History YMMV / ResidentEvil2Remake

* FranchiseOriginalSin: Some of the aspects widely criticized in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Remake'' originated here, such as short length, divisive plot changes, and the cutting of content found in the original game. The difference being that most people agreed that the problems were less visible and prevalent in this title, and it often found ways to work around them in a more satisfying manner.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6mT0Ckw2_s Looming Dread]], the theme that plays during the Fourth Survivor scenario. It's a fast-paced, adrenaline-packed theme that perfectly captures HUNK's need to quickly escape Raccoon City.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFgQRMVraYM Black Impact]], the theme that plays whenever Mr. X is chasing the player. It's a tense theme that perfectly captures the dread of being chased around by an ImplacableMan and it's quite fitting that many players that listen to it are reminded of Film/TheTerminator.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYHRC-C28C8 Tofu on Fire]], a rocking metal track that plays during Tofu Survivor. It adds to the awesomeness and hilarity of the situation due to being associated with a block of living tofu and its variants.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlBZ5otMqno The Rain of Mourning]], the theme for the "No Time to Mourn" scenario, is a song where you can feel the emotion in with each step you take, as Kendo fights to live on for his family. The song amps up to carry the same kind of adrenaline that Looming Dread does as you desperately fight past the never ending hordes of zombies to try to get to the LZ.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbbdu5b5Sp0 Collapse]], which plays during Leon's escape from the self-destructing NEST. The frantic strings and ominous horns create the perfect sense of urgency. To top it off, it gets even more intense when Mr. X appears.

** After meeting Mr. X, you'll be hearing his footsteps within proximity if he's close. People even mentioned that hearing ''their own footsteps'' startles them enough to mistaken them for Mr. X's.

** Quite a few ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' fans latched onto this game for being [[SpiritualLicensee the closest we may ever get to a proper sequel]], thanks to its ''amazing'' zombie dismemberment and similar shooting mechanics,(ironic, considering the original ''Dead Space'' already borrowed a lot from ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'').

** Claire goes through the trauma of Raccoon City and comes out of it joking with Sherry about how bad she smells (though this can also be interpreted as Claire trying to alleviate the situation, to help her and Sherry keep their mind off things).

** The desktop computer in the RPD main lobby was replaced with a laptop computer. Laptop computers aren't exactly a recent thing, having existed since the late 1970s in some capacity or another, and anyone who came of age before 1998 can readily confirm their commonality even then. Although both the model of laptop itself and the OS it's using appear to be completely fictional.

* RealismInducedHorror: The segment in Claire's story where you play as Sherry, a helpless and unarmed child, hiding from DirtyCop and child-predator Chief Irons in the shadows of an abandoned orphanage, is arguably ''the'' single most chilling 3 minutes in the saga. Lacking ''any'' of the slimy claws, fangs and superpowers of the ''other'' monsters of ''Resident Evil'', Irons is terrifying because he is a threat all too ''real'' and sadly common in ''our'' world.

** The death sequences at the various enemy types are supposed to be gruesome and horrifying, but the constant fading in and out was likely done to hide the fact that aside from when the character's [[YourHeadAsplode domes burst or get eaten]], they don't actually get gored and instead just spawn generic entrails or the like on top to fake it. Something that fading doesn't actually hide very well at all. Even getting ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice just puts blood decals and effects on top.
** Lighting effects for different areas only kick on once you fully enter the room. It's easy to notice in places like going from the station's main lobby and western office, which will be warmly lit when seen through the doorway until you pass the threshold, at which point the office immediately becomes its normal pitch-dark.

* SpecialEffectsFailure: The death sequences at the various enemy types are supposed to be gruesome and horrifying, but the constant fading in and out was likely done to hide the fact that aside from when the character's [[YourHeadAsplode domes burst or get eaten]], they don't actually get gored and instead just spawn generic entrails or the like on top to fake it. Something that fading doesn't actually hide very well at all. Even getting ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice just puts blood decals and effects on top.

* RemadeAndImproved: The game is noted for addressing many of the original's flawed story elements (both major and minor) and making efforts to change or improve them for the better.

* RemadeAndImproved: The game is noted for addressing many of the original game's flawed story elements (both major and minor) and making efforts to change or improve them for the better.

** The knife. It doesn't stagger enemies, and is a ((Breakable Weapon|s}} making it useless for regular combat outside of fending off zombie grabs.

* ScrappyWeapon: The Acid Rounds found here are a far cry to their devastating iteration in the past. To their credit, they can melt off zombie limbs (making them easier to evade) and can be used to stunlock Lickers and several Birkin fights fairly reliably. The problem is that the only way to get them is to combine regular gunpowder with white gunpowder, significantly limiting your supply of handgun and [=MQ11=] bullets when both can blow off zombie legs just as well, if not better. Additionally, most lickers can be evaded by simply walking rather than running, the suppressor for the [=MQ11=] is a Godsend against Lickers, and against Birkin, flame rounds and the Spark Shot can prove to be just as, if not more effective.

* PortingDisaster: The 2022 raytracing and [=DirectX=] 12 update to the PC version has much worse performance than the original, even with the raytracing disabled and the settings like-for-like, which left the game unplayable on many computers that had been previously been able to run it just fine. Capcom had to make the original version available again via a Steam beta branch.

* PortingDisaster: The 2022 raytracing and [=DirectX=] 12 update to the PC version has much worse performance than the original, even with the raytracing disabled and the settings like-for-like. Capcom had to make the original version available again via a Steam beta branch.

