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If all we do in Resident Evil 4 is shoot and kill, then why the praise?

Evolved1

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
^That's too bad, the final Ada chapter is easily the best part about her campaign.

All of Seperate Ways cutscenes are SD though, which is just...weird. What a lazy port.

Yeah... my GC and the few games I had for it were stolen from my dorm when I was in the middle of Ada's missions. :(
 
R

Retro_

Unconfirmed Member
The economy and encounter design put it above other action(shooter? however you want to classify it) games at the time

Economy was based around treasures instead of random drops and while later versions gave you more money to play around with, you still couldn't buy and fully upgrade everything so you have to make choices on what to focus on on each playthrough.
 

PKrockin

Member
Playing on PS3... left stick aiming is goddamn retarded. Otherwise the controls work well for how the game was designed. But left stick aim on a modern pad is SMH.

Why is it different from aiming with the left stick on the PS2 version? I aimed with the left stick just fine on RE4 GC, PC with PS2 controller, and RE5 360.
 

Hoplatee

Member
I regret not playing this when it came out. I just ignored it and I don't know why. I should really play it sometime. :(
 
Uncharted 2 would be its equal, if you stripped RE4 from its encounter design, level design, variety of weapons, boss battles... basically everything that doesn't have to deal with being a flash in a pan experience. Remove it and you have Uncharted.

Thats a pretty terrible comparison if you ask me, if you stripped all the things from RE4 that made it great you would not get Uncharted 2, you'd get a shitty game. "Flash in a pan experience?" Come on, who are you trying to convince? If you stripped visuals and sound design from Uncharted 2 you'd have a shitty game with a decent story and that's it. But you are right, they shouldn't be compared. I agree with your comparison that Uncharted is more of an 3rd person CoD than it is RE4.
 
Playing on PS3... left stick aiming is goddamn retarded. Otherwise the controls work well for how the game was designed. But left stick aim on a modern pad is SMH.

Think about Resident Evil 4's controls for a second and then think about your statement. Unless they put the run and reload buttons on the shoulder buttons you would constantly be swapping your fingers from face buttons to the right stick every time you aim (for no particular reason - the left stick would be doing NOTHING while aiming under your proposed idea). Why not simplify it and just use one stick... if your game only uses one stick? It is like complaining about the bionic arm in Bionic Commando shooting at a 45 degree angle by default... it ultimately is more convenient in the long run.
 

def sim

Member
First half suspense, the second half action; it's paced well along with some charming voice acting to keep us going. I appreciate the amount of self-awareness provided, RE was getting close to taking itself too seriously before 4.

As for it only being a shooter, well, that's what I signed up for. My attention span isn't so low where I need constant variation to be entertained.
 
J

Jotamide

Unconfirmed Member
Maybe it was the time. I played it 3 years ago and it was ok. No masterpiece however.
 

TheBear

Member
I think a better question is why RE5 such a piece of shit when RE4 is so awesome.
However I do lament the loss of the original RE. Survival Horror RIP :(
 

Evolved1

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
Think about Resident Evil 4's controls for a second and then think about your statement. Unless they put the run and reload buttons on the shoulder buttons you would constantly be swapping your fingers from face buttons to the right stick every time you aim (for no particular reason - the left stick would be doing NOTHING while aiming under your proposed idea). Why not simplify it and just use one stick... if your game only uses one stick? It is like complaining about the bionic arm in Bionic Commando shooting at a 45 degree angle by default... it ultimately is more convenient in the long run.

What the hell are you talking about? First of all... running has absolutely no impact either way since you cannot do it while aiming. And you do not need to "aim" while reloading, which only takes a fraction a second anyway, and works just fine on square for 100% of PS3 shooters ever made.

You have no point other than wanting to force me to aim with the left stick, simply because the gamecube had a weird-ass controller with only one viable analog.

Guess what though... the PS3 has two analogs. And the one they decided to ignore just happens to be the spot where 99.9% of shooters in existence do their heavy lifting.

RE4 might be playable the way it is... after you adjust... but doesn't change the fact this was either a lazy element of the port, or an obvious oversight. And it's not too bad of an analogy to say that swapping the sticks in a shooter is kind of like forcing someone to play with inverted aim when they're used to the opposite... or making them play with a southpaw config.

