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Resident Evil 7 Final thought's on RE7?

black 93

Well-Known Member
Hey guys. Now that this game's been out a while and the dust has settled i figured id give my final thoughts. Iv played through it many times, got all the trophies, read all the files, iv pretty much experienced every thing the game has to offer. Ever since it's reveal this game has split the fanbase in a way iv never seen before, and leading up to it's release i was optimistic. But after playing it im so 50/50 on it. If you say anything bad on this game the first thing you get is " you just don't like the first person". Not at all, thats not the issue. My problem with RE7 is it's total abandoment of the lore. Capcom can sprinkle all the little trinklets in like broken shotguns, green herbs and pictures of the Arklay Mountains that they want, but i have to be honest. When i played RE7 i didnt feel like i was playing in the same world in which i explored the Trevor Mansion, witnessed Raccoon City blowing up, dealt with Nemesis, saved the world from Wesker or fought a giant C Virus dinosaur. I felt like i was playing a reboot. Yes the atmosphere was back, yes the horror was back, yes SOME classic RE tropes like exploration and puzzle's made a come back, but i didnt feel like i was playing a new chapter of the RE canon and that is a real problem.

The gameplay was fine. Playing the game wasn't torture as RE6 sometimes was. The exploration was fun, the combat was satisfying, and the files were welcome. The videotapes were a neat feature but they could have done so much more with it. Imagine finding a happy family tape of the Bakers before Eveline showed up. Jack and Margurites wedding day, Jack teaching Lucas to ride a bike, Margurite and Zoe baking a cake i dunno anything. Something to make you really feel for the Bakers and get you invested. But no we get one 3 minute cutscene with Jack Baker saying " free my family, please" . Dont get me wrong i felt sorry for the guy but Capcom could have done SO much more with this family, especially since the The Bakers are the stars of this game and are the only ones you really remember.

The level design was brilliant, the Baker house felt lived in, the detail was immense and i genuinly did get enjoyment in finding those dogheads while trying to avoid Jack. The swampy old house was fantastic Capcom! Lit only by candles, Margurite wandering around with her lantern, every creak put me on edge, it was great. Every location felt atmospheric and was done with great attention to detail ... theres just not enough of it. When you know what you're doing those dogheads can take you less than 20 minutes to get. I genuinly loved exploring the Baker house but i was left wanting more.

The Boss fights for the most part were good. The first fight with Mia where you lost your hand was genuinly frightening, Jack Baker with the chainsaw was easy but it was fun, Margurite was just a bullet sponge and Jacks final form did mess me up a few times. The end boss was pathetic, just blast away with your machine gun until Eveline drops you and then " Chris" drops you the weapon to finish her. I didnt die once in that fight. Fighting Tyrant, Birkin, Nemesis, Wesker etc i was intimidated. One wrong move and you were done. With Eveline we got a scripted, bullet sponge final boss that was a TOTAL waste.

Overall for me this game had a lot of good and a lot of bad. After Revelations 2 RE7 was not what i expected in the slightest, i always envisioned RE7 as a Jill game, with the world recovering from the C virus and maybe some Alex/ Natalia. RE7 wasn't a painful game to play and it did have some moments of brilliance, but i can't forgive it for totally abandoning the lore and ignoring previous unresolved stories. Hate RE5 and 6 all you want, but to me i felt like i was playing Resident Evil more than i did with RE7, and NOT because of the first person perspective.
 
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KManX89

Rocket Trash Panda
It has pretty much the same amount of lore that 4 does, if not more.

This.

4 literally has no lore outside of Leon, Ada and Wesker and the rival company. It could easily be its own game sans those 3 and yet it's widely-regarded as one of, if not the best game in the series.

Hell, Umbrella Corps is a pretty big connection to the series lore if you ask me.
 

Lithium

Well-Known Member
Bought RE7 on release and started playing right away... After arriving at the main house with the Bakers my motivation to keep playing dropped completely, when I realized I had to hide from Jack. I like exploring in a game, not running and hiding.
Maybe I'll give it another chance later (in a few months...?), but at the moment... no thanks.
 

bSTAR_182

Sexually Active Member
One thing that I find amusing is how we had the big divide amongst the fan-base and, on this very forum, even had fans from both sides gladly share their excitement for RE7 or disdain for the upcoming instalment before it even hit stores... but now you don't really hear a peep from those individuals that were so on board with all the changes. The only ones trying to give their honest opinions are those who really hate the game or those who still find themselves on the fence- only to have crap about RE4 brought up and thrown at them as if that should explain away their feelings of RE7 lacking true lore to the series.


It's so funny how inactive the RE7 section of this forum is...

It has pretty much the same amount of lore that 4 does, if not more.

