Resident Evil Revelations 2 is the newest installment in the Resident Evil franchise. After seeing Resident Evil head into the "action" direction for the last little while, have they changed their formula? Does this new release go back to the basics of what Resident Evil fans want to see?
Resident Evil Revelations 2 was released on February 24th, 2015 in North America. The game was initially an episode based release, meaning that one episode would be released per week following the first episode. The game's last episode was released on March 17th, 2015. coming to a final total of four complete episodes.
It features a full campaign, raid mode, offline local split screen co op and two bonus episodes. The formula for the release and Raid Mode were taken from the first Resident Evil Revelations.
-----
Synopsis:
Members of the anti-terrorist group Terrasave find themselves kidnapped and dumped on an unknown island. Among the members are Claire Redfield and Moira Burton.. These two find themselves being watched by a mysterious woman calling herself the "Overseer." The Overseer communicates to them by means of a bracelet that monitors their fear. Claire and Moira must team up and try and find the Overseer as well as a way off of the island.
Independant from these two, we get the return of Barry Burton, who has come to the island on a rogue mission in search of his daughter, Moira, after learning of her kidnapping. Barry teams up with a mysterious young girl who has a special set of powers in the hopes of finding his daughter.
-----
Pros:
+ Better environment, level and enemy design that bring us back to the "survival horror" genre.
What a relief it was when I encountered my first monster to see that it wasn't some gun toting soldier or pitchfork wielding villager. I feel that games like Resident Evil 5 and 6 really steered away from the traditional zombies in favor of a more action and high paced gaming experience. Resident Evil is supposed to be about horror, is it not? Although I can't exactly say that the enemy designs are scary, they are a step in the right direction... and they do provide some pretty good jump scares too, I will admit.
There are a variety of different enemies all with different designs, attack patterns and weaknesses that make you utilize each character's unique abilities and to take advantage of the situation that you're in. Playing the first Revelations, the two games do feel very similar in terms of monsters. But.. it's a good feeling.
There are a variety of different areas in the game all with a great overall feel and environment with none feeling as if they're too out of place. Nothing will ever bring me back to the scary feeling of the Spencer Mansion or the sewers crawling with giant spiders.. but it's a vast improvement from the environments of 5 and 6.
+ Great character line up, character interaction and unique abilities.. both in single player and in co op.
Ah, the triumphant return of both Barry Burton and Claire Redfield! As much as I love Leon and Chris, it's nice that they've benched them for a little while to give other characters a bit of the limelight.
Claire and Barry are both great, providing much of the game's comedic relief with their great one liners and jokes from other Resident Evil games such as the "Jill Sandwich" and "Master of Unlocking." Moira and Natalia work great as side characters who need that little bit of extra guidance from the more experienced in the field. Both teams have great chemistry, compliment one another and work well together.
The partner switching aspect of this game is refreshing. It is also very well implemented. While playing alone, your partner's AI is fairly intelligent and helpful. It also gives you a choice of what play style you prefer. Play as Claire if you prefer guns, or use Moira if you're more of a "up close and personal" melee user. Using Natalia to scout ahead will allow you to more easily stealth a section using Barry. This adds a new dynamic of play to the game that keeps it feeling unique and playable. Moira and Natalia may not be as powerful, but, they do serve an important role in puzzles, opening special treasure chests and finding hidden items.
While playing cooperatively, each person has a set role and must utilize their unique abilities to work together. This is truly a test of what working in a team means. Because both characters are not equal in power, it doesn't allow you to just breeze through a section no problem or to leave your partner stranded while you go on ahead. You have to actively communicate with one another in order to be successful. With all of these aspects in mind, it makes the game fun to play solo or with a partner.
+ Weapon customization, item creation and a more classic and realistic inventory.
The return of the weapon bench! I loved this addition in Revelations, and I'm glad they brought it back here. Rather than being a one man army with an arsenal of 20 guns, they give you a few guns that you can customize. This way, you don't have to worry about switching out your various guns depending on what you need it to do and it just makes everything a lot simpler.
If you want those precious gun parts, you've gotta work for them! And once you find them, guess what? They take up an inventory slot! We're going back to the days where key items took up slots in your already very limited inventory. Even though there are upgrades available, I still think that the inventory isn't too big considering all of the delicious goodies that can be found through searching for items. Some people may complain about this feature, but I like it. You can't have it all! Again, it makes it feel a little bit more like something you'd see in an older Resident Evil game.
Finally, the ability to create and use subweapons just adds a whole other dimension of enjoyable gameplay. This works to your advantage against certain enemies, can give you an upper hand when trying to escape an enemy or attempt a stealth attack and also makes Moira and Natalia that much more useful. The best thing about it is that you're not forced to use them. The game does provide you with a hefty amount of crafting supplies, but it doesn't make the game more difficult if you choose not to use them. Again, it's left up to the player's individual play style.
