It took me somewhere in the realm of four months to beat Resident Evil 4. After being completely sold on the franchise when I played 7 and 8 last year, I figured I should go back through the series’ extensive history. RE4 came highest recommended among my friends who had played the other games, so what better place to start?

I almost bounced off the game immediately. To my mind, third person shooters were supposed to feel like Gears of War or Vanquish. Being locked in place while shooting and adjusting to the control scheme was a steep hill for me to climb. I made it about three or four hours into the game before putting it down for three months. You would think the knowledge of a remake coming later this year would have cemented my decision to leave the original game (Ok, not exactly) behind. But something about the way my brain works made it have the opposite effect: I had to experience the game as it was originally made before playing the remake.

Now, a couple weeks out from finishing it, I’m so, so glad I made the decision to go back. Coming at it the second time around the core loop of the game just clicked for me. The pattern of headshot, roundhouse kick, knife repeated over and over just became soothing to my brain. So much of that has to with the animations, I think. The way heads explode, Leon’s comically exaggerated kick, enemies reeling back when you pump a shotgun shell into them… it all accentuates the experience of playing the game.

A couple of the weapon upgrades made a big difference for me as well. Switching from the starting pistol to the Red9 and and swapping the generic shotgun for the Striker made the game incredibly satisfying. Expanding my arsenal made every combat encounter much more compelling. Knowing when to bust out the TMP or deploy grenades vs conserving resources and relying on the Red9 became an essential part of success. Successfully solving each encounter just felt cool. And despite the slower pace of the game–relative to shooters I’m used to–the increased power of higher tier weapons, combined with the animations, made Leon feel like a classic action movie hero.

Which I think is actually the biggest difference between Biohazard/Village and RE4. My introduction to the franchise had come in the form of a pair of games that lean heavily into the survival-horror genre. You couldn’t just shoot your way out of every scenario, and the narratives go so far as to swap Ethan out for other characters when the game demands an action-heavy segment. But in nearly every aspect–gameplay, tone, characters, narrative–RE4 wears its action movie influences on its sleeve. Adjusting to that was hard, but once I did, the reward was significant, and RE4 has quickly risen the ranks of my favorite games.

Really fun third person shooter with a ton of style, love smoking a cigarette real quick while sitting behind cover like it's nbd. But man it does kinda wear out its welcome by the end, it doesn't introduce a ton of new mechanics, and even the new enemies slow to an absolute trickle by the end. Would have loved to see the core of this built out into something a bit more compelling, the gameplay loop and over the top writing are fantastic but it just needs that bit of extra spice to really feel like something special.