YMMV / Resident Evil 4 (Remake)

For YMMV tropes regarding the original, see its own YMMV page.

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• Accidental Innuendo: Leon while fighting Del Lago quips this: "Think you can swallow me whole, huh?"
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • With the heavy implication that the Las Plagas parasites are controlling Osmund Saddler like the rest of the Los Iluminados cult, a lot of questions arise about the parasites nature. Are the creatures going by instinct, influenced by human desires, or sapient beings that are a lot more intelligent than we are led to believe and actively using humans for their own ends.
  • Leon himself, surprisingly enough. While it cannot be argued that Leon has a strong moral compass through and through, the final chapters that see him carrying an unconscious Ashley to Luis' lab, fighting against his Plagas infection and repeating to himself "This time will be different... it HAS to..." begs a question: Is Leon still fighting to save Ashley both out of his duty to her and his growing camaraderie with her... or does he see Ashley's survival as redemption for his perceived "failure" to save anyone at Raccoon City and is chasing after that hope that he can finally save SOMEONE? Recall too that Leon is also clearly suffering survivor's guilt and his actions, particularly the fact that despite being on the cusp of succumbing to the Plagas infection, he still ensures Ashley is cured first this time, revealing that he NEEDS to save someone for once even if it costs him his own life.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: A smaller example where, given how much of a success the original was, and how the previous remake was handled overall, there was at least an inevitable amount of fans who thought this wasn't entirely necessary since it had a Tough Act to Follow and didn't need to change that much. Upon release, the game was met with reviews giving it either perfect scores or higher ones than the original, much to the relief of many who were now assured that the game was both Remade and Improved. Even those who don't think the remake is necessarily better at least put it on equal grounds with the original.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Capcom tried their best to avert this compared to the original game by nerfing certain features like breakable knives, inflating the rocket launcher price five times over and overhauling most of the previous boss fights so they're trickier to fight against, even giving many bosses second forms. However, some of them can still be like this if you manage to work around the curveballs. For example, while the layout of the map is completely different and more maze-like compared to the original, the fight with Verdugo is much easier because you can reuse the freezing cache again if you miss the last one, and there are more scattered across the arena, and you can find an insignia crown just prior to the fight that can just about pay for a rocket launcher provided you have the right gemstones onhand.
• Awesome Bosses:
  • The transformation of Krauser's first encounter from an iconic quick time event to a balls-to-the-wall insane knife fight, which the parry mechanic seems to have been designed around, is a tense, dramatic, and incredibly fun encounter.
  • Ramón Salazar is now a much more involved fight than he was in the original. Rather than merging with the Queen Plaga and a Verdugo to become a Stationary Boss, Salazar transforms himself into a highly mobile monster with a Flower Mouth and attacks Leon from all angles. The result is an intense battle that requires keen awareness of your surroundings and his deadly attacks, made even better by the operatic music accompanying it.
  • The second (and final) fight with Krauser, which plays out more like a Metal Gear boss battle than a traditional Resident Evil fight, is intense from start to finish, consisting of multiple stages, a maze filled with death traps, and Krauser switching up from fighting at a distance or up close with his knife at the first part of the battle while the latter has him transformed into his One-Winged Angel form. To cap it off, story changes make the fight a much more personal affair for the duo with the pair exchanging taunts and arguments the whole way through.
• Best Level Ever:
  • Chapter 1 can be this for most long-time Resident Evil 4 fans as the path and landmarks match almost 1:1 to the original's. From the Hunter's Lodge to the dramatic Village fight scene, to rescuing Luis from within the lakeside cabin, the level just drips in nostalgia as fans experience the remake for the first time.
  • Chapter 4 is the most non-linear chapter in the game, as the lake that originally just led to a Merchant spot with some treasure has been significantly expanded upon, allowing you to freely explore the lake for optional areas and treasures in addition to the primary objectives. This is also the first level to take place in the night, not only making the game much harder now that Plaga Guadaña can start to appear, but the calmer pace and rain also provide some great atmosphere.
  • Chapter 5 for those who still wondered whether Leon sent out those invitations to more than 50 people. The cabin raid is easily one of the best segments, back in the original and this REmake. Basically just survive alongside Luis who is nerfed so you cannot depend on him for "ammo saving"/"unlimited ammo" purpose as both Leon and Luis can be overwhelmed very quickly that way.
  • Chapter 11 is a thrill ride from beginning to end. The entire chapter is spent with Luis at your side, providing some great interactions between him and Leon, including a boss fight against two El Gigantes (which doubles as a rematch against the armored Gigante from Chapter 8) and a revamped minecart section that feels like it was ripped straight out of Temple of Doom, all of which culminates in the first knife duel with Krauser.
  • Chapter 13, to some, is a callback to RE2 REmake's ID Wristband level upgrading system. Aside from the Regenerators and military enemies near the end, it's mostly peaceful, quiet and revolves around electronic puzzles so this technically counts as a Breather Level of sorts.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Separate Ways opens with Luis performing a dance while in his prison cell at the castle, which is juxtaposed with one other inmate being stabbed to death by the Zealots. It is implied he was warming himself up to fight the cultists when they would come for him, but Ada shows up to break him out, rendering his efforts moot. And then he ropes Ada into an impromptu tango with him and she indulges him for a bit. After that, the whole dance is never mentioned again.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Most players have adjusted to the game mechanics and found out the most optimal strategy to beat the game:
  • Handgun ammo is abundant even on Professional mode, so some players just avoid crafting handgun ammo and save the resources for rarer ammo types or flashbangs. The Matilda with the attachment that gives it three-round bursts is pretty devastating on most enemies even without it being fully-upgraded.
  • Because of the cross-hair blur system, most players don't sell the starting gun. It, along with the Punisher, are the only guns that can hold the laser sight add-on. Similarly, players prefer the Killer7 over the Broken Butterfly for the reasons that it's the only Magnum in the game with a laser sight add-on, which significantly increases stability.
  • Players tend to avoid buying the TMP because once you purchased it, the ammo will start spawning, which replaces most of the more useful ammo drop like the Shotgun and Magnum rounds. Most players would also prefer to use the LE-5 due to being more powerful overall in a vacuum, the fact that it's compatible with a scope (meaning increased accuracy), and being free to acquire- being found in the freezer room on the island, right after the first Regenerator encounter.
  • Most strategies involved with getting S+ rank in Professional mode is to unlock the unlimited ammunition exclusivity upgrade for either the Handcannon or Chicago Sweeper bonus weapons to mow through the enemies from the castle onwards.
  • If a player has purchased a Golden Ticket and has unlocked the Primal Knife, Handcannon, or Chicago Sweeper, one of the first things a player will do is purchase their exclusive upgrade(s).
