After years of avoiding Resident Evil 4, I finally played… the remake

I’ve never played Resident Evil 4. In fact, I’ve still never played the original Resident Evil 4, despite having multiple copies on my shelves for (checks) PS2, Wii and PS4, plus a digital version on Steam. I have, now, however played the Resident Evil 4 remake on PlayStation 5. And if that is anything to go by, I finally understand why people regard it as one of the best entries in the series.

My resistance to Resident Evil 4 was partially deliberate, partially due to simply having other things on my gaming agenda that felt higher priority. On the deliberate side of things, I had a number of factors that contributed to my resistance towards it.

On its original release for GameCube, I was still fresh from the old-school Resident Evil titles having enjoyed them very much, and really wasn’t sure about the series’ apparent shift to third-person action; I felt that was a betrayal of the series’ core survival horror sensibilities.

In later years, when I heard people compare Resident Evil 4 to Gears of War (or, perhaps more accurately, the other way round) I was actively put off from trying it, because I fucking hate Gears of War with a passion.

But with the release of Resident Evil 4 Remake, and my recent acquisition of a PS5, I felt it was time I educated myself in some form or another. And since I was coming off the back of Resident Evil 3 Remake, I thought I might as well go all-in on the remake angle and give the new version a try.

I’m glad I did. Although now I’m curious to try the original also. Note that for the purposes of this article, we will be talking specifically about the remake, which features some changes from the original.

If you, like me, have somehow avoided Resident Evil 4 for all these years, the gist is as follows. Set six years after the events of Resident Evil 2 and 3, you are cast in the role of Leon S. Kennedy, one of the two protagonists from Resident Evil 2. Leon is no longer a cop, instead acting as a federal agent, and as the story opens he has been tasked with rescuing one Ashley Graham, the daughter of the President of the United States in the Resident Evil world.

As Resident Evil 4 begins, Leon is being dropped off in the depths of the Spanish countryside by a pair of police officers from Madrid. It’s immediately apparent that something is not quite in the region, as there seem to be weird cultic symbols scattered around the place — and one of the officers disappears after heading off to take a piss.

Sure enough, Leon soon discovers that the local villagers are displaying rather peculiar, aggressive tendencies — almost zombie-like in their behaviour, in some ways — and thus it becomes clear that there is another messy mystery to solve. One of the series’ most elaborate, in fact.

Interestingly, Resident Evil 4 eschews the “Umbrella Corporation Made A Load of Zombies” theme of the early games in favour of something a bit different. While you and Leon will discover some connections to Umbrella as the story proceeds, for the most part the core threat in Resident Evil 4 is unrelated to that which has come before. In fact, it’s a different type of threat altogether: rather than being virus-based as in the early titles, in Resident Evil 4 the main problem is a parasitic organism known as Las Plagas.

There’s a really nice escalation of the feeling of threat this parasite offers as the game progresses. Initially, you’re just dealing with villagers who are clearly out of their minds, driven insane by the early stages of the parasitic infection. Subsequently, you encounter villagers seemingly able to come back from the dead with broken necks, then ones whose heads explode into tentacled monstrosities, huge horrifying multi-jawed mouths and all manner of other unpleasantness.

At the same time, Resident Evil 4 also escalates the “base strength” of the enemies you’re facing. Initially, you face unarmoured villagers who attack you with improvised weaponry; subsequently, you face the zealots of the cult who worship Las Plagas, who are better equipped; finally, in the latter stages of the game, you face well-armoured soldiers suffering from various stages of the infection. In this way, the enemy types remain recognisable as the game progresses, but the challenge factor escalates as your own skills improve and you have the opportunity to obtain more powerful weaponry.

That weaponry is one of the core gameplay features of Resident Evil 4, because this is very much a game where all weapons are useful all of the time; in contrast to the earlier games in the series, where most players preferred to rely on the handgun or knife as much as possible in order to save more powerful weapons for strong enemies, in Resident Evil 4 you’ll find yourself switching between weapons quite regularly according to how a particular encounter is unfolding. There’s no sense having too much pride to switch to the shotgun if a horde of enemies is lurching towards you; one blast to knock them all down is better than emptying several handgun clips!

In contrast to the earlier Resident Evil games, which tended to present you with only one or two threats at a time, Resident Evil 4 ups the stakes considerably by being based around a series of encounters. This, I feel, is likely where the main comparisons to Gears of War come from, because there are a number of situations in both games where the core “puzzle” of sorts is determining exactly what tactics you need to use in order to successfully clear out an encounter. Because more often than not, charging in all guns blazing most certainly will not work.

