After more than ten hours of carefully sweeping the floor and trying to "three light" processes, I once again rescued the "pear that got in the way", and I felt a lot of emotion watching the familiar ending. Nearly 20 years later, the Resident Evil 4 remake has maintained its excellent quality, and thankfully, this time CAPCOM didn't do the same as the 3rd generation remake.
But in addition to nostalgia, I also have to break a little bit of the beautiful illusion of it - honestly, it is not worthy of the "full score" evaluation currently circulating in the mainstream atmosphere, or take a step back, strictly speaking, because with the blessing of today's rare single-threaded game background, plus the original high quality of "Resident Evil 4" as a basis, it can barely be regarded as a full score game in the 2023 version.
Considering that there are enough sounds to praise it well, there is no need to say more, so I will focus on the more negative parts of the game and add some "forced calm" weight to all readers and friends. Anyway, all the old agents started the game for the first time, and what I say will not affect them. However, considering the obvious tendency to invite new players into the pit in the Resident Evil 4 remake, and I highly recommend that players who have not been exposed to the "Resident Evil" series enter the pit from this game, it is still important to have a correct enough understanding of it, rather than overly exalting it.
This article will try to keep the fun of the first experience of friends without worrying about spoilers.
Dear folks, I, "Li Sanguang", are back again!
Wonderful newbie village
The remastered version has a strong intention to absorb new players, mainly reflected in the extremely restrained horror elements and the difficulty of being as friendly as possible.
The original work of the 4th generation is relatively "full of martial virtue", and the sense of horror is much lower than that of the original work of the previous 3 generations, and many times it is enhanced by insufficient firepower and lattice crisis. The remake refers to the style of the original work, and even the newly made part does not excessively raise the proportion of horror elements, and the horror effect alone is lower than that of "Resident Evil: The Village".
In terms of plot, there are not many black lights and blinding bridges throughout the remake, and novices will not naturally feel afraid. The part to touch the dark is not too long, generally two or three small rooms will see the light in the past, the pressure will dissolve instantly, and there is no "jumping face killing". It's almost impossible to get a whole section like the one at the beginning of Resident Evil: The Village and be shocked in a row — maybe even to be stabbed as "scary enough", which is just right for players who want to experience a horror game and are worried about being scared. The "Resident Evil" series, which is a major player in the horror game industry, is certainly beneficial to cultivate future players.
Of course, to visit the wonderful places of interest, light is very important
There are also obvious newcomer friendliness in the level design. When running the map, the player's degree of freedom is generally very large, all roads lead to merchants, and people who are not familiar with this game can also "scrupulously" advance a little bit, and the sense of security is full.
In terms of combat, enemies in many areas of the game have obvious restrictions on their range of action, but the player's attack judgment range is very large, and it can be seen that it can be fought. As a result, the player can stand in a domineering position where the enemy will not attack at all, and output easily and happily, which greatly reduces the sense of terror by the way.
For example, there are 5 berserk parasitic enemies in a certain hall, and it is very dangerous to fight seriously, and it is not surprising that novices are gnawed off a whole tube of blood here, and it is almost the only place in the entire game where there are so many powerful enemies at the same time, and I opened the door for the first time and the whole person exploded. But the enemies here will definitely not rush out of the hall, and the player can stand in the doorway and easily output.
It's scary below, I'm going to provoke it on it, what is the flash grenade, I don't know...
Under the principle of friendliness to newcomers, the biggest trouble for players in the original work, and the core goal of the game, Miss Ashley, the president's daughter, has also undergone a comprehensive revision. In the original work, Ashley won the title of "Hindering Pear" based on her ability, and accidentally dragged the player to death. Now the biggest change is the cancellation of the original HP design, Ashley will die after being knocked down by the enemy and then suffering the attack, but falling to the ground and secondary damage are small probability events, players can concentrate more on fighting wits with enemies, and the game experience soars. Ashley's ability to break traps and jump off two floors stunned players who discovered them unexpectedly. In a word, "Pear is finally out of the way", novice players not only absolutely do not have to worry about becoming a babysitter, but even feel that it is indeed better to have Ashley many times.
It can be seen that CAPCOM's positioning for the remake is very clear. Since the 4th generation of fried cold rice has still been bought for so many years, it shows that its quality itself is reliable. With the overall stability of the player base, why not use the remake as a series business card to recruit new people and plan for the future?
I was really shocked when Ashley broke open the trap, but she was still in the way occasionally and couldn't be careless...
It can be called "shrewd" shrinkage
CAPCOM is a veteran factory in the industry, and this remake reflects its certain heritage. But in the game, the savvy business laziness is also obvious. Emotionally speaking, this is the accumulated experience in production and design, and from the player's point of view, some places are a little too "treacherous".