• Demonic Spiders:
  • The red-robed Zealot leaders have taken several levels in badass from the original. While the original versions were simply slightly stronger versions of the normal zealots, these guys can take a huge amount of punishment, can manipulate the Plaga in Leon to cause a huge Interface Screw and disable his ability to shoot for several seconds, and worst of all, cause any nearby cultists to immediately change into their Plaga forms. If you don't have several flash grenades handy when fighting these guys, you're going to have a bad time.
  • Regenerators are much faster than they were in the original, making targeting their weak points a lot harder and potentially wasting a lot of ammo. This, coupled with their long reach and ability to attack even from the floor, makes them highly frustrating enemies to fight. On top of all this, they are mostly fought in tight corridors with little room to maneuver.
  • Returning from the original, the Novistadors are just as much of a pain now as they were back then. The camouflage is a pain to pick out of a room when you're running in a panic. Their flying makes them hard to hit in large groups, especially when they zig-zag all about. Their attacks are quick, strong, and hard to avoid in close-quarters combat. They're not badly designed, just a pain to deal with every time you see them. To make matters worse, you only deal with them on three separate occasions in the castle (in the original), whereas they are present in far more locations in the remake, and can be summoned during the final boss to fight you in swarms.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Lord Osmund Saddler, who suffered from being one of the worst examples of Bond Villain Stupidity in gaming in the original game, manages to be far more sinister, intelligent and intimidating than his original counterpart. The fact that he's now a way tougher Final Boss adds to the awesome factor for a lot of fans.
  • Krauser not only retains his coolness factor from the original game, but his stronger characterization and history as Leon's mentor emphasize his role as a badass Evil Counterpart and Leon's deadliest enemy. It helps that he has perhaps the best fight in the entire game, testing every skill the player has learned throughout their journey.
  • Verdugo and Pesanta, Ramón Salazar's Co-Dragons, are just as cool and threatening as they were in the original game. Adaptational Expansion has also given both of them backstories that they previously didn't have and a bit more involvement in the story, making the fights against them (Verdugo in the main game and Pesanta in the Separate Ways DLC) that much more satisfying.
• Game-Breaker:
  • The Handcannon can be received early on by getting S rank in all stages of Mercenaries mode, but is limited by its ammo. Make it to the castle without spending any spinels while doing all the Merchant requests and you can immediately buy an exclusive upgrade ticket that will give it unlimited ammo, making the rest of the game a complete joke. What makes it constitute as this is the fact that, even on a completely new game, you'll have access to this weapon from the start, meaning you could go through even Professional mode with a powerful weapon that'll make getting an S+ rank all the easier.
  • Speaking of which, the exclusive upgrade tickets themselves are incredibly powerful one-time use items that instantly give any of your weapons their powerful exclusive upgrades. These tickets are balanced out by the fact that there are only two you can buy in one playthrough, one in the castle and one in the island, as well as being by far the most expensive items, costing 30 and 40 spinels respectively. However Capcom added the option to buy special tickets via microtransactions shortly after release, which are available right from the start of any new playthrough and give a ridiculous power boost as soon as you make it to the Merchant the first time.
  • Playing as Krauser in The Mercenaries is basically playing the minigame in easy mode once again, plus some balancing changes make him even deadlier than before. In the original game, Krauser is faster, tougher, and stronger than everyone else thanks to a wider knife range, overall higher firepower, and a special Plaga arm that obliterates everything in a straight line and with a lenient cooldown, the only downside being his limited crowd control power (outside of the Plaga arm) thanks to the compound bow having a slow rate of fire and only having flashbangs available as grenade drops. The remake changes this by turning him into a full on melee combatant who can rush down enemies upon enemies and potentially stunlock them. He can also perform quick dodges on top of parrying enemy attacks, which allow him to theoretically avoid all but few instances of damage. His Plaga arm is now reworked into a powered up form that temporarily turns him into an unstoppable claw-raving maniac whom you can use to mow down hordes of enemies, with the screen clearing dash attack being reserved as a finisher. To cut short, while everyone else in the roster plays like they rightfully belong in an action survival horror game, Krauser plays more like a powerful hack-and-slash game character. His only weakness is his old sniping option being turned into an explosive attack with limited ammunition drop, incentifying players to save up, and he only has one Mayhem crystal, so his aforementioned Plaga arm wouldn't last long.
  • Hunk returns in The Mercenaries and comes with only one firearm once more, but said firearm is the LE-5, which is superior to the TMP that Krauser gets in firepower and stability. What seals the deal is his Mayhem mode; it gives him temporary infinite ammo and clip for a set of time, eliminating the need to reload your gun, and has two Mayhem crystals, enabling him to go on prolonged rampages. He's now equipped with Boot Knives as emergency weapons, and his Neckbreaker now works against not just the Bella/Chainsaw Sisters, but also Brutes and even Dr. Salvador, allowing him to instantly kill more minibosses this time around.
  • Wesker returns with the free Mercenaries expansion, and he is absolutely busted. You know the badass Wesker from Resident Evil 5's campaign, and how he played nothing like that in that game's Mercenaries? Well, now, he absolutely does play like that, zipping and dashing around the arena for free and pummeling enemies while parrying any and all attacks with his bare hands. Yes, he can indeed parry any attack with his bare hands, including Super Salvador's double-bladed chainsaw. All his melee attacks can be initiated from long range, and they are all instant kills, and his super mode has him enter a combo attack frenzy where he becomes nearly invincible. This is by far the most powerful Wesker has ever been in a playable state. The only real downside to playing as him is that he starts with no healing items and only has a pistol and a magnum, but considering how he can very easily nullify damage and how much power he has even with no weapons, these two downsides end up not meaning much.
  • Oddly enough, dying in a round of Mercenaries. Because you retain your score when you get killed, you could easily rack up to 100,000 points to get an S rank, and still counts as a pass. And since getting the Handcannon requires getting an S rank in the first three stages, you could just get 100,000 points on those stages, die, and still get a rank by the end of that run.
  • The Classic attache case spawns extra gunpowder pickups, making it far and away the most useful of the different cases you can obtain; while the drop rate isn't so generous as to let you make huge stockpiles of ammo and grenades on a whim, it is enough to make sure you'll almost always have a sufficient amount to craft whatever you happen to be running low on. While it was a pre-order only item, it's since been made available for $1 on online stores.
  • The other pre-order attache case, the Gold one, is no slouch either; all it says is it increases the drop rate of pesetas, which is already a common drop, but with ONE key difference. Each proc of it gives you 1000-2000 pesetas, depending on which section of the game you're currently in^*1000 in the village, 1500 for the castle, and 2000 for the island, where normally most drops from enemies are in the 200-500 range when starting out. And if you get lucky, that'll quickly add up to where you can get upgrades for your guns much earlier on, especially if you also get the Merchant charm discount from the gacha game. Only caveats is that you might end up with less overall ammo, and also, like the Classic, it's a DLC item, so you'll need to pay for it separately (unless you manage to find a code).
