Resident Evil 4 (2023) is one of the best remakes of any game I've ever played.

Resident Evil 4 (2005) is one of my favorite games ever made and when I heard the remake's imminent release date, I sat down with my girlfriend and put down the $60 price tag to sit down and enjoy an amazing experience with her.
The game exceeded my expectations, the gameplay is so much fun, buttery smooth. performance has been a bit of an issue recently but I've come to expect that with some of the recent RE releases. Gunplay is amazing, each gun feels like it packs a punch, and it earns it. Firing on an enemy and then running up to do a melee attack like in the 2005 classic. The story is a bit goofy like all resident evil games, I do miss the interactions with Leon's various villains on the radio, but I couldn't expect everything to stay.

The shooting range is AMAZING, the remix of The Drive from the original game is used perfectly, the replacement of bottle caps as a reward is super fun, the charm system is hit or miss as you can get multiple of the same charm which can really screw you over out of getting some of the better ones.

My two problems with the game is the monetization and the professional difficulty. I didn't expect everything to stay the same but seeing the exclusive upgrade tickets made me a bit disheartened, these upgrades aren't hard to achieve but only serve to make the professional mode easier.

Professional mode by itself isn't exactly a problem, no auto saves, enemies do extreme damage and have more health. My main problem is the S+ rank condition. To get the S+ you need to save less than 15 times (I think) and beat the game within 4 hours and 30 minutes. This makes the game unbearable, you are forced to ignore the side treasures that help make professional mode more bearable, you can't get money for upgrades, and you can't find hidden weapons. Suddenly the challenge of the mode is made abysmal, you won't have time to do everything, I hardly got through at all and I had to employ a sniper skip on a gate. These conditions are what make the exclusive upgrade tickets worse, players will be forced to spent real world money on the game if they want to get professional done easier, it's incredibly sharkish and locking the infinite ammo upgrade behind it is inexcusable. You could replay the game a handful of times to get accessories to make the game easier, make leon take less damage, make ashley invincible, make leon's kicks do more damage, but that requires even more playthroughs on the game again to even have a chance at obtaining the unlocks.

Other than that, Resident Evil 4 Remake is beautiful, and any first time player or veteran to the series will love it, as I have.