[Review] Resident Evil Village, Satisfying Lara Consolation For Resident Evil 4 Fans

Maintaining the concept of the previous series which ended with great success, Resident Evil Village (8) is a new game from Capcom’s most popular horror franchise that has come to our attention again. No, not because of the presence of a giant female vampire that makes the virtual world horny, but because the game tries to offer a horror theme like Resident Evil 4, which happens to be our favorite series.

Before going to the heart of this article, what you can see in the title is a review for Resident Evil Village, we want to admit that Resident Evil 7 is not a series that has successfully stolen our hearts. The playing experience we felt at the beginning was quite memorable and tense, but the game ended quite easily and left the impression that “this is not Resident Evil”. But this time we don’t want to talk about the past, but what is already there, namely the new chapter of the adventures of Ethan Winters.

We happened to have been playing the game for the past few days and got enough impressions to sum it up in a review. So instead of lingering, just take a look at the full review below.

Storyline

As is known, Resident Evil Village is a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7 which still focuses on the story of Ethan Winters. After going through the nightmare of tragedy with the Baker family, now Ethan and his wife Mia have lived in peace and were blessed with a daughter. But of course this is a Resident Evil game, so it’s certain that this peace will soon be broken which this time comes from the iconic character Chris Redfield who ends up killing Mia and then bringing Ethan to an ancient village.

This place filled with worshipers of a figure named Mother Miranda is not a peaceful village, but a new hell that Ethan must face on his mission to find his missing daughter. After dealing with a conflict that began when he was kidnapped by Mother Miranda and the four Lords of the village, Ethan later learned that his daughter, Rose, had been broken into four crystals, each held by a different God. This is where Ethan’s adventure to save his daughter begins, where he must thwart the dangerous ritual of Mother Miranda and escape from the cursed village.

From the concept of the story, we feel that this game is much better and even superior compared to some other series. Ethan, who was previously described as a weak character, has now become more resilient and has to deal with major conflicts that are mostly handled by himself. This then reminds us of the mission that must be carried out by Leon in Resident Evil 4, where he also has to go through nightmares in a cursed village with crazy citizens, wild creatures, to a terrible village leader figure. We think we can see that Capcom is trying to bring a big breakthrough to make Ethan stand out more as the main character who shines like Leon, and you have to admit that the effort is quite fruitful, at least in our opinion.

Resident Evil 4-style Main Settings

The biggest compliment we can give Resident Evil Village is that its main setting is again taking players on a thrilling adventure in an ancient European village. Maybe it’s because of the game generation shift that looks more visually stunning, but we feel that the setting in this game is superior to Resident Evil 4. The gameplay will take you to various areas in the village that are ruled by different lords.

Apart from the atmosphere to the different types of enemies, each of these areas always brings different challenges and approaches to the gameplay. For example, when you are in Castle Dimitrescu you will often be chased by the Lady Dimitrescu who acts like a monster pursuer like Mr. X in Resident Evil 2. For us, navigating areas in FPS games is more difficult than in third-person shooters, so when you get lost or enter the wrong room, Lady Dimitrescu will easily catch up and be ready to crush Ethan.

Exploring Dimitrescu Castle seemed to remind us of the classic Resident Evil games, which focused more on survival elements rather than action. Of course, this sensation will not last until the end, because other areas of the Lord have different gameplay approaches and situations that force you to always adapt and be ready for any challenge. For example, when you reach Beneviede’s house, he will steal all available weapons and force you to use equipment that can be used to escape and solve puzzle challenges.

The pacing given for each area is not always the same, because there are parts that are actually longer and shorter. This is a pretty right decision in our opinion, because the territory ruled by Moreau and Beneviede is not as exciting as the other Lords, so we are quite relieved that they are not two memorable antagonists compared to Lady Dimitrescu and Heisenberg.

Providing a spotlight for each antagonist character through a special area and the boss battle itself is the main point of our comparison with Resident Evil 4. So in addition to the ancient rural setting, Ethan and Leon in their adventure will also be presented with many challenges involving their actions against different antagonists who have their own area of power. But the difference for Ethan, each Lord has a more expansive area and leaves a stronger impression than what we got from Resident Evil 4.

