Retronauts - 746: Resident Evil 2 vs. REsident Evil 2

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Diamond Feit, Stuart Gipp, and Brian Clark look back at the game that transformed Capcom's survival horror series twice over: Resident Evil 2 (the 1998 version, and the 2019 version).Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts 

This week on Retronauts, everyone's going to die. Welcome back to Retronauts and welcome to 2026. Why is it 2026? Well, that's a long story. But the short version is it's 30 years since 1996. And 1996 is when we had Resident Evil, the survival horror defining classic, I would say. And this is a big year, celebrating 30 years of Resident Evil. so there's no better time for us to revisit the sequel and the sequel again,

because this game had a sequel twice, and both times it made a huge impact on the company, and I would argue video games as a whole. Now I'm starting to babble here, so before I get any deeper in the woods, let me introduce everyone. First of all, my name is Diamond Fight, and no, I did not name myself after the key. That's just a coincidence.

Joining us again, returning guest, from the United Kingdom. Hello, I'm Stuart Jep, and I just like to say, liquor, I barely know her. Oh, Stuart, please, Stuart. It's out of the way. It was going to be at some point in the podcast, and at the beginning is probably the best time to get it done, you know? I see you're starting 2026 with the usual behavior. Outrater. Yes, that's right.

In the year that we're in right now, 2026, I am still behaving the same way. And laughing in the background from the great city of Chicago. This is Brian Clark from One Million Power. And I'm recording this podcast from behind the wheel of a truck eating the most disgusting looking burger that there's ever been. It's a juicy. It's a juicy piece of work. You've got to admit it. It's too juicy.

But yes, we're talking about Resident Evil 2. And there are two games called Resident Evil 2. We will get to both of them in time. So this episode is a follow-up to episode 440. Yeah, 440, which I called Resident Evil versus Resident Evil versus Resident Evil, which was about the original game, the 2002 remake, and the 2002 movie. Now, sadly, this time around, there is no Resident Evil 2 movie because I've noticed every time they try to make a Resident Evil movie, they always combine the stories of one and two movie. two and do a single movie. They do it every time. I don't know why, but, you know, Paul W. Anderson in the first Resident Evil movie, he's got liquors, he's got the train, welcome to

Raku City a couple years ago. They've got the chief, the police chief, they've got the orphanage, they've got Berkin, like all these things are just mushed together. I don't know why Hollywood does this, but whatever. We're not here to talk about Hollywood today. We're talking about Resident Evil, too. And on that note, I would like to ask, how did you re-enter the world of survival horror. Why don't we start with you, Brian? Did you play Resident Evil 2 when it was new? Did it follow up the original?

What happened? Sure. So I played the original RE fairly shortly after it was released in 1996 on a Friends PlayStation. Oh. I say a Friends PlayStation because I was going through a period then where I wasn't out of video games, but I was spending less money on them since I was getting into, like, anime and music and different things like that. that required my very little income that I had at about 16 years old. But I played a lot of RE1 passing the controller back and forth with that friend.

And we had such a great time doing that that I did play the original RE2 once again shortly after release and once again on that same friend's PlayStation. But that time we actually did it a little bit differently. we each had our different play-throughs that we would go through together each using different characters we'll get into the mechanics of that and what that means but it's very memorable to me for that reason and Stuart were you there for

excuse me I should use the UK title were you there for blimey spooky house too nice well I played as I talked about on the previous one I did play resi 1 with a friends but I didn't have a PlayStation I didn't have a Dreamcast initially. I didn't have anything

that could play this game and to be honest with you, I wasn't that interested it because I was very of the mindset of tank controls. Ew! And then I became enlightened later, you know. Okay. So I did play the remake and I didn't like it, but because I was doing this podcast, I thought, well, you know

what? It's time to play properly the original, which I have now done. I have done both scenarios very recently. Oh. And I enjoyed it very much, but we'll get to that. Now, now that I mentioned this, I just remembered that I did actually play it on PSP,

but I used the infinite ammo cheat because I was too rubbish. Oh, okay. I don't think that counts. I mean, I'm not being a gatekeeper, but I don't think that counts as me having played it, because first of all, I didn't remember anything about it, because I just went through every room like, blam, blam, dead, move on, you know? But no, I've done it properly now.

I can hasten to add. Haven't unlocked any of the bonus scenarios, but I think I could, you know? I think I could do it. Yes. Well, Capcom has heard you, Stuart, and they know what you want, and they've built certain functions into the new Resident Evil 2 to appeal to you the I Just Want to do this gamer. So we'll get to that in a minute. Oh, I bought that.

I bought that deal, see, because I was done. But we'll get to it. Yes. My opinion has changed. We'll get there. Right. For now, what we want to do is go back to the beginning, to 1996, to Resident Evil, some new game. It has no expectations really.

Indeed, I'm guessing they didn't really know what to expect because it was the PlayStation was still very new. There wasn't really a horror genre. There were games that were scary. There were horror games, but no one really said, oh, this is a new horror game. It's a game, and it's kind of frightening. And yet, Resident Evil did very, very well. It moved a million copies almost right away.

It sold almost three million copies that first year. These days, they put the figure closer to five million. So that's a, it's a big hit, Resident Evil One. And to hear the people of Capcom tell it, they started working a sequel right away. So they knew it's like, okay, this is a hit, it's going to go, let's make a new game. This is the year, we are living in the year in 1996. We'll make this game right now and we'll release it in 1997. Great.

It didn't work. It didn't work. We'll get it. We'll explain it. We'll explain what happened. Because a lot of things had happened behind the scenes of Capcom. Number one, the producer of the original Resident Evil One, frankly, already a legend in the gaming industry, Tokoro Fujiwara. He left Capcom in 1985 before Resident Evil One came out.

Like, he was basically the brainchild behind the first game. He'd made it because he wanted to revisit the matters he brought up in Sweet Home, which was a Famicom RPG, which we've talked about in the past. So he's gone. He's not after Capcom anymore. The writer, the scenario writer, Kenichi Iwao. also left Capcom shortly after the game shipped out. So he's not there to write or oversee any sequels. And the director of the first game, Shinji Makami, he's still at Capcom.

He'll be there for a while. But he moved up a little bit. He became the producer for RE2. He's not the director anymore. He's the producer. And he decided, okay, we need a new director. And he looks around his office and he's like, I choose you. And he points to a surly, 25-year-old in the corner.

named Hideki Kamiya. And Hideki Kamiya was a brand new hire at Capcom. He joined Capcom in 1994. He was part of the staff in Resident Evil One. You'll see him on the credits. But he was not in a leadership role. He was only 25 years old, which, you know, by Japanese company standards, might as well be a mulling baby, you know.

But he got this job and he took it. He's like, okay, I will do this. And they went forward. because right away, the decision right away, and Kamiya will tell you this, as he has in many interviews, their idea was, well, we're going to make a sequel, we're going to go bigger. We're going to go big and go home. We're going to have more guns, more monsters, more, more everything. And in his book, Itchy Tasty about the creation of Resident Evil, which I always recommend everybody. Please read Itch Tasty. It's super good. Yeah. Author Alex Anil, he compared it to like alien. versus aliens, which I think is a spot on comparison, especially when you play Resident Evil 2, and you see a couple elements that feel like they are directly ripped from aliens, frankly. You know, you've got, suddenly you've got an adult woman, well, not adult, but a grown woman and a little girl,

and they get separated. You're like, okay, this is, this is Ripley and Newt again? Okay, sure. Why not? But also, significantly, they decided they didn't want any repeating cast. Like, no, no, we're not going to bring back Jill Valentine's. or Chris Redfield or Barry Burton or Albert Wesker who's probably dead at this point but he's not. They said, okay, no, we want new people. So they came up with a bunch of new characters. They got some cops.

We got a cop, a young cop named Leon S. Kennedy, a less young cop named Marvin Brana. The police chief, Brian Irons, who, as originally conceived, completely sane. Just a normal police chief, really. You know, nothing crazy by this guy. On the flip side, not the cops, but the ladies. We have a motorcycle enthusiast named Elza Walker, and I miss type this early.

It's not Eliza. It is Elza, E-L-Z-A. That's the name they chose, Elza Walker. We have Ada Wong, who might be a scientist, at least the early models had like a big lab coat on her. And Sherry Birkin, who is a younger person originally drafted, but in the final game, she is a child, a literal child. And I guess the wild card, a man who owns a gun store name of Robert Kendo. And Kendo plays a very small role in Resident Evil 2, but he's a very memorable part because you meet him as you escape running for the police station. You meet him.

He says a couple things. He's extremely Canadian. And then he gets eaten by zombies. Sorry, Robert Kendo. Which is funny because if you go out there, if you look for Resident Evil Kendo's cut, search the internet for Resident Evil Kendo. cut, you will find a mod, a playable mod that makes Robert Kendo the hero of Resident Evil 2. It is very funny. I invite you to go check that out or at the bare minimum looking up on YouTube if you want to, but it's a comedy mod that makes Kendo the Star, and I recommend

it. I can't believe this exists. I had no idea before just now. Because he's got, what's happens is he's got a fair amount of dialogue, and there are plenty of randomizers out there that let you play the games, you know, the original PlayStation 1 games as all kinds of different characters, like NPCs, Regina from Dino Crisis, like all these, you know, the mods have been active for years. So someone took this like, okay, what if we make a whole game where Kendo is the hero and we use all his sounds and, you know, he's got a lot of good screams too. You know, he's a very expressive man, Kendo. So as I said, they started work right away. They're making the game by the end of 96. Like the same year Resident Evil is out, they're already showing off builds of Resident Evil 2.

And estimates, they were estimating that it was about 70% complete at the end of 1986. So they start showing around, they start demoing it. They start showing the boss, Yoshiki Okamoto, like, hey, boss, here's what working on for that. That sequel, you wanted that Resident Evil sequel, like, all big and crazy, right? And Okamoto's like, this isn't scary. Why is it not scary anymore? you know, which is, you know, step, sign one, that things aren't going well. The boss doesn't like it.

So Okamoto reaches out, he is, you know, friend of a friend, drinking buddy, who knows how this works. He's like, I want you to talk to this guy. Go to Tokyo, talk to this guy. He's a writer. He's a professional screenwriter. I want him to see this. I want him to talk, talk this over with him. And this man's name is Noboru Sugimura.

Unfortunately, he's passed away in 2005, but he was a very active screenwriter in the 80s and 90s, he was writing for TV, writing for movies, and he was a fan. He was a fan of the first game, so he obviously was on board with all of this. So, according to Itchitasty, Mikami and Kamiya, they're at Osaka, they're in Capcom headquarters. They get on the Shigonsen, the beautiful, beautiful Shigonsen, high-speed train. They ride to Tokyo, like, okay, hello, Sukumoran, nice to meet you. Here's our video game. What do you think? And Sugimuoto plays what they've got, and right away, he picks upon two things that he feels are just break game breakers. Like this is not going to work.

Number one, it's too realistic. They decided, you know, right away, the main concept of Resident Evil 2 hasn't changed that much over the years. But their first vision of a police station was like a police station. And, you know, it doesn't matter if you've been arrested or not. If you've ever been inside a police station, they're generally pretty boring spaces, you know? Like, it's usually an office. like the office. You know, sometimes you get a very old building,

but even then it's like it's a bunch of desks and some offices. You know, you've seen the movies. You know what a police station looks like? It's a bunch of people with desks, you know? It's fine. Whatever. It's a purpose.

They go out and they do the police work that they come back and they sit down and they have some donuts. Like, that's what they do. So, Sukummer was like, this place is boring. Like, the original game had this crazy mansion with all these weird puzzles and like twisty hallways.

And you made a police station. It's a box. This sucks. I don't know if he said he sucks, but I'm paraphrasing you. He can't sue me. He's passed away. Number two, Sugumer says it lacks thematic coherence. These are his words, translated by Alexan Eagle.

Because by bringing back no characters and no returning faces, he's like, well, no, everyone who played the first game is going to come back to this nesicuyl, and they're not going to have anyone, like, to root for or feel any connection to. So what are we doing here? You know, like with the alien-alions comparison, like Ripley is back. Ripley survived the alien, and she's in aliens, and she's very angry that people,

no one believes her about the aliens, right? So this time around, you've got no one coming back. So everyone's like, you know, zombies, what are zombies? You know, no one's, everyone's surprised. So Sukumura says, I think you should start over. I think you should rewrite this game from scratch and fix these problems. And, Kami, Kami, you're like,

tugging to the Koppel. are like, uh, we'll think about it. Thank you, sir. And they get on the train and they go back to Osaka. And the whole time they're like, what do we do? Do we? I mean, we can't just decide to start over. We got to like tell the boss, like, boss, he said we should start the game over. And they go back and they sit down with Okamoto and they talk it over. And Okamoto's like, yeah, Sugamaru's, Sukumero is right. You're wrong. We're starting over. This game is dead. So the game that they made that they were going to call Resident Evil 2 is effectively cancelled. That's crazy. These days we now think this as Resident Evil 1.5. There are various builds floating around on the internet.

Fans have tried to put it together to make it like playable because that's how fans are. But if you ask Kamiya, Kamia says, don't do it. I have a quote from Kamia from Mitch Tasty describing Resident Evil 1.5. He said it was truly a piece of shit. It was boring, devoid a vision, and a poor excuse for a horror game. That is directly from Hideki Kamiya, translated into a, but still. That's a very Kamiya thing to say about it. Yeah, and he's the man who directed it.

He's like, I directed a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit. I find it interesting that of the feedback that Sugimura gave to them, in the version of Resident Evil 2 that we ultimately got, they basically listened to, they basically took one of his two pieces of advice. Well, they definitely modified, like, they replaced Elza Walker with someone with a connection to the first game of the list. Sure. Yeah.

