Finished Leons campaign in around 10 hours with a C ranking. It was expected since I played awful the first half of the game before I finally got my shit together. As a remake I´d say it is phenomenal, even though I think the first one is better. Resident Evil 1 was nearly 70% remade with new content, including a cut characters entire storyline. Granted, it was a very long time that I played the original RE2, this one felt very close to it, with few additions in characters, storylines, monsters and environments. But I appreciated that Capcom kept it true to the original, both in terms of gameplay with its survival horror roots and the story and characters.
Capcom has once again set the bar for remakes. Resident Evil 2 soars way above its peers in just about everything when it comes to horror. The dark and dreary atmosphere, the sense of isolation and desperation, the fear of being chased by an indestructible bio-weapon that´s ready to fuck you up beyond repair at any given time, gives RE2 a tense and chilling aura that haunts every step you take.
It manages to combine old school-Resident Evil gameplay with state of the art graphics and blend it together like it was a match made in heaven. The sheer of level of detail that Capcom has brought to the table is impressive. The environments are spooky, the monsters are gruesome and the violence is disgustingly fun. I haven´t been this immersed in a horror game for well over a decade.
The combat is so good and the satisfying feel when you blow a zombies head off with a shotgun blast is second to none. The ammunition is low and sparse and it always feels like you´re up against impossible odds, with nothing to do but run like hell. The horror takes over you, devours you, but in the end you prevail like a champ because Capcom has balanced it so effin good that no matter how dire the situation is, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
Resident Evil 2 is a landmark title for horror games, proving that its gameplay is as good as it was back in 1998. The survival horror-genre is constantly targeted for extermination, but once in a while, it sets the record straight with the naysayers and brings us some of the best games of all time. This generation we have gotten gems like Alien Isolation, The Evil Within 1 & 2 and now Resident Evil 2, further giving hope that the genre hasn´t seen its end of days.