The standard grunt Lycan isn't overly powerful, but they're agile and athletic, able to leap at you suddenly from a distance and clamber up walls and ladders, which makes for some entertainingly dramatic, fast-paced battles. These feral, snarling creatures come in various forms, and you have to regularly switch up your tactics to fight them. While Resident Evil 7 had one type of regular enemy-the sludge-like Molded-Village features an array of savage horrors called Lycans. But occasionally I'd reach the end of one of these sequences and think "Is that it?" Sometimes I just wish the game would give me more time to soak it all in before shoving me through to the next room of the haunted house.Įlsewhere, the horror is more immediate. This keeps things feeling fresh and unpredictable throughout. In one sense, I do appreciate how Capcom resists the urge to milk its ideas dry, enthusiastically tossing them aside to present something new to the player. But I do wish they had squeezed more out of some of them. The castle and dollmaker's mansion are among the series' most memorable set-pieces. The English voice acting is a little hammy, but for the most part this suits these absurd, egomaniacal characters. The character models are also spectacular, with expressive, convincing animation bringing the cast horribly to life. It runs smoothly, even at high resolutions, and raytracing makes for some gorgeous lighting and reflections. The environments are richly detailed and stunningly lit, with a tangible layer of grime and texture to every object and surface.
As she pursues, you have to hunt for objects to unlock the main gate, which involves some light puzzling and, in true Resi style, mentally mapping the building.Ĭastle Dimitrescu is perhaps the best showcase of Resident Evil's impressive visuals-but the entire game is just obscenely pretty. It's an incredibly atmospheric setting, and the imposing Lady D bearing down on you (crouching to squeeze through doorways that are much too small for her) is thrillingly nerve-wracking. Her 15th Century castle is an opulent labyrinth of ornate, gilded corridors and shadowy drawing rooms, lavishly decorated and softly lit by candles. In another section you're hunted by Lady Dimitrescu, the aforementioned lofty vampire. You genuinely never know what fresh weirdness the developer is going to throw at you next. But it's worth it for the variety this approach offers.
You often get the sense that Capcom had the ideas for the game's many brilliant set-pieces first, then decided how to connect them all together at the last minute. Admittedly, this can make it feel inconsistent at times, as if all the parts are flimsily strung together. What I love about Village is that it never settles on being just one kind of horror gameĮach section is so wildly different, Village almost has the feel of a horror anthology. And it manages to keep this up for pretty much the entire duration of the game. It's a game overflowing with cool, memorable ideas, constantly inventing clever, surprising new ways to raise your heart rate and jolt you out of your comfort zone. Each villain's lair features a very different take on the genre, from breathless, action-packed survival against hordes of enemies, to a more slow-burning, psychological brand of horror.
What I love about Village is that it never settles on being just one kind of horror game.