20 Years of Learning to Love Resident Evil 4

My thoughts on a classic and my long road to appreciation for it

INTRODUCTION


In the early 2000’s Capcom and Nintendo were in trouble.

The Resident Evil franchise: a critical darling of the late 90’s and already a firmly rooted trilogy of classics had stumbled into the new millennium with the divisive Code: Veronica, the criminally underselling Resident Evil remake (REmake for short) and the dismal prequel: Resident Evil 0.

Nintendo of the early 2000’s assumed an almost Byzantine role in the gaming industry; it was a shadow of its past glories with the new Gamecube selling much less than even the Nintendo 64. Its image was that of a toymaker while Sony’s Playstation 2 and the new Xbox were the consoles for ‘adults.’ Their old rival Sega had exited the console race entirely.

Together, the two Japanese giants Capcom and Nintendo hatched a plan to reverse their fortunes and revive interest in the Cadbury’s coloured cube: The Capcom 5. 5 Capcom exclusives, tailored for older audiences with Resident Evil 5 the jewel in the crown.

20 Years ago on the 11th of January, that crown jewel was released.

This will not be a review of Resident Evil 4 as I don’t feel I can add anything new or insightful to the conversation, instead I’d like to chart my complex thoughts on this game, its legacy and give some insight to those who adore Resident Evil 4 as to why some fans consider it major misstep. Consider this article an informal discussion of the game and a more personal, blabbermouthed piece than normal.

The Resident Evil 4 PAL Region cover art is fantastic


PART1: DISSONANCE


Resident Evil 4 is very different from what came before. I’m not going to talk about the gameplay here or the perspective because I think most people have played this game already and have been told a million times how innovative the over-the-shoulder camera is and how it’s a departure from Survival Horror. Frankly, these are superficial differences in my opinion; the past few Resident Evil games had already thrust action front and centre of the experience and the new camera system largely existed to facilitate proper aiming as Resident Evil 4 still uses ‘tank controls’ where you move and turn with the same analogue stick or directional pad.

The real disconnect between 4 and its predecessors is in its tone and characterisation.

Resident Evil 4 came out just over 3 years after Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and this is a fact that becomes clear when the first hour of the game is littered with codec calls, Leon Kennedy doing his best Solid Snake impression and more cutscenes than necessary.

This is one of the game’s most enduring and endearing qualities.

Normally, I would berate the game for being derivative, showering the player in superfluous cutscenes and cracking humour in an otherwise serious setting… but a combination of Paul Mercier’s comedically dry voice performance as Leon and the villains’ wacky accents makes the game extremely quotable and injects so much fun into what is essentially exposition.

And yet, it doesn’t have the same B-movie charm that the original trilogy of Resident Evil games did.

There has been some debate about this online: whether 4’s trademark and heavily memed dialogue was intentional or not and I do think it is written to be intentionally comedic and part of that makes it feel less authentic; for the first time, fans were exposed to the idea that the series’ developers were in on the joke.

A complaint you’ll hear about Resident Evil 4 a lot is that it simply isn’t ‘scary’ I don’t consider this to be real criticism despite holding this opinion myself for many years, so allow me to unpack what I think people with this complaint mean and why I no longer agree.

You no longer fight zombies in Resident Evil 4, that much is obvious and enemies are no longer shambling, gurgling, unintelligent beasts, instead they arm themselves, coordinate to kill the player and bark out insults (curiously, in Latin American Spanish despite the game’s European setting) using a variety of weapons. In short? It’s a different kind of horror, themed more on the occult and making enemies disturbingly inhuman rather than using body horror and suspense.

Whether you find Resident Evil 4 scary or not will depend on what creeps you out more: brainwashed, erratic, aggressive enemies swarming you, muttering and chanting while you have only sporadic contact with friendly faces or festering cannibal corpses, lurching around corners and crashing through windows as you stumble across the remains of your allies and struggle to find an escape route.

One is not scarier than the other, in my opinion.

On the theme of dissonance, one of the lasting effects of Resident Evil 4 is the ‘dissonance’ between what Capcom agreed to deliver with the Capcom 5 and what actually was delivered. For a start, the Capcom 5 became the Capcom 4 as one of the games: Dead Phoenix was cancelled and only one of the 4 remaining games stayed Gamecube exclusive; P.N.0.3: this single exclusive game is quite obscure though and wasn’t received very well. This left Nintendo and Capcom’s relations in tatters with the former still lacking much-desired 3rd party support after the disappointing The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and frustratingly buggy Super Mario Sunshine not delivering and the latter laughing all the way to the bank, re-releasing Resident Evil 4 for years to come and claiming it was all a misunderstanding on Nintendo’s part.

On the bright side, the Gamecube version of Resident Evil 4 is arguably the best if you enjoy CRT gaming and still own the console.

