Resident Evil 4 is a good game, but not a good Resident Evil game.
Resident Evil 4 is a good game, but not a good Resident Evil game.
I played Resident Evil when I was a child on the starting on the PS1 with Resident Evil 3. I fell in love with this series and played all the games.
I remember playing this game back on GameCube and not liking it so much. I mean, it wasn't a bad game. But it did not feel like Resident Evil to me.
Recently, I played 7 and 8 which where really good. They feel different than Resident Evil, but they were scary and I enjoyed these games a lot. Still not as good as the classics or the RE2 and RE3 remake.
So what is it about Resident Evil 4? Well, it feels like an action game and less a survivor horror game. It was a linear experience of just moving forward. It lost the metroidvania part of RE for the most part.
I know this game is loved by many and I can understand why it is loved. It is a genuinely good game. It just should not be a Resident Evil game.
I kinda disagree. It could have been way worse. Remember: Devil May Cry was originally being built as the 4th Resident Evil installment. It got so off the rails, it became its own thing with a new name.
What we actually got with 4 was different, yeah. But not that different. The story and lore already were over the top and written like a cheesy action movie; 4 made the game play match the tone the story was setting. It wasn't perfect. It's a lot faster paced, which takes away a bit of the horror; but the newer ones recently follow almost the same format as 4, though in 1st person and with a slower pacing that brings back the same feeling of "I gotta hurry the fuck up and run" that the original tank controls conveyed.
It has all the same elements that the first 3 had, just with a lot more combat with the action being put first instead of the horror.
Personally I think that the newer games may be spoiling you with how they combine action and horror. Back when I played it, the survival horror theme was very real. So many new horrors in that game.
And the story is RE at its core but played loosely. It was the last game to be very goofy in the franchise really. Unless we count punching boulders.
So yeah the combat takes a front seat but the shift was necessary. The old mechanics were dated and making RE3 pt 2 may have killed the franchise. So I’m glad how it turned out even if it is very linear.
After Résident Evil Zero and the first remake on GameCube it started being another kind of games. Resident Evil 4 lost me even if I finished it just to really try it..
I found myself having trouble finishing 4. It just took such a turn once you get to the castle.
It really became a shooter game more than anything else.
The bosses were too easy because handgun ammo was so abundant so I could just save my shotgun and magnum for the boss fights.
I like RE4 a lot, but I wish they had released this version instead.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mgl5EcwMOj0
This looked like a continuation of what the first RE remake started. Much more horror-focused, more realistic and less campy. I still watch this trailer every once in a while to torture myself over what might have been.
But I don't think that game would have been as commercially successful as the RE4 we did get. The shift to more action definitely brought in more players, but a lot of classic Resident Evil fans felt alienated at the time.
Thanks for sharing that. I’m surprised I’ve never seen it before. You can see some of the same ideas made it to the actual game.
Is this a leaked trailer or something?
It’s great that it brought a lot of fans in, but the next 2 games were not really that great. But I’m happy where we are with RE today. So, maybe those growing pains were worth it.
Now im just hoping for a code Veronica remake.
I believe this trailer was shown during E3 or TGS. There's another version that was also shown a year or so later but never released either. It has more of a supernatural vibe to it that people compared to Silent Hill at the time.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=m_B2BoJDUdw
I was a member of an RE fan forum back then where we spent an unhealthy chunk of our lives poring over these trailers.
Now im just hoping for a code Veronica remake.
This is what I'm hoping for next as well. RE5 is way too recent to need a remake, but then again I thought the same thing about RE4. Code Veronica is such a good game but is old enough that it could really benefit from updating the graphics and gameplay.