Another strong entry in the series, definitely the best AAA game that's come out in a long time, but is unfortunately living in the shadow of one of the greatest action games ever made and couldn't live up to that.
I'm willing to forgive certain things like some underwhelming setpieces but the mistakes they made with the base controls are hard to swallow. Leon feels designed for a much slower game than this. It's easy enough to adjust and start thinking a few steps ahead on standard but the higher difficulties are more annoying than they ought to be because of it. The sluggish aiming can be patched up a bit too with some tweaks to the game's settings but fire up the original game or even RE2R and what you get is way more responsive there. It just feels like an unnecessary step backwards.
This pairs with another change I don't like. Enemies feel a bit more random this time around. I get what they were going for with this since the original RE4 is a mix of mostly reliable mechanics with some randomness thrown in to keep you on your toes. I don't know what's actually going on behind the scenes to cause enemies to stagger, fall over when hit in the limbs, flinch etc but it feels like the changes combined make the game a bit more random which makes it harder to form and execute a plan. This kind of thing cuts into replayability since this game doesn't feel like something I can master the same way.
Those are my two big complaints, but like I said overall it's a good time. It's not as great at the original RE4 at doing what RE4 does, but it does keep that spirit of constantly springing new circumstances on you to fight around. This is a far cry from the average AAA third person action game where you just fight the same 5 enemies the whole time. It feels like there's something new to worry about every few encounters and keeping that energy up for an entire game is a great achievement, especially with how much more difficult these projects have gotten since the original came out.
I'm lukewarm on the story. "Grounding" Resident Evil 4 always seemed like a bit of a poor fit to me since it's not all that strong of a plot on it's own. It's the exaggerated personalities that make it entertaining so sanding that off and trying to make it more realistic just leaves it with kind of a barebones plot. Characters like Salazar are just being wasted if they aren't getting in your face and taking the piss all the time. With Leon it feels like they couldn't decide if he was going to be a brooding traumatized soldier or the cool collected action hero he was in the OG. They land on this awkward middle ground where he's a bit dull most of the time and the times where he does quip feel a bit out of place. The less I talk about Ada the better. This game is a great reminder of how important voice actors are because it's basically impossible to pull anything deeper out of a reading this dry and matter-of-factual. Every time she was on screen I was just waiting for her to leave again.
It's not all bad though. I liked Luis and Ashley more this time around. Luis is a lot more coherent of a character and his back-and-forth with Leon brings out some of the latter's best moments. I was actually pretty sad when he went down this time. Ashley in particular is pretty lovable and easy to root for compared to the original game, and the connection she makes with Leon feels pretty genuine and enhances the final act by a lot. I can only really remember two moments that felt genuinely tense in the original but in the remake most of the attempts to make the game of a horror piece work out pretty well.
For all it's problems though, I fired up a second playthrough right after I finished it so it's pretty clear we have a pretty good game on our hands here. RE has been such a consistently fun time since 7 came out that I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Remaking your best game seems like a prime recipe for that type of disaster but I'm happy to report that that's not the case. It's a great time. Maybe not the revolution the original was but imo most of RE4's actual strong points went ignored despite it's influence, so it's nice to see Capcom bring some of that greatness back to the surface with the new title.
I'm willing to forgive certain things like some underwhelming setpieces but the mistakes they made with the base controls are hard to swallow. Leon feels designed for a much slower game than this. It's easy enough to adjust and start thinking a few steps ahead on standard but the higher difficulties are more annoying than they ought to be because of it. The sluggish aiming can be patched up a bit too with some tweaks to the game's settings but fire up the original game or even RE2R and what you get is way more responsive there. It just feels like an unnecessary step backwards.
This pairs with another change I don't like. Enemies feel a bit more random this time around. I get what they were going for with this since the original RE4 is a mix of mostly reliable mechanics with some randomness thrown in to keep you on your toes. I don't know what's actually going on behind the scenes to cause enemies to stagger, fall over when hit in the limbs, flinch etc but it feels like the changes combined make the game a bit more random which makes it harder to form and execute a plan. This kind of thing cuts into replayability since this game doesn't feel like something I can master the same way.
Those are my two big complaints, but like I said overall it's a good time. It's not as great at the original RE4 at doing what RE4 does, but it does keep that spirit of constantly springing new circumstances on you to fight around. This is a far cry from the average AAA third person action game where you just fight the same 5 enemies the whole time. It feels like there's something new to worry about every few encounters and keeping that energy up for an entire game is a great achievement, especially with how much more difficult these projects have gotten since the original came out.
I'm lukewarm on the story. "Grounding" Resident Evil 4 always seemed like a bit of a poor fit to me since it's not all that strong of a plot on it's own. It's the exaggerated personalities that make it entertaining so sanding that off and trying to make it more realistic just leaves it with kind of a barebones plot. Characters like Salazar are just being wasted if they aren't getting in your face and taking the piss all the time. With Leon it feels like they couldn't decide if he was going to be a brooding traumatized soldier or the cool collected action hero he was in the OG. They land on this awkward middle ground where he's a bit dull most of the time and the times where he does quip feel a bit out of place. The less I talk about Ada the better. This game is a great reminder of how important voice actors are because it's basically impossible to pull anything deeper out of a reading this dry and matter-of-factual. Every time she was on screen I was just waiting for her to leave again.
It's not all bad though. I liked Luis and Ashley more this time around. Luis is a lot more coherent of a character and his back-and-forth with Leon brings out some of the latter's best moments. I was actually pretty sad when he went down this time. Ashley in particular is pretty lovable and easy to root for compared to the original game, and the connection she makes with Leon feels pretty genuine and enhances the final act by a lot. I can only really remember two moments that felt genuinely tense in the original but in the remake most of the attempts to make the game of a horror piece work out pretty well.
For all it's problems though, I fired up a second playthrough right after I finished it so it's pretty clear we have a pretty good game on our hands here. RE has been such a consistently fun time since 7 came out that I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Remaking your best game seems like a prime recipe for that type of disaster but I'm happy to report that that's not the case. It's a great time. Maybe not the revolution the original was but imo most of RE4's actual strong points went ignored despite it's influence, so it's nice to see Capcom bring some of that greatness back to the surface with the new title.