I am a huge fan of the Resident Evil series, but I have a particular fondness for RE4 as it was the game that introduced me to the series. I have played the original game dozens upon dozens of times and own it on at least half a dozen consoles. To say that I love RE4 is an understatement as it is my favorite game of all time. Even though I have yet to finish, I have spent about 20 hours to get to the island playing at a casual rate exploring, doing side requests, and just looking at the environment. While RE4 Remake is a somewhat different experience from the original, it maintains a lot of the same DNA that made the original special. Additionally, the devs really poured a lot of effort into making some really beautiful recreations of iconic locations as well as creating some fresh, new areas that may or may not have inspirations from areas in the first. They also added enough new features to make the experience feel somewhat fresh. Even though stealth is not possible in every encounter, I was surprised by how much of the game can be approached in such a manner . The various melee prompt attacks, stealth kills, and lethal take downs add additional variety to the combat in addition to the smooth, rewarding gun play. There are many new notes in the game that provide many new details and insights into the games lore and the characters are much more fleshed out than the original. Even more, the numerous unlockables and difficulty modes provide incentives for additional play throughs. Playing on hardcore, the game is challenging and I have had several spots where I died repeated. Despite these moments of challenge, trying different approaches usually allowed me to complete them. Resources are sufficiently plentiful that if you carefully ration your supplies you should not run out completely while playing. I have run low but never completely out of ammo even with clearing most enemies and every boss encounter (even the somewhat optional ones). I think RE4 manages to maintain a pretty good balance of resource management overall.
Overall, this has been a very fun, polished game experience that was well worth the cost of admission. The additional mercenaries modes and possible Ada campaign DLC content coming in the future only add to the value of this game and I think makes this an absolute must-have for Resident Evil vets and those new to the series.