If the remake of Resident Evil 4 decides to trim the fat in a similar way to 2 and 3, it will lose moments like this. The original is the longest game in the franchise by a significant margin, and this is for good reason. Each major location is like a game in itself, taking time to introduce you to their threats, puzzles, and further intricacies before things inevitably descend into an avalanche of action. You hurl grenades around like other modern entries, but here it feels earned, like you’ve triumphed over unstoppable horrors and can finally take your revenge. The campaign being cut short would rob these moments of their brilliance, and this isn’t how newcomers should experience one of the Elden Ring best talismans survival horror games ever concei
Aside from this, the storytelling in Breath of the Wild is very much what you make of it. If you’ve played the game before, you’ll know that Link has access to a number of cryptic photographs on his Sheikah Slate that represent locations spread across the open world. You are given no map icons or hints as to where these places are, you simply need to look at the images and work things out for yourself. It’s a wondrous journey of discovery, and providing us with nuggets of narrative as opposed to temporary rewards makes seeking them out all the more satisfying. I love this approach, but mostly for what it represents as opposed to how it contributes to the game’s overall pacing.
Spectacle is all well and good, but it’s short-lived, and doesn’t stick in your mind like the haunting corridors of Raccoon City Police Station. I’m not going to remember the Lady Dimitrescu boss battle for years to come, but Leon’s first hesitant steps into Raccoon City are already cemented into my mind. Resident Evil 4 is filled with moments like this. Despite being a rollercoaster ride of gunfights and boss battles, it never fails in making you feel vulnerable. Leon could have a fully upgraded arsenal at his disposal, but not taking his surroundings into account would lead to an untimely de
As much as I love them, flashbacks simply don’t facilitate an approach like this. They’re an elusive manner of storytelling by design, providing brief snapshots of memories as we’re left to fill in the blanks for ourselves. It informed the overall tone and thematic delivery of the last game, but now that enigmatic atmosphere has subsided, it’s time to commit to something more definitive.
I’m worried that Breath of the Wild 2 likely won’t heed this advice, with Zelda being yeeted into a hole in the latest trailer and seemingly imprisoned as Link, Ganon, or whoever we end up playing as is tasked with saving her and freeing the realm. It’s far too early to draw conclusions about exactly how BOTW2 will play out, but it’s easy to assume that Nintendo will abide by series conventions and go for something safe.
Suffice to say, Resident Evil 4 has definitely shown its age. Given that Resident Evil 4 was both a unique detour for the Resident Evil series, as well as one of the best overall action games of that era, a Resident Evil 4 Remake certainly has some big shoes to fill if it is to ignite the necessary nostalgia, while also creating something refreshingly
Given the trajectory of Capcom’s admittedly stellar remakes thus far, I’m unsure it will do such a thing. It could be the opposite, with reimaginings of Resident Evil 2 and 3 opting to trim the fat in favour of tightly executed scares and chaotic action instead of giving us time to stew in our own horrific, b-movie circumstances. Compared to everything that came before it, Resident Evil 4 was a completely different beast. It took the clunky controls of the franchise and morphed them into a third-person shooter experience that felt deviantly modern by 2005 standards. It wasn’t afraid to push boundaries, setting the bar so high that I’d argue the genre is yet to surpass them even to
However, I think the first game was a stark indicator that this isn’t a company playing by the rules anymore. Knowing this, I’m hopeful Breath of the Wild 2 will be the most narrative-heavy Zelda game we’ve ever seen, perhaps even superseding Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess with the amount of dialogue it’s willing to subject us to. As long as it’s in service of a wonderful story, I’m more than happy to sit back and sink in.
This didn’t feel the same in Resident Evil 3 or Village, due to a forgiving focus on action and campaigns that were so short that you never had enough time to feel overwhelmed. You’re on a relatively linear track of varying locations and setpieces, meaning Ethan Winters and Jill Valentine never feel lost or alone amidst foreign circumstances. They’re also armed to the teeth, so zombies and werewolves that would feel like the end of the world to a normal civilian are little more than pesky obstacles to our unstoppable her
Overall, Resident Evil 4 is a game that has aged exceptionally well. There’s very little in the original game that explicitly dates it as an older title, but one thing that definitely needs an upgrade is the game’s approach to quick-time events or Q