Grimdark

 A new trailer as been released for the Resident Evil 4 remake, along with some gameplay footage. I am...dubious. 

For anyone who hasn't been playing videogames for awhile, Resident Evil 4 is not only one of the landmark games in the franchise, it's also one of the best videogames, period. After the remake was announced, I even went back to replay the original to see if it still holds up.

It does, but it isn't flawless. That's to be expected from a game that is 17 years old: Quick Time Events were the hotness back then and boy did they suck. They still do. 

There are also some pacing issues with quests that have the player looping back to previous areas that feel like timesucks. RE4 is LONG and these tasks make it feel long. 

However, these are pretty small hiccups in what is a lengthy, gleefully bonkers campaign. A remake of could certainly smooth the pacing issues out with little trouble.  

RE4 is also campy and I don't believe we should forget that. This camp contributed to RE4's success, because as intense as it got-and it got extremely intense-it never felt burdensome. There were times when it felt outright silly! 

Which was a good thing, because it helped keep things light and brisk, even when they were disturbing, eerie, or outright frightening. The player never had to endure any one thing for too long. 

Which brings me to the things we've seen so far. 

Everything is folk-horror shadowy, flickering lights that are sponged up by gloom, with a Leon that is very, very VERY serious. I don't know how the portrayal of the other characters will go-no doubt there will be changes for the better, like giving Ashley more personality than 'item to be rescued', and some that will be worse, most certainly everyone else. 

Luis was inappropriate but still charming in the original. A ne'er-do-well to be sure but still trying to do the right thing. In the brief trailer clip, he looks like a Jake Gyllenhaal in one of his creepy villain roles and he sounds skeevy too. 

The quick glimpse at the villains show a similar self-seriousness that is just worrisome. 

Because games shouldn't be a slog, damnit. They should be fun! And RE4 was able to be a bit crazed because of the tone it set. Now I'm concerned that a healthy number of silly, funny, charming moments won't make the cut. Worse, we'll have those moments cut and be left with a Leon who is equally dour. They haven't showed much of his personality in the clips so far.  

I hope I'm wrong. I would very much like to be wrong, and see a game that is as audacious in its remake as Final Fantasy 7 was. Some things that sucked, like QTEs have been replaced! There is a crossbow now and those are inherently dumb in a world with guns-but perhaps that's the point? I hope so!. Resident Evil 2RE was excellent and some of the same people are involved, and RE3RE was solid. So there's reason to hope...but maybe classics should be left alone. 

And that would be relevant if we could always go back and just play the original Resident Evil 4, in the same way that we can always enjoy the classic versions of movies or books. But videogames really exist in a certain point in time and their preservation is a weakness, honestly*. So I suppose I'll just hope for the best.

*In the case of RE4, this is less of an issue since it's been released for multiple systems over many years, but this is an exception, not the rule.