Resident Evil Village is a strange one - it wants to be a proper sequel to Resident Evil 7 and it also wants to take notes and inspiration from RE4, a game that couldn't be more opposite to 7 if it tried. As you'd expect, this creates an unusual, contradictory concoction that fails to hit either of the highs established in those games. It's not as scary as RE7, it doesn't offer the same level of incredible immersion due to a lack of VR support, and it doesn't have anyone or anything as compelling as the Bakers and their ridiculously elaborate house. The action doesn't feel nearly as tight as RE4's, its villains are far less memorable, and it doesn't nail the intentionally funny camp either. It certainly tries, what with protagonist Ethan's dialogue being a combination of tonally inconsistent one-liners and weird rebuttals to things people didn't say, but it never quite finds the proper rhythm. Despite that and a general plot that doesn't really pick up until the very end, it still manages to be a satisfying conclusion to Ethan's story and provides a hook that'll make a sequel or DLC quite interesting. Plus, the way Chris says "Ethan, No!" at the start of the game like Ethan's a dog with something in his mouth that he shouldn't have is extremely funny considering the context the scene occurs in.
To me, RE7 and RE4 are both games with absolutely pitch perfect pacing that balances dread and catharsis in exactly the right way. Perhaps a hot take, but I even like the Mines sequence in RE7 as a action-packed reward for all the nightmares you've been through. In RE7 especially, you start out totally vulnerable and work your way up to an arsenal that puts you firmly in control. RE4 purports Leon as basically a superhero from the start, which makes (enough) sense thanks to hin surviving Raccoon City. Ethan should be in a similar situation having fought his way to survival once before, but the game seems to have a hard time deciding whether to empower or disempower you at a given moment. The beginning is essentially a hour long "AAA" sequence full of setpieces to run away from and characters that don't last long enough to make an impression, but it also features a homage to RE4's initial village sequence. It's here where the issues with the combat immediately show themselves; the new enemies, the Lycans, show ridiculous levels of resilience, to the point that they can potentially take an entire handgun clip to down. They're also incredibly agile for basic enemies too, able to sway like a professional boxer and lunge towards you for a grab like they've got jetpacks on. They can even appear anywhere and drop in like a ninja, often leading to quick and significant damage. This section doesn't prepare you at all for learning how to deal with them since your ammo is so limited and it never really gets better from there even after multiple weapon upgrades. Even after dealing with bosses, monstrous beasts, and mechanical soldiers, I still found the "lowly" Lycan to be by far the most dangerous foe in the game. For bigger foes, I could hit them more easily and be less sparing with my ammo and tools, but since Lycans are the "zombie" equivalent, you're incentivized to not go too wild against them. The villagers in RE4 are easy individually but more complicated to deal with in groups and the level design augmented that expertly, whereas Village prefers to just throw Lycans at you without taking their surprising power level into account, never giving the player a chance to really learn how to deal with their behaviors well in different contexts beyond unloading most of their hard earned ammo in a panic.
After the intro, you're thrust into Lady Dimitrescu's castle for several hours where the game seems to flip-flop between a RE7-like experience where you're (incompetently) chased and a RE4-like experience where you're gunning down faceless mooks by the dozen in a basement. Because of these constant tone shifts, how you're supposed to play never really feels natural: do you run from foes? Do you kill everything in sight? Is ammo conservation important or will they always provide you what you need? Hard to say! You just gotta push through and hope it works out. The environments and tones of its inspirations made it immediately clear how things were going to play out, but Village is so eager to have its cake and eat it too that it forgets to convey what it should convey to the player. I legitimately didn't enjoy the game until I got out of the castle, and considering it was a third of my playthrough, that's a bummer! The castle is a good indication of what's to come, though, since the game never finds a voice from there, jumping between slow exploratory moments and all-out brawls in a way that feels almost random at times.
