Resident Evil 4 Remake (RE4R) got me thinking about the definitive way to play a game.

When a successfully faithful remake of a beloved game is released, you may see many review outlets referring to it as “the definitive way to play,” meaning that the original game has essentially been made obsolete in favor of its improved counterpart. It would therefore make sense that this stamp of definitiveness is what developers who remake games are always striving for, as it justifies the entire process. Some remakes fare better than others in this regard. There are many cases of a remake not quite earning its spot as a permanent replacement for a beloved title of old, resulting in a fan base being left with two versions of the same game that they must choose between whenever they are in the mood for another playthrough. Such is the case with RE4R. Once I had completed Leon S. Kennedy’s new and improved mission to save the president’s daughter, I couldn’t help but feel . . . strangely empty, like I had just woken from a simulation of summer vacation in mid-January, cold in bed. I had fun, I was sure of it . . . but something was off. I didn’t want to jump right back in for another round of action like I had with the original game upon unlocking professional difficulty and Leon’s cool, retro RPD duds. This time I was having trouble remembering my favorite parts of the game. Nothing stood out so starkly as the hyper-percussive soundtrack of the original that drove me through an island stuffed with scores of violent Ganados while I ran and quick-turned over and over in a panicked attempt to place the perfect shot from my Striker shotgun. I was left more confused than anything else. Why did it all feel like a dream? I never felt this way with Resident Evil 2 Remake (RE2R). In fact, I repeated every scenario of that game until S-ranks became second nature, so why did I simply shrug and shut-off the Ps5 after earning a B-rank my first time through RE4R? Well, I’ve been thinking about all that and now it’s time to explain.

There are two kinds of redesign that a game can undergo: a remake or a remaster. The justification of a remaster is harder to argue with because the changes made in a remaster are typically unintrusive quality adjustments like framerate, graphical fidelity and other subtle additions that may have been absent from the original title due to an oversight, the absence of an innovative technique at the time of development that has since become standard and/or lacking technology. There are of course different levels of a remaster’s effectiveness, as some, like the Dark Souls remaster, remain so faithful to their foundations that the whole thing feels like an overpriced port. For our purposes, let’s look at the glass half-full and consider remasters as neither wildly impactful nor terribly offensive. Remakes are where the risks run higher. A remake of a game will often have a harder time being considered as the true definitive experience because the changes it brings to the table are more significant. Therefore, these changes will be judged more harshly than something like improved lighting. There may be tweaks to the story, overhauled gameplay and/or an altered aesthetic that each contribute to the separation between the final product and what came first. Each of those aforementioned changes are present in RE4R, for better or worse. The standout of the bunch is improved gameplay.

The gameplay of Resident Evil 4 still holds up. You run, turn, shoot, kick, knife and suplex your way through Leon S. Kennedy’s zany, campy quest to save the president’s daughter from a bunch of wild-eyed villagers. However, RE4R adds more mobility and versatility to Leon’s repertoire. Leon’s slow turning and motionless shooting has been replaced by a more fluid approach. The rookie cop turned secret agent can move around while he aims his weapon. Between firing shots, he can cut sharper angles than tank controls could ever allow. The biggest alteration by far to Leon’s skillset is the addition of a knife parry, which allows the player to deflect incoming attacks at the cost of knife durability, adding a timing-based challenge to each encounter that provides a huge opening to lay down some damage if performed correctly, all while forcing the player to manage their knife usage, as they may want to save a crucial deflection for a tougher enemy down the line rather than waste all their knives on more easily dispatched grunts. These gameplay tweaks are great, but they don’t put the original controls to shame. Resident Evil 4’s tank controls never frustrated me as they do other players who dismiss them as archaic. I’ve never really understood the big fuss. Yes, the movement is a bit awkward and takes some getting used to, but there’s something exhilarating about narrowly dodging a hatchet-swing coming from the edge of the screen as Leon ambles past, only to reorient for a fast shot to the kneecap that’ll set up another roundhouse kick. Balancing fight or flight doesn’t feel the same in RE4R, because Leon strides with more grace and is able to channel his inner-Sekiro to deflect pitchfork prongs and even chainsaws, while the player can see much more of Leon’s immediate surroundings thanks to an unanchored camera. Therefore, the rewards provided by either fighting or fleeing become more muddled. In the original game, fighting meant hitting your target and nothing else, otherwise you were bound to get overwhelmed, while fleeing meant choosing an opportune moment to create space, a process that tank controls and a close-up camera made much more tense. In RE4R, a few well-timed deflections can get Leon out of almost any jam, while circumventing enemies becomes a lot easier due to smoother navigation and the omniscient ability to see enemies behind Leon as he moves in the opposite direction. Also, popping off quick shots to clear the path while running away from a barrage of enemies is much more simplified (and less scary) than coming to a complete stop and lining up the laser pointer. Leon can run, shoot (using crosshairs) and run again in an incredibly seamless manner. That’s not to say the remake is an easier game, it’s ironically more challenging than the original, yet the choices of fight and flight bleed together now rather than becoming two totally different strategies to decide between at any given moment. Obviously, this is Capcom’s way of keeping up with the standards of modern gaming. An unfixed camera and fluid gameplay are to be expected. However, after completing RE4R, I’m still not convinced that such modern design belongs in Leon’s battle against the Las Plagas. Some things just might be better left alone.   

