4.5/5 ★ – FarnySeals's review of Resident Evil 4.

As soon as it was announced, I was skeptical at how the Resident Evil 4 Remake would be handled. The original game is already accessible to play and doesn’t need any sort of facelift in my opinion. I played the demo for the remake when it came out and still felt the same, but after specifically enjoying the gameplay for Resident Evil 2 and 3 Remake, I was finally curious as to how Capcom would remake an action horror game and how it would play and feel, but at the same time I was looking forward to seeing how they might flesh out some of the characters, especially Ashley and Luis. Well, Resident Evil 4 Remake is luckily a much different experience than the original, meaning that both games have a leg to stand on, and in a way the remake elevates how I felt about the original game which led me to re-download it and mess around with the Mercanaries mode. My absolute favourite thing about this remake is the gameplay and remixed level design. Leon feels nice and weighty to play as, with nice, chunky, heavy guns that are helped made even more immersive by the PS5 controller’s comfortable haptic feedback. I was worried by the addition of parry system, because after the success of Dark Souls and Elden Ring, everyone and their mum wants a parry system in their game, but it actually feels incredible. It feels like a progression of being able to shoot enemy projectiles in the original and it makes Leon feel like more of a badass to play as. This is genuinely the Devil May Cry of Resident Evil games, and with the added bonus of the game’s new guns, which are all kickass, this is an essential action horror game. I’m a bit more mixed on the boss fights though. They’re all good, but I think that Chief Méndez felt a bit more like a formulaic boss fight, but then again the original boss fight is one of my absolute favourites in the series so it’s hard to surpass the original for me. The Ramon fight was decent, but those projectiles were frustrating as hell. However, the Jack Krauser fight, every instance of it, was so god damn cool with how it took advantage of the parry system, replacing the disappointing QTE fight from the original with a badass knife fight that escalates with each instance that you encounter him. Finally, there’s the Saddler fight, which I found pretty anti-climactic in the original game. I’m pretty happy with how it came out in the remake, but besides the enjoyable gameplay, it’s actually Saddler’s horrifying dialogue that I find makes this iteration of the fight great as he becomes more and more monstrous as the fight goes on, which makes him pretty fucking terrifying to fight. I love the aesthetic of the game too, it’s not quite as spooky as the original thanks to the graphics of that time which promoted style and atmosphere more than anything else, but for a realistic take on the Resident Evil 4 village, it looks incredible. I love the autumnal feel with the orange leaves and such, which made it perfect for an October play-through. The castle section was probably the most faithful section stylistically, retaining those classic Gothic castle vibes, but I feel that the factory island at the end of the game got the biggest improvement of all the game’s areas. I’m not really a big fan of that segment in the original game just because the washed out atmosphere doesn’t really work for me in the more overtly action part of the game, so to see it in a different light with harsher lighting, rain, and industrial sections made that last part of the game much more enjoyable to get through. What absolutely does suck though is the overuse-age of yellow paint to indicate interactions items which in some cases feels incredibly dumbed down and handholdy. There are cases which an item is painted yellow and then the entire backdrop also is painted yellow, which constantly takes me out of the game. Capcom keeps adding yellow paint into their remakes and I just don’t get it, please stop with the yellow paint, this is easily the worst instance of it. My favourite thing about the original game was the use of body horror and how it translates into enemy design and also the bosses. Once again with this remake you take some and you lose some. The losses are the lack of body horror transformations before boss fights, as part of what made stuff like the Méndez fight so scary was the cutscene before where his body separates from his waist. In this version he just sort of steps behind the fire in the area and comes out fully transformed. I was really excited to see it fully remade, but was so disappointed when it straight up didn’t happen. The same is for most of the bosses where it’s just strangely censored, but then the gameplay is generally gorier than the original with even more enemy types, so what is the deal there? The regular enemy types are awesome though, I can’t get enough of the parasite’s tendrils wiggling from enemy’s severed heads, arms, or waists, and generally just blasting them apart is so much fun. The remade parasite enemies that crawl from body to body are much more interesting and it’s cool that they added a new type of parasite enemy alongside remade tank type enemies that fit more into the aesthetic of the village and its history. It’s history is great in the remake as well, with way more notes diving into the history of the village’s leading figures as well as some of the side characters like Luis and even Ramon’s right and left hand men. One of my main complaints with the original was how vague the lore was behind the village considering its history is so vast, so it was really cool to finally get a bit more of that. Unfortunately though, some of the villages leaders like Méndez and Ramon just aren’t as memorable as they were with lots of cut lines for example, but then characters like Krauser and Saddler I find have a much bigger presence than they once did and ended up being more memorable. The same goes for Luis and Ashley as I’d hoped who go through their own respective arcs, though Luis is definitely the highlight due to the depth of his arc and the screen time he gets in this remake. Ashley on the other hand shines during gameplay thanks to her and Leon’s chemistry and care for each other through in-game dialogue. A lot of my problems with this game are things that don’t get in the way with the game’s core gameplay, which is so addictive. With the unlockable extra content shop, this might be one of the most replayable Resident Evil games with quality of life gameplay features like being able to interact with traps, have enemies fall into their own traps, being able to sneak and stealth kill, having even more weapons to use and upgrade, and also the satisfying knife system. There are things I prefer over the original, though there are also things I prefer in the original, plus that game delivers a much more arcade-like gameplay loop which sets itself apart from even the RE4 Remake. It’s definitely not perfect, but this remake is easily my favourite of the recent RE remakes and it’s strengths heavily outweigh its flaws for me, probably making it my favourite action oriented entry in the series overall.