Resident Evil Village (2021)

And here we have it. I finally finished the last game. One month and 3 days, and I'm finally FREE!

Having played the whole series now, it really feels like Capcom finally found the balance between survival-horror and action with the Remakes and RE7-8. Especially RE7, that one really was a step in the right directions and every RE game since has been absolutely amazing. One criticism I have is the fact we can't see Ethan's face. Hiding it has to be one of the stupidest decision I've seeing this series do, on par with releasing RE0.

Anyway, since I'll won't be playing another RE for a very long time, I'll just do my ranking here:

1. RE2 Remake
2. RE4 Remake
3. RE1 HD
4. RE7
5. RE8
6. RE5
7. Code Veronica with a guide
8. Revelations 2
9. Revelations 1
10. RE3 Remake
11. RE6
12. Code Veronica without a guide
13. RE0

So... Yeah, that's it. Not much to say other than I look forward to play the series again sometime in the future. Especially the Remakes plus RE7-8, definitely the most fun I've had.

So this was a fun romp. The monster designs of the lords and their minions were fantastic, a great throwback to classic movie monsters. Of course it has the usual convoluted, bizzaro story but I liked that it was a bit more personal for the main villain; it wasn’t just all about bio weapons and taking over the world. The late game had a number of good plot twists and that led to a cathartic, large scale fight with a ton of monsters you could just mow down.

My big criticism is the huge info dump at the very end combined with a bit too much artificial mystery at the beginning. I much prefer there to be more fragmented clues scattered throughout the game as to the creature origins, and what is going on. Also the critical event that kicks everything off (as shown in the trailer) involves Chris Redfield running in and gunning down your wife without any explanation, when clearly he could have said two sentences to let you know what he was up to.

RE8 feels like a it piggy backs on the new ground of RE7 much the way that RE3 was a follow-on to RE2. There is a very similar formula, which is still fun but not as fresh. Ethan is captured by the monster family, manages to escape and then proceeds to run into the family members one at a time fight them and solve puzzles.

The opening scene was a bit frustrating since it felt like I was just running around trying to hit invisible script triggers. I died a couple times and it wasn't clear what I was supposed to do. I realize that is supposed to add to the horror and helplessness but it wasn't executed well.

For some reason I really like the Resident Evil story and lore. The slow reveal thru various clues about the strange chain of events that brought about these monsters and death, that only somewhat explains everything. This is mainly what is driving me forward in RE8. However, I feel like there has been too little lore after 5 hours in and I hope that will change.

I liked it. Liked it more than RE7. Still in the process of playing the Shadow of Rose DLC.

Pros

• I liked upgrading weapons, it reminded me of RE4.
• Did a good job of continuing the story from RE7. Also thought it did a good job of making me invested in trying to solve the mysteries of the story.
• All of the lords have unique designs and levels associated with them. Each section felt fresh.
• RE7 lacked enemy variety, this game fixes that issue

• I'm salty that they let you sell ingredients even though they're finite resources. Game suggested I go to The Duke before I unlocked cooking and I sold a ton of ingredients that would've helped.
• The difficulty balancing is a bit strange, there were a few times where I had a surplus of money just to unlock more weapons later on. The problem was it caught me off guard and I ended up wasting money on getting weapon upgrades for old guns (it's my fault for not selling off my old guns to begin with though).
• Game kind of peaks early on. My favorite part of the game was the first lord's level.