Game Review: Resident Evil 4 Remake

I finished this game on stream yesterday, and boy, do I have a lot to say about this game. Did I like this game more than the original? Or did I like it less? Let’s find out together, shall we? Be aware: massive spoilers!

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A remake of the 2005 game Resident Evil 4. 6 years have passed since the biological disaster in Raccoon City. Leon S. Kennedy, one of the survivors of the incident, has been recruited as an agent reporting directly to the president of the United States. With the experience of multiple missions on his back, Leon is sent to rescue the president’s kidnapped daughter.

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You play the game as Leon S. Kennedy, the man I’ve come to love as one of the greatest soldiers/heroes in the gaming industry. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s one tiny bit in which you play as Ashley Graham, a.k.a. the President’s daughter you’re trying to save. I’ve said this in the original as well, she’s still a pretty annoying side character. She’s still a pretty big liability, though I have to admit it’s a lot less than it was in the original. She did save our hide a couple of times, I have to give her that. But she’s also still a helpless girl who needs to be caught jumping from ledges and still can’t use a gun or knife to defend herself. But, she was a lot more developed and was not a whiny girl all the time. She was actually a pretty decent asset in terms of her abilities. Leon, of course, did an amazing job as always. Hell, he was even better than in the original. This time he could kick too, and he could use his knife in more than one way, increasing his combat abilities.

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The thing you see on screen is what I see too. Your health, which gun you’ve selected, the number of bullets it has (left), whether or not you’ve got a knife, and how its durability is doing. Sometimes, when you collect money, you see the amount of money you’ve got in your wallet, but that’s mostly all you see when it comes to in-game gameplay. Oh, and you can see how your body armour is doing in terms of its durability, if you bought it from the merchant, that is. And, when running around with Ashley, you can see if she’s on you or at a distance, and you can order her to do both.

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Of course, our favourite merchant of all time was back at it again too. They changed his accent, and at first, I was like: but where’s the good old one? But I soon got used to it and began to love it. It was a lot more organised than in the original. The menu had clear options, and you had a lot of options with both merchant requests taken care of for trading purposes and selling your treasures for money to buy and upgrade weapons and other necessary supplies. So, there’s not much to say other than that it was a real upgrade from the original.

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Of course, the biggest changes were the newly designed environments and characters, but the story was pretty much the same. There were a few tiny things they had changed, or taken out, or added, but overall, it was pretty close to the original. What I loved a lot about what they added specifically to the remake is that Leon is able to parry with his knife, which he wasn’t able to do in the original, thus increasing your ability to block enemies’ attacks, but an even better addition gameplay-wise was the stealth option. Leon could now actually sneak around and kill enemies in complete silence, saving bullets and health. It was, however, sometimes a little whacky when enemies spotted you even when you were hiding in stealth, but I have to admit it was one of the best things they have added to the game that’s different from the original.

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Despite them still not reinstalling the red means not fully explored, and blue means fully explored map tools, it was still, just like previous editions in the remake era, a very easy-to-understand map. You could see which doors were opened, which weren’t, where you could find treasures (after you had bought a treasure map), where you had to go, where ladders were or things you couldn’t access yet, and even stuff you hadn’t picked up in a certain area you had explored. So, nothing bad to add there, and not many changes to talk about either.

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Did I like this game more than the original? Hell yeah, I did! It’s honestly ten times better! That may also partially be because they made Leon and Luis ten times hotter, especially Leon, but the gameplay was also so much smoother. And as I said, adding the parry option and stealth option made the gameplay all the more enjoyable and accessible. The world looked so much nicer, especially the area where they added a better-looking laboratory that actually looked straight out of a sci-fi film. It was a bit of a… change to hear new voice actors (okay, not Leon’s because I knew his from RE2 and a RE film Nick lent his voice to as Leon), but Ada’s was a lot different, and I had kind of thought they’d ask the lady who voiced Ada in the RE2 remake, but I got used to her voice rather quickly. Ashley’s voice was a hell of a lot nicer when screaming Leon’s name or screaming for help. In the original, it’s so annoying and whiny. The characters all looked a lot nicer and a lot more realistic with the current gaming design technology, so all of that made the gameplay so much more enjoyable. Oh, and one more thing: some boss fights were a little lacking in challenging mode. Some, which you’d think were hard, were easy, and one somewhere in the middle was one of the hardest ones. I had kind of hoped they’d switch Saddler and Salazar around because Salazar halfway through at the end was hell, but Saddler wasn’t, and he was supposed to be the end boss. But, that being said, yes, I truly loved it more than the original. A lot more!

End conclusion: yes, I HIGHLY recommend this game. I shall give Resident Evil 4 Remake, 5 out of 5 stars!

Love, Skye Lewis ❤

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