Resident Evil 4 Review

thesixthaxis.com:

Time is a fickle mistress. Apparently Resident Evil 4 is 18 years old this year, which feels so wrong given how vivid my memories of excitedly sitting down to play the GameCube game. Since those short-lived days as a Nintendo exclusive, Leon S. Kennedy’s European vacation has been ported to a dozen other formats and with good reason. Widely regarded to be the highpoint of Capcom’s survival horror behemoth, RE4 bought a more action-packed approach with a side order of high camp and a whole load of suplexing evil monks. Now, those still unbelievable 18 years later, the long rumoured and much anticipated Resident Evil 4 Remake is finally here.

After Capcom took Resident Evil into a first person perspective with Resident Evil 7 and Village, it at first feels a little jarring returning to 4’s over the shoulder view. This is especially true as it fuses the original game to the modern quality of life improvements found within Village and the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3.

Leon feels far more weighty here and there is a real visceral touch to the combat. The fabulous RE Engine allows enemies to be dismembered and destroyed by the full range of Leon’s arsenal and their attacks on Leon himself hit hard enough to make you wince – especially with the haptics on the DualSense. While this isn’t the most developed use of Sony’s controller, it is still very effective and really adds to the experience. The sound design and atmosphere is right up there with the very best and I’d definitely recommend playing in a dark room with headphones on for the full immersive effect.

As you would expect, Resident Evil 4 Remake is obviously a huge step up from the original graphically, but it’s just as much about art direction as it is about taking