One of my biggest gripes with Resident Evil 4 over the years was just how stale combat was as it never really evolved much past shoot a limb, melee, and knife and it's all you really do throughout the game's entirety, becoming less fun and almost procedural with every new playthrough.
Resident Evil 5 on the other hand doesn't get enough credit and for me personally, is one of the major reasons RE4 has felt more and more dated with every revisit. Starting with the obvious, it was the game that brought Resident Evil into the HD era and honestly still looks great today, even in a post RE Engine world. But it was also the first Resident Evil game to use a modern control scheme with its use of both analog sticks to move the character simultaneously with the camera, further cementing RE4 into a bygone era of gaming.
But most importantly, RE5 took RE4's combat loop and made it much snappier and engaging with a variety of new melee moves that can alter your strategy depending on where you shoot an enemy and how you're positioned in relation to them. You can also finish downed enemies with a melee prompt, making you less reliant on the knife which really only slowed down the flow of combat. Even the tedium of constantly switching to the inventory screen to change weapons was also removed by real-time inventory management and item short-cuts assigned to the D-pad which we still see in Resident Evil games today.
I highlight all of this because what we saw in this presentation absolutely justifies the game being remade to me. For all its faults, the opening village segment in Resident Evil 4 was always an absolute standout moment in gaming and seeing not only how faithfully they've recreated it, but also how much different the flow of combat looks here gives me so much hope.
The knife for example is much more dynamic now, as it can be utilized in a number of different ways like executing downed enemies, escaping enemy grabs quicker, parrying enemy attacks, and stealth takedowns. While the knife is definitely more functional and useful in combat, its one caveat is that it now has a durability meter much like the disposable knives in RE2, adding a strategic layer to using the knife and making it much more defensive in nature. Leon's roundhouse kick also makes a return and much like in RE5, you no longer have to pause the action to switch weapons either.
Even the encounters seem much more dynamic from the cow reacting to being set on fire and trampling everything in its path to Salvador being much more aggressive and interacting with the environment in new ways. There's definitely many new layers to combat this time around that both increases the tension for a more survival horror conscious experience but also maintains the fast paced stylish action the game was known for which I think is an excellent compromise that brings the best out of both worlds.
The brand new opening section seems to confirm this won't be a direct 1 to 1 remake either as they're clearly not afraid of fleshing out the story when needed and making changes to the overall design for a more survival horror oriented experience. However, it's far too early to tell how much the game will stray from its original design as they've only really highlighted iconic moments, giving off the idea that this will indeed be a very faithful recreation of RE4. My only hope is that this is simply an illusion and clever marketing ploy to win over people before they reveal too many changes.
I just can't see how they could possibly try and make a survival horror experience out of RE4 without altering its design and flat out removing or replacing chunks of the game. I think more than anything, the Metroidvania design is what really makes the survival horror genre so appealing to me and I would really love to see this applied to the world of RE4. Village serves as a great template for this and you can still hit all the key moments from the original game even if the moments in between aren't completely identical to the original as we can see from the opening and village sequence. Even Dead Space, a game originally inspired by Resident Evil 4, is challenging its linear and segmented structure in its remake to allow for a more open and seamless experience with an emphasis on backtracking.
This remake couldn't look any better and as much as I know I'm likely going to enjoy playing this one regardless of what direction they end up going with after that impressive gameplay showcase, I still want badly for it to be the perfect and definitive Resident Evil 4 experience I know it could be. I've always been a believer that the RE4/RE5 era of games could have been tweaked into survival horror games while embracing its more unconventional qualities and I feel like we've been seeing that perfect blend of survival horror and action lately with games like RE3 and Village, but those games were still quite disappointing for one reason or another that I don't think RE4 would actually be hindered from.
I will say though, I really hope there are unlockable costumes in-game because those DLC outfits look f*cking terrible. Also not really a fan of Luis' new character model or even Salazar for that matter.
