I was apprehensive about Resident Evil 4 getting a remake. After all, the original is still a great game that's easy to pick up and play today, and there are other Resident Evils - notably RE5 and Code Veronica - which would benefit more from a second pass. I understood the profit motive of doing this, but whether or not it would justify itself as a game I was a whole lot less certain of.
Well, damn, this must've been directed by Raylan Givens, because it's justified.
This isn't the Resident Evil 3 remake, which was patently reductive in its approach, gutting large chunks of gameplay and limiting Nemesis to scripted events. Rather, Resident Evil 4 builds on the source material in a way that feels very natural, and understandably so considering the "REmake series" shares more of its DNA with 2005's Resident Evil 4 than it does with the "classic" trilogy. Toe to tip, this feels like the better game to me, owed to the fact that Capcom has been refining the core design concepts and mechanics of the original for 18 years.
Much like the recent Resident Evil 2, it trades slow enemies, limited controls, and tight spaces for more fluid and kinetic gameplay. Make no mistake, I am not faulting these games for playing the way they do, I find their control schemes to be not only a product of their time but critical for crafting tension, and the larger design of those games was so carefully curated around how they control it's hard for me to imagine playing them any other way (I still use tank controls in the HD remaster of Resident Evil, for chrissakes.)
There's a stronger emphasis on movement, as Ganados are no longer prone to passively pointing and screaming at you. No, these Ganados have drank all their Powerade™ and they are coming for your ass, which means you'll need to be even more aware of your surroundings and constantly be on the move. There's a much greater expectation on interacting with your environment, especially during combat, and some of the ways you can turn the arena against your enemies is extremely satisfying. Especially if doing so results in an explosion, which are so abrupt and visceral in the amount of damage they do. The first time I shot a stick of dynamite out of a Ganado's hand and saw it immediately break them in half and fling their upper-body several feet away I shouted "oh FUCK" to absolutely no one.
Being able to actually hotswap weapons makes such a huge difference as well and is crucial to maintaining the pace and flow of combat. It got me thinking more strategically about which weapons I wanted to employ on the fly and even helped me weasel my way out of a few dicey situations. The combat knife has similarly been overhauled. Now more a defensive weapon, you can use the knife to push away an attacking Ganados at the expense of its durability, and you can even use it to parry enemy attacks when you're back into a corner or low on ammunition. Not that you'll be low on ammo often, it's every bit as abundant as it was in 2005 and you're now able to craft more ammo using gunpowder and "resources," although they're more likely to just eat up inventory space. Still, I think the remake's greatest strength is in the amount of options it gives you, and how its combat arenas are big playgrounds that can be freely approached.
Bosses and certain set pieces are also vastly improved. Salazar no longer stands still, swiping at you occasionally with broad, easily avoidable attacks. The mine cart segment is much more of a thrill ride (I do like thrill rides), requiring you to lean into turns and take out enemy mine carts rather than wait for Ganados to jump in for a claustrophobic firefight. Krauser's initial boss battle relies upon the expanded knife mechanics, which means you no longer get to watch the same cutscene like, five times until you have all the QTE's memorized. Puzzles are also much better. In the original game they were almost obligatory, downright insipid in places, but the remake makes them far more engaging and I actually think some of these might be among the best in the REmake series. However, I will mourn the loss of the gigantic animatronic Salazar, and although It was never Resident Evil 4's strongest encounter, I was hoping to see them actually do something with It rather than cut It.
One of the biggest points of contention seems to be Resident Evil 4's story and the way it handles its characters, with people complaining about a wide array of things from how it lacks a prerequisite amount of camp to characters not being attractive enough (???) And, again, I disagree with a lot of it. Leon is still a total himbo with a penchant for belting out corny one-liners, the only difference here is that a lot of them are spoken in the middle of combat. Which, personally, I find even funnier because it means he's saying stuff like "Oh, oops, I slipped" while administering a roundhouse to a Ganado's cranium with no one around. That's just for him. I don't know how anyone can hear the line "I'll give you a hole-y body" before skewering a guy and think this game lacks camp.
Sure, it's more grounded and tonally in-step with the other remakes, but it's still ridiculous. The original Resident Evil 4 was a pastiche of post-9/11 action movies, and I firmly believe that kind of satire wouldn't play as well today. It just doesn't have the same punch so far removed from the zenith of that style of filmmaking. However, I was surprised to find out how much of that energy was still present. Mike, your helicopter pilot, is somehow even more 2005-action-movie-dumbass than before, and a lot of notes and files are word-for-word, including the "Subject Analysis: Regenerador" document, which is one of my favorites across the entire franchise. Even Salazar's extremely clunky dialog about Leon being a player in his "script" is intact, which is amazing because it's so bad I would've thought if you had a second pass on any singular piece of dialog, that'd be it. Vocal performances are good overall, the guy they got to do the Merchant turns in one hell of an approximation of the original, and I love how Luis is a total slimeball in this. On the other hand, Ada sounds positively bored to be here, and Wesker is so lacking in smugness as to sound distressingly uninspired. If a Resident Evil 5 remake is in the cards, I am begging Capcom to find some way to get Peter Jessop back.
