Resident Evil 2 (1998)

I do agree with people saying that this is a better game overall than Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. The story is interesting, the fact that you have two scenarios that can be played with both Leon and Claire.

However, for me, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis was the first Resident Evil. I've had a bunch of nightmares when I was a kid thanks to this game, and I find it more frightening.

I would gladly replay this game as well.

I so badly want to learn how to love this series. I tried RE1 remake a few years back and couldn't get into it, just started playing this a couple of days ago and am having a similar issue. In other words: I'm bad at the game. Maybe it's because I'm trying to get used to tank controls still? I know that you're not supposed to kill every enemy you see, but there are situations where I feel like that's the only option, and then I'm stuck walking around trying to find ammo in every location and it just takes forever.

Is it worth switching the control scheme to non-tank controls or should I just bite the bullet and be bad for a while? Maybe I'll just replay the beginning until I find myself on a good run and go from there.

My walkthrough for Extreme Battle 3 that I wrote to help me beat it:

Starting off in the monitor room, try the nearby door. There could be zombies or dog boss. I skipped this area entirely but it might be worth restarting and trying until you can get some supplies without taking damage. The zombies are not worth dealing with but the boss can be avoided. Pistol ammo in the weapon locker room and maybe more at the end of the lab, with minimal damage from the little spiders. The moth room has big spiders and maybe shotgun ammo but it is tough to get without taking damage. Go to the MO disk terminal room and walk out to get the zombies attention. Retreat back into the hall and kill the 2 fast zombies, then go back to the monitor room to reset. Now go back and lure the zombie whose ass is right near the camera towards the left of the screen, then run around to the right. Run past the next zombie too, but the 1 in the narrow corridor will have to be knocked down. At the top of the plant room there can be 1 to 3 zombies very close. Best thing is immediately run for the exit. The next room is packed thick with zombies and 3 or 4 will need to be killed, then leave to reset the room. Now you can easily get to the exit. The 2 optional rooms still beyond the zombies have plants and giant spiders for a chance at ammo or pistol parts; it might be worth it but around 3 zombies will need to be killed. Don't kill the spiders or plants, though if the room has 2 plants just turn around and leave. The reactor room has dogs or zombies. The dogs are easily killed and it may be worth using the knife on 1 or 2 of them. 3 or 4 zombies will have to be killed to make it safe enough to reset and run past. The 2 zombies leading towards the blue can be ran past for optional loot. The blue hall can have zombies or lickers. The lickers can be ran past using the vaccine room as a staging point. If zombies, 3 have to be killed to reach the vaccine room, then more to reach the other rooms to the point where the rewards are not worth the cost. The vaccine room can have ammo on the stretcher near the door; snatch it and get out. The fingerprint locked room has health and 1 or 2 plants. If only 1 it can be lured into the open area and ran past, if 2 then 1 will have to be killed or kill both to be safe. The frozen room has pistol ammo and some random laying zombies. You may be able to simply walk past them or you may need to kill a path. There is not enough room to use the knife so you have to consider whether the reward is worth it. 1 prone zombie will be alert and crawling; he most likely needs to be killed but the walker can be avoided.

The elevator room can have zombies or dogs. If zombies you can run straight to the safe room for healing, then try to get to the train for easy knife kills. It may be necessary to knock 1 down on the way. This is where I used the 1 save. Next head up the elevator for important side loot. The zombies in the hall can be ran past by sticking to the right side of the screen. Grab the red herbs in the safe room, then go to the power room for the smg; kill the 1st dark licker then leave the room to reset and sneak past the other 2 being sure to only walk and not get too close. Use the character's head turning to tell when it is safe to move out and follow them or be on the opposite side when they pass by you. Then go down the other route for dogs and possible ammo. On the way back through the hall the first zombie can be tricky; you have to bait him to the left side of the screen then run behind him on the right, or knock him down to be safe. End the stage at the train.

