The easiest way to explain this is on the example of battle arenas. The combination and constant change of levels gave the original its main rhythm – an attempt to throw out the old locations or replace them with something completely new could quickly turn into a failure. But Capcom did not leave them intact in the remake either. The answer to the puzzle turned out to be on the surface – to change the angle from which the player looks at everything. Now some levels appear in mirror image. Where there was an end before, there is now a beginning. Individual sections have added depth to the lower and upper floors, which slightly change the approach to navigation, but leave it familiar enough that you can remember from memory what each of the sections requires of you.
This, however, does not mean that the remake does not include completely new and original episodes. They are there and distributed throughout the story campaign, taking on different forms. Let’s say that in the first third, shortly after the collision with the inhabitant of the lake, Leon has free access to the boat. A small ship is needed in order to visit two locations, and in the order convenient for you. This provides a certain level of freedom, along the way offering to get acquainted with optional content. In the original, you also had a choice in the process of obtaining the key to the church – the game allowed the passage of two parallel routes with its own obstacles. The remake expands on this idea and adds new sections to it – ones that never existed in the 2005 version.
But what remained almost untouched in the remake is the process of obtaining new weapons and their overall progression. As before, on medium and hard difficulties you start the game with a standard pistol. A little later, in the village, a shotgun rises in one of the houses. Further, a rifle, a submachine gun and a crossbow are bought into the inventory (it was not in the original, but in fact it is an alternative version of the mortar). Gradually, alternative options appear for each of the guns, the collection of pistols increases, the beloved Red9 is in place, and you can still (and should) attach a stock to it.
Pistols, automatic weapons, rifles, shotguns, two magnums and a crossbow are ideal for solving all combat missions. Small-caliber pistols are the main workhorse, stunning and biting off health from opponents, TMP allows you to effectively control the crowd (although in the remake the benefits of automatic fire are much less useful), the shotgun offers to take risks and let enemies get closer, in return providing you with devastating damage, and the rifle, at the cost of a rare ammunition is capable of depriving the head of some angry grandfather. You spend magnum on bosses or get it in a fit of desperation when you can’t solve the problem elegantly.
The biggest departure from the original game’s design norms is the reimagined role of the knife. In the 2005 release, the blade had a fairly utilitarian and understandable use – it was most often used to break barrels and boxes in order to save ammo. They could also add stunned enemies and aggressively pick one of the last bosses – if they managed to think of such tactics. But in the cutscenes, Leon wielded a knife much more actively – he threw it, parried attacks, escaped from the trap. In a word, the knife was far from the last character in the narrative. In the remake, the sharp blade was turned into a full-fledged gameplay unit, on which several new mechanics are tied at once.
The first moment is the parry. It seems like an overkill to describe such an obvious system, but in case you have never played action-oriented games and just for the sake of integrity of the material, this can be done. When an enemy initiates an attack in Resident Evil 4 Remake, the game includes a small time window during which you can try to counter the enemy’s actions with a knife. If you manage to press the button in time, Leon will repel the attack, the durability of the blade will be used up, but the character’s health will remain intact. If the button can be pressed just in time, literally before the attack from the enemy, Leon will make a “perfect parry” – he will repel the attack thrown at him, and also stun the enemy, making him available for context-sensitive finishing.
Such a simple gameplay feature significantly transforms the gameplay. First, the game gives you the right to make mistakes. If the enemy got close enough to strike, then you did something wrong. But the situation can still be corrected – to parry the attack, strike a counter blow and change the coordinates of your position. Secondly, the game offers an additional layer of depth, allowing you to use your limited arsenal even more effectively – now you do not need to spend ammo to stun enemies, you just need to accurately catch the animation timing and switch to attack mode. It is noteworthy that you can parry not only melee attacks, but also most of the throws and shots – a random ax will no longer overtake you in the heat of heated battles.
The second moment is contextual finishing. There are several of them in the game, and, as follows from the description itself, they completely depend on the gameplay context. Suppose now the game has the ability to predetermine the “birth” of the Pluga parasite. Having dealt with the enemy, you may notice that he begins to convulse – if you manage to run to the lying one, Leon will pave the way through the neck of the monster with his blade, thereby completely neutralizing him. This consumes the durability of the knife. You can cut and recumbent opponents, or monsters leaning against the wall after an accurate kick. As well as zombies under the effect of stunning flashbang grenades – here associations with The Evil Within suggest themselves. It even seems that Sebastian performed such a maneuver with a very similar animation. In general, if the enemy is stunned, then the knife is more than applicable to him – this principle does not lose its relevance in fights with bosses.
