villagers from their homicidal spell shooting axes out of the air as they fly towards you is as satisfying a feeling today as it was in 2005 so too is blasting out kneecaps and following with a truly outrageous sweeping roundhouse kick to clear space my initial sense of resident evil 4 remake was that aimingdownsights felt a little finicky but the more time i sunk into the chainsaw demo the more convinced i became that this is merely a function of the silver ghost starting handgun its so damn slow a decision which makes you feel utterly ineffectual against such impossible odds and only furthered my resolve to get the full game and push into chapter 21 to purchase the red9 pistol from the merchant for 14000 pesos thats if capcom hasnt completely overhauled where the mysterious vendor sets up shop and what he is selling image credit capcomrelatedthe ultimate guide to resident evil the complete history of the re series from the evolution of the mainline games to all the wonderful spinoffssomething thats clear from even this brief demo is that capcom is smartly changing understated elements of resident evil 4 to keep returning players guessing when the village battle started to overwhelm i immediately made a run for the small watchtower where a long ladder climb used to reward you with shotgun ammunition and a brief respite from the carnage only now the floor collapsed within seconds bringing me facetoface with six ganados and a revving chainsaw the little house off from the main bonfire which used to contain ammo and enough space to reload and healup now packed with enemies and a backroom window which allows even more villagers to flood through and surround you head to the north gate to try and get some easy shots on dr salvador and the two los ganados flanking him well now he bursts forth from behind the gate in an impressive little cutscene chainsaw held high forcing me into a panicked parry with my hastily degrading combat knife which is all to say im surprised by just how many surprises capcom was able to pack into such a small section of play what can you learn from a 20 minute slice of a 20hour game quite a bit it turns out its clear that capcom has learned some important lessons from resident evil 2 licked its wounds from resident evil 3 and set out to remake resident evil 4 with the best of intentions not only attempting to modernize the game for an audience who never knew the joy of owning a gamecube but reengineer the package in such a way that it all feels revolutionary again whether the full game can live up to that potential remains to be seen but thankfully we dont have long to wait to find out resident evil 4 remake will launch on march 24 and its one of our most anticipated new games of 2023 while you wait why