Since its release, Resident Evil 4 has been one of the most celebrated video games of all time, and it’s a project that its creator Shinji Mikami holds dear. It was in a way his magnum opus, as he left the series behind as soon as it was released, his parting message to the franchise he helped spawn. So after putting everything he had into it, only to then suddenly step away from Resident Evil entirely, its likely that that fateful question started bubbling within the rest of Capcom.
“What’s next?”
How do you not only follow up this groundbreaking, industry-redefining, classic game, but do so without any help whatsoever from the series’ captain? Is it really safe to take big, sweeping risks without as much of an understanding of what truly defined the series, as its original creator had? After three years of development, Resident Evil 5 sought to answer that question with a game that’s simultaneously exactly what one would’ve expected, yet still daring and likable.
To me, Resident Evil 4 has always felt as if it wanted more than anything to boldly move forward, to move on from the past and embrace a new status quo. Beyond its wholly new playstyle, its the first game in the series not to be set around Raccoon City, and the villains of those first games are dissolved off-screen before this entry even starts. There’s no item boxes, level design is linear, you’re well rewarded for killing enemies rather than encouraged to avoid combat, the cutscenes are action-packed and feature Quicktime events - were it not for Leon, Ada, and a general zombie-virus theme, this could have passed for a wholly new franchise entirely. Its a bold direction that only truly worked due to the confidence Mikami had in the project, and its a confidence that Resident Evil 5 is very lacking in in comparison. But let’s set it straight: Having that degree of confidence is not always a good thing. Though exploring new frontiers is fun and celebrated by all, its also a dangerous, lonely venture, one that can lead to making terrible mistakes or change someone far too drastically. For as important as it is to innovate, it’s just as important to remember and celebrate your roots, and I find that to be Resident Evil 5’s most defining attribute. It takes 4’s bold steps and innovations, its new style and feel, and weaves connections with it to the old world and characters we once knew from the original trilogy. Just look at our protagonist: It's Chris Redfield! By taking the protagonist of the very first game, and putting him in the playstyle of that bold new direction, it really communicates the wish to bring all walks of Resident Evil together for the future.
Honestly, even though the gameplay sticks quite close to what 4 established, I'm impressed by how different Chris and Leon feel to play almost purely from the overall personality these two games exude. Leon has always been a one-man team, originally not by choice but it led to him becoming a spy, working in secret. Thus his game really does reflect that, with RE4 having a somewhat lonely, quiet atmosphere, and gameplay that most often rewards precision and strategy. Chris, meanwhile, is more experienced than Leon, ever since RE1 he was working with a team and valued charging through with no men falling behind far more than stealthily and effectively clearing a mission. Having dedicated his life to fighting for far longer than Leon, he feels more powerful in a way, delivering punches and takedowns that are less about safely and stylishly executing foes and moreso just about asserting as much force as possible over them. And though they’re likely coincidental, the system changes made to the game also make it feel a lot more in-line with Chris’ armyman personality. You don’t get calming moments of focus and thinking when choosing what weapon to use or heal yourself, as the item menu can exclusively be accessed in real-time: That both makes the gameplay far more tense and exciting, and gives Leon’s way of handling items a sense of connection to him as a character.
The main system change I was referring to though, and the thing this game is easily best known for, is cooperative play. It’s something the series had dabbled in before - funny enough, the prequel game starring the girl Chris helped in his debut title, was about cooperation across two characters. But that was more like taking turns controlling each character, whereas Resident Evil 5 jumps head-first into full-on 2-player action, and if you don’t have a second person around I’m sure the AI made the experience miserable. Indeed, working together fits Chris like a glove, and they weave it into the story really well, but you really aren’t getting the full picture until you play this game with someone else. Even in the hampered split-screen mode I had to use for my own playthrough (seriously, look it up, it’s disgusting) the raw fun of fighting zombies as two people cannot be overstated. Resident Evil 4 was already a fantastically mechanically dense game, with weapons affecting enemies in different ways and combat often being presented as a big maze of options to consider, and 5 takes that exact blueprint and amplifies it with two players in mind. One player can headshot an enemy close to the second player to stun it and letting the second player melee, one player can pass on herbs or grenades to the other who may be in dire need, or both can work together to corner enemies in a way to minimize their options of escape. This is an area where sticking so close to what 4 set out to do really paid off - every mechanic that worked great in 4 still works amazingly here in 5, often times even enhanced when with another player.
