The Legend of Resident: Evil of the Kingdom

“Or, Two Mini Blogs: A Quick Review of Resident Zelda: Tears of the Evil FOURRRR”

Well, this was going to be a travelogue photobomb thing about my trip to Greece, but I’ve been gone all week. And after what was perhaps the single most stressful day of travel I have ever had, 22 hours of nearly-missed flights and endless customs lines and planes that never seem to leave at the right time and literally running through the airport, we arrived back at my mother’s house around 8pm last night. I went to bed soon after and slept for approximately twelve (hundred) hours and awoke this morning (yes, this morning, Tuesday the 6th of June in the year of our Dog 2023) feeling like I had eaten a hundred kilograms of Greek yogurt.

I will not be writing the photobomb today. I will be taking it easy today. The Greece pictures will come next week, trust me. Today I am relaxing and sharing just something short about a couple games I’ve been playing lately, because the flight attendants know that’s all I did for the twelve-hour flight between Athens and Boston. Logan International Airport is perhaps the worst airport I have ever been to, and full of the least friendly people I have ever met (even by TSA standards!). That is not an exaggeration. But it is in Boston, so I don’t know what I expected.

Anyway, instead of all that, let’s take some time to figure out what makes Resident Evil 4 so special.

What Makes Resident Evil 4 So Special?

“What’re ya buyin’?”

I have never played the original Resident Evil 4 from 2005 (or as the game’s title screen says, “RESIDENT EVIL….. FOURRRRRRR“). I tried to, probably six or seven years ago when I bought the game’s first remake (technically just a port to PC but, still, it had some upgrades at the time). I booted it up, excited to play what many consider to be one of the most important video games of the 2000’s and see what all the fuss was finally about. And… it didn’t work. For whatever reason, the PC version experiences some awful slowdown bug that causes everything in the game to happen at half-speed. Now, you’d be forgiven if you thought this was some sort of joke about how Leon used to control like a tank and how he couldn’t aim and walk at the same time. But no, my version of the game was just quite slow. Unplayably so.

So I told myself I’d figure out which fan mod I needed to install to fix the problem (because of course someone has spent weeks or months of their life to repair this game; this is Resident Evil 4. Fan Dedication is unparalleled to anything except maybe DOOM and Skyrim). But I never got around to it, and I forgot about the game entirely. Then Resident Evil 8 came out, and I got hooked on that, and I thought, well, maybe I’ll go back and finally play 4. Then time slipped away from me, I got busy, Elden Ring happened, and Resident Evil 4’s remake was announced and I thought, well, maybe I’ll just play that instead.

I almost wish I hadn’t.

Not because the remake is bad or anything, but rather the exact opposite of that; the remake is so good that I can’t possibly imagine now going back to the original. I mean, every review I’ve read or heard has said that the remake is not, under any circumstances, trying to replace the original. This is very clear to me, as a player, too. This is a fundamentally different game, this 2023 remake, compared to the 2005 original. I get that logically, because the original game was just so utterly groundbreaking. It is not an exaggeration to say that RE4 (2005) chained the trajectory of video games as a whole; so many trends that defined the 2000’s and 2010’s gaming come from RE4. Quick-time events? You’ve got it, every game between 2005 and 201e was legally required to have a quick-time event. A move away from survival horror towards action horror? We wouldn’t see proper survival horror for at least another eight years. Over-the-shoulder camera controls? I forget, sometimes, that every shooter using over-the-shoulder camera controls (Gears of War, Dead Space, the new God of War, the fucking Last of Us, the list goes on) after 2005 practically owes its existence to Resident Evil 4. No modern remake could ever replace the impact the 2005 game had. And the remake isn’t trying to. And yet…

I am not the first person to say this; I’m getting it almost verbatim from someone who knows far more about RE4 than I ever will. The RE4 remake (the REmake4?) is a game that excels in every category, from controls to level design to content to graphics to story to presentation. It’s a kick-ass game, one I highly recommend. The one thing the remake doesn’t excel at, though, is making you understand why the original was important. Why the remake exists at all. And it can’t; that’s an inherently impossible task. Maybe if the 2023 game shipped with a small documentary about the cultural impact of the original, sure, then I’d get it. But you can’t bake that context into a video game. And, frankly, even the original game lacks that context. You could play it in a vacuum, think, “that’s a cool game,” and miss how crucial it is to video gaming’s history.

Here’s the thing; if I had played Resident Evil 4 five years ago, when I first attempted to play it, I’m not sure if I would have actually beaten the game. Because I wasn’t aware of the real impact of the game back then; sure, I knew it was important, but I didn’t know why. And robbed of that context, I feel like I wouldn’t have gotten it. While I can’t confirm this, I suspect that playing Resident Evil 4 (2005) back then (or even now, really) would be a largely uncomfortable experience for someone without the necessary emotional or contextual ties to the original. The controls would feel foreign, the graphics ugly, the pacing bizarre, and the more questionable story directions unsavory. But I have now played the remake and loved it so much that I feel I almost have to go back and see the original. You know, for science.

