I recently played though Resident Evil 4 again and it's kinda crazy how well it holds up all these years later. The last time I played it was when it first came out on GameCube in 2005. I beat it but never picked it up after that initial play though cause it wore me out! There are sections of that game that is among the most stressful things I've ever done in a game! Yeah it has to do with action instead of horror but I'd argue that is horror. Being scared/tense isn't confined to being traditionally scared. Having 7 dudes coming at you while you reload with low ammo is a whole thing! I mainly just want to talk about how I feel the game felt to play in 2019 and why I think this game is one of the most important games ever made in multiple ways.
So let's start with how it looks. I played on an Xbox One X but I'm not sure if playing on an X or a PS4 Pro matters, I'd imagine that it runs the same on base consoles as well. The character models looks great and it ran a very smooth 60fps the entire time. Even the reload animation was smooth every time. All the enemies look good and damn does this game have some fucking narly enemy design! Everything is slimy and gross in the best way. Where the game does look a bit rough is the background and environments. You can tell this game is older cause getting up close with some environments is a blurry mess. Especially during the final few sections going though the ruins and all the bright places. I'm not sure if the picture quality was above 1080p but it looked pretty good and better than I thought. I will say that the cutscenes still look like they did on GameCube and those can be a bit rough to watch but there aren't a ton of them so it's fine.
Let's talk about the story and voice acting for a bit cause WOW! I mean WOW in a good and bad way! The people who claim that RE5 and RE6 are bad games and were the start of a major change toward action must have forgotten that this game exists! This is literally a third-person action game at it's core. I played on normal and I got so much ammo that I had to leave some behind in a few spots! So what normally comes with a big dumb action game, a big dumb action story and that's what this game is. It makes sense in the grand scheme of things but on the surface it's nuts. Cause zombies are gone and...I'm sure you've played the game and know what I'm talking about. I just forgot how big scale this game got. Every set piece ends with an explosion haha! And boy, the voice acting is interesting! Leon is just a horny dude apparently but not when it comes to Ashley? That's what I got. The villains in this game have such weird voice acting that it's hard to take them serious but...maybe that was the point? To give a sample of the dialogue in this game: There is a scene where you and Ashley jump down a trash compactor and Ashley is making noises like she is hurt when they land and Leon says "I knew you'd be fine if you landed on your butt" That's the kind of back and forth literally this whole game is! I forgot how not serious this game is. It's like when I played Final Fantasy VII again a few years ago and remembered how much comedy is in that game, it's the same here. So I wouldn't say that stuff is bad but from the way people talk about this game you'd think it was a little more than what it is.
I also want to talk a bit about the Separate Ways campaign. I didn't play it in 2005 cause it wasn't available to fully play until the PS2 version came out. Playing as Ada is awesome cause she moves a lot faster than Leon and she gets an amazing crossbow with exploding arrows that is the most overpowered thing in the game! It's literally just playing as Ada in all the scenarios you see her in the main game but it's cannon and you learn a lot more about the story. It's a lot shorter than the main game but it took about 6 hours to get through. She also has a hook shot that lets you scale places you couldn't with Leon. Cause I noticed a few spots in the main game I couldn't get to and I could when playing this, I like stuff like that. More games need stuff like this!
The last point I want to bring up before I give my overall thoughts is the controls. Now most of you know that this was the RE game that broke tradition and got rid of the tank controls and went for the over the shoulder third-person camera. I think a lot of people think that Gears of War was the game that made that style popular but it was this game! So jumping back into this game in 2019 I thought I would feel right at home but oh...I forgot about a big thing of the series and that's not being able to move when you aim your weapon. Now that messed me up a good bit at first but the kicker was having the fixed camera and having the right analog stick just be able to look a bit in that direction but not fully control the camera. Both of those combined messed me up so much in the first few hours of playing but I did get used to it and you can tell the game is set up with those in mind. Like enemies will rush in but stop so you can actually deal with them, and it's nice they do that but it's weird from a storytelling point if you think about it. Why would enemies have numbers on you, rush in up close to you, and just slow way down when they get close? It's weird but it works. Boss fights on the other hand do not do that! They are ruthless but not overly hard once you figure them out. I died at most of them but the checkpoints are very good and it wasn't a deal to get back in and try again. It plays well but if you are used to modern controls it's gonna take a minute to get used to them.
So what did I think of going back to this game overall, I had so much damn fun with it! I have a new appreciation for it that wasn't there before. I get why people hold this game so high because the pace of it it almost perfect! Just when you get some story you get thrown new enemies and new environments. I mentioned that I felt this was one of the most important games ever made in a few ways and I hope that I've explained those over the course of this. I do want to point out a point I mentioned earlier that most people point to RE5 and RE6 as the games that shelved numbered sequels for a while but in reality, it was this game. This game changed the series into an action franchise and 5 and 6 were just trying to follow the success of this game! At the time of me writing this I'm playing through RE5 and loving it! I played some of it when it came out but put it down and now I'm wondering why because it's an awesome action game! And I also want to point out the movies a bit. Yes the movies went in a wild direction after the third one but come on, are you seriously gonna argue that RE4 isn't a bat-shit crazy game from a story stand point? So overall I had fun and would recommend anyone go back to this game now or even play it for the first time! Just be ready to get used to those damn controls!
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