This is the stupidest RE installment yet, the Ethan Winters saga is the most homogenically western and cliche-ridden American horror duology literature I've played in years.
VILLAGE writer Anthony Johnston gets lost in his snobbish American lens delivering a portrait of a lost rural village where the most uninspired monsters clumsily assault us. Licantropes riding horses, Vampires, zombies with swords? A guy with magneto abilities that transforms himself into ... A transformer ??? What the Fuck (well at least this one is more creative, even if it causes embarrassment)
Although inspired by RE4, the cliches also devour the approach to action and navigation, with a standard array of weapons and a first-person perspective, the combat does not differ one bit from the rest of survival FPS of the last decade, feeling The regression of the multiple and superior combat options in RE4, and the semi-open level design does not turn out to be as threatening or challenging to navigate as the corridors of RE2 2019, or Union, the city of The Evil Within 2, seems the Little inspiration of VILLAGE turns to the voyeurism of playing hide and seek with Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters (visual delight for otakus) and the grotesque images of Ethan being injured and maimed,.a waste of energy from my point of view. Not a theme park, not a true gender collage.
It is curious that this game makes me appreciate The evil within 2 more since in essence they are the same, a Japanese collage of universal horror with strong American influences, but while VILLAGE takes it in a bland and voyeuristic way, the evil within 2 is more elegant and creative with its context and spatial flow. Oh! and the setting in rural lost towns has to end, the anonymous rural Spain frozen in time with pesetas included from R4 was fun, but .
BTW, if you are going to comment on something like "American through a non-American lens", please save it, the point is not the lens, it is the cliche and voyeurism to which cities and villages are reduced under that vision
VILLAGE writer Anthony Johnston gets lost in his snobbish American lens delivering a portrait of a lost rural village where the most uninspired monsters clumsily assault us. Licantropes riding horses, Vampires, zombies with swords? A guy with magneto abilities that transforms himself into ... A transformer ??? What the Fuck (well at least this one is more creative, even if it causes embarrassment)
Although inspired by RE4, the cliches also devour the approach to action and navigation, with a standard array of weapons and a first-person perspective, the combat does not differ one bit from the rest of survival FPS of the last decade, feeling The regression of the multiple and superior combat options in RE4, and the semi-open level design does not turn out to be as threatening or challenging to navigate as the corridors of RE2 2019, or Union, the city of The Evil Within 2, seems the Little inspiration of VILLAGE turns to the voyeurism of playing hide and seek with Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters (visual delight for otakus) and the grotesque images of Ethan being injured and maimed,.a waste of energy from my point of view. Not a theme park, not a true gender collage.
It is curious that this game makes me appreciate The evil within 2 more since in essence they are the same, a Japanese collage of universal horror with strong American influences, but while VILLAGE takes it in a bland and voyeuristic way, the evil within 2 is more elegant and creative with its context and spatial flow. Oh! and the setting in rural lost towns has to end, the anonymous rural Spain frozen in time with pesetas included from R4 was fun, but .
BTW, if you are going to comment on something like "American through a non-American lens", please save it, the point is not the lens, it is the cliche and voyeurism to which cities and villages are reduced under that vision
35 Comments
if the games' vibes don't work for you they don't work for you, but it's pretty funny that you're continuously shitting on americans when the writer was born in birmingham and still lives in the UK; and american culture through a distinctly japanese lens has been the entire MO of resident evil from the first frame of the first game.
More than a review it seems like a subjective tantrum in a western style. lmao
which is funny, because RE in essence it has always been that from a Japanese point of view
which is funny, because RE in essence it has always been that from a Japanese point of view
@Batrice My friend, I don't care where the writer was born or what RE's modus operandi has been for years. continue redounding in supposed conventions of a genre or playing the "vibes" card does not work for me.
The theme or the vibes do not sustain a video game on their own
The theme or the vibes do not sustain a video game on their own
RE being American through a non-American lens is literally the entire series.
@keiler_shura It's funny, because insinuating that the only thing that bothers me about VILLAGE is its essence rather than its western homogenization implies that maybe for you RE is just visual and thematic aesthetics.
Please if the only comments you have are on aesthetics, stop
Please if the only comments you have are on aesthetics, stop
"I don't care ... what RE's modus operandi has been for years."
I feel like intentionally ignoring what a game is going for because you don't care about it is a not great way to subject yourself to a medium. Like even if you don't care what the game is going for, at least acknowledge it?
I totally get if you go into games for gameplay, if you're not big on aesthetics or themes that's totally your deal, but getting into games that don't ascribe to that and then blame them for doing so is like blaming Disco Elysium for not having combat.
I feel like intentionally ignoring what a game is going for because you don't care about it is a not great way to subject yourself to a medium. Like even if you don't care what the game is going for, at least acknowledge it?
