[REVIEW] Don't confuse production value with quality :: Resident Evil Village General Discussions
[Review re-posted here since any critique gets lost in an ocean of shallow praise] DISCLAIMER: This review reflects only the OP personal opinion, it doesn't aim to present factual statements of universal value Resident Evil Village is a linear action adventure turning into Kingdom Hearts kind of nonsense, not a survival horror Capcom is trying something new but misses the mark completely.
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[REVIEW] Don't confuse production value with quality

[Review re-posted here since any critique gets lost in an ocean of shallow praise]

DISCLAIMER: This review reflects only the OP personal opinion, it doesn't aim to present factual statements of universal value

Resident Evil Village is a linear action adventure turning into Kingdom Hearts kind of nonsense, not a survival horror

Capcom is trying something new but misses the mark completely. Marketed as a mix of RE4 and RE7, it goes way beyond those limits to a worrying degree while not making justice to any of its inspirations.

It’s such a departure it’s not a RE game anymore, it nods to other titles in the series with some references and elements but it doesn't use them effectively, ending up losing its identity completely with many aspects feeling out of place and clashing with each other in tone.

As a fan of the series since its inception, Village is absolutely not for me.

PROS

+ High production value. Graphics, art direction, music and sound design are pretty good

+ The village hub progressively opens up a bit and offers some side content

+ Better enemy variety compared to RE7 (but that’s not saying much)

+ NG+, bonus content and game modes like The Mercenaries to unlock

CONS

- Deceptively open ended but linear in nature. Very unfocused game structure

- Heavily scripted in set pieces, chases and encounters. Terrible AI

- Average gameplay loop, simplistic combat

- Guns sound and feel like toys, although the overall sound design is nice

- Mediocre boss fights, some disappointing but functional, others just bad

- Elements taken from previous titles are much less effective and feel disjointed

- Insultingly simple puzzle design, just disgusting

- Abysmal writing. The nonsensical plot, characters and dialogues are filled with heavy anime tropes, paired with overly-dramatic performances. Basic logic is nowhere to be seen

- Villains who never stop talking about their personal issues or evil plans during boss fights (or even while traversing an area), to shoehorn their idiotic "motivations"

- The last 1/3rd of the game spirales down to utterly ridiculous territories (both in writing and gameplay) and doesn’t feel nor look like a RE game at all

- FOV is awful and not adjustable (get a mod for it)

- Performance issues at the time of review, with stutters upon killing enemies or getting grabbed, plus heavy fps drops in specific situations and encounters (like the daughters boss fights). Not an hardware specific problem as it's pretty common

The survival horror aspects of the series are completely gone here.

The game funnels players into extremely linear progression despite the map dressing itself as expansive locales. The overall structure of the game with its different areas and distinct gameplay loops feels disjointed; an unfocused collage of styles. There's no need to backtrack much if at all inside each area (aside the main hub/village and occasional side stuff), no need to manage items and resources, no need to plot a route. You can explore exclusively within the boundaries of said funneling. The scripted nature of many elements takes control away from the player way too often.

Village even fails to emulate RE4 and its action gameplay loop. Its simplistic gunplay combined with limited player mobility allows for only a basic approach to fights. Still somewhat enjoyable but average at best, with bullet sponge enemies stripping feedback away from many weapons, especially on higher difficulties.

The mob AI, the encounters’ structure and the room layouts in which they take place are exploitable to the point of being borderline broken. The enemy aggro-deaggro is not based on range but hard coded on player position and triggers. It's even possible to make some spawn and despawn at will.

The writing and plot with their heavy anime tropes approach are just terrible (a trend already started with RE7 but abusing horror movie references and tropes instead) and don’t fit RE history, especially toward the end. It’s all an irrational and ridiculous mess even by the series standards, closer to a Final Fantasy, a twisted Kingdom Hearts or Naruto; extremely hard to digest. There's a severe lack of character development, villains are static and feel inconsequential, main villain included. As a result they need to use laughable exposition, bombarding you constantly with their poor monologues. Ethan and Chris are idiots, with the first checking the box for every single anime protagonist trope you can think of. Even the interesting fairy tale theme and its metaphorical potential are never fully realized in a meaningful way, a shame because that's the best aspect of how the story and setting are presented to us.

I wish people would stop praising mediocrity.

EDIT:

I want to say thank you to those who decided to contribute to the discussion so far. I think I've exhausted all my arguments on the matter with my overly long dissertations in the posts, so you can take it from here for an eventual continuation. Always keep it as civil as possible, no surrogate of social media bashing please. Thanks again.