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Description
RESIDENT EVIL 4: SEPERATE WAYS (2023).
Developed and Published by: Capcom.
Genre: Survival Horror.
Rated: 18 (contains only suitable for adults).

Base game review: www.deviantart.com/randomdc3/a…

While I like to amuse myself this is named after Capcom and Lily Gao's relationship at the moment, Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways is a DLC based on the original RE4's PS2 exclusive campaign of the same name. You remember, a time when Capcom promised Shinji Mikami that RE4 would remain a GameCube exclusive?

Oh, Capcom (chuckles).

I never played the original Separate Ways, so I cannot give you any point of reference in how faithful this update is compared to its predecessor. What I do know about the campaign is it stars everyone’s favourite blueballer, Ada Wong, who’s on a mission to retrieve a plot device while occasionally watching her boytoy Leon from afar as he goes about the main story campaign. She’s also aided by Luis (because Capcom are getting all the mileage out of him before he goes in the bodybag) and occasionally frowned at by Albert Wesker, as he sits in his is lazy boy chair and barking orders over fucking Skype.

The only major change from the original is that Wesker himself will occasionally get off of his ass, swagger on over to the village, talk smack to Ada in person and then pimp on back to his private yacht. While I could make a Leonardo DiCaprio joke about that, instead I have the following query: If Wesker is fully capable of travelling that fast from his private yacht off the coast of Spain, deal with Ada on two separate occasions AND make it back to his Batboat in the span of minutes, why does he even need Ada in the first place?

Well you know what they say: “DLC’s gotta DLC, I suppose.”

Considering the DLC has the exact same control setup and mechanics as regular Resident Evil 4 and the other REmakes, I'm gonna skip over gameplay entirely. I will however quickly touch on the one innovation Ada's bountiful arsenal brings to the gameplay: She has a grappling hook… That’s it. The main thing you’ll use it for is a few get out a dodge moves that's amusing the first time, but loses its lustre around the fifth time you do it. It can also be used to grapple peasants and shields from a distance which can be useful for speedruns. Beyond that, she’s Leon with tits.

And why you've got me talking about Ms. Wong, let's get this over with nice and quickly - the voice acting.

It's safe to say that the internet blowtorched Lily Gao an effigy for daring to give Ada the vocal delivery of a bored housewife ordering Domino's Pizza over the phone. Ada is one of those characters that doesn't say much beyond cryptic messages and sassy one liners, but even Siri could outperform this motherfucker any day of the week.

Has the DLC improved things? Eeeeeh, kinda? There are moments Lily lands with a great delivery and Ada shows genuine concern and anger, before backflipping into the half-awake monotone from the base game. Maybe Capcom shouldn’t have lost Jolene Andersen’s phone number? What didn’t help matters was Ms.Gao declared everyone “RAH-CEST!!” for daring to offer a critique, but that sounds like buck passing to me. Nothing personal, but if your script says you're being assaulted by an Eldrich looking fucker in a black robe, maybe approach it with more enthusiasm than “did I leave the stove on this morning?” Just throwing that out there.

And speaking of voice acting, it's time for a controversial opinion: the new voice for Wesker is really growing on me.

I know Craig Burnatowski was put in a very difficult position of replacing good old D.C. Douglas, but he didn’t deserve a lot of vitriol the internet has given him when you consider that Douglas allegedly blabbed about working on REmake 4 over Twitter before the game was even finished. He probably thought he was too big to fail or something? Still, I like Craig’s take on Wesker. This sort of mixture of Michael Keaton and Christian Bale’s Batman really gives Wesker this sense of unease, irritation and constantly pissed off 24/7. Unlike Ada's vocal delivery where I've heard more enthusiasm and emotion coming out of Microsoft Sam getting a free hand job from Scarlett Johansson.

Voice acting quibbles to one side, this is still a solid DLC expansion, but I preferred FNAF Ruin over this one. I was left wanting more from this experience, especially when you consider there are some sections that would have been fun to do in gameplay, but only happen in cutscenes. Also, it gets a little Devil May Cry 4 on us by essentially having Ada revisit Leon's locations but in reverse order. While the enviroments are still gorgeous, it just screams lazy game design.

