Games You've Beat 2021 - PXoD's Excellent Adventure

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, the DLC has a hell of a difficulty spike. I remember being pretty frustrated with the first one but it sort of evened out as I progressed through them. I think they expected you to have gone through NG+ at least once by the time it came out.

[MetalCaveman]

Resident Evil Revelations

 

Short and sweet, much closer to RE4 in style, a creepy atmosphere, horror elements and a good dose of action.

 

Movement can be an issue though, you can't sprint, just walk or jog around, which to me wasn't a problem, unlike RE4/5/6 you're not running around large open areas, instead, it's a much smaller, more claustrophobic scenario, stuck inside a ship that's in the middle of nowhere, so the lack of sprint added a bit to the creepiness to me.

 

One thing that I didn't quite get was the dodge, you're supposed to be able to dodge most enemy attacks, but I found it very unresponsive, once in a while it would work, but most of the time it would do nothing.

 

I also managed to miss the sniper rifle, later on, after looking up where it was, I realized it was in a room that I had been to, but after a quick glance, seeing it full of enemies and looking mighty creepy, I turned around, thinking it was an area to visit later on, once more firepower had been acquired, turns out, that's where you find said firepower.

 

Story was cool, taking place between RE4 and RE5, not a lot of answers or anything major, but still fun enough.

 

Also, for a game that was originally released on 3DS, it looks pretty good.

[MetalCaveman]

Resident Evil Revelations 2

 

This was pretty cool, much more horror than pretty much any game post-RE4, up until the remakes of 2 and 3 at least, the action feels well balanced with the creepiness, and although at first I wasn't convinced, I ended up enjoying the partner system and being able to switch between characters.

 

Barry being back is the highlight for me, specially since, he and Claire confirm that Jill sandwich and master of unlocking are canon, even if REHD tried to change it.

 

Spoiler

"Who's the master of unlocking now!" After essentially using a battering ram to open a door.

 

"I was almost a Claire sandwich"

"Ugh... Does Barry tell everyone that story?!"

 

 

 

Barry's line at the end was pretty funny too.

 

Spoiler

"I'll always need you, but for now I have... THIS!" *pulls out his magnum revolver*

 

Story was fun, originally released in episodes, there are cutscenes at the start and end of each chapter with the "Previously on Resident Evil Revelations 2" and "Next Time on Resident Evil Revelations 2" stuff, these are cool, but also a bit redundant if you're playing now that the full game is out. There are references to Revelations 1 and RE6, although the RE6 comment was kinda odd, given the events of that game, you'd expect people to be a bit more on edge, but maybe they've gotten used to zombies and mutant monsters.  

 

Spoiler

"Oh Chris is in China now? Well, tell Piers to take care of him" said Claire, as people went about their daily lives, like nothing happened, days after ANOTHER US city got zombified and then nuked to hell, followed by a zombie outbreak in China, you know, the usual.

 

Overall, a nice return to form, better than Revelations 1, good horror vibes, good action sequences, and the right amount of cheesy goodness. \m/ \m/

[Mister Jack]

Digimon Cyber Sleuth

 

This game is a hidden gem with a few rough edges around it. I bought it purely because I was sick of the Pokemon franchise never innovating since Gen 1 and I wanted to give the competition a try. Naturally, this meant I was comparing the two franchises the whole time and now that I've finished I've come to the following conclusions:

 

Things Pokemon does better

 

1) Creature design is, as a whole, better in Pokemon. There are some pretty good Digimon designs in the roster to be sure, but there are also some that are just faceless blobs or something else dull like that. To be fair, the more boring Digimon are usually on the lowest rungs of the evolutionary ladder and they evolve out of them quickly. Even then I'd still say Pokemon designs are usually better, but there are some still pretty cool looking Digimon.

 

2) Environments and exploration. Digimon takes place partly in cyberspace, which is basically just a bunch of holograms, and Tokyo, which has the usual Shinjuku/Shibuya/Akihabara/etc districts you're used to. You also move between regions through a menu so there's minimal exploration in this particular Digimon game. Don't play it expecting to explore a wide open world.

 

3) Better side activities. Most of the side content in Digimon Cyber Sleuth involves you taking on cases for clients. Almost all of these cases are just fetch quests or "go here, fight X" missions. It also has an annoying habit of making you go somewhere just to talk to someone before sending you somewhere else. It's pointless busywork and it really wasn't needed. On the other hand, Digimon has better post-game content with some seriously tough optional missions to really put your high level party to use.

