"They always feel new - constant, but constantly surprising. They become part of your private autobiography and every time you [play] them a new layer of memory is added to the bond between you. Each performance is a collection of the experiences you have had together. Not many friendships last so long - I suppose the unchanging nature of the music simplifies the dynamic between you - but what would be an unhealthily one-sided affair in your personal life provides a great deal of comfort throughout your professional one. It is even richer if you can always remember the initial naivety, wonder, and thrill that accompanied your first 'date'."

This is a quote from an orchestral conductor about his evolving relationship with great pieces of classical music, but I suspect it's pretty easy for many of us to substitute a couple of words and apply it directly to our experiences with our favorite games. And in the case of RE4 it was a first date to remember.

It was the late spring of 2005, my friend had just bought the game, eight of us crammed into his dorm room at midnight, turned the lights out and the volume up as we played through the first 3 chapters more or less blind. The idea was that we'd pass the controller around whenever the player died, but the first guy somehow stayed alive all the way until chapter 3-2! Us seven spectators had one of the most intense watch-sessions ever, alternating between "AHHHH!" and "EWWWW" and "LOLOL Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks".

Two years later, I bought the Wii version - now I could shoot a Ganado in the leg and then in the face a split second later! It was so damn addictive that I completed the game (for the first time) in one single 16-hour sitting. A friend picked me up to go to a party right after, and I spent the entire time in a hazy half-asleep stupor hovering between RE4 and reality. And while I don't remember this, he said (while laughing his ass off) that at one point I stood in front of a vase and swiped my right arm back and forth in the "break vase" Wiimote gesture for a few seconds.

I've returned to Resident Evil 4 at so many different seasons of my life - playing quick rounds of Mercenaries mode with a warm bottle of milk in my lap waiting for my infant daughter to start fussing, doing a handgun-only pro run when COVID lockdowns first started - that it has to be a five-star game for me. It's not just that I have plenty of memories of it; it's that the game was addictive and fantastic enough that I kept coming back to it to make those memories in the first place, and that's something that no amount of plot contrivances or anticlimactic final acts can take away from it.

Plenty of reviews have waxed lyrical on this game's virtues better than I can, but I wanted to point out how impressed I am with how the iconic village brawl really teaches the new player how to play the game. It establishes from the outset that unlike the zombies from previous games, these guys are capable of running, moving intelligently to flank you, and following you up stairs and through windows. And through a mix of its large enemy swarms, the presence of sloping terrain which means that you will eventually hit an enemy in the face even if you just spray and pray, and the fact that enemies sometimes stagger forwards when hit in the face, and you've created the conditions for even a complete newbie to discover the melee options by accident. And the melee options are part of the extraordinarily robust but viscerally simple gameplay loop that has sustained my interest in this game through countless playthroughs.

I know that this represents the start of the shift away from survival horror that culminated in the all-action RE6 (that's a review I'm kinda dreading to get to) - but taken as it is it's a blockbuster in all the right ways. It looks and sounds fantastic even today, is exceptionally refined in execution, is a bundle of scares on the first run and then unadulterated fun on subsequent playthroughs, and... it's just good, man. Play it!

It’s not a stretch to say this is one of the most influential games ever. It still possibly has the best gunplay of any third person shooter. The pacing is excellent. There’s tons of variety. It still looks really nice. The story is really fun. This shit is firing on all cylinders. It’s also perfect for when you can’t think of anything else to play. It gets a little weaker at some points on the island, but given how consistently brilliant the village and castle sections are, I can excuse those faults. And the island is still mostly really good, anyhow.

Good game.

There's not much I can say that hasn't already been said about RE4. Like Chrono Trigger, it's one of those games where everything perfectly fits into place. The core shooting and melee mechanics aren't as fleshed out as 5's, and the Mercenaries mode isn't as good either, but the main campaign's level design is definitely much better.

I want to recommend the GameCube version specifically. The US/JP (not PAL) GC versions are balanced a little differently from later ports. Most of your weapons (including the knife) do less damage, you get less money over the course of a playthrough, and enemies are both more aggressive and more numerous. It's a more subtle difference than I may make it appear - this isn't like Mario 3 or Castlevania 3 - but you can still feel it nonetheless. It encourages more aggressive play utilising the melee mechanics. While the original GC version lacks Separate Ways, I still consider it to be the definitive version because of the superior balancing.

Overall I really enjoyed RE4 and I can see why everyone loves it. The shooting is great and looking around for secrets and whatnot is really fun. Love all the little details in this game too like being able to throw eggs and stuff, it's all very goofy. The first part of the game kicked ass but it kinda started to drag near the end. Like I feel half of chapter 4 could've been cut in order to make the game flow better. The quick time events were annoying at points too. They only give you like two seconds to see the inputs AND the inputs change every time you try again! But yeah, this game was pretty great just wished it was a bit shorter, definitely got tired of it near the end.
Ashley is hot too.