If Resident Evil (2002) is the grea𓄧test vid🏅eo game remake of all time, Resident Evil 2 (2019) is the second꧒-best video game remake of all time. It does an♉ excellent job reimagining Resident Evil 2 for a modern audience while keeping the spirit of the🐻 original game intact. This is Resident Evil 2 and it was easily o💮ne of the best games to come out this ๊past year.
But it’s also not necessarily better than its s�🎃�ource game in the way Resident Evil (2002) was. Resident Evil 2 (2019) changes quite a lot abouꦜt the game it’s remaking. Perhaps too much. It gives the remake a very strong identity of its own, but it’s hard not to𝓡 scratch one’s head at some of the changes Capcom made to the game.
10 Removing Zapping
The original Resident Evil 2 thrived off of its Zapping System, a gameplay concept that allowed players to influence fꦓuture playthroughs. Leon and Claire both had an A scenario that would then branch into the other character’s B scenario. Leon A led to Claire B and Claire🅺 A led to Leon B, but all four scenarios have their own unique story & gameplay beats.
It’s quite substantial for a PlayStation 1 game so fans were naturally eager to see it come back. Unfortunately,𒊎 it seems Capcom never had any interest in bringing Zapping back, choosing to instead condense the entirety of Resident Evil 2 into four incredibly similar playthroughs.
9 Ada And Leon
Ada in the original game basically acts like a civ🌸ilian who’s clearly hiding something, but she and Le𝄹on otherwise manage to strike up a decent enough relationship. Or so he thinks. When it comes down to it, Ada had been playing Leon and her “feelings” for him, while caring, aren’t necessarily romantic. Taking into consideration mention of Ada from the first game and she ends up a very sly femme fatale.
Ada in the remake is more rigid out of the gate. The tradeoff is that the feelings between her and Leon are 🐼explicitly romantic this time around, but their chemistry’s not ♍as electric as it once was. Ada’s in a position of power right out the gate as far as Leon is concerned, completely changing how he talks to her.
8 Annette Birkin
Annette, for better or worse, is made into a much more sympathetic character in the remake. In favor of the former, it’s always nice to have antagonists with relatable traits. It’s a reminder that bad guys are peo❀ple too and Annette comes out of the remake a much richer character now that she seemingly cares about Sherry more.
At the same time, Annette’s original depiction was a reminder of how heartless Umbrell꧋a was. Annette’s disregard for Sherry in the original only adds to the tragedy of the Birkin family. Making Annette a more sympathetic figure undermines that layer to the narrative.
7 William’s Boss Fights
The actual boss f🅷ights against G (aka William Birkin) are genuinely very 𓄧well done. All five are fun, make great use of the controls, and present incredibly engaging fights to the death. But the actual structure is handled much worse in the remake on account of RE2 (2019) lacking the Character Zapping system.
In the original game, Leon and Claire would alternate fighting different forms of Wilꦡliam depending on whether they were the A character♏ or the B character. This led to playthroughs featuring completely unique bosses, but since the remake condenses everything into one full playthrough, there’s no opportunity for Leon and Claire to play Pass the Birkin.
6 2nd Scenario Letters
Talk about one hell of a downgrade. In the original game, Le🐭on and Claire would physically intercept with each other fairly often. This would build a sense of camaraderie between the two characters, and they’ve have developed natural solidarity with each other by 💮the end of the game. Leon and Claire were going through this together even when apart.
The remake instead replaces these encounters with little letters and they just don’t work. The characters don’t even acknowledge them in-game (something they do for virtually everything else.) It was clearly tacked on at the last minute and it should be taken as proof that Capcom never ༺took Zapping into serious consideration.
5 The Music
The actual soundtrack for the game is really good– especially the tracks for Ghost Survivors and The 4th Survivor– but the music placement and sound mixing for the game isn’t so great. The replacement tracks for the remak🐻e are also generally worse than the original (worth noting considering both soundtracks were scored by the same composer.)
It’s incredibly hard to hear the music half the time, and it really only flares up during boss fights. Thankfully the original soundtrack is available as DLC, but it’s just a shame that one of the greatest 𓃲survival horror scores of all time🌊 was replaced with something serviceable if extremely quiet.
4 The Lighting
The dev team for the original Resident Evil remake had two key goals in mind: make the game scarier, an🔥d make the game more realistic. This meant dimming the lighting within the Spencer Estate and💝 generally pulling back when it came to color. Naturally, the remake for Resident Evil 2 follows suit, dimming the game in the process.
RE2 goes a bit more extreme than its predecessor, though, dimming the lighting to the point where Leon and Claire having their flashlights ouꦫt is just the norm half the time. It can be a bit frustrating for fans of the original, especially when taking into c♕onsideration how vibrant and colorful OG RE2 was.
3 Ada’s “Death”
Ada Wong is a character who very famously plummets to her death down a hole she no wa🐽y could have made it 💮out of only to show up later on perfectly fine and alive. The remake had an opportunity to make this more realistic and, considering how grounded the game is otherwise, you’d be forgiven for assuming the same.
This i💜sn’t so much a🅠 change as it is an affirmation that this is Ada’s canonical fake-out death. This is Capcom going all in and embracing the ridiculousnes🌳s of the situation. It works wꦦell for the original Resident Evil 2, but not for the more tonally mature remake.
2 Mr. X Is A Pest
In the original game, Mr. X only comes after players during the B plot. That makes🍨 sense since the B plot focuses on Sherry Birkin and the G-Virus and that’s what Mr. X is after, but the remake changes things considera𒁃bly. Not only is Mr. X not after S♛herry or theꦦ G-Virus (at least not exclusively,) he shows up much earlier.
Mr. X is a presence in every single playthrough now, so get ready to deal with him all the time. Claire actually only has to deal with Mr. X for half of her playthrough, but he never ends up leaving Leon alone, following the rookie cop🔯 all the way to the end. It makes for an in🍬teresting way to revisit Resident Evil 2, but it also means puzzle-solving and🧔 general exploration need to be put on hℱold whenever Mr. X r🍷ears his ugly mug.
1 Removing Enemy Types
It could be argued that removing Resident Evil 2’s enemy variants and keeping enemies generally the same from start to finish lends to a game that’s both comfortable and engaging to master. The rules don’t suddenly change and players will always understand how to get through enemy encounters. This also allowed the d🅘evelopers to play around with how dangerous enemies are, leading to a remake that’s far tenser than the o𒆙riginal.
But there’s still a distinct lack of flavor missing witho🐭ut all the different enemy variants. Lickers are scary, but they’re even scarier when they suddenly change halfway through the game. Considering RE3 thrives on enemy varie🉐ty, here’s hoping the remake d♎oesn’t chip away at any more BOWs.