Resident Evil 4 (2023) [XSX] critique

“Got some rare things on sale, stranger!”

-The Merchant, Resident Evil 4

Nest, this is Condor, do you read me? It’s time to review another Resi game… Well, I’m back for another Resident Evil review, it’s been a hot few minutes since I looked at the second game’s remake, hasn’t it? But I’m back now, and it’s time to look at the recent remake of 2005’s GameCube-selling title, Resident Evil 4. You know, the one with the bingo quote?

For me, this will be a tale of redemption, a story about a game I hated with a vehement passion, a game that put me off the franchise for 12 years, and how its rebirth allowed me to, all these years later, actually enjoy Leon’s jaunt to rural Spain.

Resident Evil 4 was released in 2023, hot off the success of 2 and 3s critically acclaimed remakes and the well-received Resident Evil Village. It’s using the same RE Engine that’s been around since 2017’s Resident Evil 7 and was released on PlayStation 5, PC and Xbox Series X/S. The 2005 original version of 4 was (for reasons unknown to me) a huge cult classic, so expectations were very high for this game.

I’ll be answering two questions here – has the remake done its daddy justice and, perhaps most beguilingly, how on earth did it win me over when I despise the original so much?

Let’s find out…

The 8-bit Review

Visuals: 10/10

Let’s start with the skin-deep qualities, shall we? It’s safe to say that the RE Engine, even after 6 years, is still one of the best looking, delivering crisp animation, plenty of detail and light and scenery design that immerses you in the grimy world of each title, be it the rain-slicked ruins of Raccoon City, the snowy hills of Village or, in this case, the decaying, dirty countryside of Spain.

And yes, the scenery does draw you in here. The original version of 4, limited by the GameCube (and later PlayStation 2) hardware, always looked very bland to me. Grey walls, brown ground, muddy visuals. While one of the better-looking games of its generation, I just felt it looked lifeless (no pun intended) compared to the rich pre-rendered world of the PlayStation trilogy that came before.

The remake has supercharged the original environments in every way though, utilising the modern power of this generation’s consoles (and PC, of course!) Muddy paths, damp caves, rotting corpses and tumbledown castles, Resident Evil 4’s landscape is truly gross and dripping in little details that’ll keep you looking. Fire effects are also absolutely stunning, to the point that it can be quite mesmerising. A memorable boss encounter that takes place in a burning slaughterhouse was straight-up distracting, I was so busy watching the lovely fire effects that I kept getting chinned by girders thrown like javelins! The last time the series used fire this effectively was the construction site chase in Resident Evil 3’s remake, and in this fourth outing, it looks even better.

Character models are also looking as detailed as ever, carrying on that RE Engine tradition, and a few changes have been made to appearances to fit with modern sensibilities (although Ada Wong still insists on trooping around in massive heels, like she’s just come from a society ball to take part in a spec ops mission). Characters like Ashley and Krauser have benefitted massively from this glow-up, as has baddie/pain-in-the-ass Ramon Salazar (he looks much less ridiculous this time around).

Enemy designs are all fairly similar to their original versions, though the plaga parasites that burst out of people’s neck stumps look far more gross and intimidating than they used to thanks to a modern coat of paint. The RE Engine is, perhaps unsurprisingly, top drawer when it comes to blood and guts and it’s put to good use in this title.

Resident Evil 4 also has a rather massive arsenal of weaponry, items and general bric-a-brac. All of these look gorgeous in-game (that Red9 broom handle Mauser, oof!) And the models can be explored in full 3D from the inventory menu too, which is a neat touch!

Try as I may, I cannot fault a single element of this game’s visuals, it’s an absolute stunner and the lowest-hanging fruit when discussing improvements over the original!

Audio: 9/10

Now, to be fair to 2005’s outing the sound in that title was one of its strong suits, I didn’t have much complaining to do about it (but then not many Resi games get this wrong, apart from that dodgy basement music in the Dualshock re-release of Resident Evil, of course).

The remake keeps up the strong sound design in its 2023 form as well. Capcom remains as inventive as ever with sound design, able to use sound as music cues as effectively as gore and jump scares to bring out the best of the engine and the story it is telling. There’s nothing spookier than the sound of the wind rustling trees overhead, the snuffling of a nearby creature or, perhaps the most dreaded sound of all, nearby muttering of infected villagers as they wander around looking for Leon with int intention of jamming a pitchfork in his guts. And don’t even get me started on that “Glorias Las Plagas” bloke, worst Elvis cover ever!

