Resident Evil 4 Remake Review

How can you recreate Resident Evil 4, a game that revolutionized how action games are created today? At best, it’s an unjust task; at worst, it’s an impossibility. Hence, rather than attempting to create something entirely new, developer Capcom has expanded upon the brilliant original design and fine-tuned the experience. The outcome is a breathtaking remake that not only introduces a whole new generation to a modern classic and one of the most significant games of all time, but also reminds devoted fans like me of its brilliance.

If you’re not familiar, Resident Evil 4’s idea is simple: In order to find Ashley Graham, the missing daughter of the US President, Leon S. Kennedy, the cool and attractive rookie police officer turned government agent who you may know from his adventures in Resident Evil 2’s Raccoon City, has been dispatched to rural Spain. Even now, 18 years later, the survival-horror genre’s juxtaposition with the “rescue the princess” cliché serves as the perfect setup for the game’s extravagant set pieces. In this instance, the princess is in another castle, but it is under attack from mind-controlling cults and parasitic illnesses, so you will need to use explosives to go from a run-down village to a military island in order to rescue her. While the story’s fundamental foundations of tight, close-quarters action and cautious resource management have remained pleasantly unaltered, advances in character development have elevated the overall narrative. Capcom is more conscious than ever of the tone and comedy of the game, which felt unintentional in the first game. This time, it seems like Capcom is leaning into it and finding the right mix between terrifyingly intense horror and hilariously corny humor.

This time, Leon is more than simply a stylish guy with swoopy hair and a cute jacket who occasionally says amazing things and occasionally corny things and accomplishes super-awesome things. He’s more than that now; he acts like a normal person and is a cool dude with cool hair doing cool things. This Leon is affected by the Raccoon City catastrophe from the remake of Resident Evil 2, which lends his character greater depth and provides a compelling backdrop for his desire to save Ashley Graham. This time, Leon’s task is more than simply another one; it’s an opportunity for him to atone for the lives in Raccoon City that he was unable to save. This new phase of the franchise feels stronger and more cohesive than the originals because of the emotional weight that this narrative continuity lends to the remakes.

Leon is still a complete one-liner cornball, so anyone worried that this extra layer of humanity has changed Leon’s legendary action hero cheesiness need not fear. In fact, this component of his personality has been enhanced. Leon still has time to utter catchphrases despite the mayhem of his bloody clashes with throngs of the parasite-infected Ganados. These moments are designed to provide some much-needed comedy into the otherwise tense situation of fending off people, so they’re not simply for teasing. Although almost escaping each confrontation is a relief, Leon’s flippant “charge me for the repairs later” remark after firing a lamp that catches fire almost feels boldly triumphant. Resident Evil 4’s world is filthy, grimy, and horrifying, but it’s also one where a government agent trying to save the President’s daughter thinks to himself, “Not terrible, right?” after suplexing a Ganado so forcefully that its head bursts like a water balloon. Capcom was able to keep me on the edge of my seat during a frantic struggle for survival before catching me off surprise and making me giggle. One of Resident Evil 4 Remake’s greatest accomplishments is its ability to do this frequently without detracting from the game’s overall tone.

It’s more stressful and terrifying than ever to go up against the Ganado. Each battle is now a frenzied waltz of crowd control while battling for breathing room and hoping you have enough ammunition and health to carry you through the fight due to their frantic movements, unanticipated lurches, and nasty strikes. They will frequently outnumber you on all sides as they dodge your shots, scramble to seize you, and push you toward the pitchforks, sickles, and knives that other hordes members are brandishing. Although the Ganados were as elusive in the first game, this time around they feel more weighted and real, which also heightens the fear associated with the various outcomes of being cornered or overpowered. As Leon watched Dr. Salvador, the insane man with a chainsaw and a potato sack, march through the throng to try and tear him apart, a terror that had long since subsided after playing Resident Evil 4 repeatedly returned.

Despite the nail-biting suspense, I couldn’t get enough of these heart-pounding situations because combat felt so damn amazing. The Resident Evil 4 remake’s action has a kinetic brutality that feels like controlling chaos in the most satisfying way, whether you’re blasting through a wall of enemies with a shotgun, quickly parrying a pitchfork-wielding Ganado who is stampeding toward you, or kicking someone in the back with a sweeping roundhouse kick.