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Any enemy that doesn't wield a weapon can be very annoying due to their tendency to favor trying to run up and grab Leon. Grabbing cannot be blocked like other attacks, so your only options are to back away, crouch, or stun them before they reach you. Making distance is not always easy in the more claustrophobic areas, but the latter option isn't ideal either since headshots are no longer a guaranteed stun. This is especially a problem on Professional difficulty, as what was an annoying but relatively harmless attack suddenly deals a lot more damage.
  • The Crossbow Ganados are even more frustrating in the remake than in the original. Not only do their arrows inflict a great deal of damage even with the body armor, but the new crosshair blur system makes trying to take them out from afar much more difficult unless you have the sniper rifle or a handgun with a laser sight attached. Even then, you have to deal with other enemies at the same time, so trying to take the Crossbow Ganados out at all requires taking out other enemies first while trying to avoid getting hit with arrows.
  • Plaga Arañas can be this as not only will they make the enemy go into a frenzy when they latch onto them, but they are also quite hard to hit when dismounted and scurrying towards Leon. They also can't be parried like the other Plaga types, making it recommended to keep a safe distance from them.
  • The Novistadors are just as annoying as they were in the original, with their jittery and overall unpredictable flight patterns making them hard to hit and can withstand more damage when flying this time around. Even with their camouflage being downgraded, you're still likely to be attacked by one of them for how perfectly they blend into the environment. Worst of all, Saddler will summon a whole horde of them during the final battle, meaning you gotta deal with both these annoying pests and an otherwise challenging boss.
• Harsher in Hindsight: When Leon first meets Luis, and Luis asks Leon if he has cigarettes on him, Leon tells him that they can kill him. Much later in the game, when Krauser fatally impales Luis, the last thing he does is take one last smoke from a cigarette with help from Leon right before he dies.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Of course a game where the plot revolves around rescuing a daughter of the President of the United States named Ashley would be remade while the U.S. actually has a President with a daughter named Ashley.
• Ho Yay:
  • Just as it was in the original, Krauser's antagonistic fixation with Leon is very intense to the point of coming off as amorous Belligerent Sexual Tension. Here, after you defeat him for the final time he requests Leon to finish him off with his own knife as he cheers him on, in a scene that is dripping with Does This Remind You of Anything?. Krauser goes so far as to refer to Leon's eyes as "pretty blues" and to say that he would be willing to do "anything to make the pretty boy (Leon) feel special" when Leon points out the lengths Krauser went to to set up their fight.
  • Leon and Luis' relationship in the remake has much more tension from the increased interactions they get. Luis is much friendlier to Leon while the latter treats him with annoyance than to begrudging cooperation. Their first interaction while chained up is dripping with this, from Leon yanking Luis close to him while lightly interrogating him to Luis assisting to destroy the pulley system in a rather suggestive motion. Additionally, while in the shooting gallery, Luis's idle animation is practically giving Leon bedroom eyes and a coy smile. Luis also refers to Leon as "Prince Charming" at one point and jokingly teases him to come rescue him.
• Hype Backlash: It was inevitable considering the high amount of praise the game got, but it has gotten a fair share of detractors for the very same reason. This is especially the case for fans of the original, who compare some aspects of the remake unfavorably to the earlier version.
• I Knew It!:
  • Leon asking the first villager a question in Spanish confirms what many fans have guessed for years; namely that Leon knows at least some Spanish. It wouldn't make sense that the notes left behind by the Los Iluminados would be written in English given the story takes place in Spain, which would indicate Leon can translate the notes in his head. For what it's worth though, Leon's Spanish pronunciation is not excellent.
  • Glimpses of the footage of Leon and Krauser's fight in the trailers had some fans theorizing that he would be the one to kill Luis in the remake and not Saddler. This was eventully proven to be the case.
• Iron Woobie: After the events of Resident Evil 2 (Remake), Leon was traumatized by the events, and had nightmares about it, which explains his sullen demeanor in this game. Even training with Krauser and joining his missions that nearly killed him was the only thing that helped keeping his mind off of Raccoon City. Despite this, he powers on to save Ashley Graham and save her and himself from the La Plagas parasites in them so they can be cured of them.
• Jerkass Woobie: Krauser is a huge dick and a murderous bastard, but it's also made clear that he is not what he used to be before Operation Javier. His platoon was sent on a suicide mission to South America back in 2002, where he saw his comrades get systemically slaughtered until he was the only one left, and the U.S. government, rather than honoring their sacrifices, choosing to cover up the whole affair. Traumatized by this incident and furious with the bureaucracy's corruption, Krauser tried to seek justice for his fallen comrades but his efforts proved fruitless, leading him to join the Los Iluminados in a desperate move to get stronger so he could exact his revenge, only to fall deep into meaningless pursuit of power for the hell of it, becoming a shallow husk of a man. In the end, you're just there to put down the old soldier to rest.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Osmund Saddler is the leader of Los Iluminados ("The Enlightened Ones") and host of the Las Plagas parasite who forgoes his original iteration's hypocrisy and cruelty. A Well-Intentioned Extremist who seeks to spread Plagas across the entire world in order to unite every human under his control and rid the planet of evil, Saddler charms his way into Salazar Castle in order to get the sick Ramon to help him acquire the Plagas hidden underneath his castle, spreading it amongst the villagers under the guise of curing their madness as a way to control them. Having Jack Krauser kidnap the U.S. president's daughter Ashley Graham with hopes of using her as his secret plant to spread Plagas, Saddler also has Leon injected with Plagas in order to gain control over him. Coming close to succeeding multiple times, upon encountering Leon for one final battle, Saddler proves himself defiant till the very end, a firm believer of his cause who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals of a utopia.
  • Bitores Mendez, the village chief, is one of Osmund Saddler's top servants whose brains match his brawns. A devoted follower of Saddler who has dedicated his life to fighting off the heathens who dare oppose him, Mendez plants traps, defensive fortresses, and surprise attacks to defend his master. Luring Leon into a trap and knocking him out, Mendez injects a sample of Plagas into him in order for Saddler to eventually take control of him. Frequently besting Leon during their encounters, Mendez's loyalty to Saddler fuels him enough to where he will allow nothing to stand in his way, leaving his mark as Saddler's greatest henchman.
  • Ada Wong. See this page for details.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Leon, stop that blade!"^ExplanationThe fact that Leon can now parry chainsaw attacks using his knife immediately evoked comparisons to the first boss in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, where Raiden pulls a very similar stunt with his katana against a Metal Gear RAY. Videos of that scene in the gameplay trailer set to "Rules of Nature" were up on YouTube within hours.
  • "Say the line, Leon!"^ExplanationOften a common response to fans waiting for this game's cast to directly quote some of their more memorable quotes from the original game, mainly kickstarted by Leon's famous "Where's everyone going? Bingo?" line still being in the remake.
  • Uncharted Evil 4^ExplanationPeople have compared the mine cart sequence from the castle segment to be something very reminiscent of an Uncharted scripted sequence. Not that most fans consider this a bad thing.