One place where the remake does trump the original is the voice acting. Don’t get me wrong, Capcom’s horror series has some truly legendary awful dialogue that has transcended from ridiculous to straight-up beloved. Who can forget Jill Sandwich, Master of Lockpicking and, from Resident Evil 4 itself, where did they all go? Bingo?

The mad thing is that that last line, the bingo one, somehow made it into the remake too, in 2023. Even stranger is that they got away with it. That line used to make my eyes roll so hard that I got a headache back in the day, but it’s a real credit to Leon’s voice actor, Nick Apostolides, that it barely made me tut this time around. Apostolides reprises the role from the Resident Evil 2 remake and does an excellent job with the character, really selling the character’s evolution from a terrified rookie cop to a jaded, super-cool special forces agent. His wise-cracking is often balanced by his words of wisdom, especially toward his ward Ashley, and he comes across as a good man that’s learned a lot.

It’s not just Leon that’s received a voice talent upgrade either. Genevieve Buechner upgrades Ashley Graham from “high-pitched, irritating civilian who constantly needs rescuing” into something far more rounded, just with the power of her voice. I was blown away by the deepness Ashley’s character gained, watching her struggle with her fear to try and help Leon and step up to the plate, all sold off a fantastic vocal performance.

And everyone else delivers as well, I’m struggling to think of any Resi title past 7 where this hasn’t been the case. Ada’s sultry, teasing tones, the unhinged rambling of Ramon Salazar and, of course, the cockney tones of the Merchant are all delivered perfectly, and who could forget Luis Sera and his sassy Spanish accent?

Not I, dear reader, not I.

The soundtrack follows in the footsteps of other recent Resident Evil titles, spending most of the time hiding in the background and letting the ambient sound take centre stage (how else would you hear that bloody Viva Las Plagas guy around the next corner?) Once things start heating up and threats are coming at you from all angles, then the score kicks in, providing pulse-pounding orchestral and rock musical numbers while you’re running around a village like an idiot or having a ride on a runaway mine cart. The bosses in this game also have some adrenaline-inducing tracks that increase that good old sense of panic. The only thing it’s missing is a good hook, there isn’t much memorable about the soundtrack, even if it is enjoyable “in the moment”.

Resident Evil 4 delivers a strong audio game, with nasty sounds, very strong dialogue and solid, if not massively memorable, musical work.

Gameplay: 10/10

I found this section of the review challenging, my thoughts on Resident Evil 4’s gameplay and why I loved every second of it are hard to describe, especially considering that I flat-out hated the 2005 original. Maybe two things have changed here: the game and the reviewer.

As I said at the top of the review, 2005 me had been pretty spoiled on the original PlayStation run of Resident Evil titles, as well as Dino Crisis, and fell in love with the pre-rendered world, the zombies, tyrants, hunters and lickers. 4 took all that away, replacing it with a grey-washed 3D landscape and a whole new bunch of enemies as well as an entirely new gameplay system. Gone was the creeping dread, it was the non-stop action, quick time events and monstrous amounts of cheese.

Yet 2023’s revisit to Leon’s Spanish mission still has a lot of this stuff present. It’s still a game of dealing with waves of enemies, managing your resources and, yes, suplexing Possessed old ladies to death, but this time it went and got me hooked.

Let’s talk a little about how the remake plays, shall we?

Anyone off the back of Village will probably find themselves quite at home in 4, as it takes the gameplay loop from that game and turns everything up to eleven. If you’ve come straight here from the remake of 3, however, you’ll find the level of action a bit of a shock at first!

The basic pattern is this: Leon will explore a relatively quiet area, then advance and get into some serious scraps with the locals, and then back to a recovery period where he can restock his ammunition and healing items. Breaking this loop up will be story moments, puzzles aplenty, visits to the lovely merchant and, of course, epic boss battles.

Areas Leon will pass through include a small village, a lake, the infamous castle and, finally, a rather kitted-out island base. Each area is distinct in both appearance and the kind of enemies you’ll find, for example, the castle is full of black-robed cultists and mutated dogs while the island is crawling with possessed soldiers and the horrific Regeneradors. This helps each area feel fresh and distinguishable from what came before, a nice idea that Village riffed on also.

Enemy types provide plenty of challenge this time, and many enemies also have different variants that have a chance of showing up should Leon be unlucky enough. An example of this is the humble ganado, the possessed humans that will attack you in droves throughout this adventure. Mostly equipped with melee weapons, crossbows, petrol bombs or just their bare fists, they attack in waves and can soon put Leon down if you’re not efficient at analysing the threat and dealing with it accordingly.

