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Resident Evil: village initially i was very hesitant about resident evil village when it was announced, it was a big departure stylistically for the series with the werewolves and folklore inspired setting as well as the fact it was *another* first person game with *Ethan* as the protagonist. i never liked resident evil 7 much, i like aspects of it like the DLC chapters but the game on the whole always rubbed me the wrong way, from it's unfun first person gameplay, to it's overly edgy and mean spirited story and writing and it's awkward torture porn saw chapters that felt far too cruel for a series like this. it took me a while to give the game a chance (and even then i only caved on it when i found it in a bargain bin in a local asda, a buying experience that was super awkward because the cashier insisted on carding me for the game and i did not have ID on me) but much to my shock, i actually really liked the game, sure it's not among my favourite games in the series and it still stumbles in some of the same ways as 7, but it was such a massive improvement over that game in every way that i found it endeared itself to me super fast and it's a game i think very fondly of, first person viewpoint and all. the story is the big thing i find to be a big improvement on 7, mainly in that it doesn't feel mean spirited or overly edgy, it's got the cheese and optimism that you would want from a resident evil game as opposed to the weirdo cruel saw levels and generic not-FEAR stuff the last major game had in it's base game, it's got a lot more charm to it, though credit where it's due some of the 7 DLC did evoke this a little, but never to the same degree as this game does for me. i mean even the villains, they feel so much sillier on the whole with the 8ft vampire mommy and her rad as hell witch daughters or the creepy doll girl or sarcastic magneto, it's a much better group that has real variety to them unlike 7's group of "hillbilly" times two and jigsaw. I like Ethan a lot more here too, he genuinely feels like he cares for rose and his fight for her hits a lot harder than it did in 7, though he does still feel like kind of a massive jerk, they do write him to be a little cruel to characters who might well deserve it, but it always makes him come across as kind of mean and it's part of why he's still my least favourite series protagonist, even with how good his story is here. i love other bits too, like the storybook presentation, the lore here is pretty interesting and all the cool mythos the bosses take from, the atmosphere being nothing like any other game in the series, the duke being constantly a ton of fun or the honestly pretty daring ending, the game had me crying with that one for characters i didn't even care for a ton, the highlight though is Dimitrescu, she basically immediately became iconic for her design and her voice and i mean, can you blame people for instantly falling for her, i did, i even bought a plushie of her and i have a sticker of her on my little tv nook, she's just that cool. Her daughters too are amazingly designed with the sickles and the blood covered outfits and the fact they can turn into big swarms of bugs, they're the games other big standout for sure and i love the witchy design they have. Heisenburg is up there too, not for being hot though i just think he's cool and his VA nails it, every scene he's in he totally steals the show and it's always a blast when he pops up. one thing i don't like is Chris here, he still feels written very out of character and it does feel off, he feels far too mean to be Chris. the levels here look amazing though, a huge step up from 7. you have huge snow covered villages, ojousama castles full of small intricate details and secrets, scary doll murder-houses, swamps and lakes and mines and factories, it's got the variety that 7 sorely lacked. it's all so different and unique and all of it is a joy to explore, there's tons of cool optional puzzles and the village itself opens up as the game goes on with new houses and areas opening, like a graveyard, a farm and a set of underground ruins all with their own secrets to find, there's even some small optional areas like those aforementioned houses and a cool cave where some of the games most interesting lore can be found, it almost makes the village itself feel like a large, cozy save room, though one that still has danger lurking in it so you never feel fully safe there, can't deny it makes the place plenty memorable though and it's for sure the games big standout for me outside of maybe that cool castle, there's even full on side quests, puzzles and treasures there and in the other areas, as well as a small ecosystem of animals you can hunt to make food for stat boots, the world feels really alive, which i love. all of this also has so much more detail than 7 which is easier to see too since the game isn't as grimy and sweaty looking, it helps that the game is even set during the day sometimes, giving those snowy areas