  • GLORIA A LAS PLAGAS!!!^ExplanationAs explained above, the red-robed Zealot leaders are much bigger threats this time around. Hearing the line they shout at the top of their lungs as they activate their abilities means that you're in big trouble, and the memorable and delightfully creepy delivery of it has given it memetic status.
  • Mouse Ashley^ExplanationIt's become a trend to depict Ashley as a little mouse Funny Animal in fan art after a fan art depicting her as such due to her prominent ears and high-pitched voice took off. Even the official Resident Evil Twitter account has acknowledged this meme, to which the artist took notice.
  • Bear Trap Simulator.^ExplanationBear traps are more numerous and harder to see in the remake, and Ganado can even put down more bear traps in the heat of battle. First-time players will be stepping in a lot of bear traps.
  • You can get some treasure if you shoot the lake!^ExplanationLike with the original, Del Lago pops up out of the lake if you shoot it enough times, giving you an instant Game Over. Fans of the original had a field day making posts "informing" new players about such a bold claim.
  • "HE SAID THE THING!"^ExplanationA frequently said phrase in the chat of streamers when the opening village attack ends and Leon says the famous "Bingo" line.
  • Adam Sandler^ExplanationA statue and a mural in the island sanctuary reveal that the original founder of Los Iluminados and the Big Bad's ancient ancestor is called Adam Saddler. While the name is probably supposed to have more religious connotations with Adam and Eve, many players naturally started making jokes about Osmund being related to the similarly-named actor, with some even starting to call him Adam Sandler.
• Narm: As usual, the series has its own page.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The convention of marking important objects with the color yellow has become the subject of parody and debate among gaming journalists and fans, even though it's definitely not new to this game and goes all the way back to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.
  • A stealth kill mechanic was previously featured in Resident Evil: Revelations 2.
• Questionable Casting: The news that Lily Gao will be voicing Ada Wong in the remake, reprising her role as the character from Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, raised some eyebrows among some for various reasons. The first is that Gao isn't experienced in voice acting, which is considered to be a different ballpark from performing in live-action. Many are also concerned that Gao's performance will have a hard time matching up to Jolene Anderson's in Resident Evil 2 (Remake), which had received critical acclaim.^note Many speculate that Anderson does not reprise her role in this game because she's been unionized and that Capcom was unwilling to pay extra to get Anderson back. Come release, Gao's performance has elicited a mixed reception among players, with detractors criticizing how Ada sounds monotone while those who defend the voice acting claim that the monotone voice suits Ada as a character given her stoic, secretive personality compared to other characters. While some people feel she did a comparatively decent job in the Separate Ways DLC (she emotes a fair bit more in her internal dialogue and when talking to herself, with the monotone apparently being a deliberate choice in the presence of others), they still feel that her overall performance is still lacking compared to Ada’s previous voice actresses.
• Remade and Improved:
  • The main game has received near-universal acclaim from both critics and fans for not just being an all-around polished and competent remake, but one that significantly improves every aspect of the original RE4, with gameplay, presentation, and level design receiving the most praise for putting more emphasis on atmosphere and horror while not losing the adrenaline-pumping action and empowering feel that made the original title so fun and memorable. Even the writing has been lauded for having more effective drama and more believable interactions between the cast of characters, doing away with the old game's Narm-filled cheesy '80s B-movie plot in favor of a Darker and Edgier story with proper pathos (though there are those who prefer the old campy approach). Even many of those who prefer the original game consider the remake to be on par with it in terms of quality.
  • Similar praise was given to the remake version of Separate Ways for the amount of effort that Capcom put into giving it quality of life improvements over the original, which in comparison received heavy criticisms for mainly reusing areas and the few new ones being of questionable quality (such as the infamous battle ship) while adding very little story material. The new Separate Ways not only offers more gameplay content and much better level designs, but also more thoughtful storytelling through its nuanced and humanizing characterization of Ada, along with a further expanded role for Luis; features that the original game severely lacked.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Ashley. From both a gameplay and characterization standpoint, her remake incarnation is seen as a vast improvement over her original Damsel Scrappy self, easily seen as the Damsel in Distress perfectly executed. While you still need to escort her here and there, she no longer has her own health bar and her vulnerability instead comes from being incapacitated (from which she can either recover completely or die with another hit) or captured and taken away by an enemy (following which Leon has to kill or stun the enemy to free her before they get away, which again allows her to fully recover), eliminating the need to spend precious healing items on her, and enemies are smart enough not to accidentally hit her this time. Ashley is also a lot more proactive in the plot, much less bratty and overly-reliant on Leon, occasionally helping him whenever she can and even saving him several times throughout the game. It does help that the most frustrating parts with her in the original game (the water room and the wrecking ball room) are vastly reworked and designed to be much less frustrating. Finally, the voice actress took many of Ashley's infamously annoying voice clips, most notably her infamously annoying "LEON! HAAALP!", and gave her own performance with them that has far more emotional impact; this is especially true of her Mission Failed animation when she's carried away by an enemy, where her final scream of Leon's name was universally considered incredibly horrifying to hear. Most players said they went from annoyed hearing her screaming for help in the original, to actually regretting not being able to do enough to save her in the remake. It's a testament to the game's quality that she went from the definitive example of a Damsel Scrappy to a character so beloved that audiences want to see more of in future installments.
  • The Punisher was one of the least-liked pistols in the original game, namely due to its lack of punching power and very niche use on fighting shielded Ganados. The remake buffed the pistol a lot, retaining its piercing power while the laser sight add-on also gives it a good bit of edge compared to other pistols. Those who aren't fond of the aiming sway and the crosshair blur that the game had will appreciate this gun more as the laser sight essentially mitigates the former and completely eliminates the latter problems. Though the laser sight can also be used on the default handgun.
  • The Mine Thrower makes a return as the Bolt Thrower, which instead fires silent, recoverable bolts. While not ideal for fighting crowds, on harder difficulties the weapon does wonders when fighting just one or two enemies at a time, since you can conserve ammunition for harder fights. Making more bolts is a cinch just requiring one large scrap and a breakable knife, and you can also craft or occasionally find explosive racks to make use of the mines should you wish to make the weapon more like its former self. Its silent nature also makes it ideal for employing stealth attacks, and more importantly, makes it vital to fighting the noise-reliant Garradors.
  • Between the two magnums, the Killer7 was always passed over for the Broken Butterfly in the original game, as the former's supposed advantage of handling and reload speed seemed negligible when the latter's insane firepower made it a more effective and efficient weapon. The only thing that held the Broken Butterfly back was that its exclusive upgrade was crazy expensive, ultimately giving the Killer7 (which didn't even have an exclusive upgrade for whatever reason) some advantage over it when fully upgraded. Come the remake, the statistics and aiming mechanics now favor the Killer7 as the upgrade over the Broken Butterfly, as its laser grants more accuracy, while its new exclusive upgrade increases the crit rate, making it a more consistent damage dealer.
