Resident Evil 4 Remake: A Genre Defining Remake [UPDATED 4/7/2023]
The Middleman's Opinion Presents:
Resident Evil 4 Remake: A Genre Defining Remake
What Actually Makes A Remake A Remake?
I find myself asking this question when I'm buying a remake for a game I've greatly enjoyed for years. What actually is a remake? Is it the idea of essentially making the same exact game but from scratch with new textures,models,etc? or is it actually rebuilding the world? Resident Evil 4 Remake is a game I held high expectations for after seeing how not so great Resident Evil 3's remake was handled. Especially considering that Resident Evil 2 Remake was a damn near masterpiece that truly modernized it's predecessor for a newer more action focused audience whilst keeping the survival horror elements. Personally I believe a remake should have two major things that makes it a remake.
- It must fully recreate the world whilst maintaining the same atmosphere, or furthermore expanding upon the original vision whilst recreating the concepts for it.
- Fixing the core issues from the predecessor and expanding upon the content of the game itself.
How Is The Gameplay?
The gameplay feels really good but it's hard to get used to. If you already played the other Resident Evil Remakes then you'll be a lot more at home with this rendition's gameplay. It's certainly a lot easier to play than the original game once you get used to how the crosshair spread mechanic works in this game. Where as it essentially acts like weapon bloom. If you shoot a gun before the crosshair is fully tightened it will have a small accuracy penalty and can cause you to miss your shots. This can be helped on some weapons to make the crosshairs tighten quicker or be non-existent entirely. Such as the starter handgun, deluxe edition handgun DLC and Punisher handgun all get the laser sight attachment which can be purchased from the merchant in the game. The laser sight acts like it does in the original game where it has near pin-point accuracy. I personally used the Punisher for my entire playthrough and it felt awesome. Where as the TMP and Red-9 respectively have weapon stocks that can greatly increase their accuracy and crosshair tightness speed. Outside of the aiming mechanics the game is also fairly forgiving. The added parry mechanic can make certain areas a breeze. Such as in the first major encounter, the village fight. With the knowledge of how the parry mechanic works and what attacks can actually be parried, you will almost certainly never actually get hurt if you time it all right. Which of course you won't unless you do a lot of research into the game itself before your first playthrough which I do not recommend doing. So the gunplay and movement has been significantly improved upon from the original game for the remake. So say goodbye to the lackluster tank controls and say hello to free movement and more fluidity in your gameplay.
Another thing to take in is that the game has changed a few systems around and improved upon others. In the original game you only needed to repair your weapons and upgrade your weapons. Your knife didn't actually count as a weapon as it was more of a mechanic. In the remake the knife is now a official weapon that is in your inventory. You have to repair it, along with all your gear ranging from weapons to.. other gear pieces that I won't spoil.
The treasures system has also been changed around. Now there's two sets of gemstones, with 3 different colors for each set. You have the circular set which can only be placed in a circular bezel. Whilst the rectangular gemstone can only be placed in rectangular bezels. There's also a new mechanic for actually setting in your collected gemstones. In the original you needed to collect specific gemstones to set them into the bezels of your treasures. Such as the Green, Yellow and Red catseye's which were used in select treasures such as the Beerstein flagon. The catseye's still exist in the game however they now have changed names ad can be slotted in independent of each other. You can have all three colors in the bezels, all of the same color, or mix and match them together interchangeably. You can remove already set in gemstones without damaging the jewels themselves. There's even a free cheatsheet given to you by the game to see the best combinations for the gemstones on your treasures. Each combination can increase its worth by 1x(x) number of times up to 2x its original value of the treasure and the gemstones. So if I slot in 3 gemstones each worth 3 grand in pesetas on a treasure that's worth 10 grand. I would have 13 grand. But depending on the color combination I can increase that value exponentially by an X amount of times. For example if all 3 bezels are slotted with the same color, that's a trio bonus worth 1.3x the original value.
So, Can I Recommend The Game?
Yes, yes I can. I think Resident Evil 4 Remake is one of my top games of 2023 so far and probably will be for the rest of the year. It's a great title that really encapsulates what made Resident Evil 4 2005 so good. I'm usually not a big fan of remakes as I would prefer newer games in the series but I wouldn't mind seeing remakes done like this for now on. The gameplay feels really nice and it's easy to get a grasp on once you learn how the crosshair spread works. It has moments that genuinely kept me at the edge of my seat in fear.
I can recommend this game for two types of people. People who have never played the original and people who have played the original. While it's fun to see the comparisons between the two. I think even a new comer can jump in and enjoy the game just as much as a veteran player.
UPDATE: Does It Run On Steam Deck?
I can finally say with so much happiness that the game runs like a fine wine on Steam Deck. You can play at mostly low settings, 720p with AMD FSR forced on at 40FPS/40HZ CAP without any stuttering at all, outside of a few hitches when loading new areas. This is more of a bottleneck caused by the SSD/Micro SD cards used by the Steam Deck than it is game optimization. So as long as you don't mind a small hitch when opening certain load doors such as entering the village for the first time. You will have a very good time. But I know what you're thinking.. how does a game like Resident Evil 4 Remake run so well on the Steam Deck, surely I'm joking.. right? Well don't take my word for it. Take this YouTubers word for it:
UPDATE #2: The Mercenaries DLC Is Finally Here!
This is likely one of my final updates for the game until anything substantial releases, such as a potentially teased DLC content involving a different protagonists point of view during the events of the main game.
The Mercenaries is a wonderful, action packed remake of the original mercenaries mode from the original game and it plays exceptionally well thanks to all the robust combat updates in the remake. In order to unlock the game mode you must first beat the main game. Once you've completed the main game you will see a new gamemode at the main menu called "The Mercenaries".
So how does it actually play? It's a bit different but more or less the same from the original. You can run around as up to four different playable characters on three different maps. To unlock different characters you need to have a high enough score. In the maps you can loot various crates for ammo, grenades, healing items and knives along with other gear that you may find useful. You have green orbs that offer you more time to kill things and orange orbs for a brand new mechanic called "Mayhem Mode" which is a special ability that you unlock through killing enemies and breaking the orange orbs. Orange orbs will grant you one free bar, with each character having a different total amount of bars that they can use. Leon for example gets three bars. You can use each bar as you get them or save them up for a very long burst of additional damage per second.
Outside of that, you have the score system which can be used to go for the high score on the leaderboards as long as trying to go for higher rankings on all maps and characters. It's a fairly fun gamemode at no additional cost. You'll find yourself in very fun claustrophobic moments where you are surrounded by all sorts of enemy types. Seeing Leon kick multiple enemies to death is such a oddly pleasing sensation. Not to mention the boss waves that pit you against the toughest of foes native to their map regions. Such as the chainsaw man, Dr Salvador in the village or the chainsaw twins from later chapters in the game before the castle.
In short, there's a lot of content to unpack and it only excites me to see what else is to come post game launch. Feel free to check out YouTube user, Neon Slice's gameplay video for his first playthrough on The Mercenaries village map as Leon:
Thank you all so much for continuing to read my articles. It really means a lot to me. I know I haven't been keeping to a regular schedule and haven't been posting anything as of lately but I am aiming to make some big changes behind the scenes! But I hope you all have a fantastic day, night or morning as always. Catch ya in the next article!
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