Resident Evil 8
Elpidio Heart
It was 2005, and I was standing over the demo kiosk for Resident Evil 4. Special agent Kennedy was on a mission to rescue the president's daughter from a remote village in Spain, but it doesn't take long before he's beset by hostile townsfolk and a chainsaw-wielding maniac. Whereas many games slowly teach you their mechanics, Resident Evil 4 begins with exposure therapy, overwhelming the player with an immediate challenge.
It's hard to overstate the noise Resident Evil 4 made on release. While a small minority of detractors believed it strayed too far from its survival horror roots, it went on to sell over 10 million copies and earn superlatives from critics. Gamespot's Greg Kasavin called it "probably the single greatest horror-themed action game ever created."
In the last few years, Capcom remade both Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3, the former to great acclaim. We all knew a Resident Evil 4 remake was on the table. But when it was announced last year, I was skeptical. How? And more importantly, why? Resident Evil 4 still plays like a dream, has many good ports, and even recently got an HD makeover by way of a brilliantly realized fan project.
For the most part, it does just that. Resident Evil 4 is a victory lap for what has been called the new "golden age" of Capcom. They've succeeded not by playing it safe, but by taking big design swings that make it feel like a brand new game.
It was clear a Resident Evil 4 remake would modernize the original game's revolutionary (but now dated) control scheme. Back in 2005, it popularized the over-the-shoulder perspective later seen in classics like Gears of War and Dead Space. But unlike those games, Leon can't move while aiming. While that limitation never bothered me, it's become a sticking point for new players.
In this remake, Leon is much faster and more agile, but so are his enemies. They'll rush to corner you, forcing you to always be on the move. Aiming itself also feels weightier and more difficult. It's almost reminiscent of The Last of Us Part 2, where realistic animations make combat feel dense and heavy, but still responsive when mastered.
Leon does get a new parry mechanic to even the odds, which allows you to block almost any attack with a well-timed button press. Using a knife to deflect the same chainsaw that lopped my head off in 2005 looks and feels ridiculous, just as it should. Despite his new emo look, Leon certainly feels more like an outrageous action hero than ever before.
I worried the remake would dilute that delicate alchemy. When the original Resident Evil 4 released, games didn't feel anywhere near as padded as they do today. The remake is substantially bigger, stitching together a world that feels more connected and organic. Added fog and darker lighting give the game more of a straight-up horror feel. You might not even remember what's new and what isn't: it's that seamless.
Outside of some very specific gameplay additions and changes, which I definitely won't spoil, this remake is pure fan service. The developers rely on knowledge of the original game's beats to surprise and delight. While the first half of the adventure mostly plays it straight, the back half takes risks with altered enemy designs, reworked boss encounters (or, in one case, a boss that was removed entirely), and completely new scenarios. The designers also moved away from the original's reliance on quick-time events.
The Resident Evil series has always deftly balanced combat, survival, and puzzle solving. 4 scaled the puzzles back so far that they were sometimes insultingly simple. The remake makes them more rewarding, requiring the environmental deduction the series is famous for.
But I do have my gripes. Some additions to the Village section felt like padding. The original game had only a tiny gap between the first and second bosses, creating a sense of breathless tension. This time around, that stretch gets lengthened by an uninteresting fetch quest. Additionally, the game's new "side quests" are mostly collect-a-thons. They're fun diversions, but it's weird how many useful items the game locks behind them, and they slow progression down considerably.
There's no doubt the writing in the original Resident Evil 4 was bad, but it's also beloved. Characters constantly drop quips and one-liners. Plot details emerge through laughably on-the-nose in-game documents (one letter left suspiciously out in the open is titled "Our Plan").
But in recent years, prestigious games like God of War and The Last Of Us told moving epics by exploring the dynamics between two central characters. While Resident Evil 4 doesn't attempt such elevated storytelling, it's hard not to fault how the original portrays Leon and Ashley's relationship. Ashley comes off as a reactionary companion, a 'president's daughter in distress' lacking depth and individuality. In the remake, she's given new agency and utility, but her characterization remains thin.
