Re4 OG is like Dragon Ball Z. When you take a fine tooth comb to it you see there actually are issues, it's not a flawless diamond, but it came out when it did, and it was an industry gamechanger. Ironically most "great" games in today's market copy RE4's formula and now Re4R comes out and people say, not without reason, that it looks like The Last Of Us down to the user interface. Not only were the 2000s a much edgier, irreverent climate in media in general, but people were actually pushing for more freedom of speech back then. They TRIED to inject some of that into Nu Leon, but the writing was clearly heavily supervised by stern men in suits with clipboards.
The game's well made, no doubt. The original had a lot of effort put into it, and it was very easy to spot: Things like Leon's footsteps sounding different on every single surface he steps on, every gunshot being satisfying, melee having an audio design that just made you feel the brutality of every strike. A lot of melee moves in gaming are purely smoke and mirrors. There's no actual impact, so designers get around it in a set of different ways. If you remove the speed blur and the sick sound effects from Krauser's OG double roundhouse, or Hunk's neckbreaker, you'd quickly realize they look dumb as fuck, and Wesker was literally doing a low energy shove at people that wouldn't hurt a thing.
There's a mod that ports Wesker's RE5 animations to Re4Remake, and with no filters, specific camera angles, or audio design, those very same moves look and feel like a limp noodle slap. They still do a shitload of damage, but it's all about the feel. Leon's roundhouse kicks in the OG felt so good 90% of players spammed the fuck out of them, even when it stopped being reasonable to do so. Leon's kicks in the reimagining are quite practical, as they have some i-frames, and there's clearly a lot of thought put into them: They sound powerful enough, they sometimes pop heads, they have a crit chance, and they wallsplat. They scale much better into the lategame, yet most streamers I took a look at used them significantly less. I sometimes didn't even want to take the risk myself. In the OG I'd make a point of kicking even those big hammer dudes in the Island. They were fast, evasive, and would send you to 1 HP on professional if they managed to hit you. Didn't care. I could take them out with four Red9 headshots, and I STILL wanted that kick to connect. I almost couldn't help myself.
The melee not being as gamebreaking, the guns not feeling as great, Leon moving like he's trying to hustle to the nearest toilet without dropping anything on the way, three headshots to stagger some dudes, and then you have to kick them into a wall, and then stab them, or you can just walk up to them and stab them... It is a reimagining and an adaptation, with a lot of expansion. A really good one, but it's not exactly the same as it was in the 2000s. It's an attempt to elevate it, and it's basically the whole "Mother's cooking vs High cuisine" sort of thing. Re4 OG was mom's cooking. It was cozy, campy, made by absolute madmen who would work overtime to ensure that Leon's footsteps sounded JUST RIGHT, the Spanish was so shit it ended up being iconic, the writing was absolutely shameless and reveled in it, the gameplay was like nothing seen before... And I don't think that sort of magic can just be recaptured. Just like Red Dead 2 is an amazing game, comparatively, it will never be as good as San Andreas was when it came out, and corporations will always try to make "More of the good thing" for monetary gains while failing to understand on a fundamental level what made these industry changing games (Metal Gear 3, Resident Evil 4, San Andreas, Call of Duty) so great.
You can feel the corpofucking that has made it's way into Re4R on several levels. The writing was somewhat hit or miss. The voice acting was hit or miss, I said "OW THE EDGE" out loud when Leon just blurted out "Give my regards to your god.", but dumb one liners are very much in the spirit or the original, and it's far better to get a response out of your audience than to play it so safe they fall asleep. There was clearly an attempt. I do think they fixed a lot of writing issues. Luis is much cooler and a total bro. Hell, it's the Metal Gear Rising Raiden vs Sam thing all over again where I'm just CAN'T I PLAY AS THE COOL DUDE INSTEAD? Not helped by how cool in a flaily and dumb way his moveset looks in Mercenaries. I think I'd have more fun playing as Luis. I would say he comes closest to capturing the soul of Re4 OG. I'm pretty sure him and the two cops were dubbed in English by bilingual Spaniards, although Salazar doesn't feel like a native, Leon now speaks Spanish, Ashley limpwrists a gun trying to shoot Leon, they clearly had a lot of psychopaths who would have taken it as far as the Re4 OG if given free reign... But modern game development has a lot of entrapments. With a production this big, and a product this good coming out... I feel they've earned a few mulligans. Sure, Ada sounds like wet cardboard, but it's far from a game-ruining experience. There's a long way between AAA, completely soulless shovelware and not everything being down right perfect. This game is a case of the latter.
