And, look, I know it was 2005, but I'm in an uncommon situation where I played Resident Evil 8/Village (RE8) before I ever played Resident Evil 4 (2005) (RE4), but...
RE8 is just a better, first-person, non-escort quest version of RE4. Right? I'm not the only one that feels this?
Seriously. Shockingly Clueless (and shockingly overskilled) Man looking for girl. Man invades town and makes locals' day a living nightmare. Overly Dramatic voiced cult-leader characters make the Man's day worse in response. Man has/acquires a Problem of a biological nature, cue narrative clock over their heads. Locals weirdly into obtuse and overengineered locking mechanisms. Non-hostile but alliegance-uncertain character briefly met and separated from, potentially repeatedly. A strange but strangely lovable, neutral, highly quotable seemingly-teleporting merchant. A Large Body Of Water and a Wet Beast. An Overtly Spooky House. Really fucking stressful survive-until-timer/wave-defense situations. Big Creatures against which you can use the environment.
There are meaningful differences, yes; graphical fidelity, better controls (esp in the case of RE4make), third-versus-first-person, obviously different lore/narratives/characters/locations, etc, but what I'm feeling, playing RE4, is...
RE8, and by extension RE4make, are very clearly more the game they wanted to make - they're... The same game, thereabouts, with refinements that weren't possible under the time/budget/hardware restrictions of 2005. RE8 clearly walked so that RE4make could run. Some questionable design decisions carried over (slot-based inventory just isn't necessary; just give things a number of slots they take up, and give us a total we can carry. Also, per RE4make, fuck your knife durability - terrible decision, immediately mod out, IDC what changes were made to knife gameplay, awful idea to create a situation where the player can't fight at all if they run out of ammo and knife ammo), but that's because it's a franchise/remake. They even let Leon move when he's aiming - gosh, what a luxury concept from a man that can deploy a spinning heel kick in life-or-death situations reliably enough that it's part of his arsenal.
I dunno, that's just what I'm seeing as someone who played RE8 first before either RE4 or RE4make.
I can't really put down a respectably stable opinion of RE4 until I'm done with it, but right now, what I get is 'this game was probably amazing in 2005, but I played Morrowind years before this, and I don't know if this would have been as amazing to me, even back then, as many say it is/was.' It's just so... Game-y. I clear an area, the music stops, I know I'm safe, aside from specific area setpieces. I room-load over and over to stock up on chicken eggs so I can buy all the items I can carry, and never have to worry about having enough healing on hand. I use different weapons just to keep the total ammo in my inventory in check.
Admittedly, when the real clusters of enemies start packing in, I do use a significant amount of the explosives I've found, which feels nice, but it's still a moment or a setpiece. The tension evaporates immediately once the area is clear and I'm at the end of the map. I look around for secrets and shinies, and a couple of logic interactions in each area (like the pearl pendant/pocketwatch and the dirty water, etc), and I move on. I'd love to say 'sure, that's 2005', but Morrowind Came Out In 2001, and it sure as shit didn't feel as Arcade-game-y as this. RE4 could almost be a rail-shooter and not lose all that much, honestly, except for an annoying amount of backtracking for secrets that really just amount to 'can I afford to make the game easier or not'. And upping the difficulty wouldn't help - that just requires more skill, it doesn't 'improve' the game if I have to count my bullets and do silly tactics like headshot-roundhouse-knifeknifeknife, etc.
I'm sure the whacky setpieces further on help really cement the game overall, and the bombastic nature of it all is what makes Resident Evil shine, but what tension and vibes the game makes in atmosphere, it tends to loses the moment I cross the music end trigger by killing the last enemy in an area, and I know I'm safe because of game logic. All things that RE8, and the RE4make handle better in different ways, whether by better control over tension through music and graphics, better spawning mechanics and dynamic surprise encounters like respawning some enemies when simply crossing a loadscreen rather than once per chapter, etc - many different things.
That's not to say being game-y is bad; I'm definitely enjoying myself. I love the feeling of clearing an area, and knowing it's clear until a specific and clearly defined moment. I love that I can buy a treasure map and see the collectables on my in-game map. I don't mind the backtracking if only because the areas are pretty small. I even appreciate that I can tell Ashley to hide in a rot-filled dumpster half the time until the fun is over, so I don't have to think about the fact that the game has turned into one long, arduous escort quest.
