We (re) plunged into the nightmare of Raccoon City with the enthusiasm of a child in front of the tree on Christmas Eve. We have explored every single corner of Resident Evil 2 Remake, from the attic of the police station to the foul-smelling sewers, to the adrenaline battle in the underground laboratories, to finally go out to see the light again and write an enthusiastic review of the best remake that has happened to us since ... well always, leave it to us say one more time. It is precisely for this reason that we did not have enough: the alternative campaigns that basically allowed us to face the adventure four times were not enough, just as the desire to discover all the weapons and to test ourselves with the higher difficulty level: Resident Evil 2 Remake is one of those games that, when you reach the end credits, you immediately miss.
Here it is then Capcom, whose recent editorial policy makes us believe that Santa Claus, the Dalai Lama and the Three Kings at the same time have risen to the top of the Japanese company, we come up with a first Entirely free DLC: just over a GB of update that contains three alternate adventures (plus a secret one) as characters already met in the main adventure. Three small reasons, all more than valid, to return once again to tread the streets of Raccoon City.
Robert Kendo - Life goes on
We all wondered who Robert Kendo had shot after talking to Ada and Leon in his gun shop: himself or his now irremediably infected daughter? We, after the first shot, also expected to hear a second one… and instead here comes an unmissable opportunity for Mr. Kendo: the possibility of leaving Raccoon City by helicopter. The problem? That the helicopter must be reached, and to separate it from safety there are crowds of zombies.
This is how, with the first of the three episodes, we begin to understand the mentality with which the DLC was conceived Ghost Survivors: this is a fast-paced game mode and very similar to the mercenaries mode of Resident Evil: Revelations, in which the player is called to quickly travel through the game scenarios by collecting objects and killing as many enemies as possible. In the role of Kendo, in addition to the classic undead we will find the first new enemy specially created for the DLC: it is a zombie with luminescent eyes with purple smoke coming out of its head. He is a zombie to be hit from a distance, as the explosion of his skull causes the dangerous spread of the highly poisonous, volatile purple substance.
Enemies aside, the gameplay of the various campaigns does not differ much in terms of actions to be performed, so we will use this chapter dedicated to Kendo to go into a little more detail of the game mechanics. The movement possibilities, the weapons, the aiming mode and some simple puzzles - nothing more complex than the classic "find the key and open the door" - are the same as in Resident Evil 2 Remake. But it is the inventory, always very limited in capacity, the most characterizing element and able to distinguish this game mode from any horror-themed TPS: from distributors scattered around the game world, or more dangerously from zombies carrying a backpack (indicated by a specific icon), it is possible to collect weapons, herbs and items useful for creating ammo.
If you have finished the main campaign of RE2 Remake you know how much the number of bullets and enemies is definitely unbalanced in favor of the latter, therefore you will understand how in Ghost Survivors there is very little room for exploration: the survival component is buried by the excitement of the action, which will always keep you on a tightrope. Retrying a low difficulty scenario several times (always remember that dying will mean starting the entire chapter all over again) is essential to understand the position of objects and enemies, to be calculated in subsequent runs to decide where to stop to fight and where to escape while dodging zombies, to save ammunition to be used when really needed.
Katherine Warren - On the run
Police Commissioner Irons may have managed to get away with it for quite some time, but certainly in the Resident Evil 2 narrative universe he is capable of collecting nothing but fools. In the second episode of Ghost Survivors we take on the role of Katherine, a young girl who finds herself in spite of herself on the table of the macabre laboratory that Irons himself has set up inside the orphanage, explored in the main adventure playing Sherry Birkin. In this alternate universe - along the lines of the intentional plot inconsistencies between Leon and Claire's campaigns A and B - Katherine manages to hit Irons in the throat and escape. Her mission will be to reach the cells of the police station to free her sweetheart, Ben.
