In an effort to cross off legendary video games in my endless list of jewels that I have not played, the best possible opportunity to get my hands on Resident Evil 4 has presented itself. capcom survival horror it already has its own remake for the new generation and, looking at the previews, it is clear that it is a party that I do not want to miss in any way. With this idea in mind, I have entered a corner of deep Spain whose name I do not want to remember.
Behind you stupid!
First of all I want to make several points clear. I’m not new to the Umbrella saga, having played a couple of remakes, Resident Evil Village and the ever-forgotten Code Veronica. I am quite clear in what scenario I am going to get into and there are also situations that are not completely alien to me. I’ve never played the original title on PS2, GameCube or whatever system you can imagine, but it’s impossible not to have seen some gameplay or other since its launch in 2005.
So there’s a part of the game experience that I knew about beforehand, but that all changes once you’re on the controller. And that is precisely what happened to me, because it is one thing to play in the Spencer mansion with tank controls with fixed planes and quite another to do it in a 3D environment being able to move the camera. The paradigm shift is very obvious to the franchise, at this point, and makes it clear how Shinji Mikami realized that the original formula was beginning to wear off..
Taking control of Leon S. Kennedy again doesn’t displease me, especially now that he’s basically a Rambo in the making after six years of training. As if it were a joke, it is not enough that a viral outbreak broke out on his first day at the Raccoon City police station, so that when he is assigned as a bodyguard for the President of the United States, he has to rescue his daughter. Ashley is being held in some indeterminate place in the Spanish geography and it doesn’t surprise me, because for the sake of Christ find out in which region they still live in the Middle Ages.
All the anachronisms and contextual inconsistencies that the series has always had fascinates me and in this case it reaches a climax. The flamenco song at the beginning in the car already gives us an idea of where the shots are going, but it is to see the inhabitants of the town live in the cabin where Cervantes wrote Don Quixote makes me laugh. And that Ramón Salazar and his subjects have not even appeared out of the blue. All in all, this is the dynamics of a game that insists on demonstrating on every occasion that Dante with Devil May Cry may have emerged from here.
I don’t dislike any of the stunts that Leon, Krauser or Ada do because they are over the top to the point of absurdity. I like that the developer took the risk of being spectacular at the cost of breaking various laws of physics. At least we had the sequence with the lasers in honor of the Paul WS Anderson film, the pose of Leon sitting on Saddler’s throne and the odd line that gives the writers nightmares.
To live is to die
Since it couldn’t be any other way, I help the wolf because I already know that it will give me a hand when the giant tries to make me mush. Arriving in the center of the town is like entering a political headquarters, papered with the slogans of the opposing party; that is, somewhat aggressive. A good resistance exercise that forces you to exercise here resident evil 4because it introduces you in a jiffy into the dynamics that will hold much of the gameplay. The shootings are constant, the villagers do nothing more than chase you at asylum pace and the interaction with the stage is essential to take advantage of the situations. Even at the top of the bell tower you are not safe.
Going through windows, climbing to elevated areas or breaking boxes to get more resources is a constant throughout the game. A very repetitive line of play, in which the priority is to annihilate everything that comes our way, but which has caused that feeling that those of us who play videogames need so much: waking up in the morning and thinking about continuing to play. The title has managed to get embedded in my head and make me think about it while having a beer with a friend.
In the final stretch of the island I did have a moment of boredom knocking down Ganados, but the truth is that the pace was excellently sustained in the 13 hours of departure that I experienced. Is too bad you can’t move Leon while aiming, because it is something tremendously instinctive with respect to the current way of playing. It takes a bit to get used to the shooting method, which continues to work like a charm, but it is not surprising that an adaptation to the new times was implored.
The town is fantastic, but the castle of Salazar stands out much more. The decoration is fabulous, the architecture of the settings is intricately brilliant, there are more puzzles than ever and it serves to return for a few moments to those resident Evil classics. I even had a good time in the section where you control Ashley, getting those 2000’s PS2 gaming vibes. Mind you, I want to talk about the characters that aren’t our stunning blonde. I must say that Ashley has a reputation that she does not deserve, because I have only heard pests about her in all this time.
I do not deny that the general feeling among the community is not true, since even Capcom makes fun of the situation, but I admit that it has not given me any problems. Did she appreciate the moments in which she was compulsorily abducted for being more helpless than an ant before a shoe? Totally, but of the almost 50 times that I have failed, few can be blamed on the girl. What’s more, there are many places where he can hide while you clean up the area. Who I can accuse is Luis Sera of causing me a fit of laughter.
This kind of 19th century don Juan dies in a very wonderfully graphic way before Leon and he cries for him as if he were his bosom friend. It is something that is repeated more times, like when Mike, the helicopter pilot, is killed by a missile. We haven’t even seen his face, he has been with us for less than 10 minutes, but our protagonist feels such a deep connection with him that he promises he will avenge him. In the end, the story of the resident Evil they’re little more than an excuse for gunfire, but they reach hilarious heights here. You have to save the world before the day ends; simple and entertaining.
You can run, but you can’t hide
What hasn’t been so satisfying is getting into a fight with Salazar, Mendez, Saddler and company. I am frankly disappointed by the paltry difficulty of the boss battles, which are very well staged – thanks to the cool transformations. Yes indeed, In the case of Krauser, I did enjoy a fight that gets you in trouble, having to use the bazooka to eliminate it. Much more complicated is getting rid of beings like the Regenerator, the Bella sisters or the happy Garrador. Their presences were real reasons to start trembling.
And it is that you can run into them in many corners of an amazing semi-open world. It is perhaps the part that I least expected, since you can go through large areas and revisit them at any time; in my mind everything was much more linear. It matters whether you are incentivized to collect secrets or the blue medallions to bring back to the Peddler. That person is a scammer, because he puts an immense amount of ammunition on the counter so that you can’t buy it later. Actually, you have the good ones for pesetas to see which weapon you have to improve or change, since I have ended up trying practically all of them.
cool that resident evil 4 encourage turnover, even though TPM has been with me pretty much forever. I’ve yet to check out what’s in store for me with Separate Ways and Ada’s Report to see exactly what the double agent was up to during the game, but I fully understand why the game has been so loved over the years. With the Mercenaries mode, we talk about a very complete, fun title that laid the foundations for many shooters from 2005 onwards. As was the case with Gears of Wars and the covers, resident evil 4 He didn’t invent the shoulder-mounted camera, but he popularized it and now the remake will do nothing more than bring a smile to the generation that enjoyed it in its day.
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