Resident Evil 4 has a particular place in gaming historical past. Launched again in 2005 for the GameCube and later for the PlayStation 2, it was a paragon of the third-person survival horror style with its extremely tense motion sequences, superb stage design, terrifying enemies, and memorable characters and writing. It carved a distinct segment for itself and it was for a lot of — together with myself — their favourite installment within the collection.
Having performed that model on a PS2 all these years in the past, I used to be genuinely stoked to see it getting a correct remaster earlier this yr alongside the strains of Resident Evil 2 and three for contemporary platforms. What I wasn’t anticipating was a port for the iPhone, that too inside the similar yr. Think about my shock then that I used to be capable of play this full-blown console and PC launch and recreation of the yr nominee on my dinky little iPhone 15 Professional assessment unit.
The brand new model of the sport, merely titled Resident Evil 4, is a whole remake of the unique, that includes completely new visuals and stage designs, voice performing, music, and every little thing else you may consider. The one factor that continues to be the identical is the story and the final gameplay. The sport was launched on the consoles and PC again in March of this yr and is now additionally obtainable on the iPhone 15 Professional units in addition to iPads and Macs operating the M-series processors.
First issues first, the Resident Evil 4 app is common, which suggests if you buy it as soon as it can work in your iPhone, iPad, and Mac with out having to buy individually. This was not the case with Resident Evil Village, which wanted to be bought individually for the iPhone/iPad and the Mac.
The sport could be downloaded at no cost, which supplies you entry to the preliminary ten minutes or so of gameplay, which ends after the primary large combat within the opening village part of the sport. This is identical because the separate demo launched for the consoles and PC, besides on this case, you may simply pay $30 to proceed enjoying and your progress within the ‘free’ part will carry over, in contrast to within the demo. The free part of Resident Evil 4 is far shorter than for Village however ought to nonetheless give an honest thought of what to anticipate from the remainder of the sport.
The sport is initially a 686MB obtain from the App Retailer on the iPhone. It should then obtain an extra 12GB to be playable. If you are going to buy the complete recreation and the DLC, you’ll have to obtain one more 17GB. That’s round 30GB in whole, which isn’t dangerous contemplating the scale of the sport. Anticipate to obtain twice as a lot information on the Mac.
Talking of DLC, Resident Evil 4 for Apple platforms additionally affords the lately launched Separate Methods mode, the place you play as Ada Wong, who makes transient appearances in the primary recreation. Whereas the protagonist Leon is doing his factor, Wong has her personal mission to hold out on the similar time and it’s attention-grabbing to see how their paths cross as they go about their *drum roll* separate methods. If you happen to loved the primary recreation, that is completely value selecting up. The opposite DLC are largely cosmetics and weapon upgrades.
At this level, I’ll reiterate what I mentioned within the Resident Evil Village assessment, which is that this isn’t a assessment of the sport itself however fairly a assessment of the particular iPhone port and the expertise of operating the sport on a cellphone. There are many nice critiques out already in the event you simply wish to know extra about Resident Evil 4 the sport. Alright, let’s transfer on.
After downloading the sport on an iPhone 15 Professional, I jumped into the menus to see what has modified from the console and PC variations. The largest distinction is the shortage of significant graphical settings. There are additionally no choices to regulate the decision or the body charge. In reality, the one visible settings obtainable are for depth of subject, movement blur, and lens distortion.
That is the perfect resolution and precisely what I had requested for in my Resident Evil Village assessment. Whereas it limits scalability for future units, it does guarantee gamers right now will get an optimized expertise out of the field for his or her units and received’t should tinker round endlessly within the menus to get issues working correctly, which was a difficulty with Village. Don’t fear in the event you play the sport on a Mac, nevertheless, because the settings are simply hidden for cellular and are seen whenever you launch the sport on a desktop.
Except for that the one change is the addition of on-screen controls for cellular units. These are similar to these I lined on the Village port; they’ve a good bit of customizability and make sure the recreation can nonetheless be performed in the event you don’t have a controller. Nevertheless, the sport is just not designed for on-screen controls, and like with Village, Capcom recommends you utilize a bodily controller. Additionally like Village, you can’t use a mouse and keyboard to play on the iPhone however that will simply be an iPhone factor.
Leaping into the sport I noticed that it’s locked to 30fps. That is positive because it’s unlikely the sport would hit 60fps or greater on the iPhone. An unlocked body charge possibility could also be good sooner or later when iPhone {hardware} is highly effective sufficient or will get variable refresh charge shows however for now, a gradual 30fps is an efficient sufficient goal, particularly contemplating the slow-paced nature of the sport.
Nevertheless, that’s only the start of the optimizations Capcom has in retailer for this model. The sport runs at a critically low decision. The ultimate output decision of the sport on the iPhone 15 Professional is 720p however the inside rendering decision appears to be 1 / 4 of that at 360p. The sport then makes use of MetalFX to upscale the picture to 720p. There isn’t a proof of dynamic decision scaling right here because the picture appears uniform all through the sport. There are not any toggles for MetalFX on this recreation on the iPhone however you get the choice to change between Efficiency and High quality mode or to disable it completely on the Mac.
Sadly, with such an extremely low base decision, MetalFX has its work minimize out for it. The picture appears surprisingly steady for distant objects like timber and is tender however moderately detailed up shut. However the challenge comes within the type of disocclusion artifacts on high-frequency element, which could be distracting. Any time an object strikes, it leaves a path of fizzle round it because the objects behind are disoccluded, which is a results of the reconstruction algorithm not catching up quick sufficient. Within the video under, you may see the world round Leon’s head and weapon fizzle because the timber behind take a cut up second to be reconstructed. The video has been brightened to make this simpler to see.
