Nothing about this game is really that groundbreaking, but a well-made Metroidvania is always a thing of beauty.

The platforming and puzzles are the highlight. The combat works well, but all of the potential upgrades can throw the balance out of whack (a problem as old as Symphony of the Night). The boss battles are still a lot of fun, especially because the animators are on the top of their game.

The story had a lot of promise at first, but didn't really deliver on that promise (the English voice acting doesn't do it any service). On launch, there are quite a few little bugs (UI issues and repeating cutscenes), but fortunately nothing that affected the tight platforming.

I've only ever played 2 versions of RE4 - the original, on Game Cube, and this one. The miracle of the remake is that it's both entirely its own thing, and yet without going back, it's hard to notice the differences at all. It makes RE4 feel fresh and new again. Even though it's the urtext for the modern third person shooter, there's also nothing else like it.

The original flaws are there too. Just like the original, I think the campaign almost outstays its welcome. (I'm probably alone in this, but I've always felt that they should have gone with two shorter campaigns like the earlier Resident Evils, maybe split equally between Leon and Ada.)

Lastly, a note about the VR version. I'm a huge fan of RE7 on VR, and I waited until VR mode was released to play RE4. A couple short sessions convinced me they made a perfectly serviceable conversion, but it was never going to be the best way to play this game. RE4 was never about horror or jump scares, and while it feels good to aim and shoot in VR, it sidesteps everything that's really unique about RE4. Really too bad, since it only furthers the argument that PSVR2 isn't getting the support it deserves.

(I played this on PS4, but that's not an option in Backloggd.)

Kudos to the designers for finding more interesting puzzles with the same mechanics as the main game, but I think a DLC of this size justifies having genuinely new mechanics, and (like the original game) there are more puzzles here than necessary. By the end, I felt less clever, and more annoyed at the amount of fiddle necessary. I also had no interest in getting any of the stars, given how hard many of them are just to locate, and so I was annoyed that the game seems to lock the best ending behind them.

That being said, the story being told in Gehenna is genuinely more interesting, and the core mechanics are well-designed enough (and still unique 6 years after the fact) that I mostly had a good time.