I am not the biggest Resident Evil veteran and to be honest this isn’t one of my favorite video game franchises of all time. I never grew up playing the classics and my knowledge of how the older games worked is quite low. However, to some degree I do consider myself a Resident Evil fan and the success of recent entries has dragged in a new audience of Resident Evil lovers like myself. Resident Evil VII: Biohazard was a return to the horror roots of the first game and it offered a horrifying immersive thrill ride from beginning to end. It may have had a weak end, but the rest of the experience is great and it’s one of the high points in the franchises’ history. Resident Evil 2 Remake redefined what a video game remake could be and both reworked and expanded the Racoon City Police Department that many grew up with. It made use of the little space it had and modernized the gameplay in the best way possible. After that we started getting more mild contenders to the Resident Evil collection. Not saying these games were bad or you shouldn’t like them, but Resident Evil is starting to reach that stale point again. Resident Evil 3 Remake was a major disappointment by removing several aspects that made the original great, and may have been overhyped due to how critically acclaimed Resident Evil 2 Remake was. It lacked any sense of replayability the second remake had and lacked content as well. Resident Evil VIII: Village was a great game and what it did right was done tremendously well, but the areas it failed to perform in were so major that it was struggling to maintain balance on the scale.
So if I can sum this all up, Resident Evil is probably going back into that hiatus stage again. Where the heads at Capcom will have to stop for a minute to decide what the proper direction will be next. They’ve done this several times before and they obviously are going to do it again. Resident Evil is just losing its wondrous magic for me and I want to experience the extensive joy I had with both Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil 2 Remake. That’s when a bunch of people told me to stop complaining like a hissing cat and play the best Resident Evil already. What is not only considered one of the greatest games ever made, but a complete change for multiple genres. Resident Evil 4, the fourth entry if you exclude all those side entries no one wants to remember and the time when Resident Evil took a step forward to new horizons. Until Resident Evil 5 & 6 happened. The development for Resident Evil 4 was a rocky one as Shinji Mikami, the director of the three main entries so far, was struggling to figure out what to do with Resident Evil next. The third game was good, but the formula was getting stale. A new console generation was on the horizon and they needed to think fast if they wanted Resident Evil to continue being a household name. When coming up with Resident Evil 4 they drafted and scrapped multiple versions until they came up with the good one. From the setting, gameplay, and story. One of the scrapped ideas for Resident Evil 4 would become Devil May Cry which is a fun fact to know. Eventually, the team realized the thing holding Resident Evil back was the slow pacing and the tension. They sped that up and decided that Resident Evil 4 was going to be a high octane action adventure compared to previous entries. Plus it would help them compete with other action games at the time. Capcom did make a deal with Nintendo to make Resident Evil 4 exclusive part of the Capcom Five, but that was an absolute flop and they ported the game to Playstation 2 a few months later. The game still sold incredibly well on the Gamecube and sold well on other consoles. At the time Resident Evil 4 was a game changer, pun intended, and paved a new road for horror and action in video games.
The fourth game is more than sixteen years old now and with that amount of time there shouldn't have been some aspects that age poorly. Unfortunately that isn’t the case. My first few minutes of Resident Evil 4 started off really rough, but after that things got better. Incredibly better. I was having an extremely fun time with Resident Evil 4 and was surprised with how new it felt for a sixteen year old game from the Nintendo Gamecube and Playstation 2 era. Having finished the first game, I can safely say that Resident Evil 4 is in fact the best Resident Evil. I was originally planning on getting this review out on Halloween night to celebrate the season, but the game took longer to finish due to schooling and that’s how we are here now. You know what? Who cares? Resident Evil 4 is still a masterpiece and I am so happy to have finished it. May not be the best video game I ever played, but it sure is a really good one. Today we’ll be talking about why I love Resident Evil 4 and why it deserves your attention. So let’s jingle jangle, bingo bango, and see what Leon Scott Kennedy is up to this time.
Story
Six years have passed since the tragedy that was the Racoon City incident. A virus swept through the streets and transformed more than half of the citizens into mindless flesh eating zombies. Those who weren’t transformed into zombies were eaten alive or struggled to escape what was basically hell on earth. However, there were a few souls that survived. One of these being a rookie cop named Leon who was showing up for his first day on the job at the Racoon City Police Department. It wasn’t the greatest night of his life. All he wanted was a simple job where he could help out others, but instead he witnessed pure horror at it’s finest. He delved deep into the city alongside a few allies and discovered the truth to what led to the zombie outbreak. Realizing that other organizations could be performing the exact same thing and trying to start their own apocalypses, Leon S Kenedy decided that the next step in his life was to become a badass fighter who could take these people down and hopefully bring peace to the world. During the last six years he had become a government agent and sent on missions that even a heavily armed team could complete. His most recently assigned mission is to rescue the president’s daughter who had been kidnapped by a mysterious cult located in Europe. Just Europe. Not anywhere specific within the country, just Europe. Nobody knows how exactly the daughter of one of the most well protected men in the United States could get kidnapped, but whatever the case Leon is onto it.
