Finally sharing my thoughts on the RE4 remake, having completed it some time ago now - tagging
@TNA as I know he’s always dead keen on what I have to say
Well, it’s truly RE4, re-made! Aesthetically, it’s everything that I could have dreamed of. It looks stunning, particularly the village section. The best visuals are looking back into the village from the road that leads to the windmill. Those mountains!!
Content-wise, there is some content dropped (notably the most non-sensical or goofier scenes - lava in a castle?!) and some expanded sections in replacement. All things considered, it’s give and take on the various new + missing bits; good job on that overall.
There are various quality of life improvements + content additions that are mostly welcome too. Particularly the weapon switching.
So why do I prefer the original to the remake (!) …? Well, the devil is in the detail.
The general mechanics of the combat might seem broadly the same, perhaps an out-and-out improvement considering how much better the movement and aiming is, but there are some less-obvious yet fundamental changes...
Enemies are altogether more ‘grabby’ and don’t tend to get stunned in the same way when your shoot them. Also, there is a tendency for Leon to get stun-locked. This means close up enemy encounters can often become miserable when you get swarmed, whereas it tended to feel more strategic in the original - you had more of a chance to recover. Now, the remake is clearly more ‘realistic’ (?) and less ‘arcady’ in that regard… but what makes for a better game?
^^^ I’ve actually heard that it’s closer to the original game mechanics in the mercenaries mini-game, where the enemies get stunned in a more ‘gameplay friendly’ manner. Interesting… haven’t verified it myself though.
Separately, I’m not sure if it was because I was playing on hardcore/‘hard’, but there were several moments where it felt like I didn’t have a chance but to get hit / fail. Notable moments were the silly chase at the end of the village section and the very last section of the game in Saddler’s ‘last form’. Other bosses seemed to have very hard (impossible?) to avoid ‘grab attacks’. Not game-breaking, but I did find myself frustrated.
Aside from the core gameplay, there are some huge changes in ‘feel’ too. I don’t really buy (as journalists have said) that Leon is this wholly different character than he was before; he’s 90% the same. But a lot of the dialogue is gone. There was some ‘radio banter’ in the original, particularly in the castle, that gave a preamble to various events. Take the ‘right hand man’ fight. In the original, it was clear who was coming after you… in the remake, I don’t think they introduced him at all? In fact, the lack of back and forth between Leon and his oppressors made the game feel, relatively, a little sterile at times. Perhaps, the playful dialogue was not just ‘goofy action hero nonsense’, but helped build relations and sentiment between Leon and his oppressors. The castle-dude was the most memorable antagonist in the original and he was sadly reduced to being forgettable here.
A more nit-picky gripe: I’ve already mentioned the ‘right hand man’ but the ‘bugs’ also got an underwhelming intro too. That descent into the sewers in the original was amazing. I accept it’s easy to be nostalgic and remember the things that you perceive as being ‘worse’. For fair balance, the boat exploration and the section with the knights were obviously far more expanded and overall an improvement IMO. Although shooting that ‘gold knight’ when he was wobbling around all over the place… god dammit
Sadly, the island section was again the lesser portion - I was hoping for it to be brought up to the standards of the rest of the game. If there was part of the game that needed ‘work’, it was here and they clearly did put in a lot of work, but it was still the ‘weakest bit’.
Wrapping up, this is still an absolutely incredible game, but it just shows how delicate the ‘balance’ in the original was. Truly lightning in a bottle, that. Thankfully, we now have both versions to enjoy
I’m still not quite sure where I’d place it in my ‘rankings’ per se, but definitely one of the better entries despite my critique. Great stuff.
