There's something so refreshing about these Resident Evil Remakes. All the way back to the first one on GameCube, Capcom has poured a deep love for the series into the production of these games. There is a knowledge of what makes these games tick and what fans of the series want, most likely because the developers themselves are equally in love with the series. You can feel that love shine through these remakes. It's inherent to their quality. What these remakes, and especially 4, do so well is that they don't seek to change the core gameplay experience to fit modern trends. The whole focus is on modernizing what is already there. It may seem simple, but it's a simple thing that some remakes fail to understand. Remaking a game isn't like remaking any other piece of media, because there is such an imprint left onto players minds due to the synergy of story and interactivity. The original Resident Evil 4 was part of the foundation of the third-person shooters, firmly establishing the tight over the shoulder camera and equally tight controls to the genre. What Resident Evil 4 Remake arguably achieves is updating these core elements of the original's gameplay loop.

RE4 (2005) went through a long and rocky development, culminating in not only a bold new direction for the series, but many other games that were salvaged from discarded prototypes. The DNA of RE4 can be found in character action games like Devil May Cry and God Hand, both of which started as early forms of Leon's campaign. At times, it feels like the DNA of those other games can be found in the remake, especially God Hand. The way some enemies transmorph into stronger creatures after killing them is a throughline between the original, God Hand, and the remake, but the way that everything moves so much faster in the remake makes it more reminiscent of God Hand than the work its adapting at times. Fights feel delightfully frantic in the remake, with the Ganados having just as many new options as the player has. The game strikes that perfect balance. Tight enough to be tense, but still giving players enough options to handle a situation in many different ways. Adding the ability to parry enemy attacks in order to stun them was genius, and worked to give a sense of variety to encounters that became somewhat repetitive in the original. There's so many little details and aspects of polish in this game that I can't even begin to list them all. I don't even have much to say about the story. The cutscenes are great, well directed and voiced, and they look amazing in the RE Engine. The best addition is Leon absolutely taking initiative to shoot any bad guy in a cutscene. The original is often lambasted for how often Leon lets Saddler or other villains monologue at him, but in the remake Leon is always shooting dudes in the middle of their evil expositioning. This is what I mean when I say that the dev's love for the original is palpable in every moment of the remake. This isn't "hey look at that thing you know" type fanservice. It feels like a game made by people who know what fans of the original game want, because they're RE4 superfans as well. The only thing I could have asked for is more stupid puzzles.

(Also if ur mad about Leon being less of a pervert and Ashley not being 16 anymore stay mad, put your head in an oven, and then die mad.)

This game is the full package. It's got some of the best visuals on the console, a really good story for the standards of the series, and a banger soundtrack. All you really need in a Metroid game can be found in Fusion. The only criticism I would place upon the game is that it's level design and pacing can be a little slow due to how heavily gated certain parts of the game are. However, this restricted pacing also plays a large role in the tone and feel of the game, so it's ultimately not a huge deal.