Well, its time for a new review and this one is on a video game I have recently finished playing, which is the new survival horror game, Resident Evil Village, which came out last week.
So, how does this new entry to the RE franchise fair? Well, let's gear up and take a look..
And the usual warning is coming up...
PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD BUT NOT TOO MANY!
So, I've taken the first paragraph of the plot from Wikipedia and quoted it below:
"Three years after the events in Dulvey, Ethan and Mia have moved to Europe to start a new life and raise their newborn daughter Rosemary. One night, Chris Redfield and a team of soldiers raid their home, asassinate Mia, and abduct Ethan and Rosemary. Ethan loses consciousness and later wakes up next to a crashed transport truck, with its guards dead. Ethan reaches a nearby village that is under attack by mutated wolf-like creatures known as Lycans. Escaping a massacre, Ethan is captured by the village deity, Mother Miranda, and her lords Alcina Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, Salvatore Moreau, and Karl Heisenberg...".
THOUGHTS
As the latest entry in the franchise, Resident Evil Village is an excellent game and one that is a direct sequel to the events of Resident Evil 7, so it features the main protagonist of RE7, Ethan Winters again only this time, we also see the return of Chris Redfield, who appears at different points in the game. But what makes RE Village work so well is the bosses are actually well designed and quite memorable, particularly Lady Dimitrescu and Karl Heisenberg (who resembles Father Gascoigne from Bloodborne!).
The game's village environment and castle also provide a lot more visual variety than in RE7 and there are also more enemies this time round than in the previous game also with a greater emphasis also on combat and gun play and I will saw more on that in the gameplay section. RE Village also makes good use of its jump scares too but doesn't overdo them and it also features one of the freakiest looking enemies I've ever seen in a Ressie game (not going to say much more than its a baby-like!). So, the game does a great job at putting the player at unease right from the get go.
GAMEPLAY
As for the gameplay, I will split this into different sub sections as usual for the different aspects of the gameplay itself.
MOVEMENT
To start with the game's movement, we get another first person perspective view playing again as Ethan Winters, so we never get to see his face (and we never find out why?!) and he has the standard move set, walk, run, sprint, crouch and he can climb over fences and up or down ladders by default when he reaches them. There are certain moments in the game where Ethan will automatically take control as he moves through cracked walls or crouches to crawl under places. So, pretty much the basic move set you would expect from a fps game.
COMBAT AND WEAPONS
As for the combat and weapons in the game, as mentioned, it takes on the first person perspective, so we can see Ethan hold weapons but this time around he can also block enemy attacks by holding the weapon up as a shield. Weapon wise, Ethan can use the trusty old combat knife (which he can also use to break crates containing items) and other fire arms such as hand guns, shotguns, sniper files, magnums and of course a grenade launcher. He can also use other weapons such as mines and pipe bombs that can be placed and thrown respectively! In combat, Ethan will typically need to keep his space from enemies as much he can to avoid being overwhelmed but he will push away enemies after taking so much damage.
DUKE THE MERCHANT AND UPGRADES
Another key aspect of the game is the merchant, Duke, who is an obese man who Ethan can find throughout the game and can buy weapons and other items from. You can also upgrade your weapons through Duke and different aspects of the weapons such as their fire power, rate of fire, reload speed and capacity. Ethan can also purchase other items such as first aid kits (well more like first aid juice!) in addition to purchasing mines and pipe bombs, however all these items have a limited capacity. Its also worth noting that you can resell items to Duke but beware that he can resell them back to you for a profit, so basically Duke is a scalper!
ENEMIES AND BOSSES (Warning: this section may contain spoilers relating to details of the bosses)
As for the enemies there is a bit more variety in RE Village than in RE7 so here we get enemies such as the village werewolves known as Lycans who are very aggressive and generally bite you and they come in different forms. Then there are the Moroica, who are female blood sucking monsters that can carry swords and are found in the castle. Samca are another enemy found in the castle except they have wings and can also suck blood using their long tongues (not too nice then!). And lastly there are the Soldat, who are basically Frankenstein like creatures that have a long chainsaw like drills attached to their arms and again there are different types of them to be found.