The DLC reintroduces a lot of cut content from REmake 4's design. A shame REmake 3 didn't get that love and dedication. Ada's classic RE4 dress and even her REmake 2 outfit have been added as unlockables, as well as a new boss in the form of Black Robe, who I believe is based on a character from the original Separate Ways campaign. This is the boss Nemesis from REmake 3 should have been, as this bitch was more intimidating and left us feeling nothing but dread everytime it showed it's Darth Sideous looking ass up with a feral scream. The real low point of the DLC is an entirely pointless boss battle with Saddler. I say pointless because there’s nothing really at stake when you consider.

A) We know Ada gets captured by Saddler anyway.
B) Saddler is the final boss of Leon’s campaign, so it’s not likely Ada was going to kill him.
C) ... I don’t a need a third, because the first two were so great.

I would have preferred if it just had a cutscene of Ada being captured and we cut to the last segments of Leon’s campaign, but that’s just me.

Separate Ways also brings back eerie reminders of a period in Resident Evil's history I thought we’ve long since put behind us. When Ada is pulling off Matrix moves through laser grids and Spider-Manning the fuck out of boss fights with her grappling hook, I’m left feeling VERY concerned for what’s to come. It's crystal clear this is all leading to an eventual Resident Evil 5 Remake, if the ending is any indication. On one hand, I'm excited to see that game get a much deserved revamp, but if Separate Ways is any indication, are the dark times coming back to this franchise and we'll need another soft reboot again? Maybe a remake of RE7 or a RE-REmake of the original?

(Conclusion)
Separate Ways is a solid experience, but it’s not something that should have been a DLC, but instead packed in with the base game. It does make REmake 4 slightly fresher to warrant a couple more playthroughs, but it could have been with being slightly longer by an hour or two.

Still, for a new campaign under £10, you may have a great way to spend a weekend.

Description
RESIDENT EVIL 4: SEPERATE WAYS (2023).
Developed and Published by: Capcom.
Genre: Survival Horror.
Rated: 18 (contains only suitable for adults).

Base game review: www.deviantart.com/randomdc3/a…

While I like to amuse myself this is named after Capcom and Lily Gao's relationship at the moment, Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways is a DLC based on the original RE4's PS2 exclusive campaign of the same name. You remember, a time when Capcom promised Shinji Mikami that RE4 would remain a GameCube exclusive?

Oh, Capcom (chuckles).

I never played the original Separate Ways, so I cannot give you any point of reference in how faithful this update is compared to its predecessor. What I do know about the campaign is it stars everyone’s favourite blueballer, Ada Wong, who’s on a mission to retrieve a plot device while occasionally watching her boytoy Leon from afar as he goes about the main story campaign. She’s also aided by Luis (because Capcom are getting all the mileage out of him before he goes in the bodybag) and occasionally frowned at by Albert Wesker, as he sits in his is lazy boy chair and barking orders over fucking Skype.

The only major change from the original is that Wesker himself will occasionally get off of his ass, swagger on over to the village, talk smack to Ada in person and then pimp on back to his private yacht. While I could make a Leonardo DiCaprio joke about that, instead I have the following query: If Wesker is fully capable of travelling that fast from his private yacht off the coast of Spain, deal with Ada on two separate occasions AND make it back to his Batboat in the span of minutes, why does he even need Ada in the first place?

Well you know what they say: “DLC’s gotta DLC, I suppose.”

Considering the DLC has the exact same control setup and mechanics as regular Resident Evil 4 and the other REmakes, I'm gonna skip over gameplay entirely. I will however quickly touch on the one innovation Ada's bountiful arsenal brings to the gameplay: She has a grappling hook… That’s it. The main thing you’ll use it for is a few get out a dodge moves that's amusing the first time, but loses its lustre around the fifth time you do it. It can also be used to grapple peasants and shields from a distance which can be useful for speedruns. Beyond that, she’s Leon with tits.

