Resident Evil 8: Village

Here we for the second and final entry in the Winters saga of Resident Evil with number 8, Village.

I jumped pretty much straight into this from 7 as I enjoyed it so much and I’m currently playing through the 2 remake so I am slowly working my way though all of this horror gaming goodness. I may have decided to start these way later then I should’ve but honestly Capcom is knocking it of the fucking park with this series.

Now this doesn’t share the same sort of atmosphere and perpetual dread that biohazard had with the nightmare Baker family. But that doesn’t mean Ethan isn’t in for a boatload of horror still. I’d argue there’s more for him to toil with as the game opens with Chris Redfield filling Mia his wife with lead you know the one you go through the whole of 7 to rescue. The story kicks off with an immediate bang a few years later as they are living in relative peace with their daughter Rose. This review will be filled with spoilers I really don’t think I can help it, but its happening so sorry I guess? The whole game resembles number 4 more then 7 which is both a very good thing with 4 being the best RE game to date and a bit of a bad thing as the extreme horror of 7 has dissipated mostly. Which was the highlight of the game really, the claustrophobia you were subjected to all the time, the extreme violence and gore the house was littered with. But on the flip side the more action heavy gameplay suits the bigger map you play round with.

Now as the namesake of this game the story and gameplay centres around a village, a nameless village slightly stuck in the past lacking most of today’s modern technologies and is heavily designed to be of an Eastern European aesthetic but it takes place in a secluded area nestled in a snow covered mountain forming the backdrop in winter which has gotta be done purposefully due to it being Ethan’s last name. It just seems a tad on the nose don’t ya think? Overall the gameplay loop means you flitter in and out of the village a few times as you unlock new parts of the 6 winged unborn key to find new areas useful items which in turn get you items and entry to some houses or locked cupboards etc. Pretty standard RE stuff really with files, documents and the like littered around to expand the lore for the story. Each area is homed to a boss fight, whom is a child of Mother Miranda who kidnapped Ethan’s Daughter Rose and then proceeded to chunk her body up and put them in a flask so you have to essentially rebuild Rose to stop her nefarious plans. She’s a weak villain to be honest as she’s not in it all that much and she only gains some depth towards the lead up to her fight.

There’s far more shooting to be done in this sequel as you are hunted down by werewolves or Lycans in this. Now they are perfectly fine adversaries to gun down but for a horror game I personally found them to be kinda goofy looking rather then terrifying. There’s a few other flying enemies these kinda undead things and the Soldats which are mechanically enhanced bastards, as you have to hit them in their glowing heart like reactor. Now most of these you’ll find along with the likes of the bigger bosses like Moreau, Lady Dimitrescu, Donna and Heisenberg who are all mutated from the megamycete or parasitic mold that corrupted the Baker family in 7 and this is where it originates from. Which is why apparently in this tiny village with a relatively large castle just suddenly sprouts a whole fuckload of these mythical type creatures to ruin your day. But with the growing list of things to kill comes with a much bigger arsenal to play with and with subsequent walk-throughs it can be expanded further still. You’ve got a knife, pistols, shotguns, sub-machine guns, grenade launchers, assault rifles and even a really over powered sniper which I recommend using when you can. Most of these have more then one option available to you with their respective strengths and they can all be modded and upgraded. Better magazine capacity, damage, reload speed. Along with tighter and more responsive shooting as at times in 7 I was missing point blank then getting bodied by a gloopy mold thing.

Each time you return to the village the village itself will have changed slightly, opening new areas and for a few hidden boss fights. Each enemy and the stronger variants of them drop crystalized skulls or whole bodies which can be sold to the Duke. The mysterious sentient blob of meat that is this huge fucker. Now not much is ever explained about who he is or why he just rocks up ready to trade not only real money but also crystallized parts of creatures. But you’ll be glad he does as you can buy medicine, ammo, weapon mods. And if you hunt the animals and fish you come across he cooks up permanent health upgrades for you. He’s also fairly pivotal to a lot of the expose of the lore and what’s going on.

