Resident Evil 4 Remake takes an immaculate base and builds upon it. But did it need to be built upon? 

RE4R follows Leon S. Kennedy as he searches for the president’s daughter, Ashley Graham, in rural Spain. The game seeks to put a new coat of paint on the original Resident Evil 4, which was released in 2005.  

The original is one of the best games of that era and took the Resident Evil series in a new direction, based more on action instead of the survival horror from the game’s roots. 

The main way this can be seen is through the main character, Leon. He is a returning character to the series. He first appeared in Resident Evil 2, where he was a rookie cop put in an apocalyptic situation. In that game, he could fight but was more of a pest to the problems around him than a force. 

Between these games, he hit the gym and has become a full-fledged badass. Parrying chainsaws with a knife, kicking enemies to the moon and procuring so many weapons he could outfit an army, Leon in RE4R is now a government agent sent as a one-man army to save the president’s daughter, Ashley Graham. 

The gameplay changes are mainly quality of life and help the remake get first time players of the game into it. In the original version of RE4, there is a third-person view, which was the first for the series at the time, breaking away from its fixed camera angle roots. 

The remake also has a third-person viewpoint, but the main change comes in how Leon moves. The original has tank controls. Your character could move forward or turn, and if you wanted to do any other actions, you would have to come to a complete stop, making the game much more clunky. The remake has a modern multidirectional movement.  

This makes the game feel much smoother and allows Leon to pull off some crazy moves when under pressure. But I prefer the tank controls of the original. In the original, every bullet that was shot must be thought out and debated. If you missed or somehow didn’t stop what’s coming, it won’t take kindly to being shot at. 

Combat in the remake is a lot more fluid; Leon is running around and beating people up, but everything feels too easy to avoid, and combat can feel like a suggestion more than a requirement. 

This run around was present in the original, but every time it felt like a risk. In the remake, it’s every encounter. 

The biggest problem is the new parrying mechanic. It allows the encounters to be much more personal, which is amazing on paper.  

In the original game, boss fights were usually long distance. In the remake, the parry mechanic justifies boss fights that are melee-based.  

But the parry gives players a panic button to get out of any situation. If a player messes up, they can spam the space bar and get away without getting a scratch. Another problem with this mechanic is that Leon can’t parry everything, and that, on its own, is fine, but this game is terrible at telling what can and can’t be parried. 

Some enemy types can’t be parried; if you want to live, you’ll have to learn which ones can and can’t be fast. The real problem is that some enemies have attacks that can be parried and the same enemy will have attacks that can’t be. You just have to be able to memorize it. 

There is a very small indicator for the split second the attack is coming to see if it can be parried. Sometimes, if a parry is not an option, it gives an evade option that flashes on the screen right before the attack hits, but even then, it’s difficult to keep the response to every attack straight. 

In the sections built for it, the mechanic feels amazing. Jack Krauser’s second boss fight feels insanely fun with the mechanic, but in the regular gameplay it can make the game a bit too easy.

The story is an insane improvement from the original. In RE4, the story is there, but it’s so far in the background that not many people care outside of what is happening in front of Leon. 

The remake brings out the best parts of the story and brings a much creepier air while drip-feeding information about what’s actually going on in the region of Valdelobos. 

Some dialogue was cut during the story’s update. The original game came out in the 2000s and it shows. Insanely cheesy jokes are rampant throughout the entire game.  

The remake still has some of the cheesy dialogue and some references sprinkled throughout the game, referencing the old dialogue that’s been cut. But the removal of some of the better jokes feels like a removal of a piece of the personality of the game. 

This game’s tone is a lot darker, especially the further you get into the game. The new dialogue works fine, but it feels like a part of the original is gone, and it is one drawback of the remake. 

Both games suffer from one major problem: the last third. The main gameplay is still fun; the gunplay is almost at its peak, mixing and blending so many weapons, but these games drag at the very end. 

Every Resident Evil game has that issue. RE4 has the final island, Resident Evil 8 has Heisenberg’s factory and Resident Evil 7 has arguably the worst part of any Resident Evil game in the boat. 

But both version of RE4’s final section feels different from all of these. They have some pretty boring boss fights featuring two El Gigantes, which is a slog to get through, and the first Krauser fight has a terrible loop that is not fun at all. 

The first Krauser fight is changed from a quick time event in the original to an actual knife fight, and I feel like it’s a change that was less desirable. Knife gameplay doesn’t feel very smooth in a one vs one boss fight.  

There are some pretty annoying enemy types. Anything that even seems bug-related in the back half of this game is just awful to fight against. 

The main villain of the second section of the game is Ramon Salazar in his castle. The original fight is very simplistic, having the player stand there and just sit there and shoot Ramon.  

This fight is greatly expanded in the remake and is a much bigger improvement over the original. But the new fight still is just not fun to play. Salazar flies around the arena, and you chase him around, shooting him. He also has an instant kill attack and is an absolute bullet sponge even when you hit the weak points. That makes the fight way too difficult and seems to serve as a way to waste all your resources. 

There is one section of the last third that’s good, and that’s when they introduce the regenerators. Their introduction is one of the scariest sections in the game, and they are pure nightmare fuel. 

This remake is a work of art. The atmosphere and setting are so good, visuals are great and the changes that it brings to the original work well overall, even if there are a few flaws. Both games are great. 

The remake is the definitive way to play the game. The story is greatly improved upon, combat is much easier to get into and there are insane graphical improvements. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try the original. 

The original has its parts that have aged poorly, and the gameplay is very weird, but there’s just something about this classic that makes it timeless. 

RE4R doesn’t need to exist, but it is a great improvement and is one of the best remakes that have been made. 

Just make sure that your right hand doesn’t come off. 

Rating: 4.5/5 

Emerson Reynolds can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].