Should you buy the Switch ports of Resident Evil 4, RE Remake and Resident Evil Zero? Digital Foundry reports.
And handheld play makes all the difference.
John Linneman
Staff Writer, Digital Foundry
There’s been some degree of controversy surrounding the Switch ports of Resident Evil Remake, Resident Evil Zero and Resident Evil 4 – principally in terms of their price-points compared to other platforms and the lack of extra features designed to make the most of the Switch hardware. There’s no denying that these are all valid criticisms, but personally, I have few problems recommending two of the three releases, with the third just a patch away from greatness. The fact is that these are still classic survival horror games that are still great to play today and on top of that, being able to revisit these titles in a portable form factor is an advantage that can’t be overlooked.
Let’s begin with a look at the Switch conversion of Resident Evil 4 – one of my personal favourite games of all-time. The evidence suggests that we’re looking at a conversion of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, with the exact same assets and that crucial 60 frames per second performance target. Side by side with the existing current-gen ports, there’s very little to distinguish this new Switch release with its siblings.
The only compromise comes in terms of resolution. Pixel-counts suggest that the 1080p imagery of the PS4 version is reduced to 900p when playing docked on Switch. When running in portable mode, resolution resolves closer to 600p – a curious state of affairs for a game that originally released on Nintendo GameCube, but understandable when considering that the developers wanted to retain the silky-smooth 60fps update of the latest remaster.
The extent to which the port succeeds in capturing that experience really depends on whether you’re playing RE4 docked or on the go. From my perspective, I feel that the docked mode doesn’t work as I would have liked. The more intense scenes can’t sustain 60fps and performance varies between the mid-40s to the top-end 60fps. With that in mind, there’s a lack of consistency here which doesn’t feel quite right, to the point where I do feel that there is an argument for an optional capped, locked 1080p30 mode.
All three of the new Resident Evil Switch ports analysed in depth.
Interestingly, the situation changes up when undocking RE4 and gaming in portable mode.
