If the RE2 remake is a sleek reimagining, the original is the pure, unfiltered blueprint. It may show its age in places, but what made it special was never tied to its moment. It's still, plain and simple, a great game.

Resident Evil 2 is such an awesome sequel, I was hooked until the very end.

I wasn't at all familiar with this game's story, so I was curious how RE2 would feel compared to RE1's setting, given that the majority of that game took place in a single (albeit restricted) mansion. This game feels a bit less like uncovering a mystery, and more so like dealing with the aftermath- and going on an adventure. I initially found this game felt much more difficult than the first, but after getting some proper ammo and managing to clear out the zombie infestation, the rest of the game was smooth-sailing. Not a cakewalk, but, the initial impression may make you think the difficulty leap compared to the first is a lot bigger than it actually is.

Saves this time are finite too - you can only save at a typewriter, provided you have have an ink ribbon (RE1 has infinite saves during your first Jill playthrough only, supposedly). It's a consumable, and so you can't really save scum. Not being able to save too frequently may add to the tension for some, but I found that this game never unfairly killed me in a way that cost me any real progress. There's more than enough ink ribbons for you to finish the story comfortably, so although it's a bit of a currency, it's not really something you need to worry about.

Being a blind playthrough w/ no walkthrough, it took me about 7.6 hours to finish this game (Leon A Story), but there's more to see. I'd only gotten "stuck" once, and it was pretty brief.

The only issue I had was that the game crashed once; I played on Steam Deck but I'm not sure I feel comfortable blaming SteamOS / proton.

I also wouldn't say it's mandatory to play RE1 before this, but, you'd be robbing yourself of some semi-significant context.

Anyway, yes! I'd absolutely recommend checking out RE2 if you enjoyed the first game, or are favorable towards older games and love survival horror w/ environmental puzzles!

I played this on Steam Deck but it didn't work out of the box: I had to change my proton version to "Proton Experimental", and the default controls were strange (start to aim??). That was easily remedied in SteamOS's controller settings menu, but the game did not save my custom input bindings, meaning I had to reset them every time I restarted the game. Also, the graphics options don't appear to work; I couldn't play at a higher resolution than its default settings. Hopefully this is addressed (ideally with no tinkering)...and remove the unnecessary DRM while you're at it.

Absolute gem of a classic. I use to get anxiety working myself to boot this up on my PS1. Then I'd lose myself in the world of RE and Racoon City. This was peek RE for me way back. Still is (maybe just nostaglia). It might have the old tank controls but still goes toe-to-toe with the remake of it. And for how old it is, that's impressive. Such a masterpiece.

If you haven't experiences the OG RE2. Do it. It's $4. No reason not to!