“SO RESIDENT EVIL HAD A ROCKY TRANSITION TO 3D”
(Jokes aside it possibly did if we include Code Veronica, but I haven’t played that yet so eh)
(Also also yes RE was technically always 3D but stop trying to make my bad joke any less bad)
I’ve been looking forward to playing through this for the first time, especially after all the recommendations from friends. Even before I got to play this title I’ve still seen and heard so much about it, the impact it had on horror in general is never to be understated. Heck, this game in particular was an inspiration to one of my favorite horror franchises out there - Dead Space, so in a way I definitely felt right at home in that regard.
Starting off, the game honestly took a bit to get used to control wise, it surprised me to learn that the game still used tank controls in a 3D setting, but after some adjusting I was able to get used to it, and thankfully the 180 turn around is back (and is still better than it was in RE3 :D). Combat is where things get interesting because there’s been a lot changed since RE3. For one, with full 3D environments and movement, being able to fully aim where you want allows for more precise aiming and honestly far more interesting gameplay compared to the classic games. When you think about it all combat boiled down to in 1-3 was “point the gun at the bad guys and hit the fire button”, there wasn’t much you could do from there, but it got the job done and at the time that’s pretty much all that mattered. Here there’s obviously a lot more you can do, on top of being able to aim for weak points or being able to knock flying projectiles out of the air (or even aim directly at the returning explosive red barrels), you can also perform melee attacks by stunning an enemy in a certain way dealing a large amount of crowd control should there be any enemies nearby, from a roundhouse kick to the face to straight up suplexing enemies. Your knife is now bound to a separate button and is no longer stuck in your inventory, which makes it a lot more versatile in not only dealing with say, enemies trying to get back up, but it’s also useful for breaking open barrels or wooden crates that happen to contain items inside. Speaking of inventory, I actually really like how inventory is handled here. You basically get this giant briefcase that stores all your stuff (with treasure and key items displayed in a separate section, which is another choice I truly appreciate). In practice this can hold WAY more items than what you usually can carry in prior resident evil games and honestly…I wish this feature would come back. It’s aesthetically pleasing, fun to maximize the amount of space to carry more things with you, and the streamlining of key items and treasures imo is sorely missed. The one thing I do think is a step back is the lack of item boxes, but this isn’t really a big deal as RE4 encourages you to sell items you don’t need, and it’s great for trying out new weapons as well.
One aspect that REALLY surprised me were the boss fights. As in, they’re actually kinda fun this time. Not all of them are mind you, Krauser is pretty annoying, but in general I didn’t find them a massive chore or even much of a boring hinderance, I thought they were satisfying to take down to some degree. That also extends to the enemies in this game. The shielded cultists I could live without but everyone else I had no problems with, and yeah a good part of this is that the new combat system introduced here makes things far more flexible than they ever have been so that helps.
Despite being a more campy feeling kind of game (the story further accentuates this my god it’s so dumb lol, but in a fun way), this game still nails atmosphere down pat. The village and forest are foreboding and a bit unsettling, even the castle in many areas has this sort of dilapidated uneasiness to it. The military base is pretty generic sadly but that’s towards the end of the game anyway as action expects to ramp up. It’s not super scary as a horror game, no, but like Dead Space after it, it thrives more in the tension during action, how many enemies are thrown at you, what variety of enemies, what enclosed arena you’re in and what hazards lie scattered around you, etc.
Sadly it’s not all great. A big complaint I have is towards Ashley. I mean in the story she does jack all and just exists as a princess in another castle needing to be rescued, constantly bombarding you with earsplitting cries of “LEOOOON, HHHAAAAAAAAALP!!!!”, but in gameplay she’s basically a walking handicap. She can’t defend herself at all and if she dies, you game over. This can also be the result of you accidentally shooting her if say an enemy carries her away and your gun was pointed ever so slightly in her direction by accident. The best course of action is to either find a dumpster for her to hide in (not common to find at all), or find a secure room to leave her in while you deal with the enemy waves. In practice though many rooms that I THOUGHT were secure had enemies spawning and knocking her health down offscreen, that drawn out fight with all the cultists in the castle is by far the worst part of the game for me. Thankfully she’s not attached to you every waking moment, and even when she is oftentimes enemies that spawn are right in front of you so she poses no issue seeing as she stays behind Leon, but she ended up hindering more than helping throughout most of the campaign. Ironically the part where you got to play as Ashley was far less annoying than when Ashley was with you getting pulverized.
Another detraction I have are the instant death QTEs. Now, anyone who knows me knows how much I chastise the stupid instant death QTEs in the first Bayonetta title, and that’s one of my favorite games of all time, but at the very LEAST with Bayo 1 there were only 2 instant death QTEs in the entire game, and both were only in one separate chapter each. RE4 has like 50 instant death QTEs and they’re all in cutscenes. They aren’t very well telegraphed either, oftentimes I can just be relaxing and enjoying the goofy cutscenes for what they are and then the game suddenly goes “think fast lol” and I instantly die from it. It doesn’t help that on mouse and keyboard the QTE commands are awkward and are far away from where WASD is. In one instance because the game is at 60fps, a mashing QTE is made way harder, requiring you to mash twice as fast due to the higher framerate. It took a bit before I was able to clear that section, and it was all after the Minecart section, basically an autoscroller, so I had to do that section twice. Now I don’t particularly mind when QTEs happen during gameplay since I’m already playing the game and they don’t really kill you if you fail (mainly the dodge prompts), but during cutscenes? There’s a reason games stopped doing this as the years went by.
All in all while I really wanted to like this game more than I already do, I can still easily go back to this title any time and have fun with it, frustrating blemishes and all.
