I finished
Resident Evil 4 and...wow, just wow. I loved this game. I'm already on chapter 13 of my second playthrough, which says a lot as I rarely ever go for an immediate second run once I finish a game. In fact, I probably only do that on FromSoft with their NG+ runs. RE4 was just a joy to play. Of course, there were some hiccups, such as the Ashley sections, which were not fully enjoyable. Thankfully, they were few and far in between. They're not as awful as I might make them sound, but I have an aversion to "useless" companions and having to protect them, in any game. That said, I wasn't as annoyed with Ashley in the second run as I was in the first. Some other issues include the meaningless side missions you are frequently tasked with, such as destroying medallions and catching fish for your merchant friend. They're optional, and I don't dislike them, but they feel like pointless padding. Also, they don't make sense anyway; Leon is on an urgent mission to rescue Ashley but will go out of his way to back track and go fishing. I also mentioned before that the game tries to find a sweet spot between the more "serious" tone of recent REs and the goofiness of the original, retaining the hilarious one liners but delivering them with a hardened or even traumatized Leon. It felt a little weird to me, but no big deal, I enjoyed the experience anyway. What else did I dislike? Ada's new voice actress. No idea why they replaced the one from RE2. This new one sounds more like a soccer mom than a deadly femme fatale. Oh well...
But what a phenomenal game this was. To put it into perspective, I would say that
the Callisto Protocol and the
Dead Space remake were sad little appetizers before this awesome main course. Reflecting on the TCP and DS, it does no favors to the original developers behind these games that they were released so close to one another. You can see how little the team behind Callisto evolved since their Dead Space days. Both games are nearly identical in conception, plot, villain, and mechanics, with Callisto being an inferior version of Dead Space, as discussed previously. In contrast, playing the recent series of Capcom's RE installments was quite the experience. Starting in 2017 with RE7 to RE4 now, I've gained a massive love for the series that I didn't have prior to that time period. It was kind of like witnessing a re-enactment of their history, with RE2's survival horror to RE3's transitional nature to action, and RE4's full-blown abandonment of a lot of the series' roots. As mentioned in my pervious post, I can now appreciate on a bigger scale what an impactful game the original RE4 was, which was a mixed blessing. RE4, like other significant works, killed a genre and started a new one. The direction the series took after it was a mixed bag, but it influenced the medium as a whole like few games can claim to. That, with RE7 and 8, and I can say it has been quite the ride!
My ranking for the series is now:
1. Resident Evil 2 Remake: this one is still king, for me. The more grounded setting, the absence of merchants who magically appear everywhere to cater to your needs, the dreadful atmosphere, and so on, still make for a more intense overall experience, despite the relatively lower action. It feels like a nightmare scenario that is more believable, and hence more compelling, than the action movie style of the later games.
2. Resident Evil 4 Remake: this one climbed its way up to second place quite effortlessly. Enjoyable on its own and as a compare-contrast with the above game exercise. My previous posts and this one already covered why I'm putting it here.
3. Resident Evil 8: ironically, I will use the reverse logic for this game and the one below it. This one is to 7 what 4 was to 2. It departs from the more grounded setting of 7 and goes to a more fantastical adventure, with castles and robot factories and so on. It was just such a fun game that I can't help placing it this high, despite its issues.
4. Resident Evil 7: the one that revived my interest in the series after a long while and the mess that was 6. I'm looking forward to giving it its long overdue second run and to see if that changes its ranking.
5. Resident Evil 5: if we were talking pure nostalgia, this would take top spot. It's the first game in the series I played to completion, and the one that finally made a fan out of me. If it gets remade, which may happen, I look forward to a revisit.
6. Resident Evil Remake: A great game, and it would rank higher had it not been for factors such as nostalgia and my general preference for more modern aspects in my games.
7. Resident Evil 3 Remake: I enjoyed this one a lot but it is more of a demo than a game that can stand on its own and compete with the others. This should have been a DLC for RE2. Or, they could have released it as part of RE2 as a third campaign. Either way, a fun but a half-baked title that could have been much greater.
8. Resident Evil 6: a self-explanatory ranking. I didn't hate it but it wasn't great either. And I never touched it again since 2012, which is another fact that speaks for itself.
9. Resident Evil Revelations (both): I'm only putting these last because I barely remember what playing them was like. It has been a long time, and I don't recall having a blast with them, but they were fun to coop with a friend.
10. Resident Evil Outbreak: I just remembered this one. It was a pre-entry point for me before RE5 was released. I didn't like it enough to play it to the end, but I have to place it here because of its significance for me.
[For those wondering about the OGs, I never played RE1-4 to completion. RE3 Nemesis was the first Playstation game I ever played, but I was 8 at the time and it traumatized me from the series until 5 came out when I was 17 lol. I didn't play Code Veronica either, but I watched a friend play it from start to finish. As for RE4, I played a little of the original, but was turned off of it by the controls].
Yeah, but man, this game was its own kind of mind-blowing back in the day. It was like the video game equivalent of seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time or something, before Uncharted explicitly did that. The different action set pieces just wouldn't stop coming! I wonder if the edits they make will kind of rob it of that, I already noticed we're getting into certain segments or boss fights more quickly and unexpectedly, or if that's basically necessary because the effect would be lost today anyway.
I can imagine how it blew minds back then and appreciate the acclaim and reputation it has more now. I can't speak for the set-pieces or their placements, since I didn't play the original, but I enjoyed them all, the only exception being the harpooning the fish part, which I thought was stupid. According to a friend who is a huge RE nerd, there are set-pieces that weren't in the original. We can talk about them once you finish the game.
They've really toned her down actually from what I recall, when she was just super annoying and only potentially useful as a sex object for the male gaze. Now she seems like a human being (boooo =)! Actually, I find her extremely useful for the aforementioned instant kills. In the Chainsaw Sisters fight, after I cheesed them by completely mining up the area before the fight started and then grenading them for the finish, I just let the rest of the mob kidnap her and neckstabbed them one by one (I wasn't even sure they were finite or if I had to escape eventually). Ashley's basically my secret weapon for clearing whole areas without a single shot of ammo wasted used (it's all wasted now). Then I kept reloading the area for every crate or barrel break until I got something besides pesetas (spinels are instant saves); uh... fun? Also, I feel like if I was doing a "no save" or S rank run, you could totally abuse the auto saves if you keep track of where they are.
Hahahaha. I hope you're never sent on a mission to save someone, man. Using the person you're meant to rescue as a bait or a weapon is both hilarious and twisted and I love it!
Nope, RE2 is so untouchable it's the best game in the series twice now.
Preach,
rookie Condor One, preach!