The actual process of unloading your ammo is also at its worst here - guns sound pathetically weak and it's rare you get much in the way of feedback aside from headshots. This might have been a me thing, but the aiming also never quite felt right and required me to tweak settings to aim even remotely decently. Your guns don't betray any conventions and the upgrades you get are purely linear, removing the decision making that RE4 had with its arsenal. RE4's action worked so well because every gun felt amazing and your melee attacks gave you an unprecedented level of control for series standards, but here it just feels like they grafted RE7's basic combat onto a different game. Everything the game shows you seems like it should be more interesting, more complex than it actually is, but since your only other verbs beyond shooting include guarding and a push you can sometimes do, your only strategy is staying away and shooting until the incredibly resilient enemies and bosses decide they've had enough.
The titular village itself unfortunately failed to impress me, mostly being a series of streets conveniently blocked by rubble until the game decides to give you a new path. The idea of giving you a large hub area to peel back the layers of is a great one, but there isn't anything interesting to do in it. Duke the merchant is the only NPC there and exploring almost exclusively gets you money, which isn't as exciting as it sounds. There's tons of treasure to be found, but its only use is to make money for upgrading weapons, which opens up at a strange pace. For most of the game, you'll have way more money than you need to upgrade everything, but once you hit the final Duke location, every gun suddenly gets so many potential upgrades that you won't have anywhere near enough money for them. I was so confused by this - why give me money exclusively yet lock away upgrades for so long and make them unaffordable? Just reward me with cool stuff for doing cool things! Optional bosses are such a good addition, but they all just drop money! Imagine how cool it'd be if defeating a giant axe wielding monstrosity got you a better melee weapon or something - now that would be good side content! This just made exploring frustrating for me since every time I found a secret location or cool surprise, my reward was always the same and it never felt satisfying. This also ties into the crafting system, which results in you finding materials much more often than ammo. If I'm going to use the materials to craft ammo anyway, why not just give me ammo?
Resident Evil Village is a game I wanted to love, but it's one that I just liked instead. Despite my negativity, it does have several good qualities - some of the setpieces like Beneviento's doll house are fantastic, and the character designs are as good as ever - but the game simply feels like it's lacking a strong vision or selling point. Most things it does are good, but none of them stand out as great. Every other Resident Evil game in the current era of Capcom has really impressed me, but this one isn't quite on the same level. Between this and the RE4 remake that's coming, I'm starting to worry that Capcom is getting a little too fixated on trying to relive RE4's success. Still, I'm certainly far from the point of giving up on the series and I think whatever comes next could have loads of potential so long as Capcom takes the time to find something unique to say instead of trying to bank on past success.
To me, RE7 and RE4 are both games with absolutely pitch perfect pacing that balances dread and catharsis in exactly the right way. Perhaps a hot take, but I even like the Mines sequence in RE7 as a action-packed reward for all the nightmares you've been through. In RE7 especially, you start out totally vulnerable and work your way up to an arsenal that puts you firmly in control. RE4 purports Leon as basically a superhero from the start, which makes (enough) sense thanks to hin surviving Raccoon City. Ethan should be in a similar situation having fought his way to survival once before, but the game seems to have a hard time deciding whether to empower or disempower you at a given moment. The beginning is essentially a hour long "AAA" sequence full of setpieces to run away from and characters that don't last long enough to make an impression, but it also features a homage to RE4's initial village sequence. It's here where the issues with the combat immediately show themselves; the new enemies, the Lycans, show ridiculous levels of resilience, to the point that they can potentially take an entire handgun clip to down. They're also incredibly agile for basic enemies too, able to sway like a professional boxer and lunge towards you for a grab like they've got jetpacks on. They can even appear anywhere and drop in like a ninja, often leading to quick and significant damage. This section doesn't prepare you at all for learning how to deal with them since your ammo is so limited and it never really gets better from there even after multiple weapon upgrades. Even after dealing with bosses, monstrous beasts, and mechanical soldiers, I still found the "lowly" Lycan to be by far the most dangerous foe in the game. For bigger foes, I could hit them more easily and be less sparing with my ammo and tools, but since Lycans are the "zombie" equivalent, you're incentivized to not go too wild against them. The villagers in RE4 are easy individually but more complicated to deal with in groups and the level design augmented that expertly, whereas Village prefers to just throw Lycans at you without taking their surprising power level into account, never giving the player a chance to really learn how to deal with their behaviors well in different contexts beyond unloading most of their hard earned ammo in a panic.
