The Resident Evil franchise has faced a lot of ups and downs over the past couple of decades. Well mainly downs to be honest with you, but it's scary to look back at those points where the franchise was pumping out cash grab after cash grab. The series is trying very hard when it comes to experimentation, and sometimes that drive towards being different is what makes a handful of entries hit and splatter on the wall. When the franchise does go through an uplifting moment it’s when the developers sit back and take their time with critiquing their design philosophy. What are they doing wrong and how do they fix the several screw ups of the past? We’re making a survival horror game for god's sake, and I think the last thing we should do is make a high octane action shooter that feels less like survival horror and more like the typical military games we have been getting as of lately. For example, the original Resident Evil was a great start off point for the series, but when the games started to mechanically feel the same around the third entry the developers activated the brakes. They then decided to modernize the formula, but not change it so much where it stops feeling like a Resident Evil game. This is what then led to the brilliant Resident Evil 4 which is not only a benchmark for the series and several action games, but also the point where the structure of Resident Evil changed for the better. I lied, the entries afterwards focused too much on action and that’s when the developers had to activate the brakes again.
This then led to a hiatus both with the developers and Capcom, and eventually Resident Evil 7 which leaned back towards the horror focus of the original few games. Resident Evil 7 was another fresh breath of air and in an age where we don’t get many authentic survival horror games this helped fill in the hole. The dreary atmosphere, combat that relied on resource management and carefulness, and writing that did whatever it could to scare the sh*t out of the player. It’s a modern horror game that is actually good. Now, a couple of people had problems with Resident Evil 7 and to be fair there are a few end bits that prevent me from calling Resident Evil 7 a perfect survival horror experience. However, it’s one of the few high points in the series and it might be up there alongside Resident Evil 4 and the original. There’s also Resident Evil 2 and it’s remake, but I don’t know whether I should call it impactful like the others. RE7 was another benchmark and it helped with Capcom’s revitalization back in 2017. After that they started releasing some fantastic games like Monster Hunter World, Mega Man 11, Devil May Cry 5, and RE2 Remake which we just mentioned. Capcom has been on a winning streak and it is all thanks to RE7.
Hype for the next major Resident Evil game was high, and no I’m not talking about the Resident Evil 3 Remake which disappointed a lot of people. I mean the next big one. The next mainline entry that wasn’t a remake, remaster, rerelease, or spinoff. We are moving on from Resident Evil 7 to Resident Evil 8, and Capcom pulled out the big guns for this one. They wanted Resident Evil 8 to have an even bigger scope and scale than Resident Evil 7, and they passed direction down to Morimasa Sato had different plans than Koshi Nakanishi who directed RE7 and made it what it was. Work on Resident Evil 8 began immediately after the success of Resident Evil 7 and when the reveal trailer dropped, minds were blown. It was advertised as a next generation game and it surely felt like a next generation game. There was also another craze that dragged attention towards Resident Evil 8, but you already know what it is and it stormed the internet with one massive hot sweaty tsunami wave making groans. (Deep breathing) I really hope this review doesn’t get cancelled for simply typing whatever the hell that line was.
This has to be one of the most anticipated releases of this year and when it finally came out the sales numbers blew the charts. Becoming one of the better selling games in the franchise and one the more revered Triple A releases of 2021. A lot of critics are considering this a Game of The Year contender and it’s nice to see Resident Evil 8 do very well. Actually, the game is called Resident Evil: Village and the developers rather call it that than simply the eight entry. Well I’m not going to lie, but I did see this game tick off a few people online. Some fans of the franchise said the flow and direction of Resident Evil 8 went all over the place, and inconsistency with the story was bigger in numbers than previous entries. This is one of those games that is great to playthrough, but is very hard to ignore what it does wrong. To clarify I did really enjoy my time with Resident Evil: Village. I was planning to play this game sooner than later, but I had other game reviews in mind and wasn’t able to sit down to play it until recently. Having done so I can confirm this is a really good game and a majority of people will enjoy it, but there are areas I want to explore deep into that prevent me from calling this another benchmark in the franchise and Game of The Year material. Today we’ll be talking about why I l didn't quite like Resident Evil: Village and why in some cases it fumbles about. Let’s step in the cold desolate streets of…… the village.
