Iām playing through RE games (that have Leon first) with my friend and because Iāve actually had a genuine phobia of zombies since I was little and struggle playing horror games we made a sort of deal that I would play the retro games and he would play the remakes/9 probably. (and weāll play 6 together since. yāknow. co-op.)
because yeah there was no way I was playing through RE2make. I actually had to be on my phone for a decent chunk of his playthrough. I didnāt miss any story beats, but I definitely know the original better than the remake because of it.
and genuinely my take away is that you should play the old games.
there are many ways that make playing OG RE2 much easier than it was ever supposed to be. the built in Rookie mode and playing it on an emulator literally remove the two main mechanics that make it difficult; ammo and saving.
once those two things are gone itās genuinely really awesome to go through the game and appreciate the atmosphere because damn. despite not having to really worry about dying, I genuinely would feel the dread of feeling like something was around every corner.
and I know everyone talks about the loss of the A/B system but thereās a reason for that! genuinely itās worth playing the original just for that. especially if you have played the remake because itās cool to see the mishmash of events they used. because both are kinda A and both are kinda B.
the most interesting one is that they used Leon A for the Ada confrontation when the Leon B version was very established as canon. like Ada saving Leon from the tyrant and ādyingā was very important. and I guess they just moved it to earlier butā
thatās a whole other topic though.
anywho, OG RE4 is just genuinely a good game lol. like RE2 helped pioneer survival horror, and I think it is a great game for itās era, but yeah RE4 is just good with the only real qualifier being āit introduced a lot of these things, so theyāre not exactly perfect mechanics yet.ā and the buttons for fire and reload genuinely kinda piss me off but you do get used to it. oh and the quick time events can be brutal like wtf give me a second to process whatās on the screen. (okay and the insta-kill enemies can be a bit too much, but you can prepare pretty well for most of them and itās more a āshit okay stronger gun timeā than anything else.)
ā¦I do realize thatās more qualifiers than I said there were at first, but none of them really get in the way of me playing. and the quick time events are so of the time that I honestly find them more funny than annoying a lot of the time.
like I really did have to cheat to play RE2, but Iām playing RE4 legit and not struggling that much. like Iāve had to replay sections, but I never feel like I was cheated. because it almost always genuinely feels like it was my fault. like yeah my bad Leon, sorry. I was not looking at your health like I shouldāve been. rip.
I feel like you donāt need me to tell you to play the original RE4, itās one of The Games of All Timeā¢ļø buuut idk maybe it might inspire someone to try if I, someone whoās not amazing at games and is here for the story above all else, genuinely says that I am having fun playing the game and that if you beat the remake, I do not think there should be an issue playing the original.
like itās not easy, youāll likely have to do certain sections multiple times over, but OG RE4 does not want you dead nearly as bad as OG RE2.
though Iām also only about halfway through RE4 sooo Iāll update this if it gets significantly harder at any point. I am a little worried about end game. but Iām also not dying enough for me to think Iāll hit a point I canāt get through yet.
edit: oh and I am 100% calling OG RE4 retro. it is technically a couple months older than me. January 2005 vs May 2005.
