This review contains spoilers
54
Clearing My Backlog #11
I’m not too familiar with Resident Evil as a franchise, so I had no expectations going into this whatsoever; what I found was an extremely mixed bag to say the least.
The first two acts are great — they’re some of the best survival horror content I’ve ever played. The atmosphere is so eerie, but doesn’t take itself too seriously thanks to the hilarious antics of the Baker family, giving it this perfect middle ground between comical and generic edginess that’s found in a lot of survival horror. I don’t get scared easily — especially in games, but this managed to creep me out on my first playthrough, which is a huge testament.
But then… the rest comes. The third act is atrocious, it’s probably one of the worst third acts I’ve ever played in anything. It takes such a massive tonal shift which doesn’t work and just feels… weird. On my first run I genuinely thought the game was ending when you had to pick who you were going to cure (which doesn’t really add anything to the game and is a useless choice, like why is it even there), but then it takes you to a new area, and the game goes on for another two fucking hours… like what? I would’ve given this a 4/5 if that entire boat section didn’t exist, it’s abysmal. The environment itself is dull, the layout is convoluted, and the entire section feels dragged out and endless; I wanted it to end 10 minutes in. It doesn’t help that I find Ethan and Mia insufferable, so an entire third of the game being just these two and an annoying child as the focus wasn’t going to be all that enjoyable.
RE7 is at its best when it focuses on the Baker family, they’re fantastic villains and the actors give some great over-the-top performances. I also love that a big aspect of this game is body horror, with limbs being severed at every given opportunity, and the transformations that the Baker family undergo are straight up nuts — Marguerite’s especially reminded me of Other Mother from Coraline, with her freakishly elongated limbs — and the way she crawls on walls in her second boss fight, shit’s seriously cool as hell! The boss fights are probably one of the best parts of RE7, they’re all so enjoyable and creative in their own ways, even if they’re extremely easy once you know what to do.
However, one of the weaker aspects of the game is enemy variety; the Molded are some of the blandest enemies I’ve ever seen, it’s almost like they chose the concept art versions of these things and put them into the final build of the game, could they really not come up with anything better? If you told a ten-year-old to come up with a scary monster design, I bet that they would make something 10x more interesting than what we got here.
Enemy variety isn’t even the worst thing, it’s the fucking characters, man. Ethan Winters takes the cake for probably the single worst protagonist in all of gaming, there’s nothing more forgettable than this man; everything about him, his personality — or should I say lack thereof, his voice (oh my god his fucking voice)… everything about this man is irritating. There was only one time he managed to make me feel something, and it was due to the hilarious “Daddy?” line, I literally burst out laughing from how shit that voice acting was. It’s actually funny how most of the characters you’re supposed to be rooting for kinda suck, it’s only the villains who are interesting and have any sort of real presence.
I also noticed how technically outdated this game is, it’s weird because I always have to remind myself that 2017 was almost seven whole years ago, I feel like I’m still living in 2020 — but yeah, the textures on some of those effects when you kill each of the Bakers are akin to something from the PS2 era, I’m not even exaggerating… games on the PS3 had better textures than that dogshit effect. The game is also weirdly blurry when you first arrive at the Baker house, but then it fixes itself as soon as you get inside, which is just strange. The RT support that came out roughly a year ago is shockingly bad — at least for reflections, which are basically broken; the lighting is great though.
Now it’s time for the DLC!
Playtime: 20.6 hours
Every Game I've Ever Played - Ranked (By Score)
Resident Evil - Ranked
Clearing My Backlog
2017 - Ranked
Clearing My Backlog #11
I’m not too familiar with Resident Evil as a franchise, so I had no expectations going into this whatsoever; what I found was an extremely mixed bag to say the least.
The first two acts are great — they’re some of the best survival horror content I’ve ever played. The atmosphere is so eerie, but doesn’t take itself too seriously thanks to the hilarious antics of the Baker family, giving it this perfect middle ground between comical and generic edginess that’s found in a lot of survival horror. I don’t get scared easily — especially in games, but this managed to creep me out on my first playthrough, which is a huge testament.
But then… the rest comes. The third act is atrocious, it’s probably one of the worst third acts I’ve ever played in anything. It takes such a massive tonal shift which doesn’t work and just feels… weird. On my first run I genuinely thought the game was ending when you had to pick who you were going to cure (which doesn’t really add anything to the game and is a useless choice, like why is it even there), but then it takes you to a new area, and the game goes on for another two fucking hours… like what? I would’ve given this a 4/5 if that entire boat section didn’t exist, it’s abysmal. The environment itself is dull, the layout is convoluted, and the entire section feels dragged out and endless; I wanted it to end 10 minutes in. It doesn’t help that I find Ethan and Mia insufferable, so an entire third of the game being just these two and an annoying child as the focus wasn’t going to be all that enjoyable.
RE7 is at its best when it focuses on the Baker family, they’re fantastic villains and the actors give some great over-the-top performances. I also love that a big aspect of this game is body horror, with limbs being severed at every given opportunity, and the transformations that the Baker family undergo are straight up nuts — Marguerite’s especially reminded me of Other Mother from Coraline, with her freakishly elongated limbs — and the way she crawls on walls in her second boss fight, shit’s seriously cool as hell! The boss fights are probably one of the best parts of RE7, they’re all so enjoyable and creative in their own ways, even if they’re extremely easy once you know what to do.
However, one of the weaker aspects of the game is enemy variety; the Molded are some of the blandest enemies I’ve ever seen, it’s almost like they chose the concept art versions of these things and put them into the final build of the game, could they really not come up with anything better? If you told a ten-year-old to come up with a scary monster design, I bet that they would make something 10x more interesting than what we got here.
Enemy variety isn’t even the worst thing, it’s the fucking characters, man. Ethan Winters takes the cake for probably the single worst protagonist in all of gaming, there’s nothing more forgettable than this man; everything about him, his personality — or should I say lack thereof, his voice (oh my god his fucking voice)… everything about this man is irritating. There was only one time he managed to make me feel something, and it was due to the hilarious “Daddy?” line, I literally burst out laughing from how shit that voice acting was. It’s actually funny how most of the characters you’re supposed to be rooting for kinda suck, it’s only the villains who are interesting and have any sort of real presence.
I also noticed how technically outdated this game is, it’s weird because I always have to remind myself that 2017 was almost seven whole years ago, I feel like I’m still living in 2020 — but yeah, the textures on some of those effects when you kill each of the Bakers are akin to something from the PS2 era, I’m not even exaggerating… games on the PS3 had better textures than that dogshit effect. The game is also weirdly blurry when you first arrive at the Baker house, but then it fixes itself as soon as you get inside, which is just strange. The RT support that came out roughly a year ago is shockingly bad — at least for reflections, which are basically broken; the lighting is great though.
Now it’s time for the DLC!
Playtime: 20.6 hours
Every Game I've Ever Played - Ranked (By Score)
Resident Evil - Ranked
Clearing My Backlog
2017 - Ranked