Retro Reviews -- Resident Evil IV

Welcome to my classic game review of, Resident Evil 4. This survival horror game was made by Capcom back in early 2005. Despite it being called, Resident Evil 4, it's actually the sixth installment in the series. It was released for the Nintendo Gamecube, and went on to become one of the most successful games on the console. This game is hard for me to review, because although it is an undeniably good game, it also signified the beginning of the end of my favorite videogame franchise ever. Resident Evil was always about that slow burn type of gameplay, where you would need to take your time and be methodical. Search your surroundings, conserving ammo and health items, always afraid of what might be behind the next door. The fixed camera angles attributed to the tension, making it even more difficult to see what was around the corner. Resident Evil 4 threw the old formula, that they'd been using for about ten years, right out the window and opted for a more action oriented gameplay style. This was not my Resident Evil that I'd had so much fun with anymore, but it was surprisingly good. So despite it representing the death of my favorite game series, I'm going to try and be as fair as possible.

Some major changes were made this time around, pretty much everything got an overhaul. The camera was now in an over the shoulder third person view, no more fixed camera angles. Your gun can now be aimed in any direction and has a laser sight, that makes it easier to hit your target. You can now shoot enemies in the leg to make them fall, shoot their hand to make them drop their weapon, or even shoot a projectile right out of the air. Now, instead of claustrophobic hallways, you get wide open areas with large groups of enemies. That's something totally foreign to Resident Evil, and really makes you have to learn a whole new way of thinking to take out your opponent. But, luckily, they now give you a plethora of guns, with plenty of ammo as well as grenades. Resident Evil 4 really changed the franchise into an entirely new thing, but it was incredibly successful, and sparked a new trend of third person action shooter games.

In Resident Evil 4 you play as U.S. Special Agent, Leon Kennedy, the same guy from the second game, but now with a fancy new title. He's on a mission to rescue the President's Daughter. It seems as though she's been kidnapped by a cultist group, and following a lead, Leon takes a trip to a little village in Spain to see if he can pick up her trail. When he arrives in the secluded forest village, he sees what looks like an abandoned house and goes inside. He greets the man inside to see if he knew anything, but suddenly the man attacks Leon, chanting some weird phrase over and over. Leon has no choice but to shoot the guy and get out of there. But when he goes back to his car, you see someone has pushed the it down a cliff and broke the only bridge that leads back out, maybe an homage to Evil Dead. Now Leon has no choice but to continue further into the village to see what he can find.

As he approaches the main part of the village he sees a large group of people all going about their daily business. But at closer inspection through binoculars, he notices in the center of the village are the two local cops that Leon came with, being burned in a pyre. Having no choice, Leon presses on and confronts them all. At this point all hell breaks loose, and you become overwhelmed with people chasing you down trying to kill you. You can run into nearby houses and push a bookshelf in front of the door, but they will break through eventually. Dozens of enemies will relentlessly come at you, even guys with chainsaws. I think you have to kill a certain amount of enemies, or survive for a certain amount of time, then a bell will ring and all the villagers will suddenly stop and walk away. You can now ransack the town and safely move on to the next area.

It's a very memorable beginning for Resident Evil 4, and at the time that it came out there was nothing like it. As you go through the game you will be put in many different environments, towns, farms, a vast cave, a huge castle, on a boat on the lake, they do a good job of keeping everything feeling fresh and interesting. The enemies are very agile and responsive, if you're aiming at one, they might bob and sway to try and avoid being shot. They will throw knives and axes at you, come at you with chainsaws, at later in the game even shoot back at you will all types of guns. At the beginning you will see a lot of villagers,, but later on you'll be fighting men in robes who are part of the cult that kidnapped the President's Daughter. There are dogs to fight as well, but not the same type as usual, these are wolves with tentacles that pop out at you. You'll also see a wide variety off cool bosses, a huge hulk like creature, a lake monster. All throughout the game the various enemies and bosses are intimidating and fun to fight. That's definitely one of this games strong suits, the addicting combat and well done enemies.

Even though Resident Evil 4 signified the end of the style I loved so much, this was undeniably a great game and must have been the best selling one for Capcom. I just wish they would have made some more with the classic style, instead of just focusing on the action element. After Resident Evil 4 it was all downhill, the franchise quickly became unrecognizable and 5 and 6 were pretty much just action shooters, tossing aside the horror aspect all together. Longtime fans like myself became unhappy with this new direction and lost interest in Resident Evil. Somehow, this series that I had loved for years got reduced to, some crappy action games with tons of quick time events, and a ton of terrible movies that had nothing to do with the original games. Luckily Capcom is righting the ship with Resident Evil 7, which was awesome, and the Remake of Resident Evil 2 coming soon. All that aside, this is an amazing game, one that I've played through countless times. And a game that is loved by longtime fans of the series as well as total newcomers. It's probably one of the all time best third person action shooter games that's ever been made. So I give Resident Evil 4 an:

A+