As for the bosses in the game, there are four main bosses starting with Lady Dimitrescu, who is tall, elegant vampire-like woman with pale skin who can attack with a large claw and she also has three daughters, who you must also fight in turn! Donna Beneviento is the next boss, who also uses her creepy little doll named Angie to taunt her victims. Then there is Salvatore Moreau, who is a rather gross fish-like man, who can transform into a giant sea fish that spews forth acidic goo. Yep lovely guy and kind of nauseating to look at! And last of all is Karl Heisenberg, who bears a striking resemblance in his costume design to Father Gascoigne from Bloodborne and has telekentic powers as well as an army of automated cyborg soldiers at his disposal.
There are also some mini-bosses to be found here to that can present some challenges along the way but the most part they aren't too bad. Some of them include a large werewolf, Urias who is armed with a giant hammer and Sturm, who is a heavily armoured mutated soldier, who has large propellers in front of his body that do heavy damage!
So, there is quite a bit of variety in terms of enemies in RE Village.
SAVE SYSTEM
As for the save system of the game, RE Village returns to using the typewriter system used in most of the previous games unlike RE7 where it used tape recorders for save files. The typewriters are usually found next to where ever you find Duke as you progress throughout the game. As for checkpoints, I think the game automatically saves your progress during certain sequences also, so you won't always needs to rely on your typewriter saves alone.
GRAPHICS
Moving onto the game's graphics, RE Village is a very impressive looking game and it is built using the RE engine, which has featured most recent Ressie game. The game's environments again look great from the dark and foreboding outdoors of the village to the beautiful lavish castle interiors, the game's visuals are a treat and they also look even better if you have an next gen console or a graphics card that supports ray tracing, which will give you more realistic lighting and shadows. The only downside is this can be quite a demanding feature on your graphics card and indeed on the Xbox Series S, which I played the game on and I felt it was better to play it with this option switched off, which is a pity.
The game's character models are very impressive once again as the main game characters all look great in their own ways and even the enemies are well presented in their unpleasant glory! The only problem is once again we don't get to Ethan's face as it is hidden from the audience and we only see the back of his head and later on near the end, we see him with his head down facing front. Not sure why Capcom decided to go with this method of not revealing his character's face but that's what they did.
Anyway the game's graphics are overall excellent and its a visual treat for the eyes, particularly if you have ray tracing capable graphics card such as GeForce RTX 3070 or 3080 (good luck getting them though due to the GPU shortage right now!) or even the Xbox Series X and PS5 (good luck getting them too!).
VOICE ACTING AND MUSIC
As for the game's voice acting, the cast are all very solid here and provide excellent performances.
Starting with Todd Soley, who does a pretty good job as Ethan Winters even if he doesn't get a great deal of interesting dialogue to deliver, he still does well with what he is given. Soley also voiced Ethan in RE7, so it makes sense that he would return to voice him again in RE Village.
Jeff Schine is also very good in his role as Chris Redfield although again his character isn't given the best dialogue as he is played as being a bit overly serious but then again its not a light-hearted situation that he is in. In fact Schine's voice actually reminded me of the guy that voiced Jonah in the Tomb Raider reboot games although it isn't actually him.
Michelle Lukes is excellent in her role as Miranda, who is the main village of the game and controls the village along with her underlings, the four main bosses that you will face in the game. Lukes dialogue again is bit on the hackneyed side and typical to your average villain but she still does a fine job.
Maggie Robertson is also excellent as Lady Dimitrescu, the deadly, yet elegant vampire, who has three daughters who wander the castle and look for their next victims to feast upon their blood. Lady D as a character is definitely one of the standouts in the game, so its a fine performance from Robertson for sure.
Neil Newbon is great also in his role as the villainous Karl Heisenberg, who has an affinity for manipulating metal in a Magneto fashion (i.e. the villain from the X-Men who used telekinesis to move metal objects). Newbon's vocal delivery is very effective throughout and he also voiced a few other characters of note in recent games such as Nikolai from RE3 Remake and Elijah Kamski from Detroit Become Human.
