The Resident Evil 4 remake is off to a great start. Updated aiming mechanics and a new injection of processing power make this the most exciting version of RE4 Capcom has ever delivered, and Leon Kennedy looks better than ever, even with a new chin implant. The remake works well in the early hours as Leo shoots and fights his way through a foggy Spanish town where Las Plaga has turned the inhabitants into deadly tentacled monsters. Set between banks of quaint wooden buildings and a winding cave system, these early stages set the game's spooky tone and strike a satisfying balance between asset management, puzzle solving and modern third-person shooters.
As the game gets more complex, it gets clunky. Capcom's approach to improving RE4 is to add more enemies, tighter environments, and fewer ammo drops, which can make for a very tense action experience if its controls are consistent. As it stands, the RE4 remake suffers from slow animations and disappointing fight sequences. The lion constantly feels weak and unable to reliably dodge attacks or basic hits.
Resident Evil 4 set the standard for action-horror games when it was released in 2005, and the remake really shined when it embraced the innovations of the original; However, the remake quickly loses focus, and Capcom seems to have gone to great lengths to update the enemies and environments, leaving Leo in the GameCube-era dust.
The remake often places Leo in a swarm of enemies without the ability to quickly dodge incoming attacks. He must shoot or cut the herd, but he runs knee-deep in mud, and even a blow to the head does not always stop the reckless madness. Meanwhile, enemy attacks continue to disrupt Lyon. The slow motion is authentic to the experience of the original four Resident Evil games, something RE2 and RE3 specifically innovate, offering updated controls and environments that feel right at home on modern hardware. Compared to those games, RE4 feels incomplete, or at least incomplete.
The boss battle that Capcom has reimagined for the remake is against Mendez, a mutant priest with extremely long spikes. First, Mendez launched a series of repeated attacks from the sides of a burning slaughterhouse. In the return match, Mendes again stands to throw flaming logs and blow up oil barrels at León before moving forward to grapple, switching these positions several times. While the remake's setting is larger, it's full of fires that hinder Leo's actions every time he touches it. Mendez moves fast, as do the items he throws, while Leon has a slow attack ability, fast dodge, slow reload animations, picking up items, setting fire, and knocking enemies down. Mendez seems to be a completely changed personality here. Leon, not so much. This leads to a frustrating boss fight.
I died a few times trying to beat Mendez and that's when Capcom pulled a prank on me. I was playing Standard and during Mendez's death screens, the game started prompting me to activate "Supported", the lowest difficulty. I don't usually do this in exams, but after dozens of frantic attempts, I gave up and hit OK without even reading the fine print. Boost mode makes the game incredibly forgiving and I easily beat Mendez in the next round.
And after that I couldn't change the difficulty settings at all. remember this. Supported mode is permanent in RE4 .
I played a few more minutes on the lowest difficulty, but it was a really different game than the standard version, with no tension or danger. Fortunately, I was using a PlayStation 5, which only syncs cloud saves when you exit a game. I disconnected the console's internet connection, closed the game, and then downloaded an old save file before editing the settings. I then beat Mendez the old fashioned way, on standard difficulty, and kept a new fear of accidentally moving to help the situation in my soul.
The constant scrolling in down mode is a standard feature of Resident Evil games, but I find it annoying. This is especially strange because RE4 Standard actively encourages players to try the help mode during loading screens and the death list. I asked Capcom why the team designed RE4 this way, and a spokesperson said, "The difficulty mode a player completes in the game has implications for in-game achievements and trophies." That doesn't quite answer the question for me. Many action games have dynamic difficulty settings without compromising achievements, and this answer does not address my perception that Capcom prioritizes trophy security over availability.
While we're in the complaint department, I'd also encourage all PS5 players to turn off console sounds in the sound settings. This goes for RE4 and literally every other game that has this feature. Why is DualSense always so loud? Please let someone stop.
Here's what RE4 did for me. A begging mess of nostalgia and unfulfilled frustration. It's not a terrible game, but it's not smooth either. This adds enemy variety and cool environments, but Leon's bullets often hit targets without dealing damage, his movements are clumsy, and his new bullet ability is only semi-functional. The game clearly offers combat strategy for each scene, but then its mechanics get in the way, punishing the player in the process. In general, the word RE4 is inconsistent .
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