In my opinion, Resident Evil 7 really does such a great fucking job of capturing the feeling of the first few. It uses Ethan's complete lack of experience with this kind of stuff to make you feel weak and makes you really see this crazy mountain of an objective you've got ahead of you. This works just like the first zombie encounter from the first Resident Evil game. In that one cutscene the player can really feel just how utterly hopeless and fucked the situation is. Then there's the way it completely pulls the rug out from under you when you think you're safe from Jack after your second "fight" in the main hall. After getting through that wall shimmy gag you make it to a room that seems to be safe and you can breathe for a second. But as soon as you try to move on you come to a room full of gross black mold and as you try to move on from THAT room you come face to face with a moulder. Now these guys are gross, like, in my opinion they're a strong second only beaten by the licker on the ugly scale. You know becuase of the exposed brain thing. But this monster is unexpected especially becuase of the calm almost safe room like feeling of the last room. This really reminds me of the scene from the second Resident Evil in the interrogation room. You walk in look around find a few useful items then you're thinking "oh well time to go huehue" but when you get to the door BAM. The fucking brain jumps through the two way mirror and nearly makes you shit your pants. It's all due to the false sense of security that you're lulled into. The games know that you're not thinking of anything jumping out of the fucking wall or that they would throw something at you after such a long period of no danger. I'm not at all saying that the only reason Resident evil 7 is good is becuase it's emulating the first few games. No I'm saying that since quick time events and boulder punching became a part of the games this is a great way to get back into the roots of what made the game great while also moving forward into the future of the series. Thanks for taking the time to read my review of a few parts of why i really love Resident Evil Seven. If you have anything to add or just anything to say at all please do I'd love feedback!
I've played through RE7 six times since its release in January. So yeah, I think it's pretty good. I think it's the most faithful game to RE1 in the entire series, and RE1 has always been my favourite, it's really great how they managed to successfully recapture the original while still taking the series in a completely new direction.
At 7/29/17 08:08 AM, Wallflow3er wrote: It uses Ethan's complete lack of experience with this kind of stuff to make you feel weak and makes you really see this crazy mountain of an objective you've got ahead of you.
I found it interesting as well how Ethan kills the Bakers in reverse order compared what would be the conventional formula. Jack is the patriarch and presumably the most powerful member of the family, he's also the most persistent in following you and the most challenging and varied in gameplay. By normal game conventions he should therefore be the last family member you defeat, with everyone else gradually ramping up in difficulty to prepare you.
Instead he's the first. The game hits you with its biggest hurdle out the gate, and the basement fight is a hard transition phase - Ethan enters as lost and overwhelmed, and exits as a competent survivor. The hunted becomes the hunter. The gauntlet of moulded in the basement and Jack at the end of it serves as a trial by fire for Ethan, and after overcoming it he's transcended the role of a victim and become a dangerous obstacle for the Baker family.
He only gets more confident and competent with each victory from there, just as the player does the same. He's no longer fearful, he runs headlong at new obstacles with confidence and even starts dropping one-liners. He essentially goes from a horror protagonist to an action hero and the game evolves from horror to action too, it's basically the same trajectory the whole RE series had from RE1 to RE6, but played out across one game instead.
And then, when the player has essentially won... the tanker hits. Now you're Mia. You're unarmed, you have none of the upgrades, weapons or ammo stockpile that Ethan gathered over the course of the game, you're in a new, unfamiliar area with no direction and you're outnumbered. You're more vulnerable now than you ever were as Ethan, but by the end of the level you've gone from a helpless victim to a fucking special agent who knows exactly what's going on, armed with explosives and a machine gun. She's also evolved to action-hero status independently from Ethan.
You also get to explore the tanker through linear flashbacks, so that when you're back in the current day the labyrinthine environment is no longer unfamiliar to you, you know exactly where you are and where you're going and you have the means to do it with confidence. The game manages to do the same character growth arc twice, and the player's experience is right alongside the character's both times.
It's one of the best cases of ludo-narrative synchronicity I've ever seen in a game, and again it mananges to pull it off twice, with an unconventional narrative structure to boot. It's so fuckin' great.
For a similar (and I would say overall weaker) game look at Alien Isolation. Over the course of the game the player is going to become adept at dealing with the aliens after fighting them off, outsmarting them and sneaking past them so many times, but that's never reflected in the character. Amanda Ripley is just as fearful of the aliens at the end of the game as she was in her first encounter. Even Ellen Ripley in the movies had the arc of growing from a horror victim to an action hero.
