Resident Evil 4 remake review: Capcom recreates its classic survival horror

2001, four years before the original Evil 4 released, Capcom knew it had problems. The Resident Evil series got stuck in a cookie cutter, producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi said at the time. “The whole concept of RE4 is to reinvent the game,” he said. “We wanted to give gamers something new.”

The result was a battle-oriented reboot series that revisited its survival horror roots, pitching Evil 2 co-stars Leon S. Kennedy as an international action hero on a mission to rescue the US president’s daughter from a cult. Evil inhabitant 4 hailed as a masterpiece, breathing new life into the brand will only become uniform than focus on action in sequels – finally fueling another re-creation of the series with basic horror gameplay Resident Evil 7 Biohazard.

Capcom’s Remake Evil 4 reimagining the series’ most beloved and most influential entry in lavish detail, modernizing the game from top to bottom. The developers have reframed Leon’s adventures through the lens of other recent Resident Evil remakes, bringing new levels of beauty and goryness. Evil 4 while also updating its controls and story. The result is a clear demonstration that the developers understood their source material and wanted to make it stand out by adding every detail possible.

The game also strongly signals that Resident Evil may need to be recreated again.

Image: Capcom

Evil 4Core elements of are present in the remake. Leon S. Kennedy, now a dashing government agent, is sent on a solo secret mission to Spain, where he searches for a target codenamed “Baby Eagle” – the name real Ashley Graham, daughter of US President Graham. A group of cultists kidnapped her with a plot to infect her with parasites, and eventually turn her into their puppet. As Leon searches for Ashley, he encounters a remote rural village ravaged by parasites. Its angry inhabitants — and a host of extremely powerful men and monsters — stood between Leon and his rescuer.

Leon is no longer the rookie cop in his previous game, and he no longer faces danger in the form of one or two staggered zombies at once. Instead, he is well-armed and ready to fight, while also facing hordes of armed infected humans known as Ganados. While resource management and ammunition scarcity were at the core of the gameplay in the early Resident Evil games, in 4players are more concerned with crowd control and — specifically in the remake — fending off attacks from all sides. Evil 4 presents a new kind of challenge: surviving against overwhelming odds.

In the remake, the dance to avoid death can frustrate you. Ganados and burly men wielding chainsaws or giant hammers could quickly surround Leon. But Leon can block or avoid any attack. He can kick circles or embarrass the bad guys, before finishing them off with a knife through the skull. Or he can approach encounters with stealth, sneaking behind unsuspecting enemies and destroying them with a silent execution. All these options make every encounter interesting and flexible to their requirements; They can be frustrating at times, as the game dumping enemies on Leon piece by piece feels more like an exercise in trial and error than finding a solution.

Image: Capcom

As in the original, Leon also had to protect Ashley from harm in many short segments, despite the two working together. Ashley is utterly vulnerable in these times, and Leon must not only fight for his own survival but hers as well. This time, her babysitting duties are much less complicated; Her medical system has been greatly simplified. Ashley’s presence was a famously divisive element in the original, but she’s less of a nuisance here and can be ordered to stay close to Leon (during the chase scenes) or keep her distance (while fight). The two work well together and it’s fun to watch them flirt.

Between RE4Its action-packed creations are a series of puzzles, many of which are difficult to solve and are elaborately decorated in the classic Resident Evil style, along with fetch quests. These lock and key tricks still dominate the fight, and after all this time, still feel perfunctory in the grand scheme of the game design – even the remake-specific puzzles Just like part of the developer. .

Players will likely spend more time figuring out how best to equip Leon, as a mystic merchant is always present offering an array of upgrades, new weapons, armor, repairs, and tools. recipes for Leon to buy. (The driver quips, as fans will ask him, “What are you buying?” but only occasionally, in a rare and wonderful display of restraint from the designers. ) Capcom added a new layer to Leon’s upgrades in the remake, allowing him to not only increase the size of the attaché box containing his items, but also the container itself, with variations that carry different perks and attached charms offer more benefits. These spells can be earned by players at the shooting range minigame, a fun, highly replayable recreation that appears in several locations in the game — I spent way too long there trying to figure it out. Try to unlock the best spells in the game. RE4RNG based.

Image: Capcom

Evil 4 also differs from past games in its linearity. There’s very little going back to do here, as the game actively pushes Leon to new areas and new scenarios. Although the same sequence of events is still intact from the original, the overall flow and momentum have been disturbed and softened. The point where Capcom has wisely cut back is by removing or rearranging the more silly components of the original game. Quick-time events from the original, in which Leon would have to outrun rocks or a mechanized colossus in the wrong place, only to potentially fail a few milliseconds before doing so. reappeared from the beginning, has been restructured. The most striking and welcome example is how Capcom recreated the central character Ramón Salazar, who looks less like a bleached Chucky doll but more like a famous but decaying old man.

For all rough edges it smoothes, RE4 pull out same trick RE2 did in 2019, makes a groundbreaking but now outdated game feel completely new. But after four Resident Evil games over the years, even the franchise’s current incarnations are starting to feel a bit familiar – there are hints of the cookie cutter Kobayashi coined over 20 years ago. , even in Capcom’s sleek and beautifully produced remakes. This latest one is nothing out of the ordinary.

Resident Evil 7 Biohazard And Village shows, like the original RE4, that Capcom could adapt and reinvent. After finishing 4 again, the most obvious question the remake left me with was: Where do they come from?

Evil 4 will be available on March 24th for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows computer and Xbox Series X. The game was evaluated using the final PlayStation 5 “retail” download code provided by Capcom. You can find more information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.