The castle has always been my favourite part ofResident Evil 4. Some people raise eyebrows when I call it the greatest horror game of all time,pointing to the silliness of Leon’s bingo line and the overall campy tonethat they feel disqualifies it from being a true horror masterpiece.
But consider Evil Dead. Sam Raimi’s film series is equally revered as one of the best ever to do it, and much likeResident Evil 4, leans into the comedy to heighten the frights. If Resident Evil 4 is Evil Dead, then the castle section is the threequel, Army of Darkness. The movie sees Ash transported back in time to the era of knights and round tables, where he must fight off demons in this unfamiliar land. In Resident Evil 4, the castle section also brings knights to life, this time not controlled by demons from hell, but by strange unholy squids.
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With the remake coming 18 years after the original launched on GameCube, there are considerable graphical updates to each and every part of the game. Whether it be the crashing waves on the rocks of the island, the dark veins of inflected blood across Ashley’s skin,or each floppy strand of Leon’s beautiful himbo hairdo, the game has had quite the glow up. Nowhere is that more apparent than the squelchy, slithering squids that live inside the suits of armour and cause them to stumble around on the cold stone floors of the castle.
The knights are Resident Evil 4 at its comedic best. They’re still terrifying, especially as they chase Ashley around the library, but they’re funny underneath it all. A lot of monsters fail because they’re just too silly. When devs try to create something frightening, often what comes out after focus testing and market research and design-by-committees-looking-at-algorithms is generic, cliched, and unintentionally silly. It fails at its purpose. For many,Resident Evil Village’sgiant baby or fishman falls into this category - in attempting to be grotesque, the design circles back around to comedy. The knights are funny on purpose, and within this lies their genius.
Most of your time spent facing the knights is when you play as Ashley. She cannot defend herself with weaponry the way Leon does, and only has a torchlight that is able to freeze the knights in their tracks. The fact you must scurry away from the knights rather than trying to take them out only adds to the carnage they bring. Now, with the remake’s graphics, as you flee from the frozen knights you can see the tentacles poking out from gaps in the armour, wriggling in vain as their metallic exoskeleton is trapped by the light.
It’s a bit of a cliche to play most of the game as an all-action male character, only to then play a small section in powerless stealth mode as a female character, but perhaps Resident Evil 4 gets a little bit of a pass for being 18 years old and an originator of this trend rather than continuing to perpetuate it. It’s also notable that when Leon fights the knights in the section before Ashley’s library adventure, it is Ashley who figures out that the blue flames will harm the knights, and Ashley who tosses the fire down to help Leon. He might strike the killer blow as the all-action hero he is, but defeating the knights is a group effort the first time and escaping them is down to Ashley alone.
At the end of this section, Ashley must surrender her torch in order to solve a puzzle then make her make back through the hall of knights empty handed, cleverly guiding them into spots illuminated by blue flames and fleeing armed only with her wit. The exaggerated way the knights lunge forward and crash their swords into the ground, combined with their near-invulnerability pitted against Ashley’s lack of weapons ensures the tension present throughout the game is kept, but it understands that suits of armour animated by infected squids in their butts is inherently a silly idea and allows the comedy to shine through. It’s not as remembered as the oppressive opening attack at the village nor thebacks against the wall defence of the cabin with Luis, but it best captures everything that makes Resident Evil 4 great.
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