A typical example is the simplification of the characterization process. "Resident Evil" has always had a tradition throughout the ages of focusing on the mutation of infected characters, and the early CG animation and later real-time cutscenes are very exquisite, increasing the sense of psychological pressure while visually impacting, and sometimes even hinting at coping methods through mutation animation.
In the original 4th generation, the scene that impressed players was the "warm exchange" with the big village chief in a small black house. Although the village chief transforms quickly, the fierce and powerful camera language is very well explained, and everyone who meets it for the first time basically has to come up with an interjection to express their respect for the design of this scene.
Seeing that the old village chief is still so healthy and tough is very reassuring
However, in the remake, the transformation process of the village chief was not only not modernized, but even completely omitted, using very mature commercial practices, and a burst of explosions covered the player's sight and directly changed the model. Of course, specializing in the animation of the mutation process does seem to be "not very economical" today, it may take too much energy for a short moment, and considering that today's players have seen more in the world, no matter how terrifying monsters are difficult to scar, but also to take care of new players, it is better to use this "cost-effective" treatment.
There is more than one similar treatment, most of which omits or simplifies the profound mutations in the original work, and this "shrewd shrinkage" is especially conspicuous once realized. I seem to see the project leader's mission statement, on one side is the limited budget, schedule, on the other side written community feedback, is a list of "these contents must not be less".
"New Boss Fight", is it new? Sort of. Is it cool? Well...
To be fair, many of the classic designs in the original "Resident Evil 4" have also tried to recreate in the remake, not as cleverly and lazy as when "Resident Evil 3" was remade, but it has not reached the level of "one more step" in the "Resident Evil 2" remake. If you're looking forward to boss battles like the G2 in the 2nd generation remake, Resident Evil 4 Remastered can't be said to be completely absent, but it may disappoint you a little. Taking a step and a half from time to time is really not what a full score game should do.
Of course, in today's weak industry environment, this may also get another high evaluation, that is, it has indeed shrunk just right: those places that will definitely be scolded if they do not do it are made as much as possible, and the finished players can endure, basically satisfied, and even praise, so that pointing out small problems like me is deliberately provocative.
"Isn't it kind to restore the Easter eggs? Still picking? "—I know what to say
Understood, but not completely
Continuing the above ideas, some of the designs in the remake, I don't know if it is due to cost, construction period constraints, or some other considerations, the result is a feeling of "chess difference". Poorly, whether the production team really does not understand the mystery, or understands that it has not done it well, it cannot be asserted, but the result presented is a little inexplicable. This is a big reason why I think the remake does not achieve a perfect score - if it is a perfect score, there should be no mistakes and omissions.
Or take the village chief as an example, in the original work, when it was necessary to "warm communication" with the village chief, the village chief made a very iconic action - he entered a warehouse and "screwed" the door. This action on the one hand reflects his superhuman strength, on the other hand, it encloses the player in a small space, showing a sense of desperate oppression with no way out.
In the remake, CAPCOM has dedicated the reproduction of the "screw door" in an open outdoor environment. In this way, the behavior of the village chief can only convey a signal to the player - "you should run to the direction that the director asks". It is not necessary to deliberately screw the door here to convey such a message, and the space is more open, it is difficult to create a particularly large sense of desperation.
What's more interesting is that in the later process, the player still has to enter the warehouse and meet the village chief, but because he has screwed the door once before, he can't repeat it, and the tension and oppression of this scene are greatly reduced. Such a modification that weakens the expressiveness of the original work is really unnecessary.
The classic bridges of the original work are still there, but they are often handled very stiffly, such as here, and you can't notice it if you don't look for it...
This inevitably gives the impression that in some places the production team seems to be mechanically remaking those things that everyone voted "must not be less", and also "trying not to be exactly the same as the original", but in fact may not understand the original intention of their design - from the player's point of view, it is difficult to guess whether the production team did not understand the original intention, or understood but did not deal with it well, but there is no doubt that these places are flawed.
A similar situation exists in some new parts of the remake. The remastered version has greatly enhanced the mine section, adding a high-speed movement passage that clearly references "Call of Duty", which should be quite cool, and who doesn't want to "click" in all kinds of staggered high-speed movement - CAPCOM said, no, this is still a horror game in name only, you have to use an old pistol with only 10 rounds per shuttle, in order to restore.
However, players in this section of the original version can use their own weapons at will, but they don't provide speed and pleasure, but since the remake gives me speed, why not give me passion as well? There is no "da-da-da", only the rather languishing "da-da... Da...". Presumably, if the player is allowed to use weapons freely, it is so cool here, most of them will be tempted to pull out the rocket launcher, and that thing will be very troublesome to make an effect here - this damn "shrewd".