You can also contextually use the knife in the new version of Resident Evil 4 in order to quietly eliminate opponents. Stealth elements were never in the original game – this is an innovation created specifically for the remake. Do not expect that you will be able to clear entire locations, the game does not allow you to do this. The idea of the authors was that with proper skill and the presence of a knife (or auxiliary “disposable” blades), players can provide themselves with a slight advantage before it comes to loud shooting again.
The updated knife also has an impact on the game economy. The nameless merchant remained the main tool for obtaining new types of weapons, as well as improving existing guns. The knife can also be improved, and it also needs to be properly repaired, which takes a significant part of the money found. You accumulate a fortune by collecting coins and treasures from locations. The latter, against the background of the original, received certain changes in the principle of their work. As you collect treasures, you will notice that some of them require the installation of special gems. The stones themselves are divided into several types – there are six in total. Installing stones in treasures in various combinations affects the cost of jewelry when sold, thus allowing you to receive more money if you carefully studied the levels or spent time solving one of the optional tasks.
Optional content is expressed as merchant requests. If you remember, in the original farm and graveyard game, you were required to destroy some blue medallions, and for completing this task, a nameless seller promised some kind of treasure. In the remake, the principle is the same, but apart from shooting medallions, you now need to do other things – look for special items, catch rats, or destroy especially strong opponents, conditional mini-bosses. The tasks are all small and solved in literally five to ten minutes of game time, however, they motivate you to return to already explored locations, where new paths or opportunities open up, and also offer their own unique rewards that the merchant is ready to give you for a separate currency in the form of stones .
The presence of Ashley is also called upon to encourage players to re-visit previously studied places. In the remake, they tried to give the companion a little more autonomy, allowing her to perform more actions on her own – the girl can now go up and down the stairs without your help. Also in the remake, there are several places where Ashley is able to help Leon get to the closed areas of the locations. In the original, there was exactly one example where Ashley found contextual use outside of plot progress – in the castle, you could pick up a magnum by unlocking a closed door from the back. There are more such scenarios in the new version.
In the combat sections, taking place with the participation of Ashley, the dynamics have changed somewhat. The girl had two behaviors, but they were corrected. It is now impossible to completely leave Ashley in one position, as it was in the original. Instead, you ask your companion to either stay as close to Leon as possible, or give him room to maneuver and keep a greater distance. Ashley also does not have a separate health scale – she is able to survive exactly one missed hit, after which she falls into a state of critical status. At this point, you need to get to her as soon as possible and get her on her feet, since any other point of damage automatically leads to loading the checkpoint. Sometimes enemies will try to kidnap Ashley and drag her to the other end of the location. Since the game world is no longer divided by loading screens, the distance that is allowed to be separated from the girl is displayed as a conditional scale next to the health indicators – if the context bar is filled to the maximum, then the game also returns you to the last checkpoint. It is noteworthy that before the release, in one or several interviews, representatives of Capcom emphasized that in the remake Ashley can no longer be hidden in dustbins. This is true, but only partial, since some scenes still allow for the possibility of completely hiding the president’s daughter from any danger – just instead of garbage dumps, there are now vertical lockers.
Sometimes it seems that the gameplay systems play along with you, trying to take Ashley as little as possible into their focus, focusing attacks mainly on Leon. But even under the most successful set of circumstances, you still need to consistently and accurately think about your positioning – take an aiming position that will allow you not only to keep all opponents in sight, but also to be confident in the safety of the rear. Quick and fun to change positions will not work, and shooting on the move is almost out of the question – Leon is too slow. From the point of view of criticism, the issue of managing the main character in the remake and the original in the foreseeable future has a chance to become the hottest. And it’s all about the fundamental gameplay systems of the old game and attempts to carefully modernize them.
In the original, Leon cannot move and shoot at the same time. By pressing the aim button, the hero cocks the weapon, and the control layout switches to shooting mode – now you are immobilized and vulnerable. But at the same time, the ability to shoot gives you the main advantages – you can quickly get rid of enemies, or temporarily disable them with accurate shots at limbs or other weak points. In such a model, taking damage by a player signals one of two errors – you took the wrong position or took too long to aim, the third is not given.