This.

4 literally has no lore outside of Leon, Ada and Wesker and the rival company. It could easily be its own game sans those 3 and yet it's widely-regarded as one of, if not the best game in the series.

Hell, Umbrella Corps is a pretty big connection to the series lore if you ask me.

If that is the case then I would say that, while it may not be a lot, RE4's lore is at least more prominent as it actually involves past characters that everyone knows and we see a story developing and know the series story is progressing in some way. RE7's lore mostly felt like Easter-eggs. Probably the only thing that RE7 has going for it, in terms of progressing the series story, is the guy who proclaims himself to be Chris Redfield all while clad in Umbrella's uniform.

I think the main issue here is that everything and everyone else featured in RE7 is expendable and by that I mean we are probably never going to see Ethan or Mia ever again (not that I even found them all that interesting but I'm sure some people did). Sure there is always that chance that we might- but they seemed pretty screwed flying off in an Umbrella helicopter. Top that with the fact that it wouldn't be the first time that fairly interesting characters seem to have been forgotten by Capcom. Perhaps they'll at least get their own memos/journal entries while they rot in an Umbrella facility somewhere. I suppose maybe we'll see "Umbrella Chris" and possibly Lucas Baker again- depending on how the DLC ends, but really the whole series has way too many loose ends that it's hard to even say for sure what they're going to continue on with and what they may want to try and weed out of the series all together.

My thoughts on RE7 are very similar to @black 93's. My feelings are very mixed with RE7 and while I did enjoy the gameplay and story up until running through Lucas' funhouse, it is a fairly disappointing game for me for reasons explained above. Frankly I wish they tried harder in following up on Revelations 2 with RE7 but now that's all I hope for with RE8- if they even push on with the series.
 
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black 93

Well-Known Member
One thing that I find amusing is how we had the big divide amongst the fan-base and, on this very forum, even had fans from both sides gladly share their excitement for RE7 or disdain for the upcoming instalment before it even hit stores... but now you don't really hear a peep from those individuals that were so on board with all the changes. The only ones trying to give their honest opinions are those who really hate the game or those who still find themselves on the fence- only to have crap about RE4 brought up and thrown at them as if that should explain away their feelings of RE7 lacking true lore to the series.


It's so funny how inactive the RE7 section of this forum is...





If that is the case then I would say that, while it may not be a lot, RE4's lore is at least more prominent as it actually involves past characters that everyone knows and we see a story developing and know the series story is progressing in some way. RE7's lore mostly felt like Easter-eggs. Probably the only thing that RE7 has going for it, in terms of progressing the series story, is the guy who proclaims himself to be Chris Redfield all while clad in Umbrella's uniform.

I think the main issue here is that everything and everyone else featured in RE7 is expendable and by that I mean we are probably never going to see Ethan or Mia ever again (not that I even found them all that interesting but I'm sure some people did). Sure there is always that chance that we might- but they seemed pretty screwed flying off in an Umbrella helicopter. Top that with the fact that it wouldn't be the first time that fairly interesting characters seem to have been forgotten by Capcom. Perhaps they'll at least get their own memos/journal entries while they rot in an Umbrella facility somewhere. I suppose maybe we'll see "Umbrella Chris" and possibly Lucas Baker again- depending on how the DLC ends, but really the whole series has way too many loose ends that it's hard to even say for sure what they're going to continue on with and what they may want to try and weed out of the series all together.

My thoughts on RE7 are very similar to @black 93's. My feelings are very mixed with RE7 and while I did enjoy the gameplay and story up until running through Lucas' funhouse, it is a fairly disappointing game for me for reasons explained above. Frankly I wish they tried harder in following up on Revelations 2 with RE7 but now that's all I hope for with RE8- if they even push on with the series.
Iv noticed the inactivity since the game came out too lol. Il admit it right now, i was in the group that was all for RE7 before it's release and got into several heated debates both on this forum and elsewhere with fans that didnt care for it. But after playing it i simply can't deny the game was a disapointment. Iv enjoyed several RE's that arent generally held in high regard ( like 5&6) and even with the most terrible ones like survivor and dead aim, i still felt like i was in the RE universe. I do enjoy 7 to some extent but the lack of connections and characters we love automatically damages my personal enjoyment of the game. Despite all the hate RE6 gets, i can go back to that game and i know il be playing as Chris Redfield, meeting up with Leon Kennedy and Sherry Birkin, Wesker is still around in some form through his son, yes il fight a ridiculous c virus t rex, but il be doing it with a character iv spent years with. It's sad when you feel more invested in the game that " almost killed the series" than you do the one that supposed to " go back to the roots". Gotta be honest after beating RE7 the first thing i did was fire up RE5 and it just felt comforting to be playing as Chris again.
 

