Pandora's Box: The Ultimate GameCube Tier List

#2: Resident Evil 4

Rating: M

Players: 1

Price Range: ~$25 USD

The fourth numbered entry and the sixth mainline game in the Resident Evil series, and the final experience of the Capcom Five.

Okay...this one's a classic. It's one of those games that is always going to be enjoyable regardless of which era you play it in

Resident Evil has always been one of the most consistent and high-quality AAA franchises today, especially amidst all of the mediocrity of the modern gaming industry. Even the entries I personally don't like are still good games, even if they are very flawed. Sure, Zero, Code Veronica, and Remake are lower, but they aren't bad games, it's just that...this one's the best game out of them all. Even all of these years later, it is easily my favorite game in the series and is one of my personal favorite games of all time, which is no small feat. As such, it gains the silver medal in the whole list, and for good reason.

Now, this game is...action-oriented with horror elements as opposed to straight up survival horror. This may appear to be heresy, but a harsh reality learned with the disappointing sales of Resident Evil Remake and Zero was that survival horror in addition to other elements were slowly dying. While in modern times the genre made a resurgence in the indie scene and Resident Evil itself, back then it was a different ball game. As such, after several failed prototypes, it went this direction, which even the developers weren't very comfortable with. The action gameplay sort of went two ways depending on how you look at it. The game was very innovative on how third-person over the shoulder shooting should work as a standard, with games before always attempting something different with no established conventions. Because of Resident Evil 4, games like Gears of War, Uncharted, and many others wouldn't have as good shooting without this game. However, at the same time, it completely split the fanbase between the people that grew up with the games in the original style and those that began with this game and vibed with the more action-heavy experiences. Neither style of Resident Evil is inherently good or bad, but RE4 being an amazing jumping off point sort of divided fans of the series in terms of its change in direction. It was a roller coaster after that, with RE5 being even more action-filled with pretty much no horror at all to the point of not even making any sense, and RE6 representing the worst excesses with this, with many people believing that it nearly killed the franchise with how excessive, ridiculous, and nonsensical it was. RE6 isn't a bad game, but it was the culmination of this action-based focus...so it went back to survival horror, action, or a mix of the two, and it's been that ever since.

And then there's the development of the game, which is very fascinating as well. You see, this game underwent a ton of revisions and attempts, with one of those builds being so action-heavy that it led to the creation of Devil May Cry, and the other versions have a ton of intriguing details. The most famous of these, the 'Hookman' build had a series protagonist, Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil 2, be infected with a virus and have his arm changed while having hallucinations of this ghostly monster with this giant hook and even a scene with dolls trying to kill him. It had the over the shoulder combat, but only when you aimed would the game switch from its fixed camera angles the series was known for. I don't know what would have happened if the game was released as this, as the landscape of the series and gaming as a whole might have been entirely different because of this, but I'm happy with what we got since it's a magical game on its own.

Okay, first of all...the price. The game is one of the cheaper experiences with how high the quality and compared to the rest of the games on this list for the system. Now, I'll discuss one of my real problems with a factor relating to this much later on, but this is definitely a starter game if you ever want to begin collecting for it. While I don't think it's as balanced as an overall experience for everyone like Soulcalibur II is, especially given the M rating, it's still up there.