Resident Evil '02

Both Catrena & I are reading Itchy, Tasty, the defacto book on the history of the Resident Evil franchise, written and researched by Alex Aniel. It’s good so far, though it does, for whatever reason, spoil the ever loving shit out of CODE: Veronica. And since we’ve maintained a healthy fixation on RE I’ve decided that it was time for us to play the Remake of RE1.

I don’t think that I’ve played the first Resident Evil game. My sister had a boyfriend who had a bad home life and my parents let him set up in the (very unfinished) basement of our house. I remember watching him play through that game on the PS1, from behind pillows, while some terrible blueberry candle burned away in the background. For 12 year old me, this was one of the scariest games I’ve ever seen. And that’s been my experience with the game, I’ve been around it, I’ve watched people play it, I’ve been scared by it in the moment but I’ve never sat down with it, to make it my own. And I’m not really doing that now, because in 2002 Capcom decided that they needed to remake it. So I’m finally sitting down with the more accessible remake on my Playstation 4 and Catrena and I are making our way through it.

We started with Jill! I mean how could we not? She’s Jill Valentine, an icon! I love her beret and dead-eyed stare. Right out the gate I have appreciated the updated handling. Tank controls be damned, Jill can now run around in a circle if she so wishes. It’s still not the easiest game to maneuver but to my modern gaming ass its much easier to wrap my head around especially in risky situations. You can point your gun up or down - the only real use I’ve seen for this so far is shooting enemies that have been downed but aren’t dead. I don’t know if you can point up for a headshot. Everyonce in a while Jill just crits and blows the head off a zombie or kills a rotten dog in one hit.

So far our time in the mansion has been tense and fun and frustrating and spooky - it is living up to the legacy. I think the most interesting part of playing through this, to me, is the reliance on keeping the pre-determined camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds. Apparently the GameCube was still not powerful enough to render the scenes in realtime so the pre-rendered backgrounds stayed. And frankly I think it’s better for it. The game really looks excellent, even today in 2026. We really lost something with games when we gained control of the camera. Some of the vantage points they use in a room are so incredibly cinematic, they help to amp up the atmosphere. And of course with the parts of these confusing rooms obscured, the enemies are able to get the jump on you. Sometimes you can hear them scratching around or breathing heavy, other times you just see a shadow cast on the wall when an opportune bolt of lightning lights up the mansion through the windows. Sometimes your only clue is a small swell of music which is such a cool system, the music reacts to the situation and helps keep the suspense or - as is the case with safe rooms - helps ease all the tension and bring about some much needed calm and clarity.

Currently I’ve gotten past the first major boss - a giant snake named Yawn apparently - and have seen a handful of our fellow S.T.A.R.S. members perish. I’ve placed all 4 death masks in the furnace room off the rear garden and killed the horrible creature that was hanging in the coffin. I’m now hanging out, cautiously in a garden shed that was past an outdoor corridor that opened up after I fit an emblem I found in the coffin in a crevice of the wall. Much of the mansion has turned from red to beige and there seem to only be helmet keys remaining.

We had a great couple of sessions, on and off today. I love this game when you are in a groove, when you have a little list in your head of what you need to do. “Okay, first I need to make it back to the second floor safe room, drop off this wind token and death mask, take the sword key and make my way back to that first hallway, the one after the great hall that has the clock and finally unlock that room in the basement I kept ignoring.” Then you go do it, your task takes 20-30 minutes, sometimes you get sidetracked because you forgot you had something on you or you go back for something you didn’t have space for in your inventory.

I think this game is also interesting because so much of what made Resident Evil special is evolved into this game and so much of the modern remakes take evolutionary keys from this. I like how you can see on the map which rooms are considered done and how when you finish using a key the game lets you know and it gets thrown away. These are small features but make the game feel like it’s valuing your time. I’m done for the night, but I know what needs to be done next session - we’ve got these outdoor areas to explore!