Two years ago wrote about the Resident Evil 2 remake, which has probably been my favorite game since then. What I did in writing that post, however, was do it too soon. I mentioned the replay-ability of the RE games but since I hadn't actually done that yet, or even used the second character, I hadn't even gotten close to fully experiencing the game. Because that's not the subject today I'm not going to dwell any longer, but I do feel the need to say that RE2 (2019) is basically a must-play game and was super fun playing multiple times to beat it with multiple characters, on the 'second-run' and on the higher level of difficulty. Even when you think you know what's coming the game will thrill and frustrate in the best of ways.
Before moving onto the newest one we need to briefly talk about what immediately preceded it. Resident Evil Biohazard (7, 2017) introduces a new protagonist, Ethan Winters, who goes searching for his lost wife and stumbles upon a demented and mutated family in the backwoods of Louisiana. Where that game excels is a return to a focus on survival and puzzles, as opposed to pure action where the series had drifted. It feels like an older RE game, though the enemies are all much smarter and more persistent than the classic zombies. A big change is that the gameplay is all in first person, which had never been how it worked before. I like and appreciate RE7 but had almost no interest in playing it again (in large part because of one boss in particular), which in retrospect made it a bit of a fail.
Resident Evil Village (8, 2021) is the most recent entry into the vaunted survival horror series from Capcom. It's been a few years since the events of Biohazard. Ethan and his wife Mia now live in Europe, far away from the horrors they experienced. But they are not safe. The game starts with the family, including their daughter Rose, getting kidnapped. Ethan sets off to figure out what's going on and is driven most of all to find his little girl. He discovers he's now in some strange small European village that's filled with monsters. To advance he needs to find items to unlock doors and use whatever else is around to avoid getting killed.
Initially it does not have the familiar Resident Evil feeling, and it's almost overwhelming. The first monsters you face are strong, quick and evasive vampire-like creatures, and ones that can be out during the day. I wondered how it was even possible to beat this thing because the creatures are way too strong and your weapons way too weak. The starting combat sequence is intense, to say the least. But you can make it through and the rest of the game is so good, blending elements of what made these games popular in the first place with the updates that came about in RE7. It's very clear they were trying to replicate the success of the best game in the series, RE4, a subject for another day.
Good video of the incredible opening fight sequence. You're surrounded and desperately looking for enough ammo but there's nowhere near enough.
Without getting spoiler-y, I'll get into a little of how the game develops. You, as Ethan (it's all first person again), find yourself in this spooky and monster-filled village. You meet a few survivors, who never last, and eventually head toward the castle that dominates your view. Here you get to know, in part, what's going on. There are four 'lords' of the village. One is a huge vampire woman (Lady Dimitrescu) who was the face of the game on its release. But she's not the big bad. The other three are a super creepy living doll (Angie/Donna Beneviento), a disgustingly bloated fish-like creature (Moreau), and a normal looking dude who wears a big hat and sunglasses and has Magneto-like powers (Heisenberg). They all operate under someone called Mother Miranda, the real villain. You need to face each of these four, all of whom present unique difficulties, before the final showdown. The further you go the more it's clearly a Resident Evil game, and that's exactly what I was hoping for.
The best part of all is this game is incredibly re-playable and I'm already on my third time through. Probably to my wife's chagrin I've been playing every night lately. What's fun, and has been pushing me, are the 'Challenges' built in. There have always been a few of these with every RE game going back to the 90's. The consistent thing is speed runs, where if you can finish in a short amount of time you unlock special weapons. In order to accomplish this you need to think ahead what items you need to clear each area and then attempt to get through as flawlessly as possible. This usually involves running past many of the bad guys and skipping a lot, even most, of the stuff available for you to pick up. Doing this can be quite dramatic, though it can be really tough if you get to a boss without enough health or ammo and need to go back to an old save point. Accomplishing low times were what was most fun about playing the RE2 remake.
In RE8 so far it's other stuff, as there's another way to get the cool and upgraded weapons. You get 'points' for accomplishing all kinds of different things. One is a speed run, sure, but you get plenty from killing enemies with the different weapon types, completing the game on the various levels of difficulty and other random things like smashing a bunch of castle windows or opening all the village's outhouse doors. You can use these points to unlock weapons and/or unlimited ammo versions of the guns you've already, at any point, fully upgraded in game. So my obsession at the moment is to get unlimited ammo versions of all the best guns. This may be surprising but this appears to be the way the game was designed to be played. You have so little life and the enemies are so powerful that even with guns that don't run out of ammo the game can be tough. Eventually I'll probably give a go at the under 3 hour completion time which right now seems impossible. A key piece in accomplishing this is that you can load a completed game file (if you so choose) and start the game with all your items, including weapons, from a play-through you've already beaten. Another wrinkle I'm loving.
Alright, if these games have been fun for you in the past or sound interesting to you now, you should check this one out (it'd be fine to skip RE7/Biohazard btw). Resident Evil Village is a terrific entry in the series and I'm glad I got it. It's scary and gross and exciting and a whole lot of fun. You get to use a variety of guns, face a bunch of different enemies and often have to run for your life, all while solving puzzles and looking for loot. You will be tentative to walk through completely safe areas and surprised and confused about what happens at several points. It's great. Plus they brought back a merchant.
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