Hel
Goddess of the Dead
Here you can post your reviews and overall impressions of Revelations 2. I’ll start, and to put it bluntly, I absolutely love the game! It’s not perfect, but competes well with the classics in terms of gameplay and scariness, while also adding some of the better elements from the new games such as the controls and unlockable skills. Unfortunately I can’t say the same about the PC port. This review will summarise my impressions of the campaign only, because I think Raid Mode is like a different game within the game and should be treated as such. But people who have been active here lately should already know how much I enjoy it.
Story & Characters
I can’t talk too much about this, obviously, because some people here haven’t played the game yet and don’t want to be spoiled, so I’ll keep it short: Claire and Barry return, the Overseer is an intriguing villain with a goal that is different from anything we’ve seen in this series so far, and for the first time in the history of RE games you can play as almost all recurring main characters in Raid Mode. As for the story, it is divided into four main and two bonus episodes, each ending on a cliffhanger, and while some of the twists and revelations are rather predictable, and the game doesn’t really answer all the questions it brings up, it’s still one of the better stories. I should also mention that certain things you do in Claire’s part will affect Barry’s. Overall I enjoyed the former more than the latter, because Barry comes across many places that Claire has already explored, and it gets a little boring especially in the second episode. His fourth episode also seems to drag on forever and has a very annoying section involving poisonous gas. But I still find it a lot more enjoyable than anything Revelations 1 had to offer. I was only really disappointed with the bonus episodes, especially Natalia’s which is about sneaking past enemies, and even being spotted by them causes an instant game over. That was no fun at all, I was glad when it was over and I could collect the BP, but at least it added a little to the story.
Puzzles & Co-op
First things first: The puzzles return. Yay! While none of them will fry your brain, some definitely require you to stop and think and backtrack a little instead of just running through the locations like you’re used to after RE5 and 6. Especially noteworthy is the third episode, where in Claire’s part the puzzles are combined with deadly traps, and in Barry’s part you have to switch back and forth between him and Natalia all the time because they’re separated for a while. That being said, I can assure you that Moira and Natalia are not just living Genesis scanners. Pointing out hidden objects is actually the least important thing they do, as their special abilities are often needed to solve the aforementioned puzzles and provide assistance in combat. Unlike Ashley and young Sherry, they’re not completely defenceless either; Moira can temporarily blind enemies with her flashlight and pummel them with her crowbar, whereas Natalia can throw bricks that are not the most powerful weapon, but enough to kill weaker enemies and expose the weak spots of Revenants. Both characters will also use their abilities autonomously, with Natalia’s ability to sense the presence of monsters being crucial to your success in fights against the invisible Glasps. The only downside of this system is that the AI can be really stupid sometimes, and what annoys me most is their tendency not to keep up. Imagine you run ahead as Moira to search a new area for hidden items and an enemy that is too strong for her crowbar shows up, so you switch to Claire just to discover she’s still three rooms behind. But other than that it’s an interesting team play that differs from the usual co-op experience in RE, where either both characters are the same or one is completely helpless. Not this time!
Inventory & Healing system
The health and healing system works similar to that Revelations 1. Whereas Raid Mode gives you a health bar, in the campaign you have to rely on the bloodiness of the screen to determine how much your character is currently suffering. Use green herbs to heal, with one being enough to restore your health completely. Similar to RE6, combining a green and a red herb gives you three green herbs, and your two characters can easily heal each other by using one while the partner is nearby. Moira and Natalia have regenerating health, though, and can be revived if they die, so don’t bother wasting herbs on them. Getting hurt can put you in a bleeding state, which means that bloodstains will obscure your vision for a while, and some enemies can cover you in slime that makes you practically blind. I understand that this is supposed to make the game more realistic and enemy encounters more terrifying, but in the end it’s just incredibly annoying. The fact that the game adds new health-related items to deal with those impairments, such as tourniquets to stop the bleeding and disinfectants to wipe slime from your face, doesn’t really help it because with how the inventory is set up, it will probably take you just as long to get to and use those items as it takes for the bleeding and slime effects to wear off naturally. And the inventory happens in real-time!
Speaking of tourniquets and disinfectants, you will rarely happen upon those items in the game. That’s because one of my favourite features from RE3 has returned, the ability to create your own items, not just by combining herbs in the inventory, but other things as well. Instead of finding exploding or firebomb bottles ready for use in the game, you collect several ingredients such as empty bottles, pieces of cloth and alcohol, and different combinations of those ingredients will result in different weapons and healing items. Combine wisely, as different weapons have different effects on monsters; for example, Revenants can be easily defeated with a firebomb bottle that burns them long enough to expose their weak spot and destroy it, whereas the smoke from a smokescreen bottle, besides being useful for stealth attacks, counteracts the effects of Glasp gas and makes them visible. Have fun figuring out what works best for you!