Additionally noticeable within the clip is the extraordinarily fizzy look of Leon’s hair. The Apple Silicon model of the sport doesn’t have the dynamic hair strands possibility discovered on the consoles and PC, which renders every strand individually. That’s positive because it didn’t look notably nice however even the sport’s customary hair rendering suffers drastically from the extraordinarily low rendering decision and the anti-aliasing seemingly doesn’t work in any respect.
This, sadly, is the weakest a part of the visible presentation as exterior of costumes and different playable characters, Leon and his lustrous golden locks are at all times on display in a outstanding place that naturally attracts the attention and the sheer quantity of fizzle appears extraordinarily poor. The shifting strands of hair additionally convey up the difficulty with disocclusion artifacts though they’re arduous to note over the hair itself.
The opposite main challenge is with texture streaming. This was a difficulty on the PC model of the sport as nicely, the place the feel rendering was considerably erratic at decrease settings, inflicting some textures to be sharp and others to be blurry, even when they had been proper subsequent to one another. This challenge is current on the iPhone as nicely, as the feel cache setting will undeniably be set to the bottom worth internally to account for the low system reminiscence. Even when the textures are of a better decision, they will take a number of seconds to stream in, which could be fairly noticeable when fixing one of many many puzzles within the recreation.
Textures earlier than and after they load in
Except for that, I didn’t discover many issues to take offense to. Objects don’t often forged shadows and the ambient occlusion is of a decrease high quality however the recreation nonetheless has quantity of shading that makes objects seem grounded. The sport doesn’t have the notorious RE Engine display house reflections, which is simply in addition to they appear fairly poor on different platforms, and the few reflections you see appear to be completely dice map based mostly. Volumetrics are of a decrease decision and apart from a fairly aliased flashlight beam aren’t notably offensive.
However regardless of the extent of the cutbacks made for this model, in motion, the sport appears positive particularly since you’re enjoying it on a small display. Even at its lowest settings, the extent design, character fashions and animations, and the paintings handle to shine via and it nonetheless appears like you’re enjoying a flowery console or PC recreation fairly than a cellular one. It’s virtually an unfair comparability as there’s nothing else with this stage of visible constancy out on cellular at present, apart from Capcom’s personal Resident Evil Village, and even that isn’t as spectacular. That is actually a contemporary showcase title and to assume it’s attainable on a cellphone is mind-boggling.
After visuals, the body charge is the opposite main a part of this dialogue. I’ve already talked about that it’s capped to 30fps however whether or not it could possibly preserve that cap is a unique challenge. For essentially the most half, I believe the sport runs nicely and sticks shut sufficient to its body charge cap to not be distracting. However the body charge does are likely to drop throughout busy fight sequences, such because the chaotic village combat within the first jiffy of the sport. There are additionally the annoying hitches that may occur when getting into a brand new space, which have made their approach right here from the PC model. This one is probably going a difficulty with the engine fairly than the {hardware} or this particular port.
Exterior of those, the sport stays fairly playable. Movement blur actually helps clean out the animations and I’d suggest enabling it because it’s disabled by default. It’s best to completely disable the chromatic aberration impact, nevertheless, because it makes the sport look softer than it’s.
I’d additionally like to notice that Resident Evil 4 ran flawlessly on the iPhone 15 Professional throughout my testing, which was in no way the case with Village. There have been zero crashes and even after prolonged intervals of gameplay there weren’t any points.
Different issues to notice embrace the HDR presentation, which is as soon as once more glorious and makes nice use of the iPhone 15 Professional’s brilliant show. The sound can be excellent however it’s simply stereo and I really feel like they may have capitalized on the cellphone’s spatial audio capabilities. The sport renders in true ultra-wide on the iPhone though the cutscenes are 16:9 for some motive, though they’re rendered in-game.
Loading instances are additionally fast; a recent load from a save takes about 9 seconds and there are not any different loading screens inside the recreation itself. The sport additionally helps iCloud backup and the saves are synced throughout the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
As an apart, I additionally checked battery consumption throughout gameplay. The iPhone 15 Professional consumed about half its battery from a full cost after an hour and a half of gameplay. This included enjoying at most show brightness, utilizing a USB-C DAC for audio, and pairing an Xbox Wi-fi Controller over Bluetooth. The system does get a bit heat however it’s manageable in cooler climates.
Total, I used to be impressed with the model of Resident Evil 4 for the iPhone, extra so than Resident Evil Village. It doesn’t really feel just like the Mac model was slapped onto a smaller display however a extra intentional, optimized, and refined construct that reveals the identical care and a spotlight you’d get from a devoted console launch. It additionally helps that Resident Evil 4 is simply the higher recreation of the 2.
Now, I wouldn’t essentially counsel you play this model when you’ve got entry to consoles or a robust laptop. However as soon as once more, I’m in awe of the truth that this model even exists. A contemporary Resident Evil recreation with all of its content material operating natively on an iPhone would by no means have been on my 2023 bingo originally of this yr however Capcom and Apple delivered not simply as soon as however twice. It can’t be understated how spectacular that is and as somebody who enjoys not simply enjoying but additionally analyzing the technical make-up of video games, this has been a blast of a yr.
Right here’s hoping to extra such superb cellular ports in 2024.