With Resident Evil 4 every distinctive element of survival horror has been reimagined from the ground up to build a nearly definitive experience: challenging, option-rich, extremely fun, and taking itself seriously just enough, meaning very little. If there is anything actually genius in Kamiya's work, it can all be found here, in a paradoxically very conservative revolution of a genre that from its origins came across as cumbersome and frustrating, but was based on a unique mechanism absent in any other type of game: manage your resources well, optimize your choices, and survive. Building on these minimal elements and holding on to the irresistible comically over-the-top B-movie style that has made Resident Evil's appeal, everything was set up to offer a kind of challenge that I don't think I have ever found so FUN in any other game.