Because maybe playing the new REmake4 now has made me feel what people first felt when the game came out in 2005. Maybe? I don’t know; clearly it’s a modern game, and I know that nothing the remake does is groundbreaking or particularly original. Remake4 takes everything about gaming now and perfects it. It is the culmination of 18 years of iteration and experience since the first game came out; it is, perhaps, the game that RE4 wanted to be. But it’s also not that; the original is bombastic, explosive, exceptional in ways that you can’t replicate, that you wouldn’t want to replicate, today. So I’m torn here; now that I know what the new game is like, is it even possible for me to go back and play the original? Do I want to? Or will I be comparing it to modern Resident Evil, and unfavorably so? Why should I even bother? There are so many other games I could be playing instead. Like that new Dead Space remake; I never played the original one there either!

My first Legend of Zelda game was Twilight Princess. My favorite is (maybe) Ocarina of Time for the 3DS. Around 2016 or so, I went back and tried to play the original Legend of Zelda, on the NES. And when Majora’s Mask 3D came out in 2015, I got that and played it, too, because video game pundits/the internet have hyped up both (especially Majora’s Mask) for literally decades. And I found both games to be… ok? They were fun. I enjoyed Majora’s Mask’s dungeons, but the time loop cycle stressed me the fuck out. And I thought; well, what’s wrong with me? Everyone else loved these games. Why don’t I? I chalked it up to changing tastes, I’ve been spoiled by modern gaming conventions, and all that, and I haven’t touched Majora’s Mask since.

It wasn’t until this last year that I started reading people online saying the same kind of thing. Going back to games they loved as a kid was difficult, primarily because they didn’t get the same enjoyment out of them then as they did now, or perhaps even hated the games now. I’ve run into a similar experience with Mario Galaxy and Pikmin recently, games that were formative in my personal development and tastes. I didn’t have the same visceral emotional reaction that my nostalgia wanted, and that was a big let-down (at least Bloodborne still holds up, but that game’s less than ten years old).

And I wonder how many people love the REmake4 because it makes them feel the same way that the original did. Or, at the very least, elicits a similar emotional response, if not exactly the game. I can say with certainty that’s not why I love the game; I love it because the combat is tight, responsive, fluid, and incredibly satisfying. I love it because the Regeneradors are just as deeply unsettling as two decades of internet promised them to be, even though I knew exactly what to expect. But most importantly I love it because, despite its B-Movie plot aspirations, the characters made me feel something. I felt endeared to these bundles of polygons in a way that I haven’t felt towards video game characters in a long time. Why bother going back to the original now, if not just for cultural curiosity? It can’t hurt my impressions of the new game, certainly, and the possible benefits of playing another excellent game are high and the possible risks of just losing some time are low. It’s not even some sort of moral or existential quandry, and I don’t spend more than a minute or two at a time thinking about this; “should I play the old RE4?” It’s literally just a question of if I think it’s worth my time. You know, for fun. Because games are supposed to be fun.

But what do I actually hope to gain? What is this an exercise in? Building sentiment where there is none, because I feel jealous of people who have these long-standing nostalgic connections to something and I don’t? Spelunking into gaming’s past to help better understand its future? Trying to recapture some sense of innocence and youth because, especially now, I feel ever more sharply the further and further distance between me and my childhood? Further time from my home and my roots, further and further from what actually inspires me?

But this is all absurd. I’m well practiced in spiraling out of control and getting in my head and internalizing everything negative as somehow being my fault, as a personal failing, as something wrong with me. Literally, I will not think about this for more than two minutes going forward, unless I intend to write a proper essay about it. And I shouldn’t! No one should be this hung up on video games. It’s not like they’re a core part of my identity or something. Hm. Or that I spend an inordinate amount of my life playing and thinking about them. Hmm. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Hmmm.

Resident Evil 4 (2023) is great. It’s special because it is, quite possibly one of the most finely-tuned gaming experiences I have ever had. All killer, no filler. It is an exceptional game. But we live in world with dozens, hundreds of exceptional games every year and, in a sad, frightening way, this truly does make every individual exceptional game slightly less exceptional. As for what makes the original so special, well, I can’t quite speak to that. If I ever do get around to playing it, I’ll let you know.

But speaking of an inordinate amount of time spent thinking about games, here’s some additional thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom.

Additional Thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom

“HIYAH!”

I played Tears of the Kingdom for maybe 15 hours when I first wrote my impressions of it. Now, having had several extensive plane flights and ferry rides since then in two separate countries half a world away, I can say that I’ve played maybe… thirty hours? Forty? This sounds like a lot (and it is), but you got to remember that I was on a plane for twelve hours yesterday and had literally nothing else to do. I finished the two books I brought, anyway. But I only read them in the first place because my Switch was dead, so it’s a moot point.