But most of the characters I listed above are new, and all of them appear in the game at some point, except for Elza Walker. She's gone. They jet-ness her. She's gone. Sorry. They do keep her motorcycle efficiency. They replace her with a new motorcycle chicken.

That's funny, because I didn't realize you were talking specifically about the original version then. You're like, Elsa Walker, and I'm sitting here. like, who the fuck is? I've just played this game. How unobservant am I? Like, I missed an entire character, but no, no, we're good. No, no.

She is gone. The only, the only hint of her these days is, I believe the remake version has a costume that is, like, one to one her costume from Resident Evil 1.5. I believe that's, I believe that's an outfit you could put on, you know, the new character to cosplay as the old character who never actually appeared. And, of course, we, you know, talk about fans. You want to talk about fans? Fans have made all sorts of games with Elsa Walker.

You know, because they made a model for her. She has, you know, a 3D model in the PlayStation 1 style. So fans have that model. They've, you know, they've given her a voice. They've done stuff with her. Like, you know, it's out there. You can play it if you want to. As usual, very unwilling to let go of what could have been.

Oh, Elsa Walker. What potential you must have had. And may they never change this way that, honestly, that's, yeah. Yeah. It's beautiful that this stuff is out there. There's constantly Resident Evil stuff dropping. There was even the Game by Color version very recently, basically complete, finally just rocked up.

It's amazing how much stuff turns up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Anything that's been made of Resident Evil, people have sought it out and preserved it and expanded upon it. It's kind of amazing. I think Resident Evil fandom is kind of like the Alpha and the Omega. It's the perfect example of good and bad.

Like, they make, they create new things. They come up with crazy explanations. They nickname things. Like, all this stuff is great. But, you know, behind the scenes is also there is some negativity. And, you know, there can be some sour grapes over things. But I think it's a net positive, I think, because so many people are invested in these games, you know, as it's been 30 years and people are still crazy about them. Anyway, as part of this plan, Okamoto is like, okay, well, there's no way we're going to get this game out in 1997.

We need something else to get fans interested. So that's why he approves what's called the Resident Evil Directors Cut, which does come out in 1987 as a sort of remixed, enhanced version of the first game that also very subtle, very subtle move here by Komoto. It includes a demo for the brand new Resident Evil 2, which would hit in early 1998. So if you were a Resident Evil fan in 1997, which I was, I went out and bought that director's cut. I was like, oh, cool, it's the same game, but it has an extra gameplay mode. some different costumes. And here's a separate disc that is a taste of the brand new game. And holy shit, the new game is super intense.

What the hell? What the hell? Which part of the game do you get in the demo? How much of it does it show? I believe it starts like from the very beginning like you are, you are surrounded by zombies. Get to the police station. I think that's about. This is a playable demo.

Yeah, yeah. Rolling demo. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Yeah. But yeah, imagine, yeah. For Friends of Resident Evil 1, if you start Resident Evil 2, it is a really like thrown into the fire moment

you know because Resident Evil 1 there's plenty of zombies and things that will hurt you but you seldom see more than two at a time I think there might be a couple rooms with like there's like three dogs but like most most rooms only have two maybe three things after you

whereas Resident Evil 2 right away like you were in the city Recoon City everything's on fire there are zombies everywhere, four even five zombies on screen. Run. Just run. It's a hell of a moment.

It's a hell of an opening. It's a crazy, it's an astonishing opening, especially like, yeah, it really doesn't go to any effort to ease you win. You can easily die there and I have. It's rough in a really, really cool, genuinely

quite overwhelming way. And again, with the alien aliens comparison being really apt, right? Just numbers. Like there was one alien in the movie Alien, and there were many aliens in the movie aliens. Right. But they still managed to keep things scary,

because even though it's an escalation on both sides. Like, okay, we've got more guns this time, but holy crap, there are more aliens than ever, and they're coming out of the walls, and they're inside the room, and we all know the lines. We all know the lines. I'm thinking about that demo on the director's cut,

because the director's cut of Resident Evil 1 doesn't make any graphical edits like over major graphical edits to the original game, right? So, I mean, Resident Evil 1 is a great game. It's an early-ish PlayStation game and it looks like one. Yeah. Resident Evil 2 looks brilliant. Like, it's such a jump-up visually, I think. To the point that when I started playing 3, I thought it looked a little bit worse.

You know, I think two is, two is like, it's, the models are so cool looking even now. It's just such a great looking game. Everything's integrated together so well. The pre-renders with the, with the polygons. It's such a great looking game. So that must have been kind of crazy playing the demo. I'm a bit fixated on that idea now. That must have been something else.

Oh, yeah. For playing that in 1997? That was like, whoa, what are we in for? What's coming? Yeah. It's actually kind of cool. I wish I could go back. So let's take back to 1998.

Let's talk about Resident Evil 2 as it comes out. Story-wise, it's also set in 1998. It's complicated because Resident Evil 1 came out in 1996, but it was set in 1998. It was set in the near future. Resident Evil 2 comes out in 1988, and it is still 1998. It is a sequel. So it happens just a few months after the incident in the Spanther Mansion. you thought maybe that, you know, they blew up that house, they killed the tyrant, it's over, right?

It's not over. It's not over. What? And Resident Evil II both starts off in the middle of the outbreak and goes back to explain why all of Raccoon City is infected with the virus. They do both, which is really, I think, frankly, a very, very well thought out and written scenario. You start the player off in immediate danger. There are zombies everywhere. The entire city has collapsed.

You're running a police station where you think it's safe. It's not safe. There's police zombies. There are worse things than zombies inside the station. And then like halfway through the game through documents and a lovely cutscene, you see exactly what happened and how the virus escaped and how the virus infected the entire city. Although I got to say, they're pointing the finger at rats. They're saying that rats ate the virus and rats spread the virus. You never fight any rats.

I feel like there should have been at least one giant rat. Like, oh, this is the, this is the like the Uber rat that ate too much virus. I don't know. And especially for a game that does take you into the sewers, that you're right. That is a very strange decision to exclude rats from it completely. Yeah, the spiders are back. There's a giant alligator for some reason. You know?

The highlight of the sewers, really. Oh, yeah. They weren't done referencing movies, so they put a jaws reference. There's a giant moth inside the laboratory, which is even more in the left field. But no, not a single rat. You name it, it's giant.

Yeah, yeah. Well, they already had the spiders. I get, you know, might as well use the spiders. Everyone, I'll be honest. I'll be honest, replaying this game recently, I got so freaked out just hearing the spiders. Like, the spiders. It makes such a cool noise.

Yeah, like their legs make this sort of thump, thump, thump sound, even though like... Oh, yeah. It's crazy. Yeah, like, they're in the sewers. Like, they shouldn't make that sound on the sewer walls. Like, this should be, like, all slick and wet, but no, they make this sort of sound everywhere. And it's like, oh, God, they're in here. Even though...

Yeah. Even though as Resident Evil 2 plays out, you almost never have to fight them. If you just run, they will almost never catch you. Because, like, they're on the walls. It's weird. I don't say this to undermine any sort of arachnophobia, because I know it's a serious thing. I love spiders, and when I saw them, I was so happy. I was like, yay, cute fluffies.

And, yeah, I can see how it would be incredibly freaky, though, because sometimes you can walk into the first room in the sewers where they appear, and they can more or less almost be walking on the camera. Yeah. Which is really like, oh, gee, oh dear. This could not be fun for anyone with arachnophobia whatsoever. Yeah, I think it's kind of looking back on it, it's a little bit laughable now to think that spiders that look like that would have triggered arachnophobia in people, especially in modern games where there's much, much more realistic spiders. But yeah, they were kind of creepy at the time.

And I suspect they kept that noise in RE2, even though it doesn't make sense for them being in the sewers, because it was just such a hallmark of them when they appeared in RE1. Like even when they were off camera, you could just be like, oh, God, they're in here because you'd hear that clicking noise. And I think they kind of realized what they had there. But speaking of noises, we should also highlight that the new enemy, the sort of hallmarked new enemy for Resident Evil 2, the so-called liquors, they also have some great noises. They walk around with long claws. They have a deep exhaling noise. It's sort of... So they're kind of spider-like in that they climb on,

they love to climb on walls and ceilings. They can drop down. The gimmick of the liquor is that they don't see you, they hear you. So if you are very slow, you might not get their attention. But if you get close to them, they will definitely hear you. If you bump into them, they know you're there and they can chase you down. They deal a lot of damage. I don't know why.

I guess they're kind of like hunters in that way. Like if they hit you once, you're probably in caution. I don't know. it's a risk. But as usual, if you plan your route, you can often get past them if you're quick, but not always. I was, yeah, I mean,

and I want to mention, of course, their introduction is one of like the, I think, sort of iconic survival horror moments when you see that thing quickly nip across that window. When the scene changes, you're like, what was that shit, you know? I will ask, though, the liquor not being able to see you,

I didn't know that until I played recently. I always had so much trouble with them because I did not know that. But does the game actually tell you that? Or is that just something that was in the manual? Or did I miss like a memo or something? There's definitely a document about them that calls them a liquor

because someone's like, hey, there's a monster around the police station. We call it a liquor because it has a big tongue. I don't know. You're right. That does ring a bell. Yeah. I do love the liquors I think that they're almost more

effective in the remake than they are in the original but in this game in the original because they don't really appear that often it always puts you in a complete like oh oh god

kind of almost panic state because the fact that you can actually because you can walk as long as you're walking you can go pretty close to them and be all right and that's really nerve-wracking in a way that really nothing in the first game really matches because in the first game it's a lot more kind of like

enemy bad you avoid you know you dodge but in this it's enemy very bad but also cannot see you you you may because you always want to be running because you want to get places quickly you know it's just a nice way of measuring that I think in the in the remake when the

the way that they interact with the zombies and Mr. X's even cooler, but I guess we'll get to the remake before long. Oh, yes, of course. And also, it's really cool when three of them turn up at the end, and it's just incredibly frightening because you're just going to be killed

if two of them hit you. Yeah, like, playing the game, they're just bigger versions. Like, I don't think there's no explanation for that. Like, no, we have just bigger ones here. These are the jumbo-sized ones. They're more dangerous. Great.

Honestly, for all umbrellas talk about bio-weapons, like, the liquor seems like a pretty decent piece of equipment. If you, you know what I mean? Like, if you dropped a couple of those things in an enemy headquarters, they're, you know, they do some real damage to they're shot by heavy weapon weapons. So umbrella peaked early is what you're saying and their bio-weapon inventions. All I'm saying is, umbrella loves the tyrant, the giant man, but these liquor things are very dangerous and I think would be really effective in a lot of scenarios where the giant

man would not be. Oh, yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. In the in the eternal, uh, I guess now, now three-way battles, uh, what the hunter versus liquor versus tyrant battle. I agree with you. The liquors are easily the most interesting because the other, the other two are just kind of like, they, they move at you relatively fast. You have, I think, a lot less of a chance of avoiding them. So it's like, okay, out comes the insert whatever heaviest weapon you have here is just to get rid of them, especially with what they do with the hunters later, just making them super fast. The liquor is just so much more interesting

of an encounter to have to deal with. Also, I'm always going to forget which movie is which, but in one of the animated movies, I want to say maybe Degeneration, there is a wonderful climactic battle between a tyrant and liquors. And it's just, it's absolutely like, as a fan, you watch it, you're like, oh, yes,

they're fighting. Boy, I forgot about that. I think I've seen all of those, and I don't remember that at all. I'm pretty sure it's the same one. I think it's the same one where they're like somewhere in Europe and Ada Wong has like a sexy fight with the president of the country. And like somewhere. A sexy fight. It's a sexy fight.

Come on. And there's like an underground lab somewhere and then in the lab somehow that you have like liquors and a tyrant and they're at odds or something. You know, it's like how in this. second Silent Hill movie, they made Pyramidhead fight other monsters because, of course, it is. So, anyway. Do you think that umbrella keeps liquors around to work in the mail room? I don't know what kind of, like, tasks they can perform beyond just, like, eating people, you know? I don't know.

Can they be domesticated? I have no idea. Well, I was thinking just for, you know, sealing envelopes, but I mean, maybe. But I feel like in terms of delivering the male. the hunter would be a much more effective bio weapon to achieve that. I agree with that. Let's break this down. No, that's not.

Yeah, there's always a method to my madness, except when there is a resume, which is almost all the time. Look, we know the United States government is struggling with how to run the United States Postal Service. What if umbrella came to them a solution? Like, okay, here are a selection of monsters. What roles would they best fit in your organization? And I say this is a former postal worker. I understand. I understand without this work.

I get it. Whichever one the U.S. government shows, I feel like all of them would hold my packages in customs for a significantly less amount of time than they get held in customs now. So I approve. Even by organic weapons, I do a better job than, you know, the current guys. I'm just saying, I don't want to get political on here. So going back to the game itself and the beginning of the game,

I just want to point out that right away, when you play the game, there are a couple changes, besides the zombies everywhere, there's a couple of presentation changes that are very important. Number one, there are no more live action cutscenes. Every cutscene in this game is a CGI movie, which, you know, they had some of those in the first game, but they also had, like, people running around afar somewhere. Like, no, they don't have that anymore.

