31 Days, 31 Screams: Resurrection- Day 1 (Resident Evil 4)

ZOMBIES COMIN' UP THE FRONT! SHOOT 'EM IN THE
HEAD! SHOOT 'EM IN THE HEAD!!!

Welcome to the SPOOKTACULAR October marathon here on the blog! Once again, because of complications of vacation, this is a ghostly post written well over a week before October actually begins. Look, I'm getting all my affairs in order before I go off and do absolutely nothing in isolation, okay? If we're being honest, this is even more of a haunting than usual. I didn't even play this thing here and now in preparation for this kickoff writeup. No, my playthrough of Resident Evil 4 happened in June. I didn't talk about it then, but now I'm in need of stuff for the marathon so you get to watch me squirm out a couple hundred words on the thing. It'll be fun, trust me. Much like the game is quite fun! Oops, gave the game away. Yeah, surprise surprise, one of the most critically acclaimed action horror games of the last 15 years which revolutionized the genre still holds up. What shock. I'll talk about in a moment, but first I want to talk about ghosts. Specifically the ghost of this game, the lingering wound it left with me for 14 years, and how playing it in June finally helped me heal from it.



I wrote about this already, as it turns out. Ten years after it happened. That's a nice piece that I'm sure has held up, but here's the short version: In 2005 I regularly played the Gamecube RPG, Tales of Symphonia, while visiting my friends whenever we got to hang out. It was a fun experience to go through and offer support as we fought through the battles, and it was neat seeing how the story played out. We stopped playing it, though, because the bombshell that was Resident Evil 4 came out and all anyone wanted to do then was play that wonderful little action game... and here I was, with no Gamecube, our Symphonia playthrough gone for good. I always held a little grudge against Resident Evil 4 for that. I tried to play it once, a few years later, when I did get my own Gamecube and a copy on the cheap. I made it rather far but was low on ammo and thus didn't finish it. I had the same problem with the original Resident Evil, on the DS (Yes, I actually played that and almost finished it. Twice.) so this was nothing new. Maybe the series wasn't for me.


Then 2019 happens, and in six months I clear them both. I beat Tales of Symphonia in January, just laser focusing on the PS3 version for a week or so and enjoying the hell out of it. I probably could have written about it, talking about the power structures and how every layer of them are rotten to the fucking core and only existing to benefit one asshole's petty vendetta, but this is a spooky Resident Evil 4 post. Let's get back on track with that. Six months later, I borrowed the Wii port of Resident Evil 4 from a pal. I had to dust the old Wii off and break out the component cables, but here I was. Playing Resident Evil 4. It was tough going, but I kept at it... and I beat it. It ended up not being that difficult. Now that we're this far in, let's like... actually talk about the game. Resident Evil 4 is at once a faithful homage to the survival horror games that came before, and an action game revolution. It's also not lacking in the spooky department. The opening chapters definitely stack the odds against you, with multiple possessed villagers coming at you while you're still learning how the hell to move and aim and all that. This all culminates in a massive siege where you go up against what must be the entire village, including a motherfucker with a chainsaw who will kill you in one swipe. It's absolutely frantic, and things don't really let up from there. If nothing else, the game is extremely good at playing with the duality of letting you feel empowered while also having you feel outnumbered. Sure, you've got a great shotgun now, but that's not much against a literal giant. Got lots of ammo and guns? You're holed up in one cabin and the enemies have you totally surrounded. Defend the castle, asshole. The tense nature of Resident Evil isn't diminshed at all, but what's added is the contradicting idea of being powerful as shit. Through some miracle, it all meshes together! It's an absolutely wonderful game, and on the Wii it just felt immaculate to be pointing and shooting on my own, rather than fiddling about with a second stick or whatever. Super smooth and super great. We can consider this a ghost successfully exorcised, and move on to more ghostly posts written well before the spooky season. Onwards and upwards, y'all, we've got 30 more screams where that came from.