resident evil 4 remake is probably my least favourite of the new remake trilogy, but it's still a fantastic game. to make a really good remake stands on its own as a game you can play alongside the original, you can do this with 2 remake because of how drastly different it plays, you can with 3 remake as well because of how it's more or less an entirely new game, but 4 remake doesn't stand on its own as well as those games. it's not the same game, it plays slightly differently, the first half is a lote more improvisational and emergent than the old game and the knife mechanic does add a new dimension to it, but it's still much more similar than it is different, especially in the latter half and subsequent playthroughs where the game is at the same speed as the original, just with a different tone and level designs, and i find the original more fun so i don't think i'd go back to it alongside the original like i would those other remakes. some of the changes are great though! for a start the new storyline is a lot better, the darker tone fits and some characters like ashley and luis are improved massively, ashley feels more fun and a better realized character, and while i think luis's original design and VA fits better, his new role is a ton better, some scenes even made me tear up a little and his chemistry with leon is ship-worthy (at least i ship it something fierce), and the story changes own too! the expanded aspects with leon and ashley being infected were my reason to buy because i was really curious how they would expand on it and they manage it! it's a far more interesting story, but the overall writing i don't think is as memorable in all other aspects, the one liners dont hit as well, salazar is barely a character now and his exchanges with leon are just kind of lame now, the merchant and his new accent are much less fun and iconic, sadler has less presance and i don't vibe as well with this ideration of leon, in part because many of his best lines were cut and replaced with ones that aren't as memorable, i think i'll be quoting the original a lot more but the dialogue here still keeps up the resi feel, dumb but optimistic and the new overall story is still very worth experiancing and i do also love the detail of the codenames leon and hunnigan use, :) game.

the RE engine makes the game look good though, i find the engine to be very hit and miss, while it makes the remakes and village look great, i think that it hurt the aesthetics of devil may cry 5 a lot and i wasn't a fan of how resi 7 looked either, here it fits, the environments are darker than the originals, but still as detailed as before, environments just feel cozy here, from the houses in the village to the rooms in the castle, you'll find lots of candle and firelit rooms and they're just very calming to hang out in, very much like how the older game's pre-rendereds felt to me, it's nice! and its a vibe i enjoyed, the wind and rain also look very cool, the latter half of the village area actually has a storm hit and it looks amazing. now it is a different vibe to the original in a lot of areas, darker and spookier, but it works here with the games darker tonesome of the new designs are great too! i think while it's not as iconic, ada's look here is amazing, sticking closer to a resi 6-esque design and it's amazing and ashley also got probably the biggest glow-up here with the jacket and infected design being just, peak, i'd love to cosplay the new design at some point and a lot of the enemies look fantastic too, the new cultist and plagas designs especially just feel a lot more menacing and scary, the body horror here hits a lot harder because of it. although the game has a ton of cut content likely because of this higher fidelity, the giant statue(though it does show up, its just not a full area) the lazer room,the drill,the cablecars, a lot of the caves, the lava dragons and even a whole boss fight with U-3, plus postgame content like seprate ways (which will likely eventually be added) assignment ada and my third favourite weapon, the PRL and it's a shame, while a lot of these are small, they're memorable and memeable and stuff like a real postgame being missing does detract a lot from replayability, you still have some for sure, rankings, costumes and the chicago typewriter all make a return and getting a higher rank is rewarded with things like the chicago typewriter so there is reason to replay, especially on the returning professional difficulty, but the lack of anything else to do beyond a straight replay is a bit of a shame when the original was so brimming with it, but on the other hand, the game is good enough for most people that it will stll warrent a replay, there's new weapons like the bolt thrower(Which replaces the mine thrower in a way, though i found the mines too cumebersome to use), an assault rifle and hunks machine gun can now be used in the campaign, there's new rooms and whole new areas like the outer casle walls, where you have to rush while an el gigante (the same one missing from the twin paths) throws rocks at you, it's a cool new area! and many of the postgame chapters and items will return in updates, just like the mercenaries mode did.

the gameplay changed a little too, though not as much as the other remakes, the game feels more emergent now, at least in the games first few hours, you scramble around switching weapons a lot more than i did in the original and it feels a lot more tense and improvisational, which is great1 it gives those first few hours a really tense atmosphere and it makes the game harder too, though i think this difficulty is a downside, aiming is less precise and head and leg shots were much less consistant, so i found myself playing a lot differently to how i did in the original, melee was less of a cert and so i used it a lot less and i used the parry a lot more instead as it seemed like it was more of a guaranteed use case where melee now just isn't and even the weapons i used changed, in the original you would not catch me using any pistol that wasn't the red9, because it was perfect, but here, while i always kept the red9 in my inventory for bosses and easier to hit enemies, i used the punisher a lot more just because aiming with it was much easier, the new aiming system also made me skip out on the shooting gallery S ranks just because i did not enjoy having to be so precise with controls i had more difficulty with and this change to the aiming is probably the biggest issue i have with it, it's just not as fun when i'm using a weapon that doesnt have a laser site. the weapons still do feel great though, special mention goes to the DLC shotgun which is my new fav shotgun in any version of resi 4, it's just so fun to use and really carried me for a lot of the game. one new addition i do not like however, is the spinel economy, now instead of just being treasure, these are their own currency, and this sucks! it makes money seem less important overall as i alawys wanted more spinels, these could be used for maps, some weapons and accessories, treasures and worst of all, the exclusive upgrade tickets which are now mostly aroud as microtransactions! this just hurts the game as it makes the upgrades feel more like a grind, even if they may not be and it just feels gross, i wish all of the items were purchasable with normal cash again like they were before.

the new soundtrack is also fine, it's not as memorable as the original, lacking serenity for example, by far the best song from the original and one of my favourite video game songs and the new saving theme isn't as good either, but some areas like the island have fantastic tracks, so it's a trade off really, it's less prominant now overall though in some areas like the shooting gallery and the save theme you can hear some remixed versions of the original track, the originals intro theme playing during the gallery and the typewriter theme during the save screen, they're good mixes but i don't think any songs will make it in my playlists outside of the save theme and maybe the store theme. it's not a game that i like as much as the original, but matching up to that was always going to be a tall order, it's a basic take but resi 4 is one of my favourite games and it was never going to match that, remakes will rarely hit the chords of an original work as they can never recapture those original feelings or surprise you like those did, they can never bring back nostalgia as well as just playing the originals nor will they ever have the same impact on the industry as those games did and it's not fair in some ways to compare them, but i did still feel that way but, when the game was fun in the moment none of those comparisons really mattered.