Resident Evil Village - Before You Buy

and we're back with another episode of before you buy that show where we give you some straight up gameplay and our first impressions of the latest games releasing as usual it's me your old pal jake baldino and today we're finally talking about resident evil village this is a direct follow-up to re7 they are continuing down the first person survival horror path only this time the action is bigger and the horror is like zanier now i'm i'm not going to waste your time real quick village is great it's got some weird bits and i don't know if it's quite as strong or as consistent as seven but that might vary by your personal preference really more than anything but long story short if you enjoyed seven you're probably going to enjoy this one especially thanks to some nice new surprises and some really cool moments but there's a lot to explain so before we get in just so you know capcom sent us the game early so i've been able to see through the entire campaign and start replaying it again this is captured on playstation 5 and importantly for you no spoilers i'm only showing the first few hours or so a lot of this you may have seen in the demo the half of this game is the surprises so we tried to limit what you see here and just one disclaimer keep in mind i've been a fan of the series since the original and this was my most anticipated game of the year so i'm coming in it from that angle i really liked seven i still wish the series was third person and more resident evil lead but for the sake of argument i'm gonna put that aside and take this game in as is anyways in this one it picks up a little while after the events of seven where the main character ethan winters and his wife have settled down now and had a baby and as the first reveal trailer showed chris redfield shows up and uh does some things and kidnaps the baby and very quickly you're thrust into a zany adventure in a creepy spooky village way out in seemingly the romanian wilderness despite the light inspirations from resident evil 4 this feels a lot like seven in that it's an adventure that constantly tries to one-up itself with weirdness and horror craziness the entire time and you go from zone to zone that each feel like a different horror themed amusement park inspired by a certain type of horror trope like remember each baker family member had their own area and vibe of horror well so do the characters in village now the big question i always like to answer and it's always asked it's been asked a lot here do you need to play all the other resident evil games no technically but i think you should i'm gonna dad you about that uh but really uh if you just wanna play eight you should at least play seven first think of resident evil 7 as a good jumping off point for new fans uh this is a direct sequel and although the game gives you like a 60 second previously on type video it's not quite enough so try and find a time to play seven but anyway uh the game centers around this village it's a collection of ramshackle buildings and plenty of secrets in the shadow of a massive castle you venture away from the village to do cool stuff but after every big moment or clearing an area or a boss you always end up venturing back to this village and you can usually use something new that you got to get access to another small area of the village and find new secrets and stuff that this is where a lot of the meat of the game lies and that's where its cleverness really is the main paths are pretty straightforward it's more combat heavy compared to seven ethan is more capable and trained now and the game gives you way more in terms of ammo weapon choices and opportunity there are still moments where you can be slick and avoid some combat but for the most part you're dumping lots of bullets into one of only a few different enemy types the bosses are really cool but for like the moment-to-moment enemies i wish we saw a few more they got a little boring after a while still the gun play is really satisfying from the feedback of the weapons to the sound of them and like even though ethan and i guess me if you can tell by the gameplay like we're not the best aim it's still satisfying to blow someone back with a shotgun blaster get that perfect headshot pop splatter on a werewolf charging at you at full speed it still has somewhat of a decent survival horror feel while i think seven got the resource management like just right eight gives you some more but you still feel desperate a good amount of the time you're constantly crafting yourself health ammo and throwables and the sense of dread and the fear of running out of stuff is still there but it's still not as intense pro tip i definitely recommend if you're a veteran of the series to skip standard mode or skip normal mode i thought normal was pretty tense in seven but in eight here it's mostly a cakewalk it's pretty easy and i barely died i am about halfway through my second playthrough on the next difficulty up and it's a bit more satisfying and more appropriately stressful but whatever you're playing on it does put you in some zany over-the-top monster combat situations but they also do a couple of no combat horror moments that might actually be a bit too much for people it's fantastic other than the partial village setting the other small resident evil 4 inspiration is the merchant and the gun upgrade inventory system and all that it plays like four did you know there's a merchant character uh this guy the duke is less mysterious and has a lot more to say and is appropriately really strange as hell but he sells the items and you use coins you pick up from defeating enemies and uh he can upgrade your weapons too rate of fire ammo capacity power think stuff like that and it's satisfying to slowly tune your gun up just like it was in four way back when he also sells weapon attachments too and just like in other resident evil games of the past you can stumble upon a cool attachment in