Story
The game takes place three years after the events of Resident Evil 7. Here's a quick catch up if you haven’t played it yet. A man named Ethan Winters journeys to a mysterious looking house in Louisiana in search of his missing wife Mia, who has been assumed to be dead for the past couple of years. He finds a way into the house and discovers his wife to be locked up in the dark-lit basement, but when they try to find a way out they are trapped. Mia then turns into a possessed monster, saws off Ethan’s hand using a chainsaw, and tries to kill him. Ethan then manages to knock her out, but before he can continue looking for an exit he is then knocked out by a man in a striped collar shirt and khakis. He is then taken to the Baker estate where he discovers a psychotic southern family is holding him against his will and won’t let him leave easily much like the other dead people they have held captive. Ethan navigates his ways through the estate, finds out the Baker has some paranormal ability to regenerate dead parts of their body, and that moldy monsters are lurking around the house. With the help of Zoe, the daughter of the Baker family, Ethan finds a way to escape alongside either Mia or Zoe. He also finds out that Mia is being controlled by a weird substance which he has to cure her of and canonically it happens as Zoe is left behind.
While sailing away Ethan and Mia are located and knocked out. It is then revealed that Mia worked for a corporation that transported bioweapons and the one her ship was carrying was named Eveline. A young girl who was practically immortal, and had the ability to control mold capable of possessing people and mutating their body into unstable states. Eveline somehow managed to escape containment, kill everyone aboard the ship, kidnap Mia, and make her way to the Baker estate to possess them with the mold and make them carry out her bidding by abducting random individuals to turn into molded monsters. Ethan is then saved by Mia before the mold can control him and he locates Eveline. He injects her with a serum that weakens her body and allows him to kill her using the arsenal he built up over the course of his journey. That isn’t enough as Eveline mutates once more, but luckily Chris Redfield and his armed units manage to show up and help Ethan put down Eveline. After that Mia is saved and Ethan flies away from the catastrophe never having to witness another atrocity again.
Chris knows that future dangers may lie for Ethan and Mia as they were related to a massive bioweapon incident, so he relocates them to a house in Europe to live in peace. This is where we pick off. Ethan and Mia have a baby daughter named Rose and all seems very well. That is until Chris and his coworkers storm the house, guns blazing, load a bunch of bullets into Mia, kidnap little Rose, and knock Ethan unconscious. Ethan is put onto a truck, but the truck crashes in the middle of a snow storm and Ethan finds himself at a mysterious village. He ventures through the village and finds it to be empty. Dead animals are scattered across the ground and the first person he encounters seems to be afraid. He tells Ethan something is coming and gives him a pistol to defend himself. The man is then eaten alive, and Ethan discovers that the village is full of what seems to be werewolves-like beings who devour blood and flesh. Ethan survives an onslaught on them before they are summoned away by the ringing of church bells. Sound familiar? Ethan makes his way through the village before being taken by a man who can telepathically control metal.
He then ends up in a room with four odd beings who seem to be able to think unlike the other monsters in the room and all four obey the commands of a woman named Mother Miranda. The four individuals include the tall vampire Lady Dimitrescu, the weaver Donna Beneviento who communicates using a living doll, a hunchback wart covered shy guy named Moreau, and then there is the metal bender Heisenberg. Mother Miranda decides to let the four kill Ethan, but he manages to escape by the skin of his teeth. Later he finds out that Mother Miranda is keeping his daughter hostage and she wants her four commanders to kill Ethan no matter the cost. Ethan must go out and kill each of the four tyrants, find Mother Miranda, and rescue his daughter before something bad can happen. He is also in the search of Chris Redfield and demands to know what is going on. A deeper secret lies underneath it all and it’s one Ethan will learn to accept. There are no humans left. They’re all flesh hungry beasts now. Farewell good hunter. May the echoes guide your way.
Gameplay
Resident Evil: Village is hugely wider in scope when it comes to the setting and atmosphere, and much like it the gameplay seems to aim to be more involving this time around. The game combines the first person perspective and claustrophobic feel of Resident Evil 7 with the action focused combat of Resident Evil 4 where waves of baddies will try to hound you on all sides and you will be given more tools to defend from more ferocious foes. The game lacks the horror and tension that Resident Evil 7 had, and at times it seems to struggle on what points to focus at. Yet, Resident Evil: Village is still a pretty fun game and in some ways the gameplay is a step up from Resident Evil 7 thanks to the comeback of mechanics from the fourth game. The survival aspects are still here and they are more important than ever. You have a small handful of guns to defend yourself, limited inventory space that prevents you from carrying a massive pile of equipment, and ammo is scarce as you are taken towards a place where modern technology is nonexistent and there aren’t constant ammo caches. Every missed bullet is a punch to the gullet and you want to make sure the place you are blasting an enemy is where it hurts most.
