At first, Resident Evil Village could not run on my PC despite meeting the requirements for the game. I was heartbroken that I could not experience this game at its hype, at launch. However, I was down but not out, as I could get my hands on a Steam Deck, a 256GB model. Finally, I was able to play RE8, and man it was a fantastic game to play from start to finish. I stopped playing the three games I was playing to play it. It’s like RE8 put a hex on me and possessed me to experience what I was missing this whole time.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- A gripping story that will make you question everything around you
- Interesting and yet mysterious characters
- Fantastic gameplay that incorporates survival horror from RE7 that is mixed with action from RE4
- Some fun boss fights
- Creepy environments that are beautiful in their own right
Cons
- Some of the characters don’t exactly develop much
- The third area of the game felt shallow and slowed the pace down
Story
The story takes place after the events of RE7. Ethan Winters is living with his wife Mia, and they are having dinner while having a small argument. Then all of a sudden, their house is attacked by Chris Redfield and his men. Chris kills Mia and takes their daughter Rose. Ethan is obviously confused and is asking Chris why he is doing this; Ethan is then knocked out and the truck he was in crashes. With Chris and Rose gone, Ethan makes his way into this nearby village.
In this village, there are these creatures called Lycans roaming around and eventually, Ethan finds some survivors who don’t take too kindly to him. There is also this elderly woman who is wandering around the village that the Lycans seem to ignore. My assumption is that she bakes cookies and hands out candy to them, so they just ignore her.
That shall be all I will say about the story. There is a lot I want to talk about, but I want to avoid spoilers completely. I love how the characters were done as they were all interesting and loveable. The Duke was a shopkeeper who just had a nice charm to him and gave you a sense of ease whenever you saw him, it made you feel safe, and you could stock up on supplies from him. The Lords were also interesting, and I liked some of the personalities they had, my two favorites were Donna Beneviento as she had not just my favorite puzzle, but her segment was also the scariest. Then there was Karl Heisenberg, who was my favorite overall in terms of being a villain, personality, and the level of mystery he had. Alcina Dimitrescu was also a fun villain and even brought in gameplay elements from RE7 that I loved.
However, not all characters are created equal, Salvatore Moreau is a character who to me was not developed enough and I personally did not like his area of the game. I can even say the same for Donna Benevento, despite me liking her character, I wish she had more time to shine. This also goes to the main antagonist, Mother Miranda, as she did not really show much of herself, and really, in the end, I just did not care for her.
Gameplay
The gameplay for RE8 is honestly fantastic, it combines elements from RE4 and RE7 and they work really well. Shooting enemies is fun as always and you have to try and aim your shots perfectly as they can sometimes make movements to mess up your shots. You are given a few guns to help you out, like pistols, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, and explosives. You can find ammo scattered throughout the game or craft it by finding materials. You will also be coming across Len, the game's currency that you can use to buy weapons, supplies, and upgrades to help you take out enemies.
The boss fights are also fun to fight, my two personal favorites have to be Alcina Dimitrescu and Karl Heisenberg. Overall, the former was fun to fight, and I just had a fun time fighting her as a whole, she made me know that she was a threat and could easily take me out if I am not careful. The latter, he had possibly the most unique fight. I would explain more about them, but I would end up spoiling too much of them as a whole.
However, the third area of the game in my eyes did not feel as great as I would have hoped for, unlike the other areas. It was slow and uninteresting, and the boss fight overall was just not fun. It slows down the pace of the game and overall is just not fun to be in. I was just glad to be done with the area and move on to more fun things to do in the game.
Graphics and Performance
RE8 is a beautiful game, the environments are creepy yet so appealing to look at and explore. You will want to know what other great sights the game has in store for it. Now for the graphics and performance - Well, since I tested it on my Steam Deck, which was the 256GB model. However, my specs on my computer are as follows, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Quad-Core Processor 3.50, and 16 GB of RAM. I was told by a few people that I could run the game at low settings, but I could not.
Take it as you will for this and if anyone has any comments on the specs then you are free to tell me.
Final Verdict
If you enjoyed RE7 and RE4, then I think you will have a lot of fun with this game, I loved the story and its characters. The gameplay definitely hits the mark in terms of fun with its survival horror elements. I highly recommend this game to any RE fan or someone who loves survival horror games in my opinion, is possibly the best RE game that I have played so far.