Turo602

The King of Kings
Resident Evil 7 was bare bones as hell. I've seen people praising Capcom for working hard on free content for recently delaying the Not a Hero DLC, but let's get one thing straight. That DLC is not free. That's content that was withheld from the game and should have been ready with the initial release. I give Capcom no credit for that, especially given the fact that they charged 30 bucks for DLC that was ready like a week or 2 after release. I do appreciate that they're trying to make it the best it can be, but they owe it to us for charging full price for a small campaign and charging extra for stuff that if included in the original game, would have justified the 60 dollar price tag to begin with.

Now that I got that out of the way, I might as well share my thoughts on the game and the truth is, I enjoyed it. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten all the initial achievements. Though, to be completely honest, I only played the game out of obligation, and while I did find it entertaining enough, I wouldn't say I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed Resident Evil 4, 5, and even 6. I still have my gripes with each and every one of those games as a fan of where this series started, but I don't see myself ever going back to Resident Evil 7 for some casual fun like I would any other game in this series.

As a survival horror game, I wasn't too impressed. But as a Resident Evil game, it was just pure trash to me. I can't stress it enough, but the first-person perspective is so unlike the series. Yes, Resident Evil 4 shifted to over the shoulder, but it was still in a third person view, and the gameplay was identical to the previous games with added adjustments and improvements. That's not to say that the game itself is bad because of first-person, it works really well in its own right, but it just isn't what I and many other people want or ever expected from this series. (Oh, and having similarities to spin-offs or a concept that didn't happen, isn't a valid argument because 1. this is a main entry, and 2. the series has already defined itself way passed initial conceptions.)

Like @black 93 pointed out, Resident Evil 7 feels far too distant from the series. A couple of vague files and that dumb twist ending doesn't change that either. That's Resident Evil 7's biggest flaw. It's part of an on-going series, yet, doesn't properly continue the story, focuses on brand new pointless characters, and just overall lacks the charm, heart, and soul of the series. It's so ashamed of what it was that it had to alter itself so drastically to capture a new audience, while artificially presenting itself as a return to the series' roots to pull in old fans. And yes, the same argument can be made for the likes of Resident Evil 4, but that doesn't justify Resident Evil 7's faults nor does it excuse Resident Evil 4's shortcomings as a Resident Evil game either. However, Resident Evil 4 was still consistent in 2 major areas, being gameplay and character. (Also, let's just be real here. Let's pretend the name Resident Evil isn't even a factor, but Resident Evil 4 > Resident Evil 7.)

Just like @bSTAR_182 said, the very fact that Resident Evil 4 is telling the story of a major character in the series, makes it very relevant. People underestimate how important something as trivial as an avatar really is to a franchise. 343 Industries recently learned this lesson with Halo 5: Guardians and have recently stated that the next installment will focus on the Master Chief, because to many, characters make a franchise. That's why there's plenty of fans out there who don't care whether Resident Evil is survival horror or action oriented. They just care that the games continue to tell the story they've invested so much time into with the characters they love. The change in gameplay coupled with the lack of series connection through both story and character are pretty major blows to this game already.

But let's back track here a bit. When I said that Resident Evil 7 artificially presented itself as a return to the series' roots, I'm not denying the call backs and the similarities it shares with the original games. However, the same can be said about the Revelations series, which as much as I enjoyed them, are still very far from being a return to the series' roots because it did exactly what Resident Evil 7 did. It mimicked the original game just enough to make us nostalgic, but the overall execution was poor.

I'll give credit where credit is due, and that's in the visuals, atmosphere, and sound. Ever since Resident Evil 4, the series went for linear progression, meaning you were constantly traversing through new environments. None of which were ever as interesting or as beautiful as the pre-rendered backgrounds in REmake and Zero. Resident Evil 7 on the other hand, brought back that artistic quality to the environment with its photo-realistic visuals. The atmosphere was genuinely creepy and the sound was on point and even kept me on edge from time to time. I also greatly appreciated the return of a single player focus, adventure style progression, and save rooms. Unfortunately, everything else feels watered down and half-assed. I swear, the game feels more like a tech demo or proof of concept than an actual installment in the series. (Which at this point, I hope is the case as it proved to Capcom that horror can sell, so maybe next time we'll finally get what we wanted.)