  • Leon's outing in The Mercenaries has dramatically boosted his effectiveness from the original. Back in the 2005 version of The Mercenaries, Leon was easily the worst character to play as. His melee attacks were mediocre, he lacked the many unique assets of his peers (like Krauser's arm charge or Hunk's instant kill neckbreaker), and his loadout was terrible, with just a single handgun and shotgun. This gave him no real way to kill the high-tier Demonic Spiders that roamed the maps, causing his scores to often be quite low. Thankfully, the remake's Mercenaries mode has made him much stronger. Not only does he now have a Stingray to properly round out his kit and give him a method of killing high-tier enemies quickly, but his Mayhem Mode boosts his mobility and damage to huge levels. Even better, Mayhem Mode also makes it so that every point of damage he deals rewards him with points, which includes individual pellets from his shotgun. A single shotgun blast in Mayhem Mode can reward him with thousands of points, making it a viable strategy to save it for a big horde and farm a huge score incredibly quickly. This lets Leon remain competitive in score with the other Mercenaries.
  • The "Separate Ways" campaign does as much as it can to humanize Ada again and restore her likable qualities from the original continuity. It also establishes that she's quite capable of expressing emotions, but her flat monotone when speaking to others is a deliberate choice to seem more detached and professional, rather than Ada's actress simply phoning in her performance as the main campaign makes it appear (likely a Retcon, but hey; it means they're trying).
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • An interesting case for the lack of a pre-existing mechanic making a scrappy of the situation: consistent staggers. A sticking point with a lot of veteran players is that you can shoot Ganados several times in a row, even in the face, and there's a completely random chance of them staggering to the point that they'll often die before they actually get staggered. In the original game, a good headshot was near-always a stagger that you could follow up with a melee attack or to buy time, but here with more aggressive enemies and less overall ammunition, this makes it a lot more difficult to get through some of the nastier encounters and requires a drastically different approach. Even worse, stagger chance is affected by the difficulty; Assisted will be almost like the original game, but if you go up to Hardcore or Professional, enemies not only take more punishment but will tank bullets like crazy, making direct encounters far more dangerous than they would've been with the old mechanics.
  • Another problem with changes from the original is that Ashley, with the Escort Mission design, is considered something of a pain here more than she ever was back in 2005. Before, you could either tell Ashley to follow or wait and there were frequent hiding spots for her, but here, all you can tell her is to stay close or hang back a bit further. Ashley tends to then wander around a bit on her own, including running directly in front of Leon potentially, which means she ends up in the path of danger a lot more frequently — especially during the Castle portion with the explosive trebuchets, where she simply cannot be kept back from the hell that ensues. While there's a saving grace that she lacks a health bar now and instead is only downed by non-fatal damage to be easily recovered, it feels like a band-aid solution as if the developers knew she frequently ran into enemy attacks, and another hit will kill her stone cold dead in this state, a problem if another trebuchet boulder happens to be coming along.
  • The gacha machine for Shooting Gallery rewards is, needless to say, not very well-received. All rewards from using tokens are randomized per run, and specifically for that run from the beginning (for each combo of tokens, like 2x Silver 1x Gold, or 3x Silver, or 3x Gold), meaning that Save Scumming is heavily nerfed, as you only have a limited amount of results, and advancing one combo's lineup doesn't seem to advance the others. So, if you want a specific buff from a specific charm, all you can do is pray to the Random Number God for salvation and hope you get it. The one saving grace is that Gold tokens can be infinitely purchased from the Merchant, but those require three of the otherwise rare spinels each.
  • While the crafting system has been, overall, tolerated, one aspect of it that's gotten a lot of flak is the chance to craft bonus ammunition. It is completely random, although it can be savescummed, but this leads to the frustrating situation of only crafting at typewriters and constantly reloading saves to maximize ammo crafted, which you will likely be doing if you are playing on harder difficulties due to ammo scarcity. There are charms to increase the chance to get a bonus... which require you to use the gacha machine mentioned above, which cannot be savescummed. So, if you fail to get the ones you need in your run, you'll be stuck reloading saves even more frequently to craft ammo.
  • Overall, the jewelry-setting mechanic is pretty cool, letting you choose combinations of gemstones that add on to the treasure's value and even multiply it. The problem is that even if you loot every possible treasure and gemstone in the game, the number of objects that need rectangular gems is always much higher than the number of rectangular gems available to find, with most of what you'll get coming at the mercy of incredibly stingy Rare Random Drops, leaving you with an excess of half-completed treasures and round gemstones until you finally say "screw it" and offload them for a lesser windfall.
• Scrappy Weapon:
  • The Striker shotgun is seen as unfavorable compared to even the basic shotgun. The blast radius of the gun is way too wide and too unreliable to hit anything in mid-range, forcing you to get up close just to make sure it can land a shot. The gun also loses its former saving grace: the Ditman glitch from the original, and its movement speed increase when equipped is only marginally useful and not enough to dodge enemy attacks, especially when you can just parry most attacks with your knife. On another note, its exclusive upgrade got nerfed from being able to hold 100 shells to just 48.
  • Despite being a very useful secret weapon in the Chainsaw Demo, the TMP is much less useful in the main game, especially compared to its original incarnation. It's far, far less accurate, with a huge bullet spread, making it much harder to use it for melee setups like in the original game, especially compared to newer and better options like the Bolt Launcher. It doesn't help that even with the stock, which you have to obtain by spending hard-to-get Spinels, the aiming sway and target radius is still too wide to be reliable. Its biggest strength (fighting helmeted Ganados) from the original game also gets downplayed here, making the weapon even less reliable and more niche as a result. Furthermore, once you get the LE-5 later in the game, it's made even less useful, as it comes with an included stock and allows scopes, lowering bullet spread to miniscule levels and increasing crit rate, not to mention a piercing effect that makes it more effective at crowd control. The one upside is that the LE-5 is available very late in the game, so the TMP is the only SMG available for the majority of the time. However, most players will simply just spend money on upgrades for their other weapons and not use an SMG until the LE-5 is available, especially since doing so increases ammo drop rates for their other weapons (which are based on the weapons currently in your inventory).
  • Once you get two out of the three unique, upgradeable knives and have built them up, the disposable boot and kitchen knives become redundant because all three unique knives are more durable, deal more damage, and fill both roles as defense items and emergency melee weapons. The disposable knives also pile up rather quickly in the inventory screen, making it impractical to keep collecting them save for using them to craft more crossbow bolts.
  • The CQBR Assault Rifle is not commonly used compared to the normal Bolt-Action Rifle and the Stingray, for one simple reason: it falls into Too Awesome to Use, since it burns through rifle ammo at an incredible rate- and rifle ammo is hard to find. This is somewhat alleviated once you get infinite ammo, making the CQBR much more useful, but considering that you have to beat the hardest difficulty under 5 hours and 30 minutes on a fresh save, you are basically just goofing around after that. Many players just choose to unload it at the nearest enemies then sell it off at the first opportunity.