In addition, there are a LOT of great details in this. Leon's more vulnerable, shellshocked personality clashes with the general action hero personality he displays during gameplay, but then he just opens fire at a villain mid monologue and you get the feeling that he's a real person. Not always consistent or always making perfect sense. The same dude who's annoyed and stern 90% of the time starts talking shit at the bosses when he sees he's gaining ground. He gets frazzled and tense when he hears a "click" and sees he's out of ammo and enemies are closing in. He flinches, puts his hands up when threatened, and actively dodges shit coming at him. Honestly, I don't like Leon as much as OG cheesy dumbass Leon or New Luis, but I think he's masterfully written and pretty well acted 90% of the time in the English dub. He's also a pretty decent player surrogate. He's equipped to handle this shit in a variety of ways, and by extension so are you, but one fuckup can end with you at the business end of a chainsaw. Even though cheesy, goofy OG Leon was really cool, and this Leon sometimes smacks a bit of big movie hero personality, I'm happy with what we got and glad they didn't go the "Gritty, Grounded" route with him.
Krauser, much like New Leon also feels more like a real, desperate man in an unbelievably shitty situation who just snapped and became Spec Ops Vergil. On my first encounter I thought he was a kitty-chewing, saturday morning cartoon evil bastard, but the ruins encounter did a lot for him. Dude's clearly traumatized beyond repair, has spent his whole life molding himself into a human weapon and suddenly these motherfuckers come up with this "Plagas" bullshit and render all his efforts entirely worthless, while slaughtering his highly trained men like they were nothing. Leon rightly calls out that his power up is underwhelming as shit, you get the feeling from his dialogue he legitimately wants to tame the Plagas for almost legitimate empowering and evolutionary purposes, you parry and stab him as a normal-ass human, he goes down like a bitch if you've practiced your knifefighting, and he dies telling Leon that he's proud of the warrior he's become. Krauser's end legitimately made me feel sad for him, even after he killed Luis. If you played Darkside Chronicles back in the day, you know Krauser was down right terrified when he encountered the BOWS, full on panic attack, and yet he shut the fuck up and kept fighting all the way to the end. He hid it so well, Leon never even knew how broken Krauser was by the whole experience. Only to then be discarded by the army.
Honestly, if they don't give Luis and Krauser their own DLCs, it'd be a damn shame. And it's not like they'd have to do much, they already gave them specific walk/run/melee animations and they only share a few with Leon. This, in fact, is actual love and care for the game showing in full. Even when they released Ghost Survivors for Re2make, all the males shared animations with Leon and all the females with Claire. Luis, Krauser and Hunk actually have their own animations for most things. My hope would be Operation Javier DLC where you play as Krauser with AI Leon and Separate Luis where Luis gets to kill the revived, plaga posessed Krauser instead of Ada. And then he gets to live and roast marshmellows. A man can dream...
Resident Evil music in general has always been kind of a background thing to me, I think a lot of people will be in the same boat. I vaguely recall most save room themes, I recall the Outbreak Thanatos boss fight theme because that thing goes full DMC with an angelic chorus over a rock background while you fight one of the most distinct enemies in the series. I've played most of them, and I have no clue what was in the background while I was fighting a giant salamander monster in a lake, or a writhing mass of tentacles that used to be a Gianna Michaels expy ten minutes ago, or David Bowie cosplaying as Neo. I also recall Mr X's theme in Re2make, because again, distinctive enemy, really memorable first notes, and actually informs the player that X, indeed, intends to give it to them. The stuff on the screen and the over the top design almost always overwhelmed any background stuff. Modern games in general seem to pay very little attention to audio design compared to older titles. That said, the Mercenaries themes kick ass. Specifically Luis' is badass, period appropriate, perfectly captures his personality, and even fits his methodical, long range fighter approach to the minigame with it's slower pace, while Hunk's is literally "Boss music, but you're the Boss" with frantic strings letting you know that you are indeed playing as the Grim Reaper and these fuckers, SPECIALLY the ones that used to give you trouble, are about to get their necks snapped effortlessly. And Krauser, despite being strong and reliable, with a theme that perfectly underscores that, still has a noticeable melancholic part to it. Mercenaries did great work with character exploration, and I gotta say modern Mercenaries is even better with the inclusion of Mayhem Mode. There is a great deal of personality in everything the four playable characters do.
So in the end, it's current year and you just can't have big tiddy agents in a party dress and Ashley's panties in games any more when they're aimed at the west. It's not that Capcom gives a fuck, Street Fighter still features the thirstiest fucking character design known to man even when they cover up the ladies. Resistance characters were "Fully sculpted." At least there's always mods. It's not like Ashley's panties were a core part of the original's identity. And yeah, I agree that Re4Remake, while an excellent title and quite possibly GOTY 2023, hasn't entirely recaptured the original's soul. But I would say it has it's own, once you finish the whole thing and fully experience it. Honestly, the more I write about it, the more I realize the Re4Remake is truly a great game, about as good as can release in today's climate, on most levels, from the writing to the gameplay. Even though I would have liked the gameplay to be snappier and less sluggish. It doesn't flow as well as the original in battle, but it flows well enough. To summarize...