I totally get if you go into games for gameplay, if you're not big on aesthetics or themes that's totally your deal, but getting into games that don't ascribe to that and then blame them for doing so is like blaming Disco Elysium for not having combat.
i would argue personally that there is a significant and permeable difference in the conception of americana between classic resident evil and re7 + village ((at least in this instance, presumably) in itself this differing foundation is not necessarily a problem) but in the interest of not debating on someone elses review im gonna lynch it and not elaborate
@tatsky why are you defining what this videogame and the series as a whole is? that's your view on these games, not an objective and universal fact
Excuse me?
@Tatsky You have not understood anything.
excuse my ways, but submitting to supposed stylistic features as a religion simply because the canon of an artistic medium dictates it is tremendously soft, questioning is part of life and of course of art, a subjective and personal form of expression that we define and vary with time. It has nothing to do with the "essence", the point is the integrity of a concrete work. That Disco Elysium example comes from nowhere, first because in a clearly conversational video game the absence of combat is almost the right thing to do, and second because it has nothing to do with my PARTICULAR complaints about VILLAGE.
If you think my opinion is wrong, okay, it seems correct, it is normal, and I like divergent opinions.
But if all you do is show up here with aggressive aptitude and generalist and conservative arguments about artistic perception and nothing concrete, you can get out of here.
videogames are too good to be viewed under canonical and elitist gazes, we players interpret and complement these works by playing, it does not favor us to focus on labels and canons that limit our thinking
excuse my ways, but submitting to supposed stylistic features as a religion simply because the canon of an artistic medium dictates it is tremendously soft, questioning is part of life and of course of art, a subjective and personal form of expression that we define and vary with time. It has nothing to do with the "essence", the point is the integrity of a concrete work. That Disco Elysium example comes from nowhere, first because in a clearly conversational video game the absence of combat is almost the right thing to do, and second because it has nothing to do with my PARTICULAR complaints about VILLAGE.
If you think my opinion is wrong, okay, it seems correct, it is normal, and I like divergent opinions.
But if all you do is show up here with aggressive aptitude and generalist and conservative arguments about artistic perception and nothing concrete, you can get out of here.
videogames are too good to be viewed under canonical and elitist gazes, we players interpret and complement these works by playing, it does not favor us to focus on labels and canons that limit our thinking
@Ardwyw I'm sorry, how does talking about what the game is going for fall into a pattern of "canonical and elitist gazes", and how does throwing that out not actually limiting? I'm not saying your view is wrong, I'm saying it's uncharitable. I think those are two different things.
This is also totally being tone police and I'm probably falling into a trap for this one, but is it not being intentionally dismissive to say "I do not understand anything", where do I go from that? I otherwise agree with every single part of your statement, I wasn't trying to imply the absence of viewing games in your own ways and saying you shouldn't question games.
@Santieur52 Thanks for the "objectivity" discussion because I was TOTALLY trying to turn this into objective facts and not, like, literally implying subjectivity. How is that not literally ripping apart the conversation to spin this into a different narrative? This feels like a throwaway statement to turn this into a conversation about "objectivity" to "win" something, otherwise I don't know why this was brought up.
This is also totally being tone police and I'm probably falling into a trap for this one, but is it not being intentionally dismissive to say "I do not understand anything", where do I go from that? I otherwise agree with every single part of your statement, I wasn't trying to imply the absence of viewing games in your own ways and saying you shouldn't question games.
@Santieur52 Thanks for the "objectivity" discussion because I was TOTALLY trying to turn this into objective facts and not, like, literally implying subjectivity. How is that not literally ripping apart the conversation to spin this into a different narrative? This feels like a throwaway statement to turn this into a conversation about "objectivity" to "win" something, otherwise I don't know why this was brought up.
@kingbancho Thanks for commenting friend, you are a blessing for this website, and I apologize if sometimes I sound more aggressive than necessary, it is not my intention.
Certainly my problem with RE7 and 8 is related to the fact that the American (or European) conception is very insulting, and it seems that it is always justified through the Resident Evil anthology and that chessy air of cinema B
I can see the reason for these arguments, but they remain somewhat poor in the scheme of things, and they still do not justify for me the lack of identity of some installments of the saga
Besides everything, I'm from Spain, you know;
Behind you, imbesill!
Certainly my problem with RE7 and 8 is related to the fact that the American (or European) conception is very insulting, and it seems that it is always justified through the Resident Evil anthology and that chessy air of cinema B
I can see the reason for these arguments, but they remain somewhat poor in the scheme of things, and they still do not justify for me the lack of identity of some installments of the saga
Besides everything, I'm from Spain, you know;
Behind you, imbesill!
@tasky "what the game is" is your perception but you are using it as a factual statements, "being American through a non-American lens" is not an embedded identity of the game, it's something that can be perfectly criticized or praised.
is like efing 22 year old nintendo fanboys that think everything that doesn't follow OoT, aLttP or TP structure "is not a real Zelda game" and they don't have the processing power to admit that Zelda 2 exists.
is like efing 22 year old nintendo fanboys that think everything that doesn't follow OoT, aLttP or TP structure "is not a real Zelda game" and they don't have the processing power to admit that Zelda 2 exists.
this is just petty nitpicking
Anybody in this thread smoke weed?
