Resident Evil 2, Leon B
Jan. 14th, 2015 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigozealI took some time these past few days to polish off Resident Evil 2's Leon B scenario. To my surprise, I pretty much (pretty much) motored through the game, once I figured out that I was supposed to, you know, run away from that Tyrant that accosts you at the beginning of the B scenario instead of try to deal with it in any capacity. I was helped by the fact that RE2's "Zapping System" - the idea that each character in the A and B scenarios is performing a different & complementary set of actions through the story, the effects of which you can see from the other end of the plot as it progresses - is kind of bunk. Leon & Claire go through the same sequence of tasks - putting out the fire on the roof, collecting the card-suit keys for the police station, unlocking the clock tower, having their sidekick explore a side area in the sewers that yields additional ammo if she explores an optional side room, having a boss fight interrupt the ride to the laboratory - etc. The only places you see Zapping System effects are a) in the weapons locker, where Claire taking a gun and/or a hip pack will make those items unavailable to Leon later; b) in the police chief's office, where a passage will open up after a certain point in the narrative after Claire would have unlocked it in the A scenario; and c) in the lab, where performing a task that seems fruitless in the A scenario will, with additional rigmarole, provide access to a superweapon in the B scenario. (There's also the bit where Claire clearing out some chopper wreckage in a hallway will allow Leon access to a certain door at a certain point in the story, but that's more a mandatory storyline beat than a Zapping thing.) The two scenarios are so similar that going from one to another is really no different than picking from Jill or Chris at the start of a game of the first RE.
For variety, I tried just blasting every enemy that was a reasonable obstacle in the game with little regard for ammo conservation - as I thought perhaps the game had intended during the first scenario - and it worked out pretty well. The exception was the endgame, the laboratory, where the game does throw some ridiculous ammo sponges at you (three shots from a Magnum for a Licker? Please), which did get me in rather desperate straits at the very end. See, my other big idea was to attempt to go for a reasonable ranking this time, and one of the criteria for doing so is not using any of the superweapons that you get at the end of the game, the ones that take up two inventory slots. (Otherwise, your ranking gets dropped a whole grade level.) This left me reaaallllllly high & dry offensively at the end. Not horribly so, but to the point where I decided to skip exploring a few optional rooms at the end that I knew wouldn't give me ammo. (Granted, I was kind of fed up after trying repeatedly & failing to get through this room packed with a couple of persistent Super-Lickers without eating up almost a whole cartridge of magnum rounds - I eventually relented because I thought I'd have to go back into the room eventually, but I never did, dammit - and after that frustrating experience, I just wanted to get through the rest of the game as quickly as possible.) I came upon the Tyrant with about 20 shotgun shells, nine magnum rounds, and all of *three* handgun bullets, and if I'd actually had to fight him - instead of, you know, running around until someone throws you a rocket launcher, just like the Tyrant fight in the first RE - it would've been bad news.
It was still bad news, actually, since dodging the Tyrant without being able to shoot & momentarily stop him really eats into your health and cut into my herbs considerably. I ultimately had to use a First-Aid Spray instead of herbs during my winning run, which eats into your Ranking Points! And the game pulls a nasty little trick where after the Tyrant fight, you run back to your escape tram only to discover that you have to do one more stupid anticlimactic chore and open this gate outside, where a flash mob of superzombies has just popped up. I actually got killed by this unfair stunt after the first time that I had finally succeeded in dodging the Tyrant, and I was freaking livid.
Anyhow, the upshot of all this is all my avoidance of superweapons in the final level and the frustration it caused was completely for naught, as the game dropped me a level anyhow! See for yourself. Oh, wait; I don't think you can actually see anything with this:
I used this IGN guide to double-check my ranking, and it turns out that I should've gotten a B. Getting dinged for the two-slotted weapon thing is the only explanation. Now, you do have to use that rocket launcher, which is a two-slotted weapon, to finish off the Tyrant, so I shouldn't think that would count against your score, but I did have one shot go awry before I actually hit the Tyrant, so I don't know if that was counted against me - that I took one more shot from a two-slot weapon than necessary and thereby tasted forbidden fruit - or what. I have RE experts looking into this pressing issue as we speak (ETA: RE experts say that the guide is approximate; no one really has an exact handle on the cutoffs for each rank), but for now, I can only grit my teeth. There is no escape for me from survival horror mediocrity!
