The Shinji Mikami / Hideki Kamiya / Hideaki Itsuno Review Megathread - by froghawk
froghawk on 18/4/2020 at 21:03
RESIDENT EVIL 3 (2020)
Inline Image:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dc/Resident_Evil_3.jpgDirectors: Yasuhiro Seto, Yasuhiro Anpo, Yukio Ando
Producer: Masachika Kawata
Oh, Capcom... why must you play with my heart? It was easy to assume that R3make would be another great title, following two of the best titles in the history of the series and made on the same engine - but alas. All Capcom had to do was remake the game the same way they made RE2, but instead, they chose the route of a 'reimagining'. Indeed, this is less a remake of RE3 and more of a mis-marketed standalone expansion for RE2, loosely based on a few of RE3's concepts. A lot of what you'd expect is missing here - ink ribbons, limited ammo, mercenaries mode, zombie physics, dismemberment gore, diverging plot points, defensive weapons, most of the original locations, and most of the puzzles are all absent. In their place is a mostly linear action-oriented game which feels like a compromise between the RE2 remake and the action-oriented approach of RE4. Like the original RE3, this was released just a year after RE2 - but since AAA games in 2020 require a bit more development time than they did back in 1999, this edition feels like even more more of a rushed cash-in. This title is the first casualty of Capcom's newly planned yearly release schedule for Resident Evil, and it likely won't be the last.
One of the the things RE2 did incredibly well was expand the original campaign without affecting the pacing, but the opposite happened here - the campaign was reduced and sped up. The original RE3 had 5 overarching areas - the city, a return to RPD, a clock tower, a hospital, and city outskirts. Of the 4 areas that are unique to RE3, the outskirts (park & factory) have been cut entirely in this remake, as has the indoor section of the clock tower - only the boss fight in front of it is represented here, albeit unrecognizably. The city areas are heavily cut and hardly resemble their original counterparts. The cut areas have been replaced by scripted chase sequences and new segments which allowed for more asset recycling from RE2 (more sewers, more NEST). And the recycling doesn't end there - for instance, music is reprised from (the original) RE2 and the item boxes from RE7 return here without any alteration. Other details feel unfinished, like the laser reticule - a red dot which looks like it came straight out of MS Paint. New enemies sometimes show up in only a single section of the game, never to be seen again. All of this adds up to an experience which feels oddly budget in spite of its AAA production values.
All of this could have been forgivable if the game still provided the wonderfully tense feeling that I seek from Resident Evil, but the only time I felt it in my first playthrough (on Hardcore difficulty) was in an optional item-gathering sequence at the end of the hospital, following on the heels of a pale imitation of RE4's house seige. Otherwise, the game is designed like an on-rails shooter that just happens to retain a few design elements from RE2, and this is reflected by the game's perfunctory plot pacing. Everything happens a lot faster right off the bat, with Nemesis being introduced almost immediately and Jill meeting the Umbrella team less than 10 minutes in. By contrast, the original game built up to the first Nemesis encounter, and Jill spent a bit of time in the city on her own before encountering the Umbrella team. The game breezes through the heavily cut city areas, which is a shame, because they're the only part remake which feel true to the spirit of the original.
It's hard not to imagine the missed potential here. The city could have been the game's main selling point - a big, open area, filled with puzzles and vastly expanded from its original scope - but instead, it was abridged. Relative to RE2, this makes little sense - how does it take longer to explore one floor of a police station than it does to scrounge through several city blocks? Granted, RE3 was always about running more than getting to know a space intimately, and they've dialed that up here, but in practice that just means that most areas in the game feel underutilized and underdeveloped. This change in focus is reflected in the abundance of ammo and the focus on combat. There's a new dodge mechanic (that's thankfully a lot easier to use than in the original title), and quite a lot of emphasis is put on dodging and rolling here - special retaliatory moves are hidden behind perfectly timed dodges. Defensive weapons have been replaced by a quicktime event used to reduce zombie damage. In essence, the moodiness of RE2 has been replaced with RE6's incessant floor-rolling.
