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From the studio that brought us all the other Resident Evils, we finally got a game brave enough to answer the question: what if Resi4 was bad?

All of the bits and bobs that were taken from 4 were cool, I was excited to see them. I love that game and I was curious to see what could be done with those mechanics in a new setting. Turns out they’re all worse.

I didn’t think the inventory was as good as 4’s. I never really felt like was playing an inventory game: either I was had way too little size or way too much. I killed some fish in a pond, because I saw them and was curious if I could. At this point, I was carrying two handguns because I had just found one. So these few fish filled everything up, and when I next found ammo, there was no question what to drop. I knew I could sell one handgun for decent cash, and I needed the ammo. What did the fish do? I dunno. Then upon returning to the Duke, I saw for the first time the kitchen. I never saw fish again, so I never got any upgrades I actually cared about. After that point I never had to play inventory management again, which is also boring.

I ummm… wasn’t a fan of the area bosses. Lady D was okay I guess, but I only ever saw her in scripted events, I never ran into her around the castle. As soon as you discover that the cold (?) air makes the vampires weaker, I knocked out all the windows and maybe that did it? But that feels like a very obvious thing to do, with is a bit disappointing. But with the castle, I soon realized that I was just gonna do the same thing over and over, and that held true for the whole game. Wherever you go, you see something spooky, get pushed through the floor into the basement, and then go back up. It just felt super same-y? I don’t even remember the puppet lady’s name.

The bosses of each area feel less dangerous and more tedious. This is part me being bored by that point, and part me not liking the movement and combat systems. It’s just so slow. Didn’t really like it in 7, and it’s still bad here. Lady D was disappointing, because that bus fight felt like the least interesting thing they could’ve done with her; the puppet lady was just walking with no interest; Moreau had no visible feedback, because if you got a good look he’d charge, and the only way I could dodge was to turn completely away from him and run; Heisenberg just made you hold RT for a minute. That part where he called Chris a “boulder punching idiot” was great, I liked that.

And I didn’t like the ending. It does the same thing as 7, where it moves you from Ethan to someone else more powerful, in this case Chris. But within this game, we barely know who he is. He’s briefly present at the end of 7, and then he shoots your wife at the start here, but that’s kinda it. So it’s just kinda a bunch of nothing. And in all those cutscenes with Chris, you don’t get to see his butt very often, which is a shame.