Looking for a different episode? You can find all of Jason’s Resident Evil: Revelations 2 reviews here.
Capcom’s grand experiment comes to an episodic close with the fourth part of Resident Evil: Revelations 2. While this finale isn’t quite as satisfying and interesting as the third chapter, Capcom certainly let their crazy out with a truly bombastic finish. While there are two “bonus” episodes for those that buy the retail version or the season pass, we’re just focusing on the actual ending of the game.
The weirdest thing about episode four is how it just chucks Claire and Moira’s story to the wind. You’re with those unlucky ladies for maybe 15 minutes before it becomes the all Barry and Natalia show. This is a pretty good indicator where the direction of the game play is heading too. Barry’s caveman approach to zombie killing is in full-force here. His assault rifle will get a pretty good work out, although the pistol and headshot method is probably the way to go most of the time.
There are some odd design choices though. Much of this episode is still oddly exploratory and repetitive. Prepare to spend a major chunk of time in poisonous gas-filled mines, which continually requires the odd couple to find higher ground to breathe non-poison air from for a moment. There are dead ends galore as well, and a lot of circular back tracking. Such segments quickly got tedious and felt almost like artificial game extenders.
On the other hand, there’s a fantastic throwback to the original game in the form of an underground mansion, but—rather ironically—this segment is painfully short. Aside from mines and mansions, we get to finally see where all the horrible magic of disease manipulation went down, complete with monsters in giant test tube vats and human body parts everywhere.
Sadly, there’s no return to great pools of pig blood, but clichéd evil labs are a good substitute. It’s not surprising there are some questionable holes in the logic of the overall story as the game quickly winds down. Sadly, explaining them would require major spoilers, but it’s safe to say people in the Barton line consistently make questionable choices, particularly concerning child care.
The main attraction to this episode is absolutely the end game. It’s here where Revelations 2 shines like a wonderfully crazy beacon in the dark. The evil, utterly insane Overseer finally gets her due, but her design is so wondrously monstrous that we genuinely felt respect for the creature designer. Resident Evil has always had a great line of monsters that are really overjoyed to be monsters, but this lady takes the cake.
The end battle is multi-tiered as well, making it feel very non-standard and cinematic. This isn’t a perfect boss battle really—the way the game switches perspectives between Barry and a helper character is rather clumsy. Yet, it’s a fun and distinctive ending to a great villain. The battle takes place both within the facility and outside it, and gets major points for at least trying something newish.
Episode three is still the absolute highlight of Revelations 2, but this final bit certainly lends a satisfying conclusion to the game. There’s enough absurd dialogue on all fronts, silly puzzles, and creepy levels to keep the game’s inertia going. A lot of this episode felt like it was killing time just to get players to the boss battle though, as if the designers would have preferred to just dump us right at the Overseer to begin with. Adding mazes to a game just for the sake of adding a maze isn’t a great design philosophy, but the overall game is short enough that this isn’t a huge complaint.
So, Resident Evil: Revelations 2 works out in the end. This isn’t high-brow entertainment. The game isn’t innovative or even all that creative, but it understand its genre well. Capcom seems to have honed in on the fact that Resident Evil is, despite its previous posturing of drama, silly. It’s embraced its B-movie nature and ends up being a lot more entertaining because of it.
