NON SPOILER SECTION
Resident Evil 7, released in 2017, was considered a revolutionary game for the series - not only did it not prominently feature any old characters, but brought a new setting, new biohazard and new tone to reinvigorate the series status as a staple of the horror genre. But how good is it? Before we start, I've only played resident evil 1,2 and 4 prior to this, so I'm no hardcore expert, but I know what I like, and will use them as points of comparison.
Resident Evil: Biohazard follows Ethan Winters, a man who receives a message from his missing wife telling him to meet her at a run-down estate in the swamps of Louisiana. However, it was a trap meant to lure him there by the twisted design of the Baker family, a twisted group of insane, near indestructible people each with their own horrific mutations. It's up to Ethan to fight his way out, solving puzzles, fighting creatures and rescuing his wife before they both end up dead, or added to the family.
For a resident evil fan, this sounds like a return to formula - and to a degree, it is, with a mansion as the main setting, something we haven't seen since the first game, with slow movements, limited ammo and tight environments meant to keep you trapped and at the mercy of what may be following you or lurking around the next corner, which, with its new first person perspective, delivers on the scares.
This game is also incorporates in new RE engine, designed for this and future Resident Evil games to make the environments hyperdetailed, which is used to full effect to create the Baker Estate - never has horror been so beautifully realised.
Not so much with character faces, however, which can range from good to ok to outright jarring. It seems they hadn't quite perfected it like they had with the remake of Resident Evil 2. Still, it is very impressive on the whole.
My favourite sections of the game are the Baker Mansion and the old house by the lake, where you face off against Jack and Marguerite Baker as they roam the halls - they are fairly self contained and create a vividly disturbing atmosphere that a new, realistic Resident Evil should aspire to.
However, there are bountiful inconsistencies in the story and the cutscene sequences within it, like characters disappearing and reappearing from nowhere, poorly explained creatures and their powers, or how anything on the baker estate operates. The first few games were never particularly complex, but they had rules and limitations to the monsters - zombies are infected people who could take huge amounts of damage, but once the head is destroyed or it is burnt, it won't get up. Tougher enemies the Mr X or G would often keep reappearing in stronger and more deadly forms until they are utterly destroyed, and villains want you killed or infected, fuelled by mindless cannibalism, programmed to by ruthless killing machines or simply trying to cover up their conspiracies.
However, in Resident Evil 7, the new enemies called the Molded have multiple, contradictory explanations as to how they come to be, vague powers that get new rules as they game goes on, cures that may or may not work for no explanation, some people getting infected for years but somehow aren't too far gone to be saved, and limbs that can be reattached and shrugged of like it is nothing. The worst part is there is no explained plan for that they have for Ethan in the first place. It is even suggested through the game that Ethan is infected, but it is never addressed, and if that were the case, I don't know why they are always trying to kill him. The game makes strong attempts to create history and rules, but forgets most of them, which really detracts from the experience as it never needed to be too complex in the first place.
The game seems to be in two minds about everything, from a realistic and grounded approach to insane spectacle boss fights coming out of nowhere and hallucinations making you question what you see. From telling a whole, self contained package to having big revelations have no weight and characters leaving the story entirely until the DLC, which again just raises more questions.
The further the game goes on, the more it unravels, with the first few hours being very effective, with detailed locations and a tense atmosphere the like of which we have never seen before in Resident Evil, and the last few with sparse, uninteresting areas, an overstuffed arsenal to fight through waves of enemies and the plot devolving into a farce. All this is unfortunate because of what the early game promised, and if the game had been more focused, it could have been something really special, but I would say that it is still worth a play.
I would give the game a 7 out of 10.
SPOILER SECTION
Ok, so following from the story, I have no idea why we as the players are meant to care about Mia, Ethan's wife. It is slowly revealed that she was part of the shadowy organisation called the Connections, kind of the new Umbrella but more covert, where she was tasked with transporting their latest bioweapon in the form of a little girl called Eveline. It goes wrong, and Eveline kills everyone on the ship, infects Mia, and later infects the Bakers when they take her in from the crash site. Therefore, Mia is responsible for all of this. And, when you meet her again after years, one of the first things she does is go feral and cut off your hand, which makes it hard to sympathise with her.
So, when you make the choice between saving Mia or Zoe, there is a good chance you will choose Zoe, but somehow Eveline kills her as you escape, and the only thing different is that Mia will die after being made to fight you (again, how does she die, she is infected and hasn't been cured. The only way for her to die is if Eveline wants her dead). This is a big problem, as making a choice like that then backpedalling it negates the need for a choice in the first place.
Ethan also no discernible personality - sometimes being a surrogate for the player, a normal man in over his head in a world of monsters, and other times when he makes snarky quips at tense moments.
Lucas Baker is another point of contention I have. Being the most evil and sadistic Baker as he was a narcissist and psychopath at a young age, way before he was infected, he puts you through a series of death traps for his own amusement. However, it is revealed he is secretly working with the connections, having been cured from Eveline's influence but retaining his newfound regenerative abilities. How? Does Eveline know, and if she does, why doesn't she do anything about it? Wouldn't Lucas go on to infect the scientists? He is somehow able to maintain an army of Molded in the Chris Redfield DLC even after Eveline is dead, yet she was the one spontaneously generating them (unless it is the other explanation of them being infected corpses that the mold can spread to, but the mold is still controlled by Eveline).
However, the biggest problem is Eveline herself, as she creates so many inconsistencies in the story. For one, various things happen like Zoe and Mia remaining mostly themselves while the others are corrupted, not controlling Ethan if he is infected or retaliating against Lucas, and while the hallucination concept is an interesting one, as certain fungi can control or alter perception and turn insects into drones which is why the Connections wanted to utilise it as a military asset, why don't the Molded or the Bakers act like that? They all seem pretty individual, with no moments of them all doing things in unison. Also, why would it be in the form of a little girl with a will of her own, rather than dispersing it or making it a transmissible virus? That is bound to cause problems, especially when she has a fixation around having a family, and if the point is infiltrating warzones, children would be taken off of the front lines.
There are nuggets of a good concept here, with an organisation seeing the flaws in the t-virus zombies or Las Plagas parasites, and trying to get the best of both - control over an opposing force, making them surrender or become your soldiers rather than zombies, which would pose just as much of a threat to the side deploying the t-virus in the first place, as the conflicted area would then be populated by mutating monsters that would infect or kill you just as much as them. Or by spontaneously generating zombie-like creatures under your control, you wouldn't have to worry about your own forces being attacked. However, they hadn't really thought through how these abilities could be used in creative ways, only ways that make for a simple horror game or jump scares.
Commentaires