Decided to finally play the Resident Evil 4 remake recently, and I gotta say
Really disappointed but mostly due to the expectations I had going into this one. This is one of those games I bought way back in the day but barely played because some other games came out around the same time that I got distracted by and it just sat in my backlog forever. Never really been a horror game fan so that has a lot to do with it, but this being October I thought why not finally give this game ago, especially as I played the RE2 and 3 remakes not that long ago and while I wasn't really a fan of RE2 I did love RE3.
So I got into this game hearing all the praise, people saying they think this is one of the best games ever, the best game in the franchise, the most inspirational blah blah blah and to be honest as someone who never really played it much before I just don't think it's anything special. Biggest problem I got I think has to be the fact that this just never really felt like a horror game to me maybe outside of the opening chapter. After the game quickly opens up with highly effective weapons you can upgrade and loads of resources for ammo and this game just quickly felt like more of a straight up action game to me as opposed to anything.
I can see why they went with some essentially unkillable enemies in other entries because that's the only thing that really gives a horror vibe where you just need to run away (but I preferred the RE3 approach where they kept that to progression sequences). In RE4 I just always felt like a one man army ready to take on anything, and the general enemies just never really felt like zombies or monsters most of the time either, felt like I could have been playing Metal Gear Solid or some shit. Bosses can be fun but it's always just a game of aim for the weak spot. You encounter them predictably to end a chapter or something and it's usually just that guy you encountered in some cutscenes before mutating into some monster. It just kept changing so I never really felt like I was being hunted by anyone, if anything I was the one trying to hunt someone down.
Good thing is I guess I had a good time playing it, there's something about it, one of those linear experiences that can just keep you playing towards the end and it really works as a one n done experience. Games like this are never really a go-to thing for me but they can be memorable.