Now that I’ve been able to explore some of Hyrule proper, and not just the one massive island, I have to say that what strikes me is how unfamiliar it all feels, and yet simultaneously how… bland it all is? That’s the not the right word for it, but let me elaborate; I spent a lot of time playing Breath of the Wild, and when I played that game I remember consistently thinking “this is one of the most surprising games I have ever played.” Going through Hyrule a second time now, Tears of the Kingdom still manages to surprise, but with less consistency and less pomp and circumstance. And perhaps this is because of the way I’ve been playing, scouring the landscape for treasure and getting distracted from my main goals to go find something inane, so I end up with a lot of tiny discoveries that don’t amount to very much instead of going to see the big spectacle stuff. This is the same issue I had with Elden Ring by the end, but for Tears of the Kingdom, it’s starting to set in much sooner.

Not that the game isn’t surprising. Gosh, no. I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m not enjoying it. I didn’t play it for twelve hours on a plane because I had nothing else to do; I played it because I wanted to. It wasn’t a desperate craving to play like I’ve felt before with other games (notably recently Resident Evil 8, actually), but I still have very much wanted to spend my time in Hyrule. And when the game pulls its cards from its sleeve, the payoff is intense. Spoilers from here on out.

There are a handful of moments that caught me so totally off-guard that I couldn’t help but grin. Going into caves and finding Like-Likes (I even recognized them from the old games! What an appeal to nostalgia!) and Horriblins were frightening experiences. Coming across a dragon (every game is better with a big fucking dragon) for the first time and getting my shit absolutely wrecked was wonderful. Falling down every well to find little ponds with fairies briefly transported me back to playing Ocarina of Time for the first time and stumbling across bombable rocks in Hyrule Field. Accidentally stumbling into a cave that just keeps going on and on and on and having no clue where I was going was exceptional. Falling into the underground and realizing that, holy shit, there’s a second world map down here and then accidentally stumbling across the biggest damn monster I’d ever seen was unparalleled gaming. And I finally got one of the first dungeons, the Skywind Ark Temple or whatever meaningless grab bag of words it has for a title. And hoo boy, I was so, so happy for about two hours.

Honestly, the game hasn’t signposted its dungeons at all. Unlike Breath of the Wild, which made a huge deal about its divine beasts and their interiors, Tears of the Kingdom gave no indication of whether or not there would be dungeons or temples at all. So I was, frankly, resigned to playing the game with the expectation that there wouldn’t be more traditional Zelda-style dungeons. But when I got to the top of the Hebra mountains, flying around with my bird friend, and realized that I had to climb a tower of floating blocks to get into the sky, I knew it was building up to something. And then when the winds started to howl and lightning lit up the distant storm, and I saw the silhouette of a massive fucking airship, my jaw dropped and I thought, oh fuck, I get to climb around on that. It was wonderful.

The dungeon itself was fine, I guess. It was too short for my liking, and lacked the puzzle-box quality of Skyward Sword or Majora’s Mask dungeons. It was, in truth, closer to the divine beasts of Breath of the Wild. But it had a boss battle! A proper huge monster with a “hit this three times” Nintendo Boss Battle! And suddenly I was back in high school, playing Twilight Princess again, or Skyward Sword, and I thought, “Yes, this is what Breath of the Wild was missing.” Everything that Breath of the Wild did, Tears of the Kingdom does but infinitely better. It’s weird to feel like I’m playing a mirrored, upgraded version of a game I played five years ago, hence the lessened sense of surprise I mentioned earlier. But playing TOTK and comparing it to what BOTW had and what it lacked, I realized something; this is what an open-world Zelda game should look like. This is what we’ve been waiting for.

That all being said, there are still surprising similarities between TOTK and Elden Ring. Lots of things that Elden Ring did (caves, a second underground map with crazy new monsters, etc.) TOTK also does, which is probably more just a coincidence than copying since they were in development simultaneously. But it bolsters my hypothesis that the two games are just two different interpretations of what a modern Ocarina of Time would be, especially because that’s another game that left an indelible mark on video games, much like RE4. And there’s the fact that, all things considered, I think I’m starting to prefer shorter games. I don’t think I want big open worlds anymore; I think I would rather have a shorter, condensed, single-minded experience (akin to RE4, once again) than a two-hundred-hour open world game that has thirty hours of mulling about in between every good bit of spectacle. I dropped the new God of War after about fifteen hours because, in that fifteen hours, I had progressed the plot exactly twice. Now, in Tears of the Kingdom, it’s been forty-five hours and I’ve progressed the plot a whole three times. This is… exhausting.

But, ah, well, I will keep playing the game. Because I know there are other dungeons. At least three of them. And I need to know if they’re bigger than the first one. Because that’s what I really want from a Zelda game, is the dungeons. They can get me hooked on temples and korok seeds and islands and the depths or whatever, but I’m here for the dungeons. And I’m going to find them, and no one can stop me. Except maybe the battery life on my Switch. So it goes.