Fresh from being pursued by zombies in the Spanish countryside, Pavel Barter delivers his take on the reissued Resident Evil 4.
Resident Evil 4
Capcom (Xbox Series X)
Confession time. This is the fourth time I’ve played Resident Evil 4, a game released in various iterations since it crawled onto the GameCube in 2005. There’s good reason to revisit its putrid fields and chainsaw-wielding villagers again in 2023.
Resident Evil was a literal game changer, alongside titles such as Super Mario World, The Last Of Us and The Legend Of Zelda. The action-horror – in which you play emo-haired cop Leon Kennedy on a mission to rescue the president’s daughter, who’s been abducted by a weird cult in rural Spain – is a thrilling, nail-biting banquet. Capcom’s remake offers more than just a digital lick of paint.
Combat is refined, turning the formerly clunky Leon into a balletic, gun-wielding dealer of destruction. There are new side quests and the psychotic sack-faced farmers are a recipe for PTSD. This compelling folk-horror revisit goes all the way to 11 and beyond.
10/10
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