Resident Evil 4 Remake has all but been officially announced, and I’m very excited about it. I had a blast playing through the game for about a year straight on GameCube. I must have completed every game mode, gone off of every path, tested every single mechanic, and I still want to go back and play it. With that said, more recently I’ve been playing Resident Evil 3 Remake. With such an incredible example of how an older game can be remade, I’ve come up with one incredible new feature that I’d like to see in the remake.
Give Chainsaw Man Nemesis’ Mechanics
Nemesis is a colossal pain in the ass in Resident Evil 3 Remake. He’s a big bag of meat that will hunt you around Raccoon City for most of the game. There are only a few sections that give you a break, and that’s usually because you have something else horrific to deal with, like Pale Heads.
Resident Evil 4 has a similar enemy. He’s got a chainsaw, and is aptly named Chainsaw Man. He appears a few times throughout the game, and can be killed if you sink enough ammo into him. However, he’ll always come back, and always at the moment that’s going to stress you out the most. One that I will always remember is the mine cart sequence. You’re moving along in a mine cart, and the cart keeps stopping at various junctions. Here, enemies pile into the other carts, and you haver to fight them as the cart moves along. At one point, Chainsaw Man jumps into the end cart, and will proceed to hop over carts with his chainsaw blaring, heading right for you until you put him down. It’s an absolute nightmare, and so much fun.
I think that Resident Evil 4 Remake would benefit from giving Chainsaw Man some similar mechanics to Nemesis. The guy can’t die, for whatever reason, and he’s a relentless pursuer for most sections of the game. I think that Capcom should take away the ability to kill him, because it leaves you too much space to be calm and take on the rest of the enemies in the village. I don’t think that he needs the speed or agility of Nemesis, there’s something all the more terrifying about hearing the chainsaw get closer, but not being able to see it.
I also think that hiding Chainsaw Man in the trees around certain sections of the game would add to the atmosphere. You could have him emerge and come towards you at a walk, chainsaw held high, giving you that feeling of panic as you realise that you now need to get through the area alive without getting killed by this mad man. He still needs to be able to chainsaw your head off, killing you in one hit. That was always a risk in the original game, and Capcom should not remove it.
Resident Evil 4 didn’t have too many save rooms that were safe, more breaks in the various set pieces. I think that the remake should have save rooms, but that none of them should be safe from Chainsaw Man. Some players will disagree, but I thought that hiding in a safe room was too easy in Resident Evil 3 Remake. I’m not saying that every enemy should be able to enter, but in certain areas, where no other enemies are around, a chance encounter with Chainsaw Man would be amazing to have. These could even award special items if you manage to figure out how to get him to run away into the woods, or knock him off a cliff or something.
Finally, because I could go on for much longer, I think that Capcom needs to evolve Chainsaw Man over the course of the game. Nemesis transforms into something grotesque and almost incredible by the end of Resident Evil 3 Remake. I don’t think that the same level of change should happen to Chainsaw Man, but I do think that his clothes should get shredded, the bag removed, and maybe even get to the point where his Plagas is sticking out of his head. There’s so much potential to make him even scarier with just a few changes, and the slow disheveling over the course of the game would achieve exactly the response I’m thinking of.
Ever since Resident Evil 4 Remake was, pretty much, confirmed, I can’t help but think of all the new mechanics that I want to see in it. That’s why I’ve started this new article series, covering all of the things that I want to see in the remake. Some of these are based on Resident Evil 2 and 3 Remake, others are just aspects that I think would be nice to add or improve. If you’ve got an idea for one of these feature, leave it in a comment and we’ll discuss it in a future article.