Resident Evil: Revelations 2

I wasn't really sure what to expect with this game but it's pretty great!

I played this on my PS5.

This game is similar in scope to the previous Revelations but it plays a bit differently. It still follows a two-person squad at all times, but each is distinct and you can (and will) swap between the members of a given team at will. You have Claire Redfield and Moira Burton as one pair with Barry Burton and a young girl named Natalia as another. Moira is grating, at first at least, as she's your standard "teenager with a potty mouth", but she grows on you. As for Natalia, she reminded me of Lucia from Resident Evil Gaiden and being reminded of that game (another Barry joint) was kind of fun. Each group's partner-character is unable to use guns but has a basic melee attack as well as a way to highlight collectibles and hidden objects so it makes sense to swap to them often.

Moira can also stun enemies with her flashlight.

The previous game's weapon upgrade system is back, along with inventories for both your main and support character. Items can be passed between the two freely (provided they're within range) and there's a rudimentary crafting system in place. There's a shared upgrade tree for both Claire and Barry, but each campaign has its own inventory to manage.

By the end of the game I was rolling in items.

The game is broken up into episodes like the first Revelations but these were released, well, episodically (like Telltale used to do). There are four episodes, and each is made up of a Claire half and a Barry half. Generally speaking, the Barry half retreads (some of) the environments from the Claire segments, evoking the multiple playthroughs of earlier RE games.

The game as a whole was a lot of fun, with a relatively tight story that moved along at a good pace. Having Claire and Barry as anchor points, too, helped it feel more in line with Resident Evil than its predecessor with its wide cast of characters. Claire and Moira are there to stand in for your typical final-girl protagonist(s) while Barry and Natalia have a kind of The Last of Us vibe going on. The two halves bounce off of each other well and each scenario plays out differently enough from the previous that revisiting the same locations never felt tedious.

Barry has some amusing comments.

After completing the game, I discovered that I apparently unlocked "the bad ending" and that, if I were to make a different decision in Episode 3, Episode 4 plays out significantly differently. So, as a result, I replayed Episode 3 (well, the Claire segment) and all of 4. The other ending is noticeably different (there are new cutscenes and a new phase to the final boss fight) so I'm glad I went back to get it, and with the way the level select works I was relieved to not need to replay the entire game. It was good, but not necessarily as fun to replay as the classic games.

There were also two additional episodes, but each was only as long as a single half-episode. The first one focuses on Moira during the period between the two campaigns, while the second puts the focus on Natalia before she meets up with Barry. "The Struggle," the Moira episode, is a series of gimmicky missions (kill x enemies, sneak through this village, etc.) strung together along with a sort of permadeath mechanic where you essentially have a limited number of lives. Little Miss, the episode centered on Natalia, is a stealth affair where you control Natalia while a second, "Dark Natalia" guides you past enemies. Both are neat conceptually, but the limited lives and bad stealth mean that neither is exceptionally fun to play.

Luckily, Dark Natalia can't be spotted.

Like many of the games before it, this game includes an additional combat/survival mode... thing. Here, it's known as "Raid Mode". In it, you select a mission and then have to kill a certain number of enemies (sometimes, within a time limit). There are new enemy variants and elemental damage types, along with a whole progression system too, with skills to equip and character skins to unlock. Essentially, it puts a spotlight on just how solid the gunplay and combat in this series can be. All of the stages I played were repurposed locations from Resident Evil 6, though I'd have to imagine it also cribs from sequences in this game.

I'll admit I haven't toyed much with Mercenaries modes in the past games (I didn't even touch the Raid Mode in the original Revelations) and I doubt I'll play this for any considerable length of time given how I've been working my way through the series, but I spent an hour or so playing this and I had a blast. I could easily see myself getting sucked into it if I were playing this when it was new, or even if I was in less of a rush to move onto "the next thing." 

I opted to play as "LADY HUNK", because how could I not?

I've included two screenshots of the episode select screen below because I wanted to show my overall time for my initial playthrough as well as the additional time I spent going back for the "good ending." I've also included screenshots of the results for both bonus episodes, first "The Struggle" then "Little Miss".

While the extra episodes were a bit disappointing, I enjoyed this game overall. The story is smaller in scope and, despite some wacky sci-fi stuff around Natalia, more grounded than the first Revelations and I appreciated that. I have no real complaints about how the game plays (outside of those two extra episodes) and Raid Mode is a great encapsulation of what works on that front. This was a lot of fun.