentiful; long droughts without any new items will eventually be met with more than you can carry, and something is going to need to be left behind or used up. The set-piece puzzles are often incredibly simple to solve, but there's a stronger metapuzzle (and please forgive me for using the term "metapuzzle" unironically) in here of inventory management, ammo economy, and enemy placement that persists throughout the entire game. Your solutions of bullets and grenades and combat knives get rid of the problem of zombies in front of you, but you're so limited in these supplies that it requires that you weigh up which enemies you're willing to leave alive, and which need to die right now. Obviously, this is the basis for most every survival horror game, but the way that all of these pieces fit together here is immaculate.
The story is schlock, who cares. It's the worst part of the game and entirely inconsequential. I do like Leon's character a lot, though. There's something endearing about how hard this baby-faced dumbass preaches about being a just man and how a good cop ought to help innocent people, and then is left completely disillusioned when he sees how hard everyone in a position of power willingly ruined the lives of every civilian in Raccoon City. It's hard to keep his character in a bubble here, knowing that he later goes on to be the Biggest Baddest Secret Service Super Soldier Ever™, but he's unambiguously a sweetheart if you limit your scope to this game.
There's so much to love here, and so little to hate. Resident Evil 2 is an incredibly easy recommendation to make, and it proudly screams that Capcom is back at the top of their game. Let's hope they stay there for longer than they did last time.