One objectively better feature of the remake is its remixed boss fights. The original game’s boss design could be downright tedious because they didn’t quite match the game’s controls, a flaw that forced quick-time events to become more prominent in patching the holes seen during boss battles like Krauser’s and Salazar’s. Waiting for a button prompt is never much fun, and while mastering these boss battles is of course possible and can provide more satisfaction overall, I admittingly find myself purchasing a rocket launcher right before entering Salazar’s arena on each subsequent playthrough, so I can blast the little guy and move on. RE4R allows the boss battles to shine. Each fight pairs well with Leon’s increased agility, like the encounters with Krauser, which demand perfect knife parries to overcome as efficiently as possible. This not only gives the player a new level of agency that quick-time events prevented reaching in the past, but also serve the story better, as we are not simply watching a showdown between student and master, we are a part of it. Between deflections and gunshots, Krauser taunts and insults Leon while also offering up more clarity on the backstory shared by each specialist. Moments like these really do bring Leon’s adventure into the modern era in impressive fashion.

Speaking of the modern era, how old does Resident Evil 4 really feel? Well, like I mentioned earlier, the game still holds up, which creates the biggest argument against the necessity of RE4R’s existence. While it does feel dated at times, Resident Evil 4 has absolutely achieved the status of being infinitely replayable. It’s not only a masterpiece, but its influence is so strong that no similar innovation has been made within gaming that could threaten it with irrelevance. In other words, Resident Evil 4 doesn’t look a whole lot different from big-budget games being released today, like Capcom’s other RE remakes, which is probably why it has been continuously ported from one console to the next for so many years (I’ve bought the game three separate times). Compare this with the difference between the very first Resident Evil released in 1996 and its 2002 Gamecube remake. Putting those two games side by side is shocking. Capcom was able to completely reinvent the birth of the most significant survival horror franchise of all time which has almost erased the memory of the actual initial installment from the minds of even hardcore fans like me. There is no doubt as to the definitiveness of the first game’s remake, because it feels like the finished version of what was merely a prototype. The Spencer Mansion is brimming with moody, morbid detail, giving each prerendered background a picturesque style that pairs perfectly with ambient lighting and an unsettling, yet oddly soothing soundtrack. Weapon, object and character models are miles more impressive than they were on PlayStation in the 90’s and new rooms, puzzles and enemy types feel like they always belonged, so much so that returning to the original iteration of the Spencer Mansion might make me question where all the crimson heads went, until I realize they unfortunately don’t exist, causing the game to instantly become a lot less terrifying. There is no doubt that the atmospheric remake is the best version of Resident Evil. It’s respectful to the vision of the classic title while adding and improving tons of details to the experience. The remake is the game that the original would have been had technology permitted it.

