BENGALURU : Resident Evil Village is my first game in the RE series. It is not like I have played a lot of other horror games either, but now that the ordeal is over, I can unashamedly tell you that it was a good game, easy. I spent all 15 hours of gameplay anticipating a moment of terror more blood-curdling than the last, and it never came to pass.
Unlike the complex humanising backstories added to action-based games in PS4 exclusives, Resident Evil remains pure to its genre. You do not empathise with the lead character in addition to being constantly chilled. Village is just your matter-of-fact grisly, nauseating horror.
Village follows on the story of RE 7, and for newbs to the series like me, the game offers a helpful “Previously on RE”. The game starts like a typical horror movie, in a scene of domestic bliss. In a matter of minutes, the scene overturns. Ethan Winters loses his wife Mia, and finds that his baby has been kidnapped. Stuck in a desolate village (enter title credits) in Europe, Ethan trudges along the unfriendly environment, with silhouettes foreshadowing the nightmarish places he would visit during his journey.
The gameplay is largely linear, in that the game hurls you in sight of monsters that propel the story forward. Combat does close to nothing in helping Ethan Winters. Resources and ammunition are limited. Destroying lycans and zombified-villagers leaves us with lesser than how much we had to begin with. We are left at the mercy of the baby-faced merchant “Duke”, who buys our trophies and sells us some expensive add-ons. Did I mention that the game play also pairs the first-person experience with a jump scare too many? Yes. The game basically hates gamers.
Despite it all, you progress forward, just to see if you can handle more gore than you could a minute ago. There are some palliatives, of which one is Castle Dimitrescu, which is also the “easiest” part of the game: the furnishings are extremely beautiful and realistic, and you can avoid most monsters by running away and shutting room doors.
Village has range the villains that we are forced to encounter cover the diversity from swamp monsters, vampires, dolls, to even indestructible metal giants. Village is also smart; in that it makes you feel smart. While terrifying to behold, beneath every combat sequence is a simple puzzle waiting to be solved. Unlocking doors, finding the enemies’ pain points, and hoarding the right ammo combo while small wins, are very satisfying. I rate RE Village with a full on the dread meter.
Anusha Ganapathi
(This economics graduate spends her leisure time preparing for the zombie apocalypse)