Compared with the previous works in the series, "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" uses the bridge of Gatling machine guns vs. sea monsters - not unhappy, not unhappy. So, guys, can you imagine the mood in this paragraph of "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" where you can only use a small pistol... Even if you can't give me a free heavy machine gun because the story is not over, it's not too much for me to shoot the monster with a bullet that I am looking for on my own, right? Perhaps it can only be said that the design here is a good learning case, which can intuitively tell everyone why many high-speed motion passion passages generally use automatic or high-power weapons.
In short, if you raise the standard of appreciation a little, then the "knowing, but not fully understood" place in the remake can still be perceptible, even if you can understand that the process is too long and the cost is difficult, it will still be somewhat regrettable.
This passage in "Resident Evil: Apocalypse", if it is cool, is really much cooler
The novelty of placing misplaced
When playing "Resident Evil: The Village", our old agents knew very well that it learned a lot of "Resident Evil 4", and even made people joke that this game was not used to remake "Thunder" for "Resident Evil 4"? It's a village, it's a castle, and almost all the materials can be copied. Now that the remake is really here, it always gives people a feeling of emptiness in some small places - what about the way "Resident Evil: The Village" stepped on?
A typical example is the animals of the village. In "Resident Evil: The Village", everyone has been a foodie, hunting, no chicken, pork, fish will be spared, even a crow knows to send money to the player. In the history of the series, this concept of killing animals to obtain resources originated from "Resident Evil 4", which has been exchanged for the nickname "Li Sanguang". In the remastered demo, players can also kill crows to obtain resources, and it seems that this system is also done in the official version. So, as a sincere foodie, when I saw live cows in the remake, I poked it up as soon as possible...
As a result, nothing.
The village is not without good food, why do young people suffer for themselves ...
At that moment, I even thought about whether to praise enough to restore, or spit - is it worried that there is a strange organizational attack, so the killing of animals is not encouraged? Even if you know that the 4th generation does not have a cooking system, there is no reason to drop a piece of beef shank meat, but can you at least drop a resource ... The other livestock in the game also lose nothing, only the chicken knows that it is being chased and lays an egg, giving you comfort. Anyway, compared to Ethan, Leon, who can only eat fish, snakes, and eggs, still feels too miserable.
There are also some crows in the middle of the game, but shooting them down does not necessarily drop resources, or it is difficult to hit because of the strange shooting feel of the game, and some things will fall in areas that the player cannot pick up... This is a game that goes through a resource crisis every day, do you know how distressed it is for me to pull out a pistol with 14 bullets and shoot it!
And in "Resident Evil: The Village", all the crows drop things, there is a good sense of rules, and it is not difficult to achieve it again.
The feeling is that some will fall, some will not, hit is not, do not fight is not ... Is this a new sense of unease?
I thought the 4th generation remake would take another step forward and have more small innovations for animals, such as more animal types, or take half a step back and copy Resident Evil: The Village, but it didn't. In other words, the remastered version chose another way, adding some content equivalent to killing animals directly for resources into the new mission system, and setting many restrictions. Players first have to kill designated animals, hand over tasks to merchants in exchange for tokens, and then exchange tokens for rewards from merchants... It's not impossible, but it's obviously a little less fun with subjective initiative.
In short, it can be felt that some ideas inspired by the original work of the 4th generation have obviously been iteratively evolved in subsequent works, but they are not reflected in this remake. In other words, the A and B schemes that have been clearly tried before under similar conditions, because "Resident Evil: The Village" chose A, so the remake chose B, but relatively speaking, A is actually the more fun one.
The task of catching sea bass is also easy to fail, unlike the mission crow, it is obviously very special
Biased "kill must die"
Friends who are familiar with two-dimensional culture know that "killing must die", and these bridges that add entertainment to the work outside the plot are often essential in today's various series of works. Similarly, CAPCOM is absolutely knowledgeable in terms of commercial elements, and the "Resident Evil" series as a cultural commodity has a lot of content to serve the audience, which is as it should be, there is no problem. But from the balance of the entire content, the service design of the remake may still be slightly biased.
"Resident Evil 4" was originally the enlightenment of many players' "handsome masochistic" preferences, and Leon's various moaning bridges in the game have always been a textbook for killing and dying. Of course, CAPCOM has long known that "Resident Evil: The Curse" deliberately arranged Leon and the muscular brother and noble tyrant to collide with various "base plots", and this is the intention. The remake also knows how to exert power, and Leon gives a variety of beautiful sounds throughout the process, for example, when the village section encounters heavy rain, the player can clearly feel that Leon hums much more frequently than Ashley behind him, even if it makes people feel that "how dignified agents are afraid of rain".
Correspondingly, the preferences of another part of the players also need to be taken care of, so we can see Ashley, who is more beautiful than the original, and when waiting for Leon to hit the target at the shooting range, she also knowingly lifts Erlang's legs and sits on the wooden box, without hiding the cute feeling of a young girl, and the stockings that are more and more torn as the plot becomes more and more torn...
