CrimsonCrescendo
Banned
So I finally got around to playing through the latest Resident Evil! Now, I'm a fan of all types of Resident Evil, but the perspective change had me questioning if I'd like it. Well, let's get to it!
The Gameplay and Overall Design:
As much as I love Action Resident Evil, it was refreshing after 6 to have a game that played to it's strengths rather than having a ton of depth but no design decisions to enforce it. Ethan and Mia move like they have a dump in their drawers and the best they can manage is a power walk, but this adds to the tension of the game. You always feel that an enemy you are running from will catch you at any moment. The shooting also feels sluggish to back up the tense feeling the enemies give you.
There is also a nice escalation in the weapons you get. You start with a basic hand gun and pocket knife, move up to the ever trusty shotgun, get to use a chainsaw briefly, then get a flamethrower, and finally get the Grenade Launcher. Whereas you feel limited at the beginning in your options in combat, by the end you feel readily able to take on the fiends of the mansion.
I also really liked the puzzles that they put in. A lot of them reminded me of classic RE (which is what this game basically is in first person), especially since the shotgun one was lifted directly from REmake. None of them were particularly difficult, but they served as a nice change of pace inbetween the spooks and combat.
Item management was a bit of a double edged sword. When I had all my items taken from me and I had to rebuild an arsenal from scraps before I got my stuff back, it felt good. At other times, when the game was throwing tons of items at me, it got tedious running back and forth to the item chest to store everything.
The Atmosphere:
This is probably the best part of the game right here. I'll let some screenshots and gifs do the talkings:
Criticisms
Tone:
For being a return to horror, I found the game to be pretty goofy overall. Believe me, I was ready to be spooked. I was ready to be the guy/gal in the face cam on Youtube screaming their head off at whatever jump scare came next. Fly in the ointment came when you meet Mia.
I mean, I get it. Possessed/Infected Wife now attacking you is a scary thought. The problem is in the execution. The voice actress seemed to be giving her best exorcist performance and the entire thing ends with her going after with a chainsaw. It's supposed to be scary but the entire thing seemed... off. Kinda goofy to be honest. But hey, It's the very beginning of the game!
And then Jack Baker Kool Aid Man's through a wall
And I just couldn't take anything I saw after that as the least bit horrifying. And it's not like it ends there! You end up chainsaw fighting the mother fucker in a slaughter room with him saying stuff like "Groovy"
Don't get me wrong, I loved it! Pure Resident Evil cheese! But horror? Nah. And it continues like this for the rest of the game. You're enemies are a smack talking old man, an old lady who summons fly cockroaches that you fight off with a flamethrower, a dick headed son, an evil little girl who turns out to be an old woman, and a single type of humanoid monster.
The game also had the annoying habit of falling back on "Oh, what just walked by the door!" at times that just made me roll my eyes.
Story
Nothing of note happens in the game. There's little characterization outside of Jack and Mia, there's no plot twists, no grand revelations, no character development, and it answers few questions it itself raises. Who was Mia working for? Why is Chris with Umbrella? Who was the 3rd party that Lucas was talking to? What happened to Zoe? And so on. Of course, a lot of this will be answered in upcoming DLC, but that doesn't make me any happier when the story was already so lackluster.
And the Mia ending: did they seriously pull a "Let's start over" ending? Mia is a goddamn bioterrorist who's actions directly resulted in the death of at least 40 people that we see and depending on how long her career was, probably killed at least over a hundred if she was involved in an outbreak. And she lies to her husband the entire time. This isn't a "sorry I cheated" or "sorry I've been an asshole" situation. And it's not like it's a "I didn't know" situation either. It's made clear she knows damn well what she's doing and does it any way. And the story hasn't been rebooted at all: It directly mentions Raccoon City. So Mia knows damn well what she's doing and the results of what she's doing and does it anyway. And yet the game ends on "She's a victim, she wants to leave it all behind" and she has to take zero responsibility for any of her actions. It's the Helena Harper ending if Helena had zero remorse and accepted no responsibility.
Zoe, on the other hand, is a complete victim and if you choose to save her she ends up dying horribly anyway and you get a rueful ending where Ethan wishes he'd saved Mia.
Feels light on content:
I finished at around the 9 hour mark and that was with taking my time. It's the shortest game since RE 3, has no extra modes outside of an optional difficulty (No Mercs or Raid mode), has no enemy variety, and just feels undercooked from a story perspective.
Overall/TL;DR:
I had quite a bit of fun with this game. It's not what I expected based off of marketing or what other people have been saying, but I enjoyed myself.