The star of the show here is, of course, Nemesis, whose redesign looks rather... unfortunate, to my eyes. His face his covered with a trashbag at the start in order to later provide a dramatic face reveal, but said reveal ends up providing a sinking feeling instead of the intended fear. Replacing his facial scars and stitches with a nose makes him look significantly goofier and less menacing than his 1999 counterpart, and his Alien3-inspired 2nd stage is far more cliche and uninspired than his original transformations (more angry dog than intelligent stalker). Looks aside, only the brief city portion has him stalk you like Mr. X - in the rest of the game, he is relegated to scripted chase sequences and boss battles (providing more of what was arguably the weakest part of RE2's remake). Even in the city, he ends up being more of an annoyance than a terror, chasing you at high speeds, jumping in front of you, and knocking you over with his tentacle. Despite how overpowered and scary this may sound, it feels like the developers had no idea how to make this a fair fight, and instead opted to artificially reduce the difficulty. For instance, he never attacks you after knocking you over, and instead lets you recover for a moment and get up before attacking you again. I never expected Nemesis to be so principled and considerate!
On the note of surprisingly friendly things, hardcore mode is considerably less hardcore here than it was in RE2. The game frequently autosaves (allowing you to easily get away with saving less than 5x) and there's practically a typewriter and item box in every other room. The frequency of safe rooms removes the need for most of the inventory management and also makes it quite easy to retreat to safety. There are 2 unlockable difficulty modes after Hardcore - Nightmare and Inferno - but they still autosave, lack ink ribbons, and feature frequent safe rooms. Enemy placement is different in these higher difficulties, and the pacing of the city area actually works a lot better in Nightmare - provided you skip the brash cutscenes, this is the closest this game comes to providing a classic Resident Evil experience. The feeling is short lived, as nothing much can fix the game's lackluster back half. By the time I reached the final boss in Nightmare and discovered that the only way to defeat it was by mastering perfect dodge, I was ready to call it quits.
Unfortunately, since mercenaries and decision points were cut from the remake, these difficulty modes provide all of the game's replayability. To incentivize replaying, the challenge system from RE2 returns with a twist. Completing challenges gives you points which can be used to purchase things like stat boosting items, new weapons, and weapons with infinite ammo. Many of the challenges involve killing large numbers of zombies, often with a specific weapon. This grinding is yet another way I was reminded of RE6.
Much hubbub has been made about this game's length, but a short campaign isn't unusual for this franchise - the real problem is the game's focus. It does the same thing for RE2 that the action-focused 'Not a Hero' DLC did for RE7 - but that was a free DLC that played more like the main game at higher difficulties. This full retail title isn't even up to that standard, and it would have been disappointing even if it had been sold as a $30 expansion for RE2. The weird compromise between the design of RE2's remake and the shooter dark days of the series feels a lot like the first Revelations title - a linear shooter with just enough hints of classic survival horror gameplay to make you mad at the missed potential. RE3 isn't as bad as Revelations, but the fact that this game appeared in what seemed to be an era of renewed focus for Capcom makes all of this sting that much worse. They might have saved themselves a lot of ire if they'd simply made this a new title without the weight of expectation. RE3 remade in the style of RE2 could have been a glorious thing to behold, but thanks to this game, we'll never get to find out.
Note: In order to sell this title at full price, it was packaged with a new multiplayer game called Resident Evil: Resistance. I'll be reviewing that separately if I can find the motivation.
RATING: 6/10 Hunter Gammas
Inline Image:
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/i/579c1855-7a36-474f-90e6-7f2dadf571c8/dduc3q0-eb4bb778-ff28-42cd-8cd8-58e928f8599d.png
froghawk on 28/1/2022 at 16:36
RESIDENT EVIL: INFINITE DARKNESS (2021)
Inline Image:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/residentevil/images/d/d7/InfiniteDarknessPoster.jpgProducer: Hiroyasu Shinohara
Director: Eiichirō Hasumi
Writers: Eiichirō Hasumi, Shogo Moto
The latest RE movie is a netflix special that's been split into 4 sub-30min episodes to get with the times. Despite being billed as a 'Netflix Original Anime Special', it isn't really any different from the other 3 CGI movies aside from some small pacing adjustments for the new format and some recycled footage. It is set between RE4 and RE5, opening in the fictional Penamstan, and again features Leon and Claire as its protagonists. You may recall that the first CGI movie, Degeneration, was also set between RE4 and 5 and starred the same two characters Apparently this one is supposed to come shortly after that one, sort of acting as a prequel to RE5 thanks to one quick callback, but I couldn't really tell.