 

4) Catching a Pokemon in a ball is more exciting than scanning Digimon out in the field and then reconstructing them in a menu. That said, every Digimon you encounter gets scanned, even multiples, so there are no wasted encounters.

 

5) If you lose a battle you can continue. If you lose in Digimon you have to reload, so you'd better save often.

 

6) Music is more memorable for the most part, although the Digimon OST has some legit bangers on it.

 

Things Digimon does better

 

1) The battle system is way more engaging. The menus are quicker, battles flow much, MUCH faster, you have easily accessible information to all your abilities, what they do, and even whether they'll be effective or not against the enemy type you're targeting. You also get a battle party of 3 instead of just 1. You can also carry up to 8 extra Digimon in reserve depending on how much RAM you have and you can switch out your entire party for any of your reserves at any time during battle at the cost of just one turn. It honestly plays more like Final Fantasy X than Pokemon, which I consider a good thing. There's also a handy auto-battle option for dealing with trash mobs and the AI for it is pretty good.

 

2) Way, way, WAY more evolution options. Every stage of every Digimon has a minimum of 3 different evolutionary paths to choose from. Some of the evolutions look nothing like the last form (there's a fox that can evolve into a tree), but each mon will still have at least one evolutionary path where the design stays pretty consistent. You can even devolve back to a lower stage if you want to try a different path. Evolving or devolving puts you back at level 1, but with increased base stats inherited from whatever level you were at before the change. You'll be digivolving way more often than you ever evolved your Pokemon and you have full control over when and how it happens as long as you meet the requirements. It's quite addicting.

 

3) Better presentation. The graphics are better, the framerate is better, there's voice acting (in Japanese), there are some anime cutscenes here and there, but most importantly every single Digimon has unique animations for attacking and performing signature moves. None of that pathetic "Scorbunny used double kick" jiggling in here. While there are shared moves that have generic casting animations, every mon has at least two attack animations that are exclusive to that species. The story is also more interesting than any Pokemon story I've personally played. It's not a masterpiece or anything but for a mon game it's got a lot more going for it than you'd expect. Oh yeah, and all three Digimon from your battle team follow you while you walk around.

 

4) Each Digimon has a normal attack and can learn up to six moves rather than four. New moves after that are stored in a bank and you can swap them out between battles as many times as you want. No need to forget moves like in Pokemon.

 

5) Type matchups are not the end-all-be-all of battles. Digimon come in four types (vaccine/data/virus/neutral) and then on top of that they also have elements like fire/water/lightning/etc. In order to do maximum damage you have to use both the right type and the right element, and unless your team is VERY carefully balanced it'll probably be rare that you have everything matched up perfectly. Depending on your type matchups you can give or receive anywhere from half damage to 3x damage, but it usually hovers around 1.5x to 2x damage. Obviously you want to have an advantage whenever possible, but even at a disadvantage it's usually possible to tough it out if your mons are well trained or have support from their teammates.

 

6) Challenge. Everyone knows Pokemon is piss easy with maybe one or two bosses per game that turn out to be harder than expected. Digimon is pretty easy too for the most part but there are quite a few boss battles, especially in the second half, that can really give you a run for your money. That's not even getting into the bonus post-game bosses. Fortunately, leveling up is pretty quick in this game. With a full team of 11 you're guaranteed to get at least one level up every two or three fights against similarly leveled oppenents and you'll usually get more than that. There are also ways to boost your exp gains and if you're willing to put in the work then by the end of the game you can make it so you get 40+ levels per fight. When certain evolutions require you to evolve and devolve multiple times to build up the ability stat, this is a godsend.
 

Things that suck in both games

 

1) Unskippable cutscenes. Ugh.

 

2) Pacing is kind of uneven.

 

3) Annoying side characters. Digimon only had one character that really annoyed me but she annoyed me enough to count for three bad Pokemon characters.

 

4) Silent protagonists. I am really tired of seeing that.

 

All in all I liked Digimon quite a bit and I would recommend it, or at least this particular game. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Edited April 29, 2021 by Mister Jack

[toxicitizen]

Resident Evil 3

 

So, I finished my first run a few days ago but I wanted to do a few more runs before writing down my thoughts to better articulate my issues with the game. It's good, very good even, but coming after RE2 (which already suffered from a few disappointing cut corners) this is still a super disappointing game.

