Why Resi 4 Remains The All-Time GREATEST

Ryan King: "To make this interesting, I’ve decided to write this in list form. And by ‘interesting’, I mean I’m writing this in a way that you’ll be bothered to read it. I’m not going to go on about the ludonarrative dissonance or pontificate about the religious symbolism of the churches or discuss dynamic gender issues not being representative of our current society or whatever it is proper games journos do these days besides reading The Guardian and shopping for cheap suits at Moss Bros.

I only really want to talk about the best bits in Resident Evil 4.

Mostly, if I’m being honest, I just want to talk about the merchant."

[FallenAngel1984]

RE4 dramatically changed the way how we play most third person action games

It is indeed one off the greatest

[naruga]

no ...RE4 doomed the series to the mess it has transformed now without return (trying to save itself with a tragic FPS parody)...BEST Resident Evil IS and remain the first RE PSX original version ..all others follow with RE4 being far from best and closer to a game which never should bear the Resident Evil name (though its a good game as standalone)

[Moonman]

Whatchu talking about Willis?

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[NapalmSanctuary]

I agree that it shouldn't have the RE name. Had they been smart about it and changed the name like they did with DMC and Onimusha, it could have been another great franchise, without controversy and without sucking all the oxygen out of the Resident Evil room. Kind of odd when you think about it. All the good games and franchises that started development as RE titles and were given name changes because they were too different, you'd think they would have known exactly what to do.

[sullynathan]

How can the best RE be the best when REmake is better than the original? RE4 is and will always be the best resident evil.

[NapalmSanctuary]

@sullynathan RE4 really isn't much of an RE game. Its more of a MGS game, minus the stealth, in a macabre setting, where you play as Leon instead of Snake. You can't even compare it to any game that came before it in the franchise because its a completely different genre.

[NukaCola]

RE4 is like FFX.

It changed the formula into something we hate, even though people claim it to be the superior game. It made the series more linear than ever and alongside garbage acting. Those lead foot shooting mechanics are not fluid at all.

RE4 is straight science fiction and ties little to the series. The removed the survival horror and turned it into some weird European B Movie.

I really don't understand all the hate for Resident Evil 7 and all the praise for Resident Evil 4. VII is actually attempting a rebirth and rejuvenation of the franchise.

[sullynathan]

Resident evil 4 is not supposed to have fluid shooting mechanics. What sort of stupid criticism is this? The first 3 games didn't have good shooting mechanics at all.

RE4 does not follow the formula of the first 3 RE games and still managed to make a better game than them.

I don't see how resident evil 4 is an MGS game, unlike those it's actually good.

[bouzebbal]

The best resident evil for me is code veronica. But I agree with you downfall started with re4 I personally hated this game.

[mark_parch]

i love resident evil 1,2,3 and love third person games like dead space but i recently played res 4 and i was really disappointed.

[princejb134]

I love resident evil 4 however the zombies weren't really zombies. They were just humans walking around infected. That game wasn't even scary -_-

[Derceto]

Very easy and short reason. It isn't.

[Kyosuke_Sanada]

It's easily one of the best action games ever created. Horror-wise........not so much.

[Jaqen_Hghar]

still found it very scary. RE5 really took it in the action direction

[Next_gen_2015]

Are you serious? Those regenerators still give me nightmares.

[PhoenixUp]

I'm glad for RE4's existence. It gave gave us Resident Evil Revelations, which has the best control method in a RE title.

Not to mention how much RE4 influenced the entire industry as a whole

[pyroxxx]

Because Shinji Mikami is a genius, only rivaled by Miyazaki, Miamoto and Fumito Ueda in terms of game design.

[Kyosuke_Sanada]

I do agree, especially after his contributions for Vanquish, Killer 7 and The Evil Within. However, he has made a few faux pas in the past, most notably removing Hiroshi Shibata's role as director of Resident Evil 4. I thought having both fixed camera angles for exploration and switching to over-the-shoulder when it came to combat was a genius move on his behalf plus the story direction looked to be much more memorable and may have had the hugest impact on the lore.

