William Birkin for Days! RE2's Second Run Complete

 I've now finished my second run of RE2's remake, playing as Claire.

Interestingly, the ending of the first run, which hints at something attacking the train, was something I initially interpreted as a call-forward to RE3 and the final fight against Nemesis (I don't know how Jill escapes Raccoon City, but I think that they leave around the same time). In fact, it was the final "boss" that I think you have to deal with on the second run.

Claire's "final boss" fight equivalent to Mr. X is round four with William Birkin, where we're granted a minigun. But while Leon's fight was over once I hit Mr. X with the rocket launcher (which was my second shot - he dodged the first) here the Minigun was certainly helpful, but didn't just end the fight. In retrospect, I wonder if I would have been better off saving some of its ammo for Birkin #5, the "true" final boss of the game.

That last fight is sort of annoying, though: I died several times because I was treating it more like an actual fight, when in fact if you get close enough to the guy, you just instantly die (I died I think three times to it, more than any other boss). I do think that there might be some timing element - you can apparently beat him with a knife - but basically each time you need to wait as the horribly amorphous William Birkin approaches you, wait until the giant eye in its central maw (the one that chews you up for an insta-kill if it snags you) becomes visible, and then pour as much firepower into it as you can. I still had a couple acid rounds, so I launched one in, shot off the rest of my minigun, the rest of my SMG, and I think either that or a needler round did the trick.

I'll admit a little curiosity about what Claire's first run and Leon's second run are like, but the other two were similar enough that I'm not profoundly excited to play through the game all over again (certainly not this soon).

Overall, I think this game is really best in its opening hours in the RPD itself, which has a fantastic atmosphere. We lose that a bit in the Sewers, and after the initial shock of the high-tech lab wears off, it's not quite as cool (though unlike RE4's island lab/fortress, the Nest is so short that it doesn't overstay its welcome). To be honest, really everything just went by quicker now that I know the general layout. I'd say that the RPD is a more fun labyrinth than the Sewers because you can still pretty much look at a map and figure it out.

Again, I'm given to understand that the first game had totally different puzzles and challenges between the two characters (I think Mr. X was only even in one and not the other) and I do think that having to do a lot of the same things in both playthroughs took away some of the fun - the differences were great (Leon never meets the man who would have been his boss, Brian Irons, and he's probably better off for having never encountered him) - but doing the same puzzles twice with more or less the same solution isn't that exciting (funnily enough, while we don't actually use the weird cube fuses at the same place, we have to get them out of the same boxes).

I could imagine a version of this where instead of going down into the sewers, we maybe went into some other classic urban structure, like a train station, that might be across the street from the RPD or something, and that might have retained a more interesting atmosphere. But still, we're like 28 years past the release of the original RE2, so that's fine (we got plenty of spooky train station in Lies of P).

Anyway, seeing this puzzle-box of a game in comparison with RE4's more sprawling action/adventure does raise some interesting questions: RE4 was massively popular and not only re-shaped the franchise but also popularized the over-the-shoulder 3rd person shooter. But with its action-forward gameplay, did we lose the slow-paced puzzle-horror? In RE4, I pretty much always expected to kill every monster I came across, whereas in RE2 it can often be strategic to decide "well, am I actually coming back through this room? Should I just leave those zombies there if not?"

I'm also really curious about what goes on behind the scenes in terms of resources granted - given that rooms turn blue on the map when you've gathered everything in there, I assume that for the most part resources are set and finite (though I think in boss rooms there's always some that respawn mid-fight). I know that SH2's remake adjusted how much stuff you find based on how well you're doing, and RE4 has enemies drop Pesetas and Gunpowder (though the Merchant also has finite wares). I never found myself totally out of everything, and honestly more often found myself struggling to haul everything back to the storage boxes. But I remember being forced to use the chemical launcher on Claire pretty early on because I had so little ammo for the conventional guns.

Anyway, I've heard not great things about RE3's remake, but I also got both RE2 and RE4 for like $12 each (the full edition with all DLC) so I might be tempted to try it out nonetheless.