The continuity doesn't really make a great deal of sense, as the story in this one revolves around an inhibitor that suppresses the virus - an element that has never appeared in any other RE story. Like any good RE tale, it ends in a secret lab with a final boss, only this time said boss is able to hold a coherent conversation - yet another element that's never been seen before in the series if I recall correctly. The series feels oddly fixated on small continuity details at the expense of consistency in larger things like that, but it's RE - I give up.
Claire really doesn't have much of a role in this, and her scenes all feel a bit superfluous. She's always given the same wardrobe in all of her appearances while Leon gets to wear multiple outfits - almost as if the creators think that the red coat is the only thing that makes her a recognizable character. Her presence feels like pure fanservice, but frankly, so does the whole affair. Does this really add anything to the RE universe or do anything new? No, and perhaps it's too much to ask for, but it's not really clear to me what the point of this was.
The environments look gorgeous and moody - this thing had a serious budget - but the people are firmly in the uncanny valley. The dialogue is not good, but if it was, it wouldn't be RE. The pace is a bit funny between the episodes - episode 2 in particular has a very abrupt ending. Is this a worthwhile use of anyone's time? No, not really, and that's probably obvious in the way that I'm clearly struggling to say much of substance about it.
RATING: 5.5/10 whatevers
It appears there's going to be an 8-episode live-action show about Wesker to follow on Netflix, so stay tuned.
froghawk on 28/1/2022 at 16:38
RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE (2021)
Inline Image:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2c/Resident_Evil_Village.pngProducer: Masachika Kawata, Tsuyoshi Kanda, Peter Fabiano
Director: Morimasa Sato
Writers: Antony Johnston
Capcom has kept true to their promise of delivering a new title on the RE engine each year, and the third consecutive title to stay true to that promise is Resident Evil VIIlage (really??!). For those concerned about rushed development cycles on account of the missed opportunity of the clearly rushed RE3 remake, fear not - VII put things back on track. This game evidently started its life cycle as Revelations 3, but everyone at Capcom was so impressed with it that it got upgraded to a mainline title. It's easy to see why, as the game is a blast!
RE8 returns to the first person view of RE7, with Ethan Winters returning as the protagonist. While the core gameplay (keys, puzzles, and running away!) and shocking gore of RE7 are still present here, this title gives them a somewhat unique spin, replacing the claustrophobia of 7 with the vulnerability of exposure. The deep south setting of RE7 is replaced by a snowy eastern european village as a tribute to RE4, and the game focuses a bit more on action to suit this tribute. If you've read that Capcom felt RE7 was 'too scary' and wanted to tone things down for this title, that's only partially true - there's just as much grossout gore, but the atmosphere feels less disturbing.
As always with new RE titles, I started my first playthrough on the hardest difficulty. Thankfully, they learned from their mistake in RE7 and made Hardcore difficulty available from the start. Hardcore truly preserves the survival horror, forcing you to preserve your resources and make good use of the game's new crafting system. The only downside to hardcore mode is the first big fight, which is a tribute to the village fights at the start of RE4&5. It is seriously unbalanced - far more difficult than anything else in the game - and will require you to hide for around 6 minutes in order to survive. The new door-blocking mechanic allows for several more fights in that vein which work a lot better. For the most part, however, this isn't a game about massive hordes of enemies - each enemy takes quite a bit of firepower to take down, giving it a more survival-oriented feel than the shooter days of the series.
The titular village serves as a hub linking together all the game's main areas, in addition to featuring resources and treasures. This doesn't mean that Capcom have jumped on the open world trend, as the game is still a linear experience and the village isn't accessible in the game's main areas - 4 houses, each run by a different boss. The first of these, House Dimitrescu, is a classic Resident Evil mansion, complete with a safe room and an invincible stalker (which I guess is now a mandatory element after the last 3 titles!). It's very well executed and should satisfy all fans of the series, but the game has more to offer than that, as each house has a different approach.
