Resident Evil 4 (2023)

So, this is what it felt like in 2005…

As someone who was fifteen years late to the original, it was tough to fully grasp how revolutionary the fourth entry in the Resident Evil series was. My first experience playing it was in 2020 on PC with the HD remaster. While I love the tank controls of the original trilogy, something about them in 3rd person really threw me off. Being stuck stationary whenever aiming a weapon felt so awkward and I never really got used to it. On a 1440p monitor, the HD remaster looks like hot garbage. Everything is a blurry brown, especially early on in the village. My last holdup was that the game is a complete departure in tone and style from earlier entries. It would’ve been very easy to replace our protagonist Leon with someone else and start a whole different series off of this game. It took me a couple attempts, but I eventually beat the game and thought it was ok. I moved on and never really looked back to Resident Evil 4.

Fast forward a couple years and the remake was announced. After the lackluster Resident Evil 3 remake and Village, my expectations for the 4 remake were fairly low. It ended up taking me about six months to get around to play it and yyyeaahhh now I get it, this is what it felt like to play Resident Evil 4 in 2005. First off, this is primarily an action game. This is a departure from the original trilogy but not necessarily in a bad way by any means when the action is done this well. Resident Evil 4 drops the tight, intertwining level design with a couple threatening zombies strewn throughout and ops for more of an arena combat-focused level layout. Zombies no longer pose much of a threat on their own, but now you rarely find them alone. Hordes can descend upon you at a moment’s notice upping the adrenaline in a way not seen in the survival horror focused entries to the series. The mayhem is really something to behold. Resident Evil 4 also knows how to turn the action back and be quieter, more horror-focused at times. The atmospheric build-ups to some of the encounters are really tense and well done. I think most people who’ve played RE4R can relate when I say that despite how many bullets I may have in my inventory, entering into the island’s lab or the castle tunnels sends chills down my spine. Resident Evil 4 contrasts its tones really well.

I wasn’t thinking of writing much for Resident Evil 4 Remake, maybe just one paragraph or two but then things spiraled. So, I decided I just wanted to put a quick review highlighting some of the positive changes that fundamentally alter the type of Resident Evil game this entry sets out to be.

Changes to the Resident Evil Formula

So, what's different about Resident Evil 4 when compared to prior entries? What prior entries are you referring too? Well, my favorite Resident Evil games would be the remakes of 1 and 2 and then the original trilogy just after that. The comparisons that are to follow aren’t necessarily for the sake of deciding if one’s implementation of a mechanic is better than another’s. It’s more so to describe the impact of the change.

A Thrilling Journey

Like the original, RE4R is a bit of a marathon. The three levels of the game: the village, castle, and island, are quite massive with their individual playtimes equaling or surpassing that of Resident Evil 3 remakes on a first playthrough. They’re games with different goals and structures I know, but this is really just praise directed towards the RE4 developers who put so much detail and effort into such a large campaign. From start to finish I was impressed with the environments and the level detail. The village feels old, rickety, and muddy, every building is in some form of disrepair. The castle is cultish yet regal, filled with sleek marble and ornate decorations. The island is a zombified-military encampment with horrific, hidden laboratories. Each is memorable in its own right and could stand on its own in some ways. Honestly, and this is mostly a good thing, if I go to replay this game, I might only set my mind to completing one area. The game’s a little too long for my taste, especially for replay purposes. And if you know me, you know I love the replay value of certain Resident Evil games.

Part of the thrill is also in the characters you meet along the way. Standouts to me were Luis and Krauser. They brought energy to every cutscene and set piece they were a part of. Both these characters have connections with Leon that have substantial emotional weight while still possessing a bit of that Resident Evil campiness. This is an area of clear improvement from the original in my opinion. The overly camp approach there just lost after a while. Here in the remake, there’s still plenty that’s tongue-in-cheek but overall, the story can be taken a little more seriously.

Combat Arenas and Enemy Amount/Variety

Gone are the days of a lone zombie in a backroom being scary or intimidating. Now there’s an entire village full of parasite-ridden locals ready to give you a warm welcome. Many areas follow what I consider a “combat arena” format. These are medium-sized open areas with some unique geography tossed in where waves of enemies descend on the player. What is a fairly standard video game design concept is executed to perfection here. Anyone who’s played through the original or the remake doesn’t have a tough time recalling these gameplay segments. Off the top of my head here’s a few:

The double garrador room - This room has two of our blind yet highly hearing-sensitive friends in the same space as a swarm of low-level cultists. Do you slowly and quietly take out the cultist to avoid the garradors? Do you use grenades to distract the garradors and run them into each other? Does all hell break loose? I don’t know and I love it.