 

My first run on normal took me about 6 hours and this was while playing slowly and carefully. I basically stretched the game to its absolute limit and it was still only 6 hours long, which isn't THAT bad (a single RE2 campaign was only about 8h or so.) But, unlike RE2, it doesn't have dual protagonists/campaigns so that 6 hours is basically all you get. That's not great for any full priced game but since I only paid 20 bucks I can't really complain too hard. At least they added two new difficulties above hardcore this time, nightmare and inferno, and they do try to mix things up a little bit with enemies and items placement but by then I had unlocked the infinite ammo rocket launcher which completely trivialized them lol.

 

The real problem isn't the length, though, it's the pacing and structure of the campaign. RE2 had large areas that weren't exactly non-linear but that you could easily wander for hours if you didn't know what you were doing. The police station alone could easily take up half the game if not more.

 

But in RE3 you're going through a succession of smaller, super linear areas and you'll never spend more than an hour or so in each one, often much less. There's even a section where you revisit the police station from RE2 and instead of milking that shit for all its worth by reusing as much of the map as possible, they just send you on a short linear path through it and it's over before you know it.And that's on a first run. If you just make a beeline for the key items, you'll fly through most sections in like 10-15mins.

 

This hurts replayability and basically takes all the exploration out of the initial playthrough. The only area that feels fully realized is the first city section at the beginning of the game and even then it only has that one loop in the map with an optional ladder you can unlock. Otherwise the game might as well be on rails. Oh and to make this worse, there's only like one puzzle in the entire game.

 

Then there's Nemesis. The first area is actually pretty cool. It's semi-open, and while his appearances are scripted, when he does show up he's chasing you all over the place. And unlike Mr. X you cannot run from this motherfucker, he's way too fast. You have to fight him or use the environment to stun him. At this point I thought the whole game would be like this and got excited. "Maybe it's not as bad as people were saying", I naively thought. Well...after that it's all scripted encounters that are either glorified cutscenes or boss fights. There's no more organic chase throughout a map. The maps simply aren't open enough to allow for it.

 

Oh and speaking of Nemesis, I almost forgot the worst thing: the final boss. It's fine on most difficulties. It's not as interesting as the other fights cause of how scripted it is but it's a cool final showdown. But man, Inferno Nemesis can just go fuck himself so hard. There's this one attack that's now so fucking fast that it becomes an instakill stunlock. It is just absolute fucking bullshit. It's not hard, it's just fucking unfair. I hated it so goddamn much. But hey, at least in the end I did it...

 

 

So yeah, it was okay but I don't want any more remakes from Capcom. I know they're already working on RE4 and I'm not saying I won't play it but at this point it's pretty obvious they have no interest in delivering definitive editions of these games. RE2 was only slightly disappointing because even though they completely failed to deliver on the whole Scenario A/B thing, the actual game was still fantastic. But RE3 honestly feels completely phoned in. It's pretty fun on a first playthrough but it disappoints in basically every way imaginable. And what's the point of a remake if you're not even going to TRY to improve on the original?

 

At this point, I really hope RE4 ends up being more of a reimagining than a remake. RE4 still plays fine and it's playable on modern hardware so it doesn't need to be updated. Just go crazy with it, Capcom. Make it weird. Do your worst. I'm game. I don't give a fuck anymore and neither do you, I guess.

 

Oh well, at least there's still Village next week!

Edited April 30, 2021 by toxicitizen

[TheMightyEthan]

Active Neurons

 

This was a fun, if short, little puzzle game. Basically you're sliding around a box in a 2D environment trying to activate various switches and whatnot to clear each level, but the surface is frictionless so once you start moving in a given direction you don't stop until you hit something. I enjoyed it enough to buy Active Neurons 2 and 3 (all three are on sale on PSN right now).

 

4/5

 

Immortals Fenyx Rising: Myths of the Eastern Realm

 

This was more IFR, which is what I wanted, so that was good. I do think it hewed a little to close to the form of the main game though, even taking into account it's set in China. The basic structure of the plot is the same: a chaos being broke a mountain, you have to collect magical whatsits to help gods so they can fix it. Like they started with the same outline and just dropped in different names to fit the Chinese theme. There are only two gods/realms to help in this one, but the smaller scale it to be expected in a DLC versus the main game. It was actually made by a Chinese studio though, so that's cool.

