GENRE: Survival Horror / Action
GAME LENGTH: Long (18-20 hours)
REPLAYABILITY: High
DIFFICULTY: Just right; challenging when it needs to be, though not obnoxiously so
The original “Resident Evil 4” is now almost 20 years old. Boy, how time flies. I remember buying it in Gamestop shortly after release and having no idea what I was getting myself into. This time around, I have a bit of foreknowledge.
Right off the bat what I noticed is that the game does a whole lot better at setting the mood and delivering an immersive environment. More densely detailed environments, more harsh and dramatic lighting, more aggressively horror-laden with a deeper emphasis on lore-based visuals. The graphics, atmosphere, and setting are all kept intact in regards to the pastiche of the original, but expanded upon in such a way that emphasizes the horror more-so than the original. The introduction is longer, in terms of how long it takes from starting to play to reaching your first combat encounter, where the woods itself looks haunted, not just foreboding. You get the sense that at any moment something you were not expecting could jump out and grab you, elevating the original’s atmosphere in ways that now, I see it was technologically limited to. You get long distance shots showing places you will travel to far off, including getting to manually explore the lake and visit several docking stations, giving you a miniature hub-world, complete with looting and treasure.
While the visuals are stellar, the voice acting is very spotty. Leon’s voice actor is less sure of himself, less humorous, and less braggadocios, which overall, I feel is a detriment. As an agent of the United States government set to rescue the President’s daughter, he does not portray someone who is confident in his abilities and feels more amateur instead. The voice actor himself is quite good, but the whole persona he projects is decidedly less memorable. I do not think I recall a single new line from this game, at all, while I can recall a plethora of lines from the original, going on 20 years later. I think that shows more than anything the staying cultural impact of the original voice actor, and the writing too. Everything is written to be a lot more grim and sad this time around. As for the other actors, Krauser’s voice feels a little too high pitched, where before it was the perfect mix of raspy and deep, here he feels more like a teenager doing a raspy voice than a grizzled veteran. Salazar’s voice actor performs admirably, but lacks a lot of the arrogant pomposity. Saddler’s voice actor is about the same in regards to tone and performance. Mendez is actually somewhat better, given a darker and sinister edge. Ada’s voice actor, dear god, where to begin. The first time I was not sure what to think what she was doing, then later I realized what she was doing. She was completely blowing her role on purpose. Every single line of dialogue, from the demure lines to the taunting lines, was like she was sitting on a couch eating potato chips while reading them. Completely lacks any personality, any sort of emphasis, it is just beyond bland, and actually genuinely awful. Every single time I heard her voice it sounded like she would rather be anywhere else than where she was, which is a disgrace. She should have been fired on the spot as far as I am concerned.
Matching the mixed reception to voice acting, the cinematics were decidedly lacking as well. I can think of no better example than the comparison to the cinematic that precedes the Mendez bossfight, where the original was flashy and stylish and had a directorial edge, the new RE4 lacks any sort of style or flourishing of the virtual camera. You don’t have the dollying wind-around as the flame ignites, or the closeup on the barrel as the fire gets sucked into it and explodes, it all just flatly watches the action unfold. The cinematics are a significant step-down in regards to everything from introducing characters to emphasizing the characters and their personalities. It is all just so boring.
Now that that is out of the way, onto the good, which there is a lot of. The gameplay is a vast improvement. The first thing I noticed was the addition of a crouching button, which is also used to evade ranged attacks and high attacks later on, but also to add to the slight stealth elements, where you can sneak up and deliver killer knife attacks. This adds a completely new element to the game that was previously lacking, switching up gameplay from either just action or just horror to a third play-style of including stealth variations, turning the gameplay into a trifecta of stealth, action, and horror. Adding onto the knife mechanics, there are now disposable knives, and your main knife, both of which have durability meters, but only your main knife can be upgraded and repaired. Ultimately this is a positive, as it emphasizes inventory management even more than just ammo and health, but also whether you want to sacrifice your main knife, or use the disposable ones, which can also be used for crafting things like bolts for the bolt thrower. And you will be using crafting quite a bit, especially for harder-to-find ammo such as for the magnum and the shotgun especially.
The shooting as a whole feels a lot sleeker and smoother, where Leon will change up the style he holds and aims his handgun depending on how close an enemy is, along with more detailed hit markers on enemies. Gunshot wounds are bloody and leave a visible impact, you can shoot arms and legs off, or blow off entire chunks of someones body with the shotgun from up close, giving a much more satisfying feeling to the gun-play and hit-confirmation. Even explosive barrels no longer disintegrate enemies, but blow them in half, with missing limbs, although truth be told, I prefer the original explosions, which felt meatier, and the disintegrating enemies felt more satisfying, like you actually obliterated them. Fire effects are very much improved though, with enemies catching fire and actually crispifying (Trademark for that word pending, you will hear from my lawyers if you use it), and offering more impressive ambient lighting.
