Is there a more unnecessary remake than Resident Evil 4?

The video games industry's obsession with remakes and remasters is pretty obnoxious. I feel like I'm stuck either playing no new games at all, or playing nothing but games that I played 20 years ago. Of all the remakes that have been made, Resident Evil 4 might be the most unnecessary. Resident Evil 4 is basically the game on which every modern over-the-shoulder shooter is based. The original Resident Evil 4 still plays like a modern game. On top of that, it's been remastered and ported to newer consoles, including having VR versions.

But I never played the VR version. In fact, I haven't played any of the VR versions for the new line of Resident Evil games. I keep hearing that they're some of the best VR experiences on the market today, but I didn't have a VR headset when 7 or Village released, and I just haven't gotten around to going back and replaying those games now that I have a headset. So I decided to give the VR version of RE4's remake a try, after a friend of mine was done with his disc.

So this review is going to be almost entirely a review of the VR version of the remake, since that's how I played the game.

Slower, and more methodical than I remember

I never liked Resident Evil 4. It's frantic, explicitly challenging gameplay full of "gotcha!" encounters, and its parodic tone never really gelled with me. Moreover, I've always blamed Resident Evil 4 for single-handedly killing the classic survival horror genre, which happens to be one of my favorite game genres. It took well over a decade for proper survival horror games to start coming back, but even so, they still aren't quite the same. The slow, methodical pace, and emphasis on resource-management and logistics has been minimized in favor of fast-paced shooter action and frequent checkpointing.

I went in expecting to be overwhelmed and frustrated, which was largely my experience in the original game. I expected that the frantic nature of the game, and all the running around would quickly make me dizzy or nauseous in VR. I honestly did not expect that I would get through the first few chapters before giving up due to the game being annoyingly difficult to the point that it would make me literally sick.

Areas that gave me a lot of trouble in the original game were much easier this time around.

Much to my surprise, that was not the case! I was really enjoying the opening hours of the game. I even starting to wonder why I ever hated Resident Evil 4 to begin with. The VR visuals look good. It was controlling well. I felt in control of the character, and perfectly able to handle the threats the game was throwing at me. It initially felt much easier than I remembered the original being. I breezed through parts of the early game that I remembered struggling with for hours in the original.