 

4/5

[toxicitizen]

Ghostrunner

 

Yeah, that was pretty damn good. When I got to the first boss and saw the kind of bullet hell bullshit I had to deal with, I got real worried that the game was going to become too hard for my slow, old-man reflexes. But it turned out to be kind of a random difficulty spike and after that the game didn't throw anything else at me that felt impossible at first. Even the subsequent boss fights were way easier, including the very last one.

 

And that's kinda what I loved the most about it. It keeps mixing things up with new enemy types and platforming challenges but it doesn't try to one-up itself. It doesn't feel like it gets harder, it just challenges you differently. Either that or the difficulty curve is like... flawless.

 

And for the kind of game that this is, this turned out to be a hell of a lot more manageable than I anticipated:

 

 

I just pray they don't add any new ones with the DLC because I'm already thanking my lucky star there wasn't anything about hardcore mode in there. For all I know, it might not actually be that bad but I kinda don't wanna fuck with it hahaha.

[MetalCaveman]

Resident Evil 2 Remake

 

Holy moly, this was awesome! Loved the creepiness, the horror, the atmosphere, everything, graphics are awesome too.

 

Mr. X was terrifying, from the moment dude shows up, then hearing as you walk around, doing your thing, those moments when you walk into a room and he walks in from another entrance, his theme starts playing and you start thinking about whether to run, hide, or what, walking into a room as he walks out is also quite the thrill. Easily my favourite part of the game. Only thing missing was some cheesy funny goodness, with those, this would have been really close to beating RE4 as my favourite, as it stands, it's still in second place, but not that close.

 

With all settings on max this game looks incredible, the RE Engine does some neat stuff. \m/ \m/

 

Thought about trying to get all achievements, only have a couple left, but maybe later.

 

Resident Evil 3 Remake

 

Kinda wish I had waited a bit to start this one, not that it's a bad game, but man does it pale in comparison to RE2R.

 

For starters, Nemesis is more of an annoyance than a horrifying threat, all his encounters are scripted, or lead to a boss fight, which is not bad on its own, but after dealing with X, this falls flat.

 

Then there's the length, quite short, RE3 was already a short(ish) game, and this one is even more so, wouldn't be an issue if it had been the result of streamlining or improving certain parts, but instead this is the result of a good chunk of stuff that got cut. It's also a fairly linear affair so there's not as much incentive to replay it, unlike RE2R where you can try to find the best route, get stuff without backtracking, or memorize the layout to better avoid X.

 

Not to say that 3R is a bad game, but it does kinda come short as a remake, although if I had paid full price as opposed to getting it on sale as part of a bundle with RE2R then maybe I would be a bit less forgiving. As it stands, I wouldn't recommend it, unless you really want to play all RE games or if you can get it on sale.

 

 

Having played these, I'm kinda worried about the inevitable (and unnecessary) RE4R, I expect them to cut about 50% of it, make the rest super linear, and likely without all the funny dialogue.

 

My goal of playing all RE games I have before Village has been completed! HELL YEAH! I could try and replay Code Veronica, but I don't know if it's worth the hassle of moving all those cables in order to plug my PS2.

[TheMightyEthan]

Immortals Fenyx Rising: The Lost Gods

 

Of the base game and three DLCs, this was my least favorite, but I think that's more me than the game itself. For The Lost Gods it changed into a top-down, more old-school action RPG, and that just isn't really my cup of tea. I was always annoyed by my inability to see very far due to the top down angle, and I was annoyed by the fact that everything cost resources (fast travel, saving, everything). But again, I don't think that's the game being bad so much as it is me not liking what it's going for. The only really "objective" negative I have for it is that I didn't feel like the gods were very well developed as characters in this one, and I didn't feel the overall plot terribly compelling.

 

I will say for it though that it really stuck the landing, I really liked the final boss fight and associated story progress, and so I came away at that point feeling fairly positive about it. Overall though I don't think it was enough to overcome the blah-ness of the rest of it.

 

3/5

[MetalCaveman]

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

 

That last boss sure was something, a couple of the boss fights are kind of annoying due to the lack of checkpoints and how you can't heal characters that have been knocked out, but that last one sure takes the cake. In the end, Rabbid Peach and Rabbid Luigi were the key to victory, though it took a fair amount of time.

 

Other than that, a pretty fun game, the combination of the Mario world and art, with the Rabbid humour was cool, the start feels kinda slow, it takes a while to get enough coins to buy better weapons for your team, but after a while it picks up and you can easily outfit most of the team without having to grind for too long. Luigi shines in this one, dude's an expert sniper with his reaction shots, watching him just obliterate enemies was really fun.

