A fun but relatively unexciting translation of NES Castlevania into the DOOM engine. This time around the whip feels like a last resort rather than your bread and butter while subweapons rule the day. Plus, the game showers you in so many hearts that you can spam them without a care so the Vampire Killer is relegated mostly to candle whipping duty.

Graphically it looks pretty nice and there's no doubts that it's a Castlevania game. I did find the map layouts a little underwhelming. IMO they stuck to the design principles of the NES games to a fault, rarely taking advantage of the DOOM engine's capabilities for exploration and instead settling for mostly linear romps from A to B and then to C.

I would love to see a sequel that allows for a little more non-linear exploration of the titular castle and maybe a better difficulty curve (while most of the game is relatively easy, Death and Dracula retain their famous difficulty from the first game. Also the platforming bits in the clock tower sucked.)

The combat is great (even though without the laser sight it feels less like re4) but I had issues in a few places with the camera in close quarters. Not sure about the music, I switched to the original soundtrack after I heard Nine Inch Nails during the village fight in the demo. Game looks great, just wish there wasn't so much clutter everywhere. Voice acting of Leon, Luis, Ashley, Hunnigan and the Merchant is great but the rest didn't do much for me and the less said about Ada the better. Game has a weird tone. It wants to be more serious than the OG but they turned Leon into a quippy redditor instead of a wisecracking action hero. In addition I felt that most of the cutscenes have much less impact than their original counterpart and there is less charm in general, although the added dialogue between Leon and Ashley/Luis was great. New sidequests are pretty lame outside of the stronger enemies you can fight. Hated most of the boss changes, especially Salazar. Island is still the worst part of the game and I was ready for it to end by Chapter 14.

In summation, Resident Evil 4 2023 is a good remake of a GOATed game. It can never replace the original outright but it makes a good companion piece to it, especially for it's added characterization and story beats and for that I'm happy it exists.

Worse than 1 and 2 in every conceivable way. It features:
- unfun gimmicky levels that frequently go on for too long
- uncanny looking enemies
- awful boss fights
- okay music ( I quite like the underwater theme even if it's no Aquatic Ambience)
- trade sequences that don't really add anything to the game
- simon says sequences that don't really add anything to the game
- level themes are much less interesting than the previous two games. Only two that I really liked were the hollowed out trees and the lakeside docks. At least there's more variety than DKC1 I guess.
- hitbox tomfoolery
- general lack of polish. Missing sound effects, partner kong running in place when you tap the left or right button, being unable to switch kongs frequently for no apparent reason.

Also I'm sorry but Canada is not an interesting location for a sidescrolling platformer when compared to jungles and pirate ships. What were they thinking...?

Played for the first time using the HD project. Looked amazing despite some hiccups here and there. Even though this is one of my favorite games and I have played through it dozens of times over the years, it definitely shows it's age in some areas. Going back to this from the Remake demo really hammers home how bad the AI is in this game and the QTEs get old, especially on the Island. Speaking of, by the time I got here I was ready to be done. Outside of the Regenerators the Island just isn't that interesting compared to what came before and it's repetitive to boot.

In conclusion, I love 2/3 of this game and tolerate the other bit. Hope I love 3/3 of it in the remake!