It's all CG movies. acting wise, the first game, I mean, okay, first game iconic. All right, iconic, I'm not, capital I iconic. But you can tell they reached out to people who were available in Japan, who spoke English and were willing to do this. And it kind of shows, right? This time around, no, no, no, no. They contacted some overseas company, I'm going to assume Canada because almost every actor in the movie is Canadian. And they hired people to do all these voices.

they were recorded in their studio abroad. Again, I think it's in Canada, because certainly Allison Court, who plays Claire Redfield here and would play her for well over a decade, she is very much Canadian, Canadian lady. As we talk about Robert Kendo, extremely Canadian. All the actors have little Canadian affects to their voices, but still. So the good news is it sounds better, and generally, like, it's less laughable, but the downside is you don't really get any moments like, you know, Master of Unlocking or Jill Sam, like nothing really stands out here, aside from maybe

some performance quirks, like I would say, Chief Irons is pretty, yeah, yeah. The guy who plays Chief Irons, I didn't look at him, I'm sorry, but the guy who plays Chief Irons really relishes his role. He is very much, you know, he's a guy in a booth, but he is acting for the entire booth, you know, great, great guy, great, great work. Yeah, he's wonderful. Also, bummer for me, they took out the 3D model, when you pick up items. You know, in the original Resident Evil, whenever you picked up an item,

it was a fully 3D-generated, like, object. You could rotate, and indeed, sometimes you had to rotate it and examine it and, like, open it up or whatever. And that's kind of a staple of the series these days, but for some reason, in Resident Evil 2, and I think again in 3, they just didn't do that.

They're like, no, no, no, if you pick up a gun, here's a JPEG of a gun, you know, enjoy it. Like, I can't look at the gun. I kind of wonder if, like, that was a necessity given how much they improved the visuals everywhere else. Not that I don't agree

that it's a shame because that stuff's always fun. They use that to good effect in fact in the remake when you have to examine the items to sort of find ways to interact with them. Oh yeah, it's crucial. Yeah. In all the modern games it is crucial to do that. Yeah. Yeah. But I do, I feel

like, you know, not that you're saying it isn't obviously, but I feel like it's if anything could go from the first game. It's one of the things I will allow to go. It's like, if that's the trade-off to make the rest of the game as good as look as good as it is, run as good as it does, I'll take it.

There's a scale somewhere in Capcom's offices, and on one side of the scale, you have... Look, I'm not a game dev, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works, yes. You take one thing out of the game to put one thing in, I'm certain that's how it works, in fact, and I will not be challenged on this matter. More zombies...

Versus JPEC. If it's related to Resident and evil, though, it's probably like, you know, something you would see a resident evil scenario. Like, it's a very large set of scales that you have to pick up large objects and put them in to also open a door to a back room or something. Absolutely. And then when you get in there, it's just some ink ribbons. Look, I've never been inside Capcoma HQ here in Osaka, but I imagine if I went in there that every meeting room is locked with a bespoke medallion and they're all kept some of, on the second floor. I mean, you know, it's a mysterious company.

So where were we talking about the beginning of the game? Police station. Let's talk about the police station, because that's kind of the main area this time around. You know, the first game was a mansion. This time it's a police station. You will spend a good 40% of your time here at least. You know, you'll leave at some point, but you'll come back. And like the first game, it is unusually ornate.

they come up with a kind of a brilliant idea. I'm pretty sure Sugumura came up with this idea. He's like, okay, what if you explain that this police station used to be an art museum? And that's why it looks so nice. And that's why this giant statues everywhere. And, okay, what if we take the police chief? And what if we make him a complete psychopath who also steals money, embezzles money, and spends it on fine art, which is why this statues and paintings everywhere.

and taxidermy everywhere. So I believe all these ideas come to Sugimura to sort of explain the ostentation of Resident Evil 2 and make the police chief kind of an intimidating character. And it all kind of sinks together into this place and a person that you immediately recognize and have emotions about. And in the case of the chief, you're like, holy shit, man, what's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? From moment one.

From moment one, you're like, what the hell is wrong with this guy? It's funny because obviously the police station is as ornate and ridiculous as it is for the reasons we just discussed. But sometimes you'll hear someone say, oh, well, why, you know, if it used to be an art museum and it's a police station now, why wouldn't they have gotten all this stuff out of here? But I feel like there's a little kernel of realism in here because if you've ever seen budgets for county and city services, It's maybe realistic that they would have just left all the art museum stuff there and built a police station around it. I mean, yeah, they, we're going to pay to move it? No. We don't want for that.

We don't got that kind of money. Especially in this case where the guy who does have money wants more of it. Yeah. Also, there's a cute memo somewhere that explains that the police chief ordered them to hide, like, items and ammunition around the offices. you know, like he says it's for some reason, but I don't know, like terrorism. I forget what he exploit what the reasoning is, but like he has a reason and he orders them to hide it. And that's why when you search around the offices, you'll find bullets in destroyers and shit like that. Like they made a story reason for that, which is kind of funny.

I think it's just the only way he can have fun at that job anymore. He seems like he's having the time of his life. Oh, he loves his job. Oh, he loves it. Absolutely. He's got, he has essentially no accountability, unlimited fun. I guess he's got plenty of time to practice his taxidermy, which, you know, everyone has to have hobbies. You know, I don't begrudge Chief Irons for having the hobby of taxidermy, even though it's a creepy hobby.

But as we can see, he doesn't limit himself to, shall we say, game animals. Yeah, the taxidermy is the least of his problems, honestly. But yeah, from a story standpoint, you enter the police station, you spend most time the police station like you did in the mansion the first game. there's some underground areas again eventually you find yourself in an underground lab again the lab's much nicer this time but whatever and then in the finale oh no self-destruct sequence we got to get out of here you run away everything it blows up like so like structure-wise it's very similar to the first game but they go out of their way to make things feel different enough so that it's not just like a copy and paste like they they definitely make it distinct in certain ways even if the general

flow is almost identical. Maybe that's why filmmakers decide to put the two of them together, because either way, you start somewhere upper ground, then you go underground, then you go way underground, and then everything explodes. Like, that's a screenplay. It is. So let's talk about our main characters, because we have two main characters again, man and woman again. Leon Kennedy is the guy. He survives the entire development of us. Leon Kennedy is still a guy. He is a rookie cop. It is his first day at work. For some reason, he shows up for dressed in full swat gear. I don't know if this is a rookie hazing thing

or if he just is the job he wants. I don't know. I think Acab includes Leon Kennedy. I'm sorry, but he's your male hero. If you play as Leon, you will meet a mysterious stranger named Ada Wong. And yes, Ada Wong, her name exists because of the puzzle in the first game

where in the laboratory, someone named John had a password Ada. So she is like, I'm looking for my boyfriend John. John never gets the last name, I don't think. But Ada gets the last name. Her name's Ada Wong. Also, just like in the first game, Ada Wong, no matter what scenario you follow, we'll get to the scenarios. But no matter what scenario you play through, Ada Wong seemingly dies.

But don't worry, Ada Wong, like Wesker, not dead. She will in fact recur many, many times. Although she's usually not a villain, usually. She's a villain But not really It's a clone It's a clone Wong I think

I think people going back to Either version of RE2 If maybe you're jumping on point Was 4 We'll get a little bit of whiplash When they see Leon though Because he's You know he's got a lot of one-liners

He's got a lot of quipson four But he's very kind of like G-Chief in this Like He's a baby basically. And I love that he exists in these two different states

in the two different games. He's sort of a bit like if Fred Jones from Scooby-Doo got thrown into this exact situation, and then by the end he's transformed into kind of a grimer, shaggy-esque character. Does Leon ever meet the chief

alive in this game? The scenario I played, no. I don't think he does. For what it's worth, I did Leon A, Claire B, which apparently is not the correct order, but I don't think it makes sense either way, so it's fine. Both are equally ridiculous. But if he had met the chief, he definitely would have said golly G to him.

I'm convinced of that. Well, you can tell, though, and the way he interacts with the people around him were, you know, are civilians, you know, the other hero, Ada Wong, the guy in the holding cell, like, he is very much like, I am a cop is my first day, I'm the authority, I'm the protector, like he's very straight-laced. It's very, you know, one of the running jokes for me in the game is that whenever

he and ate a meat, it always runs away. And he always says, I think they said it once and they just repeat it throughout the he says, Ada, wait! Eighth, wait! Like, you can take a drink. If you want to take a drink every time he says, Aida, wait, you will enjoy this game even more, even though you might. Until you yourself die.

The flip side here, the other character, the replacement for Elsa Walker is Claire Redfield. Claire Redfield, younger sister of Chris in Resident Evil 1. Now, I say younger sister because everyone in Resident Evil 1 is like in their 20s. So Claire Redfield younger sister is canon. She's 19 years old in this game. So she is actually a child. You know, I understand age of consent, legal adult, like she can, she's allowed to like smoke cigarettes or whatever. She is a child in the eyes of the Lord

And she is here Exploring this city looking for her brother She takes Elsa's fondness for motorcycles But that's about it She dresses just like her brother Apparently they have a family thing Where they wear these jackets Like I don't know

Me and my sister don't have this I don't know Maybe it's a fault of our upbringing But Claire and Chris Redfield Have a shared fashion sense Which I admire But playing as Claire You meet a young child named Sherry

Her name is Sherry Birkin. Her parents, both her parents, William and Annette Berkin, are, you discover this, umbrella scientists. They are intimately connected with the outbreak, with the virus. So Sherry's just running around, like, trying to stay alive. But the parents are like, where Sherry? Claire is seemingly the only person who actually cares about Sherry's well-being, because somehow, we don't know what, what is William want with Sherry? Does he just want her body for more virus?

What do you think William wants at this point? She's got like the sample on a pendant right, around her neck or something, the G-virus sample. I want to be honest with you, the story went in one hour and out of the other when I played this. But that's what it is, right? Because towards the end, sorry for the spoilers, like Claire does like throw the pendant over the railing. Which is like, hey, this is what you want, right? at least I thought that's what it was, but I could be very much mistaken. Each scenario has its share of Mcuffins, and yes, I believe when you play as Claire, Sherry's locket has something inside it.

Although sometimes when you play is Leon, Ada will also get the locket. Yeah. It's a complicated. We'll explain why this is so complicated in a moment, but yeah. Could I say about Sherry? Because when I played Claire B and met Sherry, that was one of the first. She was one of the things that made me realize how much sort of effort and care had gone into this game. Because the little, the detail around her, like, Sherry's animations being completely different from anyone else is basically.

The fact that when you're playing as Sherry, the zombies don't mole you because that would be too much. They drip acid like blood. They drip acid in their mouth they don't otherwise have. but also the thing that really just kind of got me was when you're playing as Claire and Sherry, whenever you stop, Sherry will run up to Claire and hold her hand or put a hand around on her arm. And it's precious. And it's such an cute detail that they really didn't need to put in, but it makes you want to protect the character, you know?

I was really impressed by that. It just seemed like the sort of thing they could easily have left out and no one would say anything. but no, they cared about the characterization. I like Sherry. I did some research into how people received this game when it came out, and a lot of people seem to really hate Sherry Birkin, and I don't really understand that. I think they just hate children, which is odd to me.

Well, if Sherry has a weakness, is that she runs slower than Claire. So if there are times where you're both together and you're running down a hallway, Sherry can sort of fall behind, and if she falls too far behind, she stops. And that can be a frustration, especially during the finale where you're trying to get away.

If Sherry just stops running, you have to, like, run back and get her. It's kind of, I can see that being annoying. But it's not, it's not bad, like, you know, it's not as bad as, say, escort missions in other games where, like, Sherry's getting killed. Like, Sherry's not dying. She's just, like, she's making you stop and go back for her. But, like, I'm a parent. I'm a parent. I understand this.

That happened to me a few times. I guess for me, maybe it's because I played the game so recently rather than at the time, it felt like a sort of drop in the ocean because it's like when you are playing as both Claire and Sherry, you're generally in quite small areas that you just run basically down some hallways and you're in the next area. And I did a few times, and I was, oh, she's not following me anymore and you go back and she's just kind of crouched down. But even that made me kind of think like, oh, that's just like, that makes me feel bad. I left her behind. I don't want to do that.

I just think they do a really good job of making their relationship feel meaningful in that scenario. I think it's really well done, basically. Yeah, also, I didn't say this out loud, but in each scenario, Leon with Ada, Claire, with Sherry, yeah, there are sequences where you play as the other person. And in the case of Sherry, she's a kid. She has no weapons. so it's just about avoiding the monsters and maybe getting some items and bringing them back to Claire. Yeah, the zombies do not bite you. The dogs do.

Sorry, the dogs will jump at you. They will bite you. I do like that her inventory is just like some healing items and she has like a picture of her family. That's all she has. Whereas Ada, of course, has guns because Ada is an adult so she can, she can defend herself. So yeah, we've kind of danced around it for a second. Let's talk about what Capcom calls the Zapping System, which is kind of a crazy name. It does not deserve this crazy name.

But unlike the first game, the first game had two characters, Chris and Jill. You can play as Chris, you can play as Jill. Whoever you play as, the other person basically gets locked in a cell and you have to rescue them. That's how it works. Resident Evil 2 is far more complicated because both Leon and Claire start the game together, and both Leon and Claire end the game together into their escape. So depending on which character you choose, the other character is doing things unseen

in their own scenario. So then when you play the, if you play the game after as another character, you are essentially playing a separate route as that character. They're officially, in Japanese, they're called like Omote and Ura, like sort of like the flip side, like a disc would be.

In English, it's just called A and B. So whoever you play is first, that's the A game. and then if you play the second one, that's the B game. And each route is unique. So essentially there's Leon A, Claire B, or Claire A, Leon B. None of this is the same. You know, they're similar.

You do a lot of things that repeat sometimes that don't make sense. Like a lot of times, like the helicopter crashes. And both characters have to find a valve and put out the fire so they can get down the hallway that the helicopter crashed in. Both characters do this in both stories. I don't know why. The fire is either, it's like Schrodinger's fire. I don't know what happens.

But keys, items, there's a lot of repeats. But some things don't. Some things are more clever. Like, you'll, I'm thinking of a locker in the weapons room. There's a locker. You can find items in there with a special key. If you find them in the A game, the game is like, oh, do you want to take this? Or do you want to leave it for the other character in the B game?

And that's your choice. So you can have the A character hoard all this stuff and not leave it for the B character. Or you can say, eh, I've got enough ammo right now. I don't need this gun, you know? Which I think it's really, it's really clever from a story tongue standpoint and from a replay value standpoint. Because, you know, like Resident Evil 1, this is not that long a game, like one scenario. But because there's so many different routes and different sort of permutations, you could play this game again and again and again and be surprised.

