I will start this out with saying, my memory is awful. I played RE4 on pc way back when and I don't remember anything. So this review isn't a comparison. It's not a nostalgic look back.
It's a look on how this game holds up.
I love Resident Evil. I've 100% most of them so far. Only mainline games I haven't is 5 and 6. 7 was done on PC.
Resident Evil 2 remake ending being my GOTY of 2019. Beating Kingdom Hearts 3 (though the everlasting feelings of KH3 hold more dear to this day) So I do go into this game having some idea of what I'm in for but this hands down is the longest and hardest RE Platinum I've ever finished.
Gameplay:
The game is an over the shoulder camera shooter at it's core. It's a fantastic feeling every time I line up a shot at a basic enemy to the gradual feeling of becoming more and more powerful as the game goes on.
RE4 remake gives you a fantastic arrange of weapons, upgrade paths, knife parries (new to this game) and they feel fantastic.
Speed running this over 7 times, really gives you the sense of just how genius everything is laid out for you to have a playground with. Skips you can do in new game plus, like skipping the village fight by firing at the bell.
To the incredible feeling of saving up your money to blast the final boss with a rocket launcher.
Every sense of this game FEELS amazing. It runs so well and like all RE games, the speed runs feel perfect. Every level is so fantastically created.
Gameplay is at it's highest and I never felt unsatisfied. It always felt perfect.
Story:
Again, I don't remember much from the original. So the story here felt fresh to me even outside character plot changes. I really loved every character here. From Leon to Ashley to Luis. To my core, I adore those 3. Their dynamics shine so bright and every time they even share one ounce of dialouge, I adore it.
The story of the game is a basic premise and it carries it throughout. It doesn't need to have insane plot twists or wild theories. It's a direct narrative and you just wanna save this god damn girl from this fucking fucked up place.
It's just fun to watch Leon be hot as hell and not even realise it.
Music:
BRUH. I wasn't expecting this game to have some of the best, most memorable music of the year. (Hi Fi Rush is still king) but the atmosphere and outright bangers they play is so incredible. There are 3 ones which I won't go into spoilers but they are perfect.
The game deserves a huge applaud for it's music and sound design. I usually podcast it up on extra playthroughs of games but not with this. I wanted every song, sound and dialogue to be heard.
Extra notes:
-The dialouge in this game slaps. There are a thousand and one memorable lines and I could quote them all before they happened by the end. It's so much fun.
- The reason why this game was so hard for me was due to the Professional S+ run. It's the hardest difficulty. You have to do it on a new game. There's no auto saves and you get 15 saves total. Let's just say on my run, I had 0 saves left 2/3 in the game and I did alllll the last sections without any saves.
It was hard. It was stressful. Me and Pumkin cried of happiness when I got it done.
Downsides:
Only downside I have is a certain characters VA. This VA just sounded phoned in and so weird compared to the other actors. It was odd every time they spoke how different the audio was.
Overall:
I love this game. I love this game so much and every playthrough was a blast. I never dreaded playing it again because the dialouge between cutscenes, the way this game is so perfect to speed run and my love for Leon and Ashley made it perfect

One of my phones wallpaper is now Leon in chains ❤