Resident Evil Village Review

Played on Xbox One (base)

Developed by Capcom

Released 7th May 2021

During the final stages of development for Resident Evil 7, Capcom started to cautiously design the next mainline title in the franchise. Having no idea how successful Resident Evil 7 would be, they carefully tread through the design process, utilising the fanbase's beloved Resident Evil 4 as the blueprint. Following the high praise of RE7, Capcom continued to use that title's mechanics, as well as narrative, to build upon their growingly ambitious project. Producer Tsuyoshi Kanda made a statement about the game's new form of horror as it spread from RE7's claustrophobic intensity to the uncertainty of the openness that came with the new open-world design: "One of the lessons we took away is that horror isn't something that is black and white, it's always going to have some variation or modification." Resident Evil Village, to put simply, packaged some of the better elements of RE4 and RE7 while delivering a whole new experience for the franchise. As a result, it won multiple Game of the Year nominations and awards, but realistically, that's majorly contributed to how there were no heavy-hitting titles the year of its release.

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Story

The story of Resident Evil Village is a great one. It follows Ethan Winters after his traumatic experiences in Louisiana with the Baker family. Following the aftermath, he has settled down with his rescued wife Mia and newborn Rosemary, all before the series' beloved Chris Redfield arrives to kidnap the child and shoot Mia dead in the head. The whole 9-hour journey has the player travel across a mysterious European village to not only rescue their child but understand the sudden shift into "evil" that Chris Redfield has undergone. Obviously, this wouldn't be a Resident Evil game if it didn't have an abundance of monsters to hunt you down and stop you from reaching your goal: from witches to werewolves, the game heavily borrows from gothic horror legends and builds upon them.

The introduction is fantastic and it had me constantly on the edge of my seat as it was slowly building my curiosity and even fear as the village's monsters uncovered themselves. The game does hit a bit of a snag after the player completes the first out of four sections. This is due to how the next two levels are a swing and a-miss in the narrative department, either being scarce in story elements that propel the main tale (House Beneviento) or being deprived of any intriguing or high-quality material (The Reservoir). However, soon after these areas, the game's quality is significantly boosted, with what's considered to be the final chapters of the game, being phenomenal. The reason is that they included so many top-tier moments that shocked and surprised me while not being too absurd or ridiculous. It was genuinely an emotional rollercoaster of the best sorts, as it never broke the flow or thematic imagery of the game, staying true to its nature.

Gameplay

The gameplay and its mechanics are the best out of the whole series. The simple, first-person shooter formula that was present in RE7 returns, retaining the same intensity we previously saw. While there was a blocking/guarding feature in the prior instalment, Village made me use it more as there was a greater emphasis on the action as enemies were more abundant, volatile and with what feels like greater health pools.

This game also features a merchant for probably the first time since Resident Evil 4, treating you like their ally and most loyal customer. The shopkeeper's name is Duke and he functions nearly identically to the Merchant from RE4; you can sell the treasures you found from exploring for extra money, buy new weapons and upgrade them, and also buy recipes for things you'll definitely need to craft such as bullets, healing items and explosives. However, he also has this extra feature that I really liked conceptually and in execution: The Duke's Kitchen. While you're exploring the rabid lands of the European village, you'll come across wildlife you can kill and loot. Suppose you bring these ingredients back to the Duke. In that case, he'll be able to cook them into various meals that act as permanent upgrades such as a maximum health increase, faster movement speed and greater damage negation from blocking.

Moving onto the level design and the individual areas, it has to be said that the overall exploration of the village is excellent. I'm not just talking about the separate levels, but also the main 'hub' area that connects them all together. It's very well interconnected with its secrets, and main story progression as the semi-open world design gives a very fresh breath of air in terms of granting the player some freedom in choice. What's even better is the separate locations. First of all, Castle Dimitrescu was a brilliant Resident Evil area: rooms and floors are interconnected with shortcuts and resources that reward the player's exploration. It also contains various types of enemies to encounter, from the unstoppable juggernauts of the Dimitrescu family to the Moroaica that swing for you in the cramped dungeon environment. The feel of the area is great and the boss fight that concludes it is spectacular. I think the only problem I had with it was how it was so heavily advertised leading up to the game's launch. It ruined much of the surprise factor of the level and the fact it occurs so early in the game, it set standards quite high for sequential areas, only for them to end up feeling quite empty and not up to par with the only solid level that is brimming with the classic Resident Evil DNA.

The next level was also quite brilliant - House Beneviento. Not only was it in the perfect place in the game's pacing to momentarily strip the player of all their equipment, but it's an area mixed with clever RE puzzles and pure horror. Not survival horror, but simple "you can do nothing but run and hide" horror. The puzzles you're required to do aren't difficult but they're not basic. They hit the sweet spot of being satisfying to complete and intriguing to solve. The horror element of the area is beautiful. It's unnerving and horrifying and reminded me of the infamous P.T. as it was leading up to the big scare, and for that, I adore it. The only complaint I would have about the area is that it wasn't long enough for the fear to set in completely.

