Resident Evil 4 Remake: Review (PS5)

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The good, the bad and the cats

 

I have had a Resident Evil website for 25 years. Now I finally bought Resident Evil 4 Remake. Of these previous new Resident Evil remakes, I have only played Resident Evil 2, of which I only played the a-scenario, b-scenario I stopped playing early on. Despite the fact that Claire Redfield happens to be my all time favorite game character. And I haven't even bothered to play Resident Evil 3 Remake, even though it's in my game library.

The original Resident Evil 4 is one of my all time favorite games. It's not a good Resident Evil-game, but otherwise it's great entertainment and for some reason the replay value is very high. 

 

 

Having watched a lot of game streams, I knew that Resident Evil 4 Remake wouldn't reach the level of the original, but I have to say that RE4 Remake is my favorite of these Resident Evil Remakes. After the first playthrough, I eagerly started a second one.

There is a good amount of both old and new here. RE4R is clearly more of a survival horror than an action game. And it's darker than the original. Leon S. (Sexy) Kennedy is more depressed. And unfortunately he is more blonde... hey Capcom, Leon is not a blonde but a brunette.

 

 

Ashley has of course also experienced a transformation, and not necessarily only in a more positive direction. I didn't like what a coward Ashley has been made out to be. Her basic stance and essence is shit-in-the-pants level, argh.

 

I don't like the trend that has plagued Resident Evil-games since Resident Evil 7. That is, that they try to be as vomit-inducing as possible. Even here you can find the obligatory crap pots. And there has clearly been an attempt to make Salazar and Saddler more nauseating.

 

The dogs

At the very beginning of the game, you see a dog carcass, and a terrible fear gripped me: isn't there a dog to be saved? Spoiler: yes there is. And if you save the dog, it will come back to help you in the Gigante battle just like in the original RE4. It's one of my favorite scenes in the entire game. The first time I played, I missed it because I killed Gigante right away with a rocket launcher. Big mistake...

 

And what about the enemy dogs? They have a lot more teeth than they did in the original RE4. Scared the shit out of me.

 

The cats

And since the name of this blog is Cats in games, here is something related to that matter. I had waited a long time for the treasure Golden lynx, fearing that it wouldn't be in the game. But yes it is. And it wasn't until my second playthrough that I found out that there are as many as two of them in the game, I had missed the first one earlier.

 

 

The chickens

The chicken are back to the remake, and they still lay eggs. But you can't farm the eggs like I always did on the farm in the original RE4. I stayed on the farm until my inventory was full of golden eggs.

 

 

Also the cows are back, with the addition of pigs. But the fate of these animals may not always be so sunny, so be forewarned. 

 

And as for the merchant, according to one opinion, his voice is too... British. And I'm not at all surprised that Ada's voice actress has not been liked.

In the remake, you can buy certain things with spinels. It might be a good idea to save spinels for an exclusive upgrade of a weapon. I got a Handcannon from the Mercenaries, and I immediately got infinite ammo to it with spinels. That made the game a lot easier, although Handcannon's aiming system sucks.

 

 

There is one thing in this game that drove me to the brink of rage many times: the collectibles. Collecting collectibles has been made damn hard. If you buy the collectible maps from the merchant and think that now you will find them all, you won't.

Just before the castle, I thought I'd get the last collectable of the village area. Well, it wasn't the last one. I had missed the very first collectible of the game. When there wasn't even a merchant map available yet. Warning: after the cabin fight, you can no longer go back in the village.

 

Later, I also missed a key while playing as Ashley. Well, so much for those collectables of the castle. How shitty. Yeah, those collectables don't matter, but I happen to like trophies.

So here's a pro tip: save often, and to different save slots.

RE4 Remake seems to be hard for PS5 to run. For the first time ever, there was a warning about the PS5 overheating. Scary.

 

Here's my gameplay video from the very start of Resident Evil 4 Remake: