The original Resident Evil 4 is one of my all-time favorite games. It's not nostalgia. I played it for the first time in 2021. Even before I played RE4, I was of the belief that RE4 never needed a remake and I still stand by that. But Capcom's Resident Evil remakes of the past have been enjoyable, so while I think remaking RE4 is unnecessary, I was willing to bite.

By looking at my rating, I think you can easily guess that I didn't love this game. I won't get into all the specifics. A few of the most liked reviews on this site about this game go over what didn't click with me way better than I could ever have explained it but to summarize it, it just felt like it was missing that oomph. I don't know how else to describe it other than that I probably would have forgotten a lot of the major set pieces if this was my first ever run through of RE4. I don't know what tone the game is going for because the cutscenes are all played out very seriously, but then, in combat, Leon is making dumb (fun) one-liners.

I will mention a few things I did enjoy, like knife parrying. It's pretty rad! I liked that Luis was more present throughout the game and he made for a good AI partner. I really liked what they did with Ashley. She's great in both games, but here the relationship between her and Leon was fantastic. Also, shut up, her redesign is great! What really made me come away from this in a more positive light was whenever a Regenerador was on screen. They're pretty scary in the original but also lumbering to accommodate for your movement in that game. In the remake, however, they're even more terrifying. You have way more open movement, so the Regeneradores are faster; they squirm and jiggle all about. If they're writhing on the floor, they will jump at you. I dunno, I just really liked everything that had to do with the Regeneradores , so A+ there Capcom!

At the end of the day, the game was fine! If I ever need an RE4 fix, then I'll just stick with the original, but glad to see most people are enjoying it. Maybe I'm just jaded.

Reviewed on Apr 02, 2023


2 Comments


11 months ago

I didn't know where else to put this but I just wanted to share how flaccid the Del Lago jumpscare is in the remake compared to the original.

11 months ago

the del lago jumpscare actually got me in this game, and I knew about it in both games. But they bait you with fish to actually shoot at so i fucking forgot even though i was literally just thinking about doing it for the lols. I saw those fish and went "OOH LOOT", pushing everything else out of my vision.