The second house, House Beneviento, is a big puzzle which temporarily removes all your weaponry and thus features no fighting. It's considerably shorter than the first, but makes for a refreshing change of pace. Unfortunately, it lacks replay value. The third is basically a short obstacle course that sets up a boss fight. The fourth, a giant factory, is the second most fleshed out house after the mansion. The first house is certainly the best the game has to offer, but the drop in quality with subsequent houses doesn't feel too vast, mostly due to their attempt to provide variety. The final chunk of the game features a more action-oriented sequence between several boss fights - arguably one too many. For me, this chunk of the game went on a little long given that the survival horror aspect goes out the window. It feels a little too close to the dark shooter days of the series for comfort.
In another tribute to RE4, the game includes a merchant who sells upgrades and will buy your treasure and cook you meals as upgrades. Enemies now drop resources which you can spend at the shop, and treasures and more resources (including hunting) can be found around the village if you're willing to backtrack. These resource can be used to upgrade your weapons and buy new ones. Between that system, completing challenges, and buying infinite ammo for your new weapons in the extra content shop for help tackling the highest difficulty (Village of Shadows), there's plenty here that makes the game worth a replay or two if you're a completionist. It does, of course, get more combat-focused and less survival-oriented with each replay, so the first playthrough is still the most satisfying.
There is an 'Extra Content Shop' which allows you to purchase things like new weapons, infinite ammo, figures, and concept art. You earn money by completing in-game challenges. The game also provides an RE4-style Mercenaries mode focusing on the action side of the game, which is surprisingly great fun. There are 4 stages, each with an alternate hard mode (which truly are quite hard). Each stage is unlocked by getting the right rank on the previous stage. Each stage consists of a few areas, and you can give your character new abilities by finding blue orbs in each area. You can also purchase upgrades between each stage.
Interestingly enough, Capcom hired a British comic author to write the script this time around, who formerly worked on the Dead Space games and Shadow of Mordor, in addition to his comic series Wasteland. The plot is a standard father-searching-for-his-daughter setup, but it's introduced in a particularly shocking way and takes some unexpectedly morbid turns. As in RE7, Chris Redfield is the only classic series character to return here, but not in the way you'd expect - at least not at first. The gothic horror angle taken by this game means the BOWs are now werewolves and vampires, but with a decent side helping of creepy dolls and cyborg vampires. This shift in aesthetic is never really explained, but is anybody really still asking this series to make sense or remain consistent?
Nonetheless, I didn't quite feel like the story's various elements came together into a larger whole. It's the sort of plot which throws a whole bunch of new stuff at the wall and then has to integrate all of that stuff into the larger story of the franchise, and thus inevitably leaves several of those threads feeling unsatisfactorily developed. That isn't to say that I expect this series to have good or satisfying writing, but it's a bit messier than usual! The story ultimately provides a bit of setup to future titles after bringing one character's arc to an end.
Overall, I think this was a pretty solid title. It doesn't have the level of appeal to me that RE7 did, which felt like a proper return to the principles of the early series (in addition to being claustrophobic and creepy as hell), but it's aiming for something a little different. Despite being the first really action-oriented first person title in the modern series, it's also lacking a bit of novelty - for every one thing it does differently, there are several more elements that have become series staples. Nonetheless, I would not hesitate to recommend this game!
RATING: 7.8/10 Creepy Dolls
Inline Image:
https://wegotthiscovered.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/162006993393956392-37.jpeg
froghawk on 28/1/2022 at 16:44
And just to circle back around on the whole thread for a moment, I'm not sure if my relative scores on all this reflect my actual feelings on the series, so here's my relative ranking of all the RE games thus far:
REmake
REmake 2
RE7
RE4
RE3
RE2
RE8
RE3make
RE0
Relevations 2
RE5
Code: Veronica X
Revelations
Survivor
Operation: Raccoon City
RE6
Umbrella Corps
Summary: The 90s games are great fun and wonderfully nostalgic even though I didn't play them back in the day (and still haven't played the original, which is a big oversight). The series took a nosedive when it went 3D in 99/2000, being thoroughly trounced on that front by the first 2 Silent Hill games. It made a successful comeback in 2002 with REmake/0, refining the formula and increasing the difficulty to nail the survival feel better than any other game in the genre I've played. The series was successfully reinvented in 2004 with RE4, but then series creator/executive producer Shinji Mikami left the company, leading to a nosedive in quality which reached its nadir with the 3 titles from 2012. Only in 2017 did it manage to get back on track, 13 years after RE4, and it kept that quality level up with the RE2 remake. At this point, Capcom decided to make the series a yearly affair, leading to a decrease in consistency and a bit of oversaturation.