  • Despite its sheer power, the Broken Butterfly is generally considered a poor magnum for one major reason: its accuracy is extremely poor unless you are able to aim for a pretty long period of time without moving to allow the aiming reticle to shrink. This means unless you are able to stand around for about 3-4 seconds without moving at all, you won't be able to aim particularly well with it. And given how scarce magnum ammo is, you want to be landing every shot. The Killer7, on the other hand, has a laser sight on it, allowing for pinpoint accuracy which by itself makes it already leagues better. And more subjectively, the Killer7's unique upgrade gives it x5 critical chance which applies to boss weak points, so if you are able to consistently hit those with it, its damage can theoretically be even higher than the Broken Butterfly's when both are fully upgraded. This contrasts the original game where the Broken Butterfly was preferred for its sheer power since the Killer7's advantages of stability and capacity were meaningless in comparison, especially since the Killer7 didn't even have an exclusive upgrade. The Killer7 aside, The Handcannon suffers from the same accuracy issue as the Broken Butterfly, but it gains an infinite ammo exclusive buff, effectively making the Broken Butterfly the least helpful of all three options.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike:
  • Unlike the previous two remakes and the original game, where enemies could be hardy but were able to be stunned and disabled fairly consistently as well as having fairly predictable AI in marching straight for the player, this game showcases just how terrifying the Ganados could really be by having them plan and strategize against Leon. From setting bear traps just out of view, to the sheer aggression as they gang up on you, to trying to flank the player from a blind spot without announcing their presence like the original game, the opening village encounter alone amps up from a mere action slice Wake-Up Call of the original to an intense set piece even veterans are having difficulty with from the Chainsaw Demo. Combine that with actual resource scarcity, where players have to manage their supplies and carefully pick and choose what to craft, and you can't just expect to breeze through this one. The only things tilted in the player's favor are that Ganados aren't as Made of Iron as they were in the original, even on the toughest difficulty level (most individual baddies are downed with five pistol rounds or less, as opposed to ten or more), your melee and knife attacks do considerably more damage, and you have a parrying mechanic that helps to avoid even certain One-Hit Kill attacks.
  • The comparison also applies to Resident Evil Village. While both games are actionized sequels of the previous ones with more emphasis of combat, this game is much less resource lenient compared to Village, as you can no longer buy ammo from the shop, there are multiple currency units which some items are locked behind, less ways to gain currency from exploration and combat, and enemies are a lot smarter and they're able to strategize against Leon.
• Shocking Moments: The first extended gameplay trailer shocked many by showing it was now possible for Leon to counter Dr. Salvador's chainsaw, an unblockable One-Hit KO in the original if he got too close, by blocking it with his knife.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: The Shooting Gallery has been overhauled and is now pirate-themed, features a funky remix of the iconic flamenco music from the original game's opening, and offers rewards that can give you significant gameplay perks. It's very common for players to sink a lot of time into it due to how addictive and difficult it is to perfect it and earn all the rewards.
• So Bad, It Was Better:
  • A subset of Spanish speaking fans actually liked the bad Spanish in the original for its unintentional comedic value and were disappointed to see it replaced with a more regionally accurate version in the remake.
  • While some of the famous memes from the original have made it into the game, not all of them have. Some fans were also disappointed at the more "serious" take on the characters. In particular, Salazar, while still hammy in his own right, is a much less cheesy character overall, and as a result Leon is also less quippy towards him and takes him more seriously.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • While the game looks overall stunning thanks to the RE Engine, the raindrop effects in the gameplay footage were not well received due to how visible they looked, appearing like white streaks in darker environments. Some even went as far as nicknaming it "milk rain". Post-release, the rain had been fixed to not resemble white streaks.
  • The laser hallway in Separate Ways is beautiful and well done, and the scene of her slowly falling apart if you fail the sequence is horrifying, until you notice her hair was left untouched by the laser cutting through her head.
• Squick:
  • When enemies are blown in half by powerful weapons, you can see what are clearly plagas tendrils moving around and not intestines, showing just how infected the once-human enemies are.
  • Whatever is constantly spewing in the "water chamber", it clearly isn't just water, being a nearly opaque, purplish-black, viscous and chunky liquid with some kind of scum floating on the surface. Not helping the matter is that one cutscene shows Los Iluminados force-feeding a similar-looking vile liquid to Ashley as part of the Las Plagas ritual. A file hints at it being used to help breed the Novistadors.
• That One Achievement:
  • One of the in-game challenges is to defeat the Del Lago without missing a single shot, which is difficult even on Assisted mode since the monster's movements become increasingly erratic as the fight goes on.
  • The "Capacity Compliance" achievement requires reaching the clock tower without the lift ever stopping. This is more difficult than it sounds since the Zealots appear from literally every angle around you and it can be difficult to pinpoint their exact locations.
  • The "Minimalist" challenge can be this too since it requires players to only use their handguns and knives. However, this restriction also extends to magnum weapons and throwables like grenades or the egg, meaning players have to go through the entire game without any crowd control options for dense, populous areas like the Water Hall, and also fight the bosses with nothing more than the handguns and knives available.
  • Getting an S rank in all the shooting range games is incredibly difficult since it requires getting near-perfect scores, which tends to boil down to luck due to the wide spread of some of the weapons and the usage of bullet travel (where bullets actually take time to reach the target and may even experience bullet drop).
• That One Boss: Due to the massive change in game mechanics compared to the original, namely the breakable knives (which at least you can repair and upgrade), the massive Nerf that the disposable rocket launcher gets in this game (the size increase in the inventory screen, the price increased to 160,000 pts compared to the original's 30,000 pts, over five times the original's price), some of the bosses from the original are a lot harder, to note:
  • Del Lago is one hell of a brick wall on Professional difficulty. Not only does his health slowly regenerate over time the longer you take to dispatch him, but he gains a new attack in this difficulty where he leaps straight up from the water and comes down directly on top of Leon; not even hitting him in the mouth can prevent this, and just two of these attacks is enough to guarantee your demise. Did we mention that unlike in the original, the boat itself has its own "life" meter now instead of using Leon's health bar, so when you take on damage you can't do anything to recover it? Lastly, also unlike the original, the remake doesn't offer signals as to where the Lago is located when it dives under the water, meaning you have to look on your own.
