Resident Evil 4 – Again!
By my count, this is the fifth time I’ve beaten Resident Evil 4. I’ll simply never forget my first time on the GameCube – and that chainsaw death. I followed this with the PS2 game, and later the Wii game which, by all acounts, was the easiest of them all. The remaster on the PS3 and now on the PS4.
But on this last playthrough, I wondered to myself, why precisely I was doing it again. I found it curious that on both of these Playstation versions, I paused. There was a significant delay between certain trophies. After saving Ashley and before defeating Bitores Mendez on this playthrough, I stepped away for seven months. As surprising as that might be, the lapse was 3-and-a-half years back on the PS3. Evidently that middle section is my least favorite.
So back to the question: Is this really one of the best games ever? Five playthroughs suggest yes, but that middle bit gave me pause. However, the flurry of trophies as the game ends on both the PS3 and the PS4 show that I just blasted through the finale. The level design is smart, the bosses are challenging but not overly dumb (as is the case with certain games) and it balanced the tiptoe beginning with an action-packed ending. Resident Evil 4 is not a top-10 game ever IMO. But it is a top-20 game and that’s not half-bad. I’ve definitely spent too much money on this game, but it’s OK when the final product is that fun, with satisfying head-shots, intense anxiety due to those effin’ Regenerators and tremendous sound design.
Perhaps after two Nintendo systems and three from Sony, I may have completed it for the last time. At least, until the remaster on the PS5!
Oh, and just checking out those trophies made me think, “I must’ve taken a picture from the last time I beat the game! I did – and the stats are significantly different! I’m certain pause time contributed to the lengthy duration of this latest run, but, I couldn’t have paused it for that long!
