Resident Evil 4 Remake Review
One of my most anticipated entries in the Resident Evil franchise is Resident Evil 4 Remake. I heard great things about this remake and how they stayed true to the core of Resident Evil 4. Some negative reception of it included the reduction of humor and a couple of minor changes in certain cutscenes, but from what I have read, it is mostly a faithful recreation of the original. Right from the get-go, I will say that I really enjoyed Resident Evil 4 Remake, and it is definitely on par with Resident Evil 1 Remake and Resident Evil 2 Remake.
Leon is a Nutcase Waiting To Be Studied
After the events of Resident Evil 2, it is revealed that Leon S. Kennedy was forcefully recruited by a government organization. This is an amazing feat for someone who started as a rookie cop and whose only accomplishment we’ve known so far is literally just surviving Raccoon City. Despite how lighthearted and positive the ending of Resident Evil 2 was, it is clear that Leon’s mental state has declined, perfectly encapsulated by one of his first lines: “The cop inside me died that day.”
At his first reveal, we can see that heavy dark circles have formed beneath his eyes, further cementing how he is tired and has possibly been neglecting proper rest.
With how negatively Leon has been portrayed from the opening cinematic, it doesn’t help that the start of the game is set in a creepy, dark forest, as if reflecting Leon’s now gloomy nature.
A short scene in the very first seconds of the intro cinematic showed some sacrificial ritual, which already made me guess that this wasn’t just some science.
We try to find one of the cops who suddenly went missing. Then one thing led to another, and we are now fending for ourselves against some crazed locals in a hunter’s lodge, then escaping through a window. What heightened the experience here was that Leon only had 10 bullets in his magazine, with no extra ammunition. It is insane to me how either unprepared or confident Leon is that he thinks this is enough for his mission.
Oh, what was his mission? His mission was to save the U.S. President’s daughter, Ashley Graham. Who goes on such an important mission with a pistol and no extra ammunition? Leon S. Kennedy. What a guy.
The Most Action Leon Has Ever Been
Resident Evil 4 Remake honestly plays more like an action game than a horror game once you get past the village area. Of course, the enemies are still scary monsters, but they are less zombie and more crazed human beings who transform into some eldritch, tentacled creatures.
The enemies are much more durable than your usual zombies in Resident Evil 2 and 3 Remake, but with how the controls are designed in this entry, moving around and keeping yourself safe is easier, making combat feel more fluid and relatively easy.
At the start, you get just a pistol with 10 bullets, but you do get ammo and materials to craft ammo eventually. More guns get unlocked or picked up, starting with the shotgun.
Getting quickly into the groove of combat is necessary, as chaos seems to be common during fights. Thankfully, the first time you enter the village and try to escape, it turns into a fight fest, leaving you, as Leon, to fend for yourself.
This is actually when the bingo line comes in, and then the title card shows up. That was pretty epic.
Anyway, headshots are very important, but leg shots to drop enemies down are also extremely useful. Going around to group enemies up to use your shotguns or explosives more effectively is highly recommended. Luring enemies to specific paths and then using certain shortcuts to provide oneself more space is another tactic that I had to learn immediately. In general, gunplay is extremely polished and necessary to master, but learning the layout and how to navigate the environment is about half of the task to master combat.
Leon’s Suitcase
I found resource management to be secondary and not as much of a concern as in the previous entries, as crafting materials for ammo and the ammo themselves are plentiful to find. Healing items are a bit scarce, but if you manage to get good at combat, you will always have enough to get by or store in your item box.
Inventory management is still present, but done in a completely different fashion from Resident Evil 0, 1, 2, and 3. Instead of 4 to 6 specific item slots, Leon now has a suitcase with 60 slots (fit in a 6×10 fashion), and items have to be placed carefully. Every item occupies a different number of slots in different ways. For example, health canisters, herbs, and ammo take up 2×1 slots. Some of these stack, like ammo, but some don’t, like the herbs.
Inventory management can be challenging, but if you spend a lot of your resources anyway, you don’t have any problems trying to fit in your items. It does become a bit more of a problem if you decide to bring a lot of weapons, as some take up more space than others, like the shotguns or rifles.
“Over here, stranger!”
A merchant also appears along with the typewriter and item box in between areas, allowing you to equip Leon with more items, trinkets, or attachments to get Leon more combat-ready. While illogical and unexplained in relation to the story, I think that the store mechanic is a welcome addition that is not heavily overloaded or a main focus. What I am trying to say is that you will always have enough money to upgrade weapons or buy items, so it’s not something that takes up too much headspace during exploration and combat. With that said, I still recommend being as resourceful as possible.
Yet, how do you get money to spend on the merchant? Money gets dropped by enemies, so finding and defeating enemies is encouraged. You can still leave enemies alone if you want, but there are always ways to defeat most enemies with at most 2 shots and a melee attack.
Instant kills are also possible by stealthily approaching enemies from behind, on the side, or extremely quickly from their front, then pressing the melee attack. This does consume the durability of melee weapons but allows for a quick, easy elimination of an enemy.
Aside from enemy drops, you can also sell treasures found around the map. Treasures appear as gems, trinkets, vases, necklaces, and many more. Weirdly enough, there is this one treasure that gets cheaper if it gets dirty early in the game. This mechanic doesn’t return in any shape or form in the rest of the game, so I got a bit more paranoid when trying to get treasures on the map.
