D2 Remastered

D2 Remastered is a remake of the 1999 survival horror game D2, originally for the Dreamcast. The remake was developed by many ex-members of WARP (The original developer), and was published by SEGA. It was released to honor the death of the game's creator, Kenji Eno. It was released on PS4, PS3, and Xbox One.

Background
D2 was the 3rd game in what is called the D Trilogy. It began with D, released in 1995 for the Sega Saturn, 3DO, PS1, and PC. D was an FMV Horror Adventure game, where you took the role of Laura Harris, a girl who must discover the reasoning behind her father Dr.Richter Harris sudden murderous outbreak in a Los Angeles Hospital. The game was played from the 1st person, and was completely on-rails, meaning you would walk up to an invisible intersection, and chose a way to go. The game also had a lot of puzzle solving, and it didn't allow you to pause or save the game, meaning the game had to be played in a single playthrough. The game was composed by Kenji Eno, the founder of WARP, who also worked on a lot of other aspects of the entire trilogy. D was well received at the time, but later was listed as one of the worst horror games of all time by Game Informer in 2008.

After the release of D, Kenji Eno was at a Sony press conference showing off Enemy Zero, the spiritual sequel to D. The game was later released in 1997, exclusively for the Sega Saturn and PC. The reason? Eno was pissed at Sony for the poor sales of D for the PS1, as they had made less copies of the PS1 version than what retailers were demanding. As a response, at the conference he was at, the trailer had ended with the PlayStation logo warping into the Sega Saturn logo, and he announced Enemy Zero as a Sega Exclusive. The game's story was heavily inspired by the Alien trilogy, and follows Laura Lewis, a member of the Spaceship Arcada returning from a successful mission. Laura awakens from cryosleep only to witness the murder of one of her crew members at the hands of an invisible alien. Now, Laura must escape the now overrun ship. The gameplay is similar to D in terms of gameplay, but added free-roaming 1st person segments where you would fight invisible alien creatures that will kill you in 1 hit. But, you had an audio cue in the form of a piano chime, which would grow faster and higher in pitch as you got closer to an enemy (a gameplay element that was inspired by the Audio Game "Real Sound", also by WARP). Your guns also had limited ammo, and a short charge time, meaning you had to time your shots perfectly, and not miss, but your guns can be recharged. The game lets you save this time with an audio recorder, but it had limited battery life, and unlike your gun, it can't be recharged. Also on harder difficulties, saves and loads take away more battery life, and you don't start at full life. The music for this was composed by Michael Nyman (The Piano). E0 wasn't as critically praised as D, due to the save system, and frustrating gameplay.

Finally, D2 was in development for the Panasonic M2, the successor to the 3DO. This D2 would have been a direct sequel to D, and have you play as the son of Laura Harris. But the project was cancelled, and moved over to the Sega Dreamcast, being one of the first games in development for the Dreamcast (alongside Sonic Adventure and Shenmue). Finally, the game was released on December 23, 1999 in Japan, and one year later on August 20, 2000

Plot
D2 follows Laura Parton, who is one of the few survivors of a deadly plane crash, in which after a cultist terrorist attack, the plane is struck by a meteor and crashes in the Canadian Wilderness. She wakes up 10 days after the crash in a cabin, and finds out she was rescued by another survivor and poet named Kimberly Fox (modeled after Kimberly from E0). Suddenly, another survivor bursts through the door of the cabin, and transforms into a plant like mutant which attacks Kimberly. But the two are rescued by a man named Parker Jackson (modeled after Parker, again from E0). The goal is to escape the Canadian mountains ALIVE!

Themes
The plot starts out simple, but later gets very philosophical and deep, and deals with the concepts of Destiny, the errors of Mankind, and our place in the universe. It also deals with the concepts of Substance Abuse.

Gameplay
D2's gameplay is split up into 3 segments. You wander around the open Mountains in 3rd person, explore smaller environments in 1st person on-rails, and fight against monsters in 1st person. You encounter enemies randomly, and when in combat, you can't move, and have to switch to different sides around you by pressing the left or right face buttons (PS3/PS4 Square and Circle, Xbox One: X and B). After killing all enemies, you gain experience, which makes Laura stronger. The game also has a hunting mechanic, as throughout the course of the game you will randomly encounter game that you can kill and cook with a portable cooker to be used as health items.