 

This was the best part:

 

 

 

[TheMightyEthan]

I loved that game, and I think it sold really well, I'm surprised we haven't heard about a sequel.

 

*Edit - yep, apparently it's the best selling Switch game that's not published by Nintendo.

[Mister Jack]

Resident Evil VIII

 

Eight and a half hours. I totally binged this game. It's like it took all the best parts from 4 and 7 and put them together. More weapons, more enemy types, more places to explore, more replay value, more everything. About the only area where I think VII is still better is that the Bakers were more memorable antagonists than the villains in this game, and that says more about how good the Bakers were than it does about these new ones being bad. I'm already going to jump back into NG+ as soon as I finish posting this. So far this is my GOTY for 2021.

[toxicitizen]

5 hours ago, Mister Jack said:

Eight and a half hours. I totally binged this game.

 

Jesus. And here I was thinking I made too much progress tonight and stopped because I don't want it to end too quickly hahaha. I kinda hope you rushed though, cause that playtime is short. Pretty sure my first run of RE7 took me longer than that... And it would mean I'm almost at the halfway point which...

[MetalCaveman]

34 minutes ago, toxicitizen said:

 

Jesus. And here I was thinking I made too much progress tonight and stopped because I don't want it to end too quickly hahaha. I kinda hope you rushed though, cause that playtime is short. Pretty sure my first run of RE7 took me longer than that... And it would mean I'm almost at the halfway point which...

 

FWIW Steam tracks 7 hours and I'd say based on the map I'm about halfway through.

 

Spoiler

Just went through that nightmarish section at Beneviento.

 

Unless the rest of the game is pretty short, which I guess is a possibility.

Edited May 9, 2021 by MetalCaveman

[Mister Jack]

There is a lot of replay value after you beat it, if that makes you feel any better.

[toxicitizen]

15 hours ago, MetalCaveman said:

 

FWIW Steam tracks 7 hours and I'd say based on the map I'm about halfway through.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Just went through that nightmarish section at Beneviento.

 

Unless the rest of the game is pretty short, which I guess is a possibility.

 

Not there yet, so good to know! I just got out of uh... the first big area, to keep it vague.

 

15 hours ago, Mister Jack said:

There is a lot of replay value after you beat it, if that makes you feel any better.

 

You mean beyond the typical RE stuff? I'm assuming there's the usual unlockables for speedruns and stuff, and I know this one has mercenaries mode and an extra difficulty beyond hardcore. So yeah, I'm planning to do multiple runs but still. I was really hoping game length would be one of the things it borrowed from RE4 lol.

 

-----

 

Oh and while I'm here...

 

Resident Evil 7

 

I did a replay of it this week and finally got around to playing the DLC. The main game is still so good but man is its quality front-loaded. The starting bit in the main house is still the best part of the game by far. I was actually nervous all over again for the first hour or so until I started remembering everything about it lol. And once you leave the main house it never quite reaches the same level again.

 

As for the DLC, I had only done the Chris one, Not a Hero, and it wasn't exactly amazing. And I tried the Nightmare mini-game and got frustrated with that (not super into that kind of horde mode gameplay) so I bounced off the game at the time. But this time I did all the banned tapes as well as played End of Zoe for the first time. Nightmare was still annoying but the other banned tapes were actually pretty fun. The escape the room one, the demented poker game and the one where you play as Zoe when the Bakers first got infected were all great. The one where you have to bring food to Jack was alright but I was getting short on time (and patience), so I said fuck it and watched video guides to get the S ranks for the achievements. I might've spent more time with it if I was starved for more RE7 but with Village just a day away I didn't really feel like memorizing the levels and figuring out optimal food routes on my own.

 

Finished things with End of Zoe, which was surprisingly good. Playing as a swamp redneck that gets into fist fights with zombies, gators and the fucking Swamp Thing is the kind of silly bullshit I can get into. I'm actually kicking myself for waiting this long to play it. It was way more fun than Not a Hero.

 

I still have 3 achievements left, though. I wanted to get it all done before Village, but I ran out of time. So I'll just get back to it after, I guess. I need to do Ethan Must Die and play both story DLCs on their hardest difficulties.

Edited May 9, 2021 by toxicitizen

[TheMightyEthan]

14 hours ago, toxicitizen said:

 

Jesus. And here I was thinking I made too much progress tonight and stopped because I don't want it to end too quickly hahaha. I kinda hope you rushed though, cause that playtime is short. Pretty sure my first run of RE7 took me longer than that... And it would mean I'm almost at the halfway point which...

