“Resident Evil 4: Remake is a deeply impressive example of not only the genre but this beloved media as a whole."
PC | PS5 | PS4 | iOS | XBOX SERIES
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS
HOW I PLAYED: I played on PS5 with a physical copy.
STORY — 18/20
INTRO (5)
The original Resident Evil 4 is one of my favourite games of all time. Easily in my top 5. I bought that game when it first came out on Gamecube in 2005; I loved it so much. I’ve played through it dozens of times. Every year in October, once the leaves started falling, I’d boot it up. I hold it with deep reverence. Ramon Salazar is one of my most adored video game characters ever. I wanted to be him for Halloween. So many things about that game were triumphs of the art form. So naturally, when the remake was announced, I was stoked out of my mind - no - I was scared. Anxious. “Fuck. They’re going to ruin it. I know it.” Then, the trailers were released, and I saw gameplay. “Jesus Christ. What have they done to Leon's hair? No, not Ashley, too!” Then it got worse. I heard through the grapevine that sections of the game had been removed entirely. The gondola section was gone. That’s it. I’d made up my mind. I was never going to touch this garbage remake.
Then a year passed. I tried the Silent Hill 2 remake and absolutely loved it. I was in the mood for more horror. I was on a roll. Everyone I’d talked to had nothing but good things to say about it. Should I give it a go? I need to see what all the fuss is about. Order Now.
Oh. My. God.
I was wrong.
With all the whining I'm going to do throughout this review about cut content and changes, I will admit that the intro is actually better and more fleshed out than I remember. The game starts off with Leon being driven by some Spanish Policemen to the drop-off location for the mission. Once Leon is on his own, he stumbles upon a hunter's cabin in the woods. Things start to go south really quick as the game gradually introduces you to the basic controls. A lot of crappier game make their intros so forced you can't help but think while you're playing that "This is the inevitable, obvious intro I have to sit through." Almost like it's a separate part of the main game. In RE4: Remake it's a seamless part of the experience.
CUTSCENES (5)
Like watching a really well-directed action movie. Although I didn't love the look of most of the characters, the actors who voiced them did an amazing job and I grew to like them because of the sound of their voices. Super entertaining.
WORLD BUILDING (4)
The lore is delivered through messages and photos left on tables and countertops. I liked it so much more in the original. Plus, with the new aesthetic, I just think these assets looked worse than they should have. They're too sterile looking. Something is off. It's the same way I feel about the character models to some degree. There's a lack of inspiration. You get a sense that people were here, and depending on how many of these you want to read, the backstory will deepen, but it really felt like an afterthought or a project they gave to the intern.
OVERALL STORY (4)
Because of the dramatic emphasis on gameplay and pacing, I really felt like the story suffered. Suffered might be a strong word. I just fought with all my memories of playing the original on GameCube the first time through. The villains don't have enough time to grow into something you truly despise. Man, I remember what an annoying little prick Salazar was in the original. He was irritating as hell. He'd constantly call you on your radio and chirp at you. I couldn't wait to find that little shit. They built up his inevitable demise so meticulously. This time around, we get far less time to interact or see him on screen. This ultimately led to a less climactic showdown with him (although the boss fight itself was incredible).
The story of the base game is pretty straightforward. Rescue Zelda - I mean Ashely. From Bowser - I mean Sadler. The President's daughter was kidnapped by a wacko cult in rural Spain, and they're digging up fossils to try and resurrect some disgusting parasites. Hurry.
GRAPHICS — 14/15
CHARACTER MODELS (4)
It took me up until the final draft of this review for the character models to grow on me. I originally had an entirely different paragraph written that I scrapped, that went in a very different direction. In the end I decided that I like them and they look really good. I still find them a bit "stylized" as opposed to "realistic". The best way I can think of to describe this would be the art style of FFIX. Odd proportions and features; as opposed to something like Stellar Blade which is ultra-realistic-current-gen. Also, how dare they take away Salazar's hat.
ENVIRONMENTS (5)
There's a huge variety of areas to explore, from forests, caves, and cozy castles with chandeliers and rugs to industrial hallways with fluorescent lighting. All the areas were full of detail and kept my imagination running. I think this really lent itself to the pacing of the game as well because I never once got bored with the look of an area. There's such a wide range of visual stimulation.
SPECIAL FX (5)
Even in the current console generation, I find developers really struggling to get fire to look convincing. Not here. The four elements are as alive and powerful as looking out your window. I loved shooting the red explosive barrels!
AUDIO — 13/15
AMBIENCE (4)
BOSS MUSIC (5)
SOUND DESIGN (4)
Really excellent atmosphere accompanies you through the whole game. There are moments of silence, and then you might hear some bats scurry overhead, water dripping in a cave, infected villagers out of sight muttering to themselves or signalling an intruder is amongst them in Spanish.
PERFORMANCE — 10/10
FRAME RATE (5)
The game felt really smooth, even in action packed fight sequences. I was playing with ray tracing off and I was getting a perfect 60fps. The game also comes with a few graphic options such as "hair strands" if you really want to test your consoles limits.
STABILITY (5)
It's a joy to play this game. The action button is always responsive. The controls do exactly what you want them to do. I never encountered anything resembling a glitch or an interruption in the immersion.
GAMEPLAY — 39/40
CONTROLS (5)
The movement feels so organic. Leon almost has his own momentum once he starts running. It's beautiful. You can now switch between weapons on the fly mid-combat, which is fantastic. This keeps the action going at an even higher pace. Aiming is just jiggly enough, and shooting all your weapons is a blast!