At the factory go down into the tunnel, which can have a tyrant to mow down with smg, or zombies, and maybe ammo in the dead end. The next tunnel could have another tyrant or dogs, and possibly ammo. Run past the crows to take the sky tram. Once outside snipe the plant and run out into the open area. By now the other plant should be there and easy to run past. There is sometimes a green herb in the narrow corridor then to the sewer with dogs. You are safe on the elevated platform so snipe the dogs; wait for them to get on screen then shoot down. Climb down to lure them if necessary. Head to the left for maybe some ammo or shotgun parts. Instead of going further for the rpg, continue on to loot both safe rooms. The next sewer has zombies or dogs while the lift hallway has lickers. Check the safe rooms and storage rooms below each for supplies, killing the zombies to be safe. Now backtrack to the gator hall and carefully avoid the zombies. The 90 degree turn half way in is a risk due to the camera angles, so kill 1 or 2 zombies there. The garbage room has dogs at close range and you really need the rapid fire of the smg to deal with them. Then kill the plant at the top to score the rocket launcher and end the stage by going to the police station basement and carefully walking past the prone zombies.

Now at Hunk's start, kill the dogs or zombies, then run past the plants to get to the safe room. Now is the time to prepare for a long journey; make sure to take the rocket launcher, maybe a blue herb and 1 free space. Run past the spiders to get to the kennel, then run past the lickers. The hall outside might have the 1st boss; blast him with 3 rockets then go back in the kennel to despawn the little parasites so you can safely check the jail for a bomb (zombies inside). Parking has the dog boss so run for it. 2 tyrants to rocket in the next hall. The power room has healing. The armory is not worth visiting because it has dark lickers. The morgue may have pistol ammo easily accessible but you may have to kill 1 crawler to be safe. The far exit leads to a safe room and red herb but there are crows and tiny spiders to get past. Kill the crows to be safe. Go upstairs to kill dogs or crows and kill 2 plants in the room by the stairs for maybe another bomb. Kill the dogs in the ceiling fan room, which is easy because they have trouble path finding through the doorways. Loot and go outside to the stairs and crow hallway, kill the lickers or zombies in the helicopter room and gain access to the secretary safe room. Then go to the chief's office and into the treasure box room for another possible bomb, killing zombies, dogs and lickers on the way. Do not go down the elevator.

Back in the helicopter room, the red jewel puzzle room may not be worth checking; last time it had dogs that were difficult to deal with for only pistol ammo. Now go back to crow hallway and kill the 2 plants to get to the roof where you need to be quick to kill zombies before getting bit. Go downstairs and use the wide open area to run past the dog boss and check the start of the B scenario for a possible bomb (dogs or zombies there). Go all the way back to the secretary and exit into the main hall balcony; run from the tyrant. Might as well rocket the other guarding the library (6 rockets used now) then go down the ladder to the main lobby. Loot then clear the safe room of dogs or zombies. The next hall has always had a dog boss and you do not want to try to get past that in such a narrow corridor. Go to the library for pistol ammo then to the 3rd floor to kill a plant and check for a bomb. Go back down to the lobby and clear the dogs from the black cop room; this is another awkward angles room so use smg. Kill 1 giant spider in the locker room then the 3 lickers in the next hall to gain access to the healing in the dark room. Go to the boarded up hallway for zombies or dogs and a possible bomb location in the conference room, then go upstairs to the statue puzzle and deal with those dogs or zombies. The stars office is another bomb location. Avoid the hallway leading to the library because it has 3 dark lickers. If you are unfortunate enough not to have found all the bombs yet there is only 1 place left to go. From the lobby take the side door to the lounge just outside the ceiling fan room. The dog boss is there and this is not a wide open area to get past him. This will likely require healing. Get to the fire puzzle room, kill the plant and grab the bomb from near the cog painting, then run out to win.

Played dual shock version on PSP, type C controls with auto aim. I meant to start as Clare but saw no option to change. This was because each character used a different disk and I messed up the conversion of the file to only have 1 disk.

