Why Do Resident Evil Purists Love Resident Evil 4?

Ok, so this has bugged me for quite some time so maybe some of you can enlighten me.

Why do Resident Evil fans who hold the classic survival horror gameplay in such high regard also seem to love Resident Evil 4?

Yeah its a good game but unless your playing on the hardest mode, its not "survival" and I guess you can call it "horror." One of the fans' biggest issues with Resident Evil is how it became an action series. Meanwhile, RE4 is hardcore action start to finish.

I'm not saying its a bad game. I played it a bunch of times and liked it. I just don't understand the double standard around it.

Let me explain:

Resident Evil 4 isn't scary. Yes, it came out in 2005 but it wasn't scary then either. The concept behind a survival horror game is that you are forced to manage resources in a way that makes the game difficult. This combined with the actual atmosphere of the game makes it scary. That's how it was in the classic games. 1, 2, and Zero were designed with this in mind and it made them survival horror games. 4 on the other hand, resource management is very easy. I rarely if ever found myself in need. Maybe the odd health item but ammo was no issue. You can BUY GUNS. That takes just about all the fear out of gameplay at that point.

Getting back to the atmosphere, there are a few genuinely eerie areas but the charm wears off rather quickly ones you get further in the game. Mainly to the points where you have Indiana Jones running sequences and a GIANT ROBOT. The older Resident Evil games had goofy parts too like the mutant sewer alligator and a giant bat. But come on now lol

This brings me to the next issue. Leon is too damn strong for Resident Evil. In a survival horror game the main character should never be able to style on their enemies (at least not till the end of the game). Yet we have Leon doing backflips over laser walls and having anime knife fights with super soldiers. Devil May Cry was originally supposed to be Resident Evil 4 and it shows. You can just shoot and melee your way through hordes of enemies and be just fine. The only thing that's missing is the style meter on the side of the screen.

*side rant* I do like the controls of RE4 quite a bit though. My favorite RE control scheme is actually 6, mainly because it allows you to actually control the character. I don't at all believe that tank controls improve the horror atmosphere or the gameplay in any way. It makes the game frustrating and I quickly become apathetic to whatever else the game is trying to offer. That might just be a "me" problem, but personally I would rather die due to my own incompetence in a game while having all tools necessary to avoid it rather than die because the game makes itself less playable on purpose.

RE5 and RE6 are generally disliked. I don't disagree with that, they're not spectacular games. 5 is a little plain (and visually unappealing) and Michael Bay is still looking for the script that Capcom stole from him to make 6. These are often listed as examples of RE turned action. But RE4 did it first. RE4 is part of the reason those games exist (that and the gaming industry's mid 2000s obsession with turning every game into Call of Duty)

Anyway, I don't mean to rag on the game. I just don't understand why it's considered in high regard among survival horror titles when it's just as horror-action as the games fans hate.

I mostly agree although RE4 has several setpiece moments which are pretty good survival horror (regenerators, sewers, a few areas in the early village)

There’s a whole side of the fandom who are survival horror purists and don’t like RE4 at all or any game after REmake. There’s another side who came into the series late, and find the older games too difficult and only like the third person games.

There are also people like me who like every single mainline RE game.

It's because RE4 is well designed, paced, and manages to be actually scary (The Regenerators, the U-3 encounter, Garrador, the whole sewer sequence etc) at times.

Tell me if this don't froze your blood the first time you encounter it in the lab,the breathing sound is the worst part

It's because people understood that Capcom had very little choice but to change. survival horror was basically a dead genre by the mid 00s, it would have been a fool's errand to release an old style RE game in 2005. survival horror games had been very popular in the late 90s and early 00s and thus oversaturated the market, so RE had to reinvent to a more action oriented style of gameplay which was becoming popular at the time.

to me, no game has ever been scary so that's a moot point in my view.

RE5 is totally underrated imo, I liked that game a lot. not quite as much as I liked RE4 but it was still a lot of fun. I suspect people's lukewarm feelings towards it, is because we'd already seen an over-the-shoulder action themed RE game, some people don't like revisiting the same thing more than once. sometimes when a follow-up to a popular game is released there is a segment of fans that aren't very enthusiastic about it, I've seen that a number of times.

I haven't played it yet but I'd certainly take it over RE1, 2 and 3's tank controls.

@combo-man: People find RE5 pretty meh because while RE4 basically reinvented the wheel in terms of breaking out from the past 4 games (RE1 to 3 as well as Code Veronica) and managed to be a very enjoyable game at the same time, while RE5 is basically the same format and didn't really break out anything spectacularly new apart from cooperative gameplay.

If RE5 had gone first, people would have been a lot more receptive to it. While I personally wouldn't say it's close to RE4, it's not bad by any means.

I agree with most of what you said. I think it was just really addicting and nothing more. Once you get into the mood to play it you cant go back.

@professorrespect:

I agree. I remember a similar thing with Bioshock 2, some were saying it was just cashing-in on the success of the first game, others were saying the first game was special to them so they didn't want to revisit Rapture in case it spoiled the first experience somehow. and others played it and thought it was too similar to the original and thus had nothing new, while others actually preferred it. these are recurring themes among fans whenever there's a follow-up to a successful game.

Resident evil 4 Is a great game, yes the action can be over the top sometimes and the Quick time event are so annoing but one of the greatest things Is the Playtime, if you don't rush things the game Is pretty long and that is a great value for your money.

It's my favorite RE game.

I can agree with this

This was definitely a highlight in the game. Everything about this enemy was perfect. They freaking jump at you even if you shoot out their legs. Terrifying!

But then the game goes fudges that too. Once you get the rifle and the scope, these guys are a joke. You can see exactly where to shoot them for an easy kill

Tank controls are the WORST

@essentiallyheroes said:

@takenstew22 said:

I haven't played it yet but I'd certainly take it over RE1, 2 and 3's tank controls.

Tank controls are the WORST

This is mostly why I stopped playing REmake 1 and just skipped to REmake 2.

@takenstew22 said:

@essentiallyheroes said:

@takenstew22 said:

I haven't played it yet but I'd certainly take it over RE1, 2 and 3's tank controls.

Tank controls are the WORST

This is mostly why I stopped playing REmake 1 and just skipped to REmake 2.

REZero is also bad too, never play that one. RE6 wasn't the greatest game but it has a really solid control scheme and it rewards you for getting skilled with it.

@lenzo0: Yeah it's so intense and I'm glad they went back to basics (minus tank controls) and really nailed what the game was meant to be.

RE3make on the other hand, not as scary lol I played it on my YT channel and Nemesis and some of the enemies are tough but I never got scared or anything

@lenzo0: Yeah, the Souls fans had that locked up. Sekiro was great though

And yeah, it definitely felt like I didn't get as much with 3 as 2. Not a lot of puzzles, a couple reused locations (for story reasons) etc. I played on Hardcore so it took about 7-8hours, but yeah, I blasted through the same day I got it. I guess the Resistance DLC makes up for that but not by a lot

@essentiallyheroes: Seems like you enjoyed. Glad you did. I might at some point pick it up and play it myself. The Resistance DLC. I got the opportunity to test out the beta. I enjoyed it and thought it was decent. But, yeah it makes up for that, but not by a lot. I agree.

Still looking forward for the future of Resident Evil. I need my boy Leon Kennedy to show up again.

@lenzo0: Who knows, if they make a new original story, Leon will likely show up there.

Definitely need more of him and Ada lol