A Bit Further Into RE2: The Complex Escape Room

 Well, this is interesting:

After our initial prologue arriving in Raccoon City, at least in Leon's campaign, we find ourselves in the RCPD headquarters, an elaborate building that once was a museum (and I believe was built by the same architect as the mansion in the first game). This helps justify the sprawling and dramatic architecture.

It also gives the game an interesting structure: It's a big escape room.

Now, I'm still pretty early in the game, but I've noticed how much stuff I just have to pass my and note for later. For example, there's a locker room in which all you need is a code for each locker to open it up, but you need to replace some of the buttons in it to get access. Finding one button allowed me to open up the lockers with a 2 in their number, but I'll need another to open up any with a 3 in them.

My sense, then, is that the objective of the game is largely to just get out of the RCPD, though this might only be the game's first act - that being said, as a game from 1998, it's possible that it's a fair bit less epic in scope (we do, after all, have Claire's whole game to play here - which I'm given to understand is similar but different).

Interestingly, one of my frustrations with RE4 was all the points-of-no-return, where I figured I needed to progress further to solve some optional puzzle or finish some task for the Merchant, only to discover that I couldn't go back and do it (I never got the tile puzzle in the village, for instance, needing just one more tile).

Here, though, it seems that the entire thing is built around "you don't have the thing you need for that yet" and backtracking is a huge part of the game (the limited inventory is also a factor).

Interestingly, it reminds me of the old Sierra adventure games I played, like Space Quest. These, to be fair, were often fairly linear, but it was primarily about figuring out how to use various inventory items to solve puzzles. I got, for example, a roll of film to develop in the darkroom, but it seems I need some other chemicals to finish the job.

So far I don't think I've encountered anything other than your standard zombies, but boy are they tanky, and they often play dead only to rise up later, even if you hit them with nothing but headshots (and like, five bullets right in the dome). I did get a glimpse of what I believe is a Licker, which I know are infamous.

Anyway, I already have two of the medallions for the goddess statue in the main hall (a strangely pagan image for a Midwest city, though a couple tweaks and she could be simply Justice,) which to me implies that this is only our starting "big puzzle we need to solve."