Aaron LaPlante is also very good as the merchant, Duke, an obese fella, who appears throughout the game at different stages to sell weapons and other accessories to Ethan and he even provides some exposition for the game too. LaPlante also has a fun line where he references the merchant from RE4 as he says the line "What are you sellin? As a colleague of mine once said!"
And last of all is Katie O'Hagan, who makes a return as Mia, Ethan's wife, who also featured in RE7 only this time it appears that she doesn't last too long in the game but I won't say anymore than that. The trailers somewhat give away what happens to her early on but I won't go into more detail than that for now. Regardless, Katie does a fine job in reprising her role as Mia.
MUSIC
As for the music score it was composed by Shusaku Uchiyama and overall its pretty good and its tone is just right for the game. However, I have to say its not an entirely memorable score for me but that aside its still a fitting one, so can't really say much more than that as it does its job well enough.
FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)
As for flaws...yes RE Village isn't perfect.
For starters one of my main complaints of the game would be to do with the character of Ethan himself as I think he is a pretty bland, one-dimensional hero, who shows little in the way of actual personality and usually just utters really serious dialogue and that's about it. It also isn't helped by the fact that we never even get to see Ethan's face, which also kind of essentially makes him a faceless character. So, for me I just see Ethan as no more than the playable character and the game happens around him more than anything else.
Another problem I had was to do with the lock picks in the game, as you had to find individual lock picks to open each drawer or cupboard rather than just use the one lock pick like you can in the previous games. I just felt this was a pretty stupid change when having just one lock pick in the past was more than enough to open any locked cabinets or drawers and was made to make things alot more inconvenient.
I also found that at times it was a bit too easy to get lost in the game and you really had to rely on the maps you find throughout it, which made life a bit frustrating. This is especially the case later on in the game where you enter a factory, which is a pretty big place with so many different rooms that it is all too easy to lose your way. Maybe that was by design to make sure you did rely on the map and to use it as an essential tool and if that was their intention, it sure worked!
I also felt that the game difficulty wise maybe a little bit too easy at times and I didn't really die that much throughout my playthrough playing at standard difficulty. Most of the bosses and mini bosses I was able to beat on my first try even if they were fairly close fights some of them but it still felt a bit easier than it should have been. To be fair the final boss (which I won't mention here!) was a bit more challenging than the rest of the enemies in the game, which was good to see that the finale wasn't a pushover.
Then there were times in the game where Ethan makes some daft decisions and one such example is when he steals the flask from an oblivious Moreau, who is far away and has his back turned to him but Ethan decides to get his attention and says "I'll take this thank you!". Now, that to me was pretty stupid as Moreau was clearly not aware of Ethan, so Ethan could have just easily sneaked out without saying a word and could have avoided his whole encounter with him!
And last of all, I can't but help wonder just how could Duke transport himself throughout the game and be ahead of Ethan??? I mean the guy is basically (no offense) a bit fat slob, who is almost like a human version of Jabba the Hutt and his mobility doesn't look that great! Later on of course we see that he is riding in a horse carriage,which would explain how he travels on ground but later he is found in the factory area in an elevator. I don't somehow think he could fit his horse up in there and given he doesn't appear too mobile due to his weight, it begs the question as to how he managed it!
Anyway that's it for the flaws.
SUM UP
So, to sum up, Resident Evil Village is an excellent addition to the RE franchise as its a gripping first person survival horror actioner that has plenty of suspense and ample amounts of gore and horror (although its probably less gory than RE7). The gameplay is also pretty tight throughout with plenty of solid combat, as well as very impressive visuals, a very solid voice acting cast and a decent score.
There are of course a few niggles here and there but that aside, RE Village, is definitely worth checking out and it stands a pretty impressive entry in the series.
So, with that I will rate Resident Evil Village:
8.5 out of 10
So, that's it for now and I will be back again soon with another post.
Till then its bye for now.
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