I'm sure a lot of you, like myself, have been secretly wishing for a truly great follow-up to the amazing Resident Evil 4. Nothing since then has quite hit that level.

Resident Evil 5 - Actually I liked it, but it was definitely not on the level of 4. Especially late in the game when it devolves to a weirdly controlled shooter. When I think of it as a multiplayer side game it feels like a neat experiment. But it's no 4.

Resident Evil 6 - Never played but I heard it sucked.

Resident Evil Revelations - Pretty fun, but kind of inconsistent. Some brilliance at times (especially during Jill parts), some mediocreness at times (especially during non-Jill parts.)

Resident Evil 7 - I'm playing it right now, it's really awesome, but it's not really much like 4 at all. More like old style Resident Evil reenvisioned in 1st person.

Other Resident Evil games - ???

So now we have the Resident Evil 2 remake. Realistically... it probably won't be the truly great follow-up to the amazing Resident Evil 4 I keep hoping will exist someday, but it does look like it is drawing inspiration from 4, especially in the camera and controls. Even if they go all out with the remake it will probably still feel more like a new take on the old style Resident Evil, being that it is based on old style Resident Evil, maybe something that feels a bit like 7 but with the controls of 4? But hey, anything even close to 4 is a good thing in my book.

Anyway here is the gameplay trailer:


And a walkthrough of the entire demo (spoilers I guess?!)


Looks sickkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.

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@TriforceBun You're already almost as far as me, lol.

(I would play more but it's not the type of game Shirley likes to watch...)

To be honest I found Mr X the most scary when he was first introduced and I didn't understand how he operates. Now it's like basically as long as he doesn't corner me he's not that big of a deal, because he is actually kind of slow and you can always flash grenade him if need be. I'd rather be stuck in a room with him than a licker.

Don't get me wrong though, he still makes things tense as fuck. Especially when you ARE in a room without much space to maneuver and only one way out and you hear him stomping around outside of it. You always have to be thinking about him. Though again, worse comes to worse, flash grenade. I'm running low on them though.

I actually expected him to break through walls more but apparently outside of cutscenes and such there is really only one place he can do that... and he never did it there for me.

@TriforceBun lol, yep. Thankfully the game actually pauses when you look at your inventory/map, which is a huge relief. One thing I really thought was neat, is that (especially if you play with headphones), you can listen for Mr. X's footsteps, and are able to tell where exactly he is relative to your position/room, which can help you figure out what path to take in order to avoid him It's pretty neat stuff.

I think I'm pretty close to the end now, at the laboratory and just poisoned the greenhouse.

What's funny is that I think when I last posted, it was the most intense part of the game. Stuff was crawling all over the mansion, I was low on all supplies and I had little idea of what to do next. But now, I'm feeling pretty well-equipped and ready to take on the endgame. I suppose most REs are like that in the last sections.

All in all, this game has been a great time so far. I'd probably put it on par with the REmake, making it tied for my second-favorite in the series. I think it improves on a lot of RE7's (already a decent game) decisions and I haven't even tried Claire's path yet, much less the harder difficulty, etc. I do think the core fight-or-flight gameplay in games like this and REmake is a bit of a crap-shoot--sometimes I have no idea whether to shoot zombies or run, and making the wrong decisions can either leave you crippled for a good while, or result in halls and rooms full of foes. It's a little bit up to chance at times for my tastes. Also, the music is really, really subtle, and I kinda miss the atmospheric stuff in REmake and (to a lesser extent) RE4. Really helped give the locations a sense of place, and heighten the scares in some spots (and made the save rooms feel like a brief sigh of relief).

Looking forward to finishing it up! I'll probably play Claire's mission after a few months.

I beat Leon's mission. Really good game overall and looking forward to playing more!

BRING IT TO SWITCH, CAPCOM, YOU INSCRUTABLE BUTT-HOLES

@TriforceBun You're further than me!

I did play a few hours more last night though. Now I'm up to the NEST, which, don't spoil it for me, but I imagine must be pretty close to the end of Leon's story.

Gotta say, the Ada stuff in the sewers did not really do it for me, felt a bit too trial and error for me and I died more there than I did the entire rest of the game, so I was a bit down after my last session a few weeks ago, wondering if the police station would be the undeniable high point of 2 like the house is in 7, and if it would all be downhill from there. But the rest of the sewers redeemed that area, it's actually a pretty interesting way you have to progress and the gameplay was all pretty great. Introduced those new creatures too, and they are pretty darn intense, especially if, like me, you rarely have the ammo to take them head on.

