That was quick. We’re only a few short weeks into 2018 and we’ve already got what looks to be a game of the year contender. Resident Evil 2 comes out on Friday and the reviews are in: the game currently stands in the low 90s on both PS4 and Xbox One on Metacritic, and that score is bolstered by an impressive number of perfect scores. Resident Evil 2 isn’t a remaster of the kind that are fairly common these days: instead, it’s a complete, ground-up remake that fully re-imagines the Ps1-era classic for modern hardware. Reviewers generally agreed that the game did an excellent job dressing up the core gameplay concepts of the original without compromising what made people love the game in the first place. This is a series that’s had ups and downs in recent years, but between this remake and Resident Evil 7, it seems to be back on solid ground.
Here’s what people are saying:
GameSpot, 9/10: Resident Evil 2 is not only a stellar remake of the original, but it’s also simply a strong horror game that delivers anxiety-inducing and grotesque situations, topping some of the series’ finest entries. But above all, the remake is an impressive game for the fact that it goes all-in on the pure survival horror experience, confidently embracing its horrifying tone and rarely letting up until the story’s conclusion. Though Resident Evil 2 has its roots firmly in the past, it reworks the familiar horrors into something that feels brand new and all its own.
USgamer, 4.5/5: The sense of fear and terror when playing Resident Evil 2 never leaves you and it’s unlike anything else I’ve encountered in a Resident Evil game previously. I’m just going to go ahead and call it: Resident Evil 2 is the best Resident Evil game in the franchise and represents a series and developer at its peak. Don’t be distracted by the pretty graphics and gore, Resident Evil 2 is straight-up dangerous.
Destructoid, 9/10: This isn’t just a touched-up re-release, it’s a full-on recreation of the original game. Some character models look completely beefed up (or in Mr. X’s case, morphed into a beefcake), a few sport interesting aesthetic changes, but nearly all of the alterations are for the better. Environmental touches like more dramatic lighting are standard fare, adding more urgency to some of the game’s myriad tense moments, but creepier enemy patterns are more nuanced. It’s all thanks to the decision to use the relatively recent Resident Evil 7‘s engine as a canvas.
…My complaints about the Resident Evil 2 remaster are minimal. An argument could be made that Capcom could have done more, but the spirit of the original has been preserved and in many cases, enhanced. I hope every legacy game in the series gets this loving treatment, as I’ll probably be playing them for the rest of my life.
Game Informer, 9.5/10: For more than a decade, Resident Evil has felt like a franchise struggling to find its identity. The seminal Resident Evil 4 put a greater focus on action, but subsequent entries lost their luster. Resident Evil 7 was a major course correction but still felt like a radical reinvention that was finding its footing. Fortunately, Capcom might have finally found the magic once again. This brilliant homage to Resident Evil 2 not only revitalizes many of the survival horror elements that put the series on the map, it paves a brilliant path for the future of the franchise.
Eurogamer, ‘recommended’: Part of Resident Evil’s challenge is weighing up the risk versus reward of travelling back through an infested area knowing full well that you may well end up having to use a healing item or spend more bullets than you can technically afford. That is, of course, part of the game’s long-lasting appeal and though this Resident Evil 2 is a beautiful and at times incredibly modern-feeling game, beneath its new and impeccably polished trappings you can still feel the beating heart of the classic and increasingly aged framework it’s built on.
But that framework is precisely what made the original Resident Evil 2 such a stone-cold classic, and though some story beats have been streamlined and some gameplay mechanics have been embellished or added to, this is a reimagining that sticks remarkably close to its source material. Even better, it toes the line between schlocky and scary that the older Resident Evil games managed so well, and does so in perhaps one of the most atmospheric settings ever to grace a survival horror game. It’s good to be back in the RPD. Just be sure to bring a pen and paper with you.