The Perfect Combination of Action and Horror Gameplay

The gameplay in Resident Evil Village this time feels more dominant on the action side, moreover you will be presented with more ammunition supplies in many places. This is because the game does adjust the level of danger you have to face, namely the many monsters, sub-bosses and main bosses that you will often encounter throughout the game. The gameplay concept does not make a significant difference other than maybe now you can do counter attacks. Whether it’s because we haven’t played the seventh series for a long time, we also feel that the gunplay in this game is more clunky.

But these shortcomings don’t just make our excitement less, because the best dish that this game provides lies in the exploration and adventure through Mother Miranda’s own village. Sometimes you will be faced with battles against sub-bosses and challenging bosses after completing challenges in an area, and as usual you have to find their weak points to defeat them. There are also a variety of puzzle challenges which unfortunately aren’t really that difficult to complete, except for some which are pretty cool like piano puzzles where you have to hit the right sequence of notes to solve them.

Apart from the familiar themes and settings with Resident Evil 4, other similarities that you can find also lie in some of the facilities and features provided by the game. One of them is like the Inventory system with large suitcases that provide spacious storage space, but at the same time you have to keep bringing whatever items and equipment you need the most. For example, like weapons, which of course take up more space than other items and provide a limit on how many weapons you can carry. Luckily you can combine items to make bullets, combine them in a package, or mix potions from several ingredients, so this can be used to save storage space.

Other similarities can also be found in the Merchant facility which allows you to shop for all your basic needs at the fat NPC named Duke. The items you can get include bullets, weapons and upgrades. Just like the classic Merchant NPC, Duke will appear in various places following your progress so you can take advantage of the existence of his merchandise stall as a Save House. This is because Duke also has a typewriter that can be used to save your game progress.

In addition, in this game you can also strengthen Ethan’s stats by cooking food made from animal meat such as poultry to fish. Each ingredient even has its own version of the legendary which is sure to amplify the effect. To strengthen replayability, this game also offers a Mercenary Mode which involves you in battles against hordes of enemies that continue to grow and become increasingly difficult to overcome. This mode rewards extra currency which can later be added to single player mode if you really need it.

Conclusion

Coming from someone who doesn’t have much of a memorable experience from Resident Evil 7, we are happy to admit that Resident Evil Village is indeed much more exciting and to our taste. You may call it a biased opinion because we are big fans of Resident Evil 4, but the premise offered by this game is right on target with our expectations. Feeling the sensation of adventuring in an ancient mystical village filled with danger and mystery around every corner must be admittedly extraordinary. For a game that has a total playing time of around 10 hours, the pacing it provides is quite good and provides many unique game variations that are never boring.

Of course we can see that there are many gamers who are interested in Resident Evil Village because of Lady Dimitrescu. But it must be known that he is only one of the main antagonist figures in this game who does not have a dominant role like Mr. X and Nemesis. So after you beat him, you won’t be given another chance to play catch up with the mamasita.

If you have to look for flaws, then the one thing you love most about this game is the portion of the game that is not always solid. We have mentioned the best examples such as how the areas controlled by Moreau and Beneviede do not provide the same level of fun playing as other Lords. Most of the puzzle challenges are also not very interesting and there are only a few that are enough to sharpen the brain. Gameplay that focuses on the action side rather than survival horror is not a problem for us because this is indeed the concept that Resident Evil 4 offers, it’s just that the gunplay sensation in this game as we mentioned above is indeed more clunky.

Excess	Lack
Great old-fashioned rustic level design	Weak puzzle challenge
Pretty solid pacing with different level variations	Gunplay feels more clunky
The storyline is quite interesting	Not all Lords make a good impression, especially from their level
There are more interesting antagonist characters
Extra replayability thanks to Mercenary Mode

Final Score:

8.5/10

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Resident Evil Village

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: 2021-05-07

Consoles, PS4, PS5, PC

Resident Evil Village is the latest sequel to Resident Evil VII which tells the continuation of the story of Ethan Winters who is again trapped in a terrible fate. Still presenting gameplay with a First-Person perspective, this game presents a new overhaul starting from a wider world/playground setting, smoother graphics on next-gen platforms, and much more.