Pure pseudo-intellectual word soup in the comments, mixed with vapid complaints about how the game wasn't what you wanted it to be in the review.
Would take the time to write an in-depth comment, but all I see is pure dismissal of what the series identity is and little more. The fact that RE4 has 5 stars on your profile when a lot of your aesthetic complaints can be applied to it is either the height of hypocrisy or the ultimate sign of conformity to a greater popular opinion.
As a side note, criticizing a non-American writer, overseen by predominately Japanese staff, for being too American shows an astounding lack of research on your part. This comment isn't meant to be an insult, but moreso complete disappointment 10 people read this and though "Yeah, this is good".
Would take the time to write an in-depth comment, but all I see is pure dismissal of what the series identity is and little more. The fact that RE4 has 5 stars on your profile when a lot of your aesthetic complaints can be applied to it is either the height of hypocrisy or the ultimate sign of conformity to a greater popular opinion.
As a side note, criticizing a non-American writer, overseen by predominately Japanese staff, for being too American shows an astounding lack of research on your part. This comment isn't meant to be an insult, but moreso complete disappointment 10 people read this and though "Yeah, this is good".
damn antony and the johnsons wrote this game? i thought thye broke up like 6 years ago
@GutterTrash got together again to write this gypsy pop
@Baka_Ouji Couldn't agree more. This is some petty garbage that somehow is getting likes. It's one thing to not like the game but this is a humorously brain dead review.
@Baka_Ouji agreed. I don't have a problem with the critique per se so much as the unbelievably haughty tone here mixed with incoherence. Hate it when my homegenically western/American game has "visual delights for Otakus." What does a "gender collage" even mean in this context?? "Spatial flow?" If you're going to try this hard with prose then maybe actually explain your critique because this is 5 paragraphs that boil down to "too western and enemies are generic" without even really explaining what "too western" means. "Voyeuristic" but no reasoning as to how so. I'm relatively new to this community but I joined because I'm really interested in seeing nuanced artistic critiques of games. This to me feels the the complete wrong way to go about that.
@Ardwyw your criticism is a literal, huge nitpicking about how you don't like an element of a game that's supposed to be about it.
>the cliches also devour the approach to action and navigation, with a standard array of weapons and a first-person perspective, the combat does not differ one bit from the rest of survival FPS of the last decade
what the fuck does this mean? Did you even play any RE?
Could you explain how the game system that village uses is similar to COD or derived to call it "meanstream"? do you know what recoil is?
> standard weapons
???
>the cliches also devour the approach to action and navigation, with a standard array of weapons and a first-person perspective, the combat does not differ one bit from the rest of survival FPS of the last decade
what the fuck does this mean? Did you even play any RE?
Could you explain how the game system that village uses is similar to COD or derived to call it "meanstream"? do you know what recoil is?
> standard weapons
???
Baka_Ouji this.
@keiler_shura Si tio, he jugado todos los RE numerados y varios Spin off de hecho, y eso de "an element of a game that's supposed to be about it" es como lo mas gamer estandar del mundo.
seguir aceptando propuestas formulaicas por lo QUE se supone que son y no por COMO se hacen es encasillante, lo peor que trae la cultura del videojuego. Es gracioso relacionar mainstream con directamente COD como has hecho, o sacar lo del recoil que tampoco tiene mucho que ver xd, por que la accion no es solo Kinetismo, tambien es aproximacion.
No es el que, es el como.
Si vais a venir a dejar un comentario diciendo palabras como "nitpicking", "biased" o asi, al menos dejad algun argumento mas propio, no os agarreis a "lo que se supone que es Re", porque encima de todo, VILLAGE es de lo menos RE que hay en la saga.
seguir aceptando propuestas formulaicas por lo QUE se supone que son y no por COMO se hacen es encasillante, lo peor que trae la cultura del videojuego. Es gracioso relacionar mainstream con directamente COD como has hecho, o sacar lo del recoil que tampoco tiene mucho que ver xd, por que la accion no es solo Kinetismo, tambien es aproximacion.
No es el que, es el como.
Si vais a venir a dejar un comentario diciendo palabras como "nitpicking", "biased" o asi, al menos dejad algun argumento mas propio, no os agarreis a "lo que se supone que es Re", porque encima de todo, VILLAGE es de lo menos RE que hay en la saga.
Grande España colonizando hasta backloggd.
Some people should learn to accept criticism it's alright if someone doesn't like a game you like lol like just fk them, who even cares, what's the point of all these bullst comments
Nope, you are nitpicking and biased, I win, bye bye
qliao 0:
el vato q llama a los primos pa q le defiendan
I was moderately interested in TEW2 from the resurgence and a couple reviews of the game but now after this review I don’t think I ever want to touch it
KB0
2 years ago