You explore a farm where emaciated animals wander about then drop dead from hunger, and where every shack has some snarling villager waiting to stab you through the side. Photograph: CapcomĮvery location is a rotting smörgåsbord of gelatinous horror. Traipsing through the muck … Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil 4 Remake. I love the way the major boss battles are foreshadowed, and how the world teaches you how to look for important rooms or crucial loot hoards. The locations where big fights take place are expertly designed, always featuring places to run to and catch your breath for a second, so you learn to read the spaces as well as enemy attack patterns. It’s the perfect melding of old and new Resi, of reminiscence and raw challenge. As you go, you collect cash to buy new weapons from the famed Merchant character (who has some real treasures in his collection), but it’s still a horror experience: there are jump scares there are tense moments where the camera occludes hidden enemies lurking in the darkness. The combat is expressive, tactical and tough, utilising a stripped down melee system that allows for crucial ammo hoarding, while still making your character feel powerful. We’re there in his boots as he blasts at enemies wielding pitchforks and chainsaws. The new Resi 4 brings the camera out a little further again, but we’re still very much with Kennedy as he traipses through the muck of festering farmlands and down the corridors of gothic castles. Gone too were the zombies, in favour of torch-wielding yokels and towering cult leaders, giving it the uncanny feel of folkloric horror, of The Wicker Man and Witchfinder General. Designer Shinji Mikami switched to an over-shoulder view, drawing the player into the protagonist’s perspective and making the shootouts much more immersive.
Gone were the awkward expressionist camera angles and roving third-person perspective gone too was the peculiarly staccato and unintuitive combat of the first three titles. Veterans won’t need to be told that Resi 4 represented a new phase in the series when it arrived on the Nintendo GameCube in 2005.
A complete reimagining … Resident Evil 4 Remake.
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