Replayed RE4, this time using the "real" version with controller rather than mouse and keyboard. The argument I had heard was that re4 wasn't properly balanced for mouselook, which makes the broken headshot + kick combo for crowd control a lot easier. And after playing it, yeah that's definitely the case, especially at first.This WAS my second playthrough though, and after getting used to the stiffness (and the added clunkiness of playing on a handheld switch with default joycons) I found it to not be that much harder than the PC version.

Its a credit to RE4 that even when I was playing horrendously, getting my ass handed to me by that initial village siege and even running out of ammo a few times in the beginning, I was still having a blast. Its also probably indicative of RE4's dynamic difficulty system, that I struggled the most with the early game, so I'm guessing it took pity on me. I admit I haven't played the other RE games other than a bit of Revelations 2, mainly because they seem more horror-y and less action-y.

I played through RE4 during a weeklong trip to london where I was away from my PC. Unfortunately that meant I had to interrupt my playthrough of Killer 7 (which does share some surface similarities to RE4, both part of the capcom 5, both made by mikami, both combine puzzles and shooting at slow enemies, etc) which due to my ADHD almost always murders my motivation/interest for a game. It proved to be the case here as well, I'll have to complete the second half of that game at some other point in the future.

I also attempted pro-mode for re4 but quite frankly, it's beyond my abilities. I made it to stage 3-2 or so and I just couldn't play well enough to not be stomped on by the onslaught of cultists. Supporting my theory that RE4's dynamic difficulty was going easy on me, as pro mode simply locks you to the highest difficulty the whole way through. Its a shame, because for the first few levels, it actually increased my enjoyment of RE4, by forcing me to play "better", exploiting every advantage and learning new strats to overcome the insane odds.

I still think the island is lame, as long as the castle goes on for, I think its the high point for the game. Its also insane to me that the Del Lago bossfight is the first bossfight in the game. First of all, because it sucks, the worst bossfight in the game imo, but also because you'd think the gimmick boss fight using different-ish mechanics to the core gameplay would be put in around the middle or something, to shake things up, but no. Its especially weird cause almost inmediately you have El Gigante which is both a better bossfight and would make a much better first boss.

I still had to laugh during the cutscene before Del Lago, when the castillian peasant says "andale". To those who don't know about spanish dialects, thats like making a game set in rural australia and seeing a random bogan say in his best Larry the Cable guy impression : git er dun! Or something along those lines. Its not even just that the NPCs sound mexican or whatever, cause some of them sound like spanish isn't their first language, others sound plausibly from mainland spain but their dialogue was seemingly machine translated from english? And okay, they kinda get the benefit of the doubt cause the location within spain is never specified, but their pronunciation of "imbecil" indicates they use "seseo" which would mean they are either in southern spain or the canary islands, neither of which sound likely. The real answer is "who gives a shit? They grabbed whomever around the office who knew some spanish and put em in the recording booth" and It doesn't actually bother me, hell, Ive heard the remake replaces the VO with more accurate, professional voices and that sounds lame as hell.

So yeah, RE4 is still good, and now I can say I beat it "properly".