It's funny that he used some of the design choices for the prototype in The Evil Within though......

[DiRtY]

Okay, I will be honest with you... I never played RE 4!

I played RE 1, RE 2, RE: Code Veronica, RE 5 and a little bit of RE 6.

Out of those my favorite game is Code Veronica btw.

All time favorite for all games remain Zelda OoT, Halo CE and Goldeneye.

It is ridiculous how much ahead of their times these games were.

[franwex]

Do yourself a favor and play it. Seriously. It honestly is that good.

[TheOptimist]

Sorry, but Deus Ex and Doom some of the all time greatest ever for me. John Romero and Warren Spector, both have a talent for level design. Warren Spector has the knack for depth, from more than just the best gameplay and story ever created in video games. I even would mention Half Life as well as Bioshock (OH and not an FPS fanatic, more of an RPG fanatic and hence games like Ultima, Witcher 3 etc are some of the greatest games ever)

[sullynathan]

Romero has no talent whatsoever, that's why he made daikatana. With Carmack they both can make something great, on their own however we see that their skills aren't enough.

Warren Specter hasn't made a good game in nearly a decade too.

[TheOptimist]

Because Spector nearly left gaming after Deus Ex. He was involved in a few other games, but was not the main driving force. Even Deus Ex Human Revolution had his influence since the team had taken a lot of guidance from him and produced the best game last gen. In Mankind Divided, they didn't take much of his advice and look how the game was.

AS for John Romero, he was the one who designed Doom and John Carmack and Adrian Carmack aided him. I think that's one good combination. Him and Adrian Carmack are making a new game which I hope will be awesome and is one of the fewgames I am anticipating.

[sullynathan]

Only on N4G can I see a butthurt and stupid comment like this. I can't criticize a game dev because I wasn't a game dev. Let me guess, critics of politician can't criticize them because they weren't politicians themselves?

[TheOptimist]

I wouldn't say that you need to be a game dev to criticize games, but you need to have an idea bout game design and the amount of effort it takes to make a game. Today, 99% games are rinse and repeat of the game mechanics that were made popular during the PS2 era. All the modern games have done are added story as a crutch to hide the shallowest of gameplays and tried to make games cinematic which even further reduced any sort of depth in gameplay.

As for your 'Romero' has no talent', why do you think gameplay is being brought from OG Doom in 2016 and was still the best game all year? In terms of AAA games in 2016, Doom was the best and for how shallow Mankind Divided was and how it was cut down by Square Enix, it was still better than all AAA games last year except Doom. Doom was exceptional, John Carmack's Engine for the time was revolutionary.

[sullynathan]

I'm not seeing it. I don't see how nu doom has anything to do with Romero,the gameplay of nu doom is fundamentally different from old doom too.

[TheOptimist]

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Apart from adding a few things like- Cross hair, executions etc, not much has changed.

[sdcard4gb]

The greatest what ?
Third-person horror shooter ? Yes, indeed.
The best Resident Evil ? No, sorry, that place is forever taken by REmake.

[sullynathan]

Resident evil 4 is the best resident evil game

[sdcard4gb]

How come ?
Resident Evil is about "simulationist" gameplay where you backtrack through one fixed area and constantly make choices on either kill enemies, save or use needed inventory space for key items or conserve ammo for bosses and such. This is what Resident Evil inherently means, fella, you can't deny that, no matter how much you like it or not.
Nothing like that in RE4 where the entire journey is one big movement forward with ammo and healing items are dropping from dead enemies and saving doesn't require limited resources, mostly because the game uses auto-save so that dead player won't lose too much progress and chicken out of the experience.

THIS is Resident Evil - https://www.youtube.com/wat...
RE4 is the result of the series becoming much softer on the player - letting him control the camera, letting him choose where to shoot, letting him not bother too much about limited resources...

