Welcome to a new edition of Retro Corner Reviews and I wanted to take a break from Ghosts N Goblins to look at another Capcom classic. Resident Evil 2 is considered by many as one of the best entries in the series thanks to its many improvements from the Original game. If you were unaware, RE2 was also ported by Angel Studios (Rockstar Games San Diego today) to the Nintendo 64 two years later in 1999. Considered a technical feat, these developers were able to take a two-disc game and put all of the content onto a 64 Megabyte cartridge. Not even the biggest games on the Nintendo 64 like Zelda: Majora's Mask or Paper Mario were over 32 Megabytes. They also added exclusive features not found on two of the PlayStation One's releases or in the other versions. It shows with extensive work, those multi-disk games on PS1 were possible to port over even though the N64 carts could only hold 64 MB of data. Those three to four CD RPGs like Final Fantasy VII might be impossible to bring over, but a two disk game was possible to work around. It’s still interesting that this was the only Resident Evil considered being ported. RE3 could’ve been brought over since only one disk was used. Does RE2 on N64 hold up against the familiar Dual Shock Edition on PS1? Gameplay To begin, the N64 version does support the D-Pad and the Analog stick. Normally, the N64 games would rarely use the D-Pad but focused on the standard Analog stick Nintendo introduced a few years prior to RE2’s release. It works slightly better due to enabling instant running by holding the stick in the direction the player wants to move. Despite this function there are minor faults here like if the player slightly moves the stick will send them wandering around. That’s a bigger problem in the PS1’s Dual Shock controller thanks to the controls being tacked on after re-releasing early versions. Just try the first RE: Director’s Cut and RE2’s Dual Shock Edition, and apparently, these games were never originally designed for the later controllers. The new features of changing the blood color and setting the violence to low or high levels were really fun to play around. In a way they don’t impact the gameplay, but it's funny to kill an enemy with no gore and green blood pouring out. The Randomize mode was a nice addition which switched the items (not the important ones) in the main game around. It was a better feature to have because the game became more challenging to now find these items in different places across the two scenarios. The N64 port also supports the Rumble Pak and the Expansion Pak that adds a better frame rate compared to the PS1 versions. The weapon selection being different between Leon and Claire was an improvement from its predecessor. The left caption shows Claire using the Spark shot against William’s second mutated form. She even gets a crossbow that becomes patent to her arsenal and is above the handguns power. Claire having access to the Grenade Launcher is similar to Jill’s, however, the developers went further by giving exclusive firearms between the two characters. Don’t use the Spark Shot on fast moving enemies like the Licker or worse a transformed Mr. X due to the thing’s slow fire rate. When this comes down to mature rated content, both versions don’t have much difference. One of the features Angel Studios included was changing the blood color to red, blue, and green. The left caption shows a zombie’s half getting blown off as blue blood sprays in-between. It was one of fun things to enable and wasn’t meaningless like the developers did by reducing the violence. The two scenarios are also included as the player can pick to play as either Leon or Claire in any order. One of my favorite features is that a memory card wasn’t needed to save the game thanks to a battery pack inside the cartridge. The cartridge format helped the game load faster and is something that always took the PS1 editions a good couple of minutes. For any issues, some of the newer gameplay mechanics from Resident Evil 3 like dodging enemies weren't added. If Capcom asked Angel Studios to do an N64 port while developing RE3, then they could've at least told them to add these new mechanics too. There is no excuse for this since both the N64 port and RE3 had at least more than a year to develop. It would’ve made the gameplay so much better by having dodge mechanics, moving up a set of stairs smoothly and performing 180-degree turns. Even though the gameplay mechanics from the third entry were not designed in, this version offers a slightly better analog stick Input and exclusive features. At least the auto aim mechanic is there to enable in the Option menu by switching to Controls B. The next caption shows the library that has the player aligned the shelves according to the picture in the back area. I wasn’t kidding when stating these showed you how to solve them. That is the one of the biggest issues the purist never brings up in the old style much to my aggravation. This is what I mean by elementary school level below because these puzzles are no different than asking a first grader to put shapes into their matching holes. No wonder Capcom switched to a true third person and FPS because they simply weren’t good at designing puzzles. Unfortunately for RE2, the level design hasn’t aged well when a lot of things hold the game back from being a true classic. For starters, the challenge requires backtracking across the map to get one key item. Then have the player trek back to a previous place to get