"Well, they don't look like zombies...they don't smell like zombies..." Resident Evil 4 reinvented not only a classic franchise, but an entire genre, stripping away the series' rapidly decaying enemy archetypes and replacing them with a slew of hostile (not to mention brutally intelligent) possessed villagers. Gone also are the oft-parodied tank controls of the original entries, replaced with a smooth over-the-shoulder camera delightfully imbued with the power to scare the hell out of you even more than ever before.
Trivia
- For any fans of the game, the Resident Evil 4 Abridged Series by adamwestslapdog is well worth checking out, and is, in the opinion of this humble user, amongst the greatest game parodies ever created.
- The original development build for Resident Evil 4 proved to be such a radical departure from the roots of the series that Capcom decided to release it under the title of a different franchise altogether. The result: Devil May Cry.1
- One development prototype for the game featured Leon fighting paranormal enemies in a haunted mansion. Though it was eventually scrapped, many of the elements made their way to the final game. The trailer shown at E3 2003 featured this version (wherein director Shinji Mikami warned the audience before showing, "don't pee your pants!").2