And that's why we're having trouble remembering, like, who me too? Because depending on how you play the game, you might not see this. Some characters only appear in one scenario or one version of a scenario. It's not cut and dry, like the first game. Yeah, I played them back to back. And like I said, Leon A, Claire B, and I'd heard about it. I knew it would be different. I knew they had these scenarios.

but I was not prepared for how different. Like, Claire's, there's a lot of changes. It's really not the same. And Claire B, I found, opens up, like, it's almost like hard mode because from the very beginning, when you don't really have any resources, it's already thrown liquors at you. Like, it does not mess around. Even though you do eventually get things like the grenade launcher and the grenade rounds, etc.

Which is more or less, as far as I can tell, exclusively a Claire thing. Yeah. Like a whole new mechanic to play with, just for this other character. The route you take around the police station seems so completely different as well. I was just hugely impressed by it.

And now I know I've still got two more to do, which I'm sure I will end up doing because I haven't got an A rank yet. And I'm pretty sure I can do it. I'm pretty sure I can get an A rank. It will be challenging. me I would want you to get it. Well, this is something that, again,

impressed me is when I would read about this game back in the day, it sounded impossible. I don't, you know, don't use more than six ink ribbons. I think I don't have more than six increbons ever. Don't use any first aid sprays ever. And I'm thinking, well, that sounds impossible. Like, that's ridiculous. That's like the kind of thing a crazy person would do.

And having now played through the game twice, I'm like, I reckon I could do that. I reckon I could actually do that. Like, you don't need to save the, that often, you can still use herbs, I think. Like, you're not completely out of options there. And when you know what to do, it really does just become a matter of planning to do it quickly. And I think I could do it.

I mean, I'm going to try. You should. I'm by no means a Resident Evil speed runner, challenge runner, but I kind of had the same progression with some of the later ones. and it is all just routing. When you don't know the route and you're just kind of organically experiencing a Resident Evil game for the first time, like you make a lot of mistakes. And so you use a lot more health items.

You use a lot more ammo, et cetera, et cetera. But once you kind of have like an internal or I guess external map of everything, it's way easier to just zip from point to point and be able to do those kinds of. of challenge runs. Because my first two clears were about five and a half hours each scenario. And I think to myself like, oh, that's a derang, that sucks. And then I think, hang on a minute, I could easily shave two and a half hours off that plots more, like knowing what to do. It just seems very undaunting. It seems like a fun challenge and not a ridiculous challenge anymore. Yeah. Yeah, my recent playthrus were about two and a half hours.

hours per three, two and a half, three hours each per scenario, which is like, that's me like operating on sort of vague memories. I know I could do better if I practiced. And indeed, a few years ago, not Resident Evil 2, but the remake, Resident Evil, the first game, the HD version of the 2002 GameCube game, I was able to sort of, by repetitiously playing it over and over again, I managed to complete a run of that game without saving and in like a low, low time to get the rocket launcher. So it's like, these games are designed.

These games, once you, if you find the route or if you go online and just take one from other people, you can get through them very quickly. And I know Resident Evil 2 indeed has a special item that only unlocks if you beat the game without saving. So in, you know, in Resident Evil 1, I think it's just like an achievement or a trophy or whatever. But in Resident Evil 2, there's an item that's only available. if you complete the game and you don't save once. But actually, it's important we should mention this because, unlike the first game,

Resident Evil One had multiple endings, depending on what you did. If you save certain people or you complete certain tasks, the ending changed. Resident Evil 2 does not do that. The endings are always the endings. What happens is they give you this grade, which is like performance-based. Like, yeah, did you save a lot?

Did you heal too many times? How long did it take you to finish the game? These sort of gets you a grade. And if you complete the game with a certain high enough grade, you can unlock certain bonus items. So it's kind of like there's only one ending this time around, but the game still finds ways to test you and incite you to play again, which I think is probably for the best, even though it would be nice. It would be nice to see an ending where Claire doesn't shave Sherry, but no, the game will not let you. You cannot skip saving Sherry. You have to save Sherry. But if we're talking A and B, we have to talk about how the game.

introduces a major wild card in only the B scenario, and that is Mr. X. Now, Mr. X is a fan name that is not his real name. Technically, you see his name. It's written on the outside of his capsule. He is a tyrant T-0-0. But whenever you play your B-scenario, Umbrella, in a bespoke cutscene, umbrella drops this man from a capsule, from a helicopter. He lands inside the police station.

and then once he said the police station, he is after you. Now, in Resident Evil 2, that means in certain situations, he will appear and he marches straight towards you. He is a tyrant wearing a hat and a trench coat,

very dapper, and he just walks towards you. You know, he can punch you. You can shoot him if you want. If you shoot him, he will fall down and drop a random item, but you can't kill him. He is there.

He's part of the story. So it's kind of up to you if you want to just run away, if you want to try to knock him down. He plays a role in the scenario. Eventually, he becomes a sort of extra boss towards the end of the game. But he's just there. And it's kind of like a new, it's a remix element, really.

Like, oh, you went through the whole PlayStation last time. You think you know it. Well, now here's this guy. And he's here somewhere. And you're never quite sure where he's going to turn up. But it is planned. It's not random. But for you as the player, certainly the first time you play the game,

you have no idea. And indeed, there's definitely one jump scare where he comes through a wall, where you're like, oh, my God, he came through a wall. They shouldn't do that, but he does. Because he's Mr. X. It was, it was, it was, it was, it's even cool because he's not in the first playthrough, as we talked about. He just isn't there. So it's really like, oh, now we're dealing with this. And I also want to just highlight how cool the sequences where you, where you run to the end of a catwalk.

This is quite the end of the game. Yeah. A very linear catwalk with nowhere to duke the guy. You interact with the monitors at the end of the catwalk, and you see him on the monitors coming towards you. It's dope. That's all I can say about it. It's just a really, really cool moment of panic-inducing of the...

Oh, shit. How am I going to deal with this? I guess this... I mean, that's the only time I think that you really do have to just take him down. Like, you've got to hope that you've got enough bullets or grenades. Because there's really no way to get part of it. him otherwise there. Yeah.

I mean, this is where all the speed runners is, like, Yatter is, you just do like a frame perfect. Like, I don't think you can knock his hat off in this one, can you? No, it's a static model, so he, you can't do that. Okay. But, yeah, in the remake, in the remake, because everything's 3D,

yeah, you can, in fact, there's a trophy for it if you shoot his head off. Yep. Yeah. Excellent. So we've talked about sort of the extras of the game. We talked about how those unlockables, of course, course, there are, in fact, complete extra modes of this game, which are both interesting. The big one for me is what's called the fourth survivor, and this ties into the story, because

as part of the story, you find out about umbrella sending their own super troopers into the situation to extract the G. I'm sorry, we didn't talk about the plot that much, but instead of the T virus from the first game, you have the G virus, and it doesn't look that different, but apparently it's completely different. New virus, do not steal. but as part of the game, you have like these umbrella commandos who go in there and steal this virus. So there's an extra mode,

which they call the fourth survivor, where you are one of these soldiers, you're wearing a mask, so you can't see his face. The only thing we know about him is his name is hunk. And again, talking about fans. Fans have argued

hunk is either a codename or an acronym or a misspelling of Hank, but Kami is like, no, no, it's hunk. We named him hunk. This is his name. It's hunk. why not it's a perfectly

perfectly valid name I have never heard the theory that it was a misspilling of hang it's it's an itchy tasty it's an itchy tasty and it Kamia denies it but as hunk you start off in the sewers

you have a set load out of guns and ammo and I think two herb combos and your mission is get out of the building go back through all these environments which are now loaded with monsters and just get out of the building in one piece

and it's timed not in a count down, but an account up. So it's like, how well can you do this? How fast can you get it done? You know, can you, first of all can you do it? Because there's a lot of monsters. But also, how fast can you do it? And, of course, it gives you a score at the end.

Now, what's out of left field here is there's the second version of the same game, which is called Tofu. That's T-O-Hifun F-U. Tofu. It's exactly the same as the fourth survivor, except in this time, you are a block of tofu. Let that sit there for a moment. You're playing as a sentient block of tofu.

You have little hands. You have Jill's beret on. Tofu has Jill's beret. Good for him. And tofu only has a knife and three herbs. So this is like an extreme challenge compared to the hunk mode. But it is exactly the same as far as. as enemy layout and, you know, what you have to accomplish, you're being timed.

So obviously, you have to take some, this is more about, like, health management and sort of, like, spacing. As the tofu takes damage, it changes color from white to red, although you can heal yourself a couple times. What's very fun to me personally is that whenever tofu is attacked, tofu speaks Osaka Ben. and I've looked this up, apparently a Capcom programmer named Katsutoshi Kratzuma is the voice of tofu. And yes, in the remake, when they bring back tofu, they brought him back and he re-recorded his lines for Osaka Ben. So he didn't say that much, but like if you live in, if you know Japanese and you know, like, what Osaka dialect sounds like, it's very much like that. Not day then.

Not any. Like, I'm not. Like that kind of stuff. He's got a very funny voice, which is obviously pitch shifted. I don't think, I don't think Katsuma has a funny voice naturally. I think it's been pitched to fit, I'm pretty sure. But if we're talking extra modes, we have to talk about how EGM, those pranksters at EGM, they once pretended to have a screenshot of what they call the Akuma mode, where if you go down to the lab, where you have to log into the computer, if you type in Akuma and do something else, of course, you can then play the game as Akuma and, like, throw fireballs at zombies. that's not real.

They just made that up. They took a, I think they took a screenshot of Street Fighter EX Alpha to get like a 3D Akuma and then they edited him into Resident Evil 2. But that's not real. But of course, today, fans have made this.

So if you want ahead and Google that, you can play the game as Akuma with a 3D model and throw fireballs and do uppercuts on zombies. Go ahead. It's free. It doesn't cause anything. I wanted to put Guy Lennel in it. Now we're talking.

Well, his theme goes to everything, so why not? The ultimate Resident Evil scenario where a man is just crouched in a corner waiting for zombies to come at him so that he has the option of throwing either a Sonic boom or doing a flash kick because he's charging down back. Also, as the theme that you mentioned, it restarts every time you go through a door. So it's just constantly restarting. That would be great. Also, as we know today, Capcom loves money. So because Resident Evil One was a hit, they knew that this game, even if it wasn't a hit right away, they knew they would try to sell this to make it was possible. So this game comes out in January, 1998.

By summer, later in the fall of overseas, but by summer in Japan, they have a dual shock edition, which launches the same day as the dual shock edition of Resident Evil One. and that adds support for the PlayStation 1 Dual Shot Controller. They do not change the soundtrack this time. No, they do not do that. Thank God. Please. You miss me with your Mansion basement music. It's fine.

But part of this is they add an arrange mode, which isn't what it sounds like. It's actually just more like a rookie mode that gives you infinite ammo. But there's also what they call Extreme Battle Mode, which is kind of like Fourth survivor in that you pick different, in that you have a character to survive in the mansion, but you have selectable characters, and each character has their own set of equipment. So this is kind of like a precursor for what would become the mercenaries in later games. Yeah. Also, Chris.

Chris is added in for the extreme battle mode. So Chris is not seen or heard from in the main game, but he's in the battle mode, if you want to play as Chris. And being that this is the first, you know, kind of the predecessor to mercenary mode, It's very easy to forget, I feel like, for maybe your average Resident Evil player, that there's a whole subset of people who just grinds on these mercenary modes. Oh, yeah. And doesn't maybe care as much about the base game or the story or anything like that. It's crazy how in-depth some of them get.

And I had forgotten that this laid the foundation for that. Because in my mind, it was RE3 because R3 was the first. one to have an actual mode called mercenary. I think the Saturn version of Resident Evil One might have had something like this. Maybe. But I think this is way, this extreme battle mode is way closer to what we eventually get. And yes, by the time Resident Evil 3 comes around, they literally call it the mercenaries. So, you know, but there's a clear path here.

Like, Capcom has always realized that any game with this many guns in it, you should give people an opportunity. to just play with the guns. Like, don't worry about the story. Just take the guns and go nuts. You know? It makes sense. Yeah. Well, I was going to say, though, that this, the dual shock arranged PlayStation

mode, whatever, that becomes the basis for the PC port. So if you're playing the Resident Evil 2 that's on good old games these days, that is based on this. So if you play the PC, good old games, Resident Evil 2, Extreme Battle mode is in there and arranged mode. All that stuff is in there. So you can play that. I mentioned Saturn.

There is no Saturn version of Resident Evil 2. They started one, but they canceled it. I think by the time they would have finished it, like the Saturn's already dead. Because don't forget, in Japan, the Dreamcast comes out in 1998. So I think they realize, like, let's not bother. They do make a Dreamcast version. Dreamcast version comes out in Japan, 1999. It comes to America and Europe in 2000.

Even more surprising for me, the first Resident Evil all. on Nintendo Hardware, I think. A Nintendo 64 version of Resident Evil 2 comes out in 1989 in America and then comes to Japan and Europe in 2000. It's one cartridge, but they put all the videos and dialogue and both scenarios. Everything's on there on one cartridge. It's kind of a feat of engineering. I don't know if it's a good version, but it's... I think Factor 5 was involved in this.

I might be wrong because they were really tech wizards with Nintendo stuff. But I might be wrong about that. It sounds likely, though, that Factor 5 helped with that. I think this is also one of those weird N64 games that, like, changes resolutions at various parts. Like, I could be conflating this with something else. But I think certain parts of the game, like maybe menus or something, are actually in different resolutions than other parts of the game, which wouldn't. really matter to too many people at all, unless you have like an upscaler or something that can't deal with that. You'll get some kind of hiccups or something.