Next up was The Reservoir, the most disappointing level of the whole game. While I did enjoy the area due to the strong core mechanics of the game, its ingenuity was lacklustre and short-lived and definitely wasn't on par with the phenomenal horror or near-perfect Resident Evil design that I previously dealt with. The whole level was devoid of any actual content - going from a cutscene to retrieving a key to another cutscene to flipping some switches before finally arriving at a boss fight is hardly enough to be worth the player's time and effort, especially when all of this progress is linear. The scrapped ideas and content that they had planned for this area were a missed golden opportunity as Capcom could've delivered some great aquatic horrors and even more intricate level design given how you're able to drain the water out of the sunken village.

Finally was Heisenberg's Factory and it was as good as an endgame RE area can be. Final areas in RE games tend to never be great as they have trouble balancing the horror and action within them, due to the player being severely too powerful with their inventories being chockful of resources and upgraded weaponry. I do admit the attempt at making the section tougher by having enemies be more aggressive and resistant to damage, balanced by having one key critical point, was clever, however, at times this steamrolling enemy design got annoying and felt very draining on my inventory. Additionally, the absence of lights and the increasing threat of enemies added to the already-established terror. The factory-level design gave me mixed feelings. On the bright side, it holds the RE essence that was seen in Castle Dimitrescu, yet on the other side, the verticality made it hell trying to navigate throughout the area and comprehend which room and floor are which. Last but not least, the enemy Sturm would've made for a fantastic juggernaut enemy if only he had been utilised more.

The last aspect of the gameplay I should mention is the arsenal I garnered along the way. The weapons, like in every other survival horror, ranged from generic pistols to generic shotguns to even generic sniper rifles. As much as I desperately need to see a survival horror game use something other than these, their impact, feel and even variety were great in this game.

Bossfights

Every single boss fight was visually and audibly incredible, from Lady Dimitrescu's monstrous dragon figure to Heisenberg's metal behemoth. It feels like every boss strived for an insane action sequence, but because of RE's basic gameplay, it acts as a bottleneck to the whole experience. It should be noted that RE bossfights thrive off the intensity and fear that was present in RE7, not sheer epicness like this game attempted. Don't get me wrong, these bosses were superb and kept me engaged all throughout, however, I couldn't bear feeling like something was missing or incomplete when fighting them (Including Donna's hide'n'seek sequence). Also, I think there was a missed opportunity to battle Heisenberg in his standard form, introducing an element of puzzle-solving as you are forced to use the environment to harm him as he can easily negate your bullets with his abilities.

Characters

Other than Ethan, I'd have to say that the characters are better written in this game, but the antagonists of RE7 deliver a better performance. Every character (other than Ethan) was interesting in some shape or form, whether it was their motives or personalities. Chris' strong and bold persona being tainted by evil from the player's perspective was fascinating while Moreau's desperateness and mimicry of social anxiety were disturbing yet saddening. The dialogue is a little wonky, however, dialogue has never been the strong suit of this franchise unless it's coming out of the mouth of an antagonist, crazy person, or crazy antagonist. Now onto Ethan; he still does dumb things and now with this sequel to his life, he also delivers the poorest, weakest and worst-timed one-liners I've ever heard.

Atmosphere

The atmosphere is incredible. Every environment that you're placed in is able to capture this thrilling and unsettling form of terror while shifting the oppressiveness to guarantee its intended effect. For example, House Beneviento is filled with these uncanny pieces of house furniture in tight and restrictive hallways while the frost-layered village is open enough to feel like someone's watching you but compact enough to incite combat against enemies.

The sound design is wonderful yet the guns still sound quite tame just like before. The soundtrack this time around is amazing. It's intense, bloodcurdling, and blood-pumping and very well encapsulates the madness of RE. I'm still a bigger fan of the concentrated fright within RE7's soundtrack but this soundtrack isn't that bad of a substitute.

Technically, I did encounter some problems, the main one being how there was a reoccurring bug in which the dialogue was delayed and de-synchronised to the game's ongoing events, actions and subtitles. I managed to fix this by pausing the game for a couple of seconds every time it cropped up, but it was quite annoying to encounter.

Story - 8/10

Gameplay - 9.5/10

Bossfights - 8/10

Characters - 8.5/10

Atmosphere - 9/10

Great

Resident Evil Village is possibly the most fun game in its series. It's not the most masterfully frightening or atmospherically engaging, but it definitely doesn't set the bar low in any shape or form for the franchise's overall quality. The revisiting to RE4-familiar lands brings me hope for the RE4 Remake and its understanding of how fluid horror can be, excites me for what Capcom has up its lunatic sleeves for RE9.