This review contains spoilers
Resident Evil VII was one of my biggest dissapointments. Even though I had never played an RE game, the first half of the game was so good, that when I was confronted to that terrible second half/last third, I was gutted. Thankfully, Resident Evil : Village feels like Capcom taking a second shot at making Resident Evil VII, and they came through with a game that fuflills the promise of the first few hours of its predecessor.
I was surprised by just how good this game is. I never thought that I would appreciate non-linearity in a first person survival-horror game, but the standout feature of this game, to me, is the village. It acts as a hub world you can explore, and there's a good amount of treasure to find around it (new weapons, valuable goods...). I really appreciate the "escape game" formula of finding keys and objects to unlock new areas, so it was really nice to see it translate so well to a more open-ended playground.
As for the story sections, the game is way more consistent than Resident Evil VII, and you can tell that Capcom realised that they had gold in their hands with the first few hours of RE VII, gold they let fade into dust by the end of the game. Castle Dimitrescu is, gameplay-wise, a less scary and more exploration focused copy of the Baker House in Biohazard. It changed enough to feel fresh, and I appreciate Capcom bringing back this style of level, as it worked wonders in the previous game. The next two sections are shorter, and not as good as Castle Dimitrescu, but they shine in their own way. Beneviento is a fun house-sized puzzle (with a terrifying "baby" following you around, legitimately being the scariest thing in the whole game) which features no shooting and very little action. Its focus is purely on psychological torture, with Beneviento playing with Ethan's psyche with hallucinations and by making him take apart a doll of his wife. As for the Moreau section, its pretty weak gameplay wise, but Moreau's character is so weirdly endearing he carried this hour of the game for me. Side note: in general, the characters of this game are really good and memorable, except for Beneviento who just doesn't get much screen time.
The game does then start to lean back into its predecessor's main fault: switching to an action game. However, it's not nearly as bad. Firstly, this last quarter or so of the game still features a lot of exploration, most notably in heisenberg's factory. Secondly, despite the Chris Redfield action sequence being a pure FPS (which I should hate, since I don't want my survival-horror game to suddenly become Call of Duty), it's very short and getting to play as Chris is pretty cool. Also, huge mech fight. Sure, it seems thematically innapropriate, but it's fun. This action-heavy last quarter did hurt my enjoyment a bit, but it's far from being as bad as in RE VII.
A small note on the story: i appreciated this game feeling more connected to the larger plot of the resident evil franchise. I haven't played any other RE games except for VII, but I will say that the involvement of Umbrella, the Hound Wolf squad and the BSAA made me curious about the rest of the franchise, and it gives the game a bigger sense of importance. I even looked up a ton of info about these different corporations after the end of the game because of how spiked my curiosity was. RE VII was connected to the larger plot of the franchise, but only through logs and journals that I didn't really read while playing the game because they made no sense to me.
As for negatives, I feel like the economy is a bit broken. Doing just a bit of exploring will earn you truck loads of cash, and for a long while it feels like there's nothing to spend it on except for weapon upgrades. So you spend your money on said upgrades, and suddenly, with like an hour left in the game, the Duke (amazing character btw) puts up two new guns in his store that cost, in total, 300 000 lei, which I had already spent on useless upgrades. Introducing these guns earlier would've made more sense (as, with an hour left in the game, I didn't have much time to use them) and would've given me a chance to save up to buy them. I went from thinking to myself "exploring kinda breaks the game huh ?" to "how in the blue hell are you supposed to buy everything the game has to offer without exploring" and I'm not sure that's a good thing.
Overall, RE Village is terrific, and even though it still doesn't manage to keep its momentum to the very end, it does a much better job than its predecessor, and is a game I can't wait to revisit.
I was surprised by just how good this game is. I never thought that I would appreciate non-linearity in a first person survival-horror game, but the standout feature of this game, to me, is the village. It acts as a hub world you can explore, and there's a good amount of treasure to find around it (new weapons, valuable goods...). I really appreciate the "escape game" formula of finding keys and objects to unlock new areas, so it was really nice to see it translate so well to a more open-ended playground.
As for the story sections, the game is way more consistent than Resident Evil VII, and you can tell that Capcom realised that they had gold in their hands with the first few hours of RE VII, gold they let fade into dust by the end of the game. Castle Dimitrescu is, gameplay-wise, a less scary and more exploration focused copy of the Baker House in Biohazard. It changed enough to feel fresh, and I appreciate Capcom bringing back this style of level, as it worked wonders in the previous game. The next two sections are shorter, and not as good as Castle Dimitrescu, but they shine in their own way. Beneviento is a fun house-sized puzzle (with a terrifying "baby" following you around, legitimately being the scariest thing in the whole game) which features no shooting and very little action. Its focus is purely on psychological torture, with Beneviento playing with Ethan's psyche with hallucinations and by making him take apart a doll of his wife. As for the Moreau section, its pretty weak gameplay wise, but Moreau's character is so weirdly endearing he carried this hour of the game for me. Side note: in general, the characters of this game are really good and memorable, except for Beneviento who just doesn't get much screen time.
The game does then start to lean back into its predecessor's main fault: switching to an action game. However, it's not nearly as bad. Firstly, this last quarter or so of the game still features a lot of exploration, most notably in heisenberg's factory. Secondly, despite the Chris Redfield action sequence being a pure FPS (which I should hate, since I don't want my survival-horror game to suddenly become Call of Duty), it's very short and getting to play as Chris is pretty cool. Also, huge mech fight. Sure, it seems thematically innapropriate, but it's fun. This action-heavy last quarter did hurt my enjoyment a bit, but it's far from being as bad as in RE VII.
A small note on the story: i appreciated this game feeling more connected to the larger plot of the resident evil franchise. I haven't played any other RE games except for VII, but I will say that the involvement of Umbrella, the Hound Wolf squad and the BSAA made me curious about the rest of the franchise, and it gives the game a bigger sense of importance. I even looked up a ton of info about these different corporations after the end of the game because of how spiked my curiosity was. RE VII was connected to the larger plot of the franchise, but only through logs and journals that I didn't really read while playing the game because they made no sense to me.
As for negatives, I feel like the economy is a bit broken. Doing just a bit of exploring will earn you truck loads of cash, and for a long while it feels like there's nothing to spend it on except for weapon upgrades. So you spend your money on said upgrades, and suddenly, with like an hour left in the game, the Duke (amazing character btw) puts up two new guns in his store that cost, in total, 300 000 lei, which I had already spent on useless upgrades. Introducing these guns earlier would've made more sense (as, with an hour left in the game, I didn't have much time to use them) and would've given me a chance to save up to buy them. I went from thinking to myself "exploring kinda breaks the game huh ?" to "how in the blue hell are you supposed to buy everything the game has to offer without exploring" and I'm not sure that's a good thing.
Overall, RE Village is terrific, and even though it still doesn't manage to keep its momentum to the very end, it does a much better job than its predecessor, and is a game I can't wait to revisit.