A good example comes early in the game, where you reach a valley with numerous makeshift structures and platforms on various levels. Initially, all seems quiet here, but upon advancing too far, the hordes descend on you, and if you’re unprepared for this Leon will meet a quick and painful end. The optimal strategy is to figure out where some of the trickiest opponents are hiding and take them out as efficiently as possible — perhaps with a long-range weapon such as a rifle — and then deal with the larger groups using powerful close-range or explosive weapons such as the shotgun and grenades.

If you’re accustomed to classic, pre-4 Resident Evil this is a bit of an adjustment, and I don’t mind admitting that the first couple of times I died horribly in this situation in Resident Evil 4, I was frustrated to such a degree that I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy the game as a whole. But I persevered, and as soon as I figured out how despite the “all-action” appearance of the scene, taking a more deliberate, careful approach was optimal, things started falling into place.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that while many folks consider Resident Evil 4 to leave traditional “survival horror” behind, in order to play it most effectively, you’ll need to think like a survivor. Leon is rather more durable than the heroes of past Resident Evil games, but he’s still vulnerable, and his foes have very powerful attacks, particularly if you let them get close. Consequently, you need to survey each situation carefully and device a suitable plan if you want to succeed; once you get your head around this, the game becomes much more enjoyable.

Not only that, but there are plenty of authentic-feeling Resident Evil moments throughout the game as a whole. While the early part of the game primarily unfolds outdoors in the environments surrounding the remote village, the middle section, set in a castle, feels very much like old-school Resident Evil, albeit with a tad less puzzle-solving. The finale, for me, tipped the balance just a little too much in favour of action for my personal preferences — there were times it felt more Metal Gear than Resident Evil, particularly with a succession of overblown, comic book-style boss fights — but the whole experience ended up ultimately feeling rather satisfying.

There are just a few moments throughout the game where the balance doesn’t feel quite right and you end up feeling like you’re fighting the controls rather than fighting like a badass, and these usually coincide with moments where you’re forced into battling in relatively close quarters. Probably the most egregious example of this is a sequence where you’re forced into defending yourself against an incoming horde laying siege to a villa you’re trapped inside; this whole section just felt a little more relentless than the setup of the controls could really handle effectively, though of course there’s an argument to be made that this is deliberate.

Elsewhere, the game actually strikes a rather good balance with the action elements. Boss fights never outstay their welcome — a contrast to Resident Evil 3’s Nemesis confrontations, which could drag a bit — and even the largest enemies don’t come across as too bullet-spongy, which is nice. There are also alternate ways of defeating some of these encounters; a good example comes during a sequence where you’re fighting against two giant enemies, and can either defeat them using conventional means, or by luring them atop a giant furnace and dropping them into it.

The main annoyance in the game, as ever in games featuring “escort” scenarios, is Ashley. While you do have the option of telling her to hang back away from you and, in a few rare circumstances, to hide in a cupboard, she is an absolute liability in several sequences during the game.

The most irritating of these comes towards the end of the game as a whole, where she’s on the other side of some iron railings from Leon, and you’re expected to not only hold off a string of incoming enemies seeking to attack her, but also defeat one of the most powerful “regular enemies” in the game, who has the ability to regenerate unless you hit the parasites inside them using some very precise aiming.

This part ended up feeling not dramatic and exciting, but extraordinarily annoying; by this point, you’ve already learned that the regenerating enemies are some of the most frustrating foes in the game, particularly if you’re low on ammo, and having to babysit Ashley at the same time just makes things worse.

Thankfully, such sequences are relatively rare, and for the most part while you’re escorting Ashley, it’s straightforward enough to keep her safe. Plus you can usually rely on her getting kidnapped yet again as part of the story, so there are quite a few points throughout the game where you get a blessed reprieve from having to look after her.

I may sound like I’m being quite critical of Resident Evil 4 here, but I’m doing so simply because the whole experience was brand new to me, and I was thus feeling particularly conscious of everything that was happening, especially because of how well-loved the original is. On the whole, I had an absolutely great time with Resident Evil 4 remake, and I fully intend to return to it to investigate the various bonus weapons and unlockable options once I’ve blasted through the rest of the series.

And I’d say it’s certainly piqued my curiosity to finally check out the original, too. It’s worth noting that the original is still readily available alongside the remake at the time of writing, so if you want to compare and contrast, that’s very much an option. From what I understand, the remake does actually do enough different from the original to make it a worthwhile play — and from my perspective, as a newcomer to this legendary game, the remake served as an excellent, accessible entry point.

I feel like finally playing Resident Evil 4 in some form is some sort of milestone in my long-term gaming career, so I think I’ll celebrate… perhaps by playing some more Resident Evil…?

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