4/5 ★ – ChucklesBiscotti's review of Resident Evil 4.

OVER HERE, STRANGER A game with universal praise getting a remake is theoretically pretty hard to fuck up, so on some level maybe it doesn't "earn" such high marks. However, I do think there was a higher bar to clear here than with RE2 Remake. With that game, changing the perspective was already going to massively change so much about it -- plus the OG does feel archaic if you didn't grow up with it. So they had more leeway to change it up, and it felt like something new even if it was a "remake" as well. RE3 Remake was...I mean it was fine. It's way too short, they cut way too much, and it's not the "definitive" version of RE3 that it should be. Capcom fucked up, and I'm sure they know they fucked up. With RE4, whatever version of it you played (since it has 900 re-releases) still would feel fine in 2023. So doing a remake that just had better graphics (again) probably would not have hit. However, changing a genre-altering game too much would be risky as well since everyone has played RE4 -- I would assume it's Capcom's most successful game of all-time. So I balance out those factors, and it's why I do come away so impressed with what's here. They did "simple" twists like changing how you come into your first major arena after meeting The Merchant. They made more extreme changes like altering game mechanics that now are out of style (eliminating most QTEs) while adding things you now expect from RE like moving while shooting and a parry system -- plus even some stealth. It all fits while still adding new enemies, changing how guns work, and just tweaking things enough to make it feel new and old the right amount (and somehow being longer than the original as well, which I did not expect). I will be shocked if this game isn't on every Game of the Year list for 2023, and I would get why it's there. All that said, I don't know if it will be on mine or if I'll ever come back to this because original RE4 still holds up just fine and still has just a bit more of a special place in my heart being slightly weirder in tone and just feeling more campy in great ways than the more serious version here. I don't know if we need to "remake" every unequivocally great game from prior eras as we continue forward, but I can't say I'll be mad if we get more of these from other companies if they're handled with this much care.