 

I've heard 8-12 hours depending on how thorough you are.

[toxicitizen]

1 hour ago, TheMightyEthan said:

 

I've heard 8-12 hours depending on how thorough you are.

 

Yeah, I also saw that 12h figure floating around. That's why Jack's playtime surprised me so much. I was hoping 12h was on the lower end of things. I looked at my spreadsheet for that year and I have RE7 logged with 12h of playtime, which has to be the Steam timer and not the in-game one. I'm a pretty slow player so hopefully Village will last me even longer lol.

[TheMightyEthan]

Returnal

 

I rolled credits anyway, though the story doesn't feel done (you can continue playing after you beat it, so hopefully that will provide a little more closure, there are more audio logs and stuff to find).

 

It's funny, this game is basically the opposite of Lost Gods, where I absolutely loved it all the way through, but felt like the ending was a little abrupt and unsatisfying. It left me with more questions than answers, but not in a good way. It honestly felt like the ending should have been the end of act 2 in a 3 act story. But again, I'm hoping the "epilogue" provides act 3.

 

Okay, that's enough negativity, overall I love this game. It just feels so good to play. Combat is Bungie-tier. And unlike with Hades, I didn't find the restarts frustrating or disheartening. General consensus is this game is really hard, and I've even seen the word punishing thrown around, and like, I just don't see it, and normally I'm a complete baby about frustrating difficulty. I was on my 15th run when I beat it (really 13th, since I don't count the first one where there's a scripted encounter that's supposed to kill you, or my second run where it crashed), and it took me 21 hours. That's an average of 2 tries per "level", which is really not bad at all.

 

None of that is meant to be a criticism, like I said, I loved it, but for me at least it wasn't nearly as hard as I was led to believe. Checking trophies 11% of players have beat it, which is pretty good for only a week after release. So don't let the perceived difficulty scare you away like it almost did for me, it is very doable. Other than the one crash I was never once frustrated, and even after that I still wanted to dive right back in (and there have been two stability patches so you probably don't need to worry about that).

 

This is easily my favorite game I've played this year, which is saying something given how much I love Hitman.

 

5/5

 

*Edit - Yeah, looks like there's more to the story after the credits. 

Spoiler

The trophies are for beating Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3 (after the credits). Looks like I was closer than I realized when I said it felt like act 2 of a 3 act story.

(Very minor general plot structure spoilers, no actual plot details.)

[MetalCaveman]

Resident Evil Village

 

In-game timer says 8 hours and 20 minutes, Steam timer says 13 hours.

 

HOLY SHIT THIS WAS AWESOME.

 

Favourite RE game since 4, though still not at the same level, this just needs a bit more cheese to be perfect.

 

Still, it was really fun, the different areas, with their unique approach and style, the bosses, everything was pretty cool.

 

Spoiler

That reveal about Ethan... HOLY SHIT! That explains a lot!!

 

And the post-credits scene! WHAT THE HELL!!

 

Is Rose working for Chris and Hound Wolf? Or has he taken over after dealing with the rotten parts of the BSAA? Does Mia also have Mold powers?

 

My theory, after the events of Village, Chris and Hound Wolf along with Jill, Barry and all other BSAA members loyal to them hunted the members that had gone evil, taking them down and cleaning up shop, afterwards, Chris was promoted to BSAA Director, where he took in Rose in order to keep her safe, though in reality he wanted to keep an eye on her and her powers (there's a sniper in the graveyard with sights trained on Rose during the post-credits scene). He and the other members are training Rose while continuing their fight against BOWs.

 

The moment when Heisenberg said "I'm going to murder that boulder punching asshole!" was awesome.

 

 

HELL YEAH!

 

My GOTY so far. \m/ \m/

[toxicitizen]

Resident Evil Village

 

I finished it a few days ago but I wanted to sit on it a bit before doing this write up because I have some thoughts.

 

The game overall is simply fantastic. It's Resident Evil 7 but bigger and better. The obvious RE4 inspirations are a very welcome addition to the point where it honestly detracted from the horror a bit lol. It reminded me of Evil Within 2 where the core gameplay loop was so engaging that I was just having too much fun to be scared. I don't know what it is about a hub-based game structure but it just ticks all my boxes. Coming back to the Village able to unlock a new section to explore and loot is the kind of stuff that makes me never want to stop playing.

