LogFAQs > #943528038

And this is where I have to make a possibly controversial statement: in terms of Game Quality:Ruining Video Games, RE4 is unmatched. Its a top 5 game of all time, but every lesson developers learned from it was wrong. RE4 did more damage to video games than any other game of its decade, and its hard to admit that because the game itself is just so ****ing good. I would be really curious to see a modern fourteen-year-old with no experience with RE play this game today. Would he be frustrated by the partial tank controls? Would he not get the humor? Would he find basically the entire game to be horribly, horribly midgetist?

I should mention the characters, too. Leon is just Dante from DMC1. Theres just straight-up no difference between them, even down to the hair. This also heralds a major difference in how the series feels. The games up to this point have humor, but its derived from funny-bad things, things that dont quite work. Awkward voice acting, dialogue that doesnt quite make sense, that sort of thing. RE4 leans hard into self-aware jokes and dialogue focused on Leon being just too cool. Leon feels a genuine emotion once in the entire game, when hes fighting Krauser, and otherwise takes nothing seriously. Ada is back, and her femme fatale shenanigans with Leon are still more interesting and fun than most interactions between characters in other games. Ashley really nails that attractive, but still kind of weird-looking teenager aesthetic I know they were going for, and she has all of the perfect like mannerisms to make her endearing (I know some people disagree, which is fine). Her purpose in the game is to give the story a little humanity and Leon a more tangible goal to save someone, which she does well. Of our villains, Salazar is definitely the most memorable. Saddler might be a weak link given his importance to the game, since his only real personality trait is that hes basically polite (even at the end of the game when you foil him, he just kind of chuckles and is like haha, guess I have to kill you now), but hes still serviceable.

I guess this is where Im going to have to be a huge hypocrite and praise RE4 for things I blasted the other games for. Does it have a huge epic plot about a guy trying to take over the world? Yep. Does it have a partner system? Yep. Is it about a crazy globetrotting adventure where youre part of a large organization? Yep. Does it have stupid anime crap? Yep. But heres the thing: RE4 is built in such a way as to deemphasize all of that while simultaneously shoving it in your face. If that doesnt make sense, then let me explain.

Im going to give an example, and maybe you never even noticed this while playing. Remember Krauser, Leons friend who turns evil? Krauser is this Rambo-type of military guy whos like Been a long time, comrade, and HUMANITY MUST EVOLVE TO BE STRONGER. Hes never mentioned until youre 90% of the way through the game, then the game becomes solely about finding and fighting him, and then when he dies, no one ever mentions him again. Krauser clashes so heavily with the rest of the game that his presence is complete nonsense. Like, youre playing this slow-paced game about an evil cult, and then the genre just completely shifts to revolve around insane military shenanigans that came out of nowhere, and the second Krauser is dead, theyre never brought up again. Krauser talks to Leon like they have history in the military together, where Krauser was like driven mad by the things he saw and Leon is still haunted, but Leon was only ever a cop, so how does he know this Rambo guy (I know a later game explained this, thats stupid, it should have remained unstated)? Krauser himself is useless to the story; he does nothing of importance. So the game is shoving your face in the (perfect) abs of a man whose motives, backstory, and place in the game make absolutely zero sense, and I bet it never even occurred to anyone reading this paragraph, or to 99% of the players of the game, that everything about Krauser makes no sense, because the presentation is just so top notch. Like here, did you notice how Leon constantly cracks wise with every character in the game, constantly belittling them and acting unimpressed, except for Krauser, where hes always either absolutely serious or wistfully thinking back to the good old days? The game can completely change everything about itself for two hours without any warning, then just ignore what happened, and it feels completely natural.

And all of that, that two-and-a-half pages I just wrote in a Word document? Thats just about the tone of the game. I havent even gotten to the gameplay. How do make slow-paced action fun? They did it. How do you make inventory management fun? They did it. The makers of this game knew exactly what every single element in the game was for. They bring over things from previous games, but they always make sure those old elements still have a purpose. The tank controls arent just a remnant of earlier games; theyre what the entire game is balanced around. Leon being unable to move while shooting (or reloading) as he attacked by ten guys at once means every single decision you make is significant. You have to constantly weigh the value of shooting that one guy in the head against the chance of getting smacked by a flail. You have to weigh whether or not you want to retreat to a more defensible position and risk getting shot by a crossbow on your way there, or to shoot a guy in the knee and suplex him to take advantage of invincibility frames. Every single thing in the game is considered and planned by the devs.

The guns, yes. People still argue about Red9 vs Blacktail, Bolt-Action vs Semi-Auto, the practical value of the TMP and Mine Thrower, and whether the fully upgraded Handgun is a good idea. And the inventory! Whose idea was it to turn the inventory system into a Tetris simulator? Let me kiss that man. He is the greatest genius to ever grace inventory systems. RE4 is the only game I know of where people post their attach cases on 4chan to rate each others cleanliness. The game even knows to include just the right number of silly items, like eggs and a fish the size of a rocket launcher.

Ive seen people complain about Ashley in this game, calling this Escort Quest: the Game, but shes really only a problem in the crank room. Its amazing how a game from 2005 still has the best escort AI in game history. Ashley always stands behind you so you wont shoot her, she always travels right behind you at your speed, and if you aim the gun at her, she ducks. Like, its that simple to make a good escort quest, but everyone fails at it except RE4.

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Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005