The word ‘remake’ is thrown around nowadays when video game companies want to assure you that they’ve taken a fan favorite of yesteryear and updated it enough to make it worth buying again. Occasionally, these remakes turn out to be wonderful. Typically, textures are added, some lighting is spruced up, and the publishers call it a day. I have seen the latter many times and it only stands to cheapen the industry.
But then there is Capcom.
Capcom is weird.
Do you know why they’re weird? When they use the word ‘remake’, they mean to dive into an older title, retool it, improve it, revamp the entire graphical system, use modern-day controls and HCI assumptions, upgrade cutscene animations, and bring in actors to draw out the emotion. For all intents and purposes, they do remake the game. They have redefined what that means in the industry. How does one know this? Well, just look at their Resident Evil 1-3 Remakes to confirm the amount of care and effort they put into making these classics not only modern but breathing new life into them and reigniting interest in the series, and bringing older games up to snuff with newer ones. They contain better graphics, far better acting, a more intense and engulfing atmosphere, and all while still maintaining the core of their original stories.
It’s as if Capcom cares. I wish more companies were like this with their remakes (Sony, you’re good – not pointing at you. The Last of Us Part 1 was amazing).
Well, Capcom is back with another classic remake. This time around they have remade one of the best of the bunch with Resident Evil 4. This game is defining for a lot of reasons, but the main one is that it helped set the structure for all RE games that proceeded with its third-person view. While the series did eventually make it to first-person, Resident Evil 4 proved that it could break away from its set horror camera structure and reinvent itself without giving up the horror or classic elements that made the series a jewel in Capcom’s horror survival crown.
So, how did Capcom do with one of the most important GameCube games of all time? Let’s just say that they kept up with their previous remakes without missing a beat.
Let’s get right into this.
Go rescue someone!
You play as Leon and are tasked with rescuing the president’s daughter, Ashley. She has been kidnapped and stored away by a cult led by a madman that truly believes he is the only hope for humanity. Taking a page from John Carpenter’s The Thing, the story introduces creatures that are parasites living within this cult village. They act as small receivers from a bigger parasite that gives orders. Eventually, the parasite takes over the body of its victim and when damaged can show itself in the most horrifying of ways. Leon must navigate through various parasite beings, figure out puzzles to progress along the way, and ultimately come face-to-face with monstrous bosses that lead up to a final fight.
The story is untouched from the original game. It maintains its unique about-face from the previous series titles, where the main crux of the issues aren’t readily Umbrella or zombies. While there is still some Umbrella flavor involved with how this story cooks, you won’t find much correlation between this game and the previous. Honestly, that was a huge risk for Capcom to take at the time. Moving away from a successful formula to make a series not only more interesting and engaging, but the world much bigger is a move that video game companies rarely take with successful franchises. I could give you examples of stale series, but I think you know which ones are out there.
Anyway, the story for RE4 hasn’t changed much. It still brings different types of horror to life without a helluva lot of jump scares to make it insincere. Cheap scares aren’t my cup of tea with horror survival, as the moments are largely unearned and detached from storytelling, but RE4 does a superb job of creating uncomfortable and tense situations. If you need an example, play the village introduction scene at the beginning of the game. In this particular scene, you’re terribly outnumbered and you’re locked in with a ravenous cult that is going to kill you if you don’t run. This scene makes you feel trapped, alone, and in constant danger – that’s pure horror. The solution to getting out of this situation isn’t readily obvious, but when it happens you feel incredible relief. That type of heart-racing gameplay isn’t by accident and it brings a different type of horror than simply something jumping out at you. This scene can be credited to good storytelling mixed with fantastic gameplay. And it’s a great primer of what’s to come the rest of the way in the game.
Backtracking a bit
If you were ‘lucky’ enough to read my preview of this game a couple of weeks ago, then you saw my speculation about the linear to non-linear potential switch for the game. While I wouldn’t go as far as to assume Capcom had gone Skyrim on this sucker with exploration, I did assume that they opened things up a bit when compared to the original game. Well, I was wrong.
The core gameplay of Resident Evil 4 Remake is still very much intact. While it might at times feel like a gigantic world to explore, the game still runs on a linear model. That’s not to say being linear is a bad thing because it isn’t, rather it just means that you cannot complete major tasks out of order or wander into the great unknown to complete other tasks. The game keeps you laser-focused on getting to the next step to progress by locking down areas that require progression in others. While there has always been some flexibility with the RE series when it comes to access and exploration, it’s usually so locked into the story that you can’t really deviate from it. It wants you to keep up with the story and not wander off for no reason. I mean, you’re tasked with finding a kidnapped person, so in reality, Leon shouldn’t be wasting a lot of time in the trees looking for random shit.
I just wanted to assure everyone that the game still maintains this part of the original. While the world is far bigger and better visually, the gameplay purpose is every bit focused as it was in 2005.
About that gameplay
Resident Evil 4 Remake is a great reminder that Capcom had it right the first time around and nothing had to change dramatically to recreate the feeling it brought originally. You will still panic push reloading, still have a little awkwardness in aiming straight and firing (it does help create intensity), and moving the camera around to find a quick exit still demands perfection to escape sticky situations. The controls and movement didn’t change much from the original. I am more than fine with that because it is still far better than dealing with fixed cameras in the original three and determining how to properly navigate an obstacle in front of you given the view you were provided. In short, it works, and it wasn’t broken so they didn’t fix it.