 

I've also noticed that Village does the exact same thing RE7 did with front-loading its best content, although what constitutes best is really down to personal preference. The first main area is Castle Dimitrescu and, much like the main Baker house, it's classic Resident Evil through and through. Puzzles and emblem keys and everything. It's great! I kinda wished the entire game had been like that but, sadly, it's the only section that is. And I'm starting to think that Capcom either doesn't know what it wants these games to be or it wants them to be many things at once.

 

The different areas of RE7 each had their own gameplay style and Village continues that trend. The last main area is a clear RE4-style gauntlet where you're just fighting off hordes and hordes of enemies and it's a blast to just unload all you have on these motherfuckers after everything you've gone through. But the other two main areas in-between feel like little more than glorified boss fights, which was a bit disappointing. This isn't meant to be a length complaint, though. The in-game timer said it lasted me just shy of 12 hours (Steam's more accurate one said 17h), which is pretty damn good for Resident Evil. I got my money's worth and then some. And I'm certainly not faulting Capcom for experimenting with stuff like House Beneviento. Those two sections are really good set pieces but I kinda wished there had been more "mansion bullshit" preceding them. But that's probably just me.

 

So as far as the gameplay goes, Village is definite homerun for Capcom.

 

The story is where basically all of my criticism is aimed. It's fine for like 90% of the game but that last hour or so... lol some choices were made. I'll spoiler tag my thoughts from here on out but the non-spoilery TL;DR of how I feel about the ending is best summarized by this pic:

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

So! Where to even begin? The premise overall is fine. Ethan's quest to save his daughter is relatable and solid enough to drive the entire game.

 

The whole "Chris is evil now?!" thing was pretty damn goofy, all things considered. It was obviously going to turn out that he wasn't and that his actions had a logical explanation. That much is fine. But when so much of your mystery hinges on Chris being a gigantic dumbass then maybe it's not such a solid mystery? Like, right out of the gate it makes no sense not to tell Ethan that that was Miranda they shot. If he didn't want Ethan to get involved, going "Woops, sorry I murdered your wife dude ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" is like the worst imaginable way to go about it.

 

And when Ethan ends up stuck in the Village and is trying to get Rose back Chris is still fake threatening him and pretending to be all sinister like "Go home, Ethan. Would be a shame if something happened to you..." It makes no goddamn sense whatsoever lol.

 

Then when Ethan is gruesomely murdered by Miranda, gets his heart literally ripped out of his chest, one of Chris' soldiers goes "Maybe we shoulda told him boss." and this motherfucker is like "Yeah, that was my bad." And I just had to laugh at how ridiculous this whole thing was.

 

I already mentioned how the game went full RE4 at Heisenberg's stronghold but then the Chris section happened and, for some unfathomable reason, the game decided it now wanted to go full RE6. This section was fun but I honestly thought we had moved past the COD bullshit with RE7. Also, I didn't believe Ethan was actually dead at this point but I was seriously worried we'd be finishing the game as Chris and that I wouldn't get to use all that magnum ammo I had been saving up lol.

The callbacks to the Baker incident were a nice touch at first. RE7 could have stood on its own as this one-off thing and that would've been fine. But having the Village be the source of the mold was cool. But that couldn't be all it was, of course.

 

When I first saw the Umbrella logo I went "Oh shit! Umbrella's been here, wonder what that's gonna be about!" But no, turns out this is also the origin of Umbrella. Spencer got the logo from here and was inspired to start the company by Miranda. Sure, I guess. And Eveline was the reincarnation of Miranda's daughter somehow?

 

Also Ethan got murdered by Jack at the beginning of RE7 and you've been playing as a moldman this entire time?! Huh?! Like, that explains how he can reattach his limbs when they get cut off, I guess, but I didn't really need an explanation beyond "video games lol". I don't really have a problem with this, it's just a really weird one to drop on us after all this time. Also, I kinda love the implication that Mia has been knowingly fucking a moldman this whole time and was fine with it. I mean, what???

 

It took balls to kill Ethan off for good, though. I'll give Capcom that much. They kinda undermined it with the fakeout and it probably would've had a bigger impact without it but I still respect that they went through with it. I'm also kinda glad because I honestly still couldn't really think of Ethan as a Resident Evil protagonist, for some reason. He just didn't feel like he belonged in the same world as Leon, Chris and Jill.