Then when the camera is given to Ida Wang, it may be slightly embarrassing. With the aforementioned content, you can't say that CAPCOM doesn't understand the set of killing and dying, but just the costume of "Aunt Wang" this time, compared to the temperament of the 2nd generation remake, is inexplicably worse - heroic and charismatic are not enough. According to the commercial routine, Ashley is responsible for the girl element, and Sister Wang is responsible for the big sister element, right?
Although the truth is understood, with the scale of the remake of "Resident Evil 4", CAPCOM writes "I want to make money from all kinds of clothes" directly on the screen, but the current feeling of snubbing Ida Wang in this chapter is also a little too obvious.
It's really a bit hard to say...
In the remake, the content expression is indeed more inclined to Ashley. For the sake of the times, the image of Ashley in the original work is biased towards the princess who waits for someone to rescue, which is indeed a little wasted, and many adjustments have been made in the new version to fully highlight "Girl Power", and in some places she will even save Leon. On social media, you can see a large number of players who like genuine American beautiful girls who will encourage, rescue, and even drive "excavators".
Not only Ashley in the protagonist, but also the "Inevitable Passerby in this episode" Louis, who appears in every work of the series, has greatly strengthened the proportion of the plot, and has indeed done a good job, not losing to Officer Marven in the "Resident Evil 2" remake, not the fooling around in the "Resident Evil 3" remake. There are also villains Crowther and Leon's various "male plus male" are also very strong, and at the time of writing this article, I have already brushed a lot of fandom...
Conscience? It's a good conscience, but I always feel too shrewd...
And what about Ida Wang? It should have been the spokesperson for the sexy and spy elements in the series, but it can be said that there is almost nothing added throughout the article. It can be seen that CAPCOM is clearly talking about "the scene stays in the DLC", but in this article, there is not even an advertisement, so it gives a little new content at the end, and even deletes the line "Hey, woman..." in the original version that reflects the complex relationship between Leon and Ida Wang.
Just a few months ago, the DLC of Resident Evil: The Village just received a "mixed review" for its ability, which makes people feel at ease with the Ida Wang DLC promised by CAPCOM?
Disputes over means of profit
As mentioned earlier, this game has a clear novice village tendency, which has led to controversial designs, such as the "Extended Treasure Map" that comes with the Collector's Edition.
The specific function of this treasure map is to add additional treasure in the game, note that it is extra treasure, and the display on the map has a "+", especially in the early game of the village. From a well-intentioned design point of view, this is obviously to make it easier for the new generation of players to play, but if from the perspective of seriously experiencing the essence of the game, the treasure map is devastating to the originally carefully designed sense of resource crisis, players can have far more funds than the normal process gets, it is too leisurely to play, even if the game has dynamic difficulty, it cannot be pulled back.
What's more, this treasure map is bundled with the Collector's Edition without obvious reminders, and if the player does not notice it and does not close it manually, it will be too late to realize that they have too much money.
Although it is a big or small thing, why do you have to bind by default
Therefore, under the effect of quietly affecting the core experience, this treasure map with a single price of 25 yuan, whether it is a Pay to Win that foreign players are more disgusted is not so important. The Resident Evil Village and Resident Evil 2 Remasters have also had official plugins that affect the experience, with rewards unlocked, but at least they came out two or three months late, giving players time to play. This time the treasure map, the effect is similar but it is listed at the same time, or it is bound to the collector's edition, how to look at it is a little awkward - it can only be said that it is very shrewd. As a gamer, I had to be a little more shrewd, glad I didn't buy the Collector's Edition and dodged this "backstab".
To be fair, it is difficult to do a single machine this year, and it is understandable that manufacturers find ways to get more paid props, such as the handsome "governor's faith" shotgun is very good, but this treasure map ... Is this what a perfect score game should look like?
Faith grandpa gun, old agent suit cool and special, not strong, but handsome!
Fun, but not perfect
The remake of "Resident Evil 4" is already difficult, it has a long process and a huge amount of content, so it is inevitable that there will be different degrees of shrinkage of content in the remake, or unreasonable adaptations. However, from 9.9 to 10, although the difference is only 0.1, the effort required in between is enormous. CAPCOM shrewdly did not pay this 0.1 for various reasons, which is perfectly understandable and acceptable from a business point of view, but therefore, it should not be overdone.
All in all, the remake is still a lot of fun, and should even be one of the biggest games of the year, which goes without saying, but it does have some salient issues. If you are a new player who has never been exposed to "Resident Evil", please don't understand this game as "perfect" in the true sense - especially in the face of a story whose theme happens to be to show and satirize madness and blind conformity, I think that an independent and rational look at its strengths and weaknesses is the best respect for the work.
Maybe it will be remade in the next 10 or 20 years? Who knows......