By Sam Coles:
With Resident Evil on a hot streak at the moment, as well as the Resident Evil 4 Remake around the corner. I thought it would be great to look back at the original release of Resident Evil 4, and what made it so special. So, let’s get into it!
Resident Evil as a series was stagnating in the early 2000’s, people were getting rather tired of the fixed camera formula of the series and the sheer abundance of releases that Capcom were putting out. Resident Evil 4 was originally going to be another fixed camera game with more supernatural elements with ghosts, dubbed Resident Evil 3.5 it looked like another Resident Evil game. Shinji Mikami, the creator of the series, took over as the director and took the series into another direction and changed the camera to a more traditional third person camera. So, Capcom made an infamous deal with Nintendo called “The Capcom Five”, where they would release five Capcom published games including Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube exclusively. However, as we all know that deal fell through, and the game came out on the PS2 a few months later.
Let’s start with the game’s narrative, now I know what you are going to say “Sam, you really going to go in depth with a Resident Evil story”. Hear me out, yes, it is not anything special but, it is the execution and how insane it is. Taking six years after the Racoon City incident, we once again step into the shoes of Leon Kenndy, who is no longer a rookie police officer but has landed himself a job in the Secret Service protecting the President of the United States. Quite the upgrade Leon, anyway the President’s daughter has been kidnapped by a crazed cult that reside in rural Spain that speak Latin American Spanish for some reason. Anyway, gramma aside Leon must investigate the cult and get the President’s daughter back.
Now I know what you are thinking, sounds like a straight to video action movie and you would be right. However, it is almost that Capcom is self-aware of this and embraces the B-Movie camp with the over top gory violence, almost like a Troma production with the abysmal dialogue. The dialogue is hilarious, Leon is such a stereotypical American action hero with cheesy one-liners in the middle of a serious conversation with the villains, and you can see on their faces they are confused almost with his bizarre and out of place responses. I mean even after being swarmed by villagers at the start of the game, where they then retreat out of nowhere and what does he say? “Where’s everyone going? Bingo”? It is ridiculous, and you can’t help but smile with how absurd it is. It does seem like they are maintaining it a bit in the remake, but more toned down to be a more serious.
Now we have discussed the insanity of Resident Evil 4’s story, we can now discuss the insanity yet excellent gameplay. Resident Evil 4 amped up the action, however it was still an unnerving horror game, and you weren’t The Terminator in terms of durability or ammunition. The game is unrelenting with its combat encounters, you will be surrounded from the front, behind and on elevated positions making you think quickly on your toes. I played this game on my Switch on normal difficulty, and I died a lot especially when I got to the castle section.
Combat is fast yet methodical, where you must time your shots as enemies have location-based damage. Want to disarm and enemy? Shoot them in the hand and they will drop their axe, or more hilariously will explode if they are carrying dynamite. The location-based damage is key for each encounter, as it is a great way to stun enemies and get a free roundhouse kick, or my favorite when you get to the castle section the suplex. Not only that, but it is also great for crowd control, if you stun an enemy with headshot in the middle of crowd of enemies, you can score multiple hits knocking several unfortunate villagers to the ground.
Headshots are the best bet of taking down the basic enemies such as the villagers and monks, but this comes with a double edge sword scenario. You can cause major damage with headshots which will cause their head to explode like a watermelon, but there is a chance that a parasite will come sprouting out of their necks with long reaching attacks. I like this feature, as it makes you more cautious to pull off critical headshots, as it becomes a roll of the dice but there is a counter to the parasites as they die instantly from flashbang grenades.
Now, the way I am talking about this game you would think that this game is not survival horror, and yes you would be sort of right. However, you still must manage your resources as there were moments where I found myself with little to no ammo, as shooting recklessly will have you in moments with your pants around your ankles. This is where the attaché case inventory system comes in, a mini game within its own right if you are an OCD lunatic when it comes to organisation. You can move items and weapons around to fit other items into your case, which is great as you can make everything as neat or as messy as you want, I tend to be somewhere in between. This inventory can be expanded, as you can purchase larger cases from the next segment I will move onto, The Merchant.
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The Merchant is an ambiguous character that shows up around an hour into the game, where he offers his services for the right price of course. Ironically in the original game, he is voiced by the same voice actor who plays Leon, which is rather bizarre and funny, but I digress. You collect gold, jewelry and other shiny trinkets to sell and exchange for weapons, items (not ammo unfortunately) and upgrades for your arsenal. These can be tucked away in crates, vases and just embedded in walls which encourages you to explore the levels. Also, higher level enemies and bosses will drop unique treasures, or a substantial payout of gold.
Let’s talk about graphics, yes, these days the game is showing its age but to be honest it has started to age only somewhat recently. However, put your mind back to 2005 when this launched on the GameCube, it really pushed Nintendo’s purple lunchbox to its limits. It looked next gen without it being on the Xbox 360 which launched the same year. All the cutscenes were in engine and were not pre-rendered, well not until the PS2 version due to its limitations. All the animations in the gameplay and cutscenes were motion captured, which wasn’t too common at the time as it was expensive but gives it more believability with its world.
Yeah, now it is starting to show its age, there are textures that were not meant for high resolutions and were clearly designed for CRT TVs that outputted with a mind blowing 480p, but it can still look great when played in the right setup.
Resident Evil 4 is a game that still holds relevance even nearly 20 years later (at the time of writing), there is a reason why the game has been re-released so many times it’s because it is that good and easy to play even if you have never played a Resident Evil game before. The remake looks to be sticking with the core tenants of the original, while giving it a modern flare with controls and visuals, and I am looking forward to it. I can see gamers talking about this game 40 years later, because it was that influential in the industry, if you haven’t played this game, do it, it is a blast!
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