I love the RE games, and RE4 was one of my favorite games... but left stick aim on PS3 controller is just dumb. You have no argument otherwise. Bringing up the Bionic Commando thing isn't even relevant. Whatever your hard on is for that game, it's apples to oranges in this circumstance.
 
I think a better question is why RE5 such a piece of shit when RE4 is so awesome.

1342061-shinji_mikami2_large.jpg
 
What the hell are you talking about? First of all... running has absolutely no impact either way since you cannot do it while aiming. And you do not need to "aim" while reloading, which only takes a fraction a second anyway, and works just fine on square for 100% of PS3 shooters ever made.

You have no point other than wanting to force me to aim with the left stick, simply because the gamecube had a weird-ass controller with only one viable analog.

Guess what though... the PS3 has two analogs. And the one they decided to ignore just happens to be the spot where 99.9% of shooters in existence do their heavy lifting.

RE4 might be playable the way it is... after you adjust... but doesn't change the fact this was either a lazy element of the port, or an obvious oversight. And it's not too bad of an analogy to say that swapping the sticks in a shooter is kind of like forcing someone to play with inverted aim when they're used to the opposite... or making them play with a southpaw config.

I love the RE games, and RE4 was one of my favorite games... but left stick aim on PS3 controller is just dumb. You have no argument otherwise. Bringing up the Bionic Commando thing isn't even relevant. Whatever your hard on is for that game, it's apples to oranges in this circumstance.

Why would you map the aiming to the right stick in a game that only uses one stick? So you can take your hands off the face buttons for no reason except to aim... even though the left stick is doing nothing? There is zero reason to use the right stick in Resident Evil 4. I am glad they did not add right stick aiming to the port (even as an option) - it would be adding something that would make players play worse in the long run.

Current Scenario:
Enemy appears. Leon goes into aiming mode - player starts aiming... with zero change to hand placement.

Your Scenario:
Enemy appears. Leon goes into aiming mode. You do absolutely nothing with the left stick. You move your thumb from the face buttons to the right stick (restricting you from doing quick turns to get away, reloading - unless you put your thumb back). You then move your thumb to the face buttons after you are done shooting.

It is just adding steps with zero gain.

Edit: I bring up Bionic Commando because most players complain about the default 45 degree angle shot of the arm when they first start playing (they want the arm to shoot forward by default). Eventually they realize the designers were right because 95% of your grabs will be that 45 degree angle.
 

News Bot

Banned

Forgetting Hiroshi Shibata (original BH4 director, Okami lead planner, Bayonetta lead game designer). Arguably much more important. There's also Shigenori Nishikawa (MadWorld director, Vanquish game designer).

Mikami is nothing without his teams. He's been lucky to have such talented designers under him from the beginning (and with BH1, his mentor). Initially it was Kamiya, Kato, Aoyama and Oda, then it was Shibata, Nishikawa and Kakae. Some have followed him since he left CAPCOM (Kato, Nishikawa), others not.
 
R

Retro_

Unconfirmed Member
What the hell are you talking about? First of all... running has absolutely no impact either way since you cannot do it while aiming. And you do not need to "aim" while reloading, which only takes a fraction a second anyway, and works just fine on square for 100% of PS3 shooters ever made.

You have no point other than wanting to force me to aim with the left stick, simply because the gamecube had a weird-ass controller with only one viable analog.


RE4 might be playable the way it is... after you adjust... but doesn't change the fact this was either a lazy element of the port, or an obvious oversight. And it's not too bad of an analogy to say that swapping the sticks in a shooter is kind of like forcing someone to play with inverted aim when they're used to the opposite... or making them play with a southpaw config.

I love the RE games, and RE4 was one of my favorite games... but left stick aim on PS3 controller is just dumb. You have no argument otherwise. Bringing up the Bionic Commando thing isn't even relevant. Whatever your hard on is for that game, it's apples to oranges in this circumstance.

I don't get it

I can understand not being comfortable with the control scheme

but It's far from a design oversight that you aim with the left.


Guess what though... the PS3 has two analogs. And the one they decided to ignore just happens to be the spot where 99.9% of shooters in existence do their heavy lifting.

