Broadly speaking, challenge design in video games tends to revolve around one of two concepts, let's call them "newness" and "oldness." We can represent these two schools with opposite ends of the spectrum: an entirely contextual puzzler like Myst, where your ability to progress is synonymous with your ability to synthesize unfamiliar information, and a single-screen arcade game like Tetris, in which every possible mechanical outcome is immediately apparent and instead it's on the player to react to a rapidly changing state. Though these are extreme examples, as a general rule newness-focused games are less enjoyable when they become old, and oldness-focused games are less enjoyable while they're still new. Unless you manage to wipe your memory, there's not much to get out of Myst on a second run, and, conversely, the foremost tenant of traditional game design is to limit newness as much as possible- Tetris's extraordinary staying power is thanks to it accomplishing this more effectively than any of its peers. Resident Evil is unique in that it's disjointedly designed to harness both newness and oldness: your first playthrough centers around figuring out your goal, hunting for supplies, and traversing the unknown, and everything that follows sees you using your preexisting knowledge of Spencer Mansion's layout to route through it as efficiently as possible. Functionally, that's why there's two protagonists with slightly diverging paths, so a higher percentage of players will complete the game more than once and thus experience both sides of the medallion. It's also why the remake's addition of crimson heads is downright transformative. At first, they're another layer of obstacles that takes you by surprise, even if you've played the original game, and, on revisit, the sense of paranoia that they induce becomes a major wrinkle in how you approach the game's opening hours. Crimson heads are spooky when you don't know they're coming, and they're still spooky when you know they're coming, which best sums up the game's two-way design philosophy. What makes Resident Evil special even among other games that attempt something similar (Super Metroid and Dark Souls come to mind) is that, outside of getting used to its tank controls, there's pretty much no motor skill required. Cover to cover, it's entirely a brain game, and, at its best, it can feel like a constantly shifting set of puzzles and solutions.

I've never much cared for the original Resident Evil 2, mostly because of how it upsets the balance between newness and oldness. My theory is that Kamiya & co. didn't think they could pull off both without feeling derivative of the first game, and instead decided to focus primarily on the new. The RPD HQ is gorgeous but its long, looping hallways make it so there's usually a "correct" path to take at all times, and it's still by far the most well designed of the three locations you visit. Weapon upgrades, puzzle boss fights, and that one window shutter mechanism are all neat but don't feel like they add much to the experience on a deeper level, and the addition of a dedicated "B" campaign means that the newness continues into a replay- let's not forget that Tyrant originally doesn’t show up until your second run. With twenty years of available technological improvements, I fully expected 2's remake to pile on the newness even further, and ink ribbons not being present in the intended difficulty (which is kind of absurd in its own right) was an early sign that I might’ve been correct. But, surprisingly, I enjoyed my second run much more than my first. Part of this is because the added newness often misses- some cool puzzle elements are overshadowed by too many predictably cinematic moments, and everything that happens while transitioning between locations is pretty awful. The boring Ada & Sherry sections, that bizarre crocodile chase that feels straight out of RE4 (in a bad way), having to dodge G’s claws for like five minutes before getting to fight him in the sewers, and that melodramatic “my daughter’s a zombie” cutscene that feels straight out of The Last of Us- getting reminded that people care about, like, the overarching story of Resident Evil always gives me a bit of whiplash. Despite the sewers being significantly streamlined from the original, this stuff breaks up the flow even more egregiously because of how smoothly things were going directly beforehand. But, for me, the game’s lowest point came when I was killed by a licker for the first time and was immediately greeted with a loading screen tip that told me to walk slowly, which canceled out any potential newness that lickers might’ve offered and ensured that I was virtually never bothered by one ever again. That is, until I ran into a licker while I was being chased by Tyrant- forcing you into a situation where you have to modulate your movement speed is a good example of how the game eventually starts to shine. While I prefer the precise, robotic nature of the earlier games’ tank controls, RE2’s remake embraces the scramble. Planning and strategizing, here, are less fun than going in gung-ho, kneecapping zombies on reflex, and picking up items out of desperation rather than out of foresight. It feels like a full realization of the original game’s more action-focused dreams that weren’t attenable in ‘98: being able to damage individual body parts, enemies that are free to move into adjacent rooms, and having to listen for groans and footsteps while running for your life all make for an intense, fast-paced siege and help to alleviate the more linear level design even if they don’t totally make up for it. Does it come close to either version of RE1 for me? No. But it’s a damn good entry in the series. And, most importantly, it transformed a game I never clicked with into one that I ended up enjoying. If that doesn’t qualify it as a great remake, then nothing ever could.