Now and again, however, a slain ganado will keep coming at you, a gross plaga parasite emerging from its neck to steer the headless cadaver after you while trying to whip you with its tentacles or, later on, straight up trying to bite off your head. This creates a tense situation as you will need to prioritise killing the Plaga quickly, easier said than done when you have 2 guys bearing down on you with pitchforks as well.

While Ganados are the meat of what Leon will be shooting at/super kicking/suplexing, there are a few other enemies to consider. Expect plaga-infested dogs, giant brutes, fly-like critters that can camouflage themselves and even plaga-infested suits of armour (yes, you heard) to come after you before you get to the end of the game. This is as well as the bosses you’ll have to fight, which punctuate Leon’s journey at several points and provide plenty of challenges on top of what you are used to. Each boss has multiple stages, usually changing from one to another as they mutate into different forms thanks to their plaga parasites, and one will need to pick up on their patterns and move sets to survive each encounter. One boss even forces Leon to abandon his arsenal of guns and fight knife-to-knife, creating an entirely new situation which you’ll need to adapt to on the fly.

The knife has had a bit of an overhaul since Leon last used it in Resident Evil 2, in fact, Marvin Branagh’s trusty zombie sticker has gone from a holdout survival weapon to a full-on parrying powerhouse thanks to Leon’s training from Definitely-a-Good-Guy Major Krauser. With a well-timed button press just as an enemy strikes, Leon will whip out the blade and parry the blow, saving him from losing health and opening a window for a counterattack. The parry window is small, but with a little effort and experience, you’ll be picking it up like a pro. It’s a game-changer of a move, only limited by the durability of your knife, which will eventually break and need repairing by the Merchant. Thankfully you can also use more disposable knives found out in the field, though they won’t last long if you are solely relying on them!

And it’s not just backup blades that you’ll be scrounging up on your journey to rescue the president’s daughter. You’ll need a constant stream of bullets, flashbangs and grenades to keep the enemy at bay (if you’re like me you’ll need plenty of healing items too). Thankfully these can be found in the environment and are also dropped by enemies, so keeping on the attack is essential if you want to get to the end in one piece. You’ll also be finding various treasures as you go, as well as gems to inlay into them, and these can be sold to the loveable merchant for a tidy sum, which is just as well as you’ll need that money to buy and upgrade weapons and gear to keep your edge in combat!

Weapons cover the usual Resident Evil gamut, you can expect pistols, shotguns, rifles and rocket launchers here, as well as some more specialist kit like a bolt gun that is handy for stealth. Variants of weapons often have different strengths and weaknesses too, so it’s worth finding which weapon suits you best and investing in upgrades for it, as opposed to spreading them across the full set. For example, I chose to keep the starting SG09 handgun for as long as I could, as I found its precision and control suited my playstyle over some hand cannon that Leon couldn’t aim straight!

The final thing to mention, as it was a real point of contention in the original, is that parts of this game will have you carrying out that most hated gaming trope for long periods – the escort mission! Yes indeed, once you find Ashley you will have to keep her safe, easier said than done when every bloody ganado in Spain wants to throw her over its shoulder and sneak off with her. While she’s slightly less hysterical this time around, you will want to save her quickly, otherwise, it’s a punishing Game Over and a lot of wailing for you to have to sit through. Ultimately the escort parts of Resident Evil 4 aren’t too bad though, Ashley isn’t stupid and tends to stick close to Leon unless instructed to hang back. In some sections, she can even hide, which is massively useful when the horde comes a-knockin’…

This game plays like a dream, and challenged my opinions on the gameplay of the ’05 original – how could I hate one so much, yet love the other?

Narrative: 7/10

Resident Evil 4’s story is, overall, a pretty simple one. A Spanish cult has kidnapped Ashley Graham, daughter of the US President, and the Secret Service has dispatched Raccoon City survivor turned special agent Leon S. Kennedy out to retrieve her. He’ll fight grotesque horrors along the way and, of course, run into a few shady humans to cause trouble for him as well.

The biggest strength of this game’s narrative is Leon himself, as I mentioned earlier on he is a lot more likeable this time (for me at least) and his relationship with Ashley is pretty organic and wholesome as they get to know one another. Once again finding himself in a body horror hell, it’s clear that poor Mr Kennedy is hiding his constant terror and bewilderment behind one-liners and bad dad jokes.