I like Resident Evil 4, but even I have to admit absolutely that it is not Resident Evil in nature, it doesn't use the same methodology for it's scares, it focuses too much on action and to be fair - it's self-awareness kind of turns the entire game into a horror comedy, unlike all the RE games before itself which were ridiculous, but took themselves so serious you yourself started taking them seriously as well.
RE4 is the good game that changed things too much... To the point where even RE4-like games are not coming out anymore and the focus on stripping the player off of things like "camera control", "movement control" is not considered something that inherently makes player tense...
The sacrifice of player convenience is what makes people tense and scared, we have to remember that.
And RE used to do just that.
So sorry, but the greatest Resident Evil IS REmake, simple as that.

[sullynathan]

Yes, link me to a video with a guy that thinks RE4 is the best RE game.

Resident evil 4 does not follow the design of its predecessors. You didn't become softer on the player by allowing them to have more player control. In fact it's even more challenging than its predecessors because it allows the devs to increase enemy difficulty.

[Kyosuke_Sanada]

Wholeheartedly agree. ReMake was such perfection in not only reintroducing the original to newcomers but adding so much content for veteran fans that it felt like a brand new game. It's easily in my top 2 horror games ever created.

[Excited2play]

I have always been a fan of the older resi games as a youth and the funny things was, the first time i played resident evil 4 on gamecube (Yes i had a gamecube and a PS2 back in those days) I got to the first village and kept dying so eventually i just left the game alone for a good long while. I was also playing Mario kart: Double dash and Metroid prime so i had other Gamecube games to play at the time. Not to mention my obsession over SSX Tricky on PS2 But anyways...

Little did i know that once i got past the village and figured out how to not get my ass beat by those Ganados i would fall in love with the game and it would become one of my top 5 games of all time.

[SR388]

RE 0 and 1 on the cube are amazing, 2was great and 3 was awesome... CV was good, 4 was amazing... 5 was lame and 6? Well the less said about it the better, it was a pile of dick lol 7 I'm not sure about, ATM it looks like Texas chainsaw massacre with a RE logo lol

[tmisellati]

It is great game but it does not feel like a resident evil game. Actually it ruined resident evil series. I still feel that the best resident game is the remake.

[theshredded]

My favourite game of all time.

[SharnOfTheDEAD]

Nah mate Resident Evil 2 is the best of all time

[vivid83]

my thoughts exactly

[vivid83]

RE2 was the best in the series

[Mikey Mike]

RE2....

[Vahlok]

I love the Resident 4 style. I highly reccomend Resident Evil Revelations 2 and The Evil Within if you like Resident 4.

[Tetsujin]

I still vote 2 as the best of the series. I haven't finished 4 yet so I can't speak on it.

[PurpHerbison]

For me personally, RE3 > RE2 > RE1 > RE4

[franwex]

Hmm... I also really enjoy RE3 too.

[QUIMICOMORTAL]

Um, no its not! Not even close!

[Tankbusta40]

Its not even in the top 3 of the best resident evils

[Kurdishcurse]

naaah. re4 is a joke compared to REmake. the only thing its better at is the gameplay and weapon variety. remake is miles better in every other aspect. art style, art design, music, atmosphere, level design, lore, environment variety, those freaky notes you read, monster design ( lisa freakin trevor!! ) not once was i ever horrified in 4. even with the regenerators or the centipede monster, nor with the axe knights in ashleys stage. unlike many, i dont mistake tensity with horror. and REmake was all about that slow, creeping, vague, skin crawling, dark, wet, soggy, and noisy atmospheric horror. also, ashley can piss right off into a vat of flaming acid. one of the dumbest, most laughable ideas mikami has ever come up with.

[StormLegend]

From the gameplay to the cutscenes and the dialogue Resident Evil 4 is a Masterpiece!

[ChronoJoe]

It's one of my favourite games of all time.

Going back to it though, I don't enjoy it quite as much as I used to. Some games I can go back to and I will enjoy them as if they are new, but RE4 I seem to remember everything quite vividly, and the HD graphics on the PS4 versions just look kind of odd. Still worth playing though, but I think it's a shame if you missed it back when it was released.

[BiggerBoss]

RE4 is great, but that title belongs to Metal Gear Solid 3👌🏼

[DeadManMMX]

It's a great action TPS but it was the beginning of a wrong turn for the survival horror series.

[scofios]

I agree totally love re4