In the dark and with glowing eyes Los Ganados can still provide a good scare


PART 2: EXPOSURE


The best way to enjoy any game is to begin with the right expectations, an open mind and with some enthusiasm to play; I see too many people force themselves to keep playing or to enjoy a game because others say they should and I think this is a big part of what drives toxic fanbases, catastrophic video game releases and for me? My initial reaction to Resident Evil 4.

I grew up around this franchise; it was a favourite of my brother’s and I now consider Resident Evil my second favourite series in all of gaming.

I tried it a few times myself but was too scared to play at such a young age, instead bearing witness to my brother’s initial playthrough of Resident Evil 4 when it was new and of course I loved the look of it but years later, when I finally was able to play the franchise myself, I still carried that image in my brain of what a ‘real’ Resident Evil game should be and after adoring the others in the series, 4 just didn’t quite measure up despite my second hand nostalgia from seeing it as a child.

The tank controls’ presence in a camera system I associate with more modern control schemes like Gears of War caught me off-balance, the claustrophobic field of view made navigation difficult, I didn’t figure out the full potential of Leon’s knife.

In short? I found it to be a slow, claustrophobic 17 hours of “Meh.” And I craved a return to the horror formula, wishing that Resident Evil 4 would have stuck to the usual style.

As I’ve gotten older, even being only in my mid-20’s, I’ve come to realise how much younger most gamers are compared to myself and how age plays such a huge role in the perception of games. Resident Evil 4 is a game where the passing of time and its exposure to the younger generation as the ‘best’ game in the series has sculpted its reputation into that of a generational masterpiece even as many legacy fans of the series consider it good but not to the level of Resident Evil 2 for example; to be honest, it wasn’t until years later that I heard 4 being put on such a high pedestal either.

The internet and games industry being what it is leads to the hive mentality of sites like Reddit chewing up and spitting out those who don’t readily crown Resident Evil 4 the best of the best.

I believe in making your own opinions about things, and never berating those who disagree with you and trying to gently nudge them towards a better understanding of the mechanics if you don’t feel their criticisms hold up.

Some of you reading may adore Resident Evil 4 and consider it the greatest in the franchise, if you’re an older Resident Evil fan then I’d be interested to hear how you handled the switch to an action-centric series but for those who are younger, who played Resident Evil 4 via one of its many re-releases and have had limited exposure to the series prior to this game then I ask you to imagine one of your favourite franchises switching tone and genre drastically and then continuing down that path for another 12 years.

That’s what happened to Resident Evil fans. Many still resent those 12 years.


PART 3: PERSPECTIVE


This isn’t a hate article, I love Resident Evil 4. But how did this happen? To put it simply, I accepted the game for what it is and times changed.

With the release of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 in 2019 and 2020, for the majority of gamers, the series’ prior history was overwritten; for all intents and purposes Resident Evil 4’s camera and gameplay were the blueprint for the whole original series now, even the horror-focused entries. As well as that, 2017’s Resident Evil 7 surprised me with how great it was; I had judged it too harshly at launch and refused to play it, writing it off as ‘streamer bait’ or an ‘Outlast clone’ but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Importantly, when I looked at the game’s basic components I came to see that if you removed the first person perspective, it wasn’t that different at all actually.

And then the doubts began to spread, with my newer, older critical eye, maybe I had been very wrong about Resident Evil 4.

Was it actually that different compared to the original trilogy?

Last year I revisited the game again, intending to refresh my opinion on it before I played the remake and I found a new, bittersweet appreciation for this 2005 classic. Remove the over the shoulder camera and replace Los Ganados with zombies and Resident Evil 4 isn’t too dissimilar from Resident Evil Code: Veronica one of my absolute favourites; Metal Gear Solid is my favourite video game franchise of all time, so the obvious inspirations taken and the references were well appreciated.

Most importantly, the game is fun, very fun.

Resident Evil 4 has a beautiful rhythm to its combat where limb-based damage rewards smart choices and accurate shooting and the knife is a multipurpose workhouse of a weapon, furthermore… the game did creep me out, a lot. The section where you make your way back through the village with Ashley, in the middle of the night, with glowing-eyed Ganados and dogs stalking you put me on edge in a manner similar to the classic games and their remakes.

I still think the game drags on too long and Resident Evil 4 still isn’t my favourite in the franchise but upon finishing the game again I was overcome with a bittersweet feeling of appreciation for something that was now, effectively gone.

Nick Apostolides’ rendition of Leon will be the definitive version for decades to come but it lacks some of the 2005 angst Paul Mercier gave to the character


Since the release of Resident Evil 4’s remake in 2023 it’s been difficult to find traces of that old 2005 vintage online; if you type the game into google now, you will come across the new one first. The opinion of the wider Resident Evil community too is that this remake supplants the original in almost every way and while I agree… I wish I had appreciated it before it was overwritten.

20 Years on from the release of Resident Evil 4 I finally realised how good it was.

Do YOU prefer the original Resident Evil 4 or its remake? Any nostalgic stories to share? Comment below.