Though I had been chugging away at Octopath 2 and Like A Dragon Ishin, I immediately dropped them both to focus on Resident Evil 4 Remake upon its release. The RE remakes have all been fantastic (except for 3), and RE4 is no exception to that. This remake keeps a lot about what made the original game special, improved on many of its shortcomings, and made some changes that fans of the original are either going to love or hate.

I won't waste too much of your time explaining the systems and mechanics here, but I would like to talk about the added things that the developers put in here. For starters, I love the knife parrying system. This system was made for that iconic Krauser fight, and it works so well in every other encounter. It can be difficult to master, but once you do, you feel as much like a badass as Leon probably does. QTEs are almost completely gone, which I myself am perfectly fine with. There are still some context-sensitive QTEs, such as dodging certain attacks from enemies, which feels like a good compromise. A lot of the original game's notorious areas (such as the water hall) are a LOT more manageable as well thanks to a few tweaks and changes. These changes show that the developers really wanted to improve upon the original game where they could, while keeping it as faithful of a remake as possible.

Now I have already seem some purists talk about how the new tone, lighting, and script are not to their liking. To be perfectly honest with you, I loved most of the changes. Sure, I do lowkey miss some of the more iconic cheesy lines, but there are still more than plenty cheesy lines and scenes in this remake that make up for it. The tone is more serious, and the game takes more of a horror approach than action movie, but I felt that everything came together really well. The new VAs do an amazing job of capturing their characters. I especially enjoyed the moments of Leon recounting the events of RE2 and how that has effected him for the last 8 years.

Other than that, everything is pretty superb. Exploration, looting, and combat all feel great here. I did think that Leon's default walk speed was a bit too slow for my liking (especially because the walk speed in 2 remake was pretty much perfect), but that is such a minor nitpick it is hardly worth mentioning. You can't help but have a great time exploring the village, castle, and island all over again.

Did I mention that the game has some of the best visuals of any game I have ever played? Because it does. The visuals here are absolutely phenomenal. The attention to detail alone in character models, as well as the environments is insane. This is without a doubt the best looking RE game to date imo. I couldn't help but take in the visuals whenever there was a quiet moment to do so.

RE4 Remake may piss some hardcore fans of the original off, and I honestly understand why. RE4 didn't really need to be remade. However, Capcom did it in the best way possible. RE4 Remake is more than able to justify its reason for existing with just how excellent it ended up being. And for those who don't like it, just because this game exists, doesn't mean the 2004 original is now irrelevant or doesn't exist anymore. You can still go back and play that game whenever you want. But for me, both games are 10/10 masterpieces of not only the series, and not only the genre, but in gaming in general.

Reviewed on Mar 28, 2023


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