(Jokes aside it possibly did if we include Code Veronica, but I haven’t played that yet so eh)
(Also also yes RE was technically always 3D but stop trying to make my bad joke any less bad)
I’ve been looking forward to playing through this for the first time, especially after all the recommendations from friends. Even before I got to play this title I’ve still seen and heard so much about it, the impact it had on horror in general is never to be understated. Heck, this game in particular was an inspiration to one of my favorite horror franchises out there - Dead Space, so in a way I definitely felt right at home in that regard.
Starting off, the game honestly took a bit to get used to control wise, it surprised me to learn that the game still used tank controls in a 3D setting, but after some adjusting I was able to get used to it, and thankfully the 180 turn around is back (and is still better than it was in RE3 :D). Combat is where things get interesting because there’s been a lot changed since RE3. For one, with full 3D environments and movement, being able to fully aim where you want allows for more precise aiming and honestly far more interesting gameplay compared to the classic games. When you think about it all combat boiled down to in 1-3 was “point the gun at the bad guys and hit the fire button”, there wasn’t much you could do from there, but it got the job done and at the time that’s pretty much all that mattered. Here there’s obviously a lot more you can do, on top of being able to aim for weak points or being able to knock flying projectiles out of the air (or even aim directly at the returning explosive red barrels), you can also perform melee attacks by stunning an enemy in a certain way dealing a large amount of crowd control should there be any enemies nearby, from a roundhouse kick to the face to straight up suplexing enemies. Your knife is now bound to a separate button and is no longer stuck in your inventory, which makes it a lot more versatile in not only dealing with say, enemies trying to get back up, but it’s also useful for breaking open barrels or wooden crates that happen to contain items inside. Speaking of inventory, I actually really like how inventory is handled here. You basically get this giant briefcase that stores all your stuff (with treasure and key items displayed in a separate section, which is another choice I truly appreciate). In practice this can hold WAY more items than what you usually can carry in prior resident evil games and honestly…I wish this feature would come back. It’s aesthetically pleasing, fun to maximize the amount of space to carry more things with you, and the streamlining of key items and treasures imo is sorely missed. The one thing I do think is a step back is the lack of item boxes, but this isn’t really a big deal as RE4 encourages you to sell items you don’t need, and it’s great for trying out new weapons as well.
One aspect that REALLY surprised me were the boss fights. As in, they’re actually kinda fun this time. Not all of them are mind you, Krauser is pretty annoying, but in general I didn’t find them a massive chore or even much of a boring hinderance, I thought they were satisfying to take down to some degree. That also extends to the enemies in this game. The shielded cultists I could live without but everyone else I had no problems with, and yeah a good part of this is that the new combat system introduced here makes things far more flexible than they ever have been so that helps.
Despite being a more campy feeling kind of game (the story further accentuates this my god it’s so dumb lol, but in a fun way), this game still nails atmosphere down pat. The village and forest are foreboding and a bit unsettling, even the castle in many areas has this sort of dilapidated uneasiness to it. The military base is pretty generic sadly but that’s towards the end of the game anyway as action expects to ramp up. It’s not super scary as a horror game, no, but like Dead Space after it, it thrives more in the tension during action, how many enemies are thrown at you, what variety of enemies, what enclosed arena you’re in and what hazards lie scattered around you, etc.
Sadly it’s not all great. A big complaint I have is towards Ashley. I mean in the story she does jack all and just exists as a princess in another castle needing to be rescued, constantly bombarding you with earsplitting cries of “LEOOOON, HHHAAAAAAAAALP!!!!”, but in gameplay she’s basically a walking handicap. She can’t defend herself at all and if she dies, you game over. This can also be the result of you accidentally shooting her if say an enemy carries her away and your gun was pointed ever so slightly in her direction by accident. The best course of action is to either find a dumpster for her to hide in (not common to find at all), or find a secure room to leave her in while you deal with the enemy waves. In practice though many rooms that I THOUGHT were secure had enemies spawning and knocking her health down offscreen, that drawn out fight with all the cultists in the castle is by far the worst part of the game for me. Thankfully she’s not attached to you every waking moment, and even when she is oftentimes enemies that spawn are right in front of you so she poses no issue seeing as she stays behind Leon, but she ended up hindering more than helping throughout most of the campaign. Ironically the part where you got to play as Ashley was far less annoying than when Ashley was with you getting pulverized.
Another detraction I have are the instant death QTEs. Now, anyone who knows me knows how much I chastise the stupid instant death QTEs in the first Bayonetta title, and that’s one of my favorite games of all time, but at the very LEAST with Bayo 1 there were only 2 instant death QTEs in the entire game, and both were only in one separate chapter each. RE4 has like 50 instant death QTEs and they’re all in cutscenes. They aren’t very well telegraphed either, oftentimes I can just be relaxing and enjoying the goofy cutscenes for what they are and then the game suddenly goes “think fast lol” and I instantly die from it. It doesn’t help that on mouse and keyboard the QTE commands are awkward and are far away from where WASD is. In one instance because the game is at 60fps, a mashing QTE is made way harder, requiring you to mash twice as fast due to the higher framerate. It took a bit before I was able to clear that section, and it was all after the Minecart section, basically an autoscroller, so I had to do that section twice. Now I don’t particularly mind when QTEs happen during gameplay since I’m already playing the game and they don’t really kill you if you fail (mainly the dodge prompts), but during cutscenes? There’s a reason games stopped doing this as the years went by.
All in all while I really wanted to like this game more than I already do, I can still easily go back to this title any time and have fun with it, frustrating blemishes and all.