All of the changes you've mentioned would make RE4 substantially worse and more identical to other 3rd shooters
it's painfully obvious that the first act (the village) was far more polished and thought out than either the castle or the island
No it's not
RE4 is a very nicely paced game
There's no section where the game noticeably drags on or rushes that pacing
It's knows exactely when to build-up and when to pay off
And each chapter of the game equally well designed
If got this notion that that the last 2 chapters are somehow underdeveloped compared to the village, because they ditch more and more the horror and replace it with action, then let me tell you something...
That was completely intentional
The game is supposed to become less about you surviving and more about the enemies surviving you
In fact the last act of every RE game is always more action focused than the previous 2 acts
To quote the director of RE4 - creator of the franchise himself:
Shinji Mikami said:
To me, survival horror is a balance between a scary kind of gameplay and the challenge of overcoming that fear. You get a sense of achievement out of that. The fine balance between those two is what makes survival horror.
https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/0...me-out-of-the-commercial-failure-of-re-remake
That's why, even in the classic games, there are boss figths and the final hours are full-on action levels, chock full enemies and spectacle
RE4 was never designed around fighting enemies that predominantly wield ranged weapons
If it wasn't designed around enemies with long range weapons than they wouldn't have put them in 2 thirds of the game
And no enemies don't predominantly use long range weapons, most of them use melee weapons
At most you get a handful of crossbowmen in a arena filled with close quarters fighters
Then there's the fact that many of the weapons in the game are not worth buying/upgrading and there's a very predictable and "optimal" loadout.
???
RE4 features a very small variety of weapons
You have 5 handguns, 3 shotguns, 2 rifles, 3 magnums, 2 submachine guns and some 4/5 special weapons
With the "broken" weapons and upgrades all behind completionist challenges
Those weapons have different properties in their respective categories that doesn't necessarily one better than the other (except of course for the "broken" ones) and you can only buy said wepons after many chapters past
So saying that one is not worth investing because later in the game you get one that better suits your interest, is even more idiotic than saying that mid tier weapons in RPG's are useless because you get acess to high tier ones in the late game
Finally, and on a more subjective note, the control scheme needs some work. Leon should be able to move around (slowly) while aiming,
Glad you said subjective because that would be one of the worst possible changes you could make to RE4
It would be like removing tank controls from God Hand
RE4 combat is mainly about positioning and crowd control, that's why aiming is so "high commitment"
The enemies hitboxes are precise (even kinda small), plus there's no hitscanning and their animations have so many antecipation frames that when the player gets hit it's entirely his fault
Then the levels are so spacious and full of different elevations, branching paths, cover and choke points that if the player gets cornered, again it's entirely his fault
So by making Leon nimble and giving him the ability to walk during aiming, you would completely remove the challenge of the above paragraph
and there should be controls that allow swapping weapons and grenades without having to constantly pause the game to go into the inventory.
Agree on this