Malf on 31/1/2022 at 19:29
Did you ever get around to playing Bayo 2 froghawk?
PS: Always good to see this thread pop back up. It's great!
Anarchic Fox on 31/1/2022 at 23:01
Likewise, I don't have anything to add (I am too scaredy for these games), but I enjoy reading the reviews.
froghawk on 9/2/2022 at 15:12
Thanks!!!
Quote Posted by Malf
Did you ever get around to playing Bayo 2 froghawk?
PS: Always good to see this thread pop back up. It's great!
I doubt I ever will unless they port it to PC, as that's the only platform I have. The only game still in the queue for this thread is Okami (and maybe those multiplayer titles they've been bundling with the recent games).
froghawk on 29/7/2023 at 01:18
RESIDENT EVIL (2022 Netflix Series)
Inline Image:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZjQ5ZmI2YTEtNDUyYi00ZTVjLThmNWQtY2E5MDEwZjNlNzcyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMDM2NDM2MQ@@._V1_.jpgCreated by Andrew Dabb
Directed by Bronwen Hughes, Rob Seidenglanz, Rachel Goldberg, and Batan Silva
What is the essence of Resident Evil, really? Any long-running series is liable to change its focus over time, with changes in creators, technology, and the overarching plot bound to transform it into something else. Live action adaptations of video games and anime have always played incredibly fast and loose with their IPs, as we all know. The latest Resident Evil live action entry is a Netflix miniseries based around Albert Wesker (played by Lance Reddick), here a virologist working for the Umbrella corporation. It explores a question no one wanted answered - what would Albert Wesker be like as a father?
The story is focused around Wesker's two daughters, Billie and Jade. Jade and Billie are twins, but of different races, born at the same time from the same surrogate mother. Each episode frequently cuts between two timelines. In the present timeline, Jade and Billie are teenagers who have been freshly relocated to a South African Umbrella Corporation compound called New Raccoon City. In the future timeline, Jade is an adult researcher on the run from Umbrella.
Resident Evil really isn't a franchise that should be translated to film - without the game part, the result of a faithful translation would inevitably a generic zombie b-movie. As such, live action adaptations always take liberties. This series is, of course, updated to be as topical as possible. The show opens with a statement about how scientists predicted that climate change would kill everyone by 2036 - but it tells us that didn't come to pass, because the apocalypse happened much sooner.
Most of the main cast is female and ethnically diverse, which resulted in the expected anti-woke backlash from the right wing crowd. In the present timeline, Jade experiences a lot of teen angst about being relocated to a compound filled with white people, and she lashes out about it while Billie tries to keep her head down and avoid making waves. Albert is an unavailable single father, working far too much to show up in the ways his daughters want - and also periodically taking their blood under the guise of keeping them safe. It turns out he's actually injecting himself with it - spooky!
The first episode deals with issues like a hunter bullying a vegan, animal testing, and whistleblowing, but the show promptly stops caring about such topics after that - it feels like the first episode was written to rope younger watchers in with hot topics. Only one topical thread - about a wonder drug - makes it past the first episode. It all begs the question - why take what is ultimately a '90s nostalgia series and try to turn it into young adult fiction?
The modern licensed pop music choices throughout the show also feel aimed at attracting a younger audience. The songs feel quite out of place, badly matched with the tone of the series. The music doesn't fare much better when it deviates from licensed music - there's a particularly cliched moment where a bunch of drones gun people down to Mozart's Queen of the Night aria.
