All images and video copyright Capcom
OVERVIEW
Resident Evil (Biohazard) is back with a vengeance with the 8th (that's a lie) entry in the series. I always have trouble distinguishing what Capcom even thinks about when addressing where to go with this franchise. It began as a zombie trio of Resident Evil 1, 2, and 3 (eventually 0 as well), but then took a turn for a change in what the enemy was with the "Las Plagas" for Resident Evil 4, 5, and 6 (I've wiped this game from memory so forgive me if I'm wrong here). Then we arrive at 7 with the black mold goo and 8 with a variety of everything. No spoilers of course, but somehow we've gotten to vampires and werewolves. Even after going through this game I still don't see entirely why they're there. The latest variation of virus now creates them instead of zombies and mutated whatevers how exactly? Somehow it still mostly works. Let's break down Resident Evil 4, I mean Village. ;)
STORY & GAMEPLAY
It's a sequel to a sequel of a sequel from a sequel... I'll stop. Resident Evil Village takes place shortly after the events of 7. *SKIP for RE7 spoilers. Our protagonist Ethan Winters survived the Baker family's carousal of kidnapping evil of his wife Mia. We (Ethan) rescued said damsel in distress and killed some evil black mold goop that is derived out of some variant of the many viruses within the series. Killed the moldy family, escaped the house and fled to an abandoned tanker ship with an evil goop Grudge-like girl. Escaped again to eventually kill the evil child turned giant goop monster. Middle-aged Chris Redfield stops by to say hello and give us a ride outta' there.
*SKIP OVER
All images and video copyright Capcom
Now without getting too deep into the new game's story, Ethan is back safely with his wife Mia and baby Rose. Rose is taken and Mia is... so anyways, Ethan must get his family back at a Transylvania inspired village and castle. Hmm, sounds familiar somehow. Oh that's right, Resident Evil 4 is the same damn setting! Except our boy Leon is the star of the show trying to pick up the presidents daughter, (cough). Don't worry, Ada is his true love anyways. Capcom refuses to get that established and only hints at it every time they're together. Any who, Ethan ends up at the village, and the town is seemingly abandoned. Good luck, as that empty town is a woofing mystery in your way towards finding Rose.
Out of the wooded story, and into the gameplay. This game is the same as Resident Evil 7 with an FPS style gameplay. What's odd is this game would work just as well in a 3rd person akin to the RE2 and 3 REmakes. Ethan is special though, so he gets the only first person experience. Either way, it works well. It does make you feel as if you were the one trapped in the village. The thing is, the previous entry made weapons and guns a luxury and dire need whereas this one gets so action packed at times it nearly gets to FPS extreme shooter territory. I wouldn't mind this so much but it feels removed from the previous game's establishment and heads towards that territory of being a RE4/5/6. Nitpicking aside, all aspects of the gameplay felt right otherwise. The weight and animations of the variety of weapons were solid except shotguns seemed pretty good up close, but sometimes were completely useless from a short distance or more like a pistol's reaction would be. The knife really does seem entirely useless besides box breaking, which is sad. It used to be a somewhat reliable but unsafe method to extinguish enemies, but now is so useless it's better to just run away. If they were to add a cool head stab animation prompt or do something more with it I would have used it a lot more in my playthroughs. Typically Resident Evil games make it usable, the remakes (1, 2, and 3) all had good options that are seemingly abandoned here. The original REmake had daggers which could be used as a head stab defensive animation.