You can also expect to have plenty of interaction with the famous and meme-worthy Merchant, a weird British guy dressed like a hobo sorcerer who Leon runs into suspiciously often. Quite how he manages to sneak ahead of the action and set up his stall every so often is beyond me, he even has a couple of really well-maintained carnival shooting games that Leon can take part in to win prizes too, it’s all very strange! The Merchant, as his name suggests, buys and sells many items, and can provide Leon with everything from crafting components to a literal RPG-7 rocket launcher. He also upgrades your weapons, buys all of the treasure Leon finds during his mission and can even repair your knife, ensuring that you can keep up with your parrying game.

But nothing is free, and you’ll need to be collecting pesetas from fallen enemies and keeping an eye out for shiny objects to get the best out of this weirdo.

The series introduced a good few new characters in this game, such as the Totally Reliable Major Krauser, the suave Luis Sera and Leon’s handler back in the States, Hunnigan. While we don’t know much about these individuals, the game does mostly do a good job of fleshing them out and keeping you guessing, perhaps with the exception of Krauser, whose sudden and inevitable betrayal was supposed to be something of a surprise.

I mean, come on, look at the guy!

And then there are the other antagonists, Ramon “Short Napoleon Looking Bloke” Salazar and Bitores “Spanish Mr X” Mendez. While Salazar at least has some fun dialogue to ramp up his Villain Factor as he mocks Leon’s mishaps in his castle, Mendez doesn’t have a lot to say, he just kinda stomps about being a bullet-proof badass until he’s dispatched.

And here perhaps is the weak spot in RE4’s story. The game moves fast, and as a result, precious little time is spent establishing these characters. Maybe if we saw Krauser being a cool badass and doing hero stuff before he turned heel we’d be a little more shocked! The only newcomer that gets any fleshing out is Luis, whose ambiguous nature kept me guessing until well into the story whether he was team Leon or team Plagas. To be fair I had much the same complaint about Village, Capcom is great at creating intriguing boss characters but rarely gives them much opportunity to breathe.

My other complaint is levelled at Ashley – she gets kidnapped way too many times in the span of one mission! I get that poor Leon has a lot on his hands but how can anyone get lifted that many times from under the nose of the biggest badass to ever have curtain hair? The mind boggles!

Some niggles about pacing and kidnapping aside, I enjoyed the story of Resident Evil 4. The cloying campiness of the original has been watered down to make the one-liners more palatable, Leon is a great character and even Ashley “Leon, Help!” Graham is a joy. The enemies are fun, even if given little room to breathe, and this creepy Spanish adventure kept me engaged from start to finish.

Challenge: 8/10

I’ll be honest, friends, I almost handed in the towel quite early on with this one.

To be fair though, the original game’s challenge played a part in me doing the same to the 2005 version too. Having played Resident Evil games where avoiding zombies and taking on Hunters in ones and twos was the norm, I found it somewhat difficult to then go up against huge crowds of Ganados, attacking en masse with sickles, dynamite and crossbows (not to mention that bloody chainsaw guy). This time around, reasoning that it’s been 18 years since those Plagas last saw me off, I figured I would overcome the mob and storm on to victory! And I did!

Eventually!

It might just be me being hopeless, but the first couple of hours of my normal mode playthrough kicked my bottom. The moment I drew the ire of the baddies in the village square I was in real trouble and got murdered a few times before I started to get the hang of it – it’s all about parrying and mobility! Too many times I had backed myself into a corner, but this time I kept my eyes open for an out, ducking to the flank as the lead Ganado tried to grab me, running to a new vantage point and popping off a few more shots at them as they repositioned to catch me back up. After doing this a few times I felt a lot more confident in taking on the game’s most numerous enemies and I enjoyed the game a lot more.

The same goes for Resident Evil 4’s other bad guys too. Each variant requires a different approach to defeat and, once that is learned, taking them out is an absolute rush. Some enemies hit like trucks but are as blind as a bat, encouraging a stealthy approach to dispatch them, while others are nigh-unkillable until you locate the Plagas swimming around inside them with a special scope and pop them like zits, resulting in the horrifying creep bursting like a nasty balloon. The hardest lesson for me to learn was to not go all out and just stand there, filling enemies with bullets and hoping for the best.

Think, shoot, manoeuvre and always keep a cool head!

