While remakes are all the rage in the AAA space right now (Dead Space, Like a Dragon: Ishin, and Resident Evil 4 will all release within the next two months), fans have been lovingly “demaking” games for quite a while now. From playable versions of Final Fantasy VII for NES and Bloodborne on PS1, to videos of what titles like Bioshock or The Last of Us would look like in the 90s, talented artists have been giving us a glimpse at how the limitations of older hardware would shape our favorite games. The latest in the trend is a set of images from artist MrComeGatos, reimagining Resident Evil 4 as a Game Boy Color game.
On the left, we have a new title screen inspired by RE4‘s haunting box art for its European release for PS2. Its simple color lends itself well to the Game Boy Color’s limited palette. The shot on the right is a lovingly recreated moment from the game’s opening hours, now in a top-down 2D style. The bonfire is there, along with a neutralized hostile local. Leon’s signature jacket and hairstyle have translated well to 1998’s hottest handheld hardware too. The art even includes one of RE4‘s wandering chickens having just laid an egg (complete with the game’s pick-up lights).
Thinking back on games for the Game Boy Color and looking at MrComeGatos’ vision of Resident Evil 4, it’s easy to imagine it playing like a bloodier, more intense Link’s Awakening DX. With a handgun and shotgun in place of your bow and boomerang, of course.
Here the artist has presented demake versions of the menu screen, complete with attaché case inventory management, and the merchant’s item shop. There’s even a pixel-art portrait of the iconic arms dealer. Voice acting was pretty rare on the Game Boy Color, but Capcom was one of the few companies to include it on the portable. Surely, they’d square away enough space to allow the merchant one of his famous lines if Resident Evil 4 were on a cartridge. Here’s our best guess at what he’d sound like.
Resident Evil 4 is an all-time classic that revolutionized third-person shooters. If it was on Game Boy it wouldn’t have had the same industry-wide impact, but it surely would have been a banger. How do we know? Capcom proved their exceptional Zelda aptitude by making Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages for the very same hardware. Legendary director Shinji Mikami was also a designer on the well-regarded SNES game Goof Troop, a Zelda-like starring Disney’s most famous dog.
RE4 fans can give their imagination a break this March when Capcom shows us the action-horror classic reworked and rebuilt for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Stay tuned to Final Weapon for more on the highly anticipated remake.
