No.

How ignorant. Time and time again it seems it needs to be said: graphics do not make the game. That's the problem with this generation. Most of the games do amazing graphics over innovative gameplay.

If you're talking about the actual gameplay looking bad, I suppose they haven't aged perfectly, but they're nothing less than classics of the genre. Donkey Kong looks primitive on the NES, but it still manages to be great fun, and the arcade version is still one of the most important videogames ever (considering it's what made Shigeru's name famous, was the origin of Mario, and formed the genre of games to come in the next couple generations, and subsequently laid the groundwork upon which most games looked after for inspiration). Just because a game hasn't aged gracefully on the gameplay side of things doesn't mean its importance in the annals of videogames is diminished even slightly.

I like the 2nd one better but the first is a great game too. The series has been downhill however ever since it left the original PS1.

one of the PS1 greatest games...

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Arguably, indeed. Resident Evil 4 is not a Resident Evil game, in my opinion. It's not a true Resident Evil game in any sense. It's an action-adventure game with horror elements that had the name Resident Evil attached to it for the sake of money alone.

Resident Evil is a survival-horror series. Or at least that's what it used to be. Now it's becoming an action series with only slight threads of horror strewn throughout. It's a travesty, too, because Resident Evil used to be such a brilliant series. Instead of relying solely on jump scares and extreme gore, they crafted a terrifying world using atmosphere and the fear of running out of ammo/health items.

Resident Evil 4 maintained the ammo quantities and health problems. But Resident Evil 5 stepped in and made it easy as pie to get an obscene amount of ammo and health pickups, as well as added a cooperative partner, and therefore completely destroyed any sense of "survival" the series used to have. Awesome that it sold so well because I think we're now locked-in to a sacrilegious legacy for what used to be a wonderfully scary and survivalistic series.

Resident Evil 4 is not a bad game, and I suppose it was more of a natural step forward for the series, given the rise in action in 2, 3, and Code Veronica. But what it means for the series is the worst... it's what single-handedly screwed the series on its head and now the Resident Evil franchise is almost indistinguishable from Gears of War.

I'll take 2 over 4 also. And even without a number, I don't see how Code Veronica, my other favorite in the franchise, isn't mainline when it's the actual sequel to RE2.