  • The dual Garrador fight before Verdugo not only has a much smaller arena, but the cultists surrounding it now respawn constantly and won't stop swarming in until some point after both Garradors are free from their chains. The Garradors themselves are placed apart from each other, so you can no longer aim right in the center with a rocket launcher and finish both off in one shot. If you were thinking you could coast along by using the Bolt Thrower to silently kill the cultists and not engage with the Garrador until you were good and ready, one of the final waves features two enemies with shields, and afterwards cultists who will manifest Plagas just to ensure you're having trouble. The one saving grace in this battle is that it is entirely possible to weaponize friendly fire against your enemies, as the Garrador's melee attacks can be used to easily kill off enemy Ganados and even damage each other as well. Lastly while lower difficulties featured multiple bells in the room that can be shot or knifed to distract the Garradors, Professional difficulty has only one bell. Good luck!
  • Your first fight with Krauser qualifies. You're forced to fight him with your knife(s) and he will relentlessly rush you down, forcing you to parry several times before you have a chance for an opening. If you haven't gotten used to the parrying mechanics and/or been neglecting your knife upgrades, you're in for a rough time.
  • Salazar's boss form is significantly more dangerous this time around, as he now constantly whips around the arena, making it difficult to get a bead on him, and once he Turns Red he will prioritize closing in on you for his One-Hit Kill devouring attack. That is, if you don't catch onto the Boss-Altering Consequence of pelting him with a golden egg.
  • Saddler is no longer a pushover compared to the original game, as he's now faster, has longer reach, and now hops around the arena to disorient players, and there's also much less traps you can utilize against him. He also spits a fast-firing black sludge if you're trying to camp him from afar, and midway through he will summon a flock of Novistadors to accompany him. If you think the fight can't get hard enough, he will also eventually destroy some platforms across the arena in order to limit your movement. Funnily enough, despite Saddler getting a new One-Winged Angel form that was not present in the original, its actual battle sequence is far less intimidating to get through: all the player needs to do is unload on the very wide and open weak spot while dodging easily avoidable tentacles long enough for Ada to drop the rocket launcher in for the final blow. And should you happen to die in this phase and you're not playing on professional, the game auto saves here so you can just immediately try again without having to start the whole fight over.
• That One Level:
  • The "Water Hall" from the original makes a return, and it's just as frustrating; Zealots just keep coming and coming and are armed with everything outside of guns, there's even less space to maneuver, and you have to protect Ashley the entire time. One mercy granted over the original is that the lower level has a few dead-end walkways where you can put your back to the wall and keep enemies from sneaking up on your six, but you also run the risk of getting boxed in and overwhelmed if you don't have any weapons with good knockdown power.
  • The section where you play as Ashley isn't terribly difficult and is thankfully brief, but nonetheless requires being quick as Ashley has no access to weapons and must deal with a whole swarm of infected suits of armor. And unlike the original, Ashley has no health bar; it's an instant game over if she ever takes a hit. This is especially true when playing on Professional mode, where autosaves are disabled. Thankfully, any challenge this section has completely evaporates if Ashley wears the unlockable armor outfit, which makes her completely invincible.
  • The mine cart section where you and Luis must travel via minecart to get to point A to point B, and you have to shoot obstacles and enemies on the way. Sounds easy, right? Except unless you are playing on the easiest difficulties, your minecart has a health bar, and it will take a lot of damage if you're surrounded by enemies with crossbows and a Dr. Salvador. Just to seal the frustration further, you have to use Luis' Red9 handgun and not your more powerful guns like the Handcannon (or even your own Red9 that's likely upgraded to be better than Luis'). Don't even try actually killing Salvador on the hardest difficulties; just shoot his cart until it gets destroyed.
• That One Sidequest:
  • The Shooting Gallery in general is a lot more challenging in the remake than it was in the original, requiring a lot of luck with the weapon spread, in addition to requiring perfect scores to get all rewards. The gallery also introduces players to the concept of bullet travel, where bullets actually take time to reach a target and can even exhibit drop to gravity. Given how unwieldy or even outright inaccurate some of the provided weapons are, they can make the Shooting Gallery sometimes downright unfair.
  • Shooting Gallery 2-A. You're stuck with the TMP, the most inaccurate weapon in the game, and made to blast your way through 46 pirates and 7 skulls under an extremely unforgiving time limit that pretty much forces you to roll the dice shooting outside the TMP's accurate range. Add in a bunch of sailors to punish mindless spray and pray further and you have a very messy time.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The fact Ashley is much less likely to die from injuries has been seen by some as a mechanical downgrade; due to the tension and resource management it created in the original by having to manage her health with your own healing items. Others, however, welcome the change, as it alleviates what many regarded as one of the original's most frustrating mechanics. What isn't as welcome is the removal of telling Ashley to wait, as now she follows Leon unless explicitly hiding in a locker, which can make various fights significantly harder in Remake.
  • Some veteran players also made complaints over the fact that Ashley isn't wearing a skirt this time around (she is wearing a Skort).^note basically a pair of shorts that looks like a skirt from the outside, but is just functionally a pair of shorts This also meant that they removed her panty-shots, and the voice clips where she complains about it. Other long-time fans couldn't have cared less over its absence, and felt the panty-shots were little more than a juvenile joke to begin with. Given the Resident Evil series isn't known for particularly sexual situations, its removal had no effect on gameplay.
  • While the voice acting changes are generally considered necessary on the whole due to the two-decade gap between releases, the Merchant's voice has been criticized by a few for not being as charmingly Camp as the admittedly Tough Act to Follow original, though some find it enjoyable in its own different way. Similarly, a lot of fans are not as keen on Krauser's voice, which changed from Evil Sounds Deep to a debatably less intimidating (and to some, even irritating) Evil Sounds Raspy. Meanwhile, Ada's new voice performance has gotten some flak for it's more cold tone (though some fans defend it, arguing it's more fitting for her character) and for Lily Gao's performance overall being directly compared to the more well-received portrayal Jolene Andersen provided in Ada's previous appearance or Sally Cahill's original sultry performance in the original versions of 2 and 4.)
  • Some fans criticized the removal of the boss monster U-3 due to Capcom previously promising to not cut any content out of the remake, and because many fans found it scary in the original game. However, the note titled "Chronicles of Pursuit 2" reveals that the Verdugo in a black cloak who was sent after Ada is actually named U-3, all but confirming that Separate Ways will feature the familiar boss fight, though other fans believe that cutting it was the right decision due to how out-of-nowhere the fight was with no build-up. Lo and behold, Separate Ways did indeed feature U-3 as a boss fight and even made it into a recurring threat throughout the DLC.
  • The removal of a lot of the original game's iconic lines has been met with some derision, especially since Leon saying the "Bingo" line in the demo gave them hope that they were going to either stay the same or tweak them a bit much like Barry's "Jill Sandwich" line in the original Resident Evil's remake.
  • While the remake's version of The Mercenaries was well-received, a number of fans were disappointed by Ada, Wesker, and the Waterworld stage not being included initially. These were eventually all added back in a patch that came with Separate Ways for no additional charge.