Yeah because the left is used for movement while aiming in those games

You can only do one or the other in RE4 so there's no reason to switch to the right when aiming. If anything it'd be needlessly more complicated with how fast shift between aiming and running at times
 
Forgetting Hiroshi Shibata (original BH4 director, Okami lead planner, Bayonetta lead game designer). Arguably much more important. There's also Shigenori Nishikawa (MadWorld director, Vanquish game designer).

Mikami is nothing without his teams. He's been lucky to have such talented designers under him from the beginning (and with BH1, his mentor). Initially it was Kamiya, Kato, Aoyama and Oda, then it was Shibata, Nishikawa and Kakae. Some have followed him since he left CAPCOM (Kato, Nishikawa), others not.

Neither is any director, but they're still the director.
 

Evolved1

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
It's really not worth arguing over at this point. They aren't going to change it.

Right stick aim is more comfortable. I'm used to it, and very good at it. It works for RE5 just fine. I don't personally like it on the left stick because it feels weird and it's more cumbersome. I don't have the muscle memory. I miss shots that would be easy if I was aiming on the right stick.

Yeah after a couple hours it's not as bad but I'm left to ask... why do I have to adjust to something weird? I mean just for the sake of it... there's no pay off for doing it the weird way. It would have been incredibly easy to add the option to aim with the other analog. They just didn't do it. I think it was an oversight.

I never understood you guys who argue against it... I really have never understood the pushback. It would not negatively affect you "purists" in any conceivable way, or alter the gameplay in any way, aside from being more comfortable for people accustomed to 10+ years of aiming on the right stick.

Maybe you guys are just really fantastic and aiming... just equally awesome and comfortable with any control configuration... I'm apparently not. Kinda set in my ways a little bit, I guess. Don't particularly like to having to relearn how to play a shooter every time I pick up RE4.

Just sayin.
 
A lot of these are bad opinions. Useless characters? You mean the one for story development, change of pace and the other who you fight towards the end? I have a hard time quantifying what you are saying.

Oh, I'm sorry. Here.

Definition of USELESS
: having or being of no use:
a : ineffectual <a useless attempt>
b : not able to give service or aid : inept
— use·less·ly adverb
— use·less·ness noun

Krauser served only to give another boss battle (and a timed one, at that. Personal distaste here, but timed events need to DIAF. The QTE fight could have been done much, much better, but that's a symptom of the poor QTEs in the game, and not his fault) and Hunnigan, well she didn't do anything. At all. Ever. You could have completely removed either character from the game, and it wouldn't change anything except for irrelevant cutscenes.

Mike... who the hell is he? Why should I care if he's blown up? You never even see the dude. We have no more connection with him than Dario Rosso in Resident Evil 3, or Ben Bertolucci in Resident Evil 2. They all die, but at least in the situation in Raccoon City, Dario and Ben are seen as fellow survivors in a sea of death. Mike comes in full bore, right out of the latest Call of Duty, complete with thumping action hero soundtrack. And dies just the same.

Thinking further, Luis Sera could have been entirely written out of the story without affecting anything, as well.

Boring? One guy is a midget that looks 40 but was 20 something. Again, hard to quantify and react in an objective fashion.

You though Salazar was interesting? That's really... interesting in itself.

Anyway, we are introduced to several major (for the game) antagonists, and none give us enough reason to care about their status as villain.

Mendez looks kinda cool, but we see him in a couple of cutscenes and then kill him. Wasted potential on his part.

Salazar is a very poorly written bad guy (even by Resident Evil standards), whose entire schtick is a Saturday morning cartoon '"You will die... in this trap!" *hero escapes* "Oh, you survived that. But you will not survive.... this!" *hero survives* "Oh, you survived that. But you will not survive.... this!"' trope. His only redeeming value was his boss fight (which looked to toss what we know about Las Plagas from the entirety of the game out the window).

Krauser is introduced in such a way that we are supposed to be eagerly awaiting this apparent reunion. But it's a reunion we have zero attachment to. He shows up holding a grudge and I'm supposed to care why? It's akin to Luke fighting Darth Vader on the Death Star in Return of the Jedi - only that Darth Vader was never mentioned or seen in any fashion in the prior films. We have no reason to be invested in Leon's tussle with his "comrade". He initially appears as a standard beret-wearing military muscle man, but while he talks the talk, but never walks the walk.