Scariness
Something that old-school fans keep brining up is that RE isn’t scary anymore. Well, I don’t think it was ever really scary in the first place. Games like Silent Hill are scary, whereas RE relies more on gore and jump scares, but I’d say that if you thought the classics were scary, you will say the same about Revelations 2. The campaign doesn’t have any mindless action. There is one intense scene where you have to fight off a rather large group of Afflicted, eventually culminating in a boss fight, but these sequences are few and far between, and always make sense in context. Raid Mode is all about action, but the campaign won’t disappoint you with its tense atmosphere.
Unlockables
Skills, secret files, difficulty settings, outfits, concept art, figurines, screen filters – it’s all there. The best thing is probably that you don’t have to pay for most of it, at least not with real money; except for the bonus episodes and a few Raid Mode skins, additional content is usually unlocked by meeting certain conditions in the game itself and can be bought with BP, which is earned by playing through the campaign and collecting treasures. Since many of those things are rather expensive, they give you an incentive to replay the game a few times. Doing so also unlocks content (mostly characters) in Raid Mode.
PC port
I have to be blunt again: The PC port is trash. Terrible lag and stutter whenever there are effects going on (especially fire and fog), Raid Mode crashes, infinite loading times and out of sync cutscenes are among the biggest issues. Capcom have released a few patches to take care of little things like the mouse cursor on the screen during cutscenes, and I realise that bigger issues probably take more time to fix, but it’s been a whole month, and all of this could have been avoided if the game had been properly tested on a PC before they released it. If I were to judge the game solely based on its performance, I would give it a 1/10. But I just learned that a new patch has been released to day, I’ll check it out soon.
Closing words
Despite the bad port and a few nit-picky negatives I have pointed out, I absolutely love the game. You know me, I’m not a Capcom fangoddess, but this time I really have to praise them for listening to their fans, taking their requests seriously and basically giving them everything they’ve been asking for for years: The return of Claire and Barry, the inclusion of puzzles and scariness, many references to past games, a Raid Mode that is even better than the last one and lets you play as many recurring main characters. So I have no qualms about saying that I consider Revelations 2 one of the best RE games to date.
Story & Characters
I can’t talk too much about this, obviously, because some people here haven’t played the game yet and don’t want to be spoiled, so I’ll keep it short: Claire and Barry return, the Overseer is an intriguing villain with a goal that is different from anything we’ve seen in this series so far, and for the first time in the history of RE games you can play as almost all recurring main characters in Raid Mode. As for the story, it is divided into four main and two bonus episodes, each ending on a cliffhanger, and while some of the twists and revelations are rather predictable, and the game doesn’t really answer all the questions it brings up, it’s still one of the better stories. I should also mention that certain things you do in Claire’s part will affect Barry’s. Overall I enjoyed the former more than the latter, because Barry comes across many places that Claire has already explored, and it gets a little boring especially in the second episode. His fourth episode also seems to drag on forever and has a very annoying section involving poisonous gas. But I still find it a lot more enjoyable than anything Revelations 1 had to offer. I was only really disappointed with the bonus episodes, especially Natalia’s which is about sneaking past enemies, and even being spotted by them causes an instant game over. That was no fun at all, I was glad when it was over and I could collect the BP, but at least it added a little to the story.
Puzzles & Co-op
First things first: The puzzles return. Yay! While none of them will fry your brain, some definitely require you to stop and think and backtrack a little instead of just running through the locations like you’re used to after RE5 and 6. Especially noteworthy is the third episode, where in Claire’s part the puzzles are combined with deadly traps, and in Barry’s part you have to switch back and forth between him and Natalia all the time because they’re separated for a while. That being said, I can assure you that Moira and Natalia are not just living Genesis scanners. Pointing out hidden objects is actually the least important thing they do, as their special abilities are often needed to solve the aforementioned puzzles and provide assistance in combat. Unlike Ashley and young Sherry, they’re not completely defenceless either; Moira can temporarily blind enemies with her flashlight and pummel them with her crowbar, whereas Natalia can throw bricks that are not the most powerful weapon, but enough to kill weaker enemies and expose the weak spots of Revenants. Both characters will also use their abilities autonomously, with Natalia’s ability to sense the presence of monsters being crucial to your success in fights against the invisible Glasps. The only downside of this system is that the AI can be really stupid sometimes, and what annoys me most is their tendency not to keep up. Imagine you run ahead as Moira to search a new area for hidden items and an enemy that is too strong for her crowbar shows up, so you switch to Claire just to discover she’s still three rooms behind. But other than that it’s an interesting team play that differs from the usual co-op experience in RE, where either both characters are the same or one is completely helpless. Not this time!