Every fighting situation calls for continual adaptation and quick tactical changes. It may be necessary to run fearlessly into a group of adversaries in order to stab a downed cultist before it rises again as a much deadlier and unpredictable creature. Some call for a little ingenuity, such as positioning a remote mine strategically close to a group of adversaries, switching to a shotgun to take out an adversary’s wooden shield, and then watching everyone go boom. In either case, battle has a playground-like quality where you may use the enemy’s moves to your advantage. For example, you could lure an enemy into their own bear trap or parry a Molotov cocktail at someone to set a crowd on fire. To pull it off feels punchy, visceral, and badass. This was the case in the original, but it is intensified in the remake due to a wider selection of opponents—some of which are completely new—while some returning enemies have been redesigned in frightful new ways. Without giving too much away, some foes now alter how crowds behave, frequently pulling the rug out from under me just when I was getting used to battle and making me deal with a whole new level of stress.

Naturally, Leon has been given more flexibility to combat the more formidable and lethal Ganados. Essentially speaking, the lack of tank controls makes him much simpler to command in the heat of battle, but he can now also use stealth and his reliable knife-fighting abilities. The durability of knives has been improved (a holdover from the Resident Evil 2 Remake), although each usage causes a minor degradation. By pressing a button right as an attacker attacks, knives can now be used to parry almost all attacks and to swiftly escape being seized. By generating a sense of momentum, these new elements improve the impression of violence when battling a group of foes. Each battle can easily turn into a dance of weapon manipulation, resource management, and parrying. And being able to switch between these activities quickly gives the impression that you are struggling just as hard to survive as the Ganados are trying to kill you. If your reliable knife breaks, you’ll have to hunt for cheaper, much less resilient knives until you can fix yours. Even then, you’ll need to have room in your attaché case for them to be stored. Naturally, resource management continues to be a key component of the Resident Evil 4 remake, as does the devilishly alluring meta-game of putting your case’s contents in order to fit together items for manufacture like tetrominoes, gunpowder, and herbs. You can alternatively press a button to get everything set up automatically if you’d prefer to skip this step.

[Resident Evil 4] is a stunning remake that reminds longtime fans like me of its brilliance, while also introducing an all-new generation to a modern classic and one of the most important games of all time

The clearest illustration of these thoughtful quality-of-life improvements can be found in the way Ashley Graham’s combat abilities have been changed in Resident Evil 4 Remake. These improvements build on what the original pioneered. Thankfully, you can now escort Ashley without having to worry about managing her health bar yourself. Instead, if Ashley is hurt, she will become immobile, requiring you to weave among foes to reach her and help her stand up again. This keeps the cooperative dynamic tense by requiring you to abruptly change priorities in order to save her, while simultaneously ensuring opponents don’t steal her away by taking them out. It is considerably less harsh on the player than outright failure. By instructing Ashley to hide in trash cans while you dealt with hordes of enemies in the original game, it was incredibly simple—and even hilarious—to trivialize this aspect of gameplay. However, this time around, hiding places are scarce. That’s a good adjustment because it makes guarding her far more intrinsic to fighting and avoids the original game’s frequently dehumanizing notion that she’s just a thing you have to keep safe.

Ashley Graham is more developed and convincing than Leon. She still exhibits the sensibility of a 20-year-old and responds accordingly, yelling in shock and terror at the sight of a parasite sprouting from a cultist’s skull, but it never becomes over the top. Leon and Ashley are able to communicate occasionally in Resident Evil 4 without going too far or becoming the protagonist-who-talks-too-much-trend that has recently been pervasive in video games. Instead, after arguments, they’ll check in with one another to see how the other is doing. Leon will receive a “Wow, that was a fantastic shot” comment from Ashley after popping the head of a cultist with a sniper rifle. There are a few more chats that help their friendship grow, but none of them ever take away from the gameplay’s basic mechanics or lessen the suspense of the game.

Characters are no longer used as one-note story devices as they were in the original on a general basis. For instance, Luis Serra receives a little more screen time, which helps to clarify his role in the main plot. And don’t worry, Leon’s slick charm and “hey, gotta smoke” remarks are still present. He still dresses in a leather jacket and kills women while delivering one-liners and brandishing a pistol like a cowboy from a spaghetti western. Even Krauser, the iconic nemesis from 1980s action films who appeared to have stepped out of Commando, feels more fully developed as a result of the added background for his stakes and role in the story.

