How’s it hanging everybody, this is the Broken Controller Club home for donkey kong country rage quitters and grown adults who still play video games regularly and watch classic anime but won’t admit it to coworkers or loved ones, my name is Ed and I’m your host. Being a clubmember is easy, you just hit subscribe and then if this thing gets monetized one day we’ll send out decoder rings to read vulgar jokes that’ll get me cancelled or festive hats or something.

Now before I really get into things, I want to mention that there’s some mild spoilers up ahead but nothing that you haven’t already seen from trailers and major plot spoilers will be avoided.

So you play as Ethan Winters, hero of Resident Evil 7 and probably the most “everyman” type of hero in the series. If he were from New Jersey he’d work at the Quickstop with his friend Randall and complain about how he wasn’t even supposed to be here today.

The game starts with Ethan and his wife Mia – heroine and occasionally crazy homicidal chick from Resident Evil 7 – chatting about where to hang their awful wooden “Live, Laugh, Love” and “blessed” decorations on the walls of their home, and and then out of nowhere they get attacked by Chris Redfield, of all people. He ganks their daughter Rose, and after nailing Ethan with the old Tokyo Sucker Punch, Ethan wakes up on the outskirts of the titular Village and starts looking for his daughter. On his lighthearted and hilarity-filled adventure, hed finds a whole new rogue’s gallery of nasties to deal with in this one.

Before playing this I thought that the village would feel almost like its own entity, and throughout the game it felt more like a hub that you come back to occasionally as it connects all the major areas of the game. There’s a lot of fun to be had in exploring everything in the village and as you progress through the game and come back, you’ll notice changes over time, like the sun being in different positions or new enemies popping up in previously empty places to attack you, and I really liked that between that and the pacing, things never really felt stale throughout my playthrough.

If you’re familiar with previous games then you’re right to expect that everything looks a certain way on the surface, but that there’s a lot more to be revealed as you progress. There’s a lot of variety in the locations you’ll visit, from the large Castle Dimitrescu everybody’s familiar with by now, to a Bates Motel-looking house that’s isolated from everything, to a water area where you boat around and a factory, and more. Each major area houses a different villain, and even though you’re forced to approach them all in a set order, it doesn’t really feel that linear since exploring every little room and path rewards you with new gear or notes that add to the lore and backstories of all the characters. Just like with previous games, you’ll have maps that’ll mark off rooms you’ve cleared of items and they’ll be specially marked for certain keys you need, so while you’ll do backtracking, it’s not hard to remember what you’re doing and it doesn’t get frustrating.

So in addition to our heroes from Resident Evil 7, we’ve got a whole new family of sideshow freaks to deal with and I really liked the variety in this one. In my opinion this game has the most unique batch of villains in the whole series, and unfortunately most of their origins and backstory aren’t given until about the last 10% of the game, and even then I wanted to know more. Definitely moreso than Ethan, Mia or Chris, since I already knew about them.

Whereas in the last game you had the Baker family, who actually were a family even after they became infected, the villains in this one also have a family dynamic, though it’s not by blood and more by their leader, Mother Miranda, and how she brought them all together. Everybody’s already familiar with femme fatale Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters who have fruit-punch mouth, either by the trailers and demos, or by the legions of instagram cosplayers fighting for attention from their simps and their allowances. Then you’ve also got Donna the crazy doll, Moreau the half-man half-fish, and this guy Heisenburg who can control metal like Magneto. In case you’re wondering, he didn’t have a sidekick named Pinkman. I don’t know if anybody else felt this way but they had almost a Tim Burton quality to them. Like all that was missing was weirdly curved architecture with lots of stripes and Helena Bonham Carter.

In my opinion this game has the most unique batch of villains in the whole series, and unfortunately most of their origins and backstory aren’t given until about the last 10% of the game, and even then I wanted to know more.

When they’re not around, the lycans definitely steal the spotlight as they’re vicious, pretty scary when they get in close and attack, and they behave like the villagers in Resident Evil 4. Actually all the rank and file enemies in this do. Only difference here is that shooting them in the knee won’t drop them and they dodge twice as much.

My favorite character in this whole game is a new guy by the name of The Duke. He’s the merchant you’ll do all your business with and he’ll also give you some occasional hints and he pitches in to help from time to time. He fits right in with the rest of the cast and is very friendly and charming. He can be pretty funny as well, and for most of the game is Ethan’s only friend and support.

On the other end of the spectrum, I think the weakest character in this game is probably Ethan. Yes, he’s going through hell to rescue his daughter, but he’s really whiny in this one and sometimes when he’d freak out about something and I’d just laugh. Also there’s a reference in the beginning of the game that he had military training, but he still can’t shoot worth a damn so I don’t know what the heck he was trained in. He also complains to Mia in the beginning because she wants to forget everything that happened in 7 and for them to move on, and he flat-out refuses to do it. He’s that guy that’ll ask for decaf at IHOP, then the server will accidentally give him regular coffee and he’ll have the jitters the rest of the day and not stop bitching about it 5 years from now and go “do you remember that?” and what you really want to say is “yes, I do remember that, because about once every 4 months you bring it up again whenever someone mentions coffee so I have no choice but to remember it.” We all know someone like that and we don’t invite them out very much if we can help it.

