Recent reviews by Sykes

A fairly good remake (not great, but good) which is getting a negative review for pushing P2W DLC (yes, in a single player game) post-launch, and for some bad design choices.

**SPOILERS**

I love the original RE4, it's one of my favourite games of all time. In terms of gameplay the remake is better, with smoother gunplay (albeit less satisfying animations and sound design for some guns such as the Red 9 and the bolt action rifle), and frustrating sections from the original being reworked to no longer be so bad. Eg, the vast removal of QTEs, the Krauser fight being more engaging, the mines section being shortened and so on.

Hell, Del Lago is actually kind of fun now!

Unfortunately, it's not all good. The game now feels like it lacks much of the heart and personality of the original. Leon still has some goofy lines, but he delivers them much more seriously. Salazar looks and sounds like a grimy, whiny nobody instead of the unnatural pseudo child from the original (seriously, he slurs most of his words, doesn't have as much campy dialogue, and is just generally forgettable). The same is true of Saddler - instead of the charismatic but dangerous villain we get generic cult leader no. 2, with a dash of incel in his voice. It's really disappointing, because these two villains were such a big part of the original's charm, but here they're majorly neutered.

The merchant is also... off. He's got many of the same lines, but his voice is less exaggerated and thus makes him a much more forgettable character. All three of these (Salazar, Saddler, and the merchant) feel like studio-sanitised versions of the originals with their soul removed.

Luis is the one exception in that he's the only character which the remake vastly improves. Originally there wasn't much to him - he was a smooth talker who didn't get enough screen time to make you care about his death. The remake gives you more time with him in the story and during gameplay, letting you grow attached to the more flippant, almost goofball-with-a-heart-of-gold vibe he now has. The VA hits it out of the park, his lines are solid, and his death is much more tightly tied into the story. This is the kind of thing I was hoping for in a remake.

Ashley is less annoying vocally, but FAR more annoying in gameplay. Instead of having a health bar she is now always one hit away from being incapacitated, at which point you have to spend several seconds picking her up otherwise the next hit she takes will be fatal. You can't increase her health like the original, and aside from a few specific sections (usually before a scripted big fight) you can't tell her to hide, so she gets in the way more and will get knocked over and killed far more often. RE4 is a rare example of being a game which is mostly a big escort mission that is still loved by most, but the remake makes the escort side of it much more frustrating.

Speaking of frustrating, your knife has durability now, which is just pointless. Yes, you can use your knife to parry almost any attack at the expense of durability, but your knife/knives now take up precious inventory space which is limited at the best of times. Couple that with the new crafting system for ammo and grenades (with "Resources" taking up even more space) and you have a system that both encourages you to create the ammo you want/need while also giving you less space to do so. I've noticed that the remake does still give you ammo primarily for guns you don't have much ammo for, but this effect is much less so and instead you'll often find yourself low on the required gunpowder or resources to create ammo for what you want to use.

I could go on (there are more positives and negatives alike) but let's talk about the P2W DLC they just introduced.

Exclusive Upgrade Tickets can be traded to the merchant at any point in the game to reveal and activate a weapon's exclusive (special) upgrade. These tickets are used in place of a lump sum of money, usually around the 100k mark, which isn't simple to save up for, and they can be used to get the exclusive upgrade before you've upgraded the rest of a weapon's elements (unlike if you're paying with cash). Before the DLC this was fine - you could only earn tickets by trading them for the special treasure that you get from completing the merchant's sidequests. It gave you a reason to explore, and you could only realistically get one or two via this method, and that's IF you don't trade them in for any other rewards. It's a good way to incentivise doing these jobs, and you could only really afford your first one at just before the halfway point of the game so it didn't affect the early game difficulty at all.

With the DLC offering these tickets for real world currency, balance is completely out of the window. I don't care if people want to make their games easier, but I DO care about companies wringing out extra cash out of people who want to do so specifically AFTER all of the release day reviews are in. It's slimy, promotes predatory practices, and takes advantage of those who either want an easier time in game or who want a hand with some of the hardest achievements. If Capcom really wanted to let you choose to have more tickets because that's what their customers wanted, the option should be in the game by default, not locked behind a pathetic paywall that attempts to wring even more money out of their customers.

I truly wish I was able to get a refund - that I hadn't played so much of it before this DLC that I could ask for my money back to avoid supporting these horrible business practices.

TLDR: Game is fine, but less fun and more forgettable than the original. Added predatory DLC post-launch alongside Mercenaries (a mode that should've been there by default) to attempt to avoid backlash. Don't buy it.