RESIDENT EVIL 2
there was/is a romantic idea of resident evil where the original games were largely thought of as being about avoiding danger -- less action games than games about being a dainty little pixie-tank finessing your way past everything you could. while this is based in a minor truth insofar as it's always been possible, the reality is that you could just as easily blast your way thru anything you came across, with very few exceptions
the first game makes this clear enough, but the second should've put a bullet in the reputation permanently. less than an hour in you're zooming around with near three digit ammo counts, let loose in the raccoon city police department not to avoid zombies, but cull them. massacre them. exterminate them. made in heaven: let the dead bury the dead
this sets the pace aptly: louder, grittier, and glitzier. from the breakneck introduction thru back alleys and basketball courts to the dozens and dozens of colliding bodies in the RPD and garbage dump sewers, the energy's more frazzled and chaotic. bullets fire non-stop and the spartan, almost-surreal presentation of the spencer mansion makes way for something that could be described as Hollywood Normal. the angles more cinematic; the soundtrack more haunting; the lumber and sway of enemies granted more heft and reactive physicality. the evolution here is self-evident, immediate, and explosive
within that aforementioned first hour i'd stowed away near a dozen green herbs, got a sizable headstart on my grenade round collection, and found more ribbons than my entire RE1 run. if you have any amount of grace you'll be survival horror royalty before long, adorned in all kinds of beautiful Greens & Reds and armed with every implement imaginable for removing the head or destroying the brain. well aware of its own lack of restraint, the massive escalation banks on a different kind of uncertainty: that the force you're up against is immense and impenetrable and all your resources still won't be enough to take on the big guy with the gooner arm, let alone an entire city. it's about the exact kind of horror game you'd expect from someone who admittedly doesn't care much for the genre, and against all odds it mostly works
the shift also renders it less blatantly recognizable as a descendant of point&clicks. while the vestiges are still very much present, they've been more carefully obscured, and much of the navigational complexity & puzzling's been streamlined in tandem. keys are used once or twice, the map frequently tells you where to go on the first run, everything's a stone's throw away from a safe room, and you're quickly able to carry upwards of ten items simultaneously. where you could very easily imagine edward carnby rummaging thru the guard house successfully, here he'd feel like a fucking fossil when faced with the wealth of modernizations afforded to claire & leon
another major divergence is the increased focus on storytelling and showmanship. bit too yappy for me at times, and i never much cared for leon x ada, but the way setpieces and story beats are woven into the game is as good as it gets for 1998. sequences like the alligator, the birkin reveal, the chopper crash, and the (various) encounters with the tyrant in particular showcase a talent for bombast and spectacle that later games would arguably never quite top. it even manages to slip in some of the series' best quiet moments in there, with claire's relationship with sherry being especially sweet
it also introduces the recurring bit where an unassuming man generates 500 kilos of Fucked Up Mass instanteously, which is my favourite bulking routine. as a kid i remember looking up shimogama & oishi's art long before i'd actually played the game and being mesmerized by how wild the birkin designs were, and i still think birkin2 is one of the best in the series, if not the very best. much as i love snakes & spiders, full credit to the team for diving headfirst into freak shit, -- even if the eventual consequence was a guy who really wanted to fuck ada turning into a tyrannosaurus rex
it's polished in ways that go above and beyond any of the classic games aside from maybe REmake, but the downside is that it can feel a bit too manicured at times, having very few sharp edges to snag on. eventually the lack of challenge gets to a point where even the plausibility of danger goes out the window
lickers are employed with the same disruptive spirit as hunters were in the first game, but they don't pose any threat unless joined by other enemies, which never actually happens. the shutter event is used similarly with zombies complicating traversal depending on your choices, but it's heavily telegraphed and occurs far too late to matter. mr. x is a fantastic outline for an active antagonist, but he's only present after you've done what you need to in a given area. almost every addition to the formula's great, but all of them pull their punches
route b makes a lot of improvements, but its not perfect. the zapping system means you get some very fun, very minor continuity based on decisions you made as the previous character; the encounters skew harder; the resources a bit more scarce early on (except ink ribbons which i was swathed in like a fucking mummy); and there are enough differences and curveballs to keep things interesting. it's not quite as transformative as it's sometimes suggested as being, but it's certainly worth playing all the way thru to see the (true) ending with a decent rank, especially cos it's the only way to unlock 4th survivor. did you know rev(1) added a lady hunk? try to guess what she looks like before you click the link
all in all i (mostly) feel the same way i always have: exceptionally well made, but the least mechanically flavourful of the classic entries, including all the ones you hate. it's an incredibly important game for the series that still looms over it in many, many ways, and serves as a cozy oasis before a series of much coarser follow-ups, but it'll probably always be a second tier entry for me, even if i get why it's the obvious fan favourite
curious about the dreamcast's hard mode, but it doesn't sound great so if anyone knows of a decent randomizer so i can randomize where i get the near-infinite Mugnum Ammo.. i am ready to party