A lot of these mechanics come from The Last of Us and the first Revelations game, but they're good mechanics, especially if done right.
+ A variety of different game modes.
Aside from just playing the campaign on different difficulties, they've added the "Countdown" and "Invisible" modes to the game. These add a challenge to the game for those who want something a little bit extra.. You're given a determined set of equipment so that you're not insanely overpowered as you try to beat the episode as fast as you can or while you struggle with your attempts to fight invisible monsters. This tests your skills and memorization abilities and is a great way to provide an extra challenge without making the entire game more difficult for those who are more comfortable and prefer to play in the regular campaign mode.
Oh, and Raid Mode. Raid Mode kicks ass!
-----
Cons:
- Mediocre story and predictable plot twists.
Most people who have played Resident Evil will tell you that the story isn't exactly the highlight of the whole thing. Most of the time, the storylines are generally pretty silly and don't take themselves too seriously, so I've tried to keep that in mind here. The exception here was that the game set itself up (at least in my mind) to have this epic story that was going to be told through episode based storytelling. In the end, everything just felt rushed and came crashing down pretty quickly.
Every major twist in the game was utterly predictable. It's a mixed feeling, because it's always nice to be right about something.. but at the same time, I want to be surprised. The first Revelations did the episodic storytelling justice, the game had a great story and everything tied together nicely in a nice finale. I'm not sure why this game felt different. Something felt off, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
- No online co op.
We have split screen co-op here, and that's still better than nothing. I was hugely disappointed when I played the first Revelations, only to find out that there was no co-op to be found at all (Raid Mode doesn't count). I have fond memories of playing both Resident Evil 5 and 6 online with friends, and its helped me really enjoy those games a lot more. This game is somewhere in the middle, but with how popular online gaming is nowadays, it would have been nice. I feel like both 5 and 6 had good online play and I think they would have been able to be successful here as well.
I guess the positive point with no online co op is that we don't get any of those terrible online achievements, so that's a bit of a relief.
- Overly eager attempt at making dialogue funny and "hip".
A lot of games nowadays will add memes and trending phrases into the game's dialogue. I get that its a marketing ploy to target a certain audience, but it feels inappropriate in a lot of cases. Not to mention, picking this game up 10 years later, nobody is going to remember what YOLO means.
This issue is mostly in Moira's dialogue. She's the young tough girl with the mouth of a sailor. I think that they attempted to tried to come up with a more creative and colorful way for Moira to swear, but it comes off as childish. When fraught with danger, asking "what in the moist barrel of fucks is this" takes away from the mood that the game is trying to set. I'm not against swearing, but I think that it's a bit oversaturated here.
There is nothing inherently wrong with Moira as a character. She's got a decent enough personality and good chemistry with Claire that you can overlook her colorful language.. but its hard to. I prefer the cheesy one liners to brighten the mood (and that actually give me a chuckle) rather than trying to express your feelings in a way that will be cool for the kiddies.
- Terrible PC Port.
I own (and have played) the game on both PS3 and Steam. I have to say that the PS3 runs this game much better, which is a shame, especially with the large customer base of PC gamers. The game versions are no different from console to PC, so this isn't an issue with the game itself. They have recently fixed most of the issues that were present when the game was released. But, why release a game with issues from day one, especially when they didn't need to patch the console versions? This is a desperate attempt to cash in on a new game's release without any sort of quality control. Even though they've patched the game and continue to work on it, the damage is done. They've set the standard for what people may be able to expect when buying a PC port from this company in the future. Plus, there still seem to be quite a few bugs that continue to plague some players.
Some of the issues include:
- If playing with a controller, you weren't able to get rid of the mouse overlay in game during gameplay or during cutscenes. This has been fixed, but only during cutscenes. The mouse is still present during regular play.
- Massive frame drop and slow down, even with players who have a decent gaming computer and graphics card. Playing with slow down is awful, especially in a game where you're rarely free from enemies. They have released a patch for optimization so it does support higher settings, although some resolutions are still not supported.
- There was promise of split screen co op during pre-order sales, even though Capcom never intended to include this with the full game. They misled people with false advertising to buy the game, only to have those same customers realize it only after the game was released (when it's too late for a refund). Needless to say, there was an uproar about it, and a bit of a petition in the Steam community to include split screen. Capcom listened and they released a patch which now has the co op functionality, although still in Beta. This function worked right from the game's release on console, again proving that the console version is superior.
-----
While I feel that the first Revelations game really hit the nail on the head at capturing the old school Resident Evil feel and is the better of these two titles, this game is still worth trying. This game, despite some flaws is a step in the right direction back into what it is that we grew to love about Resident Evil. It balances the action with stealth, ammo conservation and inventory management are back in full swing and they have tried to bring us back to the fact that Resident Evil is supposed to be about horror. The positives outweigh the negatives and I would highly recommend this, especially if you liked Revelations.