This is yet another modern show filled with unlikable characters - but not in an endearing way. The one saving grace is Lance Reddick, who does an amazing job playing Wesker. Reddick plays multiple roles to perfection - an element which is sadly underused, given that it's by far the best thing this show has to offer. He's able to pivot from appearing tame and subdued to scary and powerful to goofy and unhinged on a dime. It makes me wish they'd just focused the entire show on him, instead of making it all about his daughters. It's a bit of a shame that Reddick's character is the most fleshed out in this otherwise female-centered cast, but that's on the writing. Paola Núñez hams it up as the main villain (the CEO of Umbrella), but she isn't given much to work with - her character is quite one dimensional.
The show does engage with series canon - it seems to roughly be a sequel to RE5, though it disregards everything that happens after that. Despite all the concessions to modern audiences, there's plenty of fanservice, from zombie dogs to a boss callback near the end. There's even a bit of classic RE puzzling in the fifth episode. This really makes no sense with the plot (someone was trying to convey an urgent message... but hid it behind puzzles?), but it's a cute nod. The tone, however, never really feels like Resident Evil, nor does most of the plot. Resident Evil plots are always cliched and silly, but many of the cliches here don't fit the franchise. There are elements of the plot here which seem to be drawn more from the former live action films than the games, like a subplot involving clones, while other elements are just generic tropes of other genres.
Ok, so it's not really Resident Evil - how does it fare on its own terms? Not very well, unfortunately. The show was clearly designed to run for multiple seasons, leaving so much hanging that it fails to tell anything resembling a complete or satisfying story across its eight episodes. Part of the issue is that the structure of the show doesn't really work. Like most modern shows, it's heavily padded. The running time is equally divided between the present and future timelines, but most of the actual plot happens in the present timeline. The future timeline feels like a waste until episode 6 - there's lots of running and chasing, with very little to chew on, and no Lance Reddick. The future timeline could've been better suited as a framing device, maybe with a brief appearance once per episode and more focus in the opening and closing episodes. It certainly didn't need to be half the show!
But alas, that also would not have solved the problem. Things get even worse when the future timeline plot picks up near the end - the characterizations don't feel consistent between the timelines. The plot fails to adequately explain a radical personality shift between the timelines. Unfortunately, the entire plot hinges on this shift. It seems like it was aiming for a certain degree of nuance and complexity in the dynamic between the sisters, but totally missed the mark. The character motivations in the future timeline instead become silly, simplistic, and poorly explained. The resulting implications feel socially problematic to me, which is not surprising from a series that lazily plays with hot button issues for clicks.
This doesn't feel like it was made by Resident Evil fans, nor do the modern concessions come across as anything more than demographic targeting. I'm not surprised the show got canceled - it's the sort of hollow, overlong, messy, and poorly fleshed out content that likely appeals to no one. The production values are too high and the content is too serious for it to be b-movie fun - instead, it's just a drag (aside from Reddick's scenes - he deserves better than this). I don't see any good reasons for live action Resident Evil to exist at all, but if they're going to make it anyway, I hope they decide to have more fun next time.
(
https://medium.com/@froghawk/resident-evil-2022-netflix-series-c966ed0b7e9f)
froghawk on 29/7/2023 at 01:21
And a couple non-reviews.... I really need to figure out how to re-size images using tags here:
RESIDENT EVIL: RESISTANCE (2020)Inline Image:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/00/Resident_Evil_Resistance.jpgThe RE3 remake was packaged with a multiplayer title called ‘Resident Evil: Resistance', an asymmetrical title developed by NeoBards Entertainment where 4 survivors face off against a mastermind. The mastermind tries to prevent the survivors from escaping by summoning monsters and setting traps and camera turrets, while the survivors have to solve puzzles, avoid the traps, and battle the monsters. The mastermind is able to control monsters in third person and attack the survivors firsthand. Each of the seven survivors (including RE3's Jill Valentine) has a special skill — healing, hacking, traps, firearms, etc. — as do each of the five masterminds (including Anette Birkin).
It's hard to evaluate this game beyond the tutorial and practice missions (which sadly lack AI controlled enemies), as it's been delisted from the Steam store, the player base has dwindled, and the matchmaking seems broken. It at least seems like an interesting concept for a Resident Evil multiplayer title, complete with a proper plot setup — Umbrella is conducting human experiments on virus transmission. Reviews indicate that the game was less successful than this promising setup might indicate, especially because it had balance issues and was plagued by cheaters.
