Resident Evil 4 (2005) Review

Moving the camera over Leon's shoulder changed two genres at once. Aiming becomes a decision with a cost, because you plant your feet to shoot and cannot walk while firing, which converts every crowd into a spacing problem rather than a reflex test. The village opening is one of the great set pieces: no monsters, just a farming community walking toward you with tools, and a chainsaw arriving on a timer.

Capcom then escalates for twenty hours without repeating an idea, from the castle cultists to the island regenerators, and the attache case turns inventory management into a small pleasure. The merchant, the knife fight, and Salazar are pure camp, and the plot about a parasite and the president's daughter exists only to move you between rooms. Escorting Ashley is the one system that actively grates. As pure shooting design it remains the reference point that later third-person games are measured against.