“Tense action” is the term Capcom themselves use to describe the over-the-shoulder Resident Evil games of the 2000s and early 2010s, and its a term I really like. Because even with Resident Evil 4, the amount of freedom given in aiming and the high octane action of both the gameplay and cutscenes firmly established it as different from the survival horror roots of the franchise. Indeed, neither Resident Evil 4 nor 5 are about survival, and their horror has diminished substantially because of it…yet tension still remains due to how easy it still is to be swarmed, and how many split-second decisions you always need to be making to ensure you won’t get screwed over later in the game. In a Halo or a Gears of War, though enemies may be oppressive, you’re also fully allowed to simply spray them with bullets, to simply hide to recover your health back up or to do completely reckless but effective strategies with your free movement. What kept Resident Evil 4’s bold step into the future still feeling like Resident Evil was this restraint, keeping things tense, and its why I don’t feel either 4 or 5 “killed” the series: Both games are still very successful in creating stress and tension in the player. The best segments of the game are when you’re stuck in a maze of houses and alleyways, with enemies sprawling out of every crevice, and that isn’t because it allows you to go as hog wild as possible with strategy or feel as cool as possible, but because it creates genuine tension in both players. What if you get too far separated and can’t heal each other as effectively, or what if one gets cornered, or if there’s crucial items to be found in a side path both of you ignored? I’d argue that between 4 and 5, while 4 had a very healthy selection of interesting gameplay twists, in terms of raw core-gameplay content 5 delivers in far greater spades. The standout moment of 4 is the introductory Village fight, and 5 is as if half of the game was just variations and remixes of that fight, in the best way possible. That may once again be showing just how safe 5 prefers to play it over how daring 4 was, yet both games still feel so true to what Resident Evil has always wanted to be: Tense, scary even, yet oh so satisfying to master. Even though the action has been dialed up further and further, inside gameplay and in cutscenes, it feels like a natural progression of the series has been building toward, and in a way shows a kind of growth in the characters you’ve been following for so long.
And that brings us…to Wesker.
God, I fucking love Wesker. I know that Resident Evil 4 is the golden child with the gaming community, and its place is rightfully deserved, but…its story and characters do not hold a candle to Wesker’s performance alone in this game. He ties things full circle, bringing the next installment of the series with a decade-old rivalry with Chris, and does so in spectacular fashion. I honestly think the entire story is great for what it is, it both builds on the Resident Evil world in ways 4 was too distant to want to do while also reintroducing concepts from both 4 and older games in the franchise to really feel as if all of those adventures built up to this. All the encounters with Wesker are the best moments of the game, yet all the new villains and factions are memorable in their own right, just feeling like new pieces to a greater puzzle. The game also looks beautiful, not even just for the time and hardware it was on but to this day: The harsh sunlight and barren, yet beautiful towns of Africa are both striking on their own and play off of 4’s nighttime rural Europe perfectly. The two games bounce off of each other so well as a whole that it’s hard to believe that they’re separated by three years and a totally different director.
And for all the praise I’ve given it here, it sadly is hard for the game to shake that “new director”-feel. While its merging of old and new is almost always met well, there are those moments that absolutely push it too far - the boring turret sections set atop cars and clunky cover-shooting sections feel almost cowardly, borrowing wholesale from the other contemporary western shooters of the era. It’s that lack of confidence again, as if they couldn’t quite decide on if they should do the old, the new, or what the rest of the industry was doing, and decided to do them all in somewhat equal doses. That is what will always keep this game looming in Resident Evil 4’s shadow despite arguably surpassing it in most areas, yet it’s not exactly the worst fate to end up second fiddle to one of the greatest games of all time. Really, its an absolute miracle that the game remains so likable while being so scatterbrained, and it was largely thanks to having such a perfect foundation to build it on. Yet it moves with such love for itself, for the entire franchise, both the legacy and the offshoots, that it just feels like one big family holiday reunion.
