Resident Evil 4 Review

“Simplify, simplify.” It was what Capcom needed to do with the Resident Evil control scheme, and it is what they did. And the improvement is amazing. You will now actively seek out enemy encounters–what the controls did, most importantly, was make this aspect of the game fun. Resident Evil 4 is more than just scary and involving. It is actually a good game from the basis of the gameplay mechanics alone, something that was debatable before.

On top of the generally improved controls, Capcom has also incorporated something which adds greatly to some of the gameplay situations, and allows for a lot of flexibility in what your character can do: a context-sensitive action button. In addition to your regular move set, with the action button, you can swim, jump, break through windows, push objects, kick enemies, dodge attacks, knock down ladders, and much more.

It allows for a much-improved sense of control over your character, as with this feature, you can do just about anything without doing what many other games do, which is show you a cutscene with the character performing the activity instead of you actually playing that moment.

And speaking of cutscenes, Resident Evil 4 takes the action-button concept even further by creating quasi-interactive cutscenes (similarly to Shenmue for the Dreamcast). For example, in one cutscene, Leon is being pulled into a lake with a rope tied around his ankle, and he pulls out his knife to begin cutting the rope away. Rather than cutting to a 5-second gameplay scenario where you cut the rope and then transitioning back to a cutscene, the cutscene simply keeps playing, forcing you to repeatedly tap A in order for Leon to cut the rope. This greatly expands interest in the cutscenes, and keeps you focused on the gameplay even as the story is unfolding. Overall, it simply adds a lot of interactivity, where in any other game you’d be sitting through unnecessary cinematics. It’s a very satisfying gameplay mechanic. And the level of interactivity it creates between you and your environment is for the most part unprecedented.

There are some minor issues with the controls. For starters, when fighting more than one enemies, you will occasionally wish there was a strafe function. In the end, it isn’t a huge deal, and it does lend more of a scare value with some encounters, and it would change the combat somewhat, but you may feel limited by its absence.

Also, the controls still do not incorporate true analog movement. You’re still pressing the analog stick to walk, and the B button to run. True analog movement would have been a good inclusion. Again, at the end of the day, it doesn’t affect the gameplay in a significant way, but it wouldn’t have hurt to have. But this is coming from a critic. I notice these things more than you probably will. It’s just slightly disappointing that, with all the other control upgrades, in an era of analog control, a 3D game like this uses a means of control that went out of date in the days of the PS1.

So the controls work much better than before, you say. Big deal. That doesn’t make much of a difference without improved gameplay to back it up, you argue. You’re right. That’s entirely true. But Resident Evil 4 not only delivers on the gameplay front, it absolutely shatters every notion you have about survival horror. The gameplay is quite possibly the best of any game released this generation. Rest assured the control is just one of many massive improvements made in this game.

No joke. Metroid Prime, Halo, Half-Life 2, Grand Theft Auto, every game considered to be a killer-app for its respective system. The gameplay here is easily on-par with them, if not better. This does not come from a biased perspective. I own every console. I play games from every company, and I’m not influenced by which system a game is on. If you can’t tell already, I wasn’t even a particular fan of the Resident Evil franchise. And I can nonetheless say with confidence that Resident Evil 4 is some of the most fun I’ve had since Ocarina of Time.