For most of my life, I've considered
Resident Evil 4 the greatest game of all time. More recently I've considered some competitors, but everytime I come back to RE4 I can't put it down. I learn more about it, I discover new tricks, I repeat old ones. There's a million reasons to love the original but I think one of the key one's is how replayable it is. Since I first played RE4 over a decade ago, I've come back to it at least 10 times to run through again and mix it up a bit. So when I saw a game which still played phenomenally well getting a remake I was skeptical.
Resident Evil 4 (2023) is a great game, but is in no way better then the original. The major problem comes with the task of remaking this game. While the
Resident Evil 2 remake had a lot of freedom and flexibility to craft it's own identity due to playing very differently from the original, RE4 still plays the same. If anything it plays worse, the bloom on guns feels terrible, the feeling of guns and kicks doesn't have the oomph it once had, and moving while shooting drastically lessens the tension. The addition of parrying is awesome and leads to some tense moments, but the added stealth feels mostly pointless.
Changes are made to the story, and sure some of them are fun. Luis' new scummy personality is a fun change and Ashley feels like a human, but otherwise why? None of the villains' are built up in the same way they are in the original. Krauser and Ada feel like parodies of themselves. Hunnigan barely appears.
Most importantly though, where is the charm? The game tries to be campy like the original and with the exception of
Leon shooting the villains mid-monologue and maybe one or two other things, it just feels forced. The jokes feel like they're trying to be weird rather than just being weird on it's own. I let this game sit a bit before writing this review, and it just hasn't stuck with me as much. I can't name a single line on the level of "your right hand comes off". The remaking of this game just feels too much of the same which is originally why I mentioned before why I was skeptical of this remake. Why remake something which does nearly everything right?
It may sound like I'm railing on this game, but I did still really enjoy it. The weapon balancing is nailed just like the original and leads to unique builds. The combat while not as good as the original still does a good job (the foggy room at the start of a castle is a perfect highlight of this). The soundtrack while not as memorable is ominous. And while the locations aren't as memorable, it's nice to see such a beautiful version of the village.
Despite my high rating for this game, it's hard to recommend it, because the original exists still and does the same thing but better. My enjoyment solely comes from being a big fan of the Resident Evil franchise as a whole. It's a well put together product, but it misses on so many small little levels that it just pales to the original. Why is the regenerator a joke compared to the original, why is the inventory so grey, why do the new sections serve almost no purpose, where is U3, why do I feel no connection to the main villain, why is mercenaries so easy?
Ultimately I could talk a lot more about what I like and don't about this game, but it's not worth my time. This is a really a solid action horror shooter, but don't play it. Play the original and play every other RE game first. There's so much nuance that the original gets right that this doesn't. From aesthetic changes like the menus, story differences of campiness, and the gameplay changes like being able to move and shoot. Ultimately, I really wish this game was a new thing because I feel it suffers from trying to be RE4 number 3 (Village was RE4 number 2 but at least it had an identity). In trying to be the same but different, it just feels alienating.
Enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. And I’m glad it stayed as silly and campy as the original even if aesthetically updated to match with RE2make