GameCube version in 2003. Sure, why not? It came out in GameCube in 2003. I guess that's because they were turning the GameCube into kind of the Resident Evil machine to some extent. My understanding is that that's the only version. I could be wrong about this that has both scenarios on the same disc, so that does sound kind of useful. So I guess that might be arguably the best one, maybe. I mean, it's economical.

I guess they did it for the same reason that they would have ported those games all to the Dreamcast too, right? Because, yeah, you had four coming out on getting ready to come out on the GameCube, and you add Code Veronica either out or getting ready to come out on the Dreamcasts at that point. So it's like, oh, let's make sure people can play some more Resident Evil games here than just the one that's coming out. And over here, maybe also in the US, they were releasing them as like Resident Evil Archives or something. It was like Resident Evil Archives, Rez E2 and Resi 3, and maybe Code Veronica X was part of that series as well. But yeah, it was that you could get back then, I want to say every Resident Evil game that's not the Game by Color game would have been on the GameCube in some form, which is kind of cool, I think, because it was the same with Mega Man and Son. and such. So that was nice.

But, you know. Yeah, I'm being glib by saying Capcom loves money, but let's be honest, Capcom as a business also wants to do business with the console holders. So if they've got a very popular series, which by now, you know, this

is Resident Evil 2, so it's officially a series now, everyone wants to have Resident Evil on their console. So this is also Capcom sort of sharing the wealth and making good with these companies. Like, I don't know, we can make a version for your platform, of course we can. You know, and yes, Capcom, especially Nintendo, they had a awkward transition in the 64 era.

Like, there weren't that many Capcom games for N64. This is one of the rare ones. But then by GameCube era, Capcom and Nintendo are fully in pieces together and they make multiple Resident Evil games, some of them exclusive to the GameCube for a stretch. Not anymore, of course, but still. I issue a small correction.

I am misremembering the Archives thing was on the Wii, and it was when they re-released the Resident Evil GameCube game. and the Zero GameCube game. So please have my remarks stricken from your minds, as ever. Okay, but not the podcast. Do not edit that out. We have to capture Stu being wrong. People need to know.

Yes. They need to know. Capture Stu being wrong and making amends. That's very important. Speaking of Nintendo, however, we should mention that there was, I think we mentioned this earlier in the show, someone tried to port this game to the Game Boy Advance. Raylight Studios pitched a version of this,

and they made a demo, essentially. and this has only recently come to light. You can find this internet. You can play it. It's not bad. It's kind of like it's doing its best, honestly. I mean, it's obviously not in 3D, but, you know, like, you've got a sprite and you've got the backgrounds and you're walking from room to room and you're shooting the zombie. Like, I could see why no one approved it, but I could think, I think Real Light Studios did their best considering what the hardware they're working with, you know?

Admirable. But if we're talking, what do you mean hardware? We need to talk about tigers game.com. And kids, game.com is not a website, or at least it's not a website that you should visit. Game.com was a handheld console of sort made by Tiger. Yes, the company that made those sort of dedicated, like, LCD, like very primitive games throughout the 80s and 90s, they made a console with cartridges called game.com. And that got a version of Resident Evil, too.

It came out. It's on, like, you can buy it. It exists. It's real. It's not great. Again, it's only, you can only play as Leon. Everything is sprite-based. You're walking from a room.

You're shooting some zombies. A lot of the game is missing. It's just not there. Like, they had to compact the story-wise. But the broad strokes, like there's the police station. There's a laboratory. Tori, there's, you know, you got guns and items you pick up. It's, I don't know.

I don't know how it exists. I'm guessing Tiger must have given Capcom a significant amount of money to say, hey, please, please, please, please give us Resident Evil. And Copcom's like, if you insist, here, you know, they found some third party to make it probably. Because it's just, it's barely Resident Evil too, but it is official. And it came out unlike the Game Boy Advance version or the Saturn version or whatever. Either that or Capcom never thought they would actually do it and were shocked when they actually published it. So we talked about the troubles this game had. We talked about why this game is kind of very cool.

How did it do when it finally came out? Did their gambles pay off? Yes. Yes, it did. It did pay off quite well. It sold 3 million copies in its first month. It sold 5 million copies by the end of 1998. This does not include all the subsequent ports.

I'm just talking about the PlayStation version here. Because Resident Evil 2 sells so well so quickly, according to Itchy Tasty, Alex Anil has interviewed all these people. He says that Capcom Green Lights five different Resident Evil games before the end of 1998. And all these games, of course,

go through various permutations. I mean, one of them turns out the devil may cry, so, you know, but still, as soon as Resident Evil 2 comes out and does this well, Capcom's like, holy shit, we need more Resident Evil. You make a Resident Evil. You make a Resident Evil. All of a sudden, everyone in this company is doing some kind of Resident Evil stuff, you know?

Which makes sense because, let's face it, at the time, it's 1978, some of their other franchises not doing so great. So this one's a hit, and it's new. They're like, oh boy, let's do this. Hooray. Indeed, in Japan, I can't shut this out enough. In Japan, Capcom hired George. George Romero, yes, the George Romero, to shoot a live action commercial for Resident Evil 2. They got Brad Renfro to play Leon.

Brad Renfro already a movie star in 1988, okay? He'd already been in many movies. Unfortunately, he's passed away since. But Brad Renfell was Leon, an actress, I looked her up, Adrian France. Apparently, she was a soap opera star. She gets to play Claire. You know, it's not long, it's a commercial, but you've got Leon, you got Claire, you've got a lot of zombies. They're running around some empty buildings.

There's a minimum dialogue because it's in Japan. But you can look at this up online. It's very, it's very, I find it heartwarming just to see directed by George Romero on a commercial. Because, let's be forget, George tried to make a Resident Evil movie considering, you know, he looked at Resident Evil. It was like, hey, this looks like my movies. Can I make a movie? And he didn't get to make a movie. But he wrote a script for it.

And fans have also been working on that script and recreated that script in comic form. and I believe there's a documentary out there now about what George Romero tried to do with Resident Evil. Like, again, fans love them or hate him, they are all over this, and they're constantly digesting and dissecting what information we have about what could have been George Romero's Resident Evil. But he made this commercial. It counts. That's legal.

Also, if you live in Italy, you might have heard this story. Apparently, Resident Evil 2 was banned in Italy for a stretch. This was a wild story I read about. there was a private civil rights movement that argued the game was bad for children, so they wanted to keep it off store shelves, even though the packaging clearly said 18 plus. We know this dance. You can market the game for adults, but if some screeching parent says, what about the children?

Somehow courts listen to these people. I don't know why. Their campaign didn't work, but the pressure made Virgin Interactive, who was publishing the Resident Evil 2 in, Europe. Virgin Interactive paid for a different ad than the one that was seen overseas because apparently they thought that one was too scary for something. I don't, I can't find the ad, but that's apparently it's two different ads in Europe. Then this same organization tried again a year later, and this time they got the Guardia de Fanonza, which is like not the cops,

but like, I guess like the customs cops. I don't know who, I don't know the political structure of Italy. I'm sorry. But these, the Guardia de Fanonzaa. Which is like, not the cops, but like, I guess like the customs cops. I don't know who, I don't know the political structure of Italy. I'm sorry. But the Guardia Fonanza seized 5,500 copies of Resident Evil 1 and 2 from stores before court action eventually returned the copies to the stores. And they were eventually sold. But it's funny playing these games, especially playing these games today and thinking about how this shocked adults so much at the end of the century that they were fighting in courts to keep it off store shelves. So just, this is a civil rights. movement who were against civil rights, right?

They were that kind of civil rights. It's Orwellian. It's Orwellian, Stu. Yeah, geez. The people who take away freedoms are never unaware of how they name things. Everything, you know, it's always ministry of peace. Mama Mia. Also, we can't do, we can't not mention this because especially we've got a British person here.

Stu, do you want to tell the world about Spaced? I don't know people know. Oh, yeah. Spaced is, Spaced as a sitcom created by a garage. starring Simon Pegg, Jessica Heinz, and a bunch of other cool people like Mark Heap and people whose names, I forget, I'm a terrible man. But basically, you know Edgar Wright, and Simon Pegg's.

They later went on to do... Oh, Nick Frost, yes, of course. Went on to do Sean of the Dead. But Spaced is what they did. Not first, but before that. It's Channel 4. It's very, very funny. There's one episode that's really transphobic.

Don't watch that one. But all the other episodes are great. but one episode I've just realized it is the transfer of bigger this episode shit I'm sorry

oh damn it just skip through just whenever David William appears on the screen just skip it which you should do anyway

given what's just happened with him yeah basically what happens is some MPEG's character Tim I can't remember

oh yeah he's playing Resident Evil too much basically he's staying up playing it really late and it's getting into his head

and it starts affecting his sort of waking life and he starts seeing people as zombies and freaking out and stuff and it factors into the climax of the episode in a genuinely very funny way but I'd recommend you watch Space anyway in general

because it's very funny very, very good and funny right but because this episode exists and it's all about Resident Evil 2 and about zombies this is one big reason why a few years later Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg make Sean of the Dead which is a full

long zombie movie Yeah. Although, I gotta say, it's ironic, they play video games in that movie, but not Resident Evil, they play Time Splitters 2. Yeah. But that is zombies in it, right? That's a zombie game.

I don't know who makes that choice. Maybe they thought it was slightly too on the nose to have them been playing that again, I don't know. But then again, it's never stopped. Don't go right before or since. I guess they wanted the co-op, because the final joke is the co-op thing. I think it pays off.

Yeah, it pays a lot. Yeah. Player 2 is into the game. Yeah. we've established at Resident Evil 2, a huge hit, changed Capcom forever, essentially. What about remakes? Well, as soon as Capcom remakes Resident Evil 1 in 2002, everyone already asks, well, are you going to remake the other games? Indeed, there's press.

Mikami had to specify that when Resident Evil 2 came to the GameCube in 2003, he had to sort of play damage controls like, hey, this is not a remake. This is just a port. Do not buy this expecting a brand new game, please. It's just a port. You know, we like ports, but it's not a remake. Because at the time, everyone was very working hard on Resident Evil 4. And indeed, Mikami also said that because they were working on Resident Evil 4, which is another game that has an even more complicated story than Resident Evil 2, they were so busy working Resident Evil 4, they could not have possibly spent any time remaking Resident Evil 2 because they were all hands in on 4, which they eventually got out in 2005.

although the release of 2005 only reiterated how much people loved a Resident Evil and people again are like, hey, when are you going to remake Resident Evil 2? Capcom? Resident Evil 2 remake? Baby? No? As always, fans stepped in because there was a studio based in Italy called Invader Games. Invader Games was working very publicly on a game that called Resident Evil 2 Reborn. It was a third person over-the-shoulder shooter made an Unreal.

engine four, but very much an adaptation of Resident Evil 2 into full 3D. They showed it off. They had trailers. You could look at all the stuff. They were going to release it in July of 2015 before they canceled it. Like, sorry. We're not making this game anymore. Sorry, guys.

Bye. What do you think happened in 2015, guys? What happened? Okay, I'll tell you what happened. Yeah, what happened. In 2015, Capcom announces. Hey, we're doing it. We're going to remake Resident Evil 2.

We've listened to you. We've heard you. We're going to do it. We're making it now. It's not ready now. We're making this. Understand. Which, and apparently, this is behind the scene stuff, but apparently,

Capcom saw the fan remake and they're like, look, okay, guys, number one, please stop. Number two, come to Japan, come to Osaka. We want to show you what we're working on. So they showed these devs a private example of what they were doing. And they're like, can you please not make your fan project because we want to sell this? And the fans are like, yeah, sure, it's okay. But Capcom did a solid because Capcom's like, look, you're making a game here. It's a good game.

Just don't call it Resident Evil. Make your own game. And that's exactly what they do. Eventually, the project is retitled Daymare, 1998. Ironically, it comes out in 2019 when the R-A-2 remake comes out. But Invader Games is credited as special thanks on the Capcom remake, because they obviously had a collaboration with these devs, and they talked about what worked and what didn't work.

And it all sort of, you know, this is really like a two-cake situation. You get the Resident Evil remake and you get an original game that fans made. I think it's, I mean, I don't love Tamir. I'll be honest, I've bought several copies at this point, and I've tried to play them, and I never get very far. But I think it's great that the fans made a project that turned into a real game.

And they have sequels. There's sequels out there. So it's like good for them. Good for them making their own games. That's just such a better, like more good faith way for a company as big as Capcom to handle something like this too. Like we have so many more examples in recent years of, for everything we know anyway,

of a much more open and shut case of like, don't do it or we'll sue you. And that's, it or we're suing you. Not even don't do it and we'll or we'll sue you. Just, you know, even if whatever, however you think day mayor turned out, like that's, it's, like you said, it's just better for everyone. Like why, why, why be any other way about it? Also, just for timeline purposes, I should establish that when the, when they announce Resident Evil 2 remake in 2015, that is before Resident Evil 7,

exists formally, but it's after they unveiled the so-called kitchen demo at E3 that year, which was not labeled as Resident Evil, but eventually was very much a demo for Resident Evil 7. But when they first showed off that demo to the public, they didn't call it Resident Evil. That it's called a Kitchen. And it was just this really creepy, disgusting demo about exploring a full 3D kitchen. It's just like, you can look it up. It's nasty as hell. But Resident Evil is kind of in a weird place in 2015.

So when they announced this game, it's kind of step one towards getting fans back on board. Like, hey, guys, we know you didn't like Resident Evil 6. We know this. It sold well. We saw the numbers. It sold well. But we also saw your feedback and we're like, people don't like this. So as part of the Resident Evil comeback story, they have this sort of nugget.

