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[Chip N Chance]

It's ridiculous, self aware, and fun.

Theres no way in hell that it was self aware back in 2005. That game believes in all of its nonsense.

 

[kodecraft]

It's honestly one of the most entertaining "video game" stories ever created. Alongside the perfect gameplay, it does its job of keeping the player engaged for "just a bit longer". It's also fully self-aware with a great cast of voice actors. Basically, I love it.

This. I never liked Resident Evil until RE4. This was a great B-level horror adventure. When it came out you didn't want to stop playing it.

 

[striferser]

It's ridiculous, self aware, and fun.

Yeah. It's an intentional B-movie. Fun and campy

 

[kodecraft]

It's incredible. Leon's character is absolutely perfect in it too: he's just this dorky twenty-something who also happens to be an incredibly handsome superspy, who has stumbled into a ridiculous situation. He seems aware of how completely ridiculous everything is and just rolls with it.

Nah, Leon ain't dorky dude. He actually became the cooler protagonist when RE4 came out. Also reading Ada Wong's files on him made him top-tier.

 

[DedValve]

As a kid those cresits gave me goosebumps. wish it was more like that.

 

[Fury451]

(it knows what it's doing)

I really want to know why everyone thinks "it's so self-aware!" is unique to 4.

All the games in the series have been somewhat, but how intentional that actually is is highly debatable; they are B-movie level at best masquerading as horror dramas, and the juxtaposition works well. Resident Evil (the first) is a schlocky haunted house monster movie, and that's always been the tone.

Problem I have with it is that it overplays it's "self-aware" hand and by the time that statue shows up I just didn't care. Story was functional, but not that interesting, and all the nonsense people disliked about 5 and 6 are the direct result of 4's success (more action, bigger and more ridiculous boss battles and the like).

Leon is also a moron of a protagonist.

That said, it's a legendary game for good reason.

 

[petran79]

I had played RE2 years ago and Leon of RE2 felt different from Leon of 4. More serious and vulnerable. The infected city and police department felt scarier than the village. Both in theme but also bad graphics quality.

RE4 felt too refined. Like going from a b-horror movie with clay and makeup effects to a bland cgi b-movie

 

[Piers]

Theres no way in hell that it was self aware back in 2005. That game believes in all of its nonsense.

I think that's the case with a lot of Japanese drama. What we perceive as over-the-top, endearing hilarity is anything but with the native audience. I remember watching Fireworks at a Japanese film event and there were moments of the audience laughing at serious scenes due to how exaggerated it looked to us. I think the Japanese staff were a little upset by that.

And, I mean…nobody is laughing at MGS5's Quiet as being a funny self-aware riff on Otaku culture. Going by some of Kojima's tweets and how she has an entire, riveting theme song for her, she was meant to be a serious character with an upsetting background and that backfired.

 

[badcrumble]

Brilliantly goofy and dumb and so much fun.

Code: Veronica was a huge shark-jump moment for the story in so many ways anyway - after that crap, RE4 was smart to throw most of the serialized continuity out the window and actually bring some clever self-awareness to the series.

My favorite part is how Leon never learns how to pronounce "Luis" correctly for the entire game and screams "LLLLLEEEWWWWIIIISSSS" when he dies <3

It's a pity RE5 had to reorient things back to the Code: Veronica state of things. Give me the foreboding RE2/3 atmosphere without cartoon villains or give me the wildly entertaining self-aware RE4, please.

 

[Chip N Chance]

I think that's the case with a lot of Japanese drama. What we perceive as over-the-top, endearing hilarity is anything but with the native audience. I remember watching Fireworks at a Japanese film event and there were moments of the audience laughing at serious scenes due to how exaggerated it looked to us. I think the Japanese staff were a little upset by that.

And, I mean&#8230;nobody is laughing at MGS5's Quiet as being a funny self-aware riff on Otaku culture. Going by some of Kojima's tweets and how she has an entire, riveting theme song for her, she was meant to be a serious character with an upsetting background and that backfired.

I totally hear what your saying. Especially given the era of games where almost all Japanese made games that were trying to portray american action movie culture were embarrassingly bad. RE4 strikes me as a group of people that saw all the big american action movies of the last 6 years and was inspired to create just that. But instead of just creating something new, they just kept taking key points from movies and even actors likenesses and mashed it all into this one game. If RE4 story was camp it would just be terribly forgettable like everything that tries to be campy. RE4 believes in its nonsense the same way Deadly Premonition did. And thats what makes allot of its moments so great, because you know damn well the developers thought it was some rad shit at the time.

Sometimes the tone of the world can be very original and inspiring. The music, the color pallet, the villages, the culture within the peoples lives can all be very creepy and wholly original. But then theres that awful writing and characters infesting it with Matrix style action sequences. I always refer back to the games credits sequence to people when talking about RE4. It basically tells a story in the form of a fairy tale book with illustrations of the life of the villagers before everything went to hell. Its incredibly depressing and heartfelt combined with the music that plays behind it as you watch the rise and fall of this world. If RE4 had kept that same tone throughout the game and delivered on that narrative, i think RE4 would have been even more memorable outside of its gameplay.

Here it is. Its better than anything Resident Evil has ever tried to do in its narative by a country mile. It reminds me of Beauty and The Beast for some reason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_weHtgqZ5Bs

 

[FloweryMarston]

your right hand comes off?

 

[potatohead]

Theres no way in hell that it was self aware back in 2005. That game believes in all of its nonsense.

Yea self aware only became a thing in 2006.... not really though.

The game is plenty self aware of its own abusing of tropes.

 

[dlauv]

I really want to know why everyone thinks "it's so self-aware!" is unique to 4.

All the games in the series have been somewhat, but how intentional that actually is is highly debatable; they are B-movie level at best masquerading as horror dramas, and the juxtaposition works well. Resident Evil (the first) is a schlocky haunted house monster movie, and that's always been the tone.

Problem I have with it is that it overplays it's "self-aware" hand and by the time that statue shows up I just didn't care. Story was functional, but not that interesting, and all the nonsense people disliked about 5 and 6 are the direct result of 4's success (more action, bigger and more ridiculous boss battles and the like).

Leon is also a moron of a protagonist.

That said, it's a legendary game for good reason.

In terms of story, Mikami was completely straight about RE1 and had no idea it was such a cause for laughter. RE2 is also played completely straight. And 3. If Code: Veronica isn't played completely straight, it's due to Ashford's VA (no pun intended). If you read the interviews concerning RE7, the director has little clue what cheese is and admitted to attempting to play it all straight.