If 2 can surpass the original than it's not hard for 4 to.
It didn’t surpass the original.
I think a good improvement for me would be RE3R/Village style point progression. Like challenges that lets you accumulate points for new game plus goodies.
The original is nice and all but most of it is just accumulating money or finishing side stories like Separate Ways. I dislike that the Handcannon is locked by 5 starring everyone in mercenaries as well. I love mercenaries but I don‘t particularly like main campaign stuff being locked behind a bonus mode. Keep them exclusive with each other.
I would love more costumes but please lock the mafia/knight costume from new game. Professional mode is like 50% easier when you use that combo costume in a new game. Make it only usable in new game plus. Also please allow us to go straight to professional mode without beating normal mode which unlocks the aforementioned costumes.
Some stuff I wish would return or just allude to them retconning or making the sequels canon is the OG RE3 style epilogue bits just to make replaying more worth it. Like maybe even add epilogue stuff for Hunnigan, Ada, Ashley, Wesker, and maybe even HUNK since he’s there at mercenaries mode.
Other small stuff like rebalancing the mine thrower since I think it’s pretty useless. The best thing you can do with it is buy it so you can sell its expensive ammo and never use it. Matilda as well since for a new game plus unlock, it honestly has worse bullet economy and you can’t even make it have infinite bullets for such a resource hog.
Not sure if it’s good or bad but I like having the armored vest upgrade. It isn’t available in Professional difficulty because it makes it easier but maybe allow us to keep the look. I think it looks great visually so I’m bummed out I can’t use it on higher difficulty. Maybe allow it to be an unlockable costume instead?
Some other minor stuff that’s more like nitpicks for me is the camera I guess. Sometimes it’s too close and sometimes it’s so far back. It honestly depends on the enemy type in that area like it pulls back out if you’re like fighting an El Gigante and closer for just ganados or something but I would love a more consistent camera distance.
Those are the stuff at the top of my head.