Hmm, funny thing too, that room where you get the flamethrower and queen / king pieces after the long stretch of the new sewer monster thingys is probably a pretty easy room in general right? I mean, there is only a single zombie in it. But I got there with literally a single handgun bullet left and no other ammo (and definitely didn't want to backtrack since I left a few creatures alive in the previous room), so I could do nothing against a zombie. And the room is a bit of a puzzle with closing and opening gates, not too hard to figure out once you have some space to think but with a zombie following you around and no way to stop it and not a lot of room to maneuver, it is easy to panic and get cornered and hurt. So after getting attacked a few times I was like F it, lured him up the stairs and down the other stairs and WAYYYY out into the previous room... but I think the AI doesn't want him to actually leave his starting room, because it was super hard to get him to follow me out and I only made it happen by having him lunge at me RIGHT in the doorway. And then the door closed behind him but instead of continuing to follow me he immediately pounded the door open and went back (complete with the sound effects that accompany a zombie breaking through a door), except leaving the room I was in to smash into an empty room... never saw that happen before! Anyway, I had no choice but to run past him, get attacked, keep running and at least this time he stayed up near the top of the stairs while I did the puzzle although I kept hearing him the WHOLE TIME and was never quite sure where he was at any given moment so it was stressful.

Yeah, way more stress in that room that was probably intended, since just a few more bullets would have made short work of him.

Of course, once I got the flamethrower I got to finally take him on and watch him burn. So satisfying!

Finally picked up this game again after putting it down for like a month or so.

I put hard mode with the original soundtrack and it works waaaaay better than I expected! It's awesome hearing the original music and it still works great with the new visuals.

Hard mode feels like a good challenge as every enemy feels a lot scarier due to being much more dangerous. Zombies take a LOT of damage. You feel so lucky when you get a quick headshot now. I have yet to face any Lickers as I ran away from the 2 scripted ones so far. And I'm really not looking forward to some of the boss fights.

A part of me wishes the remake just kept the original music as is. I feel it works really well. Feels so good to have area music again. Music that continuously plays in a room or two, it gives that place so much more character.

Quiet videogames that lack persistent music is such a worrying trend.

I think I'm near the end of Leon A, just finished the east wing of the NEST, and the west wing is already at a dead end. Definitely a boss fight coming up soon.

It just occurred to me that I never got the Magnum. And I have 17 bullets for it! I'm pretty sure it was that gun in the office in the police station right? I probably can't go back and get it now can I? I haven't tried to leave the NEST, not sure if it is possible.

I'm hearing that Claire B isn't even that different from Leon A? I thought B was like a "harder" mode but it seems like it isn't really, more or less the same level of challenge and most of the same stuff with a bit different? I'll still play it but that would be disappointing if so.

What? Claire and Leon's games are pretty different, a game B would feel especially so. I mean generally it's the same game but there's definitely some remixed stuff, things are switched up a bit, and you have some parts which are entirely different.

Claire B would feel pretty different for sure. It's harder too.

Once you're at the Lab I don't think there's any turning back. It was in the STARS office.

You should have checked your map!

@carlosrox I knew it was there! I just, for some reason, thought I didn't have the right thing to unlock it because it needs a usb stick, which you need to inspect the badge for and it pops out of the top? I guess I need to inspect things more!

I even got the upgrade for the magnum which uses the badge without the usb trick, just not the magnum itself! I think that threw me off because I just assumed that was the only use for the badge, although I guess the fact that it (probably) doesn't have that red checkmark you see when an item is done being used should have clued me in to it still needing to be used again for something.

Honestly, if I knew it was the magnum I probably would have worked harder to make sure to get it, but I just saw its name, which does not have the word magnum in it, and for some reason thought it was just like a slightly better handgun or whatever.

Well, whatever. 95% of the time in Resident Evil games I don't use the magnum until the end boss and it makes the end boss way too easy anyway. I'll just need to fight a bit harder at the end this time.

It's good to hear that Claire B is worth it. I mean, I was going to play it anyway, but I keep hearing mixed accounts of how different / hard it is.

I know you knew it was there. I just meant you should have checked your map to make sure you had everything you needed before leaving. But I guess you thought you needed something you didn't have.

You gotta check every item duuuuuude! REmake should have taught you that! Even this game makes it rather obvious!


Did you find out on your own or did you look it up?

@Zero

This is great because it's pretty much exactly what happened to me. I wasted all my bullets foolishly thinking there was an actual end to those G-Adult Sewer Monsters or whatever immediately prior to the room, so the single zombie in what might be the game's most complicated puzzle was a real thorn in my side.

I ended up managing to lure him out myself, allowing me time to stumble through the puzzle. It made the finale when I cooked his goose with my new flamethrower all the more satisfying...!