Leon is flown over to Europe and is driven by two Spanish cops to a small village containing the whereabouts of the cult. He tells the two to stay in the car while he scouts out ahead. Leon troddles down a small path until he finds a cabin. There is someone who lives in the cabin and Leon tries to ask him about any suspicious activities that could be happening within the area. The atmosphere starts to get eerie and when Leon begins to ask the house owner more questions he is immediately attacked. Random villagers begin breaking into the house and this forces Leon to make a run for it. He then finds himself in a small village containing more crazy villagers out on the hunt for outsiders. The two spanish speaking cops who drove him have now been lodged onto wooden stakes and burned alive as sacrifices. Turns out that the people of the village follow the cult who kidnapped Ashley, and this cult is known as the Los Illuminados. Leon begins fighting his way through the village until all the villagers are called off by church bells. He then inspects further into the village and finds a not so crazy man trapped in a closet. His name is Luis and he tries to tell Leon that something is wrong with the villagers. They weren’t like this before and whatever the cult has done has transformed them into mindless killers. The two are then knocked out by the village leader and while unconscious, Leon is injected with a weird serum. He starts getting weird visions until Luis wakes him up and the both escape. Leon moves quickly through the village, finds a mysterious chapel, and locates Ashley who is locked up on the top floor. They then escape before being confronted by Saddler, leader of the Los Illuminados. He tells Leon and Ashley they have been injected with a parasite like the rest of the villagers, and once the parasite takes full control of their body Saddler will be able to manipulate them like puppets on strings. Saddler states he will then have Ashley sent back and infect the president of the United States, so that Los Illuminados may take over the world. I don’t why you would do that rather load a syringe with the parasite into a gun and shoot it at the president, but whatever. Leon and Ashley escape and the hunt is on. They must find a way to escape the crazy people, get the parasites out of their bodies, and take down Saddler.
Gameplay
The way Resident Evil games worked before the fourth entry was that they crammed you into tight spaces and angled the camera in such a way where you can see what was happening around you but confuse the player in what way to go. Setting the camera just right was especially useful during stressful scenarios or leading to moments that were made to scare the player, because it would help set the scene or add more tension to the already dreadful atmosphere. However, the downside to this set camera was it would throw players off of where they were going, what direction their character was moving, and sometimes making them move towards where they weren’t pointing the joystick. It was also really hard to see where things were at times. Resident Evil 4 completely ditches the cramp spaces and sets the camera for a third person over the shoulder view. The one we see in a lot of modern video games today. You had just the right amount of space to see what was in front of you and what was around you. It was easy to adjust and your character never moved in the wrong direction. The difference between the camera in Resident Evil 4 and other third person games is that it still had the tank controls that Resident Evil games are known for. You use the left joystick, the one used for movement, to turn the camera left and right. To quickly snap 180 degrees you can flick the joystick downward and press the X button to turn quickly. That’s if you are playing on a Playstation 4 like me. The right joystick is mainly used to get a quick glance of the area, but it's not used to adjust the camera to the direction you want to look. It took some time to get used to how Resident Evil 4 controlled, but I eventually got used to it. Movement is pretty fluid, the way you draw out your gun is like a majority of games with guns, and some buttons are used to perform special maneuvers like roundhouse kicking or slashing away with a knife.
