NOTE: This is the first in a series of four informal pieces which will detail my experiences with each individual episode of Resident Evil Revelations 2. Following this, a full more “traditional” review will be posted at the end of March to coincide with the game’s retail release. As such, no score will be assigned to the game until all episodes are available to the public.
Resident Evil Revelations 2 is a hard game to work out. There’s parts that work really well and parts that don’t work at all. But for the most part, it’s got its heart in the right place. It’s a Resident Evil game that tries it’s hardest to bring the best of both worlds – that is the new and old Resident Evil games – together. The first episode, unimaginatively titled Penal Colony, does a fairly good job at introducing players to the game’s locale and characters while also hooking you on its story.
Just like the original game before it, Revelations 2 is presented episodically. In the original game, this meant you just had to watch a recap between each chapter as it jumped from locale to locale. In Revelations 2, this actually means something. The developers at Capcom and TOSE have crafted a story that has been built from the ground up to be episodic. As a result, every episode ends on an intense hook that leaves you wanting much, much more. Similarly, the story is localised to a single location so everything feels interconnected to a degree much greater than before as well, unlike the original Revelations which used its episodic nature to offer a disjointed experience.