some real time to shine, it has some of the coolest snow I've seen in a long time. the music i feel more mixed about, the tracks that do standout are great like "a moments respite" in both of its versions, "ripples in the calm", "the duke", "the dukes emporium", "treading water", "the final movement" and "yearning for dark shadows". that last one being the OST's highlight beyond maybe the save room themes, it's one of the lesser resi Ost's for me, it's too background and nothingy, it's effective for sure but none of it is all that interesting or listenable outside of the campaign but it does do a good job in the moment, which i guess is the main thing that matters. the OST was mainly worked on by "Shusaku Uchiyama" who also worked on some of the best OST's capcom ever produced, from mega man 8, resident evil remake, resident evil 4 as well as its remake and the original resident evil 2, PN.03, the best DMC Ost with 4 and some more recent titles like card en ciel, mega man 10, exoprimal and dragons dogma 2. he had the help of 3 other composers here too with "Nao Sato" of monster hunter rise and kunitsu-gami as well as this games own expansion. "Kota Suzuki" of Onimusha 3, Shadow Of Rome, DMC4 and 5, resident evil 5, 6, mercs 3D, both revelations titles and a personal favourite with umbrella corps and the recent dead rising remake. lastly there was "Azusa Kato" of resident evil 6, umbrella corps, resident evil 3 remake, Zelda: echoes of wisdom as well as two of my favourite games with sengoku basara 4 as well as it's expanded version: sengoku basara 4 sumeragi, which both have killer OST's sadly this is another first person resi and when the game came out i was initially super against this, even now i still kind of am as a default option, though in this case i do think it's a little more bearable since it's much more action heavy than 7 and a lot less focused on the very boring stealth, so it doesn't feel as bad to play like 7 so often did and i do think in some areas it can even work out well like in the doll house and in seeing all the intricate details in the castle up close but with that said is the first person mode ideal? not really and i would recommend the third person mode over it, flaws and all, it just feels better to play for me, I'm not that big of a fan of first person games and i think the games third person mode just feels better to play. it's standard resi structure wise though, cool levels full of puzzles and enemies and fantastic boss fights, sometimes with gimmicks thrown in, each level here has at least one of those gimmicks and they're all really fun, weather it's using the glass and cold in the castle to harm enemies, having to go across rooftops and safe zones in the Moreau level, being given a mech suit in the factory or being stuck defenceless in the dollhouse, it all feels so fresh any time you reach a new zone, it's a structure that reminds me the most of resident evil 4 and the game really feels like a mix of it with a more traditional resi game which i think is a really solid mix. there's also the duke here, a merchant similar to the one from resi 4 but with a few extra options in addition to the usual weapon upgrades and shop, like having the animals to cook or some really cool labyrinth ball puzzles to do here and there, i like him a lot and i think going back to having a shop is a great move. the weapons too this time around are a lot of fun, it's not as varied or cool as say, resident evil 4 or 5's arsenal but it's a solid mix of weapons and they're all upgradable with a few unlockables and hidden weapons thrown into the mix. you have your usual modern handguns including a cool fully auto variant and an especially cool upgraded silenced version you get to use briefly near the end, a resident evil 4 style old shotgun that was a personal favourite of mine as well as more semi-auto and full auto versions later on, snipers, some unlockable assault rifles and my favourite: the magnums including a modern variant and an especially cool older gun that reminded me a little of the red9, though nothing here is quite on par with that one, not even the cool grenade launcher or the mecha and all of these weapons have fun optional parts to find and upgrades to buy, the former of which actually change how they look! it's a solid list of weapons and they're mostly all fun to use though, the stealth on the other hand i never found any fun, but thankfully it's never forced on you and is really only relevant in one area of the game, it's basically not even a mechanic. the crafting mechanic is, however and I'm just not into that, when it's just for ammo i don't super mind like in the original resident evil 3, but here it feels a little like it's just there to follow a trend and i don't think it really adds a ton to the game. one last thing for the gameplay is that they also went back and fixed one of 7's worst issues, the enemy variety, no longer will you spend the whole game fighting the same type of mould man. There's werewolves, vampires, fish people, villagers, massive