Now on the horror side it’s not completely gone and everything bleeds a lot especially scoring a critical hit explodes their heads usually. Ethan is always getting fucked up still, he loses a hand yet again against the tall lady of the castle who is the most interesting of the boss fights and area to work round with the castle. It’s a shame its the first real area as none of the others live up to it. However, even though I’d rank it the worst boss fight and area House Beneviento ramps up the horror and terror to 11 for about 10/15 mins. You get stuck in a house and have to figure out varying puzzles to escape, again pretty standard by the RE play book. But towards the end you are stalked by a giant slimy fetus demon for no real reason. I mean it makes sense from the psychological stand point of her bringing Ethan’s deepest fears out but its a tad unnecessary if you ask me. But there’s a few of unsightly grotesque things but most of which you shoot the shit out of collects its very pricey corpse to sell and you move on.

You can still collect items for combing as per normal as well, now you aren’t often that low on ammo especially once you’ve got three types of weapon on you and you can find out what you prefer to use for the play style you kinda want. Not in the sense of stealth, long ranged just if you want faster firing weapons crowd pleasers with a shotgun doling out big close range damage or if you want to try and pick them off from further afield first if you can. You can craft ammo, medicine,mines, flash bangs and a few explosive round variants. So not a lot to make but its all worthwhile a bit more then some of the few extra stuff you got in 7. On the plus each enemy has the chance to drop Lei the currency, ammo or a crafting item as well. So, ultimately you’re never running that low on the essentials. Plus the item management system which is like 4 in it’s a set grid which can be expanded so each item has its own space and can be slotted in to fit as best as you can by shifting and rotating them yourself. Allowing for a decent armoury to be kept on Ethan at all times and a healthy amount of medicine if you take damage regularly.

I’d rate the story to be stronger then in 7 and more consistent but with its flaws still and the game doesn’t drop off a bridge like it did once you hit the boat and played as Mia in 7. Its just there’s two areas namely the castle and Heisenberg’s compound which are just far better then the other areas. The overall mystery of the village is highlighted by the Duke and the part he plays in Ethan’s story and the tie in to the other games lore with Chris Redfield returning and giving you a real fun missions where you just unloaded a shit tonne of ammo into waves of Lycan’s and have a decent boss fight with the bigger variant of the goofy fuckers.

Plus with the extra difficulties you have and the trophies you collect once you’ve completed the game once you earn credits for the in-game store to unlock better weapons for help to get the 100% completion if you want running all the way up to Village of Shadows difficulty. Which I’m currently trying to brave myself up to. Now the two hardest trophies to get are definitely the other game mode available to you. Mercenaries now these aren’t hard to do but to get at least a s-rank on them now that’s complete bullshit. I’ve admittedly not put a whole heap of effort into them but I got a couple A-ranks and I didn’t achieve that easily, but then again it could be that I just suck and can’t get the kill chain up high enough or fast enough to get the score multiplier you need.

Overall I’d rate this a notch above 7 and give it a full 9/10, Some Pure tasty Gaming.

The pay off for the slightly weaker characters and horror then you get in 7 is this game has a more focused story which allows for Ethan to become a much stronger character even if he does end up faceless in the end still. Along with the far superior setting which if you prefer the more action heavy entries of the series then this opens up a whole load of fun to be had as it takes the less threatening and serious tone to run through on multiple play-throughs which this game is designed to excel at making you want to play it more then once. It took me about 12 hours and I found most treasure and un-fogged the whole map, so the more you play and the better the weapons you have the faster you can rinse through this and even go for the harder trophy runs, like knife only or heal only 4 times. I’d recommend this more then its predecessor but so far I think I’d still say it’d be worth starting from 7 and working your way through both for the full experience of Ethan Winters and his families saga.

Released May 7th 2021 on Sony Playstation 5