You’re probably wondering how combat works in Resident Evil 4 anyways since the way fights play out in survival horror games can be tense. You usually have slow movement, limited resources to work with, and a single enemy can chomp a huge chunk of your health away in one bite. Well let’s say they decided to speed up the combat in Resident Evil 4. You have more space to work with and it’s easy to see who is coming at you. Enemies come in large hordes though and they are rushing you down from all sides. They come in a multitude of flavors. From guys who run up to you for melee and grab attacks. Enemies who throw items at you and must be either reflected or avoided. Stronger foes who can mutate or take multiple bullets to take down. Or these chainsaw bastards who kill you in one slash to the head. Luckily you have a multitude of weapons to use and since you are finding hordes of enemies the game douses you with ammo so that you are never too low on supplies to defend yourselves. They don’t give you so much that you can carelessly fire away. You still have to decide what weapons to use during the right time, and the game can punish you if you center around one gun too much. Aiming will allow you to quickly fire away at an enemy, but you stop dead in your tracks while doing so. You will have to reposition yourself if you don’t want to be caught and surrounded. You could just blast away, but not only would that be a waste of ammunition but also time. Shoot an enemy in the weak spot and they go down faster, or if you can stagger them you can perform a roundhouse kick which knocks over any surrounding foes. You can then pull out your knife to slash at any down foes before they can get back up and continue attacking you. There is a lovely selection of guns and each type has special uses. The all rounded pistol which has decent range and firepower. The shotgun packs a punch up close, but has a slow firing and reload rate. A revolver or magna which is basically an extremely powerful pistol, but ammo is scarce for it. A rifle for sniping enemies from afar and can instantly kill them if you line up the shot to the head. There is an assault rifle, grenade launcher, and so much more. There are even a few types of grenades to break up the crowds.
A majority of the time when you kill enemies they may drop Pintas. This is a special currency that may be spent at an NPC named The Merchant. He’s a hooded figure placed in certain sections of every level. Usually at points where it is safe, before bosses, and mainly safe areas containing typewriters to save your game. The Merchant can be used to purchase a multitude of things. Stronger versions of weapons you may have from before, but with different traits or properties. The first shotgun is good up close and has a wide spread, but the riot gun has a longer range but less spread. You can even trade in older guns and supplies you don’t need to the Merchant for more Pintas. Occasionally he will sell you weapon mods and supplies you won’t encounter in any other area of the game. First aid sprays, a tactical vest which offers more protection, and weapon mods which offer aspects like less recoil or a better scope. Buy and sell, those are two out of the three options you have with the merchant. What about the third one? The Merchant’s other ability is to tune up weapons you have on hand and improve their capabilities. He can upgrade their firepower, reload speed, clip capacity, and accuracy. Tuning a weapon will cost a lot of Pintas, but it does make investing in them more worthwhile. Adds a mixture of RPG leveling and progression into Resident Evil 4. You can also explore the environment and loot for extra supplies. Some of these being trinkets you can sell to the Merchant for a load of Pintas.
You can pick up herbs while exploring the world and by mixing herbs together you can create mixtures that can restore your health. Having a vial containing three grounded herbs should fill a good portion of your health, but sometimes you want to wait until you find red herbs or yellow. They're hard to find and they aren’t dropped by enemies like green herbs, but their properties are worthwhile. A red herb mixed with a green herb heals the equivalent to mixing three green herbs together. A yellow herb mixed with a green herb has the possibility of increasing Leon’s maximum health. If you are able to, you can mix a red, green, and yellow herb together to get a well worth vial that restores maximum health and increases your max health. They may take a long time to make, but they are useful during the right occasion and sell for a high price.
You’ll also want to worry about Ashley who is traveling with Leon during his journey. Ashley is your main priority and if she is taken or dies during a mission then it's an instantaneous game over just like you losing all of your health. You can heal Ashley using the same herbs and sprays that Leon uses, but if you shoot her she dies instantly. This is bad when an enemy grabs her and you need to shoot them so they let go, but misplace your shot and she will die. You can tell Ashley to hide or wait so she doesn’t get dragged into fights with you, but in a lot of sections you’ll have to run or defend.
Then there's the boss fights which are really important in Resident Evil 4 as they are what stand between you and progressing forward. They have a ton of health and you’ll just have to pump bullets into them until they are dead. They have specific weak spots they must be shot in, but unlike some of the other Resident Evil bosses I have fought, these ones require a bit of skill. You constantly have to be on the move, shoot whenever you can, and make use of the fighting space you have as some attacks may instantly kill you if not careful. They're fun to fight and they are the best the series.
Besides all that there really isn’t anything else for me to say about the gameplay for Resident Evil 4. There are some gimmick sections like being on a minecart or having to ride on vehicles, but they don’t last so long. There are the occasional puzzles that Resident Evil are known for which require thinking to solve. Some require you to find items within the area, but they shouldn’t be that hard to find as long as you follow the main path. Other than that it’s Resident Evil 4. The combat is good, there's a sense of growing stronger, and since the game is extremely linear you are always being pointed toward the right path. Hopefully you can outlive the second worst night of Leon’s life.
