3/5 ★ – isaiahbot's review of Resident Evil 5 Remastered.

I don’t get why some will give this shit then go jerk off to RE4. I definitely recognize its faults, like the mandatory companion while playing solo being abysmal and frustrating, which constantly ended up fucking with my strategies and made simple traversal through tight areas (something very common is RE) an unintentional challenge as she seemed glued to my heels. Its inventory management is the least engaging in the series when in single-player mode, and introduces a joint inventory system between player and companion, which is a valiant effort at taking a new approach that I could see working with more options for the AI, but was ultimately not executed as well as it could’ve as it was clearly designed for use with communication via the co-op feature and not an AI. But as for its overall core gameplay structure, it’s pretty damn similar to RE4. The horde-management and many of its nuances are here with the combat mechanics and strategies found in its predecessor, along with its pure bombastic action/entertainment-favoring pacing, which I’d venture to say is on par with RE4, leaning entirely into its mission of being as entertaining as possible in a fresh way on every chapter, pretty much fully embracing jumping the shark. I really liked the boss fights here, too. There’s a lot of them and most were pretty great at offering new challenges and gimmicks (except for the final one). Level layouts are kinda hit-or-miss, though, sometimes being far too cramped for you and Sheva, shifting combat from delicate prioritization to shoot-a-path-out-of-the-corner. Definitely isn’t as refined of a package as its predecessor but it shares many of its qualities and I enjoyed my time with it a good amount.