But they wouldn't reveal it to the public until 2018. And they finally launched the game in 2019. So, Resident Evil 2 remake, not technically retro, but we're going to talk about it because it has major implications for gaming in general. So we're going to talk about it today a little bit just because it's important. But it's not retro. I've established we are now leaving the retro portion of the podcast because as of now in 2026, these games are only seven years old. So please understand. Also, for clarification, Resident Evil 2, the remake,

is called Resident Evil 2 in English. In Japan, they have distinct titles. In Japan, the game is called Biohazard RE2. Yes, the initials, RE2. And that pattern continues for the new remakes that happen afterwards because they just do Biohazard RE3, Biohazard RE4, and whatever might come in the future. So in Japan, it's less confusing.

But in English, we have to specify whether it's Resident Evil 2, 98, or 2019, because they're different games. games. Because yeah, unlike the first time when they remade Resident Evil 1, they embrace the new 3D models over the shoulder full action mode. So this is a remake that is indeed a very different game gameplay wise because you are in the thick of it. It plays more like 4 really, except it's even more modern than 4 because you have free camera

control. You can rotate the camera all you want. You can look wherever you want. Like in RE4, you can move the camera a little bit, but it always kind of snaps back. back in a place, you know? Not in this. The remake is like, no, no, no, you can put the camera wherever you want. Just go for it.

Tank controls, we don't know her. This is a fully 3D action game. And that means a lot because all of a sudden you're fighting zombies, and that means you are aiming at the zombies, and they will respond to where you hit them. Or more accurately, their body will explode wherever you shoot them with your guns. So if you want to shoot them in the arms, you're going to blow an arm off. You want to shoot them in the legs? they're going to fall down, they're going to crawl after you.

You want to take out your knife. You can chop off all their limbs. Okay? You can chop off all their limbs if you want to do that. That'll prevent them from crawling after you if you want. It's real gross. I should say this out loud. Resident Evil 2, 2019, is disgusting.

I mean, I love it. I'm a horror movie fan at this point. I know what I'm getting into. But compared to what adults were trying to ban 30 years ago, this game is nasty. Oh, it is gross. It's pretty gross, but those zombies kind of give it to you in their own way as well, because they're very resilient, much more resilient than I think in any other Resident Evil game

that they've been, and to the point where, like, what they call the knife test becomes a real thing here. Because sometimes you're never sure if a zombie is actually going to, get up again and leap at you very fast from across a very large distance, like a comically large distance, I would say. Yeah, it's basically like, you know, in the original Resident Evil games, you would shoot them, they'd fall down, and you could tell right away. Like, if there's a blood patch, then they're dead dead.

If there's not a blood patch, they might get up again in a few seconds, so you've got to be careful. And sometimes you'll see dead bodies around, and you're like, oh, is that a zombie? should I knife it? In this game, everything's a potential target. So your best strategy, I think, is like, just put one in the head.

Put one in the head and see if they get up again. Yeah. Because in this game, if you get lucky, I don't know the science behind this, but I think there's a random chance. If you shoot them in the head and you get lucky, you can decapitate them. Now, it doesn't work in Japan.

I'll tell it right now. In Japan, even in the rated Z version, which is like the most gross version, you cannot fully decapitate them, but there is a visual where like they bleed much too much, and that to you as a game player is like, oh, they're not getting up again, they're dead. But if you play the Western version,

their head comes off, like their head is gone. So that way you know, like, oh, they're dead. They're not coming up again. Yeah, I think it's an interesting way of, with the original Resident Evil, too, the zombies, like particularly with the handgun, they can take quite a few shots before they die. But with this game, obviously, because you can just directly aim at the head at any point,

I think it's a decent way of retaining that kind of do I really want to expend the ammo on this guy, anxiety. Because I felt like, again, the fans will probably tell me I'm mistaken, but the original Rezi 2, it doesn't really ever feel like you're low on ammo. There's a lot of ammo in that game. There is. There's a lot of, yeah. Honestly, in this game, it feels. feels like, especially in the early stages, it would be quite easy to run out of ammo if you just

wanted to kill every zombie, because you really can't and shouldn't, which is an interesting, interesting development. I would say this game is significantly more difficult than the original is. I agree. In that respect, which I didn't like this when I first played it, probably because I was getting frustrated with the fact that even though it had the, look, I came off the action resident evil games where headshots were reliable. Right. And in this game, all of a sudden, I'm like,

well, why isn't this working? It's stupid. If I shoot something in the head, it should die. That is what these games have established. But they break the rule here. But having come off the original so recently in playing this again so recently,

I now no longer don't like it. I think, hey, this is pretty good. Like, I like this. I'm feeling this now. I do still have criticisms of it, but we'll get to that when we get to the right point. One thing I like about the remake is how much it incorporates things from so many other games. Like, the remake of Resident Evil 2, way back in 2002, introduced self-defense items.

And now in the remake of Resident Evil 2, you can use knives and grenades, the at grenades now. These are sub-weapons, but they also double as self-defense. So if a zombie grab, or whatever, if something grabs you, you can press Space Bar and basically expend an item to sort of stun the creature and get it off. view. And in the case of a grenade, the grenade blows up and does what the grenades do. You can shoot the grenade if you want. In the case of a knife, the knife is basically stuck in them, and if you kill them, you can take your knife back. However, they've also introduced some wear and tear mechanics, so knives are no longer permanent. They take damage over time, essentially, and they break. So the game gives you, like, I don't know, five or six knives throughout the game. They

They periodically give you more knives that you can just sort of suck up on if you use them a lot, which again, it makes sense given that the knives are even more important now, so they have to make a way to make the knives fragile. Otherwise, they're too powerful. Indeed, there's even this unlockable infinite knife, which seems stupid because almost all the original games gave you a knife at the start. But no, because the knife is so important now, they literally give you an infinite knife as a special unlockable. It's weird how time changes that way. Yeah, and the ability to upgrade your knife, which I believe you can do in this game, though maybe I'm thinking more of four, is just crazy. If you came from older games, upgrade your knife, why would I need to do that? I don't know if there's an upgrade system. I mean, yeah. There's definitely a replacement system.

When I played the original Resi 2, I just put the knife in the item box at the beginning and never took it out. Yeah. Yeah, knife is not so useful. in two, as I recall. It's like some reasonable games of the knife is very good. Like, it's very good in Code Veronica. I don't think it's very good in two.

I don't think so. I mean, it has uses, but still. Also, we're talking about times changing doorways. The entire map is essentially one big space. There's obviously some, there's obviously

some loading sections between new areas, but in general, if you open a door, you're just going to open the door and go through it. There's no loading. And that means the rooms are not distinct. which means zombies can follow you.

Now, if you close a door, the zombie can't open the door right away, but they will bang on the doors and eventually knock them open. If you kill them, their bodies just fall on the ground. Again, one way the game kind of stays scary is there are bodies throughout the police station. You don't know for sure if they're dead if you haven't shot them dead yourself. And especially if you leave the library, you come back to the library, there's bodies everywhere. It's like, hey, is that body where I left it?

I don't know. They move around sometimes. Like, if you shoot a zombie dead and you think it's dead and you leave and come back, sometimes it will lay down on the ground somewhere else. It does that. I found one, I don't know, weird one where I killed one in a doorway, and I came back and it was just completely somewhere else. Like, an unseen force knocked it away.

I don't know what happened. But I think the game just, like, doesn't want zombies sitting in doorways. Also, spacewise, we got to put the hip pouches. This game gives you a ton of extra stuff to carry. Like, I was constantly, like, full. My inventory was always full. So the game compensates by giving you hip pouches that expand your inventory. But even with that, it's really hard to manage your inventory in this game because there's so much more stuff to hold.

Because you've got knives, plural, you've got grenades. You have boards. You have boards. You have board, like, instead of the cord from the first game where you choose where you want to close the shutters, this game just gives you sets of boards and you can board up a window to stop zombies from coming through that window and any window you do not board up

there's a chance when you walk by a zombie will just break in and come and enter the room and I'm pretty sure they don't give you enough boards for the entire first floor I'm pretty sure No, I don't think they do So you kind of have to choose like which ones do I want to seal off

and which ones do I want to just leave? Like there is one window right next to the dark room save room and the staircase, I always board that one up because I walk through that room like every time I play the game, so that's like, I don't want a zombie coming in there.

But the West hallway, like the West hallway where you find a liquor in the first game, like that hallway, once you go through that hallway once you've opened the doors, you don't have to go through that hallway anymore. It's fine. So I leave that one empty, usually. Yeah, and plus also there is the fact

that in this game, there is a challenge you, are going to need to haul us quickly and you really don't want zombies in your way. Also, it's a lot harder to kind of duke the zombies in this one than it is in the original because the corridors are that much wider everywhere. Sorry, the corridors are so narrow. In there's so many places, it's a lot harder to dodge them. And they can jump at you from like a mile away.

Yeah, and that, yeah. Obviously, you know, it's like, it's why it's worth clearing out the liquors because you don't want Mr. X to chase you into a liquor corridor. That's that's very bad. Actually, just to the day, I got to tell the story. So I was in the east side of the mansion. I was in a room. A liquor surprised me in the room. I ran out of the room because liars, zombies open doors. Lickers do not open doors. So I knew if I escaped the room, the liquor would not follow me. But I ran out of a room with a liquor and a zombie grabbed me and while the zombie is chewing on me, Mr. X opened a God.

damn door and entered the hallway. And I was like, oh, shit. Something that can only happen in this game. Yes. So, okay, we brought up, let's talk about it. Mr. X, because the entire space is now connected, Mr. X is now way less predictable and way more dangerous. He can essentially follow you into almost any room. There's definitely a couple rooms he won't, like, there's some same rooms he won't follow you into. But the main hallway, he loves the main hallway. Library, he loves the library. He will just walk around and you can hear him.

Once Mr. X enters the game, which he didn't, there's no entrances time, there's no helicopter sequence. He just appears, which is kind of more scary. It's less memorable, but it's more scary. It's one of the all-time gaming moments in my opinion when he, it's that good. I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of Mr. X in this game, but not because, I'll explain if you're interested, but that entrance is just wild. it's so well done. Just a sudden, like, no, this move. Shove the helicopter out the way,

oh, white, shit just got real, big time. But the problem for me with him is, personally, and I'm holding my hands up here, I know this is not the most fun way to play the game. The most effective way to avoid him is just to not engage with him at all. And you can, you can, he is rubbish,

because he is rubbish. If he gets you, I said this recently to some friends and I was vociferously disagreed with by, I maintain that I'm right. If Mr. X gets you and he hits you, it barely does any damage. It should put you in danger, I think, if not outright kill you. And then he would be scary.

If he could actually, I mean, the danger is him chasing into a liquor corridor or something. If he gets you, it's like whatever. It doesn't hardly do anything. And I feel like it would be so much cooler if he actually was more threatening. He's mostly, the problem for me is he mostly because he's not threatening. He's just irritating. It's like, well, I need to go to this part of the station. but I can't because Mr. X is there.

So I guess I'll just do a loop. That's not, I don't like that. But it's not that bad. It's not that big of a deal because, frankly, he's not even in that much of the game ultimately. So it's like, whatever. But I think that the promise is more, there's more,

it's a better idea than I think in execution, but it's still a cool execution. I'm just being, you know, me. I get it. I get it, yeah. And yet, he is a better version. of the nemesis, then the nemesis himself is in the Resident Evil 3 remake. Yeah, it's funny how that it, because Resident Evil, like, I would argue Mr. X in Resident Evil 2,

98, informed nemesis in Resident Evil 3, 99. Yes. And then again, when they make this game in 2019, they make Mr. X more like the nemesis was in Resident Evil 3 in 1999. But then when one year later, they released a remake of Reson Evil 3 in 1999, they released a remake of Resident Evil 3, that version of Mr. X is more, the nemesis, rather, is more scripted and less spontaneous. So it's totally different sensation than this game where he's always after you.

And that's like, Stu, I agree. If he, if he catches you, he is not a game ender. But the fact that he's relentless is a major factor. Like once he's in the station, he never stops. Like, you can shoot him in the head a couple times and put him down. He's not that hard to stun. But this time around when you stun him, you get nothing. He gives you nothing.

So he's just eating up your ammo. Yeah, I think, like, the most effective that he is is when you're doing the library air quotes puzzle when you're moving the shelves, because that's, he can really be a pain when you're trying to do that. But again, all that is is irritation because he's... so easy to dodge. You just cycle him around, come back, move it a bit more, psych him around a bit more. And I do find myself wishing, like, I don't know,

this, I wish this was, I feel like I'm looking at a gift horse in the mouth, you know, but it does, to me, the game ever so slightly steps down down when he's in the police station, because the way I played it, I didn't, I was just like, well, the most sensible thing to do is to not go anywhere near this guy, so I'll just weigh it out. and that's not fun and that's on me, but then they shouldn't have made that the most effective strategy to deal with him.

I don't know. But I just want to point out that if you do knock him down, not only you don't get anything, he only stays down for like a minute, tops. Oh, yeah. Like, he does not stay down for long. And again, in the first game, if you shoot him, he goes down,

like, he's done in that area. You're fine. If you run away from him, he'll stay in that area. you're fine. In this game, he's always moving. You can shoot him and knock him down, but he's only going to be stunned for like a minute tops. And if you leave the room, he's still in that room and then he's going to move around again. Indeed, fans have gone in and used like camera hacks. He really does walk around the police station. He does this. Like, there are reasons, there are

moments where he has to be certain places. So he, like, he will cheat in those moments. Like, I need to be here. He'll jump to that point. But normally when he just walks around the station, he literally is walking around the station. So that's really cool. And you can hear him, you can see him open door. I can't tell him how many times I've come into a room and I saw a door close. And I'm like, oh, he just left. He just left.

Okay. Don't go that way. Yeah, he's a bit of a heavy stomper, isn't he? Oh, yeah. Very heavy. It's not graceful. Or being on the other side of the door. I'm sure this has happened to everyone, but you open the door to move to another room.