With that same philosophy in mind, does RE4R really feel like the game Resident Evil 4 would have or should have been when it first released? If you ask me, RE4R is an alternate imagining of the original game without a strong enough presence to demand definitive status. Sure, it makes plenty of graphical improvements, but the graphics of Resident Evil 4 aren’t abysmal by any means. In Resident Evil, environments are often stark and empty, so the remake took the time to fill each room and hallway with its own unique look and feel. In RE4R there is no such opportunity to fill huge gaps left by the original game, because huge gaps simply aren’t there. Instead, RE4R can only make everything look more realistic in the way modern games are expected to look. I never felt compelled to gape in awe at any of RE4R’s locations, because they were mostly familiar. I would enter the next area and take note of the changes I saw, but it was without much excitement or wonder that I noted anything. “Oh, there’s a ladder over here now that leads to a treasure . . . that’s cool, I guess,” I’d say as I worked my way through the game. Places like Salazar’s castle could feel quite different at times, but not different enough to provide the same kind of curiosity and satisfying discovery of the first game’s remake.

What about the Resident Evil 2 Remake released in 2019? I was much more invested in that game than RE4R, despite both titles playing similarly and running on the same engine. I also don’t believe that RE2R is the definitive way to play the game, but I have an easier time coming to terms with why the game earns its spot in the series as an alternate experience of the original sequel. The biggest change RE2R brought to the table was the over the shoulder approach that Resident Evil 4 introduced to the franchise, and gaming as whole. So, right off the bat the game plays entirely differently, which is probably the clearest indication of modernization and differentiation. The camera angles are gone and they’ve taken trusty tank controls with them. Instead, the player is more closely connected with Leon and therefore the Raccoon City Police Department by extension. This allows us to see the environment from an entirely new perspective. It’s not necessarily better, but it’s new, and that counts for something. It’s fun to investigate the nooks and crannies that were never seen before as Capcom once again shows off their talent for creating vividly detailed and haunting places to explore. When encountering zombies, the player must display pinpoint accuracy, as headshots have become vital accomplishments of survival, whereas headshots were only gifted by chance in the original. Also, a defensive knife system is taken from the 2002 and enhanced in the remake, giving Leon a chance to fend off whatever creature has captured him in their clutches while also damaging a knife’s durability (managing knife durability in RE2R is much more tense and strategic than in RE4R, due to each individual enemy’s deadliness and the tight corridors of the areas Leon must navigate). Given the major changes to gameplay and perspective, RE2R is a fun and faithful adaptation of the original game that forms its own identity and preserves the legacy of the latter. I can play Resident Evil 2 and RE2R back-to-back without ever feeling fatigued or detached during my time with one or the other. That is not the case with Resident Evil 4 and RE4R. I’ve tried.

Playing RE4R makes me wonder if Capcom’s effort to tie each installment more cohesively together in the modern era is really worth it, and I don’t just mean the $60. Is it worth withholding entirely new games in the franchise or even remakes that could more likely become the definitive version of the game they reimagine (or at least get closer to it) like the fun but somewhat tedious Resident Evil: Code Veronica? If one of Capcom’s main concerns really is cohesion, then they’re overthinking it. First, they’ve already dropped the ball with the remake of Resident Evil 3, which doesn’t earn the same praise as RE2R due to cutting so much from the protracted cat and mouse duel between Jill and Nemesis. Also, the original remake, as fantastic as it remains, wasn’t created with RE Engine, nor does it feature a third-person perspective, yet that game certainly doesn’t need to be remade (again) just to fit in with the rest . . . right?  Resident Evil 4 feels similar in that regard. It looks a little different and it doesn’t use the same character model for Leon, but does that really prevent people from seeing it as a part of the same series? To be clear, I’m not upset that RE4R exists. I happily bought a copy on release and played through it. I wanted to love it. As sacrilegious as it may seem, I wanted to forget about the original game. Come on, Capcom, give me the definitive way to play, earn the asking price of a brand new, next-gen title! By the end, however, I felt more like I had betrayed the original game rather than celebrated it. I’m finally starting to become more skeptical now that we’ve reached a place in the series where truly innovating the formula is becoming more and more difficult. Next time I’m in the mood for listening to one-liners and kicking Ganados in the face, I think I’ll be popping the original Resident Evil 4 into my PlayStation. At the end of the day, that’s the most damning thing about RE4R.