There is also a special currency called Spinels used to trade for better items. Spinels can be acquired from defeated bosses, loot from the environment, or quest rewards. Yes, there are quests in Resident Evil 4, which was surprising.
These quests come in the form of papers with stamps hung on the walls or pillars, usually near the merchant. These quests come in different forms, such as eliminating rats, snakes, enemies, or finding specific items. You turn the quests in by speaking to the merchant, who gives you a number of Spinels as a reward.
The entire economy system fits very well with the combat. Of course, this does not include the story implications of it, but it does help with progression where there are no skills and abilities involved, only guns.
Is this Shadow of Mordor?
Guns and enemies aren’t the only things that vary. There is also a variety of locations to explore, from a village, mountain paths, a castle, and even a laboratory. Resident Evil 4 Remake is probably the most bizarre out of all the games in the franchise, I have played in terms of the locations to explore.
The game starts off in the forest, then leads to a village, then to some mountainous area, then to a lake, with a castle nearby, then eventually to some laboratory facility with both a surface and underground area. Oh yeah, a mining site as well which, while only briefly explored, had an insane cart ride minigame. It does take out a lot of realism and groundedness compared to the previous entries, but what of it? The game is really fun and doubles down on this over-the-top story and presentation.
The castle section is probably the highlight for me as it felt like I was raiding a fortress in Middle-earth: Shadow of War or Shadow of Mordor. Some of the enemies even looked like large trolls, which was just insane to me.
Ashley, Ada, Wesker, Krauser, And So On.
As I’ve said before, Resident Evil 4 has Leon saving the daughter of the U.S. President, Ashley Graham. The companion mechanic was an interesting feature in this entry, where you had to work with another character to get through sections of the game. For the most part, you only had to save Ashley from enemies, but it does heighten the tension when you need her help, and you have to protect her while she tries to do so. I can see why some people would find it annoying, but it was an interesting take, and I am keen to have more of this system if they decide to bring it back. I actually think they didn’t put that much emphasis on it in the game, and they could definitely have made more content revolving around it.
Ashley was very charming, constantly trying to flirt with Leon, considering that he is her knight in shining armor. She does have an arc of her own, from being a damsel in distress to having a more proactive role and sympathetic personality, as shown in her dedication to taking down the laboratory for Luis Serra after learning of his demise.
Not only do memories of Raccoon City haunt Leon, but a senior in a secret operation years prior to the events of Resident Evil 4 comes back as well. Major Jack Krauser, the senior in this story, now works for the organization behind the kidnapping of Ashley Graham.
For the most part, his reason for joining arms with them isn’t really in support of their ideals, but for personal reasons. I didn’t really catch much of his story, but from what I know, Krauser wanted power, and the development of B.O.W.s would give him what he wanted. During his boss fight, he eventually transforms similarly to the Proto-Tyrant from Resident Evil 0, with one arm in the shape of a large blade.
Other important characters like Ada Wong and Albert Wesker show up, and their presence is explained in the Separate Ways DLC. Aside from those two, Luis Serra, an Umbrella scientist who decided to help Leon, and Ramon Salazar were characters I also liked.
Separate Ways DLC
The Separate Ways DLC featured Ada Wong’s side of the story in Resident Evil 4 Remake. The game encompasses pretty much the entirety of her actions, alongside what was happening in Leon’s side, from the moment he steps into the village to the end when they separate ways.
Weapon progression in the DLC took a bit of a step back, which was pretty fine for me, as they traded it for more mechanics specific to Ada. One of the mechanics was the grappling hook, which was used to traverse areas with large gaps or get on top of certain objects to avoid enemies or get a better position.
With all these in mind, the Separate Ways DLC felt pretty fresh and different enough from the main gameplay with Leon as the main character. Ada’s story only consists of seven chapters and was a fairly lengthy experience on its own. At the end, it was a bit surreal to see the final fight between Leon and Osmund Saddler from Ada’s perspective. You can actually see Leon’s AI fight pretty competently against Saddler, and I actually took my time just watching how things occurred from afar.
Now for the story, it does help that Ada is someone very important to Leon; otherwise, this wouldn’t have been as interesting, and there wouldn’t be a need for a DLC. Ada is in the same place as Leon to acquire an item integral to further the development of B.O.W.s under Wesker. While Ada is inland along with Leon, Wesker, for the most part, is in another location, giving commands to Ada.
What’s funny, however, is that now and then, Wesker would go inland to meet Ada, then go back to his undisclosed location. In one instance, Ada falls unconscious, and Wesker scoops her up just in time to save her. Another, Wesker meets Ada to give her an item, then leaves once again. It’s just weird how Wesker would spend his time and whatever resources he has to meet Ada and go back where he came from, rather than have another one of his underlings meet or help Ada.
Is Resident Evil 4 Remake A Good Game? Is Resident Evil 4 Remake Worth It?
Resident Evil 4 Remake really shines in its combat design, and locations second. The personal story and development of Leon is also important, but it only gave us a glimpse of that same hopeful and gleeful rookie cop we saw in Raccoon City.
Ashley does not show up in any other games from what I know, much like Billy Coen, so that is a bit of a shame.
The enemies are a step up from the standard zombies and lickers. One thing about the Remakes, not just this one, is the distinct lack of animal enemies like Hunters, spiders, frogs, and more. It would have been nice to see them come back; they did come back for Requiem, though.
While the story isn’t the best, the combat really puts it above some of the Resident Evil entries I have played so far. Writing this now, I probably still have this lower than Resident Evil 1 Remake—that one was just special.
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