And why you've got me talking about Ms. Wong, let's get this over with nice and quickly - the voice acting.

It's safe to say that the internet blowtorched Lily Gao an effigy for daring to give Ada the vocal delivery of a bored housewife ordering Domino's Pizza over the phone. Ada is one of those characters that doesn't say much beyond cryptic messages and sassy one liners, but even Siri could outperform this motherfucker any day of the week.

Has the DLC improved things? Eeeeeh, kinda? There are moments Lily lands with a great delivery and Ada shows genuine concern and anger, before backflipping into the half-awake monotone from the base game. Maybe Capcom shouldn’t have lost Jolene Andersen’s phone number? What didn’t help matters was Ms.Gao declared everyone “RAH-CEST!!” for daring to offer a critique, but that sounds like buck passing to me. Nothing personal, but if your script says you're being assaulted by an Eldrich looking fucker in a black robe, maybe approach it with more enthusiasm than “did I leave the stove on this morning?” Just throwing that out there.

And speaking of voice acting, it's time for a controversial opinion: the new voice for Wesker is really growing on me.

I know Craig Burnatowski was put in a very difficult position of replacing good old D.C. Douglas, but he didn’t deserve a lot of vitriol the internet has given him when you consider that Douglas allegedly blabbed about working on REmake 4 over Twitter before the game was even finished. He probably thought he was too big to fail or something? Still, I like Craig’s take on Wesker. This sort of mixture of Michael Keaton and Christian Bale’s Batman really gives Wesker this sense of unease, irritation and constantly pissed off 24/7. Unlike Ada's vocal delivery where I've heard more enthusiasm and emotion coming out of Microsoft Sam getting a free hand job from Scarlett Johansson.

Voice acting quibbles to one side, this is still a solid DLC expansion, but I preferred FNAF Ruin over this one. I was left wanting more from this experience, especially when you consider there are some sections that would have been fun to do in gameplay, but only happen in cutscenes. Also, it gets a little Devil May Cry 4 on us by essentially having Ada revisit Leon's locations but in reverse order. While the enviroments are still gorgeous, it just screams lazy game design.

The DLC reintroduces a lot of cut content from REmake 4's design. A shame REmake 3 didn't get that love and dedication. Ada's classic RE4 dress and even her REmake 2 outfit have been added as unlockables, as well as a new boss in the form of Black Robe, who I believe is based on a character from the original Separate Ways campaign. This is the boss Nemesis from REmake 3 should have been, as this bitch was more intimidating and left us feeling nothing but dread everytime it showed it's Darth Sideous looking ass up with a feral scream. The real low point of the DLC is an entirely pointless boss battle with Saddler. I say pointless because there’s nothing really at stake when you consider.

A) We know Ada gets captured by Saddler anyway.
B) Saddler is the final boss of Leon’s campaign, so it’s not likely Ada was going to kill him.
C) ... I don’t a need a third, because the first two were so great.

I would have preferred if it just had a cutscene of Ada being captured and we cut to the last segments of Leon’s campaign, but that’s just me.

Separate Ways also brings back eerie reminders of a period in Resident Evil's history I thought we’ve long since put behind us. When Ada is pulling off Matrix moves through laser grids and Spider-Manning the fuck out of boss fights with her grappling hook, I’m left feeling VERY concerned for what’s to come. It's crystal clear this is all leading to an eventual Resident Evil 5 Remake, if the ending is any indication. On one hand, I'm excited to see that game get a much deserved revamp, but if Separate Ways is any indication, are the dark times coming back to this franchise and we'll need another soft reboot again? Maybe a remake of RE7 or a RE-REmake of the original?

(Conclusion)
Separate Ways is a solid experience, but it’s not something that should have been a DLC, but instead packed in with the base game. It does make REmake 4 slightly fresher to warrant a couple more playthroughs, but it could have been with being slightly longer by an hour or two.

Still, for a new campaign under £10, you may have a great way to spend a weekend.