- 14 hours played
- Hardcore difficulty

This year has already delivered me a remake of one of my all time favourite games, Dead Space. And now 2023 also has bestowed upon me Resident Evil 4 Remake and it’s beautiful.

The OG Resi 4 is a game I have played many times and owned on many systems. I never wanted a remake and in fact I came away from a replay with only two things I wanted changed here. The first being in the original, when you pick up an item it takes you to a black screen to confirm the item and if you want to pick it up. It also does this every bloody time you pick up gold. I wanted it so that after the first instance the item just goes into inventory automatically with a little notification at the top of the screen to inform me what I have picked up. That way it doesn’t break the flow of gameplay. This change was made in the remake.

The second issue I wanted addressed was the gratuitous up skirting of Ashley. Something slapped in the original to please teenagers. Thankfully here that no longer happens and Ashley is much more of an actual character. But I did find some issues with Ashley in this remake. I found her more bothersome to actually escort in the remake. In the original Ashley has a health bar so I can see when she’s in trouble and how many more hits she can take. I could also heal her from a little distance away. In the remake she doesn’t have health which most would see as a great change but she seemed to go down after one hit. Which required me to run right up to her and press a button to pick her up. This opened me up to attacks and left me stationary when TNT had been thrown my way. This led to a lot of frustration, especially during a short chase sequence where stopping to pick Ashley up led to the enemy catching us resulting in a fail. Also you can’t tell Ashley to wait unless it’s in a locker, she always follows you around and sometimes I missed telling here to wait somewhere safe whilst I kicked ass.

And kicked ass I did. The combat in this game is utterly immense and buttery smooth. I find the original is still extremely fun to play. I love the tank controls and the footsies you play with enemies. Thats gone here, enemies are faster. Leon is faster. He can move and shoot at the same time 🤯 the knife opens up parry opportunities. Nothing is cooler than blocking a thrown axe by reacting quick enough to block it with a knife. Being able to run and reload is also a god send. But one thing I wasn’t a huge fan of is that shooting enemies in the leg never seemed to knock them down as often. So crowd control never felt as effective and melee prompts only seemed to come as a result of head shot stuns.

Story wise both Luis and Ashley have a little more to do and say. Leon has lost all of his cheese so here he’s a badass. But just a bad ass, he’s very bland overall where as in the OG he’s dropping insanely poor and cheesy one liners like their going out of fashion. They kept the bingo line and gave us the “Nighty Night, Knights” line but other than that, OG Leon is the cheese king.

There’s been changes to the combat encounters. Some enemies and bosses have been redesigned. The Regenerators are now truly horrifying, never imagined they could make such a scary enemy scarier but here we are. But due to these changes I felt the pacing to suffer a little bit. Overall the ramp up to this games finale felt more of a slog. I think that’s down to the game having just as much combat but at a faster pace with way more aggressive enemies. Therefore it feels relentless and therefore a little tiring.

There’s a tonne of re playability here but I think I am done after my initial playthrough. I really enjoyed my time with this game. But Resi 4 to me is still the Orignal. And that’s coming from someone who first played the OG on Xbox 360. I don’t have nostalgia for that game, so it’s not for that reason. I just think the OG is a better paced game that I have more fun in because it’s a damn cheese fest and I enjoy the older combat model. But man this game is fantastic as well and I am so glad we have both.