The gunplay in Village is much smoother and responsive than RE7, and the weapons you choose to utilize can be devastating when used in the right scenarios. Some weapons are earned by exploring areas while others can be acquired through other means which we will get to in a few minutes. There’s a pistol which is good at any type of distance, has a good reload time, and has a consistent fire rate but suffers from a lower damage input than a majority of weapons. The shotgun is the gun a majority of players will gravitate towards as it is capable of killing a majority of basic foes instantly with one close up shot to the face. There is a sniper rifle this time around and it is good for head shooting enemies from a long distance if you can line up the shot. The grenade launcher is good for blowing up crowds or piercing through heavy armor, and finally there are automatic weapons which have lower accuracy but can lay down multiple bullets in a smaller period of time. There are even stronger variations of the shotgun and pistol which can be found by exploring. Village gravitates more towards an explorable sandbox world rather than the cramped conditions that RE7 had. As you progress through the main story you unlock more areas of the central village to explore and the conditions of the village will change. From how you traverse the streets to what new enemies will spawn to try and kill you. Whenever you check your map now it will mark what you have and have not explored fully. Completely looted houses and rooms will be colored blue while not fully lotted houses will be marked red. I liked that the game does this. It makes it so that even for completionists they can keep track of what they have done. Some houses on the map will be marked with golden treasure chests and these mark rare items, weapons, or weapon modifiers that you can use.
There are a handful of resources to collect and they can be used to craft the supplies needed to survive. Crafting resources no longer take up inventory space, and there is a screen which lists all the items you can craft. More ammunition, explosives traps, and medicine bottles to heal yourself when you take too many hits. If not then you will die and be taken back to your last checkpoint. A wonderful return to Village is the merchant system back from Resident Evil 4. The new merchant this time around is no longer a weird man in a hood with a ghastly voice. Rather a fancy glutton who surprisingly treats you with the utmost respect. The Duke will give you new gear, supplies, and weapon upgrades in exchange for Lei. This is the main currency and it can be picked up from the environment or looted from dead enemies. Some rare items or treasure you find can be sold to the Duke for high amounts of Lei. Supplies and blueprints for new craftables are simple enough to understand, but what about those weapon upgrades? I’m not talking about weapon mods which improve a weapon without having to spend Lei most of the time. I’m talking about improving the efficiency of a weapon. This was also another aspect of Resident Evil 4 and it determines what guns you gravitate towards the most. There are mainly five aspects when it comes to upgrading a weapon. How much damage does a single shot deal, the weapon recoil, firing rate, how fast the gun reloads, and the amount of bullets a single clip will have to reduce the amount of times you have to reload. This makes saving up Lei and investing in your weapons more crucial as their power will determine how long you survive later.
There are four lords who rule the region and they each must be defeated to progress. Each of their territories are distinct and unlike the village they unfold in a maze-like way. Progressing further and opening shortcuts to make backtracking less tedious. Certain territories will have specific rules, and to progress at certain points you must either track a specific key item or solve a puzzle which will also require a key item at times. These territories will also have minibosses and the main rulers themselves which will require skill and understandment to beat. They must be attacked in specific spots or weak points to deal actual damage and take down. Resident Evil: Village is more action focused and bullet heavy which is a little bit of a warning sign for the series, but the mechanics that are here make the combat and progression work and that’s I found to be really fun. It knows when to kick the player into a daunting moment and make them feel satisfied for overcoming it. That isn't Resident Evil: Village is fun all the time which we are about to address. Still, what it does is mostly done right. Hopefully you can save Rose and escape this cursed village in one bloody piece. To be born of the blood. Made men by the blood. And to be undone by the lovely paleblood.
Thoughts
Resident Evil: Village is a great video game that succeeds in a lot of areas, but seems to stumble in a couple of others. I want to address what I liked most about Village before we move more onto the critical parts which we will be ripping apart with a chainsaw. The atmosphere and setting of Village is top notch and is probably one of my favorite locales in this franchise. The size of this unexplored land and mysteries to be uncovered is what makes the village work extremely well. The main complaint people have with Village is that it isn’t scary like Resident Evil 7. Does not being scary make Village a bad horror game? No. It doesn’t. Good horror does not always have to be scary and one critique that explains this best is the one written by Monty Zander. He states that good horror is one that is effective. We are witnessing an ordinary being thrown into a situation so stressful that logically he shouldn’t come out alive. Same scenario happened with RE7 and it’s happening again. I will also be making references to other critic reviews and critiques as I find it much easier to talk about Village this way.