+Gameplay
+Puzzles
+Tension
+Design
+Atmsophere
+- Item Management
-Tone
-Story
-Feels Light on Content
The Gameplay and Overall Design:
As much as I love Action Resident Evil, it was refreshing after 6 to have a game that played to it's strengths rather than having a ton of depth but no design decisions to enforce it. Ethan and Mia move like they have a dump in their drawers and the best they can manage is a power walk, but this adds to the tension of the game. You always feel that an enemy you are running from will catch you at any moment. The shooting also feels sluggish to back up the tense feeling the enemies give you.
There is also a nice escalation in the weapons you get. You start with a basic hand gun and pocket knife, move up to the ever trusty shotgun, get to use a chainsaw briefly, then get a flamethrower, and finally get the Grenade Launcher. Whereas you feel limited at the beginning in your options in combat, by the end you feel readily able to take on the fiends of the mansion.
I also really liked the puzzles that they put in. A lot of them reminded me of classic RE (which is what this game basically is in first person), especially since the shotgun one was lifted directly from REmake. None of them were particularly difficult, but they served as a nice change of pace inbetween the spooks and combat.
Item management was a bit of a double edged sword. When I had all my items taken from me and I had to rebuild an arsenal from scraps before I got my stuff back, it felt good. At other times, when the game was throwing tons of items at me, it got tedious running back and forth to the item chest to store everything.
The Atmosphere:
This is probably the best part of the game right here. I'll let some screenshots and gifs do the talkings:
Criticisms
Tone:
For being a return to horror, I found the game to be pretty goofy overall. Believe me, I was ready to be spooked. I was ready to be the guy/gal in the face cam on Youtube screaming their head off at whatever jump scare came next. Fly in the ointment came when you meet Mia.
I mean, I get it. Possessed/Infected Wife now attacking you is a scary thought. The problem is in the execution. The voice actress seemed to be giving her best exorcist performance and the entire thing ends with her going after with a chainsaw. It's supposed to be scary but the entire thing seemed... off. Kinda goofy to be honest. But hey, It's the very beginning of the game!
And then Jack Baker Kool Aid Man's through a wall
And I just couldn't take anything I saw after that as the least bit horrifying. And it's not like it ends there! You end up chainsaw fighting the mother fucker in a slaughter room with him saying stuff like "Groovy"
Don't get me wrong, I loved it! Pure Resident Evil cheese! But horror? Nah. And it continues like this for the rest of the game. You're enemies are a smack talking old man, an old lady who summons fly cockroaches that you fight off with a flamethrower, a dick headed son, an evil little girl who turns out to be an old woman, and a single type of humanoid monster.
The game also had the annoying habit of falling back on "Oh, what just walked by the door!" at times that just made me roll my eyes.
Story
Nothing of note happens in the game. There's little characterization outside of Jack and Mia, there's no plot twists, no grand revelations, no character development, and it answers few questions it itself raises. Who was Mia working for? Why is Chris with Umbrella? Who was the 3rd party that Lucas was talking to? What happened to Zoe? And so on. Of course, a lot of this will be answered in upcoming DLC, but that doesn't make me any happier when the story was already so lackluster.
And the Mia ending: did they seriously pull a "Let's start over" ending? Mia is a goddamn bioterrorist who's actions directly resulted in the death of at least 40 people that we see and depending on how long her career was, probably killed at least over a hundred if she was involved in an outbreak. And she lies to her husband the entire time. This isn't a "sorry I cheated" or "sorry I've been an asshole" situation. And it's not like it's a "I didn't know" situation either. It's made clear she knows damn well what she's doing and does it any way. And the story hasn't been rebooted at all: It directly mentions Raccoon City. So Mia knows damn well what she's doing and the results of what she's doing and does it anyway. And yet the game ends on "She's a victim, she wants to leave it all behind" and she has to take zero responsibility for any of her actions. It's the Helena Harper ending if Helena had zero remorse and accepted no responsibility.
Zoe, on the other hand, is a complete victim and if you choose to save her she ends up dying horribly anyway and you get a rueful ending where Ethan wishes he'd saved Mia.
Feels light on content:
I finished at around the 9 hour mark and that was with taking my time. It's the shortest game since RE 3, has no extra modes outside of an optional difficulty (No Mercs or Raid mode), has no enemy variety, and just feels undercooked from a story perspective.
Overall/TL;DR:
I had quite a bit of fun with this game. It's not what I expected based off of marketing or what other people have been saying, but I enjoyed myself.
+Gameplay
+Puzzles
+Tension
+Design
+Atmsophere
+- Item Management
-Tone
-Story
-Feels Light on Content