Also I want to talk about Chris for a second. I’ve gotta say, he’s kind of a prick now. Like I know that it appears that he’s a bad guy in the beginning but anybody with a 10th of their brain working knows there’s more to it than that. Also I get that he’s been through a lot and that would harden anybody. But even with that in mind, that’s one of my bigger complaints about the story in this, is that I don’t really like how he was written in this one. He had a lot of boy scout-like qualities in the first few games he starred in and I really liked that about him. But in this newest one, he seems almost like he’s being a jerk just for the sake of being one.

As far as gameplay goes, I’m gonna say that this has the foundation of Resident Evil 4 but with the presentation of Resident Evil 7. What I mean by that is this is not nearly as scary or horrifying as 7 and has a more action-oriented approach like 4. In fact I’d say the most classicly resident-evil like this game gets is in Castle Dimitrescu, since you’re searching rooms and unlocking doors while Lady D is hunting you down. This is very reminiscient of 7 and the Bakers looking for you, or of Mr X coming after you in the remake of 2.

There’s a cool section of the game where you’re disarmed and you have to just rely on your wits to get through and evade a pretty creepy enemy, and I thought that was a great change of pace. The rest of the game felt a lot more like 4, where you’d get money and treasure to sell off and spend to upgrade your weapons or stock up on items, with the action picking up more toward the end of the game. Ultimately this will be a big factor in how much you like this compared to 7. In that one, from the start of the game there was a sense of dread of trying to search the house while being hunted, and that’s not really present here. On the other hand, all the stuff that made 4 fun, like upgrading weapons or selling off treasures is.

Being that this is a more action-heavy game, there’s a good variety of weaponry offered and you’ll get to upgrade them, and you can also combine materials to make ammo just like in previous games. There’s no item box this time around and the game takes the attache case approach like in 4, so when you come up with a better pistol than the one you’ve got, you’re expected to sell that off to pay for upgrades with this one. You can also upgrade your case to fit more stuff in it and by the end of the game you’ll need it. One last thing I want to mention about your upgrades is that you can also upgrade your health and a few other stats by killing animals and giving them to The Duke to cook food for you. You’ll hunt chickens, fish, and some pigs who will fight back, and this was a fun distraction that pays dividends down the road.

As expected, the game is gorgeous. There were a lot of times I’d catch myself looking at architecture and details in each room upon entering, and it all looks and feels intricate. You’ll see torn wallpaper pieces or lace behind curtains and getting up close shows you just how realistic it looks. It’s impressive that the game’s even better looking than the last one. In particular I was in one of the houses and noticed through the window that an enemy was coming to the door. Not a big deal normally, but the window had condensation on it and I could still see the enemy’s distorted figure through the glass, just as if it was real.

The characters look great and the motion capture is spot on as well. There’s a really cool extra after you beat it that shows the production of the scenes in the game and you can see just how far along the motion capture is progressing.

I would definitely suggest you play this with headphones because it sounds great. The Dualsense makes use of the adaptive triggers so you’ll feel the resistance of the trigger when firing a gun, and when enemies get near Ethan he’ll start breathing heavily, even before the bad guy music kicks in. While in the castle, you could hear the clacking of Lady D’s heels as she’s walking around and it was fun to guess where she was coming from so you could try and avoid her.

So I mentioned a few things I didn’t like already, and really the rest of my nitpicks are just dumb things in the game that broke the immersion for me. Some of these actually get wrapped up by the story but they still bug me, so I’m talking about them anway.

For starters, what the hell is with Ethan’s hands constantly getting maimed or cut off? I mean 20 minutes into this game he gets almost half his hand eaten off by a Lycan, then later on he would get what I think are even worse injuries to them. Also all the damage he takes, whether it’s acid, or getting stabbed with a drill, whatever it may be, it all shows up on his hands. Now before you think I’m in idiot more than you already do, I know that it’s because his hands are the only physical representation we have of him. It doesn’t mean it’s not ridiculous to watch. Especially after losing his hand in the last game. And if you get your hand chewed off by what’s basically a wild animal, a bandage won’t stop the bleeding. That guy would’ve been dead from blood loss long before the game ended, not to mention he probably would’ve gone through shock, if not from that wound, then from allllll the subsequent ones he gets. And in order to heal he just pours a salve on his hand and then he’s fine.

Also, the AI in this isn’t great. If an enemy chases you, whether it’s one of those creepy bald guys or Lady D herself, you can usually just run around the furniture to evade them. Or if you’re in the castle, apparently Lady D doesn’t follow you into The Duke’s room. That removed all the tension from that section of the game and it was really disappointing. I don’t think the safe rooms should’ve been as easily accessible as they were because the dread that you’d feel from having Jack Baker find you in 7 was basically missing from this one.

So to wrap things up, Resident Evil Village isn’t my favorite game in the series, but I had fun playing it and plan on doing it again here really soon. The scares are kinda minimal compared to 7, but the villains are really cool and unique, the gameplay is a little more action-heavy like 4 so people like me who aren’t good at puzzles will enjoy that. Also when you beat it there’s lots of unlockable weapons to get along with Mercenaries mode for some added fun and to compare this to 4 one last time, all the new game + playthroughs with all the superpowered weapons made that game really fun and I’m pretty confident it’ll be that way with this one. There’s some dumb AI and I didn’t really like Ethan all that much this time around, but that shouldn’t dissuade you from playing what’s a pretty memorable Resident Evil title.