The graphics, lighting, and sound design is really nice and this game does feel next gen at times. The side content makes exploring the main village intriguing as you face optional challenges or find items to afford more supplies. The merchant system can be really reliable at times and crafting is made more accessible as you are shown a screen of everything you can make. None of the guns felt bad to use, the animations and sound for them were top notch as well, and upgrading them really made you feel like you were getting stronger. Village doesn’t overstay its welcome as the main story is beatable within the span of seven to eight hours which is a good runtime. There is a good amount of replay value thanks to the new game plus, all the guns to switch up your playstyle, and there is a mercenary mode which pits you against hordes of enemies to test your skills.Resident Evil: Village should have mostly been a slam dunk, but for some reason it’s not a benchmark title like Resident Evil 4 and 7. This is where we move onto all the problems that Village struggles with. It tries to combine aspects of RE4 and RE7, but it doesn’t realize that by doing so it gets confused on what it wants to be. Yahtzee Crosshaw says it best in his review of Village, “RE4 and RE7 were good for different reasons”. RE4 was good because it knew how to take the same enemies and created good encounters. You can hound the player from every side, but if you don’t force them to change how they approach a fight then you risk the player using the same tactics. It happens here as a majority of the time you can just gun your way through enemies without having to reposition or time your shots right like in RE4.
The plot of RE4 was also aware with how stupid and over the top it was, so the writers decided to embrace that stupidity and come back to be clever and awesome. Village has an over the top plot, but it fails to acknowledge that it is stupid. That’s why you may cringe at some of the dialogue or moments. RE7 was good because it focused on tight claustrophobic horror. We just talked about how horror doesn’t always have to be scary, but at least RE7 kept a consistent theme. One section in Village makes you explore a creepy doll house and probably sh*t your pants with what is probably the scariest moment in any modern horror game. The next hour or so later you then go through an industrial environment with bullet sponge enemies that don’t feel scary and feel more tedious. Then after that the game literally transforms into Call of Duty.
The bosses look epic as they mutate into monstrous forms, but they aren’t that great to be honest. The vampire lady mutates into a multi-tentacle dragon, and at some point you pump bullets into a metal monster immiting lightning. Before you say that sounds awesome, which I know you are, let's look back at RE7. I feel more unnerved by Jack Baker trying to run me over with a car. Then coming back later so we can have a Bruce Campbell leveled chainsaw fight. The bosses and setting of RE7 worked better because they took average day things and found a way to make them f*cked up as possible. During the opening section you literally get spoon feed guts and maggots. Skill Up had a great statement in his review of Village. RE7 had true authentic haunted house horror, while Village had theme park horror. Not bad, but not as good.
The story is not good. It’s not good to be honest and at times the writing can be unbearable. There are some moments that land well like being introduced to the new intriguing cast of villains and learning how they feel about the ongoing events. Other than that it is all over the place. There are characters making decisions that don’t make sense. Ethan Winters was a guy I really liked back in RE7, because he was different. He wasn’t a rookie cop or mercenary. He was a normal dude and his fright back at the Baker estate made him relatable, because we too would have reacted under those conditions. Now he's an asshole. Ethan in RE8 is the most unlikable protagonist I have witnessed in a video game. He asks more questions than he really should, and if he just shut up and looks at what is happening around him then maybe he wouldn’t feel as annoying. He would understand what is going on. There is also Chris Redfield who doesn't make sense in this game. Some of the conflicts in this game wouldn’t have happened if Chris thoroughly explained to Ethan what was going on before he butted him in the head, but no, we needed something to drive the plot. There is this one end scene which ties back to RE7 and it is surprisingly while at the same time really stupid.
The main villains are likable, but they aren’t handled that well. The advertisement hyped the sh*t out of Lady Dimitrescu and a lot of people thought she was going to be the main villain. I knew there would be a bigger plot and that she was going to get killed within the first two hours, which you probably should have expected you perverted f*cks. Donna Beneviento and Moreau seemed interesting and it would have been nicer to explore their perspective more, but you kill them off so easily that they feel like throwaways. Heisenberg is really cool as well, but the way they handled him was a little weird. The game could also benefit from some side quests. There are side objectives, but what about a house full of survivors that you could revisit often? You know, like the one from the opening that is killed off very easily. Why not have NPCs you could send to the house and by fulfilling favors you get items only they can give you? Like sending NPCs to the Cathedral Ward in Bloodborne. (Deep breathing again) Why am I so angry right now? I don’t want to hate this game. I really love it. It was my most anticipated game this year because it was a follow up to Resident Evil 7. I’m not the most seasoned veteran of this franchise, but I love the new direction Resident Evil is going. Older fans may not like it with how it got stuck in the mud, but it’s a good step forward.
There is a lot to love about this game and the flaws can be out masked with the goods. I really want to recommend Resident Evil: Village and show that the development team’s work paid off. It did a little bit of everything all at once, and that’s when the tragedies happened. This is not Game of The Year material, but it does deserve some recognition. In the end I am going to give Resident Evil: Village a 6.5/10 for being passable enough. Seems a little high and a little low with all I just said, and that’s what makes this score good. Maybe Resident Evil 9 will be better. We don’t want another hiatus to happen. Farewell good hunter. May you find peace in the waking world…….
Wait have I been making Bloodborne references this entire review?
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