* PortingDisaster: The 2022 raytracing and DirectX 12 update to the PC version has much worse performance than the original, even with the raytracing disabled and the settings like-for-like. Capcom had to make the original version available again via a Steam beta branch.

* CompleteMonster: [[DirtyCop Raccoon City Police Chief Brian Irons]] is secretly working for [[Characters/ResidentEvilUmbrellaCorporation Umbrella Corporation]]. A raping, [[SerialKiller murderous]] human [[TaxidermyIsCreepy taxidermist]], Irons prefers killing women and having their bodies converted into stuffed dolls for him to admire. Moonlighting as the city's [[OrphanageOfFear orphanage]] director, Irons, under Umbrella's orders, has [[WouldHurtAChild hundreds of children]] painfully experimented on for the Birkins' scientific research, with most of the children dying. When one of the children manage to escape, Irons has Umbrella soldiers execute every child at the orphanage to [[LeaveNoWitnesses cover the company's tracks]].

* AuthorsSavingThrow: From the demo alone, a few details were added in to fix some of the flaws that are featured in the original:
** Very minor, but the R.P.D. ''finally'' has restrooms, after 20 years of [[NobodyPoops jokes]] from the fandom.
** Another minor one, that some might find contentious is the increased durability of the Zombies; making them much bigger threats in general. Now it's really plausible how the entire town fell victim to them.
** A raised dais is added at the entrance to the western office, to account for the inclined floor in the station's main lobby ([[{{Bizarrchitecture}} there are no other changes in elevation anywhere else on the 1st floor]] in the original).
** Leon mentions that he was called a week before and told not to report for duty, explaining why his welcome party decorations were already up for several days during a ZombieApocalypse; he was expected in before the outbreak started, and taking the party decor down again was the ''last'' thing on anyone's mind once everything began going to hell.
** Leon does not start the game with his iconic RPD outfit, instead being in civilian clothing at first. Logical, considering it was to be his first day at the job. It also neatly explains why he opts for his signature vested and armored garb, as he's already in the thick of it and needs everything he can compared to entering the city in full armored uniform in the original when no one else wore it.
** Although justified in that the police department was an art museum beforehand explaining why it felt more like an art museum than a police department; the new redesigned RPD headquarters looks much more like a police department, better fitting the scenery. It's also much more well laid out.
** Like with the above, Ada's infamous bandaging of Leon outside of his clothing has been changed. Now Leon is actually properly bandaged, much to the hilarity of many fans (his alternate "classic" uniform still retains the outer bandaging, [[MythologyGag seemingly just for old time's sake]]).
** One of the most ridiculed aspects of the original game was the story's {{Narm}}-tastic handling of Leon and Ada's romance and how out-of-left-field it was given the lack of proper development between them. In the remake, Ada clearly takes advantage of Leon's greenhorn naivete to seduce and emotionally manipulate him into doing things her way, with Leon himself increasingly growing suspicious the more he learns of Ada's true motives and no longer acts so blindly smitten with her nor reacts so ham-fistedly devastated upon her apparent "demise". Overall, the remake depicts Leon and Ada's relationship in a more believable and realistic light by putting emphasis on the fact that it stems from deception and uncertainty with just enough hints of ''maybe'' something more sincere before they go their separate ways, not repeating the 1998 game's over-the-top "tragic love story".
** The trucker that rams into Leon and Claire's procured squad car. In the original game, he somehow managed to turn into a zombie in a matter of minutes after being bitten in the arm. Here, he's bitten in the neck, and passes out from blood loss without turning into a zombie, giving infection from a zombie bite more consistency, instead of just when it would be most dramatic.
** All EscortMission aspects involving Sherry have been done away with. There's only a tiny handful of situations where any danger is present when she's in tow, and even then she has no trouble keeping up with Claire.
** A big complaint in the original game was William Birkin being handed the IdiotBall and not simply giving HUNK's unit a vial and just saying it was the G-virus, considering that he knew they were going to kill him no matter what. In this version, HUNK's team is ordered to bring him in alive, so there's no way he's going to be able to fool them for long, and the only reason he died was because one of HUNK's men opened fire on him instinctively the moment Birkin drew a gun.
** The title screen doesn't play the iconic ominous voice calling out the title, but switching the music will have the voice say this (with a new voice actor).
** As another minor example, the famous "Wellcome Leon" mistake has been corrected for this version. As an EasterEgg, an extra "l" can be found on one of the desks, suggesting an officer noticed the mistake and corrected it.
** The late 2019 R.P.D demo is basically the One-Shot demo with the time limit removed, addressing complaints about said demo's time and play limit heavily restraining exploration.
** A DLC was released in April 2019 that allowed players to [[BribingYourWayToVictory unlock all in-game rewards, such as the infinite Gatling gun and rocket launcher, without having to complete the challenges required for them]]. This served as such to those who found said challenges too difficult to accomplish.

** A raised dais is added at the entrance to the western office, to account for the inclined floor in the station's main lobby ([[{{Bizarrchitecture}} no other changes in elevation appear anywhere else on the 1st floor]] in the original).

** Both of Chief Iron’s deaths, which he [[KarmicDeath really had coming]].

* SignatureScene: Quite a few scenes have particularly stuck to players' minds:
** Elliot's death toward the beginning of the game.
** Marvin saving Leon soon after and sternly ordering him to leave him behind while giving a {{Foreshadowing}} line about shooting any zombie, uniform or not.
** Mr. X making his entrance by pushing a helicopter aside and starting his UnflinchingWalk toward the player.
** The reworked Robert Kendo scene where [[spoiler:he takes his infected daughter to the backroom to MercyKill her as Leon and Ada watch helplessly]].