Well, I just completed Resident Evil 4. It was the game that shot Resident Evil into the mainstream. It was also a dramatic departure from the RE formula that we’d come to know at the time. Once upon a time, I was saddened by the fact that it strayed from RE’s roots. Now, after playing Code Veronica and then playing this immediately after, I can tip my hat to Capcom and concede. They made the right call, and they didn’t need me to confirm that to them. They can just look at the millions of copies of RE4 they’ve sold over the past 15 years or so.
I played the Xbox One “HD” version that released a few years ago (that of course I bought, again) and I can at least say that the HD was warranted this time around. Does it look amazing? No, but it looks pretty damn good, especially considering this game debuted on the Gamecube in 2005. I’ve bought this game no fewer than four times. The first time at launch on Gamecube, then again on the Wii with its motion controls (which were excellent), then yet again on the Xbox 360, and then yet a-fucking-gain on Xbox One. The Xbox 360 purchase was justified (and probably on sale) since both of the previous copies I owned looked like complete ass on an HDTV. The Xbox One purchase was reluctant but important (and also on sale) because that meant, for the first time ever, that every single Resident Evil game I owned was playable on a single console. For a life-long fan like me, that was a dream come true. As of this writing, I have no fewer than ELEVEN games on my Xbox One, and with forward compatibility being a thing now, I can comfortably assume that any RE game that comes out in the foreseeable future will be playable alongside my others. That makes me feel real fuzzy inside.
Resident Evil 4 holds up stupidly well. While I still would love for Leon to be able to strafe from side to side, or walk while aiming, the game is balanced well enough to cope with his limited movement. The Ganados, a.k.a. the “not-zombies” were a new addition and launched the series into a whole new direction. We didn’t know it at the time, but that new direction would turn out to be kind of a disaster, but more on that when we get to RE6. The not-zombies were intelligent, could use tools and coordinate their efforts, dodge headshots, and flank. Leon could no longer see behind him and the need to keep moving was more important than ever. Enemies were now capable of instant kills, so a full bar of health was never a comfortable indicator of survivability. It was tense.
Despite low geometry in the environments, the HD version upped some of the textures, and the character models were re-worked with a bit more detail, and that helps to keep this game looking good in the year 2020. The 60 frames per second doesn’t hurt either.
It’s still a long-ass game. This game was a massive undertaking at the time, and even now, it still clocks in as one of the longest games in the series, with maybe only RE6 topping it. With my playthrough being the second round, I had a lot of my weapons upgraded, so killing was faster and easier. That said, I still took about 12 hours to get through it. A first-timer playing the game could easily see playtimes going north of 20 hours. So what, you say? Well, consider this; Resident Evil 4 is a twenty hour game, with virtually no backtracking. Sure, there are a few areas you’ll wrap around back to, but it’s almost always via a different route, and rarely will a player spend more than a few minutes re-visiting an area. I would confidently estimate that about 95% of the ground you cover in RE4 is fresh ground. A 20+ hour game with almost no re-treading is an undertaking of epic proportions.
It’s replayability is still really high. With RE4, Capcom made one of the best decisions they ever have with the series. In addition to a New Game + feature, they added the ability to upgrade weapons using currency found in the game. This makes subsequent play-throughs extremely fun and relaxing. Playing through as an over-powered Leon is probably some of the best fun you’ll have in an RE game, especially since the legions of Ganados make for quite the shooting gallery. Plenty of gooey visuals and squishy sound effects will make even the most hardened gamer giggle like a school girl as he/she blasts the ever-loving shit out hordes of not-zombies.
Leon should’ve left Ashley with the merchant. The merchant is a guy (or guys) that Leon can purchase weapons, ammo, and health from, as well as upgrade his own weapons and sell treasures to. He’s a shady bloke, but obviously has no love for the Ganados or the Los Illuminados. He’s an opportunist at best, and he recognized the situation and used it to his advantage. It’s been a long running joke amongst RE fans that he seemed to get around pretty much anywhere he wanted with ease. Finally unlock that door you’ve been collecting items to for the past two hours? Well, guess what, the merchant got in before you did. Even if there were multiple merchants using a vast, underground network for their black market dealings, they obviously know the area well. Wouldn’t a few thousand pesetas have been enough to smuggle Ashley off the island? I know, she had the virus in her, but even so, surely he (or they) could’ve gotten them to the cure much faster than they did on their own.
Leon, you have a gun. You have a gun, Leon. Apparently, Leon has been watching too many crime dramas on television. You know the ones, where the cop/agent will point a gun at a suspect, say “freeze” or “don’t move” and then proceed to put their gun away and give chase when the suspect doesn’t freeze, and actually moves. I get that. Those are people, and there are rules. But these aren’t people, Leon, blast the fuck out of them. Don’t stand and listen to Salazar preach for five minutes, put a fucking bullet in his head. At no point did my Leon have anything less on him than a pistol, a magnum, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, and a sub-machine gun. He was the fucking Punisher, and yet he let Salazar, Krauser, and Saddler ramble on and on like fucking Bond villains.
Here’s how an encounter should’ve gone:
Salazar: “Ah, Mr. Kennedy, how nice to—”
BANG!