 

The epilogue seems to imply we'll be playing as Rose in the next one (or perhaps in DLC?) and I'm not sure how I feel about that. The implication that she has superpowers again echoes of RE6 in a way I'm not sure I like but we'll see. That was certainly an atypical ending for the series with the time skip and everything. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but again, I can't fault them for trying something new. I can only respect how much they've been willing to mess with the status quo ever since going first-person with RE7.

 

Oh and that boulder-punching quote. Love the self-awareness on display here, even though it made about as much sense in context as Chewie getting a medal at the end of Rise of Skywalker. It was solely for the audience's benefit but it was good enough that I'm willing to let it slide lol.

 

 

Man, I just can't help myself with these wall-of-text posts lately.

 

So yeah, overall Village is probably the best one since RE4 and I loved it despite having mixed feelings about the ending. I wonder if it'll get the same DLC treatment RE7 did. Having just recently gone through all of it, that was honestly an insane amount of extra content. RE2 barely got anything by comparison.

[Mister Jack]

 

@toxicitizen

Spoiler

I think there's a file or something somewhere in the game that mentions Chris didn't tell Ethan the plan because he was paranoid that he might have been infected by Miranda and didn't want to risk letting her in on every move he was making via the mold hive mind, which makes some sense, but yeah, the writing could have done a better job getting that across.

 

[toxicitizen]

On 5/17/2021 at 9:14 AM, Mister Jack said:

 

@toxicitizen

  Hide contents

I think there's a file or something somewhere in the game that mentions Chris didn't tell Ethan the plan because he was paranoid that he might have been infected by Miranda and didn't want to risk letting her in on every move he was making via the mold hive mind, which makes some sense, but yeah, the writing could have done a better job getting that across.

 

 

Spoiler

That must be one of the files I missed on my first run then cause I don't remember reading that.

 

But even then, not telling him the whole plan is one thing. Letting him continue to believe that they murdered Mia is another entirely. Like, even if he was infected, not going "Yeah, that wasn't Mia, that was Miranda" makes no sense. I'm pretty sure Miranda already knows that much.

 

[MetalCaveman]

2 hours ago, toxicitizen said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

That must be one of the files I missed on my first run then cause I don't remember reading that.

 

But even then, not telling him the whole plan is one thing. Letting him continue to believe that they murdered Mia is another entirely. Like, even if he was infected, not going "Yeah, that wasn't Mia, that was Miranda" makes no sense. I'm pretty sure Miranda already knows that much.

 

 

On 5/17/2021 at 8:14 AM, Mister Jack said:

 

@toxicitizen

  Reveal hidden contents

I think there's a file or something somewhere in the game that mentions Chris didn't tell Ethan the plan because he was paranoid that he might have been infected by Miranda and didn't want to risk letting her in on every move he was making via the mold hive mind, which makes some sense, but yeah, the writing could have done a better job getting that across.

 

 

Spoiler

If he suspected Ethan was also under control, why not shoot him too? Or at least restrain him in some way? The first file you find states their mission was to kill Miranda/Not-MIa and also secure Ethan and Rose.

 

After Ethan runs around killing everything in the village Chris could have told him the plan, instead of being all grimdark and threatening, hell, a better idea would have been to have his team get Ethan the hell away from there during the Moreau section when you encounter them.

 

If one of the original objectives was to secure Ethan as well, seems really dumb to just be "OK, you should really get away from here, get it? I know you've killed half the living things on this village already, ended the Dimitrescu line and have armed yourself to the teeth, but seriously, get out of here OK? No, we're not helping you, we're here to... Uh... Do super secret stuff, now get out of here!" Even if you suspect him of being under control, that seems like even more of a reason to keep an eye on him instead of... Whatever Chris was trying to do.

 

Loved the game, but that whole thing could have been better.

 

[toxicitizen]

11 minutes ago, MetalCaveman said:

Spoiler

After Ethan runs around killing everything in the village Chris could have told him the plan, instead of being all grimdark and threatening, hell, a better idea would have been to have his team get Ethan the hell away from there during the Moreau section when you encounter them.

 

 

Spoiler

Yeah, at that part in Moreau's reservoir when Chris is all "Sure would be a shame if something happened to you now", I figured maybe Chris had been infected somehow and had gone rogue to find a cure or something. He was acting evil out of desperation.

 

And, I mean, if you look at the cover art...

 

 

It didn't seem that far-fetched. This is overtly implying that Chris is a lycan lmao.

 

But no, he was just being stupid.