What they did fix is how you access guns, upgrade them, and how you navigate crafting items. Reading that, you may think to yourself that those categories aren’t a big deal, but believe me, they are huge.
Starting with the first, you can now assign your guns to a directional pad direction to easily access them. You don’t have to dive into the menu anymore to pick a weapon of your choice, rather you can just hit a direction on the D-pad and instantly go to that weapon. Quite honestly, this took a while to get used to in the game because it made so much sense and I didn’t know how to handle it in my mental mechanic options guide. For about three hours, I would instinctively go into my suitcase and select a weapon in the midst of chaos. Having the ability to assign any weapon to any direction meant that I could just click and go without disrupting my gameplay. There was so much convenience to this method. It made so much more sense than the original mechanic construct. It was so quick and effective to have guns and such at my disposal without stopping/going the gameplay.
As for the upgrading, I really enjoyed this part of the game. To upgrade a weapon, you simply collect pesos as you dispose of enemies (if they have them). You then have to go to the Merchant, who has changed dramatically and upgrade pieces and parts to make them more powerful. Each weapon has an upgradeable category to it. They max out at times, but the upgrades make the weapons more impactful. It’s so darn easy and it’s meaningful when it comes to gameplay execution. I think making this portion deeper and more deliberate does a few things for the gameplay. It allows gamers to set their own goals on their favorite weapons to build them up and make them badass to use. It also provides motivation for the gamer to keep going and searching out items to gain pesos. The game features a healthy number of side quests to gain more loot, including finding treasures and jewels, which can be mixed/matched to gain better coin. This type of motivation is healthy for a game like RE4 that may need some longevity and reason to revisit the adventure once the story is wrapped. I want to find everything to make the game more fun and it gives me good reasons through upgrading.
Now, as for the crafting portion of this game, it’s pure perfection. While I would have loved to memorize what can be combined with what to create that thing that I need to kill or progress that other thing, I just don’t have that much time in my life. Having a quick guide to ‘what you can make with those bags of parts you found’ is what makes RE4 an even more engaging experience because it is so much quicker. For example, if you literally found a bag of parts, found a heavy amount of gunpowder, you can click on either piece and pull up a menu that shows you exactly what you can make with that combination. In this particular example, it means that I could make handgun ammo, shotgun ammo, and or any other variety of ammo. Instead of having to find it randomly, you now control a portion of your own fate with this system. It’s a brilliant addition as it is a simple one. This crafting ability means that you can gather pieces and parts and potentially save your own ass in a sticky situation without having to rely on the game randomly generating a chance to make it out of chaos. This is one of the most significant parts of the Resident Evil 4 Remake and one that made me appreciate what I didn’t know I needed badly the first time out with the game in 2005.
The core still maintains after all these years
One fearful part of remakes is balancing the new additions while maintaining the original core of the gameplay. It is a balancing act for sure, but somewhere Capcom has found the right formula with its recent remakes.
The new additions to the backend gameplay, including the previously mentioned upgrades and crafting, give you a more thorough and smoothed-out way to control the game and put together new opportunities to make the experience more fun.
Alongside those new gameplay upgrades is the expected visual improvement of the title. Back in the day, the game was gorgeous running on the IBM Gekko chipset of the GameCube. In some respects, it was better than what the PlayStation 2 could do when it came to RE4. For this time out, the graphics are out of this world gorgeous. The darker environments and the more uncertainty with a larger, scarier world filled with restricted lighting situations and remade audio help add to the atmosphere of an already unsettling game. The more you can restrict viewpoints and kill the lighting to make room for things that go bump in the dark, the better the horror will be in a survival situation. If you have the raw power of modern consoles to accomplish this feat, why not go there? The graphical upgrade and play with lighting help to create a spookier atmosphere for Resident Evil 4. Those visuals sell the situation so perfectly that it lends more credibility to the story the game is trying to push. It also enhances the gameplay considerably because you can hear things yet they can be tough to find in the perpetual darkness that you’re in during Leon’s adventure. It creates a big sense of scale and uncertainty, which plays well into the survival horror situation your main character finds themselves in.
From the moment that Leon arrives in the boat house, until the moment he travels with Ashley through a castle filled to the brim with maniac cult members, you’re going to be flabbergasted by what you’re seeing. It’s along the same lines as the previous remakes which are just continually setting new standards for remakes in general. I wish more companies cared about their classic games. It would be nice.
Anyway, all these upgrades and visual/audible improvements still rely on the core gameplay established in the original title back in 2005. It never loses its original fun or purpose even when the gameplay has become easier, better, and visually satisfying. It’s so vital for a game to maintain that original core and remind everyone that it was an important part of Capcom’s history, and Resident Evil 4 Remake follows that path beautifully. If you loved the original, then you’re going to really love what they’ve done here.
On that note, let’s wrap this up.
Conclusion
Resident Evil 4 was a marvel when it was released back in 2005 and Resident Evil 4 Remake follows the same path. It’s pure perfection from beginning to end and groundbreaking with its backend improvements and details. Capcom has hit another home run with this one.