And what better way to compliment the gunplay than with the movement? Leon moves more fluidly now, which feels mostly good, but sometimes when trying to turn on a dime he feels sluggish. That is about as negative as I can get in regards to the controls because everything feels responsive and repeatedly tested for maximum efficiency in player feedback, right down to smashing all the numerous boxes and barrels that fill every nook and cranny. But what feels better than smashing boxes and barrels? Smashing the big bad guys. I have to say, each and every boss fight is a marked improvement over the original. Another boss fight I will use as an example is the first Krauser fight, which before was just a QTE fight, but here, has you actually fighting Krauser, with emphasis on the knife, which you use to parry his knife attacks and deliver your own, working to highlight the updated and improved knife gameplay even further. The Salazar fight is also a lot more mobile now, with him climbing all around the room while you try to hit his weak spot, spraying you with slime, launching charges at you. It is all above and beyond the original in terms of interactivity and memorability. The Verdugo fight is mostly the same, and just as satisfying, though the build-up and screentime of the Verdugo’s leaves the player wanting, feeling more like his fight was thrown in at last second rather than built up from the moment you meet Salazar. There is also the missing boss fight between Leon and the U-3 experiment, which I will be honest, I did not even realize until looking back at the first RE4. I think that says more about the original boss fight than it does RE4 remake not including it, although I have heard he is potentially being saved for the Ada Wong expansion DLC next year, something I am highly anticipating.
They also managed to make the Ashley segment from the original not just tolerable, but actually exciting. In the original RE4, I will admit that Ashley’s segment was my least-looked-forward to segment in the game. It was slow, boring, and ultimately kind of pointless. Here, it has more purpose, as Ashley can go around unlocking treasures that Leon can later come back to and collect. Also is the removal of the cultists during this segment, instead having Ashley chased around by knight plagas, which improves the tension since they are unkillable, while Ashley only has a blue lighted lantern to keep them at bay, freezing them under its light. This feels a lot more original and tense than just running away from cultists and throwing lamps to ignite them with, here there is actually a level of skill and actual horror, as you hear the knights clanking around as they draw nearer and nearer, until the entire area is filled with them and you are running for your life.
There are a plethora of things about the combat to enjoy, including the handling of weapons and the handling of hit confirmation, and the much-improved boss fights, but also what has improved are the sounds. While the sound design of the weapons previously was pretty spot-on, the main pistol in question sounds a hell of a lot better, less of a pea-shooter like the original sounded. You can a big muzzle flash and a meaty punch with each click of the button, which goes for all the weapons really, including the TMP.
Which brings me to one of the big new things included in this edition, which is the crafting. You collect small and large parts and gunpowder, which can be combined in different ways to craft different ammo, making ammo, in some ways, a lot more plentiful, depending on how you prioritize your crafting. I found myself running out of ammo less than in the original, but I also found myself saving certain ammo types a lot more and practicing more ammo-conservation techniques than in the original, so my guess is that the usables are balanced pretty perfectly, keeping you from feeling empty all the time, while also making you feel confident enough to splurge on your supplies every now and then.
Another new thing added is an overhaul on the merchant, including minigames, where you can complete shooting galleries to earn coins which you can spend to gain charms that you attach to your briefcase, giving you bonuses, such as finding certain things more often or having a chance at crafting extra ammo, and other types of bonuses. While the shooting galleries are challenging, I found myself actually using them and customizing my case with them, so I can at least say they were successful in driving player interaction, as I am very much a player who will ignore things if they are not out-right necessary, or at the very least fun, which the galleries were both. The merchant also provides you with mini-quests like killing rats, shooting medallions, finding snakes, and other things, which rewards you with spinels, which you can use to purchase one-time items, such as treasure maps, guns, add-ons, and even expensive treasures you can resell. The merchant was improved, much like how one goes from a strip mall, to an actual mall.
Overall, a nearly-aced remake of an ace game. When I think of perfect games, I think of “Rome: Total War”, “The Witcher 2”, “Gothic 2”, “Ghost Recon (2001)”, and of course, “Resident Evil 4”. There is just something about the mixture of the horror setting with action gameplay that is distilled just so exquisitely that I managed to replay it at least 5 times, which is a lot for me. “Resident Evil 4 Remake” does the best you can for remaking what many, including myself, would consider to be a “Perfect Game”. And they come damn near close to achieving it twice, something that not many developers can say.
9/10
For other recent blog posts…
The Callisto Protocol (PC) Review
GENRE: Action-HorrorGAME LENGTH: Average (10 Hours)REPLAYABILITY: MediocreDIFFICULTY: Moderate Made by the devs of the original “Dead Space” series, “The Collisto Protocol” serves as a spiritual successor to said franchise, while also serving somewhat as an amalgam of what they potentially wanted to do for “Dead Space 3” but were not allowed. The only problem is…
Once A Porn A Time (PC) Review
GENRE: Visual NovelGAME LENGTH: Moderate (8 Hours)REPLAYABILITY: LittleDIFFICULTY: Extremely Easy ‘Once a Porn a Time’ is a Ren’py visual novel/dating sim/corrupter type game where you crash land on a planet inhabited by nothing but androids meant to fulfill some old forgotten tycoon’s plan to create a whimsical fairy-tale land, complete with a variety of princesses…
Gaming Collapse 2.0
As someone who believes that capitalism is perhaps the most efficient economic model we have yet as a species, there is the undeniable fact that – like all other economic models – it has its flaws. From the communist reliance on dictatorship and tyranny, to the socialist reliance on other people’s success, capitalism has its…
Angry Fish Head 