After the intro, you're thrust into Lady Dimitrescu's castle for several hours where the game seems to flip-flop between a RE7-like experience where you're (incompetently) chased and a RE4-like experience where you're gunning down faceless mooks by the dozen in a basement. Because of these constant tone shifts, how you're supposed to play never really feels natural: do you run from foes? Do you kill everything in sight? Is ammo conservation important or will they always provide you what you need? Hard to say! You just gotta push through and hope it works out. The environments and tones of its inspirations made it immediately clear how things were going to play out, but Village is so eager to have its cake and eat it too that it forgets to convey what it should convey to the player. I legitimately didn't enjoy the game until I got out of the castle, and considering it was a third of my playthrough, that's a bummer! The castle is a good indication of what's to come, though, since the game never finds a voice from there, jumping between slow exploratory moments and all-out brawls in a way that feels almost random at times.
The actual process of unloading your ammo is also at its worst here - guns sound pathetically weak and it's rare you get much in the way of feedback aside from headshots. This might have been a me thing, but the aiming also never quite felt right and required me to tweak settings to aim even remotely decently. Your guns don't betray any conventions and the upgrades you get are purely linear, removing the decision making that RE4 had with its arsenal. RE4's action worked so well because every gun felt amazing and your melee attacks gave you an unprecedented level of control for series standards, but here it just feels like they grafted RE7's basic combat onto a different game. Everything the game shows you seems like it should be more interesting, more complex than it actually is, but since your only other verbs beyond shooting include guarding and a push you can sometimes do, your only strategy is staying away and shooting until the incredibly resilient enemies and bosses decide they've had enough.
The titular village itself unfortunately failed to impress me, mostly being a series of streets conveniently blocked by rubble until the game decides to give you a new path. The idea of giving you a large hub area to peel back the layers of is a great one, but there isn't anything interesting to do in it. Duke the merchant is the only NPC there and exploring almost exclusively gets you money, which isn't as exciting as it sounds. There's tons of treasure to be found, but its only use is to make money for upgrading weapons, which opens up at a strange pace. For most of the game, you'll have way more money than you need to upgrade everything, but once you hit the final Duke location, every gun suddenly gets so many potential upgrades that you won't have anywhere near enough money for them. I was so confused by this - why give me money exclusively yet lock away upgrades for so long and make them unaffordable? Just reward me with cool stuff for doing cool things! Optional bosses are such a good addition, but they all just drop money! Imagine how cool it'd be if defeating a giant axe wielding monstrosity got you a better melee weapon or something - now that would be good side content! This just made exploring frustrating for me since every time I found a secret location or cool surprise, my reward was always the same and it never felt satisfying. This also ties into the crafting system, which results in you finding materials much more often than ammo. If I'm going to use the materials to craft ammo anyway, why not just give me ammo?
Resident Evil Village is a game I wanted to love, but it's one that I just liked instead. Despite my negativity, it does have several good qualities - some of the setpieces like Beneviento's doll house are fantastic, and the character designs are as good as ever - but the game simply feels like it's lacking a strong vision or selling point. Most things it does are good, but none of them stand out as great. Every other Resident Evil game in the current era of Capcom has really impressed me, but this one isn't quite on the same level. Between this and the RE4 remake that's coming, I'm starting to worry that Capcom is getting a little too fixated on trying to relive RE4's success. Still, I'm certainly far from the point of giving up on the series and I think whatever comes next could have loads of potential so long as Capcom takes the time to find something unique to say instead of trying to bank on past success.