the environment that makes your gun way cooler it's very satisfying that's what makes the exploration so rewarding here there's collectibles and stuff like that but there's also a layer of finding areas that have little animals and then kill those animals for meat and bring them back to the duke and if you have enough he can essentially cook you a dish that improves your health or your block so there's a lot and that's all what makes the exploration good you know there's some pretty big misable areas and miscible environments and a lot of cool guns you can get in the game this is where some of the puzzle and cleverness lies you know stuff in the environment you just need to see out the main story doesn't really have much in terms of puzzles unfortunately more just finding things and figuring out where to put them it's not really a lot of thought required and for me the other big part of this game is the experience the excellent visuals some really great atmospheric sound design when there isn't any action is where i think actually the game does best the environment design is downright incredible dude the vistas and sights this game gives you at certain points are unlike anything i've seen in a game i wish i could show you them all without spoiling things but i can't the game looks really damn great most of the time um also on ps4 pro where we tested it as well but please note after talking to some friends uh it doesn't seem like it has an fov or field of view slider on pc so be aware uh for some people that can be really bothersome lengthwise it's pretty much on par with most resident evil games it feels a bit longer than resident evil 7 for me personally i clocked in at nine and a half hours on my first playthrough taking my time i've heard some people have shorter times but i've had a couple of friends come closer to like 11 hours now to some that might sound like an outrage but if you've played resident evil games you know this is par for the course these emphasize mastery and replayability and this one has a lot of secrets and fun exploration so i immediately jump back in just like i do with every single one of these that post game stuff is similar to seven uh accomplishments throughout your playthrough are tallied and then you can spend points on concept art character models or weapons and help for your next playthrough i like this it's satisfying and it encourages grinding through the game a few times and each time things get either a bit more challenging or more fun with getting access to crazier weapons now after you beat the game you can also access mercenaries mode it's a classic arcade style fun challenge mode for fans it's been around forever we love it but i appreciate the inclusion of it here but it seems really simple and more of a shell of its former self and it's it's not the same as it used to be i'm gonna give it more time though i didn't have too much time to play with this but it just doesn't seem super involved or anything it's not gonna like hook me too much my one biggest sticking point without going into spoilers is uh the same issue i had with seven it's it's some story stuff i feel the same with village as i did with resident evil 7. a pretty cool and interesting story for this new generation of resident evil games but it really doesn't do anything at all for overall series fans i'm not looking to be pandered with fan service or anything but i i just want something because sometimes some of this craziness just feels a little meaningless it's so hard to articulate and go into that without spoiling so i can't really say anything but in terms of just like a resident evil 7 resident evil 8 follow-up i think the story succeeds there and it does some really cool things but just like 7 the way that this integrates itself into the broader series or lack thereof is disappointing still don't get it twisted i think village is a lot of fun again i don't know if it's always going to be as strong or as memorable as seven i think you're gonna have people that just really love seven more and some people that really love village more i still very much think this is worth experiencing if you're a horror fan a horror game fan a new resident evil fan or an old resident evil fan they're still creating some really cool really fun stuff that you should see out but of course this is a before you buy you know how this goes down by now i give you some pros some cons what the game is and of course a lot of personal opinion so now i want to hear yours down in the comments we've had our hands on this game for a few days but if you breezed through in the last 24 hours or so since the launch would love to know what you think try and keep it spoiler free in the comments for other people who still haven't played the game but let me know what you think about resident evil village maybe what's your favorite weapon anything at all down in the comments now i gotta say thank you guys for watching our before you buy videos i work very hard on these so thank you for showing up you probably know by now but clicking the like button is all you got to do it helps us out and we appreciate it but i'm jake valdino if you got anything else from me you can yell at me on twitter and instagram jake baldino i'm working on some more resident evil videos from my side channel youtube.com jake but that's it thank you guys for watching and we will see you next time this one you

Channel: gameranx

Views: 831,088

Rating: 4.9508867 out of 5

Keywords: resident evil village, resident evil 8, re village review, resident evil village before you buy, before you buy resident evil, before you buy resident evil 8, before you buy resident evil village, re village game review, review, resident evil, resident evil village gameplay, resident evil village ps5 gameplay, resident evil village 4k gameplay, resident evil village 4k 60fps, Gameranx, Jake Baldino

Id: Gw3eSYWUcKQ

Length: 11min 18sec (678 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021