And he's right on the other side of it. I mean, I've had that with regular zombies, but yeah, with him, it's even like, oh. It's awful with regular zombies because they will immediately get you when that happens in my experience. You know. But like, I want to stress this, don't get me wrong, I do think he's cool. I don't think he's not cool. I do think he's cool. I wonder if the way he works is one of the reasons why they've changed blue herbs in the resume.

Because in Resident Evil, in the classic Resident Evil games, blue herbs are only for dealing with poison. That's all they do. Like, are you poisoned? Use a blue herb. Are you not poisoned? Then don't touch the blue herbs. They do nothing. Whereas in this game, if you combine a red and a blue herb, it essentially gives you a temporary, like, shield.

So I personally, I generally keep a red and a green and a blue herb on me at all times as a mix. So if someone like Mr. X or a boss, like traps me and I'm in deep shit, I take that. it heals me and I get a brief window of sort of safety. I don't think you're invincible, but like in the situation I described earlier where I was surrounded by like enemies all around me, I was in danger. I took that thing and I was able to escape, you know, without going back into danger again. I got hit, but I got away from them in one piece in decent shape and I was able to sort

of survive because of the new bluer abuses. And I want if that's for Mr. X because Mr. X, yeah, he can corner you. He can put you in a situation where, like, there is no way out of this without getting hurt. There's no way. So here's a freebie if you're prepared, you know? And if we're talking about Mr. X, we've got to talk about, again, fan modders, there are so many mods on the internet to mess with Mr. X. First of all, some fans just take him out of there. Some fans don't want them there.

You can mod them out of the game. But that's a coward move, in my opinion. why don't replace him with Thomas the Tank Engine or Beach version where all he's wearing is a Speedo you know he's ripped by the way totally ripped Oh I want him to catch me

Holy shit Or he has like a music Like if he's in the same room as you He gets a special musical theme So fans have moded that to play X is going to give you by DMX So like That rules

Yeah I The only thing that would make that And maybe it does do this The thing that would make that great is if it was more muffled the further away he was and it got progressively less muffled. I would love that.

I don't know the logistics, but yeah, it happened. It's out there. It's a mod. But yeah, in general, like, it's, like, the remake is more or less the same game, like, structurally. Like, you have the police station, you have the lab, you have the sewers.

But like the 2002 remake, they change and rearrange plenty of things. You know, some things are simplified, some things are expanded. Sherry, Sherry gets a whole sideline where she's in an orphanage with the chief of police and he's chasing you. It's kind of, it's a little bit unsettling because you're a child and he's an adult. But it's also, it's not that long.

I think it's like the perfect length. Like if it was any longer, it would be irritating. But for me, like, it's just long enough to be intimidating. Because, you know, as with all like stealth sequences, like, if he catches you, you just start over, you know? So it's like, you don't want to be doing that over and over again. So, like, it's not that long. But to me, like, it was just enough. Do you think they nick that from The Last of Us when you're LA with the cannibal guy?

I didn't play The Last of Us. Oh. Well, they did. They did nick it from that. But it's okay. It's fine. The whole video game industry is built on nicking things. For example, Resident Evil nicked from Alone in the Dark and Exetica.

Everything comes from everywhere. Yes, I understand. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don't want to get too much in the weeds here because this is not a retro game, but I do want to shout out a couple things that are important to me. Or more importantly, Stu, Stuart, I need you to know that Karen Strassman, who voices Annette Birkin in the remake, is also the semi-regular voice of Rouge the Bat. Well, hot damn.

You've seen that bat good. Lord. It doesn't make me a fair. It makes me smart. I ripped that line from the Venture Brothers. Excuse me. And like the classic game, there are tons of unlockables in this game. Lots of, you know, guns with infinite ammo, the unbreakable knife.

There are extra costs. These are free DLC on Steam. I don't know about other platforms, but I was able to download for free the sort of retro costumes that are based on the PS1 models. So, like, they have all the articulation of a modern video game model, but they're all blocky and the faces don't emote. So, like, you're playing. Yeah, you're playing this game. Like, you know, you're hugging Sherry and Sherry's, you know, pouring her heart out to you. And, you know, Claire's just, his stone face just, hmm.

I need to take a shower. It's like, okay. One thing I think is really cool is they have what's called ghost survivors, which are playable side stories. I haven't even gotten to these yet myself. I've just been playing the main game lately. But, like, Kendo gets his own side game. The mayor's daughter gets her own side game. Ghost, the ghost survivor.

is an umbrella soldier, he gets a side game. There is a sheriff who comes to, like, when at the opening the game of the gas station, there's a sheriff who shows up and gets eaten. If he doesn't get eaten, you have the side game where you're like, you're at the gas station fighting off zombies. Like, they put a lot of, like, extra time into extra modes that play. Again, you can play and replay to sort of improve your time.

Are these, were these paid or were they just free DLC? I can't remember. I had them. I bought the game. on Steam? I feel like they were free. They added them as an update. I could be wrong. I think some of them are unlockable and some of them are free. Right, right. Okay. I never got around to these and I'm excited to play them when I re-finished the remake. I know Fourth Survivor and Tofu are unlock unlockable. They come back from the original 98. Like I said, it's basically the same general mode,

except now, of course, it's all in 3D. Tofu is back. Only I think it's cute, if you clear the game as tofu, you can unlock additional foods to play as, but they're all soft foods. So don't worry. You're not going to be like a hamburger. It's like, oh, you don't want to be tofu? How about, you want to be some pudding? You can be a pudding. Like, you can be, uh, I think they might have a yoke on in there. They're all different kinds of soft food. If this was in the UK, you'd be able to play as a flump. That's a UK joke for all the UK listeners enjoy. Also, each character in that mode has their own loadouts. So, like, the classic tofu loadout of one knife and three herbs, different characters have different ones. I know one of the characters has like 30 grenades. That's it.

So it's just running around and I guess like getting like putting grenades in in the zombies mouths when they try to grab you and they're just going to keep running or throwing grenades will and hilly and trying to get out of the room I guess. Either way it sounds pretty funny. But yeah, because modern games are the way they are, they also have a DLC package where you can just unlock all this stuff. It's fine. Extra costume. You can buy extra costumes. You can unlock these solo modes. Like it's not even that much.

It's like five dollars. and, you know, if it's a steam sale, it's probably like $2. It's very cheap. Yeah. It is a fun way to play through the game with an infinite ammo, gattling gun, of all things. It's, that's how I first beat the game to my shame, but it is very funny when you walk into a room. There's like a bunch of horrible enemies. You're just like, nah.

It's very satisfying. I think it's important to mention this because unlike the first game, like the first game had these unlockables, but you still just played the regular game and you had to get it down to a matter of, you know, doing it quickly, not saving so much, avoid healing too much, but like pretty straightforward. Yeah. In the new version, you have to clear the game. You have to get like a very high grade, I think S plus,

which means doing it very quickly, and you have to play on hardcore mode, which means all the zombies do more damage, and you have to use ink ribbons to save as well. Like in regular gameplay, the typewriters are there, but they don't ask for increbons. only ask for free of them is on hardcore mode. So to get the, like, to get the good stuff in this game,

you have to beat the game on the hardest possible mode very, very quickly, which was not a requirement in the original. So I think I appreciate that, like, okay, look, this isn't going to be for everyone. Just give us some more money. You can just unlock it. It's fine. That's way rougher than I would say getting any rank in the original game is,

um, this game's much harder, like I mentioned earlier. In my opinion, it's much harder. So that, that's, uh, there's a lot. of things that can go wrong. Yeah. There's a lot more ways to get eaten. These zombies are so much more capable of getting you.

Yeah, that sounds rough. I wouldn't want to do that. I'd rather do the clear the game six times and get A ranks under two and a half hours to one knocked off. In general, I wonder how much of it is sort of like catered for like streamers and things like that. Like people who like doing public sort of challenge runs like this. Makes sense. I mean, yeah, this game is, I think if you, if you go on a Twitch any time, any hour of the day, oh yeah.

I feel like there's going to be at least a dozen people streaming this game for like hundreds of people. Like these are very popular streamer games, very popular. Especially with all the mods, you know, people play this game with mods all the time. Mods that make it harder, mods that make it easier, mods that just change things altogether. Like, the mods scene for this game is huge and the audience for this game is huge. Yeah. And the speed runs of them are always big events. every year at GDQ as well.

It seems like they always end up putting one of these semi-modern Resident Evil games into the lineup, and it always does really good few numbers. Yeah. I think, what's his name? Carcinogen SDA. He speed runs a lot of games, not just Resident Evil, but he speeds runs a lot of Resident Evil. I believe one year at GDQ, he played this game and did a no damage run live, which is, wow. Something like that.

Yeah. Like, he does a lot of no damage runs on his YouTube channel, and usually they are no save, but often it's like, it's no damage, but I also take breaks to save because this game is very hard. So to do this game, no damage live, is really impressive, because that means you didn't mess up even once. Wow. But yeah, we're at two hours here, so I want to wrap things up, but I do want to talk about why I want to talk about this game today, despite not being retro. it's because this game, pardon my French, is fucking huge. Okay? It comes out in 2019.

It sells almost 6 million copies that year. The current total puts it closer to 16 million. It is the number one selling Resident Evil game in Capcom, which is like, which makes it one of their best selling games ever. Because right now Monster Hunter is bigger, but still, Resident Evil 2 is like number three on the list. Like, it's huge. Huge game for the company. And as we already talked about, they've already made remakes. They've remade three.

They remade four. They are almost certainly remaking more games. As we record this, it's still in the rumor phase. Lots of rumors say zero is coming in 2027. I don't know if that's true. I really hope they get to code Veronica because I think Code Veronica, I think that Veronica is a great game as it is. But I also recognize that there are some weird stuff in that game that, like,

gameplay-wise and storytelling-wise, that should be. improved. So I feel like a Code Veronica remake would hit so hard. But again, a Zero remake would probably do that game great too because Zero is like not great. So a remake might fix it. Who knows? You never know. I mean, frankly, Zero was closer to what I would call a zapping system than what RE2 is because in that game, you have two characters exploring a large area at the same time and you zap between them, you know? Whereas in this game, it's more about... taking turns. But still, all these are viable on the table. And indeed, I believe, this is my theory, I believe that the success of Resident Evil 2 remake has impacted the mainline games

because Village, which came out, what, 2022, I think? Village after release got a new 3D mode over-the-shoulder mode. That wasn't in the main game. The main game is first person. They added one later, that's third person. And with the upcoming, we're recording this before, it's out, Reniquium, Reniquium is launching with both first person and third person modes, like at launch. And I can tell you, I tell you right now, I was a TGS for 2025. When I walked around Resident Evil 2 demo, a Reniquium demo booths, almost everyone was playing the third version version. So I think that's a statement about, I don't know if it's all fans or just Japanese fans, but, But I feel like there are a lot of Resident Evil fans who don't like first person games.

They want to play third person games. They want to see the character. So I think the success of the remakes informs that, and that's why the new games now, even though they're clearly made to be first person games, you're supposed to be looking around a haunted house or whatever and you're scared, they want to include the third person to get as many fans on board as possible. That's my theory. That and I think 7 and 8 were very VR first games. Oh, yeah, that's true.

Because they both had VR compatibility, I believe, from the start. And now, I mean, VR hasn't gone away, but that bubble is certainly popped, I would say. It's a niche. It's a niche. Yeah, a lot of people have figured out they didn't actually really want it after all. And so I feel like them launching with first and third person mode is very telling of that. Also, the entire setup for Resident Evil 9 Reniquium, it's clearly a sequel to two in that Leon's coming back, you know, and they've shown lots of shots at the police station again. Like, they want you to think about Resident Evil 2.

Not three. Even though the, even though Requiem City is destroyed in three, that's not two. The marketing for this, for the new game is very clearly evoking imagery of two. And outbreak for some reason. I don't know why outbreak is coming and come back, but whatever. It's, it's, that's not either here or there. Also, we have to shut this out because it might be, it might be in arcades now. I don't know.

We're recording this before it's, it's gone public. But in 2025, we've seen test footage of Resident Evil 2 deadshot, which is an arcade cabinet clearly based on the graphics and models of the remake. It's a first person, light gun game with force feedback handguns and the full works. Like, apparently like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a first person, gun game game, Apparently, like, it sprays, like, air or whatever you, like, as you're playing the game, like, like, zombie breath or whatever. Oh, geez. It's been, but, Stu, we talked with this a few months ago.

There was one in Essex. I told you to go to Essex. I don't know. Did you go to Essex? I don't know. I'm not going to Essex. I like being alive. It's fine.

It's fine. But it's since been seen elsewhere. I've seen footage of it in the United States. I haven't seen much in the way of official news yet, but it's very clearly being tested. The cabinets, you know, you can see YouTube shots of fans playing. playing it. The cabinet has a Band-I-Namco branding, which makes sense. Band-A-Namco is a long history of making arcade cabinets for other companies. See also, like the Nintendo Mario Kart cabinets. Those are all Band-A-Namco made.

So, it would make sense that Capcom, you know, Capcom has arcade history, but Capcom also doesn't make arcade games anymore. So why not just partner with the company that makes arcade games all the time? So I don't know what the work with. Yeah. Yeah. No, sorry. I just want to apologize to our listeners in Essex real quick. I've got no problem with Essex.

I set my webcomic in Essex. I like Essex. I'm joking. It's a joke. So that's kind of a mystery at this point, but it's clearly coming at some point. I'm assuming during this year because it's going to be the 30th anniversary of Resident Evil in general. So like, why not make a big push? I know the next time I'm in Chicago, which fingers crossed will be soon, I'm going to go to Galloping Ghost.

And I really, really hope they have Resident Evil 2 Deadshot there because I want to play Resident Evil 2 Deadshot there. because I want to play Resident Evil 2 Deadshot. I can also say about Resident Evil Resident Evil Deadshot that supposedly earlier in the months of November 2025, it was spotted at select round one locations in the U.S. being tested. Okay.

