We say goodbye to the year with the traditional vote for the best game of the last twelve months. FreeGameTips already has its GOTY, although it has not lacked competition.
We arrived in December and, as always on these dates, we have to look back. Remember everything played and choose that title that for one reason or another has emerged a little more. The already commonly known as GOTY. Although 2019 is proving somewhat atypical in that regard. With Western titans like Naughty Dog, CD Projekt or Id Software leaving their games by the beginning of 2020, and a classic of these ceremonies such as Bioware not materializing their best work in Anthem, we are seeing a selection of prizes widely distributed and with a strong Japanese presence. Control, of the Finnish Remedy, tends to be the exception in a few weeks with three other prominent names: Death Stranding, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Resident Evil 2.
But today we are not here to talk about prizes in general, but ours, which as mandated by tradition has been decided by internal vote. Nearly a dozen titles have come to the fore, including Days Gone, Disco Elysium, Devil May Cry 5, The Outer Worlds, Sayonara Wild Hearts and WOW Classic. But the winner, with 11 of the 27 votes cast under his belt, is:
Resident Evil 2 is a game for which there are plenty of presentations and, at the same time, that you may need them more than others. Because being a remake of one of the most remembered and beloved works of the 32-bit generation means that many players craved it years before its release. And that was a fairly safe investment for Capcom. But it also means that it is relatively easy to discredit it (or not credit it enough) in prize season for being inspired by an existing game.
The reality is that Resident Evil 2, this Resident Evil 2, is a new game. Part of a common premise and respects the canon that still fits in the middle of a trilogy that will soon have been completely rebuilt. But once we arrive in Raccoon City and get under the command of Leon S. Kennedy or Claire Redfield, there is no longer muscular memory, learned path or solutions of solved puzzles that are worthwhile. We all start over again, as did the study with this project. With a good starting base, yes, but also with potential for disaster as this reimagining took its own form.
Because on a day like today, it is also worth remembering that Resident Evil went through one of the biggest identity crisis in the environment. After establishing survival horror as a genre and giving it satisfactory continuity for several installments, the Resident Evil 4 in its own way also propelled the saga towards a new stage, with less restriction in vision and movement, but with a progressive loss of elements capitals like puzzles, backtracking or enemies that intimidated individually and not by accumulation. A couple of years ago the experimental Resident Evil 7 tried to break that inertia quite successfully, but it was not until this game that Capcom has finally nailed the survival horror of before with technology now.
RE2 rejects quick time events, flying kicks, semi-automated sequences (except for one notable exception). It is a horror game with all the lyrics. Serious in tone, raw in violence and dark in the staging. But it is also a game that is not shielded in its phenomenal setting to simply guide us from one scare to another. The production values are exquisite, but they do not overshadow the importance of a design with levels branching out and leaving us in dead ends, locked doors, incomplete mechanisms or safes with optional goods. The really terrifying thing is not that there are loose monsters out there, it is that we must unwind the skein of the design while avoiding them or dealing with them with a fairly tight amount of resources.
It can be argued that there is still room for improvement, such as restoring tapes saved in standard mode (at least hardcore is available for purists at the beginning) or being less friendly with some map indicators. But for every license that RE2 is taken, the decisions that evoke that Capcom of the end of the century or even raise the current one above stand out. Zombies, for example, are more resistant and have more elaborate and unpredictable routines, changing position to catch us in an oversight. In addition, its detailed dismemberment system not only intensifies the gore component, it also encourages selective mutilation that revalued the new perspective. And the fearsome Mr. X, now present from the first game, forces us to play sound slopes to anticipate his route and avoid entering his field of vision.
Of course, this only scratches the surface of a game with many other changes (the second half implements redesigns even more severe than the first), great replayability or even extra content that Capcom pulled for free shortly after its release. But to deepen the Reviews is already or, better yet, try it first hand if you have not done it yet. The point is that for practical purposes, RE2 is an unpublished and fresh work. Full of tributes and family locations, but also surprises, new events and mechanics. It is the revitalization of a genre far from its best hour. The missing link that the saga had been waiting for three generations to evolve survival horror beyond the fixed cameras without the need to throw fundamental pillars in the process. It has taken, but it is already here. And that's why our GOTY 2019.