a key or an important item to progress. Of course, we can’t forget the puzzles that tell you literally how to solve them. There is nothing interesting about their challenges as their designs are grade school level difficulty. The library shelves and the sun/moon statue puzzles tell you how to place them instead of making the player figure them out by a hint. What makes this truly stupid is the hints weren’t even vague or clever, especially explicitly revealing the results. I always hear complaints about how the current modern games lack interesting puzzles. However, the series never had interesting ones at all if they were elementary school level. There are even ones in the PS1 Trilogy that reveal solving them by a single camera angle. An example of this is one in RE1 whereupon entering the Suit of Armor Room literally gave away its secret on a single screen. Then we have poor shooting controls, requiring moving in the direction of an enemy to hit them. While the auto aim mechanic is featured in Controls B, this is not a proper aiming system if the player relies on it. Rating: 8.2/10 Graphics/Presentation The Nintendo 64 version looks similar to the PS1 editions, but there were improvements to a couple of areas. Angel Studios was able to add all the CGI cutscenes and voice acting from both Leon’s and Claire's scenarios. Unlike the other versions, the N64 title has slightly improved graphics that shows sharper detail in the pre-rendered backgrounds. The dev team might’ve put in the work for this version, the visuals have aged terribly today to the point those same pre-rendered backgrounds look out of place. It becomes even more obvious when running the game through an HDTV through the composition input. This makes the overall graphics have a grainy picture with the special effects and the 3D models have pixel edges sticking out. Even after using a HD converter to smooth out the grainy signal, the obvious blurry texturing from the background persists. Despite the dated visuals, the port did get a couple of improvements not found in other versions. Now, there is a better screen resolution compared to the PS1 versions' 320 by 240. It's doubled at 640 by 480 resolution on the N64 by using the Expansion Pak’s extra 4 MB of ram. This allows the system to use a maximum of 8 MB of ram to give any game those special features. Most titles in the fifth gen weren't even supported by this as the 320 by 240 was the usual standard used for any game’s resolution. The presentation was just as good as on the PS1, but this edition supports surround sound. Often, a home theater function was never offered in the other games considering this was also a cartridge based console. While Nintendo did have mature content akin to cinematic experiences, rarely did they have these functions on their platform. The voice acting compared to the original was a vast improvement as each personality from the characters didn’t sound forced—Sorry fans but you will not experience the peak of horrible voice acting of the “Jill Sandwich” in this installment. The voice acting is the same quality from the PS1 editions with no changes done. The only glaring issue was the quality of the CGI cutscenes which had an apparent dark tint. I know the development team had to use compression techniques to fit the CGI cutscenes on a 64 Megabyte cartridge. That still is not a good excuse to use if Capcom gave Angel Studios a deadline to meet. Another minor issue is a moment where numerous enemies are on the screen, and this forces the screen resolution back to 320 by 240. That was in spite of the fact this game is running on powerful hardware using the Expansion Pak. Are they telling me they have to scale it down because of there being too many enemies? There is no excuse for Capcom to not give Angel Studios more time to fix this issue. The next thing is the audio for both sound effects and music being muffled due to compressing the files. Most of the time It's unnoticeable since muffled tones are heard often when the characters speak their dialogue. While the OST didn’t take a hit, each track sounded about as good as the other ports. Rating: 8.0/10 Story Capcom didn’t change anything from the original release as the story plays out the same regardless of what scenario you play in order. As for the story itself, the plot was fairly good for the time, and expanded on the lore of how the T-Virus came into existence. It was somewhat interesting to find out someone like Ada Wong was involved with John (the guy wrote a note at the end of the first game in the lab) who was dating him only to get information from Umbrella. The best thing about the plot is every character is connected between Sherry, Ada, and Brian Irons to Annette Berkin and her husband William, the co-researcher to Albert Wesker. My favorite interactions were between Ada and Leon, and I just love how they eventually came together in trusting each other. Despite Ada’s deception, they still fell in love even when she supposedly dies In front of him because of the Tyrant. Claire’s scenario was the least interesting to me, but her interaction between Sherry was still great. They definitely had a mother and daughter type relationship that had Claire show she was a strong-minded woman who would protect her. It wasn’t too surprising to find out the Chef of the RPD Brian Irons was secretly working for Umbrella. This is the type of corruption that sadly exists in reality from politicians to CEOs in their corporations. The interesting part is