Resident Evil 4

Resident evil 4 is really good. It fails at being a horror game, more a horror themed action game. One of the biggest turnoffs for me when playing old games is how they handle death and lives, especially if it means repeating large portions of the game after failing.

Luckily it saves itself from a lives system and just resets the player to the start of the combat encounter when you die. In what was going to be re4, the original Devil May Cry, lives are handled a lot worse with you needing a special item to respawn or you have to start the whole mission over, really breaking the flow of the game.

The tank controls and pointer aiming of the Wii version add a lot of tension to each fight. The game has been tuned around the player's move set because of the control that's taken away from the player. For example, you can't move while aiming so you have to aim fast to start moving again and dodge attacks. You also can't strafe sideways so changing directions is slower.

The ammo system is also super well balanced. You can't just use a single weapon the whole game because you don't get enough ammo. You have to keep cycling through your whole arsenal and experimenting with different weapons.

There were random quick time events with motion controls that just mean waving your arms around to dodge to boulder but at least the fail animations were funny.

The writing was also so silly. Leon really says "women ☕️" at one point. The cheesy dialogue and the silly video game elements contrasted against the pretty bleak and dark environments like being presented with McDonalds toys of everyone they know speaking lines like it's been compressed through a wiimote speaker is pretty funny.

Complaints

Flash grenades are borderline useless. Only after searching up what they do did I realise they could be used against the parasites but from just playing the game I never figured this out.

Final thoughts

This was my first RE game after being a dmc fan for a while and I can totally see where the inspiration comes from. Feels like an old action movie. You should totally play it, but I would totally recommend playing on the Wii with motion controls if you can. One day I will play the remake and the vr mode (if I ever get a headset). Re4 remake vr is only on PSVR2 which is too expensive :(

Capcom also has so many good games I need to play still. Maybe okami or monster hunter? Ghost trick and Kunitsu-gami look really unique too.