not really a fan of the Resident Evil 2 remake from 2019
it’s absolutely competent enough, and in a landscape of non-stop dogshit AAA games, it’s not bad at all, but… was “not bad at all” ever going to be enough here? have y’all played RE2 (1998) lately? shit is incredible! the tension, the music, the backgrounds, the voice acting. it’s all bonkers good
the new thing does nearly nothing to justify its existence other than “have shiny visuals” and “not be old”. i think it is most instructive to compare this to resident evil 1’s remake from 2002. REmake has a soul of its own despite being extremely reverent to the original title. it has ideas, vision, the markings of some kind of novelty. it emphasizes and doubles down on the original design ideas without strictly repeating itself.
RE2 remake is inarguably fine, but the reason it is fine is pretty much exclusively stuff that was already there in 1998. there’s nothing here that hasn’t been said, and honestly most of the changes are for the worse.
the combat in the original isn’t some amazingly exciting action or anything, but it knew its place within the design of the original game. it lent weight and tension to the proceedings, and most importantly, there’s a learned precision to things. resident evil 2 (1998) is nothing if not considered and precise.
meanwhile, 2019 is disgustingly loose and incoherent. over-the-shoulder free-aim is such a poor fit. i can’t understand any reason it was chosen other than “this is what modern games look like”, because it leads to very boring and frustrating encounter design. the already possibly too-sponge-y enemies feel vastly worse when every bullet must be delivered from the dead space camera (need i even mention the preferred dead space camera was already an inferior imitation of the RE4 camera). a vacuous assemblage of modernity without the apparent consideration for why any of it is happening, why it fits? design?!? it’s all smoothed-over, rounded-off, generic, ill-considered now.
instead of the niche but extremely functional action in the original game, you get a mediocre wannabe action game that’s only saving grace is its banal utility. hey, no tank controls! that’s modern baby
the original game is still a masterpiece, but as far as i’m concerned this remake is largely a boringly competent cash grab that fails to justify its existence in any meaningful way
it’s quite playable, at least. i’m plugging away. i’m just a little disappointed. if RE3 is worse than this i will probably skip it. kind of a shame since i think RE3 could have used a remake a lot more