beasts, huge executioner guys, gargoyles, a massive hell baby, robot werewolf things and some really cool armored variants to a few of these, it gives the game the variety 7 desperately needed. the base game will run you a good 8-12 hours or so, depending on things like difficulty (which i think is thankfully on the easier side but it will depend on your setting and how much you go out of your way to find upgrades and treasures) how you handle things like the side quests, the fun village exploration and stuff like the hunting, you can for sure spend some real time here if you want to, doubly so if you go for all the optional difficulty modes, optional boss fights and the very cool mercs mode, which is a lot more limited here but still very fun and it makes a few changes to it to make it feel super different, being level based this time, but I'd rather focus on it another time when i talk about it's expanded version in future, point is the game has real replayability and lasting power if you want it. the game also had some dlc, a full paid pack with a third person mode, something much needed, a full new chapter of the story with "shadows of rose" and a very welcome expansion pack to the games mercenaries mode, i won't talk much about this here since i plan to cover it separate but it's a really neat pack and i would recommend it for sure. there was also a next gen port released shortly after the original, with the expansion thrown in. it's fine, it's just the game with a few extra features like raytraced whatever's and better fog and load time stuff, nothing that really makes any meaningful difference over the original ports unless you want it's included VR mode, though since that is exclusive to PSVR2 i'd say that won't apply to most people so it's difficult to call it that meaningful an addition so i would just stick with whatever is available. one thing worth mentioning though is that i do know the Xbox ports aren't fully on disc, at least not the series versions and the DLC is a code, neither version will run you much though, it's not an expensive game physically, though the switch 1 cloud version will probably run you more, but why would you ever buy that. the game was worked on by a solid team of people, with Morimasa Sato at the helm, who hasn't really directed a game before but did work on both resident evil 7 and the later kunitsu-gami, a game that looks fantastic and I'm excited to eventually play when it gets a physical release on something other than the switch 2, i feel like a limited run release is just on the horizon and I'm really excited for that. the game on the whole was just credited to "capcom" though, not any specific team, which makes it difficult for me to talk about the staff as much as i usually could, though it does seem to be a separate team from the one that did the remakes, which is interesting to think about, that they have 2 teams working on these mainline games alongside each other. after this the series would go on to have mostly just the resident evil 4 remake and it's DLC, which i enjoyed but didn't love, and resident evil RE:verse, this games multiplayer mode that i covered a few years back and is long since shut down as of this year, i had a decent time with it especially when i played it with my sister on the day of shutdown. future is bright though, the next game, resident evil requiem looks great and has some really cool callbacks to outbreak of all things with you playing as Alyssa's daughter, plus it's third and first person, finally merging the two styles together in a more interesting way than this game managed to do it. there is also, less interestingly, a mobile game called "resident evil: survive team" which i tried in its beta and it wasn't very good, pretty sure it used generative AI too, so that goes right into the garbage. there was also a few cool movies too, like death island which is a fun side story set on Alcatraz as well as infinite darkness, which was a short tv series with Leon and Claire that i had a great time with, i even went out of my way to import the DVD from Italy, there was also the Netflix version which, while i did enjoy it, it's rough and difficult to recommend for like, basically anybody and it's probably the worst piece of resi media out there. there's a new movie soon too, which I'm pretty hesitant about, it's by a *respected director* and seems to be a lot more serious than the others, which has me a little offput, looking into his other work has me side eying the project a lot since he seems like a super bad fit, i hope it's not a gross edge fest like some of his other projects since that's just not interesting, i think I'd take the Netflix version over that any day and indeed I'd take this game over it any day too, village is great and it managed to single handedly redeem the mainline first person games for me, though i don't think I'll come around on 7 quite as easily. the series best first person entries to me are still the survivor games, it has to be said, but this is up there too, has to be said.