Beat Claire on the 2nd Run too. All in all, a really solid 9/10 game for me. I wasn't as thrilled with the side modes because I don't think this game translates into action all that well, but I'd say it's overall a strong title on par with that other classic RE remake.

@carlosrox Well, I just assumed I would get the Magnum later in the game, so I kept moving forward. Only recently was I like hmm, I don't think there is much left here, I must have missed it and THEN it clicked that it was probably that gun I missed long ago. I just assumed the way to it was some convoluted thing involving some of those password lockboxes I never figured out so I kept moving forward, not realizing that I already had everything I needed.

But yeah I looked it up.

@TriforceBun TWINSIES.

Finished Leon A! I'm pretty happy with most everything that took place although I feel like the ending was a bit... easy? I guess that is the nature of games like this, I save as much stuff as possible so by the end I usually have more than I need (though I didn't have a whole lot of good ammo... except for the Magnum which I never picked up, heh... but I had a TON of health.) Birkin final form actually tried me a bit, but the escape / Mr. X battle were pretty easy. I guess I expected more hordes of zombies and such during the escape?! I mean yeah that wasn't true in the original but this is a remake, why not?! Actually after the final battle there are zombies blocking your way out and I was like oh yeah, shit is about to go down... still had a few rockets left, shot one and cleared out the zombies at the door in a single hit, ran into the next room ready to go nuts on the rest of them and... there was no rest of them, that was it?! What a waste of potential, I still had two rockets left!

I started Claire B as well, only got maybe a half hour in but yeah it is definitely a change! Actually I'm still kind of confused how all of this Leon A / B and Claire A / B stuff works. I was still under the impression that Leon and Claire have two very different A stories, and the B versions are just harder versions of the A with some extra stuff? So in my mind, for instance, Leon A and Leon B have more in common than Leon A and Claire A? But it seems the opposite? Claire B starts pretty late into the Leon A scenario so I was curious how Claire A works, skimmed through the first half hour or so, and it looks almost exactly like Leon A, which is very different than the first half hour of Claire B? I know there are some differences between the two A versions but it seems like regardless of who you pick, a lot is the same... whoever you pick explores the gas station, goes into the police station through the front door, meets Marvin, etc. whereas Claire B just starts in a different spot, you end up getting into the police station through the side door, Marvin is dead before you get there, etc.

Anyway yeah so it seems Claire B starts about an hour into Leon A's start (which makes no sense in some ways, since you meet at the gate like 5 minutes into Claire B, but from Leon's perspective there was an hour or so of work to get to that point, so... what was Claire doing that whole time?! She came right to the station!) And it is already a lot more intense than the start of Leon A... ran into a licker already, saw the video of Mr. X already, etc. Also the middle lobby area is already not a safe area, not to mention it has no save point or weapons box! Should be interesting. I have heard that it has less content than A for early stuff (seems like it just throws you into the mix faster) but there is more content than A later on.

I really, really want to see a full brand new game in this engine though. But they will probably do 3 remake first. Which I'd be down for. But do an original eventually!

Hmm, for some reason on Claire B, even when I have a knife equipped, it never lets me use it as a defensive item on a zombie? Or am I just getting unlucky? Does the option only work sometimes? Like maybe depending on how you are grabbed?

Anyway Claire B is definitely harder than Leon A, I'm pretty much always running around with little to no ammo! Though I was just reading about how some people use the knives on zombies that have been knocked down or are already on the ground and I'm like... duh? Why didn't I think of that?! Apparently the knife doesn't take much damage that way either, it is only using it defensively that it takes off big chunks of the knife's durability.

@Zero

I think if you're grabbed from behind, the knife won't work, but it should be an option with normal grabs from the front. Not sure what the issue might be if not that. I remember Claire B feeling tougher at first, but I gradually got back in the swing of things after the first third or so.

Oh it was probably just being grabbed from the back then, I know FOR SURE that was it one of the times because I was in a tight spot (the second floor of the lobby down one of the side paths) and the zombie girl was facing away from me and I got really close and she still didn't notice me so I was like fuck it, I'm going for it!







...and I made it, somehow!

And then I got cocky and tried the same thing again later on literally the same zombie woman and she grabbed me good from behind.

As for the rest, I think it is an awesome game start to finish, but for Leon I actually felt like the last area was the easiest area in some ways, because by then I had a decent amount of ammo and such built up. And it would probably have been even easier if I had actually acquired the Magnum and got to use the 17 bullets for it that I had laying around!