Beat Leon A with E rank in 7 hrs. I restarted my first attempt because I was down to danger health after the gun store; had to get used to the controls again. This game was much harder than I remembered, with not enough ammo and health in the beginning. I avoided some zombies that did not need to be killed and killed as many as I could with the knife. I did not like knife combat; it took too long and has a big margin for error due to awkward camera angles. Several times I saved just before a group of zombies and scummed several tries until I killed them without taking damage. It was not worth using the knife unless in fine condition because of the loss in backpedding speed from being hurt. I did get stuck briefly because I did not realize I could light a fire in the fireplace to get a gem. Checked a walkthrough for that rather than re explore every room. I put the power cord on the wrong shutters and had to kill those zombies. I took both the machine gun and side pack, leaving nothing for Clare, but never even used that gun. I ran out of handgun ammo at the lab, ending with about 50 magnum, 40 shotgun, 16% flamethrower and 2 full healing items. I had 1 death against 2 lickers; I was in caution waiting to get into danger before healing but the 2 bastards hit me at the same time. When I beat the final boss I was not sure if I had won or died, because he leaped at me taking a magnum shot point blank, and the cutscene animation looked like he ate Leon. But no I won. Then I realized I had converted the game into psp format incorrectly and had no way to switch disks to play as Clare. Learned how to do it properly but lost my save, so I used infinite ammo cheat to rush through Leon A in 2 hrs. Then rushed Clare B in 2 hrs 31 minutes to unlock Hunk and extreme battle mode.

Hunk was frustrating and insanely difficult. There was no way I beat that back in the day. I failed repeatedly until I turned infinite ammo on, and still took several attempts to complete. Then another dozen or so attempts to beat it legit. A walkthrough I read expected too high a skill level with very precise movements, so I had to figure out the way that works for me. The very first female zombie had to be killed with pistol. Then kill or knock down the guy on the bridge, then shotgun to the head for the last 2. The next room was easy to run past everything in an S pattern. Run past the spiders in the sewer. I could not get past the kennel without taking multiple hits so I settled on using the magnum bang bang to kill 2 dogs, them 1 pistol shot to stun the last then exit. Auto aim could mess up when enemies were in multiple directions, so I turned it off for the next room; walk forward and shotgun the crawling zombies then headshot the next 2 quickly before the on fire ones catch up. Dodging the dogs in the parking garage was not hard by swerving back and forth, then ignore crows. Kill the next 3 dogs with handgun. In the ceiling fan room run past the 1st zombie, shotgun headshot the next 2 and run for the exit but pistol knock down another guy if he blocks the way (another walkthrough I read afterwards said it is better to go left as only 1 zombie has to be shot gunned.) Next room immediately head shotgun the closest then turn around and go back to the previous room to reset them. Turn auto aim off and shotgun the 3 blocking the door. Wait to see where the spider goes then run past. Kill 1st licker with magnum, 2nd with pistol shot followed by magnum (a tactic I learned on my infinite ammo run) and either magnum the 3rd or go zone out of the room to reset him then sneak past. Wait for the 1st plant then snipe with pistol. Go to where that plant came from and keep hitting aim until it points towards the next plant; 3 magnum shots then finish off with pistol. Next room immediately run to the right to the far end then down a plant with 4 magnum shots, switch to the other for 3 magnum shots then finish with pistol. Go up the stairs and the tyrant is easy to run past in the open bit. Turn off auto aim for the crawling zombies and kill them with pistol in a straight line; 2 can be left alive. Sneak past the 1st dark licker then bolt for the exit once the screen changes and he becomes alterted. With luck the 2nd licker will miss but it is likely to take a hit. Snipe the next 2 plants with pistol then to the most difficult room; hold down aim, mash the shoot button and use healing beforehand if not fine. One time I actually managed to shoot first without being grabbed and easily cleared this room. Every other time I got chain grabbed by 2 or 3 zombies. Shoot that shotgun like crazy, pause to heal then run for the exit (that walkthrough I read later said to move forward to avoid that initial zombie). Same deal for next room, be ready to shoot that shotgun immediately, then turn off auto aim and shoot the 3 zombies blocking the exit. The first time I managed to make it past those 2 brutal rooms I was in danger with no ammo; I got past the tyrant but he turned and punched me in the back. The time I won I came to the tyrant in fine with 7 shotgun shells and 30 pistol ammo. I likely could have killed him but took the hit and ran past, finishing in caution in just under 10 minutes. The problem with Hunk mode was the terrible enemy placement, often only giving a split second to react properly, or take damage. With the limited healing and ammo there is no way to get through blind on first attempt, rather it is the kind of thing designed to be iteratively mastered.

