![]() ![]() ![]() Leon’s even got a new mode of play: he can crouch-walk all over the place. Interesting combat encounters and environment design were always Resident Evil 4’s mouldy bread and curdled butter, and it’s only become better here. Of course, the best fighting system in the world isn’t worth squat if it’s not deployed effectively. Gruesome creatures are a mainstay of the RE series (Image credit: Capcom) Where else can you feel immersed in a one-on-one knife-fight? It’s a refined loop that makes for compelling mixed-distance combat (tipping the cap to Resident Evil 6’s best moments) in an action-horror wrapper that becomes fun simply to play around in. A mid-game fight, only a QTE-based cutscene in the original, now becomes a memorable boss encounter that sees you crossing blades for real thanks to the built-out knife mechanics. While simple to understand, combat’s deep enough to force you to think through your options and decide how you want to respond as you mix together ranged gunplay, melee attacks, and defensive knife manoeuvring. It’s durable enough that you can use it to cull enemy numbers or get out of back-to-the-wall situations, but not hardwearing enough to allow you to spam it non-stop, and requires just enough skill to ensure it’s satisfying to use. Your combat knife has durability that’s used up with each move, but can be repaired by the Merchant for a modest fee (though the weaker knives you pick up are irreparable and destroyed with use). Of course, as useful as it is, there’s a catch to busting out the blade. Here, damaging limbs feels much more natural, and therefore more instinctive to exploit (curse the skirt-wearing enemies though, as it’s harder to accurately hit their legs). Where before the limbs you’d target felt satisfying to pop, there was a blockiness to the action that made things feel a bit gamey. ![]() It all builds on the fast-paced combat from the original game, where you could blast weak points to stun enemies before hitting them with a melee strike. The classic Resident Evil 4 is remade perfectlyĮverything runs smoothly and at a solid, stable frame rate (Image credit: Capcom) And when an enemy starts twitching, you really want to consider closing the distance to make use of that finisher, lest something more dreadful erupt from inside them to pull the corpse back into the fray. Downed enemies are open to even more knife action, and can be completely finished off that way. Parry a regular attack at the perfect moment and you’ll briefly stagger an enemy, leaving them open for a melee strike with X, dishing out severe damage and sending them tumbling – ideally into a crowd of their friends. This is all on top of always being able to swipe your blade out in front of you when not aiming a gun to get some extra licks of damage in. You can even tap L1 to whip your knife out for a parry. When you’re grabbed, a whack of R2 offers a way to cut a path out of a sticky situation, but you can also sneak up on unsuspecting enemies and take them out with one stab, or stun them before circling around to do much the same. It’s an amazing mechanical addition that builds on the offensive and defensive capabilities the series has enjoyed to date. While knives and Resident Evil have always gone together as well as serrated edges and zombie flesh, a blade has never felt as core to your arsenal as it does here. ![]() If the Resident Evil 4 remake’s success was balancing on a knife’s edge, then it’s a good thing it’s Leon who’s in control of that very blade. The lighting and texture work in Resident Evil 4 is excellent (Image credit: Capcom) Resident Evil 4’s constantly striking the balance between allowing you to feel in control and making you feel like you’re on your last legs, through deft deployment of a series of escalating, tense encounters that builds neatly throughout the lengthy campaign. That’s before they call in their bigger mates or begin to transform, body-horror style, rising up swinging after taking a bullet between the eyes. They have a habit of coming down on you in large groups too, with all manner of improvised weapons (they’ll charge at you with pitchforks, throw axes, or simply try to wallop your noggin off with a scythe). To match his skills, even the most basic forms of Los Ganados feel much more dangerous from the off, sporting an intelligence that regular zombies can’t match. You feel the years of training he’s had since the events of Resident Evil 2 in how he plays, no longer the novice. Just as the original 2005 version of Resident Evil 4 felt more responsive to control than its PS1 predecessors, the leap from that classic to this remake feels similarly revolutionary, not just in how much slicker and more deliberate every movement feels, but in what the floppy-haired agent can do. Combat is more intuitive than ever before a next-gen upgrade (Image credit: Capcom) ![]()
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