Really, the games is freaking awesome, even today in 2015 the gameplay still fresh. The over the shoulder cam and the elements of action made it the best RE in my opinion. When I first played I also had the reaction of hating it, but than I went to replay the old ones and just couldn't stand how slow the gameplay was "tanky" the gameplay was.

RE5 was good and RE 6 sucks, but 4 will be forever my favourite. Hope they update the gameplay for  thw upcoming remake of re2.

It was a huge breakthrough for the industry, who quickly adapted to this new over-the-shoulder shooting gameplay and spawned uncountable games that used the same mechanics.

It was a (bad) hit to the Resident Evil franchise, though, which would forever had its own personality tainted after this game.

It was so good it killed the survival horror genre.
At least we got one last great game.

Edit : obviously the genre was revived by indies later, but it took a long time.

Its a masterpiece for sure.

I hated that game because i could see the direction the franchise was going. When RE5 released and it ended up being a crappy action game, i wasn't surprised at all.

Edit: Zero was the last great RE game.

Well the two games after RE4 are pretty bad so I say it was a bad move for the franchise because capcom prioritized on shooting and killing like rambo over surviving.

They let Mikami go. That was the bad move on their part.

RE4 is one most acclaimed games on the planet and responsible for todays third person shooters.

Why would you ask that question?

Of course, it is the best RE game, one of the best games ever made, gameplay, music, story, setting, it set the foundation of how to make an action oriented horror game in the generations to come it had great-everything, the problem is that RE5 was less of the good stuff and more... eh, and then a mediocre tps called Resident Evil 6 came out and ruined everything - Revelations was ok, much more RE4 ish.

Because in fan sites its one of the most hated in the series for changing the "essence".

5 was very good and 6 just should burn in hell together with FF xiii.