Thoughts
Resident Evil 4 is a really fun game and still holds up more than sixteen years later. The combat is a good mixture between survival horror and intense action by having combat scenarios that force you to fight back aggressively or open up opportunities that let you get the edge. Some sequences have enemies spawning in numerously, but they give a clear sign when to stop fighting back and start pressing forward. The game is generous enough with you with supplies so that you are never empty handed, and you will rack up enough money to afford the upgrades needed to push forward. For some reason Resident Evil 4 kind of reminded me of Bloodborne. The gothic tone and atmosphere, aggressive combat, the architecture of certain areas, and motivating the player to never play too safely. Visually Resident Evil 4 doesn’t look as good today, but that’s not really a fair claim to make since it was a Gamecube and Playstation 2 game, so of course it won’t look as good. However, while graphics may not be great the art direction holds up and some areas look way ahead of their time. Salazar’s Castle is an amazing place to venture through and the futher you get the more amazing architecture you get to look at. I think I have a weird obsession in gothic architecture reader. Whether it is churches, castles, temples, or anything made of marble. Character designs are great as well and I especially love the uniform that Luis wears. Very charming and I wish I could wear it.
The setting and atmosphere for Resident Evil 4 is well presented and it does a better job at providing that idea that you are not in a safe place and far from home compared to Village. The stakes are high and you have to get out of there sooner rather than later. Speaking of the story, that's what I forgot to dive into earlier. The story of Resident Evil 4 is great although it’s bad. Well,that’s going to offend a lot of people who adore the story of this game, but I’m sure they understand where I'm going at. The plot isn’t one that'll pull your heart strings, and we’ve seen these tropes before. The president’s daughter gets kidnapped, an evil cult, virus , and much more. Resident Evil tries to get away from these problems by having these crucial moments and ever expanding plot. To the point where the stories are overtop for the sake of being overtop. That’s not the case with Resident Evil 4. The writers knew how over the top Resident Evil plots have been and how stupid they can be, so they embraced that stupidity and decided to make a story that was both dumb and entertaining. Action sequences get you hyped up for what is to happen, characters are entertaining enough to be engaging, no one has a boring personality, and the story is trying to push itself at a good pace so you can get back to the fun gameplay. Leon throws a lot of one liners, but their good one liners. They're thrown at the right time and they are usually followed up with Leon being a badass and fighting evil. He’s just so cool in this game! Compare that to Ethan Winters and what you get is two sides of the coin. The Act Man proves it best in his review of Resident Evil: Village. “You play as Leon and you feel awesome. You play as Ethan Winters and he’s an absolute asshole”. The difference between someone who was made awesome, and someone who was made to be subtle at first but eventually the writers handfisted a bunch of dialogue not fit for the character. Another compliment I like to make is how they handled Luis and after his death they still attempt to provide background. Several documents can be found that provide background to what is going on, but there are also ones that centers around Luis and the experiments he performed.
The game should take roughly around fifthteen hours to beat which is a good run time for this game. There is a butt ton of replay value and it’s weird how a linear game can have it. The reason why a linear designed game can have replay value is how they set up combat scenarios and how the player can get through them. They may go through the same problems with different ways to handle them with each playthrough and attempt, and sometimes they’ll race themselves to see how fast they can beat the game. Plus there are fun unlocks for future runs after beating the game. Now I do have complaints. The controls took awhile to get used to as Leon has tanky movement and you can't move while aiming. They aren’t terrible, but that's one of few aspects that aged slightly poorly. However, the game forces you to get used to them quickly and once you do it works. I feel like you’re always going to stick with the stronger version of each weapon type as there’s no good reason to keep the weaker versions. The difficulty does curve at times, but it’s not in a bad sense. It’s fair enough so that you are being challenged but not overwhelmed. Some sections are secretly made easier by the game by removing enemies if you die enough times to them, so balances it out. Finally there’s the sections with Ashley. I don't hate Ashley and I don't mind escorting her. It's all about telling her when to hide so you can clear out areas, keep her distanced far enough from the enemies, and not accidentally shoot her when she gets grabbed. You have to manage her own health bar, which makes resource consumption risky. What I don't like is her dialogue. This was when women in video games weren't written as well, but lot has changed since then. None of these problems really drag the core experience down, and the core experience is still great. Fun, just pure mindless fun.
Resident Evil 4 is a timeless classic and I can’t stress enough how much I enjoyed my time with it. If you are someone who is looking at this and doesn’t think it looks as good as the modern entries then shut up and give it a try. Once you get into the groove you’ll understand why it’s the best. Kind of like how Fallout: New Vegas is the best one once you take the time to understand why. I definitely recommend this game and if they do choose to remake it even though it doesn’t need a remake what I want them to do is improve the controls, don’t remove the campy humor, and we’re good to go. In the end I am going to have to go give Resident Evil 4 a 9.5/10 for excellence at best.
Comments