Rose tinted glasses aside, Resident Evil 2 is essentially the alpha and omega of Resident Evil, if not the survival horror genre. Obviously, as a 15 year old game, it has been eclipsed by more games than can be named when it comes to graphics, voice acting, gameplay, controls, and horror element. None of those come close to the charm of Resident Evil 2, though, not even it's own sequels.
I jokingly, and affectionately, refer to the old Biohazard games as Super Subspace Inventory Management Simulator, moreso than any other nickname - because that was the majority of gameplay. You had to store items in the magical chest, and strictly control what was in your inventory; it was 8 slots if you grabbed the extra bag.
When you weren't re-organizing your ammo collection, you were struggling not to waste it on zombies that each took 5 to 6 shots to kill, not mentioning lickers, or god forbid the Tyrant or William himself. RE2 excelled at the classic atmosphere of creating tension via limited resources and natural difficulty of the situations in which you were placed, simultaneously ramping up the story - the espionage, the zombies, the bioweapons, the stakes, even the weapons, and very much blew the first game out of the water.
Unfortunately, it also introduced one of two over-used characters who Capcom, in Mikami's absence, has now used to drive the franchise ever-closer to the core of the earth and ruin it as much as possible. Leon has changed dramatically since his inception, though occasionally he still jokes about his repulsiveness to women still. Resident Evil 2 had some of the best, cheesiest dialog, silliest voice acting, toughest bosses, and most disheartening sound effects in video game history.
"By the time I noticed something was wrong, the whole town was infested with zoooombies!"
Don't forget about the epicly bad/awesome pseudo-rock song at the end:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqSSUrMmfro
If you are actually a Resident Evil fan, and haven't finished RE2, you have to play this game.