  • The remake adds a much higher emphasis on serious horror, and plays it up in both major and minor ways. Various characters are played more seriously and threatening, certain outlandish sequences have been removed (like the dragon statue room) or significantly dialed down (like the robotic Salazar statue being much smaller and much less mobile), and various additions like the village having a lot more gore and bone decorations or constant evidence of graphic ritualistic sacrifice. This is also played up in the gameplay, as enemies are less responsive to gunshots, no longer wait for the player to see them first or for another enemy to stop attacking, and the mere addition of stealth sections, to say nothing of additional touch ups to already scary scenes involving certain enemies like Novistadors and Regeneradors. While this undeniably alters the cheesy action movie tone dramatically and has its detractors, it also found many supporters, who believe that the remade RE4 fits in line with the classic survival horror games much better.
  • One mechanical change that was made is that upgrading ammo capacity on a weapon no longer fills it up^note In contrast to both the original game and Resident Evil Village, which was noteworthy as using several gameplay mechanics from the latter. This isn't a huge deal for most guns, but it does push magnums even further into Too Awesome to Use. Previously you could plan your magnum usage around upgrading its capacity, allowing you to get more use out of them, but now you only have whatever ammo you find or craft. And crafting magnum ammo is a rather expensive use of gunpowder.
  • The Broken Butterfly's reload in the original was incredibly satisfying and stylish, but the remake version is reloaded like any other break-action revolver. This is especially noticeable since the Merchant still has his line about how reloading is just as important as shooting.
  • Not a lot of fans were pleased that the P.R.L. 412 was cut from the remake, seeing as how it's regarded as one of the best and most iconic weapons in the entire franchise. While its removal was perhaps to compensate the fact that you now have access to infinite ammo, which is already a pretty major Bragging Rights Reward in and of itself, it's still a particularly jarring change since all the other bonus weapons (the infinite rocket launcher, the Handcannon and the Chicago Typewriter) were included in the remake, and can certainly make the latter two weapons' exclusive upgrades of unlimited ammo feel incredibly redundant.
  • The complete absence of Leon's RPD and Ashley's Pop Star costumes. Them not being in the base game when Leon's Gangster and Ashley's Armor costumes are (which weren't the original unlockable costumes as they were added in later ports) comes across as an odd decision on Capcom's part, especially since in Leon's case it'd be so easy to implement because all that's needed is to re-use his default costume from the RE2 remake. Leon's RPD uniform eventually did make it into the game, but unfortunately, the prerequisite for unlocking it is similar to unlocking the Handcannon in the original: Getting at least S+ rank on all Mercenaries stages with all available characters, making it quite the Bragging Rights Reward.
  • While fans appreciate that the Del Lago easter egg is still in the remake, some fans complained that it actually looks worse than the original. In the original, Del Lago eats Leon in a seamless sequence (relative to the normal gameplay perspective) so it works as a effective jumpscare for people unaware of it. But in the remake it instead triggers a cinematic with a POV of Leon getting eaten by Del Lago, which ruins the effect.
  • While this is more on the technical side, some fans have complained that, when seen side-by-side, a lot of the scenes come across as having a completely different style (aka a Hollywood horror remake vs the original's B-movie camp), in particular the pre-boss cutscenes, with them saying that they prefer the more “stylish” approach of the original over the remake's “safer” direction.
  • The game changes the localization and script to be in line with modern day sensibilities and values in regards to women, continued from the altered Quest VR release. Leon in particular heavily tones down the flirting with lines (such as "Tch, women" and "story of my life") altered and entire parts like the infamous "ballistics" scene removed completely. Of course, there's accusations of "bowing" to censorship from certain circles, however with a lot of attention towards workplace sexual harassment, Leon's old lines come across to many people as creepy, as does the original game allowing the player to look up Ashley's skirt. There's also the fact they look even more out of place with Leon's much more melancholic and serious personality in the remake.
  • Dr. Salvador's new kill animation, in which he impales Leon through the chest or back with his chainsaw. As horrifying as it is, some players take a "less is more" view, preferring the original's quicker, simpler decapitation. The Mercenaries Docks Stage brings back Super Salvador and his one-kill decapitation attack to mitigate this or please the old fans.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A minor case of backstory, but there's several files around the village segment that speak of a grandfather and his rather brilliant-for-his-age grandson who winds up orphaned when the grandfather passes away. It's not until later on that the picture of the two together reveals their last name as "Navarro", which is Luis's surname in this continuity. Astute players catching this breadcrumb will likely assume there to be a backstory added with regards to Luis's presence in the village, hinting at a past with the village and the Ganados themselves in addition to his role as a researcher, but this is the last reference to this minor backstory and it goes no further from there.
• WTH, Costuming Department?:
  • Not everyone is impressed with the selection of bonus costumes in the Deluxe Edition that require additional cost to obtain, with most of them being over-designed and anime-like to the point of looking silly, in contrast to the more simple, but very sharp and badass outfits from the original, like Leon's classic R.P.D. and gangster suits. The latter of which is, thankfully, included in the base game, as is Ashley's suit of armor. And the former eventually was brought back as an unlockable following the release of the Separate Ways DLC.
  • While Ashley does have a "Classic" version of her outfit (to the point where she's even doing the same pose as her original RE4 render), it's basically just her new outfit but without the jacket and she's also missing her sweater around her neck and is still wearing stockings, so fans of her original outfit are disappointed with how lazy it looks (not unlike Ada's "Classic" costume in Resident Evil 2 (Remake), which consisted solely of her default outfit with the trenchcoat removed).
  • Unlike the "Jacket" outfit which lets Leon keep his bomber for the entire game, Leon's "Shirt" outfit will still show him wearing the body armor if you have it equipped, making the alternate outfit almost entirely pointless after Chapter 1 compared to just leaving his costume set to the default.
  • Despite it bringing back Leon’s classic R.P.D. costume, Separate Ways didn’t bring back Ada’s classic red qipao from the original, instead, while she does get a dress, it’s a weird combination of a dress that’s half-red and half-black with black stockings, which doesn’t resemble the original at all and the abundance of black is not very fitting for Ada since her costumes are supposed to be mostly red. The fact that her RE2 outfit is present and without any changes just makes this decision all the weirder.
• The Woobie: Ashley goes through absolute hell in this game, with the remake particularly emphasizing how terrifying of a situation it is for a normal every day person in a world with bio-weapons, parasites, and viruses. She gets kidnapped by a cult who injected her with a parasite that will eventually take her over, has to escape the village with the help of Leon and find a means to remove the parasite. Unlike the majority of playable characters in the series, she has no combat experience whatsoever and the only thing she can do is scream, run for her life, hide, rely on Leon for protection, and maybe chip in here and there with puzzle-solving or chucking the odd flaming lantern at an armored Plaga.
• Woolseyism: In the Brazilian dub, Leon's Pre-Mortem One-Liner against Saddler has him saying "corpo sangrado" ("bloodied body") instead of "corpo sagrado" ("holy body"), with such a pun fitting really well with the moment and Leon's personality.

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