Still, the reworked narrative is a clear upgrade. Some characters stick around longer than they did the first time around, which benefits the gameplay and the plot. Capcom also attempted to weave the game's disparate story elements into something cohesive.
Most importantly, the remake preserves the game's signature camp, with iconic lines ("Where's everyone going? Bingo?") and a handful of new zingers. Unfortunately, they aren't delivered as charmingly: the original game's voice cast outshines the remake's.
Listen: am I sick of everything I loved as a child, everything sacred to me, being regurgitated and "modernized?" Well, yeah. Perhaps the biggest issue with this remake is its very existence. Part of the reason Resident Evil 4 was so effective all those years ago was because there was nothing else like it. But the remake can't feel as fresh, no matter how hard it swings, because it's so steeped in the original game.
Since 2005, many developers set out to emulate Resident Evil 4's frenetic pacing and bombast. But nothing felt quite like it. So perhaps it's fitting that, all these years later, Capcom turned out to be the only company that could fully re-bottle that magic.
Thankfully, those days are gone. Not unlike the recent Metroid Prime Remastered, this Resident Evil 4 remake plays like a 2023 game. Luxuries like simultaneous twin-stick movement and targeting mean that you can cautiously back away while still keeping your gun trained on the advancing hordes, or side-step out of the way of an incoming crossbow bolt without having to remove your eye from the scope of your rifle. This newfound freedom of movement makes you better equipped to really make the most of the immensely satisfying area-specific damage effects; blowing kneecaps out to expose an enemy to a melee finisher, blasting sticks of dynamite held in the hands of attackers before they have a chance to throw them, or simply reveling in some of the grisliest headshots in the history of video game shotguns.
In light of the high-quality remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3 released in 2019 and 2020, it felt like a safe bet that Capcom would do an equally admirable job of rebuilding Resident Evil 4. Even so, when I hit the start button on this 2023 remake of the legendary 2005 action-horror game I wasn\u2019t prepared for how forcefully it would knock my knees out from under me and suplex me headfirst into 16 hours of sustained tension and exhilaration. This fully revitalised campaign dramatically one-ups the original in almost every conceivable way. Its Spanish countryside setting is substantially more sinister, its pacing has been tightened to the point where hardly a single minute is wasted, and its controls have been modernised in order to allow its signature dynamic shooting mechanics to really shine. I\u2019ve been waiting 18 years for a game to thrill me in the same way as Resident Evil 4; as it turns out, this whole time I\u2019ve just been waiting for another Resident Evil 4.\u00a0
The original Resident Evil 4 is a landmark installment in Capcom\u2019s seminal survival-horror series that, for many, would need no introduction. However, considering it came out back when we assumed that Episode III would be the last Star Wars film and iPhones didn\u2019t even exist yet, I should probably give it some context. At the time it was a big deal for Resident Evil to switch from the series\u2019 traditional fixed-camera perspectives to a then radical over-the-shoulder viewpoint that brought us uncomfortably close to the gore and put the emphasis on reflexes and precision targeting, and as a result Resident Evil 4 was an action-horror epic without peer. Its influence has subsequently been felt in countless other third-person classics like Gears of War, Dead Space, and The Last of Us, and now its original DNA has been extracted, synthesised, and injected into a state-of-the-art host game, mutating it into a menacing new monster that's breathtaking to behold and immensely intimidating to encounter.
In preparation for this review I returned to the original game for the first time in years and was shocked at how badly this remake was needed. The movement of main star Leon Kennedy felt ridiculously restricted; he struggles to get around as though he\u2019s wearing an old pair of skinny jeans that haven\u2019t fit him since his police academy days, and is immobilised anytime he gets his gun out as though he\u2019s incapable of independent control over his hands and feet at the same time. By modern standards it\u2019s absurd, and would absolutely put off a lot of newcomers before they could begin to understand why this game is so highly regarded.
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