Welcome back to our coverage of Resident Evil: Revelations 2 played on the Nintendo Switch which we last looked at back in December. Depending on how you want to look at things, this is either Part 4, covering Claire and Moira's adventures on an island in the middle of somewhere, or it is Part 7 in our entire series of Resident Evil: Revelations 2. Just click on this or the link below for all the parts in our series. Just another word of warning, that there will be spoilers as I cover the end of both chapters as well as the end of the game, but I will look at the game in its entirety in a Full EXP article after I finish the extra episode The Struggle which covers the six months between the end of C&M's chapter and when Barry first arrives on the island.
This chapter for Claire & Moira was short, just over 20 minutes (specifically 20 minutes and 10 seconds) and most of that was spent trying to escape the Red Tower as it collapsed around our two protagonists. And because this side of the story takes place six months before when you are tolled that Moira is dead, or at the least "buried under a mountain of fear and despair," you just know that something is going to have to happen before the end.
But let us jump back a bit to the beginning of C&M's episode before we knew that it was only going to take 20m10s. Their story picks up right where the last chapter left off, with them riding the elevator to the top of the Red Tower (again, because I called it that in my head even though it was never referred to it by that name in the game). There is a little bit of wandering around control rooms in a futuristic-type setting compared to the rest of the game, similar to the lab under the Spencer Mansion in the first Resident Evil game, and the lab in Resident Evil 5. You then have a cutscene with Alex Wesker where she laments about her place in both the Wesker family at the late Umbrella Corp., and then you see her kill herself in order to bring the tower down after realizing that her plan had failed.
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| Why is this walkway even here!? |
This triggers a semi-frantic sequence (aka, the remainder of the game) where you predominantly control one character, directing them down the outside of the crumbling tower while the now-familiar digital timer counts down to your ultimate demise. Nothing in this section is too complicated but seems more designed to make the player anxious, with areas leading to precarious precipices, and even a few dead ends. There is one section that definitely seems like you can just leave Moira behind as you are forced to split the two women up to clear a path to continue, but it felt too easy to leave Moira so I spent one life figuring out what to do, then I proceeded through to the next area with both C&M. The amount of time left was somewhere around 1m20s and when I died and during additional attempts, I never felt like I had screwed myself over at this checkpoint; and for all I know, the timer automatically starts at a set time, regardless of the amount of time that was actually on the timer when you reached this part.
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| RIP Moira? |
The next area took place back inside the crumbling tower, but this time the path only became clear as parts of the tower fell in your way, forcing you to either duck under debris, run across steel girders, or climb down powerfully built metal ladders. There were a couple of Glasps here, the first time they have appeared in C&M's chapter and it took a handful of attempts to figure out the best way to kill them, this time using the one remaining smokescreen bottle I had, and then the game broke the immersion. Like for the majority of the game, I was controlled Moira as frequently as possible if only to find hidden objects and ammunition, which really was not a priority as the tower came tumbling down, but I was forced to switch to Claire for no visually apparent reason. There was a jump across a gap towards a large break in the wall of the tower that the game would not let you perform as Moira. Why this was the case was made clear after switching characters and making the jump. Shortly after Claire landed safely on the other side, debris landed on Moira pinning her to the ground. I genuinely thought this could have been another 'Wait for Shadow before fleeing the Floating Continent' type event, but my first time through I waited too long and the rest of the tower collapsed on both characters. The next time through, being my umpteenth attempt at this section of the level, I finished the stage watching Moira "die" under a pile of rubble and debris, then Claire leaped from the Tower to the ocean below.
That was it. Claire & Moira's story was complete. A bit of a letdown, but there would be more revealed in Barry & Natalia's episode. I guess it does make a bit of sense because when you are playing B&N's chapter, you see plenty of Alex in her post-suicide-deformed-Uroboros-Virus phase so having a large-scale confrontation would be even more anti-climactic because you know at least some part of her survives, which made this ending a little confusing. But if you take this chapter as only a part and not a stand-alone story, then you might be less disappointed. Maybe that is where part of my disappointment comes from, that the resolution of C&M's story is dependent on B&N's story which could make sense taking the game as a whole, but again, with episodic storytelling and since C&M's story was its own beast, I would have liked a more complete story to have been told.
So please stay tuned for Part 4 (or Part 8) where we will look at the final chapter in Episode 4: Metamorphosis and see the final conclusion of this story, and which ending I managed to earn.
~JWfW/JDub/Cooking Crack/Jaconian
P.S.
And as before, here is my score screen for this chapter in Episode 4.
I probably could have gotten an A rank for Time, but I waited as long as I could during my first near-finish when I died with the tower collapsing around me after Moira got pinned. One of the gold medals for this chapter was to complete the stage in 20 minutes. But oh well. Also, I have no effing clue where any of the Kafka painting-things were beyond the first one that was obvious. Either they were too well hidden over the course of the entire game, or I am just an idiot for not seeing any more than one.
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