Saddler is a wasted main villain. We have no history with him. He's some megalomaniac (no shortage of those in Resident Evil games), but it's hard to feel like his plans or actions pose any threat to anyone but Ashley. And who honestly gives a shit about her, anyway?

Cheap visuals? It was GCN when it released. Exactly one gen after the N64 and looked better than most games of the era. Maybe the trees on the side where you cannot access where cheap but who cares? I hate visuals for the sake of visuals. I'm glad they put effort into other things are were not preoccupied with 'graphixz'. If that bothers you, then a lot of games from the past must bother you,.

I'm the last person to call a "graffix hoar". I spend a majority of my playing time with decidedly retro games.

I don't think it's a bad thing, though, to demand a little consistency in visuals. I can play the original Resident Evil on my Saturn without even flinching. So when I see a game with a certain level of graphic polish, it's not unreasonable to expect that polish everywhere. Especially when it's cited as a game that *heh* pushed the Gamecube to it's limits. It didn't, but that's beside the point. It paints an incomplete picture. Why the hell is Leon's model so well done, but the damn trees or wall I'm walking toward look like such shit, even up close?

Predictable and easily dispatched enemies? It may have been easy but you can up the difficulty. However, I've been thru the game with the handcannon (5x) and never seem to be bothered by how easy it is.

Yeah, I played it on Professional 3 times just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating - it really is easier on "harder" difficulties. But maybe I'm just that fucking awesome.

QTEs? Some say all QTEs suck but these were done well, in comparison. And they were a small part of the equation. I would say, just enough variety to make you stay interested. I know where each QTE is and don't get frustrated.

They are still poorly done. I don't have a problem with QTEs much, but the button prompts should relate to the actions happening on the screen. Ever play the Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider games? They had a handful of QTEs peppered throughout. BUt they did something few developers consider doing: The button prompts correlate to the action. If Lara is depicted jumping to a falling pillar and that normal action isn't in her main repertoir of moves yet jumping is, it's a good idea to have you press the jump button to perform that action. Is she dodging to the side? You move the left stick to the side. It's brilliant, and all Resident Evil 4 has is a whopping two button combos that relate in no way to the action on the screen. It's a gameplay disconnect. That's usually a mistake developers strive to avoid.

Merchant and upgrade system? I liked the system in allowing you different ways to acquire upgrades at your pace. I enjoyed deciding what to buy, when to buy it.

That's cool. There's a better way to do it than plop some logic breaking merchant into a game, though.

In fact, the entire premise that someone is going to be concerned with grabbing cash during a survival horror experience strikes me as a bit too video gamey. And I'm a big proponent of the games as art theory, heh.

A focus on shooting/action? Is this your main complaint? Just curious?

Nope. But it a big one.

Ties to previous games? How is this something wrong? Do you have to tie every game to old games? Is it just RE?

If we didn't, would you be comfortable calling Devil May Cry by the Resident Evil name instead?

I do really, really despise how they manage to casually arm wave Umbrella away in the intro - you know, that series-long organization that was the source of all the problems? Chronologically, Code Veronica takes place before 4, and the end has Chris loudly delcaring that Umbrella has to go down.! This time they've gone too far! Rah rah! So on and so forth! So we start the next game with the big evil organization shut down by the government in a couple of voiced over still images and none of that really matters anymore because some dumb skirt needs rescuing.

Lack of tension? Even with the regenerators,

You're so over powered throughout the game that they never really pose much of a threat. And while I do think their fights lack a degree of tension, they are cool enemies. Perhaps the only "classic style" enemies in the game. There are a couple of Regenerator encounters that don't give you ample time to merrily blast away, so they remain soaring high points in the game.

the chain saw guys,

Always approach with plenty of room with which to deal with them. I've always seen people getting killed by these guys, and I have to stop and wonder how. My first time through the game ended without one having gotten closer to me than a single box car during the mine-cart sequence, and that was by virtue of him jumping in right there, not my failure to keep him at a distance.

There are some well done enemy encounters. These guys are active in none of them.

on the lake, with the controls?