This lesson is even more important when tackling the game’s bosses. These guys can soak up a lot of rounds and dish out a ton of damage. They often look intimidating, act intimidating and tend to own the boss arena in which you fight them. But just like the other miscreants you’ll face, they can be offed with a bit of analysis, quick instincts and a cool head, learning their patterns and move sets and using that knowledge to pound them into the dirt.

I played Resident Evil 4 on the normal difficulty mode and, apart from a handful of very tense situations, didn’t struggle too much for healing items or ammunition. I always had at least one healing item and a handful of 9mm at the very least to keep me alive, though the lack of a surplus did remind me constantly to be careful. Thankfully, Capcom aren’t completely evil (they’re not Umbrella) and the random loot that is dropped by fallen enemies and found in breakable barrels and urns is ever so slightly tailored to what Leon needs to stay in the game. Feeling rough? You’re more likely to find healing items. Low on ammunition? Those dead Ganado might just drop some shells or rifle rounds for you. It’s a subtle approach that ensures that you’ll never get completely murdered on account of having no items, and creates a fair challenge.

There’s a lot to Resident Evil 4’s gameplay, intense mob management, technical and challenging bosses, resource management and being a master at stuffing things into an attache case. Wimps like myself might be turned off by the combat early on, but if you stick at it you’ll soon be cracking skulls and solving puzzles with the best of them.

Replayability: 9/10

I have three words for you: New Game Plus.

What could possibly be better, after scrimping and saving pesetas on your first playthrough to swap out those basic peashooters, than starting from scratch tooled up with all the goods you earned last time? There’s nothing more magnificent than laying into the village square mob with the Red9 Mauser, fully upgraded, and watching those Ganado heads pop! For wimps like me, this means that I could really cut loose on the replay, having my cathartic revenge against Saddler and his gang of Plagas-infested cronies.

And this isn’t all! During each playthrough you will amass a ton of points, gifted at the end of each chapter for things like killing bosses, using the environment to bump off enemies and performing all manner of trick shots. These can be redeemed from the in-game reward store from the off, but the real rewards are only unlocked with that first completion – guns, outfits, you can have it all… if you can afford it!

Of course, there is also the matter of perfectionism. The Resident Evil series has been rating its players since 1996, and proper horror fans will most likely want to steam through the game as fast and efficiently as possible for that coveted S rank! (I once got a B in 1998’s Resident Evil 2, it was a rush!) Naturally, this is made much easier if you are past your first playthrough and have a ton of weapons from the get-go.

There are a good few reasons to begin this adventure again, collectors, perfectionists and spirited Plaga killers alike will find a reason to do so thanks to some good design from Capcom. Even a complete milquetoaste like me has gone back in for another bite, and that’s saying something!

Uniqueness: 6/10

How do you go about discussing how unique a remake of a game from 2005 is? How about a remake that is built on the same engine as the last few releases in a franchise?

This was tough to mark, and I certainly wouldn’t say that Resident Evil 4 is unoriginal – it is just a faithful remake of an 18-year-old game with modern comforts and stunning graphics, built similarly to the remakes of 2 and 3 (and 7 and Village for that matter). But somehow all of these time-honoured components do come together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. The faster pace and more kinetic action are well suited to the RE Engine, Village was testing the water for combat with lots of enemies in this regard and it paid off well. Likewise, the modern approach has made this remake quite a different beast from the often clunky, quick-time event-filled thing that it was so lovingly based upon.

Imagine a Venn diagram with circles for Resident Evil 4 2005 and Resident Evil 2 2018 on it – 4’s remake sits where the circles intersect, and elements of both are forged to create a surprisingly original experience.

Personal: 9/10

Somehow, against all common sense and expectations, Capcom took

The game that put me off Resident Evil for twelve long years, remade it and completely hooked me into it! Regardless of my feelings on 2005’s original entry, 2023’s Resident Evil 4 ended up being something of a masterpiece for me. Combine beautifully macabre visuals, excellent sound, a fun story and razor-sharp gameplay and you have this remake. It helps too that the cheesier aspects of the game have been softened, with just enough charm remaining to sell Leon as a hardened special forces agent, hiding his vulnerability behind quips and bad one-liners. Weak characters have been fleshed out, bosses have been reimagined and the game has a strong reward system.

Capcom, you miracle workers!

Aggregated Score: 8.5

Some call him Winst0lf, others the Bizzaro Mage, and some people just call him Craig. Whatever you wish to call him, he’s a writer, reviewer and podcaster, all while somehow maintaining a day job. Maybe one day he won’t have to… one day…