When I was in middle school and high school, my favorite video game console was the Nintendo GameCube. So it was disheartening watching so many of my friends write it off as kiddie and flawed compared to the Sony PlayStation 2 or Microsoft Xbox. I eventually owned all three consoles, but I was thrilled when Capcom, oddly loyal to Nintendo for most of that generation, released the excellent Resident Evil remake alongside Resident Evil Zero, which was originally slated for the Nintendo 64. Resident Evil 4 truly revolutionized the series, tossing out everything that had been holding it back while keeping everything that worked.

I was genuinely excited that Leon Kennedy served as the main hero in Resident Evil 4. Resident Evil 2 was already one of my favorite games, and I remember playing as Leon over Claire, which is saying something, since I usually gravitate toward the female character. Case in point, in the original Resident Evil, I always picked Jill Valentine over Chris Redfield. Maybe I’ve just got something against the Redfields, who knows, but Leon was genuinely cool, especially playing him as a rookie cop.

Resident Evil 4 also breaks from the series’ tradition of offering two heroes or branching storylines. It’s a single, straightforward path. Set years after Resident Evil 2, Leon now works for the U.S. federal government, the same government that nuked the city he used to protect. His new assignment: track down the president’s daughter, who’s been kidnapped in, of all places, Spain.

But instead of landing in majestic Madrid or the beautiful city of Barcelona, he ends up in some remote Spanish countryside steeped in poverty, where everyone seems unsettlingly off, until it becomes clear these villagers are essentially zombies in everything but name, yet much better flesh. Back in 2005, the village setting itself was genuinely impressive in a ground breaking sense. You had multiple areas to freely navigate as Leon, opening up real tactical options instead of the cramped, narrow-hallway shootouts the series had leaned on for years. Even today, I can’t think of many games that quite capture that same feel.

The biggest improvement Resident Evil 4 brought to the franchise was ditching the old tank controls entirely, letting you move freely and aim with genuine precision instead of pointing roughly at a target and hoping for the best. That shift opened up a ton of possibilities for fun, though it also raised the difficulty, since the older games let you land hits without much thought, while precision aiming here is absolutely essential. When the Wii version came out, Capcom cranked the difficulty up even further, which annoyed me a bit because this game gets legitimately tough once you’re deep into it.

The boss fights were wonderfully varied too, never just reducing to a giant monster brawling with Leon. Some threw in unexpected twists, like knife duels or hurling a massive harpoon at some horrifying lake creature. Not every encounter was a series highlight, but I always enjoyed seeing what monstrosity waited around the next corner. That said, the bearded village leader was the one who truly broke me. I ended up resorting to an Action Replay just to finish the GameCube version during my original playthrough.

Probably the weakest part of Resident Evil 4 was Ashley. Your central objective is rescuing her and getting her safely back to the U.S., despite the fact that this should logically be a job for the CIA, FBI, or the U.S. military, not a single ex-cop, especially with American intelligence clearly aware that something bigger was going on. Still, the game forces you into protection duty at several points, and it’s rarely simple. There’s a later sequence where a group of monk-like enemies try to snatch her away, and I found it far more tedious than fun.

I’ll also admit I wasn’t especially good at Resident Evil 2, since I never experienced Ada Wong’s original PlayStation appearance. So when she showed up in Resident Evil 4, she essentially felt like a brand-new character to me, and I remember her becoming one of my teenage video game crushes. I later realized I always had a type: dark-haired bad girls. I appreciate that Ada is such a morally gray, compelling character, especially given her complicated feelings toward Leon, feelings that clearly take a back seat to her far more sinister agenda.

I honestly haven’t really touched a Resident Evil game past 4, believe it or not, so I have no idea how the story has evolved since, and admittedly, I don’t much care. It does drive me a little crazy realizing Capcom recently remade this game, and it’s heading to the Nintendo Switch 2 alongside the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes. I do plan on playing them, and I might actually tackle 4 before circling back to 2 and 3, though I’ll figure that out later. But the original Resident Evil 4 remains one of my all-time favorite GameCube games, and I was always a little bitter that Capcom immediately turned around and announced a PlayStation 2 port before the game had even released, despite the “Only for Nintendo GameCube” branding slapped right on the box. Of course, they eventually released it on basically every platform imaginable, including the original Switch. Honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked if you could run it on a toaster at this point.