RE4 had great pacing for a long ass game...my very first playthrough on the GCN was 24 hours and its rare that a game can hold my attention that long. Part of it was because I had no expectations going into the game and didnt read up on videogames on the internet at the time so my only exposure was the marketing which only showed the village. So I thought once I fought the Chief of the village the game was near the end. Didnt realize that was only 20% through the game.
No doubt. It's not as though I really dislike anything that's
there, but the older I get, the more I appreciate super tight pacing. RE4 had
so many scenarios and enemy encounters and they're all pretty great and very well done, but yet I still cannot help but feel like it could have been a much tighter experience.
For me, I just didn't really think going to that island for the climax was necessary. The island had some really fantastic shit, such as the Regenerators obviously, but I thought that as well as the general climax, standoff with Krauser, Salazar and Saddler could have all taken place at the castle or at least that huge tower. I thought the tower felt very climactic, like it was building toward the finale, and it did end with the Salazar battle, but again I think all the island stuff could have just been there or spread out within the castle/tower.
Again it's not bad obviously, RE4 is one of the greatest games ever and I don't really hold the pacing or how long it is against it per se, but RE5 for me definitely had a better sense of pacing and placement. For what it's worth, even other games I consider to be absolutely incredible also have pacing issues for me; Uncharted 4 immediately comes to mind. I like pretty much everything in Uncharted 4, but I still felt like a good 3-4 hours could have been cut or reshuffled to the same effect, only far more efficiently, and Resident Evil isn't really a series where I need them to be more than say 10 hours or so.
What feels awesome to me are the first three games; the first time you go through them can take a while because you're learning yourself around the environments, puzzles, yadda yadda. Yet when you know what you're doing, they move pretty damn quick. I hope RE7 brings this back.