Beat extreme battle 1 as Leon. Took a few tries to get the beginning done without losing too much. No sense in killing zombies with the knife when there was more than 1, but I liked shooting them with the handgun until they fell down then finish off with the knife. I especially took advantage of elevated places to easily kill zombies. I killed most enemies, only skipping a few. Dogs were either easy or caused me a lot of damage. In narrow corridors they were easy enough to kill with knife or handgun. In open spaces I was better off using shotgun or magnum. I stealthed past a dark licker to score a smg, and barely made it to a rocket launcher; dogs in the garbage dump blocked the exit as I tried to run past and then I got poisoned and down to danger from a plant. Backtracking to an item box to get healing was not an option so I pushed forward and barely scraped my way to the next safe room. I used all 5 ink ribbons before finishing the sewer but I had a ton of supplies and owned the entire police station. There were a couple close calls and I ended up having to go everywhere to find all the bombs. Took 3 hrs 6 min and I ended with approx 9 rockets, 100% smg, 50 magnum ammo, 70 shotgun ammo (with upgrade parts), 100 handgun ammo, 2 full healing and a lot of blue herbs.

Extreme battle 2 as Leon took slightly less time and was easier since I knew what to do; the randomness was not as varied as I thought. I did the same plan; harvest the starting level while killing some but not all enemies, then beeline for the entrance to knife the zombies from the train car then save. Harvest everything else then go to the factory for 2nd save. I needed that smg to kill the tyrants in the tunnels. The sewer was not hard and my last save was just after where Hunk starts. I beat the entire police station without trouble but used much more ammo. I used up all the rockets, smg and magnum ammo, finishing with around a dozen shotgun shells and 60 pistol ammo.

Extreme battle 3 was extremely difficult. I gave up playing as Leon and Chris, instead going for Ada and her smg. I had to abandon almost every side room and bee line for the exit, where I saved after slaughtering the dogs. Why couldn't it have been zombies to easily kill from the train? Then I did the elevator for supplies, mowing down 1 dark licker and sneaking past the other 2 for that much needed smg. I cleared all of the sewers and made it to the police station basement where I found the first boss. Shot 2 rockets at him and he still didn't die, so I ran away. Probably should have finished him because the jail cell is a possible bomb location. Then the giant dog form boss was in the parking lot but it was not hard to run past. Rocket the tyrants, get much needed herbs from the power room then off to the 1st floor to secure access to a safe item box. Dog boss was in the lounge outside the double blue doors; wtf. Used the item box and went into the boarded up hallway. I listened to see what enemies were there when suddenly the dog boss charged and I was dead in like 2 seconds before I could even turn around and use the door. Nooooooooo! Ok from now on preemptively turn around to face the door until I know for sure what is in the room. How is it even fair to have bosses in a small narrow areas when you normally fight them in an somewhat open arena?