finding out how he slowly went insane in his journal in the course of a few months after RE1. Probably the only thing I had a problem with was the main antagonist of a mutated William Berkin as he was a step down from Wesker himself. Don’t get me wrong he was still a good, bad guy however, William could’ve been a little self-aware of his plot while at the same time going insane. Then again RE3 was done similarly too for Nemesis as the super zombie’s sole purpose was to kill all S.T.A.R.S. members by Umbrella. The last thing about the story comes from the exclusive EX files the player finds in this port. That helped add more detail to the backstory of some of the characters like Rebecca and Billy as it gave mention to the plot of RE0. If you are unaware, Capcom initially developed Resident Evil 0 for the N64 in 1999. The prequel was scheduled to release in 2000 as an exclusive game. However, due to the delays throughout 2000, they scrapped the project. The concept was moved to the new game on the GameCube as a system exclusive. It’s even more interesting they also added Jill’s monologue from the third game in here as well. Rating: 8.0/10 Features/Content Much like the Dual Shock version, the Nintendo 64 port would have its own set of exclusive content. The N64 game was a little better than the Dual Shock version due to the fun and exciting exclusives. The newly added content is the EX files that give more of a backstory on the series. These files did give some connection to the plot for RE0. Anytime something like this is included is usually done to expand on the lore of the series. Even though Billy isn’t the most important character, the fact this was an easter egg to the prequel only added to the lore. Also added were two exclusive outfits for Leon and a single one used by Claire. For the exclusive features, the player can change the blood color to red, green, or blue and also for the violence level. Watching enemies bleed blue blood isn’t exactly having me screaming but instead would cause myself to snicker. As funny as it was to change the level of violence — seriously this is rated mature, and they wanted a censorship option — playing around in this option does create amusing instances of killing enemies where their limbs don’t come off. It’s not the same dumb censorship Williams Entertainment did for the Super NES port of Doom. However, Capcom still presented this feature without forcing the player as an optional feature instead of taking things out to appease a raging Yamauchi. The Arrange mode definitely added more variety to the challenge and helped differentiate it from the hard mode. Another favorable feature added to the visuals is increasing the screen resolution to 620 by 480 using Expansive Pak. Of course, we can’t forget Angel Studios offering surround sound that was often missing from the many ports. Now, the only thing disappointing was not including the Extreme Battle in this edition. The mode helped give replay value to the Dual Shock edition and was so stupid of Capcom to decide to leave such an idea out. I used to play for countless hours as both Chris and Leon because of the weapon types they had. It also had the best battle mode of the entire series because of the similar level design structure to the original game. The battle modes preceding this one wouldn't have the previous design anymore but would rather time the player in a small area against waves of enemies. The only game to come close to replicating Extreme Battle was Revelations’ Raid Mode after this entry was brought over to the other platforms. Even though those areas in Raid mode were short, the gameplay remixed the enemies to give a different challenge. This was the closest Capcom ever got to this type of gameplay without this being another Mercenaries. Rating: 8.7/10 Final Rating The Nintendo 64 port offered the same experience found in the original release with exclusive features. The gameplay functions were easier to get into than the previous installments. From the controls to the level design, the gameplay is what you should expect a sequel to improve on. Even the story saw improvement as there are no forced personalities to an extent. Another thing that helps the arcs is the characters sounded realistically in their situations. For the features, it offered more than the first game by having extra weapons and additional modes. There might’ve been improvements however, some flaws were still left in the PS1 editions. With Resident Evil 3 out the same year, Capcom should have let Angel Studios put in the gameplay mechanics into this edition. The biggest problem of the presentation was the apparent dark tint left in because the video files as CGI cutscenes were compressed. Another disappointment came from the lack of the Extreme Battle Mode—To say this devalues the replay value a little is the biggest understatement. Other than a couple of minor issues, this studio handled this port well by providing exclusive content. It is considered a technical marvel in this industry due to the developers producing a N64 version that should’ve been impossible. Gameplay: 8.2/10 Graphics/Presentation: 8.0/10 Story: 8.0/10 Features/Content: 8.7/10 Final Rating: 8.4/10 Very Good
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Retro Gamer has over 25 years of gaming experience and played many classics since the Golden Age. She has been an avid fan since the day the NES graced her life and changed it forever.
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