Inventory & Healing system
The health and healing system works similar to that Revelations 1. Whereas Raid Mode gives you a health bar, in the campaign you have to rely on the bloodiness of the screen to determine how much your character is currently suffering. Use green herbs to heal, with one being enough to restore your health completely. Similar to RE6, combining a green and a red herb gives you three green herbs, and your two characters can easily heal each other by using one while the partner is nearby. Moira and Natalia have regenerating health, though, and can be revived if they die, so don’t bother wasting herbs on them. Getting hurt can put you in a bleeding state, which means that bloodstains will obscure your vision for a while, and some enemies can cover you in slime that makes you practically blind. I understand that this is supposed to make the game more realistic and enemy encounters more terrifying, but in the end it’s just incredibly annoying. The fact that the game adds new health-related items to deal with those impairments, such as tourniquets to stop the bleeding and disinfectants to wipe slime from your face, doesn’t really help it because with how the inventory is set up, it will probably take you just as long to get to and use those items as it takes for the bleeding and slime effects to wear off naturally. And the inventory happens in real-time!
Speaking of tourniquets and disinfectants, you will rarely happen upon those items in the game. That’s because one of my favourite features from RE3 has returned, the ability to create your own items, not just by combining herbs in the inventory, but other things as well. Instead of finding exploding or firebomb bottles ready for use in the game, you collect several ingredients such as empty bottles, pieces of cloth and alcohol, and different combinations of those ingredients will result in different weapons and healing items. Combine wisely, as different weapons have different effects on monsters; for example, Revenants can be easily defeated with a firebomb bottle that burns them long enough to expose their weak spot and destroy it, whereas the smoke from a smokescreen bottle, besides being useful for stealth attacks, counteracts the effects of Glasp gas and makes them visible. Have fun figuring out what works best for you!
Scariness
Something that old-school fans keep brining up is that RE isn’t scary anymore. Well, I don’t think it was ever really scary in the first place. Games like Silent Hill are scary, whereas RE relies more on gore and jump scares, but I’d say that if you thought the classics were scary, you will say the same about Revelations 2. The campaign doesn’t have any mindless action. There is one intense scene where you have to fight off a rather large group of Afflicted, eventually culminating in a boss fight, but these sequences are few and far between, and always make sense in context. Raid Mode is all about action, but the campaign won’t disappoint you with its tense atmosphere.
Unlockables
Skills, secret files, difficulty settings, outfits, concept art, figurines, screen filters – it’s all there. The best thing is probably that you don’t have to pay for most of it, at least not with real money; except for the bonus episodes and a few Raid Mode skins, additional content is usually unlocked by meeting certain conditions in the game itself and can be bought with BP, which is earned by playing through the campaign and collecting treasures. Since many of those things are rather expensive, they give you an incentive to replay the game a few times. Doing so also unlocks content (mostly characters) in Raid Mode.
PC port
I have to be blunt again: The PC port is trash. Terrible lag and stutter whenever there are effects going on (especially fire and fog), Raid Mode crashes, infinite loading times and out of sync cutscenes are among the biggest issues. Capcom have released a few patches to take care of little things like the mouse cursor on the screen during cutscenes, and I realise that bigger issues probably take more time to fix, but it’s been a whole month, and all of this could have been avoided if the game had been properly tested on a PC before they released it. If I were to judge the game solely based on its performance, I would give it a 1/10. But I just learned that a new patch has been released to day, I’ll check it out soon.
Closing words
Despite the bad port and a few nit-picky negatives I have pointed out, I absolutely love the game. You know me, I’m not a Capcom fangoddess, but this time I really have to praise them for listening to their fans, taking their requests seriously and basically giving them everything they’ve been asking for for years: The return of Claire and Barry, the inclusion of puzzles and scariness, many references to past games, a Raid Mode that is even better than the last one and lets you play as many recurring main characters. So I have no qualms about saying that I consider Revelations 2 one of the best RE games to date.
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