while a great game, it fails to live up to the standard set by its outstanding predecessor, RE4.
to RE4.
The difficulty level is a something of a problem, on normal it's quite easy, but with spots hard enough to scare me away from veteran mode, an easy game is fine but if it lacks the consistency to be beatable by non-super hardcore players on harder modes, it just doesn't work. The hard spots, however, are just about the only things that scare me about the game as you never really get the feeling that you want to play the game, but it's just too terrifying. The mini-bosses can be scary, but like almost everything in the game, you can look at it and say "In RE4 stuff like this was harder/scarier/better" for example: in RE4 the chainsaw freak had an instant kill. While this attack is retained by his chainsaw successor, it has a wind-up I don't recall from RE4, and overall it is just more dodge-able and less punishing than before. Again, this isn't a bad thing, it's just different, while RE4 was brutally hard most of the time, like being beaten with a potato sack full of pure joy, RE5 is more like eating potatoes of moderate happiness out of the same potato sack; not as painful, but not as fun either.
As detailed above, RE4 is a better game in most ways, but it's sequel has some significant improvements such as some of the best co-op this side of gears of war 1 and some truly incredible graphics. The mercenaries mode is vastly improved, doubling the amount of levels and characters, and the entire game boasts some of the best unlockables since the PS2 ratchet and clank games. Also, the chapter select is an extremely welcome addition.
The boss battles also seem somewhat lamer, however, relying more on QTEs and gun turrets, directly opposed to the RE4 tradition of taking a pistol to a giant monster fight.The game is shorter, but as mentioned you can hop into the game at any completed chapter. The inventory system is drastically different, forfeiting the enjoyable struggle of fitting herbs and ammo (found much more frequently in RE5 then in RE4) into a pause-menu briefcase for the tense mid-combat item swapping real time inventory. this works well, but it would work so much better if you didn't exit the inventory screen when damaged.
In closing, if you want an amazing survival-horror game with a dash of action, play Dead Space. If you want an amazing game that mixes equal parts survival-horror and action, play Resident Evil 4.
But if you want an action game that can give you the Occasional scare, look no further than this solid followup to an incredible game.