For whatever reason I decided to revisit this. Holy crap do the graphics hold up well. If you took the cinematics from this game and compared them to the trailer that just dropped for the Snake Eater remake and showed them to some boomer who never games I think they'd struggle to determine which one is the newer title.

In virtually every other way the game remains a bit of a clunker. Not being able to move while aiming works in RE4, but here there's too much chaos for that restriction. RE4 is very clever in how it communicates danger even when enemies are out of sight. Even with the narrow over-the-shoulder camera, the game knows to signal the player that an enemy is about to ambush them from behind by having them laugh, or snarl, or ramble in Spanish. In RE5 there are so many enemies attacking at once, often with crossbows or other projectiles in not-so-obvious places. Your partner will often get grabbed requiring a rescue, and you have to spend more time managing your meager nine inventory slots in the heat of combat, which doesn't pause the action anymore. Fans may have cut RE5 more slack had it not released a year after Dead Space.

You're also frozen in place for half a second if you want to pick up an item or signal your partner to do the same, and of course they will also be stuck in place while they're picking up an item. If there are half a dozen items strewn about the environment in the heat of combat you'll be leaving yourself vulnerable if you want to stay stocked up. If you want to go for an S rank, the best approach is to grind for resources for a bit and then fill your inventory with everything you'll need for the entire level so you can ignore pickups altogether. It feels cheap.

And then there's the much discussed issue of Sheva's AI. The only aspect of it that is truly frustrating me this playthrough is her over-enthusiasm for using healing items. If I'm left with a sliver of health I have to race to use a full-heal before she whips out a single green herb to restore a quarter of my health, effectively wasting it. I'd prefer there were an option to make her forego using healing items altogether.

The fundamentals of the action gameplay that worked so well in RE4 still work here. The feedback when shooting different enemy body parts is still mighty satisfying, as is shooting a critical weakpoint to open the enemy to a follow-up melee attack, which your partner can also follow up with a second melee hit. Headshots making enemies heads pop like pimples will never get old. I wouldn't say any element of the gunplay exceeds that of RE4, which was certainly disappointing upon release, but virtually no games in the decades since have managed to match the visceral action of RE4, including the 2023 remake. Overall, a disappointing follow-up to one of the absolute greatest games of all time still makes for a solid title.