So I don't know what that means because it was still a test. I was at round one in November, and I can tell you I did not see one there. I'm sure it's not at everyone in the U.S. because there are many at this point. So maybe it's a thing that round one would get. Unfortunately, though it is,

there's a chance that could come to the Galloping Ghost. They do not tend to get like the brand new and probably very, very expensive machines. There's certainly exceptions to that, but I would probably put my money on it being a round one thing versus something like Galloping Ghost. But who knows? Galloping Ghost does at least have one of the old resident evil

arcade gun game, so there's that. Yeah. Yeah, we should, we're glossing over this, but like, it's not, this would not be the first time Resident Evil has an arcade game. There's a whole, there's a whole backstory to that that we're not getting into maybe another day. But before we wrap up here, I just want to mention that one of the reasons I wanted to this episode is because I feel like Resident Evil 2, specifically Resident Evil 2, 2019, was a flashpoint for every other company who has a horror game franchise because all of a sudden, if you look at the past couple of years, everyone has released a big budget, fully 3D, really nasty third person over-the-shoulder action game

based on classic horror franchises because Dead Space came back, Silent Hill 2 came back, alone in the dark came back. Wow. Silent Hill F is not a remake, and it's kind of more of a soul's like, but still, It's over-the-shoulder third person. Coming soon this year in 2026, there's the Fatal Frame 2 remake, which very much looks like a Resident Evil 2 remake. And we don't know what it is yet, but Bluebird team is making a new Silent Hill. That's almost certainly going to be over-the-shoulder action as opposed to fixed camera.

So I feel like as much impact as Resident Evil 2 had, you know, almost 30 years ago, the new Resident Evil in our modern landscape has very much informed what horror games looked like. now, and the answer is, it's an action game, but you're in the thick of it, and you know, you have weapons, but everything's in your face. Good luck. Feel free to screw with me, but that's my opinion. No, I think you're right. I mean, I'm just sort of sitting here wondering, is the evil within too new for a remake? Because that was a great game.

It's an exception that proves the rule, I think. I'd like to see it. I'd like to see either a new one or a remake of the first one. to make it run better. It could just be the same in every other way. I love that game. Those were third person at launch, right? Weren't they already third person?

I believe so. Yes, they were. I haven't... So it was Dead Space. Yeah, yeah, no, but I mean, like, they were a certain way where it's like, yeah, I mean, they could. I know that the, oh, God, I mean, Tango Game Works is the whole thing now, but someone owns the rise to those games.

They should definitely be easier to... I mean, most of them are still available on sale, but yeah, they could maybe use another... True. Maybe a remaster, you know? I sometimes feel like I'm the only person who loved the original, the Evil Within. I just would love to see it. I remember a comment about it. I think it's got a lot of intriguing aspects to it.

I agree. I think, I mean, hey, if Shadows of the Dam got a remaster, I don't see why Evil Within. Oh, my God. It's true. Yeah. So, why not? What about Cold Fear? Let's go all the way down.

Let's do Cold Fear. Let's go. Cold Fear is on Steam, I got to say, unlike a lot of classic games of that Cold Fear is on Steam if you want to buy it and play it. Cold Fear is pretty legit. I was just trying that out there. I quite like that again. But anyway, we could do this all day.

But yeah, we're over two hours here. We're talking about non-retro games. We've clearly lost our direction. It's time to be put back in our place and wrap this up. So let me hear from you. Viewers, of course, let me hear from you. But you in the room with me, hear from me, I'm going to hear from you now. Which Resident Evil is your favorite Resident Evil?

Is either one of these, your favorite Resident Evil? Stuart? I prefer the original because having played it fresh so recently, I do think it's a masterpiece. I had to go back and edit my top tens and put it in there because it is, I really don't think it puts a foot wrong. I think it's perfectly paced. I think it offers an enormous amount of gameplay

that is distinctly different depending on the scenario that is just satisfying from start to finish. It looks great. The music is fantastic. We didn't really talk about the music. The music is amazing in this game. That's why they had the thing in the remake to put the old music back in because they knew. Yeah, they charge for it, though. I've got to say, I'm a little peeve they charge for that. That should be, that should be, come on. I have the M3.

I do like the remake. I do think it's lesser in the sense that it does. Well, it has a different atmosphere, but I just feel like the original is such a perfectly composed Resident Evil and such a perfectly composed. horror game and perfectly composed action game that I've got to give it to that. It's one of the, it's one of the best PS1 games I've ever played, and I'm genuinely thrilled that I got to play it. I finally played it properly. You know, it was worth it, you know, I'll play it again. It was brilliant. You know, I should mention before, I didn't say this out loud, but Resident Evil 2, the original, you can play it on G OG. It is on PlayStation Plus at this moment, so you can play it on PlayStation. I don't know what level PlayStation Plus. I have no idea what the levels are, but I, I feel like you. I feel like, you. You can buy it on there as well. It might be for sale. It might be for sale as well, but you definitely, if you're a subscriber, you can download and play it. It's actually a huge download.

I assume they're using like up-res textures, but like it's free if you're PS Plus, so you can play that there. Which is good because for a long time, certainly when Resident Evil 2 remake came out, it was very hard to play the original Resident Evil 2 unless you already owned a copy on PSN, which I do. You know, because if you own the PSN copy, you can play it on PSP, you can play it on Vita. can play it on PS3, but now with the PS Plus stuff, you can play it on PS4 or PS5, and good old games lets you play it on PC. So the original Resident Evil 2 is actually quite playable these days, which was not always the case. So I'm very happy to report that both versions of this game are very accessible. I really think the Capcom are kind of cracked that they haven't done a Resident Evil legacy collection like they have with some of their other franchises. I really do think that people

would go for that. I don't think it would cannibalize the sales. I don't know why they would think it would. But just with the original graphics, maybe upscale it. That's all you need to do. Even if you want to add safe states, all that stuff, fine. But just, I would love to play these in their original form on, like, the Switch. The Switch 2, I would be all over that. Or Steam, you know. If it's on good old games, I really feel like it should be on more platforms, the classic versions. Because, yeah, it's on good old games. They often go on sale, you know, it's not a lot of money. so it would be great to see those games show up on Steam or Switch where they have the dedicated handhelds.

I don't know. I'm sure there's a way to play good old games on a Steam deck, but I don't quite have that. There is a Reg Launcher, and I think they've also, for the new versions, I think they have properly modded in like pad support much better than it used to be as well, but I haven't tested this myself.

I do own them, but I haven't tested this yet. But my point is, like, it's hoops. There are hoops to jump through, whereas if it was on Steam, or if it was on Switch, then these games would be handheld, available, like easy to play on handheld mode

for a lot of people, which would be nice. There are hoops to jump through, statues to push medallions to... Yes. Thank you. Brian, what do you think? Is Resident Evil 2,

either one, your favorite Resident Evil? They're both very high up there on my list, but they don't quite make number one. Okay. I think both versions of Resident Evil 2 are better, games, but I'm one of those weirdos who really likes three. Okay.

Yeah. Oh, hell yeah. Come back for the three episodes so we can talk about three. Well, we'll definitely look at the three. We'll get to three. But like, Resident Evil Three remake is like five years old. Yeah, yeah. That's very new.

Yeah, as soon as I finished two, I started three because I haven't done that one either and I haven't a great time with it. So, yeah. We'll definitely get to three, the PlayStation game at some point for sure, because that's a classic game. We have to talk about that. What do you think, though? I'm curious, are these games scary to you?

Because we talk about the Alien versus Aliens thing. Like, aliens is not really a scary. It's not really a horror movie. There are scary moments, but it's very much an action game. Do you think Resident Evil 2 is still scary? Either one? Up to you. I don't think it's scary.

I think it makes you jump. The original Resident Evil did scare me when I was younger because of things like just the atmosphere, just the ticking clock hanging in the... Mansion, the monsters. It's a lot quieter. It's a lot less dramatic. I do think the original can still be frightening.

For me, no, not this one. It's just too bombastic, but it works. It's definitely got atmosphere. The remake's probably scarier because it's quieter. You're just in there, you know. But it didn't scare me because I'm rock hard and nails and I could win in a fight with anyone.

And yet you won't go to Essex. Oh, no. No, no, no. But that's more because of... And I don't do that bit again. It's fine. Yeah, I agree with that completely, actually. I think RE1, in terms of the originals, R.E1 is way scarier than RE2. And the remake, I think, with what they did with a more foreboding atmosphere,

even in the police station of RE2 remake puts it as being much, much scarier than the original RE2, for sure. And Stu, you answer this question, ready. So I'll ask Brian. Brian, which Resident Evil 2 do you prefer? Tough choice. I'll go the opposite. It is a tough choice.

I'll actually, much to my own surprise, go the opposite of Stu. I was so impressed from the get-go by everything that two remake did. Maybe it's just recency bias, even though I haven't played two remake that recently. But I prefer that version, I think. and as far as recommending it to maybe someone who has never played a Resident Evil game before, I would say

two remake is pretty much a perfect place to jump in. I think it does a phenomenal job of capturing the heart of the old games, even though it plays completely different than the original game. Yeah. You know, like, for Resident Evil 96 versus 2002, like, that's a really tough choice for me

because, like, the new one looks better, but they both play the same. Like those are the same games like gameplay-wise, you know. Things are shuffled around, but the game itself is still the same. Resident Evil 2, the two versions, play completely different, but they still capture so much of the same energy. I really am impressed by how they did that. I find them pretty scary, honestly. I mean, it's true.

There's nothing in the remake that's on par with, say, walking into the sewers and hearing a sound, like, oh, God, the spiders are here. Like that's, to me, is terrifying. Nothing like that happens in the remake. But the fact that, you know, like I told, like I said, coming out of a room, being in danger, stumbling into more danger, and seeing Mr. X come through a doorway, like, oh, my God. Everything is here. It's a party in this hallway. And I'm the fucking pinata. Like, it's, oh, God.

I hate this. I hate this. So, yeah, I'm, I think I still prefer, I still prefer the second, the, the 98 version just because it's, it's, classic in my eyes, but I feel like the new version is so good. And the fact that it's sort of informed modern horror design, I feel like it really, it shows how much people enjoy it and how many games have sort of taken that formula and running with it. I mean, let's face it, Resident Evil 4 was already a third-person shooter game, but they still remade it to be more like Resident Evil 2 2019. Like, they still did that.

Anyway, we are well over two hours. I want to wrap things up here. Thank you so much for listening to us. This has been Retronauts. If you listen to this episode for no money, thank you for listening to Retronauts. I really appreciate it. However, I do want you to know that Patreon.com slash Retronauts is how we operate our business. If you go there and give us $3 a month, you get all our episodes one week early. If you go there and pay $5 a month, which is just two more dollars. You know, that's nothing. You get the early access. You get extra episodes that are only available to the Patreon. You get bonus columns from me. I write a column every week about old games. I have written many columns about Resident Evil, including Resident Evil, too. You also got access to our Discord.

We are always having fun on our Discord. It is a very open and exciting place where we talk about movies or sports or even Essex, if you want to talk about Essex in there. It's fine. It's not up the table. There's no ban on Essex content in the Discord. I know this. Sadly.

Stuart, what do you want to tell the people about you and your work? I'm very tall. I wrote a book for All Games are good. That's a tremendous book. You can get that for limited run games. You'll definitely enjoy it. I have other books and things coming out that you'll need to keep an eye out for. I don't know when this episode is coming out, but I may or may not be at Magfist while it's on.

This will be post-Magfest. Oh, okay. I will have been at MacFest, so you may have seen me at MacFest. Congratulations. And you can also find me on Blue Sky as stuartjit. Dot blue sky. orgal or whatever it is. And, you know,

I placed mostly about my webcomic on there, so sorry. And Brian. You can find my translations and links to just about everything I do at 1 million power.com, which includes a YouTube channel. And I've been making videos on the chronological history of side scrolling beatem ups for a while now with a series called scrolling down the belt. And just back in October, I released my first documentary on Sega's R360 arcade hardware, something that Retronauts listeners would probably be interested in.

And I will also have been at MagFest to do a panel about the R360. And there is another documentary plan for the end of January called The Fate of Castlevania, which Diamond here contributed heavily to. So, yeah, please check out the YouTube channel. All right. That may be out by the time this podcast drops or it may be contemporary. We'll see. We'll see. Okay.

But yes, I did definitely do stuff for that so I'm in there somewhere, probably. Yes, you're a number one contributor in terms of volume, I think. Ah, well, if you want quantity over quality, I'm definitely your guy. Thank you. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Everything I do is impeccable. But yes, you can find me on the internet by looking for Fight Club.

F-E-I-T is my last name C-L-U-B That is a weapon not found in any Resident Evil as far as I know It's more about guns and knives But are there any clubs in Resident Evil? I don't think so I don't think so

You know, that reminds me In the bludgeoning in those games really Yeah, that reminds me In Resident Evil 2 remake At one point you pick up a trophy And it's just like a puzzle item You don't do anything with it And I'm like, that should have been

I should hit a zombie with this thing It looks big Yes Oh wait a minute There is a club There's the club key. Oh, the club key. Thank you.

Which you beat the shit out of someone with. Diamond Fight Club. Yes, it's all coming together. All we need to get is a spade and a heart somewhere in the Resident Evil universe. Thank you. Unfortunately, I do not have one. Anyway, Fight Club, various social media, including Blue Sky, Letterbox, backlogged. You go to my website, which is FightClub.m.

Fight Club, me. It's my website. It looks like it was. made in 98, but it's in fact modern. Anyway, we're definitely going out here, so go ahead, do your best condo impression.

Sorry about that, babe. Sorry, did you say to do a Kendall impression? They don't speak. Good night.