Random stuff:
- I suppose complaining about characterization to any degree is futile in this game, but there's a big disconnect between Leon's characterization in the opening and the Claire A scenario, where he's a nice, dopily friendly guy, and in the rest of the B scenario, where he's this sarcastic, bossy jerkass.
- For all I've heard about him, Ben Bertolucci was a rather pointless character, wasn't he? I understand he has more to do in the Leon A/Claire B scenario, mind.
- The much-ballyhooed control room security camera scare a big washout. I actually found the media room scares more effective. But this isn't a game that's really trying to be scary. Unfortunately.
.
For variety, I tried just blasting every enemy that was a reasonable obstacle in the game with little regard for ammo conservation - as I thought perhaps the game had intended during the first scenario - and it worked out pretty well. The exception was the endgame, the laboratory, where the game does throw some ridiculous ammo sponges at you (three shots from a Magnum for a Licker? Please), which did get me in rather desperate straits at the very end. See, my other big idea was to attempt to go for a reasonable ranking this time, and one of the criteria for doing so is not using any of the superweapons that you get at the end of the game, the ones that take up two inventory slots. (Otherwise, your ranking gets dropped a whole grade level.) This left me reaaallllllly high & dry offensively at the end. Not horribly so, but to the point where I decided to skip exploring a few optional rooms at the end that I knew wouldn't give me ammo. (Granted, I was kind of fed up after trying repeatedly & failing to get through this room packed with a couple of persistent Super-Lickers without eating up almost a whole cartridge of magnum rounds - I eventually relented because I thought I'd have to go back into the room eventually, but I never did, dammit - and after that frustrating experience, I just wanted to get through the rest of the game as quickly as possible.) I came upon the Tyrant with about 20 shotgun shells, nine magnum rounds, and all of *three* handgun bullets, and if I'd actually had to fight him - instead of, you know, running around until someone throws you a rocket launcher, just like the Tyrant fight in the first RE - it would've been bad news.
It was still bad news, actually, since dodging the Tyrant without being able to shoot & momentarily stop him really eats into your health and cut into my herbs considerably. I ultimately had to use a First-Aid Spray instead of herbs during my winning run, which eats into your Ranking Points! And the game pulls a nasty little trick where after the Tyrant fight, you run back to your escape tram only to discover that you have to do one more stupid anticlimactic chore and open this gate outside, where a flash mob of superzombies has just popped up. I actually got killed by this unfair stunt after the first time that I had finally succeeded in dodging the Tyrant, and I was freaking livid.
Anyhow, the upshot of all this is all my avoidance of superweapons in the final level and the frustration it caused was completely for naught, as the game dropped me a level anyhow! See for yourself. Oh, wait; I don't think you can actually see anything with this:
I used this IGN guide to double-check my ranking, and it turns out that I should've gotten a B. Getting dinged for the two-slotted weapon thing is the only explanation. Now, you do have to use that rocket launcher, which is a two-slotted weapon, to finish off the Tyrant, so I shouldn't think that would count against your score, but I did have one shot go awry before I actually hit the Tyrant, so I don't know if that was counted against me - that I took one more shot from a two-slot weapon than necessary and thereby tasted forbidden fruit - or what. I have RE experts looking into this pressing issue as we speak (ETA: RE experts say that the guide is approximate; no one really has an exact handle on the cutoffs for each rank), but for now, I can only grit my teeth. There is no escape for me from survival horror mediocrity!
Random stuff:
- I suppose complaining about characterization to any degree is futile in this game, but there's a big disconnect between Leon's characterization in the opening and the Claire A scenario, where he's a nice, dopily friendly guy, and in the rest of the B scenario, where he's this sarcastic, bossy jerkass.
- For all I've heard about him, Ben Bertolucci was a rather pointless character, wasn't he? I understand he has more to do in the Leon A/Claire B scenario, mind.
- The much-ballyhooed control room security camera scare a big washout. I actually found the media room scares more effective. But this isn't a game that's really trying to be scary. Unfortunately.
.