Capcom deviated from the norm in this game for how combat and scare tactics are being used. RE7 was heavily intense without breaks in the moments of fear with limited times of action (typically boss fights). RE Village breaks that open to have moments of exploration and resource collecting, battle sequences, running the F away sequences, and trademark boss fights. This worked much better for making the overall experience of the game interesting, but problems arose as the game went on where skirmishes and boss fights became too common. As mentioned over in our Top 5 Resident Evils article, this game has the same issue as most Resident Evils, and particularly follows the path of RE4 too much. It'd be nice if Capcom figured out how to not depend on boss fights for everything in every single one of their games. If you wanted something like the perfected Resident Evil 2 remake, this is not your game. It feels somewhat like a RE game, but there's so many differences; not just the perspective, that sway away from what made so many of these games in the series great. It's hard to feel like this game won't be forgotten in a few months. I personally, still can't get over how well crafted and perfect the Resident Evil 2 remake is, yet here we are 2 or 3 games later and playing vampires and werewolves, the game. It's a fine experience, and worth trying, but not the game most Resident Evil fans were hoping for.
What is there to do? How kind of you to ask. The story is where you'll start with and finish before unlocking the trademark "The Mercenaries" mode of the game. New Game plus is available if you load the cleared game save file. Beating the game also gives you a store for purchasing a ton of unlockables using in game points earned through various activities and achievements. Concept art, character and prop models, making of videos, etc. all become accessible. This makes the game much more replayable as getting an infinite shotgun or magnum is so satisfying after scrambling for bullets in the beginning of the game.
All images and video copyright Capcom
CONTROLS & PERFORMANCE
As you may expect, this being a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7, the controls are essentially the same. First person light shooter with some puzzles that are pretty straight forward to figure out along the way. The weapons feel a bit better than 7's kind of clunkiness. That game felt like everything weighed 20 pounds extra than it should. This game feels more right except my already mentioned disappointment with the knife.
Game's performance was pretty solid right out of the gates. Some slight frame dips that've been mostly already addressed and minimal crashing depending on your PC hardware (if applicable). Most of this can be fully addressed or already has been. No issues otherwise so we'll keep it simple.
AUDIO
Pretty standard audio. Music never hit so hard I had to truly stop and appreciate it but this is the type of game to keep it more in the background anyways as moments of silence can add to the intensity. Save rooms still get the nostalgic music for the one of the only RE things to make it feel like it is one. Weapons and gadgets all fit with character audio probably being the highlight even though there wasn't much of it. I'd say the only characters to truly stand out above and beyond for me were Lady Dimitrescu and her three "daughters." Their performances really sold me on the crazy vampires in a castle vibe. Erratic and to some of you maybe even erotic. It's a shame I felt they should have been the spotlight of the game, but were more of a blip.
SUMMARY
The village of evil residents is an overall good experience. The beginning third of the game is very well done, but falters here and there and eats stale evil by the end. Quite honestly I may look forward to the next game more than this one, but this was definitely better than its predecessor in nearly every way. Let us know what you thought of the latest installment of evil!
SCORE
7.5 out of 10.0
▣▣▣▣▣▣▣◩▢▢
+ Actors' performances of Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters stole the show
+ Good variety of content within the game and post game completion
+ Took what was good in RE7 and made most of it better
+ Solid gameplay and controls
+ The opening "Deathly Hallows"-like short is great and very well done, maybe put too much effort here opposed to the rest of the game though
○ Brings little new to the table to make it truly special, it just does everything you'd expect it to well.
○ No or barely any bugs (depending on what you play it on)
○ Maybe chalk this up to personal opinion but I still prefer 3rd person RE games. RE2make is the pinnacle of this franchise in modern times. These deviation REs just aren't good enough and aren't that interesting. I'd rather have more story and development than this games lack of any story minus Ethan's baby is taken, go rescue. That's basically it minus small Chris Redfield cameos.
- Story is too far of a departure from Resident Evil to the point of this game should have been something else entirely (I'd say that for 7 even more so). It also gets a bit too ridiculous in near typical RE fashion at this point. At least no boulders are being punched.
- *(SPOILER) The ladies of the castle house were the best part and barely in the game... Capcom should have spread out their appearances and usage way more, especially to build up their arcs and persona so the player can really feel how terrible and frightening they are. The other 3 area bosses just felt like set pieces where the four vampires could have mattered more.
Kommentit