Resident Evil 4 (2023) or: The RE4make

 With this, my journey through Resident Evil is done. What a game to end on.

I played this on my PS5.

It should be obvious, but this is a remake of Resident Evil 4. Much like the other remakes before it, it takes the base story and structure of the original game and adapts it for a "modern audience" with modern controls and mechanics. Among other things, that means you can move and shoot (something that's been a mainstay of the series for a while, but something that significantly alters how this game plays). The original RE4 sort of felt like a lightgun gallery at times, with slow enemies marching towards you while you stood in place and meticulously picked them off. This game, instead, requires you to stay agile and in motion, evading attacks and even adding a parry system.

The combat in this is good. Truly, exceptionally, good. The parry, combined with melee takedowns like those found in RE5 and RE6, mean combat is way more fluid and active than it was in the original. I'm still on the fence as to whether or not I think it's better, the original played incredibly well as it was, but this is different and, more importantly, still fun. It does what all good remakes should do by not simply being a rehash of something that already exists, but by being something new and worthwhile in its own right.

Because no still image would do it justice, here's some combat footage from the endgame.

The story, then, is pretty familiar. Leon is tasked with rescuing the President's daughter from some (unnamed?) Spanish-speaking country in Europe. Most of the same beats play out, with a few sequences noticeably being either replaced or outright removed, but it's still the same romp it was initially, for the most part. Characters feel a bit more fleshed out, with Leon feeling like a natural evolution of his character from the RE2make and Luis, especially, seeming much more alive and likeable than his original counterpart. 

The level design is, similarly, similar but not identical. There are encounters that evoke the spirit of the original without necessarily being one-to-one recreations of the fights or puzzles they're based on. The pacing and structure of the game are pretty similar to the original, with the storage boxes of the previous two remakes being replaced by a merchant. There is still a rudimentary storage system that allows you to stash items, something that I don't think was in the original, but for the most part you'll be selling items to make room in your attache case if you need space.

This was my inventory at the very end.

Coming right off the heels of Village this game is strange because it makes the evolution of the series even more apparent. While they've jumped between remakes and new entries for a while, there are certain mechanics and ideas that will stick from one game to the next. RE7, the RE2make, and the RE3make were all returns-to-form for the series hearkening back to early entries, all those games and Village each had Pursuer enemies that'd stalk various areas of the map making it difficult to revisit certain sections, and now Village and this have economies and weapon upgrades to mix things up. This series has been constantly evolving over time in a truly cool way.

This isn't something that only applies to this game, but man does this look great.  Characters and environments all look superb, and the lighting is, at times, incredibly stark and memorable. Earlier RE Engine games have also looked good, so my mentioning it now is more to highlight something that's become a staple of recent entries rather than a particular quirk of this game, but it felt worth mentioning regardless. Sure, games don't need to look this high-fidelity and, well, expensive to be good, but I might as well point it out when I see it.

I feel I've said about all I wanted to say about the base game, so I've included my results screen below.

Like the original, this also includes a concurrent Ada campaign titled "Separate Ways". This ALSO also includes a "The Mercenaries" mode, but I didn't engage much with that so I can't really offer my opinion on it. It seems good, like many of the other horde modes they've done in the series, but these have just never been high on my to-do list. Maybe I'll revisit it once I'm done with these last two Silents Hill, who can say?

Anyway, back to Separate Ways. Much like how this entire game was an adaptation of the 2004 original, Separate Ways is, well, a redux of the original Separate Ways. It follows Ada's parallel journey through the same locations at roughly the same time as Leon's campaign. It's nothing revolutionary or game-changing, but it's a fun addition to the story and the more I see of her the more I realize I really like Ada as a character. I wasn't sure how I felt about her new voice at first but by the time I played this (and, honestly, by the time I was about 3/4 through the base game) I got what she was going for and I liked what I heard. I'm still on the fence about the new Wesker though.

I can't remember too much about the original Separate Ways, but this feels more substantial than that, in terms of its narrative at least. It's still kind of a speedrun of the base game's plot, taking you through the same areas and encountering a lot of the same threats as Leon, but the cutscenes help flesh it out to feel almost like its own parallel campaign. Again, my memory of the original isn't that great (I've played a LOT of Resident Evil since then, to be fair) but I feel like there's just more to this than there was to the original. I really enjoyed it.

My results screen for Separate Ways is below.

That feels a bit wordier than some of the other blogs I've done, but it feels only fair given this was such a noteworthy game. It's an excellent remake of what was, at one point at least, my favorite game in the series, and it's the last Resident Evil I'm playing as part of this sprint. I've still got two Silent Hill games to play and I imagine I'll revisit each of these franchises when they put out new entries, but it feels oddly freeing to be done with Resident Evil after two years of, essentially, marathoning them.