MECHANICS (5)
The whole time I was playing this thing, I kept thinking, "Wow, this is like an RPG but with shooting." They took the mechanics to 11 on this one. There's so much going on under the hood. One of my favourite new additions is the gem socketing mechanic. You will collect small treasures and precious gems throughout the world, and you have the ability to combine the gems with the treasure to increase their sale value to merchants. You can hoard your gems until you find the right treasures with sockets in them for a big jackpot, or sell off the gems individually. My patience was always rewarded and this was really satisfying.
The blue medallions are back! The merchant who is your sole shop in the game will upgrade your weapons and sell you new ones; but he also has various side quests you can complete for some extra coin. The most common of these involves shooting blue medallions that are strategically hidden throughout the world. Finding these is half the fun. Busting out the sniper rifle for a tricky shot off in the distance is the real dopamine rush. Usually, each medallion side quest will involve shooting 4 or 5 of these things in a given area.
The merchant may also task you with hunting down small pests like snakes, rats and fish. This is another fun way to go on a scavenger hunt and make some extra money for that sweet magnum you've been saving up for. If you don't find all of them and give up on the challenge, you can always eat the things. Leon is quite the adventurous gourmet. Kind of gave me MGS3 vibes.
Aiming is just jiggly enough, and shooting all your weapons is a blast!
PACING (5)
Any Ratchet and Clank fans out there? Those games are remembered for many things, but you'll probably never hear anyone talk about how good the pacing was. It was essentially perfect. You never had any doubt as to where to go next. The action and puzzles were blended seamlessly. The difficulty was fine-tuned so exquisitely and what this all boiled down to was the most S tier gameplay I can ever remember. RE4 is on that level. Maybe even better. It just flows.
UI/UE (4)
The UI/UE is one of those things that goes mostly unnoticed if it's done correctly. It's like lighting in a movie. You take it for granted - until somebody fucks up, and it stands out. I shouldn't ever really be thinking about this aspect of a game. It should just be there and do its job. With that said, I noticed the UI in this game. It was kind of ugly. Some of the text confirmation boxes and overall aesthetic of grids, graphs and info on the screen. Maybe it was the font they went with? Just very clearly on a different level than most other aspect of the game.
BOSS QUALITY (5)
How did they do it?! For a lot of these, I knew what to expect too. After all, I have played this game 984 times. Somehow, I still got so fired up and was leaning forward in my chair. The fights felt new to me. They felt more than new, they were exciting and exhilarating.
ENEMY VARIETY (5)
This is exactly what you want in a video game. Each area should have new enemies you haven't seen before. That's all I want. I don't need to learn a ton of new movement patterns and mechanics. Don't give me reskins; don't do a Silent Hill 2 on me either (I should have given that a 1/5). They did exactly what they needed to in RE4. A couple of - I guess you could call them mini-bosses - they're more just like super strong enemies peppered in with the normal enemies here and there to keep things interesting. Theres a huge variety and it always felt fresh.
GAMEPLAY VARIETY (5)
Quite a few of the merchants you visit will have special shooting range arenas you can enter to practice your aim and collect special rewards. These are completely optional and offer a welcome deviation from shooting old ladies with kitchen knives. Good stuff.
The main storyline also includes a decent amount of puzzles to solve along the way. These can be things like simply navigating the game's levels and pressing switches, to more college level stuff like rotating shapes on a grid until things line up a certain way. Like the enemies, the puzzle variety was very good.
Beyond the regular green, red and yellow healing herbs from the original game, we also have some new consumables this time in the form of gunpowder and "resources." You can craft ammunition with a combination of these two new items, and this was a welcome addition to the gameplay.
Keeping all the items, plus all the weapons organized, was a game in itself! Your attache case where you keep everything is a lot of fun to manage. This time around there's also an "auto-sort" function to quickly and effortlessly manage everything for you!
REPLAYABILITY (5)
Multiple difficulty levels, unlockable weapons and costumes, optional shooting ranges to play with. There is a ton of great content to warrant multiple playthroughs. Not to mention the game keeping track of your shooting accuracy and giving you a letter grade. Who can really settle for a B- ?
The fights felt new to me. They felt more than new, they were exciting and exhilarating.
BONUS — 3/4
The game comes with multiple options for remappable controls. The accessibility menu offers three different presets: Visual Accessibility, Audio Accessibility and Motion Sickness. You can also enable assist mode for QTEs if you'd rather not mash a button repeatedly. There are no colourblind options.
OVERALL — 97/100
INCREDIBLE
[Resident Evil 4: Remake] From a pure gameplay perspective, this is genuinely one of the most impressive games I have ever played. There's an elegance to the combat and movement that is hard to describe. The pacing is flawless and my jaw literally dropped during some of the cutscenes. I was invigorated by the combat and action in ways that I cannot compare. My teenage self definitely yearned for a lot of the cut content (and let's be real here there's not just pieces but entire areas of the original missing) but the new shiny package they delivered the remake in still won me over. I am glad to admit that I was wrong. I can't stay mad at this game because I'm just so happy that it exists. Resident Evil 4: Remake is a deeply impressive example of not only the genre but this beloved media as a whole.
TLDR: Resident Evil 4: Remake is a breathtaking reimagining of a beloved classic, boasting flawless pacing, exhilarating combat, and stunning boss battles that elevate the experience to new heights. While some cut content and "mid" world-building may disappoint longtime fans, the polished gameplay, stellar voice acting, and tons of side content make this one of the most impressive games ever made. Despite some gripes with character development and Salazar's redesign, it's a triumph of action-horror gaming that I’m thrilled to have been proven wrong about.
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iOS: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/resident-evil-4/id6462360082
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