Nonetheless, certain characters—most notably the Merchant—have received more flavor than substance. Despite simply being a talking and walking pawn shop, the Merchant has a new voice but retains his famous qualities. This version of the character is one of the most recognizable in the franchise. He still eludes you, but now that he has a few more lines in his repertoire, you’ll be saying them just as frequently as “What’re ya buyin’?” Remember, fun rhymes with gun for a reason! is something I keep telling myself.

You’ll have the chance to venture off the beaten path to acquire treasure and fulfill tasks that the Merchant has hidden about the environment for you to locate when you’re not “covering yourself with the odor of battle,” as the Merchant loves to remark. Some are scavenger hunts, like uncovering a gold chicken egg, while others include hunting down more dangerous and ferocious foes that must be reached after several detours. You’ll get spinel gems in return for fulfilling these requests, which you may exchange for treasure maps, upgraded special items, and additional resources.

The requests give you more motivation to explore the world, but they never halt the game’s pace or flow because they frequently take you back along well-worn roads with freshly acquired objects like unique keys to open safes and other gadgets that contain riches. These requests are naturally paced in tandem with the game’s story and given some tale flavor to ground them in the universe, so they don’t feel like chores or checklists to accomplish. They merely gave me more time to explore the world I enjoy being in, so I embraced them even when it meant walking through run-down towns or the foggy halls of a gothic horror castle once more.

The remake of Resident Evil 4 still manages to maintain a remarkable balance of bombastic action intensity and hair-raising combat scenarios, even though Leon’s mission sends him to some of the less visually appealing areas in the game’s later chapters (a carryover from the original Resident Evil 4). By significantly altering what I had grown accustomed to from the original, the remake succeeds where the first game failed to maintain its momentum. To better fit the flow of the game and the setting, some parts of the original game have been refined, condensed, and rearranged. For instance, the initial run-in with the enormous, blind Garrador has been better placed within the tortuous confines of the castle. The setting is consequently even terrifying and more tense than before; everything feels turned up to eleven.

Boss battles have also returned; some have had minor revisions, while others have undergone a welcome, more thorough revamp. Despite the several times I’ve encountered them in the past, I had a smile pasted across my face for practically all of them. I cheered loudly when I discovered that some of Leon’s most famous quotes were still included in the game along with new ones that I’ll be using for years to come. I also applauded when I was surprised by fresh inclusions. The game takes a remarkably considered approach to honoring what Resident Evil 4 was by keeping important components from the original and maximizing its potential by adding new ones.

On the other hand, certain passages have been completely omitted, although it is clear that this was done with care and finesse. Everything that was removed from the game has been replaced with something new. Resident Evil 4’s excellent pacing, as well as the delicate mix of action, exploration, and some additional, easy puzzle-solving, have all been carefully considered by Capcom.

Even though it sounds exaggerated, it was difficult to put the controller down and stop playing the Resident Evil 4 remake in order to write this review. I’ve finished the campaign, started a New Game+ on Hardcore, and started a second playthrough on Professional mode at the time of writing, and I have no doubt that this is only the start of many more playthroughs.

The remake of Resident Evil 4 is what I wanted, but it’s not what I was hoping for. I was adamant that Resident Evil 4 should not be altered because, as a Resident Evil 4 purist, I thought doing so would be disastrous. The Resident Evil 4 remake, however, departs from the original in a number of key ways without ever compromising any of its innovative elements. It keeps that, contextualizes it, and revitalizes it in a game made to keep seasoned players on edge all the time by playing with their memories and sowing anxiety through subversion. Even though I am very familiar with the original game, the little changes and unanticipated additions prevented me from ever feeling comfortable; despite this, I was never completely at peace. The plan by Capcom to use my familiarity with the original game against me was a resounding success. I won’t get into specifics, and some of these instances are more subtly done than others, but they all had a sophisticated, thoughtful feel about them.

Capcom has expertly remade a beloved game and is forging new ground with its Resident Evil remakes. Similar to the Resident Evil 2 remake that came before it, the company focused on capturing the essence of the original and respecting reproducing the same sense of atmosphere and tone that the original developers had strived to in order to modernize an iconic survival-horror and action game. The player is simultaneously given exciting new mechanics to use and faced with obstacles to test their mastery of those mechanics. In that regard, the remake differs from the original in that it offers a fresh perspective on its history. This retains Resident Evil 4’s status as a genre-defining experience and one of the best games ever made while also raising the standard for what a solid remake is.

Source: Gamespot