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

I played the absolute shit out of this game, 40 hours, and I still have more to unlock. I’ll get to that eventually. There are a few nitpicks, and the game as been “scrubbed” of some of it’s edgier content. Ashleys “ballistics” have reduced physics, and her outfit has been “de-sexified” but I don’t really know why, because Leon and Ada are arguably sexier. Some of the more cringe of Leons lines have been removed, but he seems to quip more. They also toned the, well, tone, down. The issue is that this combined with a Quicker Leon kind of inverted the tone. 2005 RE4 was set in some whacky fantasy land and Leon, despite being a goofball, was still forced to play straight-man to Salazar’s bullshit. Now, Leon seems like a flippant weirdo in this dark gothic countryside. I don’t know if I like it. I think that we should look at Art relative to the era it debuted. RE4 2005 wasn’t really offensive in 2005, and I feel removing these things now kind of lessons the impact of 2005 culture. But I enjoyed it; the additional characterization of Luis and Krauser add a lot, and we spend more time with Luis too. I’m not a fan of the new menus, which are more or less borrowed from RE2/3R. They feel timeless, but in a bad way. Devoid of ant style, compared to the originals. I hate that this game sets up an RE5 remake as that doesn’t need a refresher yet. It’s available on all modern systems and still looks great. We need a Code Veronica remake as it is integral to the story, and no one played it. But thats an argument for another day. I can’t say I enjoyed VII or VIII, so this feels like a return to form. I’m not a fan of most first person horror honestly, and it seems Capcom is going to alternate releases, One mainline FPS horror, and one TPS horror Remake per cycle. RE4R plays like a faster version of Village, but it is definitely harder than the original. You can’t rely on old tricks like scumming I-frames and headshots always staggering. The game really wants you to use the new parry system. I also played on Hardcore for my first play-through, and I think it is likely to be patched, but I ended up soft locked a couple times, and was forced to use a trainer to continue. One such time, the RNG system wouldn’t drop me enough ammo, and I went into an arena where you have to protect ashley while she turns some valves. I mathematically didn’t have the required ammo to defeat the enemies that went toward her, and they were on a separate platform that I couldn’t reach to melee. Every other RE Game has enough loot scattered in or before forced combat arenas for a naked player to complete. I get creating situations where the player is forced to run is important to horror, but I had no other options here, and had to cheat myself ammo. Despite the fact that Leon can move while aiming, combat feels slower. Enemies have more health, and are more likely to mutate. The AI director also seems to really punish the player if they hoard supplies, as sometimes enemies will just eat ammo. Though the Punisher really slaps the Living Armour. I like the new merchant mechanics, but I miss his old voice and typewriter music. I was sad they removed the U-3 fight; while the regular mobs feel more difficult, the boss fights feel a lot easier. But the changes aren’t hugely different, and by 2005, most developers had figured out the formulas we still see today. Apart from graphics, there is nothing here that feels like it couldn’t have been designed in 2005, and that is what puts this squarely in the “Remake” territory, when compared to RE2R, which is a reimagining of the original. RE2R created a new sub-genre of horror games, while RE4R doesn’t feel as important as the Original.