The village - Resident Evil does not wait long to thrust you into the mayhem. The village fight is iconic for good reason. This cluster of non-descript huts becomes a chaotic maze as villagers realize there’s an intruder in their midst. Early on, you’re fire power is limited and a pump shotgun feels like a revelation when you stumble across it, but then here’s comes the chainsaw…

The cabin shootout - Stuck in a cabin, surrounded by ganados, Luis at your side, what’s not to love. It’s a frantic shootout, trying to keep the enemy forces at bay, boarding up windows and kicking down ladders.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. I’ve already referred to the enemy amount increasing, but also of equal significance is the enemy variety. Even just your basic ganados or cultist have important variants that impact the strategic choices you make in combat. The simple question of if the enemy is holding a weapon or not bears weight. If they are, then they’re a ranged threat and you have to be ready to parry or dodge a thrown axe for instance. If they aren’t, then they are a real close-range threat, and you have to be paying attention to spacing so you don’t get grabbed and double teamed. Add in ganados with bullet-adsorbing shields or cultists with unblockable scythes and all off a sudden there’s a lot of considerations flying through your head in the middle of combat. I highlight these subtle variations because of how critical they are to a 15-20 hour campaign of a combat-focused experience.

The Knife and the Stagger

This is the other massive change that impacts combat in so many ways. In the original, the knife was a useful utility option for finishing off enemies. Staggering enemies was an essential strategy to open up melee combat. In the remakes prior to 4, the knife was pretty much a grab counter, and staggers were pretty much non-existent. In RE4R, the knife is now extremely versatile, and staggers are back in full force. The knife in particular saw a lot of changes, so here they are: the knife can parry most ranged and melee attacks, it can be used in short quick time events to kill grounded, staggered, and unaware enemies, it has durability, and it can be upgraded. Anyone who’s even just played the original can tell you how significant these changes are at a surface level, but let’s get into it a little more.

First off, parrying melee attacks is huge. It changes the whole feel of close quarters combat. Where previously spacing was king, now you have a deadly way to counter enemies rushing in. While spacing is still paramount, parrying is a fun and intense backup plan for when things get too hectic. The animation and sound effects that pair with it are visceral too, making pulling off a perfect parry plus knife kill combo extremely satisfying. In previous entries, countering enemy grabs was costly. You would lose a limited resource like the knife, taser, or stun grenade. In RE4R, the knife now has durability. I think it’s an acceptable counterbalance that holds the knife back from being completely overpowered.

Second, there’s the quick time events you can trigger with the knife. These QTEs are contextual in the sense that the enemy has to be in a certain state for them to be available to trigger. You can always simply run up to an enemy and start slashing, but if you want to do more damage you have to initiate one of these states. This fact adds a layer of strategy to combat where you’ll always be looking for opportunities to stagger, sneak up, or knock down opponents.

One of the other key factors that drives the player into the fray, is ammo conservation. While I guess it’s possible to sit back and pick off enemies from afar, the fun melee combat options and a Resident Evil player’s inherent tendency to hoard ammo pushes you to get up close and personal. The basic proposition here is that you can either use five to ten handgun rounds to down a standard ganado or you use one to three well placed handgun rounds say to the head or knee to stagger said ganado then use a roundhouse kick and/or knife melee combo to finish the job. There’s an associated risk with the second option, but I think most of us would rather be grabbed every so often rather than running out of ammo.

Lastly, I’ll mention how the knife can now be upgraded and repaired at the merchant. It’s just simple stats like damage and durability that can be improved, but it’s still cool. Especially because there’s now multiple knives and each have their own unique stats and final upgrade, like all the other weapons do.

Verdict

★★★★1/2

Resident Evil 4 is considered a classic, beloved by many, and often rated as a top 10 game of all-time. The remake upholds the original’s legacy, modernizing it for audiences that were late to the party the first time around. Admittedly, I was skeptical of the praise the original receives, but now I get it. Playing through the remake helped me appreciate aspects of the original’s design that I missed before. So yes, I absolutely recommend Resident Evil 4 Remake. It’s an absolute blast to play. It has a bunch of big budget video game perks like excellent graphics, cinematic cutscenes, and an extensive amount of content while still being a gameplay-first experience. And here is the biggest praise I can give, it’s 20ish hours of essentially non-stop gameplay that features a lot of interesting player choice and visceral action. Excellent variety in the locations, enemies, and your arsenal itself keeps this long singleplayer game flying by. For a veteran of the Resident Evil series, I found Hardcore difficulty quite well tuned. Most of the game I was walking a fine line trying to conserve ammo and healing items and that’s right where I want to be. While it’s a steep departure from Resident Evil’s survival horror roots, the action-horror formula is implemented so close to perfection here that I can’t really complain.