Now that we've gotten Resident Evil 4 out of the way, I am begging Capcom to remake Dino Crisis. Please, please do it, pleaes i need to see Regina's thighs just le tme at them i paid full price for this, i gave it a 4.5, i did everything you asked of me please
Well, damn, this must've been directed by Raylan Givens, because it's justified.
This isn't the Resident Evil 3 remake, which was patently reductive in its approach, gutting large chunks of gameplay and limiting Nemesis to scripted events. Rather, Resident Evil 4 builds on the source material in a way that feels very natural, and understandably so considering the "REmake series" shares more of its DNA with 2005's Resident Evil 4 than it does with the "classic" trilogy. Toe to tip, this feels like the better game to me, owed to the fact that Capcom has been refining the core design concepts and mechanics of the original for 18 years.
Much like the recent Resident Evil 2, it trades slow enemies, limited controls, and tight spaces for more fluid and kinetic gameplay. Make no mistake, I am not faulting these games for playing the way they do, I find their control schemes to be not only a product of their time but critical for crafting tension, and the larger design of those games was so carefully curated around how they control it's hard for me to imagine playing them any other way (I still use tank controls in the HD remaster of Resident Evil, for chrissakes.)
There's a stronger emphasis on movement, as Ganados are no longer prone to passively pointing and screaming at you. No, these Ganados have drank all their Powerade™ and they are coming for your ass, which means you'll need to be even more aware of your surroundings and constantly be on the move. There's a much greater expectation on interacting with your environment, especially during combat, and some of the ways you can turn the arena against your enemies is extremely satisfying. Especially if doing so results in an explosion, which are so abrupt and visceral in the amount of damage they do. The first time I shot a stick of dynamite out of a Ganado's hand and saw it immediately break them in half and fling their upper-body several feet away I shouted "oh FUCK" to absolutely no one.
Being able to actually hotswap weapons makes such a huge difference as well and is crucial to maintaining the pace and flow of combat. It got me thinking more strategically about which weapons I wanted to employ on the fly and even helped me weasel my way out of a few dicey situations. The combat knife has similarly been overhauled. Now more a defensive weapon, you can use the knife to push away an attacking Ganados at the expense of its durability, and you can even use it to parry enemy attacks when you're back into a corner or low on ammunition. Not that you'll be low on ammo often, it's every bit as abundant as it was in 2005 and you're now able to craft more ammo using gunpowder and "resources," although they're more likely to just eat up inventory space. Still, I think the remake's greatest strength is in the amount of options it gives you, and how its combat arenas are big playgrounds that can be freely approached.
Bosses and certain set pieces are also vastly improved. Salazar no longer stands still, swiping at you occasionally with broad, easily avoidable attacks. The mine cart segment is much more of a thrill ride (I do like thrill rides), requiring you to lean into turns and take out enemy mine carts rather than wait for Ganados to jump in for a claustrophobic firefight. Krauser's initial boss battle relies upon the expanded knife mechanics, which means you no longer get to watch the same cutscene like, five times until you have all the QTE's memorized. Puzzles are also much better. In the original game they were almost obligatory, downright insipid in places, but the remake makes them far more engaging and I actually think some of these might be among the best in the REmake series. However, I will mourn the loss of the gigantic animatronic Salazar, and although It was never Resident Evil 4's strongest encounter, I was hoping to see them actually do something with It rather than cut It.
One of the biggest points of contention seems to be Resident Evil 4's story and the way it handles its characters, with people complaining about a wide array of things from how it lacks a prerequisite amount of camp to characters not being attractive enough (???) And, again, I disagree with a lot of it. Leon is still a total himbo with a penchant for belting out corny one-liners, the only difference here is that a lot of them are spoken in the middle of combat. Which, personally, I find even funnier because it means he's saying stuff like "Oh, oops, I slipped" while administering a roundhouse to a Ganado's cranium with no one around. That's just for him. I don't know how anyone can hear the line "I'll give you a hole-y body" before skewering a guy and think this game lacks camp.
Sure, it's more grounded and tonally in-step with the other remakes, but it's still ridiculous. The original Resident Evil 4 was a pastiche of post-9/11 action movies, and I firmly believe that kind of satire wouldn't play as well today. It just doesn't have the same punch so far removed from the zenith of that style of filmmaking. However, I was surprised to find out how much of that energy was still present. Mike, your helicopter pilot, is somehow even more 2005-action-movie-dumbass than before, and a lot of notes and files are word-for-word, including the "Subject Analysis: Regenerador" document, which is one of my favorites across the entire franchise. Even Salazar's extremely clunky dialog about Leon being a player in his "script" is intact, which is amazing because it's so bad I would've thought if you had a second pass on any singular piece of dialog, that'd be it. Vocal performances are good overall, the guy they got to do the Merchant turns in one hell of an approximation of the original, and I love how Luis is a total slimeball in this. On the other hand, Ada sounds positively bored to be here, and Wesker is so lacking in smugness as to sound distressingly uninspired. If a Resident Evil 5 remake is in the cards, I am begging Capcom to find some way to get Peter Jessop back.
Now that we've gotten Resident Evil 4 out of the way, I am begging Capcom to remake Dino Crisis. Please, please do it, pleaes i need to see Regina's thighs just le tme at them i paid full price for this, i gave it a 4.5, i did everything you asked of me please
Weatherby
1 year ago