Speaking of graphics, this game is a visual treat. Images here don’t do it justice. As more time goes by, the more mastery Capcom has with their RE engine and it really shows. Initially, it was pretty good with Resident Evil 7 and being used for such wondrous visual splendor for Devil May Cry 5. Now, it has gotten to the point where at high enough settings, the game’s cutscenes look on par with CGI films, it’s insane. Part of it is also due to the game’s art direction, as the lighting, camera angles, and the numerous props and clutter used really breathe life into the game. I think this was the first time I was sold on a huge rain storm going on, especially with how Leon and Ashley react to stepping outside when it was happening. There are just so many small details that really bring the game to life. The original also did this, but was, of course, limited by the technology at the time. Ashley still fist pumping when you headshot an enemy, her reacting to Leon’s daring displays of badassery, all that is brought to the forefront in the remake.
It really shows how much the little things add up at the end. If half of the small details were cut from the game, what you would end up with is a well-polished though not as memorable adventure. It probably wouldn’t redeem Ashley in the eyes of most players, considering her original depiction, for instance. Which leads me to the delivery of the story itself. In the original, it is very easy to see that it was what one would call “B-movie schlock.” It’s mind-boggling, riddled with memorable one-liners and moments that no matter how silly despite being a horror game, the ride itself was fun. There is so much ham in the scenario design and script that one could feed an entire county with it. This being implemented into the remake was one of the biggest points of concern. People love the original for how goofy it is, so the remake making itself out as significantly more serious was a big contending factor.
Interestingly, a lot of that goofiness is still here but the biggest change is the delivery. Leon still has his one-liners of course, even saying them from time to time in normal gameplay. Del Lago is a thing and the premise of a giant lake salamander and one guy with an endless supply of harpoons is about as ridiculous as ever. The aftermath, however, is perhaps one of the better examples of difference in delivery. In the original, Leon has to cut the rope off his leg to avoid a watery grave, though he cuts the coil rather than the part not wrapped around his leg. Afterwards, he just boats off to the other side and collapses into the small lakeside cabin as the plaga infection grows inside him. Here in the remake, he is obviously tired and collapses in the boat itself due to the infection. Even the “dream” sequence is somewhat changed. While I do prefer the original’s depiction of the parasite taking over his veins, here it’s instead a sort of warbling, though you do get a speech from Saddler transforming it from nightmare into a hint to the hive mind nature of the parasite.
The fact the cheesiness is dialed down to a small degree can be disappointing, though I personally don’t look at it that way. Instead, I see the developers making the game more versatile. It’s easily more diverse as an experience, where the goofiness lends some light-hearted interactions necessary to combat the heavy tones that otherwise took a back seat in the original. After all, being infected by an evolving parasite is terrifying in itself and seeing this aspect played into, something that was mostly absent, quite a lot even in a couple gameplay moments was truly appreciative. There is a rework of an enemy known as the red zealot. In the original, it was just a ganado in red robes that gave cutscene commands to other ganados, when otherwise it was just a tanky variant. In the remake, the red zealot forces out the plagas, creating frantic moments when they are around. In addition, since they command other ganados, their prayers and commands actually do affect Leon and Ashley in the form of ringing pain as they try to hold on. The fact the original never did something like this makes it, truthfully, breath-taking.
Details such as this makes the otherwise bewildering scenario into a more grounded but still occasionally funny ordeal. The important part is that it also works. Sacrificing some corniness to bring some more genuine moments with Leon, Ashley, and even Luis brought a true smile to my face, an experience I rarely have overall. Luis is the king of changes in this regard. In the original, he was great for the screen time he got, yet he had so little. Shows up four times, having a dire air to him the third time around, and just near instantly dying the fourth time really limited his potential. This go around, they gave him ties to Umbrella but not in the way normally done across the entire franchise. The general rule of thumb is if the character is associated with Umbrella, they are all about evolution, lacking humanity, or just generally villainous all around. Here, they initially show Luis to be somewhat sketchy but by the end, it’s easy to see that he was just a mere researcher, out of many just like him at Umbrella. The developers basically took the idea that Luis was meant to be suspect in the original game but basically never actually shown that way, did the show and tell, and then emphasized he was just a normal researcher. He even got a couple intercom conversations with Leon, something completely absent from the original. With his last appearance being an extended trip with him through the mines, he is definitely a favorite side character of mine.
