Capcom's fourth installment in its Resident Evil series is getting a remake, which could be good or bad, considering the company's handling of the remake of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, a game which, while fun, feels like a rushed extension of the remake Resident Evil 2, per Polygon and The Verge.
Hopefully, Capcom got the hint with Resident Evil 3 and would treat the 17-year-old game the respect it deserves, just like it once did with the remake of the original 1996 Resident Evil game, as Den of Geek reported.
Here are some of the things we would like Capcom to retain from the original 2005 Resident Evil 4 (RE4) game in its upcoming 2023 remake.
Limited Melee Attacks
The game's protagonist, Leon S. Kennedy, the rookie cop of the Racoon Police Department, is no longer the rookie he once was during the events of RE4. If the remake follows the original's timeline, Leon would already be 26, has trained under the US Government, and went on missions that honed his newfound skills, per the Resident Evil Fandom.
RE4 lets Leon perform contextual melee attacks on enemies stunned by a well-aimed shot to a weak spot, such as the head, allowing the player to save some ammo that could be used in a puzzle or for an upcoming boss fight.
The limited melee attacks may take off some of the tension the game may be gunning, but having them would show how much Leon grew from the rookie cop he once was.
Serious But Sometimes Humorous Presentation
RE4 is one of those games that knew how to balance a serious and dark atmosphere with the occasional humorous quip and one-liners from both Leon and the game's many antagonists.
As PC Gamer puts it, RE4 has an undercurrent of horror and melancholy despite its occasional silliness and one-liners. An example of this is Leon replying, "Your right hand comes off?" to a certain Spanish lord when he told Leon that he sent his "right-hand" man right after becoming the mouse in a cat-and-mouse chase with one of the game's most terrifying bosses.
The Attaché Case
Instead of having the usual inventory screen the Resident Evil franchise had at the time, where players have access to a limited inventory space but have limited to no say on how the items were arranged, RE4 has an attaché case.
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This mechanic, which is unique to the game, allows players to arrange Leon's weapons, available ammo, and healing items however they want, per IGN. In previous Resident Evil games, and even in the remakes, all weapons lie horizontally, consuming space that could have been used by a healing item or ammo. In RE4, you can place weapons vertically, allowing players to maximize Leon's inventory.
RE4 even lets players see Leon holding the weapon players equipped him with when changing weapons, which ups the game's coolness factor by a significant amount.
Most (If Not All) Of The Map
One of Capcom's sins in the Resident Evil 3 Remake is the exclusion of Raccoon City's Clock Tower. In the original game, this was the place where Jill was infected with the T-Virus after Nemesis shot down the rescue helicopter that was supposed to pick Jill and Carlos up.
Unfortunately, the Clock Tower in the remake was just a footnote in the game, with it not being explorable in favor of a boss fight with Nemesis' first mutated form near it, per Game Revolution.
RE4 may have some problems with its many locations, but removing one too many memorable landmarks, such as the lake where Leon fights a mutated salamander that made a home out of the local lake, would mean that Capcom never learned from its mistake.
STRANGAH!
The mysterious merchant is one of RE4's most memorable characters due to him acting as Leon's supplier of firearms and ammo, per Game Rant. He even gives away weapons for free if the player managed to shoot down a certain number of medallions.
Any gamer who has played RE4 will never forget the merchant's most prominent lines: "What are ya buyin?" and "What are ya, sellin'?" Last but not least is the way he says, "Welcome!" when you interact with him to do business with him.
He even comments on the player's purchases, saying things like "What d'you need that for? goin' huntin' an elephant?" when the player buys one of the game's magnum handguns.
The merchant's exclusion from the game's remake would make a lot of fans sad, but his hilarious way of talking could remove some of the seriousness and horror that the remake is gunning for. Here's hoping Capcom can put him in the remake in some way.
The remake of Resident Evil 4 will be released on March 24, 2023, for the PC, Playstation 5, and the Xbox Series X, according to a separate Polygon report.
