4/5 ★ – FoofDeckman's review of Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways.

The exclusion of the Separate Ways campaign was one of the biggest disappointments of the Resident Evil 4 remake for me, not because I expected it to be there, but more because it always felt like one of the most underappreciated aspects of the original game. It always felt like an equally fun companion piece to an already great game, while using the gaps in it's story as an excuse to make a separate campaign reusing assets from the main story. I always loved this idea of Resident Evil having branching pathways and exploring different parts of levels through a different character's perspective. One of my biggest complaints about Resident Evil 2's remake was the absolute butchering of this concept with it's second run option, stripping everything that made people love that addition from the original and leaving only the bare minimum. This was one of the reasons I never expected separate ways to ever make a return, but low and behold It's here, and honestly it's better than ever. Much like the base game, I was worried a lot of content from the original would be cut for one reason or another as that's a pretty common trend with these Resident Evil remakes. But in all honestly, this feels significantly more fleshed out than what the original one was and I much prefer this version. The main campaign from 4's remake, while still more faithful than the remakes for Resident Evil 2 and 3, still manages to cut some locations from the original. It's not like there was a ton of important locations cut, but still enough for people who are familiar with the original game to notice their absence, but Separate Ways feels like it includes almost every area that wasn't present in the main game. I never thought in a million years they'd bring back the ski lift set piece or the goofy laser grid hallway, but they did, and honestly that makes this remake feel like a more complete package because of it. I don't know how they managed to do it, but somehow the combat has managed to improve with this DLC too? Whoever discovered that adding a grappling hook to almost every game's combat system would automatically make it significantly more fun needs to get a medal, because the inclusion of it here is so satisfying. Besides the grapple hook, combat is relatively the same, albeit you're more geared up right away. Obviously grappling enemies into a roundhouse kick is a bit silly and kind of takes away from the horror aspects, but what's replaced is a more campy action movie tone that works significantly more than I thought it was going to. I'm someone that really dislikes the more action oriented Resident Evil games that kind of ditch the horror, but this DLC has me thinking about the inevitable Resident Evil 5 and 6 remakes in a more optimistic light. Unfortunately my biggest complaint about this DLC is how many cutscenes there are in place of gameplay. There's a really hyped up scene right at the beginning of the campaign, where the music swells and it feels like it's about to give me control to fight this boss, but instead it just shows Ada killing a few enemies instead of letting me fight them myself. Luckily right after this it does cut directly to gameplay and a boss fight ensues, but some of these cutscenes last way too long for my liking and add almost nothing. I wouldn't mentioning this if it only happened this one time, but there's quite a few moments throughout this DLC where I feel like it would be significantly improved if what I was seeing was gameplay instead of just an in-game cutscene. The companion AI also hasn't improved, it's not like there's a ton of moments in this where you use the companion AI, but I had a moment where their pathing broke and kept running into a wall. It only happened once and it was almost immediately fixed as a soon as I loaded to my previous save, but it definitely took me out a bit. One of my favorite parts about this DLC is weirdly its price. I was shocked that this campaign took me nearly five hours to fully complete, especially for a product that's only retailing for $10, especially since that's almost the same length if not longer than the entirety of the Resident Evil 3 remake, which retailed originally for $60. Maybe I'm thinking too much into it, but the math isn't adding up, because if Resident Evil 3 is $60 in Capcom's eyes, pricing this DLC at $10 is a steal. It's also just a significantly more faithful and well put together game than Resident Evil 3 remake ever was, the main thing I learned after playing Separate Ways is that Capcom should remake the Resident Evil 3 Remake and not butcher it this time. But to get back on topic, Separate Ways is fantastic, and definitely worth the price of admission. I couldn't recommend it enough, and I also highly recommend checking out Resident Evil 4 remake if you haven't already.