Age of the Geek

Be Careful What You Wish For
     During this year’s E3, Square-Enix shocked the gaming world when they announced that after years of speculation, hoping, and begging from their audience, they would be developing a remake of “Final Fantasy VII.”
     It was easily the highlight of this year’s show, but “Final Fantasy VII” is only second on my list of “Late 90s video games I desperately hope get remade.”
     At the top of the list is one of my favorite games of all time, “Resident Evil 2.”
     The definitive entry in Capcom’s survival horror franchise, “Resident Evil 2” once held a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest selling game of all time. It still holds a spot in my own records as the game I’ve replayed the most.
     Over the years I’ve bought the game three times on three different gaming systems, and would happily buy it again today if the PC version was available on Steam.
     I’ve long hoped for some kind of remastering, but upscaling games of that era to modern resolutions is a challenge not worth the effort to most developers. For a long time, it’s seemed that the possibility of playing Resident Evil 2 on a modern system was nothing but a dream.
     Then a couple weeks ago, completely out of the blue, Capcom producer Yoshiaki Hirabyashi made an appearance on the Resident Evil Facebook page of all places to ask fans what they thought of revisiting “Resident Evil 2” in some fashion.
     Receiving positive feedback and coming off the success of the recently remastered PC release of the 2002 “Resident Evil” remake, Hirabyashi revealed that he had dusted off a proposal for a “Resident Evil 2” project and presented it to his bosses. It seems that the presentation went well. Last week Hirabyashi returned to the Internet for a third time, announcing that a “Resident Evil 2” remake project had been approved.
     I have mixed feelings about this.
     On the one hand, this is something I, along with pretty much every other fan of the series, have wanted since Capcom remade the original “Resident Evil.”
     That remake was a massive success and ever since then Resident Evil fans have been clamoring for Capcom to give “Resident Evil 2” the same treatment. In the last thirteen years there hasn’t been a message board or comment section related to Resident Evil on the entire Internet where the subject hasn’t come up.
     It is the Holy Grail of the Resident Evil fandom.
     Personally, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve theorized about how I’d do it if I were in charge. For as much as I love the original game, there are more than a few features and mechanics it could benefit from. Not to mention the need for a graphical overhaul. The game looked great in 1998, but that was 1998.
     But there’s the other hand, because I’m not in charge. The people in charge of creating this highly-anticipated game are the same people who have spent the last decade driving the “Resident Evil” franchise firmly into the ground.
     Since 2005’s “Resident Evil 4” shifted the focus of the series from survival and puzzles to shoot-em-up action, each game in the franchise has been worse than the last.
     Which means there are two ways this game could go.
     It could be everything I ever hoped for. A worthy successor to one of the best games of all time. A faithful remake in all its survival/horror glory.
     Or it could be an abomination. An action heavy third person shooter with more emphasis on shooting monsters than managing your resources. Everything I’ve disliked about the franchise for the last decade, forced on the template of my favorite game.
     Luckily or not, since it seems that this announcement was made literally as soon as the project was approved, it will probably be 2016 before Capcom has anything to show. This means plenty of time to pointlessly speculate about whether the game will turn out one way or the other.
     It’s going to be a long wait.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and wants to re-enter the world of survival horror.