On the lake... are you referring specifically to the Del Lago fight? It's a glorified QTE. How am I supposed to feel tension in one of those? Accidentally hitting A+X instead of A+B?

Some hated the controls and it's RE, what do you expect. But I thought they found the best balance of not making you overpowering and fighting off slow moving zombies.

I've never had a problem with the classic Resident Evil tank controls, even when the series used fixed camera angles. They work logically, and in Resident Evil 3's case, naturally evolved. I'm kind of shocked that Code Veronica, REmake, and Zero failed to make use of those improvements.

But I still found that RE4 provided too many opportunities at shooting slow moving distant enemies in large areas. Far too many encounters were set up so that you cannot be ambushed, you simply trigger the next wave, they walk slowly towards you, you shoot before they get close. I don't consider that balance. Moreso when you're still too strong with simple head and limb shots, even at the beginning.

Escorting. One of those things you either tolerate or hate. However, a decent change of pace.

If you say so. But Ashley is useless. She has to be directed to seek cover by standing next to it, first. She also will not attempt to evade capture in the slightest, even when standing. Props on her ducking AI, though.

Only ICO ever did escorting right. But that was because of the nature of it's gameplay. Resident Evil 4 is still a slower paced shooter. Not the right match for escorting.

Level design? Would love to hear which levels you hated or were a 'miss'.

If I were so inclined, I'd do a write up on the entire game, but I'll leave you with a top 1 of each.

Best: The opening village. Right? Everyone loves this part, and rightfully so. It large and open, and there is more than one funnel point, and there are abundant gameplay opportunities (rooftops, stairwells, doors, barns, towers, buildings from which to defend yourself). Yeah, there's a chainsaw guy here, but he's far too slow to make use of the environment. The real fun happens when hordes of Ganado start pressing their advance.

Worst: A large portion of the island fortress, from the moment you enter (near the kitchens) to the part where you rescue Ashley in the cell. It's incredibly linear, consisting of corridors for most of the trip. You can make a small deviation in the room before the monitor with Ashley on it, but it's a small one, with only two large armored soldiers (spread apart, not together) to spice up the fighting.

Not knocking you personally but when you say these were done wrong, I just want to hear more in depth arguments. A lot of these, I would argue against. Not to say everyone has to enjoy the game.

I don't believe I've ever said I didn't derive some enjoyment from the game. I've played it through five or six times, but that was when it released and so that I could get a proper feel for it. I couldn't believe there was another Resident Evil I wasn't absolutely in love with (the other being Zero). I thought there must have been something I wasn't seeing. I now see it's faults, and it irks me that people will gladly overlook or ignore them because they liked the game. I don't care how much I like a game, I can at least see it's faults, and I really have to wonder why this is a rare exception for most people.

Hell, I wonder if they can ever recover from RE4.

They won't, but only because people are still too in love with the shooting. RE4 made buckets of money, RE5 made buckets of money, and we can damn well bet that RE6 will make buckets of money. Capcom just isn't going to listen to the vocal minority that want the older style back. Because buckets of money are louder than a handful of disgruntled individuals.

I'm avoiding RE6 until I can buy it used, by the way. No point in contibuting to my grief.

However, we couldn't have done RE2 over and over again, the formula needed updating.

Why would they keep doing RE2 over and over, when RE3 and the REmake improved on 2 in virtually every single aspect? If anything, RE4 ties closer to RE2 than any other game in the series, with a distinct action vibe. I get that some can call Code Veronica a bad game (they are wrong because it's true genius lies in it's story-telling), so it probably isn't the best turn for the series to follow, but there was no real reason to abadon the roots so drastically.

Personally, I think the reduced horror and the focus on action/shooting put the previously
adventure game based series in a more favorable light for a lot of people, especially as shooters have been the dominant genre in the last decade. Made it more accessible, if you will, at the cost of it's heritage.


I don't hate RE4. But I do consider it the weakest Resident Evil and I'm usually very hesitant to even call it a Resident Evil game. It's an above average shooter with some pretty good production values throughout, quite a large number of noticeable hiccups marring it, and I feel (and this is entirely subjective, of course) that it is responsible for turning a fantastic series into merely a good one.
 
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