At the end of the day, it was working together that saved Resident Evil - both in-universe, and out.
[Difficulty Used: Normal]
[Playtime: 15 Hours]
[Key word: Collective]
“What’s next?”
How do you not only follow up this groundbreaking, industry-redefining, classic game, but do so without any help whatsoever from the series’ captain? Is it really safe to take big, sweeping risks without as much of an understanding of what truly defined the series, as its original creator had? After three years of development, Resident Evil 5 sought to answer that question with a game that’s simultaneously exactly what one would’ve expected, yet still daring and likable.
To me, Resident Evil 4 has always felt as if it wanted more than anything to boldly move forward, to move on from the past and embrace a new status quo. Beyond its wholly new playstyle, its the first game in the series not to be set around Raccoon City, and the villains of those first games are dissolved off-screen before this entry even starts. There’s no item boxes, level design is linear, you’re well rewarded for killing enemies rather than encouraged to avoid combat, the cutscenes are action-packed and feature Quicktime events - were it not for Leon, Ada, and a general zombie-virus theme, this could have passed for a wholly new franchise entirely. Its a bold direction that only truly worked due to the confidence Mikami had in the project, and its a confidence that Resident Evil 5 is very lacking in in comparison. But let’s set it straight: Having that degree of confidence is not always a good thing. Though exploring new frontiers is fun and celebrated by all, its also a dangerous, lonely venture, one that can lead to making terrible mistakes or change someone far too drastically. For as important as it is to innovate, it’s just as important to remember and celebrate your roots, and I find that to be Resident Evil 5’s most defining attribute. It takes 4’s bold steps and innovations, its new style and feel, and weaves connections with it to the old world and characters we once knew from the original trilogy. Just look at our protagonist: It's Chris Redfield! By taking the protagonist of the very first game, and putting him in the playstyle of that bold new direction, it really communicates the wish to bring all walks of Resident Evil together for the future.
Honestly, even though the gameplay sticks quite close to what 4 established, I'm impressed by how different Chris and Leon feel to play almost purely from the overall personality these two games exude. Leon has always been a one-man team, originally not by choice but it led to him becoming a spy, working in secret. Thus his game really does reflect that, with RE4 having a somewhat lonely, quiet atmosphere, and gameplay that most often rewards precision and strategy. Chris, meanwhile, is more experienced than Leon, ever since RE1 he was working with a team and valued charging through with no men falling behind far more than stealthily and effectively clearing a mission. Having dedicated his life to fighting for far longer than Leon, he feels more powerful in a way, delivering punches and takedowns that are less about safely and stylishly executing foes and moreso just about asserting as much force as possible over them. And though they’re likely coincidental, the system changes made to the game also make it feel a lot more in-line with Chris’ armyman personality. You don’t get calming moments of focus and thinking when choosing what weapon to use or heal yourself, as the item menu can exclusively be accessed in real-time: That both makes the gameplay far more tense and exciting, and gives Leon’s way of handling items a sense of connection to him as a character.
The main system change I was referring to though, and the thing this game is easily best known for, is cooperative play. It’s something the series had dabbled in before - funny enough, the prequel game starring the girl Chris helped in his debut title, was about cooperation across two characters. But that was more like taking turns controlling each character, whereas Resident Evil 5 jumps head-first into full-on 2-player action, and if you don’t have a second person around I’m sure the AI made the experience miserable. Indeed, working together fits Chris like a glove, and they weave it into the story really well, but you really aren’t getting the full picture until you play this game with someone else. Even in the hampered split-screen mode I had to use for my own playthrough (seriously, look it up, it’s disgusting) the raw fun of fighting zombies as two people cannot be overstated. Resident Evil 4 was already a fantastically mechanically dense game, with weapons affecting enemies in different ways and combat often being presented as a big maze of options to consider, and 5 takes that exact blueprint and amplifies it with two players in mind. One player can headshot an enemy close to the second player to stun it and letting the second player melee, one player can pass on herbs or grenades to the other who may be in dire need, or both can work together to corner enemies in a way to minimize their options of escape. This is an area where sticking so close to what 4 set out to do really paid off - every mechanic that worked great in 4 still works amazingly here in 5, often times even enhanced when with another player.
