The remake of Resident Evil 4 is fun. That's all it really needed to be, being the remake of one of the most notoriously fun games of all time. The game smartly retains the overall structure and pacing of that original game while updating it with smoother controls, more dynamic AI, and all the visual trappings of a modern AAA game. It's a fantastic experience and a game that, for me, easily sits in the pantheon of the best Resident Evil games.

My main issues with the game (docking it a whole HALF star by the way!) are twofold. One is that the addition of the merchant requests grinds an otherwise expertly-paced game to a standstill. They're obvious ploys to give a bit more "content" to the player, usually in the form of shooting X number of medallions or backtracking and killing X number of rats. Occasionally there were some fun and clever ones (the Salazar painting comes to mind), but largely I found them unnecessary, only there to complement the revamped merchant trading system.

Secondly, the game has tonal issues. The original Resident Evil 4 knew exactly what it was. It was a brash, irreverent action B-movie. It was stupid and it knew as much, but that lent credence to a world where a one-liner spewing ex-cop and a tiny Spanish lord could get in pissing matches over the phone. The remake lives in that world too, but it refuses to admit that it's stupid. It tones down the campiness while upping the drama. It builds up characters like Luis, Ada, Ashley, and Krauser, yet removes some of the charm from the baddies like Salazar and Saddler. It makes Leon into a brooding, haunted hero, in line with his portrayal in RE2 Remake, yet he still remarks that all the angry villagers have gone off to bingo. Almost all the stupid, ridiculous stuff that happens in the original happens in this one as well, and sometimes the game doesn't really know how to handle that in a narrative sense.

This point may seem like a larger gripe, but it didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the game. It didn't take me away from how much fun I was having, but it did make me pause a few times and go really? But tonal whiplash and fetch quests aside, the game clearly loves its source material as much as the rest of us do. With how faithful this game is to the original, it's clear why RE 4 is such a classic.