I generally don't like being negative toward games with such a unique visual style but unfortunately this is one of those rare times where it just didn't click for me.
This game's best aspect is its art direction and creature designs. Everything from the basic zombie monster to the big boss monster everything not only looks great but also has a place in this mind of a psychopathic murderer, and while the level's progression feels discounted at times each level looks very different from the other.
The story itself is nothing too amazing, and I don't like how most of it is locked behind DLC, but once you get far enough into the game and learn more about the villain and his past the more interesting it gets. It's not amazing but it serves it's purpose of giving me a reason to keep going through the game. The characters are basically none nonexistent. The main character does get some backstory but it's mostly done through file entries which makes me think that they didn't have a backstory for him until late in development so they added these files that you find near save areas so you can't upgrade or save until you read it. The main villain has a neat backstory but all in all the characters feel more like observers of the story rather then living breathing people in the story.
That's about all I liked about the game, everything else I either have no strong feelings towards or just don't like.
Like I said before I don't like how the level progression, since most of the game takes place in the mind of the main villain he can teleport you just about anywhere, because of this the game progression feels very sloppy, rather than making me feel like I'm on a quest to find out where I am and how to stop it; I feel like I'm just bumbing around different levels until the game drops me in a place that's important to the story. And while the levels look nice and unique from the last it still doesn't help the fatigue I had, where I felt like I was making very little progress in the short time I was playing. Another problem with the levels is how linear they are. I have no problem with linear game design but here it's pretty much Point A to Point B 90% of the game, and for a game that's around 8 to 9 hours yes it gets very tiresome.
The general gameplay and combat is also pretty hit-or-miss. The way the game starts off with it being super stealth forced for the first few hours of the game is really offputting for the rest of the game. For starters the steal combat here fucking sucks. It's as basic as stealth gets, just sneak behind the gun stab them and move on to the next guy. Hell it doesn't even have a cover system, Assassin's creed had a cover system and that is barely a stealth game; even Arkham stealth had more engaging quality than this. The weirdest part is; by chapter 3 which is less than 20% into the game you'll barely be doing it again unless you need to conserve ammo. The only reason I could think of the game starting out like this is that literally every game in the early 2010s was doing it and they hopped on the bandwagon to get people who were more into that style of horror games to try it out.
The actual combat itself is pretty much just RE4 but less snappy and much slower. That's not inherently bad but then comes how the upgrading system works. At the beginning of the game you can barely hold any ammo and your sprint is pretty much useless. So in order to get these states to a point where it feels justifiable you'l need to collect green goo to upgrade, but because of this you'll be passing up stuff like ammo because your gun can't hold more than the stupidly small amount you can hold at that time. Not only does this feel devastating in the moment but it also goes against every survival horror stands for. Rather than you using management and thinking to get through the next area the game would rather just give you guns and tell you to go through it. This felt more like an action horror game rather than a survival horror game, which wouldn't be so bad since we've seen something like that done well with games like FEAR, but here it felt like it wanted to be more action forced but still wanted to pleased the survival horror fans expecting another RE4, and as a result we have a combat system that is a mess trying to have it's cake and eat it too.
I don't like writing this game off as just mediocre because it does have genuine qualities I liked about the game, but it's just buried under a giant mound of poor design decisions that just pile up the further I went through the game.
The biggest sin this game did was changing its name in markets outside of Japan. Because the name Psycho Break is much more interesting name them just Resident Evil again.
This game's best aspect is its art direction and creature designs. Everything from the basic zombie monster to the big boss monster everything not only looks great but also has a place in this mind of a psychopathic murderer, and while the level's progression feels discounted at times each level looks very different from the other.
The story itself is nothing too amazing, and I don't like how most of it is locked behind DLC, but once you get far enough into the game and learn more about the villain and his past the more interesting it gets. It's not amazing but it serves it's purpose of giving me a reason to keep going through the game. The characters are basically none nonexistent. The main character does get some backstory but it's mostly done through file entries which makes me think that they didn't have a backstory for him until late in development so they added these files that you find near save areas so you can't upgrade or save until you read it. The main villain has a neat backstory but all in all the characters feel more like observers of the story rather then living breathing people in the story.
That's about all I liked about the game, everything else I either have no strong feelings towards or just don't like.
Like I said before I don't like how the level progression, since most of the game takes place in the mind of the main villain he can teleport you just about anywhere, because of this the game progression feels very sloppy, rather than making me feel like I'm on a quest to find out where I am and how to stop it; I feel like I'm just bumbing around different levels until the game drops me in a place that's important to the story. And while the levels look nice and unique from the last it still doesn't help the fatigue I had, where I felt like I was making very little progress in the short time I was playing. Another problem with the levels is how linear they are. I have no problem with linear game design but here it's pretty much Point A to Point B 90% of the game, and for a game that's around 8 to 9 hours yes it gets very tiresome.
The general gameplay and combat is also pretty hit-or-miss. The way the game starts off with it being super stealth forced for the first few hours of the game is really offputting for the rest of the game. For starters the steal combat here fucking sucks. It's as basic as stealth gets, just sneak behind the gun stab them and move on to the next guy. Hell it doesn't even have a cover system, Assassin's creed had a cover system and that is barely a stealth game; even Arkham stealth had more engaging quality than this. The weirdest part is; by chapter 3 which is less than 20% into the game you'll barely be doing it again unless you need to conserve ammo. The only reason I could think of the game starting out like this is that literally every game in the early 2010s was doing it and they hopped on the bandwagon to get people who were more into that style of horror games to try it out.
The actual combat itself is pretty much just RE4 but less snappy and much slower. That's not inherently bad but then comes how the upgrading system works. At the beginning of the game you can barely hold any ammo and your sprint is pretty much useless. So in order to get these states to a point where it feels justifiable you'l need to collect green goo to upgrade, but because of this you'll be passing up stuff like ammo because your gun can't hold more than the stupidly small amount you can hold at that time. Not only does this feel devastating in the moment but it also goes against every survival horror stands for. Rather than you using management and thinking to get through the next area the game would rather just give you guns and tell you to go through it. This felt more like an action horror game rather than a survival horror game, which wouldn't be so bad since we've seen something like that done well with games like FEAR, but here it felt like it wanted to be more action forced but still wanted to pleased the survival horror fans expecting another RE4, and as a result we have a combat system that is a mess trying to have it's cake and eat it too.
I don't like writing this game off as just mediocre because it does have genuine qualities I liked about the game, but it's just buried under a giant mound of poor design decisions that just pile up the further I went through the game.
The biggest sin this game did was changing its name in markets outside of Japan. Because the name Psycho Break is much more interesting name them just Resident Evil again.