Ideally a game's player character should reflect the actual player, which can be achieved well enough through silent protagonists but it's all the more rewarding when they're a full character in their own right and still right beside the player in mindset. RE7, I think, manages to achieve that.
Then there's the way it completely pulls the rug out from under you when you think you're safe from Jack after your second "fight" in the main hall... but as soon as you try to move on you come to a room full of gross black mold and as you try to move on from THAT room you come face to face with a moulder. Now these guys are gross, like, in my opinion they're a strong second only beaten by the licker on the ugly scale.
Here's one thing I disagree on. The placement is good, but to be honest I think the moulded are possibly the weakest aspect of the game and one of the less effective enemies in the series. I just didn't find them scary or particularly threatening (at least not until I had to fight the four-legged moulded on madhouse mode, holy shit). I wouldn't mind if there was only a couple in the game, but I dislike that they're the only normal enemy we encounter.
Their design definitely doesn't deserve comparisons to the lickers imo, nor the crimson heads or the regenerators that I assume they were trying to emulate. They're overall uninspired and follow the trend started in RE5 of just making every mutant a bland, black gooey things and hoping that's scary. It's not, imo. Everything just looks the same. Compare it with how memorable, interesting and gross Birkin's variations are in RE2 to the samey black goop across all of RE7's recurring enemies. Interesting and gross mutations used to be one of my absolute favourite things about RE but they've been virtually absent from the series for a while now.
If they're going to have a derivative main enemy then regular classic zombies with loads of health would've been the better way to go, imo, and just more variety in general would have gone a long way.
Zombies may seem totally played out by now but their portrayal has changed wildly over the years and I don't think I've ever played a fully 3D game with zombies as individually tall and formidable as the ones in RE1, and with the first person view some nasty rotting details could've been great. I love how in RE1 and the remake especially, every zombie feels like a massive threat on its own. No need for fast movement or hordes, just one guy standing in a hallway you need to pass through can be massively threatening if done right, that's one aspect RE7 didn't recapture for me and it wish it would've.
It's also disappointing that Jack is the only enemy to persistently follow you through the house and he's gone within the first couple hours, the later areas could've done with that kind of enemy. Overall though I find RE7 has very few missteps, and I'm excited for the inevitable sequel. Hopefully they build upon 7's strengths and come out with something even more excellent.
At 7/29/17 07:30 PM, Jackho wrote: I've played through RE7 six times since its release in January. So yeah, I think it's pretty good. I think it's the most faithful game to RE1 in the entire series, and RE1 has always been my favourite, it's really great how they managed to successfully recapture the original while still taking the series in a completely new direction.
I found it interesting as well how Ethan kills the Bakers in reverse order compared what would be the conventional formula. Jack is the patriarch and presumably the most powerful member of the family, he's also the most persistent in following you and the most challenging and varied in gameplay. By normal game conventions he should therefore be the last family member you defeat, with everyone else gradually ramping up in difficulty to prepare you.
He only gets more confident and competent with each victory from there, just as the player does the same. He's no longer fearful, he runs headlong at new obstacles with confidence and even starts dropping one-liners. He essentially goes from a horror protagonist to an action hero and the game evolves from horror to action too, it's basically the same trajectory the whole RE series had from RE1 to RE6, but played out across one game instead.
And then, when the player has essentially won... the tanker hits. Now you're Mia. You're unarmed, you have none of the upgrades, weapons or ammo stockpile that Ethan gathered over the course of the game, you're in a new, unfamiliar area with no direction and you're outnumbered. You're more vulnerable now than you ever were as Ethan, but by the end of the level you've gone from a helpless victim to a fucking special agent who knows exactly what's going on, armed with explosives and a machine gun. She's also evolved to action-hero status independently from Ethan.
You also get to explore the tanker through linear flashbacks, so that when you're back in the current day the labyrinthine environment is no longer unfamiliar to you, you know exactly where you are and where you're going and you have the means to do it with confidence. The game manages to do the same character growth arc twice, and the player's experience is right alongside the character's both times.
:I do agree with you on the fact that the crazy mutations that many of the enemies went through is probably what made the series so special for me. I think if the moulded are going to be used again they really should ramp up the variety and how the crazy ass mutations could affect them. The one thing that hurt the experience for me was the lack of different enemies. Big lumbering slow slime monsters can only stay scary for so long. Even with it's flaws i think RE7 is a step in a good direction.