Do not be fooled by the polygonal model of the protagonist: the attractive Katherine runs barefoot in a light dress, but the desire to reunite with her better half makes her hit hard. Her main enemies - exclusive to the DLC dedicated to her - are gods undead able to regenerate: it is possible to hit and slow them even with a normal pistol, but they will soon awaken and will return to the charge with perfectly restored health. So how do you find your way through these new genetic abominations? The game itself explains it to us, in a document collected just before leaving the orphanage: it is necessary to use a weapon that can damage enemies faster than they can regenerate. And this is how the flamethrower found a few meters later comes into play and shows all its usefulness, as well as the weapons with the most important rate of fire.
In the role of Katherine we found ourselves, especially in the parts of the adventure set outside, in situations close to the Walking Dead, with a large multitude of zombies surrounding the young woman: in these cases, as much as the desire to put their hand to the heavy artillery is a lot, you have to act with caution and try to get around the weaker enemies, and then unload the heavy artillery against those able to regenerate.
Ghost - Forgotten
The third story of the Ghost Survivors DLC puts us in the shoes of one of the few (perhaps the only?) Soldier who escaped William Birkin's rabid attack, when the doctor injected himself with the virus and transformed into the Tyrant. Inside the underground labs, the soldier is tasked with recovering the virus and escaping the facility before the self-destruction (triggered by Leon or Claire based on the alternate version of the story you prefer) buries all of Umbrella's sins under tons of rubble.
The particular enemies that Ghost will encounter during his mission are gods armored zombies, leaving only parts of the body exposed: if with Kendo you were aiming for the head and with Katherine you needed high potential weapons, with Ghost it will be essential to identify the uncovered points of the opponents and play with precision to take them down by hitting them where the armor will leave room for an attack.
Daniel Contini - Under siege
There is a fourth and final bonus mode, which unlocks once you've completed the previous three campaigns: in this case one does not move around the city, but defends a position, the gas station where Leon and Claire meet at the start of the game. In the role of sheriff Contini you will experience the moments before the arrival of the two main protagonists, all with a poetic license with a strong arcade tint: as in the best tower defense you will have to unload your arsenal on waves of increasingly stronger enemies, up to killing a hundred. in one game.
So far so good, if not for some small flaw, which we point out here but on which you can certainly turn a blind eye given the free offer and the richness of the offer. First of all, the plot hints that we have exposed to you for each individual character are just hints: a few lines of text and some images at the beginning of the chapter and nothing more. Animated sequences would certainly have made these contents much more attractive. Secondly, the pressing and rhythmic music - which once again brings to mind the mercenaries mode of Revelations - erases any feeling of survival horror, bringing the rhythm of the gameplay to the purest and most caciarone action. Not that this is a negative side tout court, but certainly in a four-chapter DLC it would have been interesting to see at least one chapter a little more horror, in the style of what we saw in the main campaign playing as Sherry.
However, you cannot have everything from life and, especially from a title like Resident Evil 2 Remake that has already given us a lot: Ghost Survivor adds a meager hour of fun but, if you let yourself be taken by the challenges and the race for the maximum score, it will potentially greatly increase the longevity of the new RE2. The technical sector is of absolute respect, and shows its muscles as already done during the main campaign: outdoor scenes with many zombies on the streets are a joy to behold, as wielding the flamethrower always gives a sense of omnipotence (at least as long as the fuel lasts). An excellent add-on package, without too many pretensions but that comes just when we started not knowing what to do with this excellent RE2 Remake.
Ghost Survivors has almost everything we would like from a DLC: Capcom gives us four free mini adventures for a total of about an hour of unreleased gameplay, with replayability that can increase the longevity of the offer thanks to the fast pace and the action cut given to all episodes. Never mind that the plot is reduced to a few lines of text and that the gameplay is quite similar for all the characters proposed: the multitude of weapons, the new enemies specific to each mission and the always wonderful technical sector are the icing on the cake of a sweet return to the streets of Raccoon City, entirely free. Now we just have to hope that the story does not end there: we already know that between the lines of code of RE2 Remake there was the polygonal model of Chris Redfield, and therefore dear Capcom do not play jokes: now that you have rekindled our interest in Resident Evil 2 cannot stop there, and you must offer us new content of this level to allow us to continue to praise the most beautiful remake ever created to date.