Beat Clare A with rank D in 4.5 hrs. It was not difficult but I died before reaching the police station by messing up avoiding zombies, and had few other close calls with zombies. Oh right she has much less health than Leon. I avoided more enemies than Leon A but still killed most. I killed a few easy zombies with knife, but most were killed with pistol or crossbow. I often knifed them when they fell down and knifed if they survived 1 crossbow shot. I used up all my pistol, crossbow and sparkgun ammo. I tried out the sparkgun on different enemies to get a good feel for how effective it was. It had poor range and rate of fire but staggered with each shot: 2 shots to kill a zombie, 3 to 4 to kill a plant or dark licker. It as too slow for fighting multiple plants or lickers and I would have been better off using the grenade launcher and switching to spark when the enemies got close. I used the machine gun for the final boss. It wrecked his biped form, but the quadruped form was much more difficult than as Leon. I tried to stay at range and snipe but got hit a lot and needed 2 full heals. Used a couple flame shots to get him around corners too. By the end I had almost 50 explosive ammo, around 15 each of acid and flame, 40% smg left, and around 6 full healing items.

Beat Leon B with rank C in 4 hrs 50 min. I skipped killing more enemies this time, sneaking past lickers and knifing zombies whenever possible. I ran from the 1st tyrant even though I had enough ammo to kill him. All the rest I killed with magnum, except the last one who I killed with smg. I took to carrying around all my weapons with only ammo for the pistol. I discovered a great way to kill dark lickers; get some range and fire a pistol shot to make him stand up, then fire a 3 round burst, then switch to shotgun to finish him off as he approached. By the end I had 50 magnum ammo, 90 shotgun ammo, 80% smg, 100 pistol ammo, 12% flamethrower (only used for plants and the moth) and 14 full healing items. I overall preferred this storyline, except for the part where the tyrant fell into the molten metal; it just a better scene with Clare and Sherry.

Beat Extreme battle 3 as Chris with infinite ammo cheat and his rocket launcher. That was hard enough and it was a good thing I used the only save just before the police station because I insta died from a little parasite from the 1st boss. I tried to kill a dog boss by leaving the room after each rocket, but he was not dead after 10 so I guess enemy health restores. Thus victory seemed to be about planning the route carefully so as to avoid the dog bosses as much as possible, and efficiently killing everything else. I then tried several more times to beat it legit as Ada. There was very little margin of error given how easily Ada could die, and it was absolutely ridiculous to be expected to play the whole thing with only 1 save. One time I even died to crows, going from fine health to dead in 2 hits. Wtf. From then on I killed the crows. I finally beat it in 2hrs 50 min but it was close due to mistakes and taking damage several times. I got hit by the dog bosses every time, but I was in good shape with only 1 bomb location left; the fire puzzle room which required getting past a dog boss in a narrow corridor. That was hard and I had to use 2 full healing items. I got charged, trapped, and picked up and swung around before finally getting past. By then I only had 2 green herbs left and used them in the final room as I took a few hits from those plants. I should have taken the rocket launcher to use the last shot. So I ended with no healing, poisoned but high health, 40% and 8% smgs, about 70 crossbow ammo, and 60 pistol ammo.

This is the best old school Resident Evil game. It improved upon the atmosphere, tension and horror of the original, and introduced some of the elements of the later games without going overboard (like being chased by the tyrant and having a companion). It also had an impressive amount of replayability with 4 scenarios and 2 bonus modes. Though it still had the annoying tank controls, inventory management and backtracking, the whole package combined to be much more than the sum of its parts. I do wish there was a way to use up all that ammo you will have by the end of the game. Something like a much more difficult new game +, or going into extreme battle mode with the supplies from a completed campaign and not finding more.

9.2/10

Claire B Casual run:

Rank C

7:09:36

15 saves

Man this run was an absolute slog...key items sometimes shining and sometimes not lead to lots of me wandering around the "linear" sections. I've now beaten this game 4 times and every time I do it slides down my rankings...I'm going to give leon A claire B one more go on my new psp vita to see if that or replaying multiple times improves the experience but as much as I know this is a fan favorite this game is sitting second from last of all my Resi games and I'm worried this last playthrough will place it at dead last. Here is hoping the new format will encourage more interesting or enjoyable experiences.