Even the villains had some changes. Osmund Saddler is overtly more of a religious figurehead of Los Iluminados, compared to using it as a facade to advance his career as a bio-weapons researcher and path to power. Salazar, now referred to as Ramón in speech, puts on a much bigger show of confidence in his rulership of the castle, while still harboring his inability to take doubt in his rule, compared to before where any slight angered him greatly. Méndez has like six times the amount of lines, meaning he actually has a speaking role for a change. He’s still very quiet but takes the role as a brute of a pastor, and very much Saddler’s lieutenant in his hold of the village. I prefer Méndez’s take in the remake especially compared to his previous English voice, though I am split on the other villains. Having Saddler not show up in person until the island was a rather bold move, as it limited his influence to when Leon and Ashley see flashes of him when he commands the other ganados. That said, it also meant that he didn’t overtly just reveal what his entire plan was to Leon, meaning he doesn’t just get what he wants via having Leon leave with Ashley. Now that is left to Luis telling the two about the parasite, making for a much more organic reason for the two to stay in the region. Salazar I am willing to take either direction in the mean time. Having him whimper in fear in the original when Leon threw his knife into Salazar’s hand was great but so is the new rendition of that scene and how it plays out. Just a shame his right hand doesn’t come off.
Overall, the bosses have received improvements. It is easier to have a handle on many of them such as Del Lago and the double El Gigante fight. Salazar’s fight is now much more involved and Saddler certainly has increased scale and spectacle. Strangely enough, Saddler’s fight is mostly the same premise, barring him being significantly bigger and there being a new aspect to the battle come the second half. I don’t enjoy the presentation of Méndez’s second phase, though it is certainly more engaging at all skill levels rather than him being easily dispatched by flame grenades, which are absent in the remake. The first El Gigante also feels more like a resource dump rather than a skillful fight, but it is just the one.
The biggest glow-up is having an actual knife fight with Krauser, rather than just a QTE fest. There is the fact you are still pressing buttons at the right time rather than having a genuine strategy but being interactive at all makes up for it. In general, the bosses are quite fun. Which makes it strange with the absence of U-3, who I felt had one of the better potentials to having a glow-up fight, even if it was decent in the original already. The idea of this chimaera of a creature stalking you through various transport cages and then fighting it face to face on solid footing was an interesting take on a monster encounter. It was given an actual backstory alongside both Verdugos, so it’s even stranger that it is just gone. From what I know, U-3 was placed as the other Verdugo, which, because of the absence of the queen plaga that assimilated Salazar and said Verdugo in the original, turning a mutation for Salazar, it mysteriously is gone.
What helps most characters in the game is definitely the vocal performance. Having listened in English, the vocal talent has good direction and interpretations of the characters. There is a good amount of genuine feel into the lines when spoken out loud from the cast. There’s greater depth in the range of their vocal emotion, such as that tinge of clinging onto hope despite suffocating from despair. It goes back into bringing more versatility to the game’s feel, at the cost of fully embracing the camp. That said, one might notice I said most characters in the game as far as the English cast is concerned, and that is Ada and Krauser for different reasons. For Krauser, he does have that same range of emotions he is meant to have considering his role. Just for me, it doesn’t sound like the right voice. Personally, when I think of a hardened military veteran who idealizes strength above all else, I expect a more gruff and deeper vocal tone. Not terrible but could be better. In Ada’s case, while the vocal tone is appropriate for the character, the voice actress’ enunciation falls flat, sort of breaking pace from word to word. It feels like she didn’t have proper direction, as this is a new voice actress compared to the second game’s remake.
Due to the vocal talent, it’s no surprise that the audio design is also phenomenal. Taking cues from the original, the amount of sound effects and diverse use lends well to the game’s action and atmosphere. Gunfire sounds distinct from gun to gun, with many sounds and voices used to indicate certain situations from enemies creeping up behind, starting an attack, or squirming on the ground, plaga taking over. Some of the punchiness of the original has been lost, especially in some cases like the Red9’s gunfire and reload. Considering the rest of the audio design however, I can forgive it easily.
Now we come to level design changes and for the most part, I do have a rough mental map of the original already so I have a good idea of what is changed and is absent. A good 90-95% of the original locations are in fact here, just either reworked or expanded upon. Even the order of said places are swapped around to keep you on your toes if you played the original. For instance, the factory now comes before the village section that hangs off the cliff-face. The circumstances and direction of said areas are even different. The cabin fight has an extra ladder providing both an additional get away spot between both floors and a new direction where enemies can come from. In a way, this is to serve homage to how the original locations played out but having minor changes in order to provide a new experience. Not to mention how it can not be understated how much they improved the water hall, an infamous room in the original.