“Tense action” is the term Capcom themselves use to describe the over-the-shoulder Resident Evil games of the 2000s and early 2010s, and its a term I really like. Because even with Resident Evil 4, the amount of freedom given in aiming and the high octane action of both the gameplay and cutscenes firmly established it as different from the survival horror roots of the franchise. Indeed, neither Resident Evil 4 nor 5 are about survival, and their horror has diminished substantially because of it…yet tension still remains due to how easy it still is to be swarmed, and how many split-second decisions you always need to be making to ensure you won’t get screwed over later in the game. In a Halo or a Gears of War, though enemies may be oppressive, you’re also fully allowed to simply spray them with bullets, to simply hide to recover your health back up or to do completely reckless but effective strategies with your free movement. What kept Resident Evil 4’s bold step into the future still feeling like Resident Evil was this restraint, keeping things tense, and its why I don’t feel either 4 or 5 “killed” the series: Both games are still very successful in creating stress and tension in the player. The best segments of the game are when you’re stuck in a maze of houses and alleyways, with enemies sprawling out of every crevice, and that isn’t because it allows you to go as hog wild as possible with strategy or feel as cool as possible, but because it creates genuine tension in both players. What if you get too far separated and can’t heal each other as effectively, or what if one gets cornered, or if there’s crucial items to be found in a side path both of you ignored? I’d argue that between 4 and 5, while 4 had a very healthy selection of interesting gameplay twists, in terms of raw core-gameplay content 5 delivers in far greater spades. The standout moment of 4 is the introductory Village fight, and 5 is as if half of the game was just variations and remixes of that fight, in the best way possible. That may once again be showing just how safe 5 prefers to play it over how daring 4 was, yet both games still feel so true to what Resident Evil has always wanted to be: Tense, scary even, yet oh so satisfying to master. Even though the action has been dialed up further and further, inside gameplay and in cutscenes, it feels like a natural progression of the series has been building toward, and in a way shows a kind of growth in the characters you’ve been following for so long.
And that brings us…to Wesker.
God, I fucking love Wesker. I know that Resident Evil 4 is the golden child with the gaming community, and its place is rightfully deserved, but…its story and characters do not hold a candle to Wesker’s performance alone in this game. He ties things full circle, bringing the next installment of the series with a decade-old rivalry with Chris, and does so in spectacular fashion. I honestly think the entire story is great for what it is, it both builds on the Resident Evil world in ways 4 was too distant to want to do while also reintroducing concepts from both 4 and older games in the franchise to really feel as if all of those adventures built up to this. All the encounters with Wesker are the best moments of the game, yet all the new villains and factions are memorable in their own right, just feeling like new pieces to a greater puzzle. The game also looks beautiful, not even just for the time and hardware it was on but to this day: The harsh sunlight and barren, yet beautiful towns of Africa are both striking on their own and play off of 4’s nighttime rural Europe perfectly. The two games bounce off of each other so well as a whole that it’s hard to believe that they’re separated by three years and a totally different director.
And for all the praise I’ve given it here, it sadly is hard for the game to shake that “new director”-feel. While its merging of old and new is almost always met well, there are those moments that absolutely push it too far - the boring turret sections set atop cars and clunky cover-shooting sections feel almost cowardly, borrowing wholesale from the other contemporary western shooters of the era. It’s that lack of confidence again, as if they couldn’t quite decide on if they should do the old, the new, or what the rest of the industry was doing, and decided to do them all in somewhat equal doses. That is what will always keep this game looming in Resident Evil 4’s shadow despite arguably surpassing it in most areas, yet it’s not exactly the worst fate to end up second fiddle to one of the greatest games of all time. Really, its an absolute miracle that the game remains so likable while being so scatterbrained, and it was largely thanks to having such a perfect foundation to build it on. Yet it moves with such love for itself, for the entire franchise, both the legacy and the offshoots, that it just feels like one big family holiday reunion.
At the end of the day, it was working together that saved Resident Evil - both in-universe, and out.
[Difficulty Used: Normal]
[Playtime: 15 Hours]
[Key word: Collective]
2 Comments
I'll play it with you some day :(
glukhoiov
1 year ago