Although the first game was the original and the one I tried first, the second one was the one I played the most when I was little.
Resident Evil 2 seemed to me easier, shorter, more approachable than the first one for some reason. There's also the fact that I played a version that came with an activated "cheat" that let you use powerful weapons with infinite ammo, which made things easier overall. This meant that I played the original several times, back to back, just for fun and to see if I could do it better or to show it to someone else too, playing with friends and relatives, and therefore I have quite good memories with it.
The old version plays the same way as the 1st one, with weird camera angles and basic block graphics, herbs and sprays to heal, and basically same weapons, with maybe a few new ones like a flamethrower, an electric stunner and a machine gun. That's the standard weapons, of course. The special edition I played also had an infinte rifle, an infinte bazooka and an infine gatling gun, which made things easier of course. The enemies were more modular than before, making it easier to aim for certain areas and maim them or shot their heads off. Enemies were still mostly zombies and zombie dogs. Hunters did not appear again (luckily, probably the reason why it was easier), and lickers were introduced, which are harder than a zombie but not very hard overall, although quite disgusting and more intimidating at first.
This time around we had a main antagonist, the chief researcher that created the virus, that got infected and mutated worse and worse as we won fights against it. And of course, the setting in this one is also very different: The virus has escaped around the city that was close to the mansion in the first game, and all the city has been infected. This means that the streets are full of zombies and that your only hope is to reach safe places that have been barred shut.
The game has again two characters, Clarie Redfield (Chris' Sister, that has come to try to visit him or try to find him) and Leon Kennedy (a rookie policemen that has come to join the racoon city police department). They meet by chance while finding the first zombies, and then get separated by accident. You select one of them, but to finish the game you need to play as both, since each has a slightly different plot and they meet different people, although the areas and puzzles are mostly the same. The characters here are likeable and nice, which I mention because Leon in later games downgrades his personality quite a lot.
The game starts in the streets of the city, which makes the first moments of action probably the hardest overall: You need to evade a lot of zombies with almost no weapons, till you get to the police station where most of the game, the first half, happens. The police station in turns acts like the house of the first game, with weird secrets inside, strange puzzles to open doors and sections requiring special keys. This is explained in-game by the fact that lots of officers are corrupt and working for Umbrella, to the point where part of the station is linked to secret areas and labs. From here you travel to some underground passages and abandoned areas till you reach the central Umbrella lab. The general feeling is that you spend most of the time underground. In the process you met occasionally some people, the most important ones being Sherry Birkin (a child, daughter of the monster that keeps following you) for Claire and Ada Wong (an FBI agent, or so she says, that clearly has other intentions too) for Leon, characters that appear also in later games (Ada is especially good about "dying" to then appear again and save you in some way while being always ambiguous about if she's bad or not).
In order to see the proper final ending, you need to play first as one character and then as the second one. The first character has more encounters with the final boss, but the second introduces a new villain: "Mr T.", a huge guy that clearly is some kind of monster, that follows you around and tries to kill you, which is revealed to be a new type of Tyrant (the final boss of the first game), a bioweapon that they dropped on you basically. Mr T. was a lot more annoying than the zombies and it made the game more interesting for the second playthrough, so you don't just repeat the scenarios and puzzles and some bosses. Both stories were matched nicely, making you avoid certain boss fights and just finding the result of them with your second character and the other way around, which was a great idea that forced you to play with both while presenting you with new plot.
The remake changes some things. For starters, the graphics are now amazing and realistic, to the point of being a bit disgusting at times: What before where blocky things now they can show gust and gore. The game is quite gorgeous though, that is true. Also a lot darker because now they can do torch light and show you only what you're looking at. The puzzles have been downgraded I have to say, being easier to do, and although each character has its own story still, there's more overlap, so it's less interesting to play the second character. The game is a bit more action-oriented because now you have a permanent third-person view behind the character, and you need to be accurate and shoot at enemies more like in a shooter, instead of being able to point in their general direction. They've also added some new areas, characters and a bit of new developments inside the plot. I'd say the biggest change is that now Mr T. appears in both playthroughs and he's a lot more mobile, tougher, more annoying, and it is quite scary to hear him walking around. The improvements it has are good to create tension, but it also feels they copied the idea from the 3rd game, which we will comment a bit later. I think the fact that it appears in both games now is not as nice, part of the fun was knowing the other character had no idea what you were going through. Same way as the puzzles are easier, the action part of the game becomes harder, with tougher enemies and more chances to miss your shots because of the new game mechanics. Overall is still really great though, and the new graphics are truly amazing, making you feel like you're in a movie.
While I prefer some of the game design of the original, I cannot complain with the remake and I hope more older games get this treatment (especially thinking about Dino Crisis and Parasite Eve, which were also classics of the time and amazing games)
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