Hello fellow Gamers, gather round to hear my rambling thoughts about a cheesy videogame from 25 years ago!
When I was about 12 years old, circa 2010, a friend of mine dug out an old n64, and a few games, and one of those games was Resident Evil 2.
For those who haven't played this charmingly bad game from 1998, in the midst of this gory, violent, and gritty (by 1998 standards) game, you come across a little girl named Sherry, and you have to escort her around.
Sherry is simultaneously the most interesting character in the entire game, and also the most annoying. And among the reasons she is annoying, are the segments where you have to play as her.
Now, when I was a kid, when a game asked me to pick a gender, I would always pick boy, because I felt like I had to. But when I played these Sherry segments, this was the first time I had played as a girl in a video game, that I could conceivably relate to in some way.
I wasn't having fun, really... These segments are god awful to play. But they did awaken something in me. I was like, ".......You mean I get to be the little girl???"
I wanted to be her so bad! This didn't crack my egg, and I quickly buried all of these feelings once I finished the game. But it's definitely a thing I look back on and think "oh the signs were always there.
Anyway, this post is mostly just an excuse to get people to talk to me about my Trans Sherry headcanons.
Also, ask me my opinions on the RE2 remake. I just finished it!
So I played the original Claire A run, and the remake, back to back.
And the Sherry segment in the remake is... Better? Gameplay wise. It's more fun to play at least.
The original had two playable segments with Sherry. One where she runs off, gets vomited on by zombies, completes an awful puzzle, doesn't find what she's looking for, and runs back.
In the second one, she gets lost in the sewers and ends up getting uh... Implanted.
These segments in the original were awful to play, but they provided valuable characterization for sherry. Yes, she's a scared little girl, but she also has agency, and can Muster up the courage to get things done of she needs to, however misguided.
In the remake though... I'm not doing stupid puzzles in the sewer anymore, the parallel between Claire being stalked by Mr. X, and sherry being hunted down by the chief is good thematically. As is the subjectivity of placing the camera down low, at Sherry's eye level.
But in the remake... Sherry has no agency. She's kidnapped, and Claire has to save her. You get to be with her for only a brief time before the game effectively cuts to sherry passed out in the sewer. You rescue her, and she immediately passes out again.
Maybe this is my connection to this character talking, but I really feel like Sherry is the core of Claire's entire section of the game. Claire goes to raccoon city to find her brother. So the know her primary motivation is rooted in family. So I makes sense that her part of the story revolves around the conflict among the Birkin family. Claire becomes a maternal/big sister figure for sherry as her shitty absentee parents self destruct, and as their creations destroy the city. There's a big "found family" thing here that makes my little queer heart sing, but also feels woefully under explored on both games.
Sherry in the remake is such a nonentity, and a consistent damsel in distress, and I think that hampers an otherwise really solid remake.
While Ada's and Sherry's playable sections in the original were not exactly the most riveting bits of the game, I did like how they used the same mechanics as the rest of it, even if Sherry was unable to defend herself. Them passing any items they found back to Leon/Claire was also a cool touch and made it worthwhile to explore everywhere thoroughly when you played as them.
I already mentioned how I didn't like the unneeded edginess of the orphanage section or how it was just a short scripted stealth sequence, but I didn't care for how Ada's gameplay revolved entirely around the goofy hacking tool either. Both Ada's and Sherry's playable sections end up feeling like complete chores on repeat playthroughs