I'm not totally sure what I want the late game in survival horror style Resident Evil games to be like. If they ramp up the action too much it starts to feel less survival horror and more action horror... I think the last few areas of 7 suffer from this. If they don't ramp it up enough, especially if you save up a lot of resources, it feels a bit too easy. I wonder if it would have felt more intense if they had saved Mr. X for the end area, and he stalked you through the NEST. But then, he really works best in the police station the way it is designed. I dunno. Maybe some new enemy that is pretty intense to deal with. The plant zombie thingys are too slow to really feel like much of a threat, so it mostly feels like the end area is just dealing with stuff you already know how to deal with and then this new thing that isn't that tough.

@Zero That is one thing which I find a little disappointing about REmake 2 - the A and B-scenario connectivity is less thorough here than it was in the original. There's a couple more stuff to see later in the B scenario that you would not be seeing in said character's A-scenario (so definitely stick with Claire B, instead of trying to play through Claire A), but it feels kind of like a few new things/changes thrown together at the last minute, compared to how the original RE2 had actually significantly different encounters depending on which character you chose first. I still love REmake 2, but when I think of issues I have with it, the lessened A/B scenario connectivity is the main gripe of mine which comes to mind.

And yeah, you can't use a defensive item if you're attacked from behind, so be sure to watch your back :3


EDIT: Also, definitely inspect every item you get! That USB badge thing is the big example, but in general, Resident Evil games that let you inspect items to such a degree, will often have hidden stuff that you can only find through inspecting said item in 3D. It only takes a few seconds when you first get said item, and it's worth getting into the habit of doing. Lastly, you hit a point of no return right before NEST; both Leon and Claire's games explicitly state that you're hitting a point of no return when you do, so that's the perfect time to go back and search for any missing items you might have overlooked before proceeding onward.

EDIT2: I think it's just a series tradition to have the game gradually become more action-packed toward the end; even going back to the very first Resident Evil for the Playstation, that has been a thing. I think it's because they're aiming for a wish-fulfillment scenario, where you struggle early on, then eventually become better-prepared and equipped, and then are able to show the monsters who's boss :3 I like it, personally.

Played a bunch last night, stopped right at the part where you play as the little girl in Claire B.

It's been an interesting playthrough. In some ways it's tougher, but since you kind of know how to deal with a lot of what could be thrown at you and there aren't a whole lot of surprises, in some ways it is easier. I was a little worried about taking on the first boss since I was low on ammo but after a few of those fire grenades and a regular grenade he didn't have much left in him.

I'm guessing Claire B is supposed to be set slightly later in time than Leon A (although it can't quite be connected to the Leon A timeline... it must just exist in its own timeline?) This would explain why you run into Leon so fast, while in Leon A that takes awhile to get to. Also would explain why Mr. X shows up faster. And there are some small details that back this up too, like the fact that the dogs are all dead from well... either Leon or the Lickers by the time Claire gets there.

Mr. X is around a bit more this time around, and he seems faster to me (though that could be my imagination), but honestly once you know how he operates he isn't that hard to deal with.

It's still a great game but on a second playthrough you kind of know how to deal with the enemies it will throw at you and really there aren't a whole lot of types of them to mix it up much. I mean, you figure out zombies and lickers and dogs (though none in Claire B so far, they're all dead) and Mr. X and there isn't much else to think about until the sewers. Kind of surprised they didn't add in anything else new like the crimsons from the first remake.

Also I learned some techniques that have been helping on my second playthrough, the main one being stabbing at bodies on the ground... if they are going to rise in the future they will rise right away when you stab at them, so you can take them on one at a time without them all rising at the worst possible moment. And you can get a few knife stabs in before having to put some space in between you as well.

There are a few points where this doesn't work though. Most notable to me was the morgue. Knowing which one was going to wake up, I tried to just pull out the slab a little and stab at its feet to get it to wake up while it was still stuck in there and couldn't really get out. My plan was to kill it by attacking its feet with a knife before it died. Well, not only did it not wake up, its feet fell off, lol. But that ended up being just as good in some ways, because it made it so I could mostly ignore it when it did wake up and just do what I had to do and get out of the room.

That's one cool thing about the game, yeah there aren't a whole lot of different enemy types, but there are various ways to deal with the zombies. For instance, I love hitting a group of them with an acid round because it will melt their feet off and then they have to crawl around (mostly) helpless. Fun stuff.

Playing Hardcore finally. Nice challenge. Some parts seem short tough so far. I've gotten back to the Police Station after dealing with the dogs in the basement.

Playing now with the original music and I swear it's just a better experience this way. That classic music easily "holds up". The atmosphere is so much better with it. The game feels less quiet and sterile with the old music on. And the tracks are still creepy as hell. Would love the (or an) RE1 remake to do the same. Would be great.

Where do you go to set the original music? I didn't see that anywhere?