Would it have killed them? Eh, probably not, since they were all carrying the virus, but it would’ve expedited some shit and kept Leon from chasing them across the entire damn island. Instead he just stands there like a goon and lets them talk for 15 minutes.
Ashley wants to bang, but Leon’s like “Nah.” Adrenaline makes people horny. Unless you’re Leon S. Kennedy. He ain’t got time for that. After beating the game, Ashley is holding onto Leon, pushing those sweater puppies against his back, saying she wants to go back to her place and put in some overtime. And Leon shuts her down, stone-cold. Perhaps he’s tired, or maybe he’s dedicated to the job. Maybe it’s because she looks kinda like Gollum. In any case, I can’t see any guy getting through a life and death traumatic situation and not wanting to screw the nearest thing with two legs. That’s not me being sexist or whatnot, that’s just science. Go ahead, Leon, you deserve it. Who cares if she’s the President’s daughter, and looks kinda like Gollum? A girl has needs, yo.
Hunnigan is Ada, and don’t you forget it. While Capcom never came out and said it, there are multiple hints that Hunnigan, Leon’s “handler” is actually Ada Wong. For one, they kinda look alike, and two, there is a large portion of the game where Leon is unable to reach Hunnigan on his radio. He doesn’t get in contact with her again until much later, which he comments that she’s not wearing glasses. The first time Leon comes into contact with Ada on the island, she drops her glasses and they explode into a flash of light that allows her to slip away. The hints that are dropped are too heavy-handed and wink-winky to not be a nod to Ada being a double agent posing as Hunnigan. Or maybe Hunnigan is her true identity and Ada Wong is the alias? We probably will never know because Capcom is not the slightest bit interested in giving us her back story.
To make things foggier, there was DLC that was released and included with the game called Separate Ways, and it completely ignored all the hints in the game by ret-conning Ada’s story and timeline. Because of this, there’s no way she could’ve been posing as Hunnigan. But, according to the interwebs, the DLC episode was done by a completely different team that didn’t consult with the lead writer of RE4 at all when making it. So they might have completely screwed everything without knowing or caring. To make up for it, Capcom brought back an obviously-not-Ada version of Hunnigan for RE6, thinking they can just sweep it all under the rug. But we know the truth, Capcom. We know.
Don’t skip the ending credits. I’ve always loved the ending credits sequence for RE4. It’s very simple, yet speaks volumes, and is incredibly effective at telling a story, using no words at all. It consists of a series of illustrations, just pencil sketches, really, depicting every day life of the Ganado people. It shows a simpler time, of them farming, gathering around a dinner table. The music is peaceful and soothing. Then there’s a sketch of Saddler and his sidekick, standing before a crowd of people, and the music changes to a deeper, more sinister tone, symbolizing the coming of the Los Illuminados to the village. Further sketches show them injecting the Ganados with the parasite, and the changes and destruction of the village that follows. It’s a short sequence of illustrations, but man, does it make an impact. You actually feel sorry for the couple of hundred people you just slaughtered. It was a brilliant inclusion and a wonderful decision to use this instead of some diary text that people don’t read anyway.
LOOOOOOUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS! Probably the only really cringey moment in the game (besides Salazar, ugh) is when Luis gets killed and Leon is shouting his name. The guy just died for you, Leon, the least you could do is pronounce his name right. It’s “Loo-eess,” not Louis. The guy’s from Spain, not New Jersey. I get that the voice actor probably wasn’t given a pronunciation of the name, and hadn’t heard the other actor’s accent, so I won’t blame Leon’s VO guy, but damn they could’ve told him something. This is why other countries don’t like Americans.
DOES THIS GAME NEED A REMAKE?
I have a feeling this will be one of those arguments that will go down in infamy with the likes of Han shooting first, subtitles vs English dubbing, and which was the best Doctor. Does the game need a remake? I would think most people would say no. I just played it through and its fine. A lot of people may argue that it could be so much better with modern graphics and a few gameplay tweaks, but whether the latter will be for the better is anybody’s guess. RE2 and RE3 were ripe for a remake, so no one argued with that (even though there’s an argument that the original RE3 Nemesis was better). There is virtually no way the remake will retain all of the content that was in the original. I would love to be proven wrong, but RE4 as it stands now is huge.
Does all the content need to carry over? There were a few parts that could probably be omitted without sacrificing too much. There was a time or two during my playthrough where I felt the side-tracking was a bit much. There were occasions where Leon would emerge from a long trek underground, only to descend once again. I felt that the castle segment of the game stretched on for a bit, and I definitely think the giant, stupid Salazar statue could go and no one would miss it. Why the fuck is there a giant robot statue? It’s a goofy section of the game and I would love to not have to look at it again.
Something else that would definitely be dropped are the quicktime events. They were a product of the time and they are abundant in RE4. Luckily, technology has reached a point where real-time fighting can look as good, if not better, than a cutscene.
The graphics are good, and they work effectively. There’s still plenty of mood and atmosphere in this old game. I guess the ones wanting a remake are those that can imagine what the RE4 world will look like with modern graphics, high resolution textures, ray-traced lighting, etc. and I agree, that would all be wonderful, but only if they retain everything else that makes RE4 great.
Resident Evil 4 was damn near perfection. And you don’t fuck with perfection.