I will say, for the sake of treasure collection, it did become slightly tedious to get certain treasures. There was one time in the original where you backtracked to get a free broken butterfly. Here, there is the equivalent CQBR, which is an alternative rifle that is useful for the no merchant challenge. However, there are a bunch of treasures in the village and castle parts of the game that can only be obtained via using small keys or a key item. I feel this could be done away with, instead having treasures be along the path as optional challenges or a good eye. At the least there are new enemies during the backtracking so it isn’t completely tedious.
Which leaves the aspects of the game that are gone. It is a very small list, admittedly, but notable enough. The part of the game where there were two branching paths was cut out, instead leaving just the Bella sisters as a mandatory fight, cutting the El Gigante encounter in the chasm. The gondola section right after is also gone. The area where you rescue Ashley again in the castle is also technically gone, since instead of being captured she is now in the room normally after the hedge-maze. The molten lava room is removed alongside the two ganados on a drill as they try to skewer Ashley, probably gone because why would they kill Ashley. They combined the clock tower, Salazar statue, the stairway up to the elevator and said elevator ride to Salazar all into one room. The infamous third encounter with novisadors and the war room was also removed. The laser hallway is also gone, though admittedly that was just a reference to the first movie. Most of these are minor parts of the game, however, meaning the only significant removal is U-3.
Some of these parts of the game were already either essentially an auto-scroller in the case of the gondola or just flat out not fun to begin with. Even the defining aspect of the molten lava room is put into the Salazar statue, so it isn’t even entirely gone to begin with. Most of the time they added a new room as a replacement so it is more or less a re-shuffling of ideas. As for U-3, I have talked to a friend where it is likely that they are reimplementing the boss into Separate Ways, a game mode that follows Ada’s events that wasn’t actually in the original Gamecube release of the game. Having thought about it myself, it’s likely they removed U-3 since in the original, it was bunched together with Krauser, U-3 itself, and then Saddler back to back almost. At that point of the original, it felt more like a boss rush rather than dealing with normal enemies, barring chapter 5-4 and war room. The final cases of removal is actually a strange one. During the island section, there are actually rarely ganados with body armor still but the ganado with the huge hammer has been turned into a brand new enemy type called the brute, instead of reusing animations, where it’s a ganado wearing an animal head. There are even variants that just clotheslines and kicks you and, upon further research, a crossbow. I didn’t give that variant a chance to attack so never realized what it was holding initially. The one with a crossbow also seems to serve as the replacement for JJ, firing a rapid amount of crossbow bolts instead of hitscan.
This leaves one last part of the game I want to touch upon and it is one of the two times I actively disliked the weapon bloom. That part is the shooting gallery. This was always an optional part of the game and you never had to do it, but it was a fun aim exercise in the original. Get headshots to get more points and make crack shots at far range to hit a scrolling Salazar head. Simple. The no-miss bonus was impossible with shotguns but that was the only hitch. In the remake, solely because of weapon bloom, trying to go for the highest score is much of the time RNG. Getting an S rank in itself is not hard, at least on a mouse, but trying to get the bonus medallions – especially from afar when you have to use a handgun without a laser sight, shotgun, or heaven forbid the TMP and bolt thrower – is basically up to chance. It makes getting 100% on these challenges a truly frustrating experience, where I would discourage anyone from going for them. You are rewarded tokens that you can use on the gachapon machine that nets you charms to attach to your attaché case with various bonuses, but they are not substantial enough to make one feel the need of having them.
In essence, this was a great take on what made the original Resident Evil 4 a classic to begin with. The reworked and additional scenarios, along with the new gameplay elements, allows the remake to stand on its own as a great game rather than just relying on the original to be relevant. I don’t even find either game to be better than the other. Mastery of the controls in the original is obviously a different challenge compared to the need to get the most out of resources in the remake. Elements such as weapon bloom also can be a stickler for certain fans of the original, as it does lower the skill ceiling in the process of aiming itself. That said, weapon sway many times made most players of the original miss anyways so it’s not a huge point of contention for me.
In truth, I highly recommend both titles. The original is available on Steam at a very affordable price with said version having all of the content added over the various releases such as Separate Ways and Assignment Ada. There is also the VR port which offers a new way to play the original that is surprisingly well made. Considering the remake is $60, with a free update adding Mercenaries, it is almost criminal. I am happy to say that this remake is a new favorite of mine, when the original is already one of my favorite titles ever in the first place. In a world where most remakes try to rely on the original, it’s refreshing to see one that stands on its own terms.
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This review was done with a personal copy.
