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Oh Revelations 2, you're hard to judge. Originally I'd barely recommend it as the full content gold edition is $5 with a good sale. The enjoyable Barry chapters and strong raid mode made up for the painful bits of RE5/6 era design that soured Claire chapters. Sure, the monster design was cool but they're cheeaapp and the game sure assumed a second player when I played solo. By the end I was swayed by the sheer energy of the finale and in hindsight see there's a lot to like, though Rev 2 is very firmly for RE superfans. If you're still quoting RE1 lines to this day then you'll be happy here. Rev 2 allows a full playthrough co-op, locally or by the magic of steam remote play. The game becomes far easier but also far funnier with a friend and the brutal extras like invisible mode really demand the help.
No other REs are necessary for the story, with light references to Rev 1 and being a fan of RE1/2 making the protagonists, Claire "Mama Bear" Redfield and Barry "Magnum Dong" Burton, more fun to see again. Rev 2 opens with amoral mercs kidnapping Claire in metaphorical broad daylight to deliver to a comically evil prison island. Barry rides to the rescue and meets a strange girl, Natalia, a mature child who uses second sight. Claire awakens in superjail and must escape with the implied help of Moira Burton, a childish adult. Bioterror ensues! Rev 2 is dumb even for RE plots with a forgettable narrative carried entirely by the campiness of the characters and a few emotional deliveries, the villain being so stupid and overdone they warp back around to enjoyable ham that sets up hype for our heroes.
Rev 2 plays like your action REs with clear DNA from 6. Monsters are fun and chunky to fight, responding with tight tuning to head shots and staggers for follow up melees, leg shots to drop them or various cyst monsters playing hide the weak spot. Explore for resources, soak in the ambiance between tense ambushes and fights in bombastic set pieces. It's been done well since RE4, no surprises here. The big change is partner use. Claire and Barry are default RE runners and gunners. Natalia can throw surprisingly weighty bricks and point out invisible death bugs and weak spot cysts. The hiccup is that Moira is a goofball with an action flashlight which can stun and set up melee finishers but it's awkward to do all the swaps solo and AI partners aren't up to doing anything half the time.
It's assumed that Moira is played and saving you a lot of ammo and enemy focus, at least for the first half of the campaign. Solo you can swap back and forth freely, making Barry sections silky smooth with simple memory. This doesn't go so well with Claire, as Moira usually gets all aggro in the room trying to blind. The only saving grace is that partners are immortal if they get time to regen between hits, making them ridiculous looking tanks. This sucks the other way around though, damage on Claire/Barry is permanent and reinforces the pain of solo play. You really benefit from playing with a friend, giggling with glee as they run point, soak hits with that immortality and setup ruthless zombie curb stomps. It's a lot less frustrating when all the cheap shots can be repaid with cheese of your own. It's also hilarious to witness the power of Natalia's tossed bricks which may as well be magnum rounds. Rev 2 is a silly game but done right it's a highly entertaining one.
Otherwise quality is all over the place. Chapter 1 is mostly competent aside from silent sucker punch spawns. Claire's sections done solo have ammo stretched thin(until you memorize levels and freebies), damage constant and help nonexistent with chapter 2 being grating. By contrast Barry glides through his series of set pieces, finishing with more ammo than he started, enjoying back and forth with Natalia for support and being a breakout personality. I love this big brave dork's endless supply of dad jokes and superior firepower. Claire's experience improves with a better chapter 3 but the devs honestly get bored of making levels for her with a super short chapter 4. Barry emerges as the true star for the final stretch, though some time padding puzzles make things drag. On replay Claire is more enjoyable but that first blind run had me seething.
We wrap up with the ideal raid/mercenaries mode, a shooting gallery against scaling sets of monsters with quirky modifiers challenging you to just one more run to get all the medals. Rev 2 is a fond farewell to the bloated action of mid 2010s REs, a prelude to the current golden age. It's sour with forced co-op partners, some uninspired fights and sections(waiter, more dull brown levels from RE5, please!), the RE movie-tier bad writing... but there's the sweet with standout environment and monster design, when fights are good, the unintentional comedy and unironically good fanservice. Rev 2 is the game for die-hard fans or co-op pairs returning after their RE5 tour of duty. Get the gold version on sale if you've got any doubts, try one chapter if truly skittish and hit up a friend to really juice your enjoyment.