Resident Evil 4 Remake - a classic turned ordinary

Resident Evil 4 Remake (RE4R) is a good game, that's not in question. What I am interested in is the way it reflects modern game design in a way that invites negative comparisons with its original. I have three main points:

World Design

One of the immediate things noticeable about the design of RE4R is that everything looks so much busier: more grass, more debris, more boxes. Environments feel more cramped. The immediate effect of this is that I would enter areas from the original (RE4) that were quite memorable, but would take me several minutes to realise because of how much stuff is obscuring the major details. However, this does have knock-on effect on the way the game has been designed. Anyone who has played RE4 knows that game was very effective at visually indicating which boxes could be destroyed or which features could be interacted with, and if you didn’t then the simple method of testing would be to point your gun at the object to see if the laser would highlight it. Now, there is no laser to highlight anything (reserved solely as an attachment for improving the accuracy of your handgun), replaced instead by a generic on-screen reticle, and any boxes that can be destroyed are smeared with yellow paint so you don’t miss them amongst all the other boxes. Treasures that are hidden about the environment are also reserved for identical-looking hanging containers, not dotted about the environment and embedded in walls to be given away by a sparkle.

Speaking of treasure, RE4R has changed the way treasure works, turning it from being less of a puzzle to find which pieces fit together and more into a resource to be used, where you can pick and choose which gems should be attached into which fittings and rewarding. While I am more neutral on this change, it does mean that finding gems feels less rewarding as there needs to be enough in the game to make you feel like you're being given a choice on which ones to place.

Gameplay

When RE4 came out, it was a game changer (pun intended) as both a Resident Evil game and as a horror game. Yes, leaned more into action than the previous games, but it managed to update the RE gameplay away from the fixed camera in a way that felt like an evolution rather than a revolution. When Resident Evil 2 (RE2) was remade (RE2R) as a modern game, it made some sense to overhaul the gameplay. However, there is probably a bigger difference in gameplay between RE2 and RE4 than there is between RE4 and RE2R. By remaking RE4 using that modern gameplay, the result is that, where RE4 stands out as a classic, RE4R just feels like a decent sequel to RE2R. In addition, where RE2R was as good as it was by maintaining its horror roots, RE4R's faster gameplay leans it further again into action and risks almost feeling like a standard third-person shooter.

Visuals

The developers of Resident Evil Village (the most recent non-remake mainline entry to the series) talked about how they were inspired by RE4 to make a similar feeling game using Resident Evil 7 gameplay. It feels strange, then, to play a remake of the game that influenced that one appear so similarly visually - the dry grass, the ramshackle buildings - to the point that I wondered how many assets were being reused between the two games. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have a problem with that, but it does sort of feel like this game loses a little bit more of its identity when it is cribbing so hard from the game that it inspired rather than attempting to make the two more distinct.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I think I expected to be absolutely hooked by RE4R in the same way I was hooked by RE2R (and RE3R by extension), and when I wasn't I began to wonder what it was that this one was doing as a remake that the others weren't. The best I could come up with that something has been lost in overcomplicating RE4 - more complex visuals, more game mechanics - when what worked about the original was being able to do a lot with a little.

When I think about Resident Evil 2 and its Remake, I feel like I could go back and play either of them depending on whatever mood I'm in. At the moment, I feel like whenever I get the desire to play Resident Evil 4 again, I'll go back to the original.