i am so glad i switched to assisted mode an hour in, holy shit. the boss fights are difficult for no reason- or rather, they would be an exciting challenge if the combat mechanics were actually up to par. dodging to avoid taking a hit to your health is instead a sure-fire way of getting hit. sprinting is basically non-existent when you're trying to survive. if you take a health item, the moment you exit inventory it's like the game takes 3 secs to catch up so you're free for attacks before you can even aim. by the 3rd boss fight, there's dread instead of fun.

also i don't know if something was wrong with my settings, but the audio was soooo low/muffled. it sounded like the voice track was layered under the music track, but it wasn't too much of an issue since there aren't a lot of cutscenes. despite all this, jill valentine is worth the 3 stars 🫶