I waited a wee while after finishing to see how I felt days later. Can still see myself taking a half star off somewhere down the line.

The best conclusion I can come to is that yes it's very nice and shiny, but I hate that the rules seem to have gone. It feels like a toolset has been removed. RE4's combat had rules to it. You knew how to manipulate the crowd. Kiting enemies together then using a well placed shot to get a stun and roundhouse the lot of them. A leg shot on the running dude would put him on the ground and buy time to take out the stronger enemy coming at his back, or even let you go to town on him with the knife as he stands up to save ammo. You figured out the rules, and used them to your advantage. But now all those interactions feel like pure luck the game occasionally deigns to let you have. It feels like a consequence of chasing the realism that modern Resi goes for. They don't want recognisable patterns from photorealistic enemies. There need to be subtle movements and stuff that feel natural or the illusion breaks down. The arcadeyness is gone in favour of a fucking chicken being able to stun Leon long enough to let Ganados get a command grab on him. I'm just rambling here. But this all feels very clear coming off a replay of the original the day before release.

In their brilliant review, RexZakel said: "Ultimately, a big realization I made about RE4 Remake compared to the original is that it’s a game where things simply happen to you, rather than a game where you can make things happen."

Nail on the head.

There is something so funny about your "rebirth" game having a story that feels written by AI, a terrible ending, and it actually killing the series.

It's been ages since I played the original, so it's impossible to compare the parkour. I remember it feeling tight and responsive, and this time round there's a looseness to it I just can't get on board with. The swinging stuff often sent me flying over to the side and dropping to my death instead of the direction I was holding. Wall runs only seemed to initiate 70% of the time, and the combat... Fuck me, the combat. It's so rigid. There's a feeling of every attack button locking you into an animation that either connects or gets blocked. Over and over while you try to avoid gun enemies that face one direction and shoot bullets in the other. I lost count of the amount of dudes I was running up behind and saw the muzzle flash come through their back and drop me without them even turning around. A miserable thing.

I started playing this when Steam still had to open Origin to get it running. But at some point it swapped to the new EA app and completely tanked performance. It went from smooth as butter to having bizarre pop-in and massive frame hang. EA stays winning.

I remember this being more solid but it turns out that was because I played the 360 port with the improvements.

It's very funny that the main aspect of the game is so jank. Melee combat at the forefront and it feels a bit like trying to fight in water. You could understand the guns being the dodgy part, but they feel equally just as loose as throwing hands.

The setting and mad character designs do the heavy lifting. It's an interesting world, and it certainly helps that the big "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME, GADGET" voiced motherfucker do be cubin'.

An insult to the series. God what a mess.

Plays like absolute shit. Frank feels so loose like he might take off away from your control at any moment. Every character is either bland as cardboard, or too obnoxious to pay attention to, with Frank himself being the worst of them. They've made him into a constantly quipping arsehole type that feels so out of place in a game that only released in 2016.

I'm glad this killed the series after what DR5 was apparently going to be. It's bad enough doing this to Frank, no need to drag Chuck down into the shit as well.