RESIDENT EVIL RE:VERSE (2022)Inline Image:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BM2E3NmVjOTctZDJmMC00ZjViLTgzOTMtM2Q4MWFmZTlhMGRiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTk2OTAzNTI@._V1_.jpgRE: Village was packaged with a multiplayer title, ‘Resident Evil Re:Verse'. It's a pretty standard third person deathmatch title with just one small twist — the players transform into monsters with special abilities when they die, and can transform into more powerful monsters by picking up virus capsules. The game uses locations, characters, and monsters from all of the RE engine titles, plus a few new ones — but it mostly feels like an asset flip with an odd filter over all the visuals to try and make it look fresh. Scoring points allows you to upgrade your character and give them better stats, but there are unfortunately also microtransactions towards this end.
Unfortunately, the game is quite dull — the monster transformation conceit is not enough to save it from the fact that it's an otherwise unimaginative deathmatch title which feels stuck in the early 2010s era of the series — even the musical aesthetics match that era. The RE engine single player titles may have returned to what made these games appealing to begin with, but the same cannot be said of the multiplayer titles, which largely feel like they are trying to appease fans of the shooter era. I think they'd have a lot more success if they focused on co-op instead — that was always the best form of RE multiplayer.
froghawk on 30/7/2023 at 03:55
Giving numeric ratings always felt forced to me, so I'm ditching that aspect.
RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE: WINTERS' EXPANSION (2022)
Inline Image:
https://www.igroshop.com/images/detailed/12/Winters_expansion_art.jpgThis DLC adds a third person mode for the main campaign, two new stages for Mercenaries mode (and their hard counterparts), three new characters for Mercenaries mode (Chris Redfield plus two unlockable boss characters, playable for the first time), and a new story mode called ‘Shadow of Rose'. The latter is the main event here, and it features Ethan's daughter Rose as the main character. The post-credits scene about Rose in the main game felt like sequel bait, but it was actually just setting up this DLC. Rose is socially isolated, seen as a freak by her peers because she has special powers. As such, she goes on a quest to get rid of them.
The levels are mostly reprises of the first two houses in main game, but played in third person and with new puzzles and mechanics. Many have complained that this feels a bit lazy, especially in combination with the roughly 3hr runtime. For me, it just serves as a good reminder of how excellent the level design is, particularly in House Dimitrescu. I really enjoyed getting an opportunity to revisit these levels from a new angle — and while I generally prefer first person views, this still felt deeply atmospheric and engrossing in third person.
The game takes some very fun creative liberties with these levels to keep them fresh and let you experience them from new angles — for instance, a stealth sequence where your character shrinks (or everything else gets bigger?). Your character gets power upgrades through the game, both allowing you to unlock previously closed paths and giving you new ways to engage with enemies. There are also new bosses, which naturally provide the biggest challenge here. Even on hardcore difficulty, I only experienced a few brief moments of frustration.
The story here takes a more psychological angle that's somewhat unusual for the franchise, as it all takes place inside the mind of a giant fungus. It's not exactly Silent Hill 2 level deep, but hey — this is still Resident Evil, after all. It's a brief story of self-actualization that essentially fleshes out the post-credits scene from the main game, adding a lot more context to the sequel setup.
As for the extra Mercenaries content, I only got to experience 2/3 of the new characters, as the final one is quite difficult to unlock and I generally don't grind modes like this. The new characters are much stronger than Ethan, and each have twists that make them play quite differently, adding a lot of new value to the mode. The hard versions of the new stages are extremely difficult, even with the powerful new characters.
All of this is also accompanied by new challenges which will help you unlock more stuff in the Extra Content Shop. All in all, this expansion will probably give you an extra 6-10hrs of play (unless you feel like exploring third person mode in the main game, which could make it considerably longer). I can easily recommend this expansion to anyone who enjoyed the main game and wants more of it, but I do recommend waiting for a sale.
(
https://medium.com/@froghawk/resident-evil-village-2021-8dd43f147000)
Still in the queue:
Okami
Ghostwire: Tokyo
RE4 Remake