For example, the level design was very reminiscent of the original games, yet still felt simplistic due to the smaller scale of the Baker house. Then they throw it all away halfway through the game and make it a linear experience. Their attempts at jump scares are just awful too. In the original Resident Evil, when the Cerberus jumps through the window, it catches you off guard and sends you into a frenzy because now there's danger that you weren't prepared for. In that split second, you have 2 options: Save your bullets and avoid taking damage by running, or waste your ammo and risk taking damage by staying to fight the Cerberus. Resident Evil 7 however, presents most of its jump scares through safe cinematics. I mean, was I really supposed to be scared of a stupid little girl with poorly animated hair laughing in my face when I've lost control of the character? Then when they have the opportunity to do them right, they come up short because you're well prepared and your only option is to fight, with the exception of a few Jack Baker encounters which have nothing on Nemesis because he's laughably easy to avoid.

Which brings up another issue I had with this game. On my first run, I was not touched during Mia's first boss encounter and I didn't give her much to do as she was just getting stunned by the constant head shots, and I was still able to successfully rush her with the axe without taking any damage. You're also not given many options when hiding from Jack in the beginning, so avoiding him in the kitchen or anywhere for that matter never really felt tense. The garage fight was barely a fight either. I didn't even waste a single bullet on Jack throughout his portion in the house or even get touched until the chainsaw fight, and even then, that totaled to about 2 bullets and one hit from Jack. This game was just extremely easy on my first run which was on normal difficulty. In that sense, I feel it has a lot more in common with the modern Resident Evil games. What to do and where to go always felt obvious with little exploration needed and you're given tons of ammo and health.

As I've already stated, most of the boss encounters were pretty weak. Marguerite by far had the best design and could have been the best fight in the game, but unfortunately, you spend a lot of time waiting around until she randomly appears, which makes the fight tedious. The only satisfying boss fight is Jack's final form, which felt a lot more in line with the rest of the series than any of the other bosses. Even the final boss is a complete joke. You might as well have been doing quick time events. Then there's the tapes, which are redundant walking simulators. The birthday party tape was the only effective one. However, they're completely useless during subsequent playthroughs and are luckily skippable. Except for the last tape on the ship though, which you're forced to play through and it's a total drag. I get that it was important to the story, but why have us explore the same area twice, back to back? I can't help but feel like the tapes were a completely missed opportunity. I thought there would be more of a cause and effect aspect to them, but that was very minimal.

And I know people try to excuse how easy the game is by bringing up Madhouse, which only offers a slight challenge compared to normal. Especially since you'll have already been through the game once and know what to expect. There's differences here and there, but they're easily adaptable. Even so, they're missing the point. I shouldn't have to play the game again to feel challenged. Tension and difficulty is what makes horror effective in video games, and Resident Evil 7 lacks both. Resident Evil games usually become easier after multiple playthroughs, not on your first. The only time I started to lose most of my ammo was during the Marguerite battle but you'll also get a lot of it back once she's dead and you're free to pick everything up. Jack isn't exactly harder either, they just made him a lot cheaper since he now magically catches you a whole lot faster, but he hardly does damage as you can still block his attack and get a good amount of distance between you and him. You also get less chances to save and checkpoints are mostly removed which isn't as bad as it sounds if you know what you're doing. Honestly, this should have been the standard difficulty.

In another disappointing turn of events, this game is also sorely lacking in enemy variety. When Regenaradors were introduced in Resident Evil 4, they were really effective. We were nearing the end of the game and still the game gave us something we hadn't seen before. They were tall, wobbly, seemingly invincible, and were used sparingly so that each encounter was memorable. But then Revelations comes along and now we have Oozes who look and move strangely similar, and are reduced to being a common enemy. Then comes Resident Evil 6 with the Rasklapanjes who were once again used effectively but now another variation comes along in Revelations 2 and act as primary enemies in Barry's story. Suddenly, those few special encounters you had in 4 and 6 aren't so special since you're going to be facing them again and again. So what does Capcom do? Feature them exclusively in Resident Evil 7 in the form of molded, duh! Enough with the tall and wobbly creatures already! Honestly, would it have been so hard to come up with a more traditional standard enemy type? Possessed people like Mia would have been perfect as a standard enemy, making molded a lot more threatening whenever you do encounter them as they'll require more strategy to kill and actually make the player dread facing them, instead of becoming numb to killing them.

Everything about Resident Evil 7 seems like it wasn't fully realized. This game should have honestly spent another year or so in development because there really isn't much here other than production value. Considering the similarities this has with the Revelations series in terms of "going back to its roots," I'm surprised many people actually believed it with Resident Evil 7. It's still just a poor man's Resident Evil. But hey, at least the Bakers were good for a laugh.
 
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La Femme Fatale

The Queen
Moderator
It was okay. I only got about an hour into it before it made me dizzy and I had to just concede and watch the rest on Youtube. It did feel like a high-production spin-off than a main RE title.. mainly because it seems like they tried to make it this amalgamation of different horror titles like the Ring, Saw, and Blair Witch.

It was pretty but there were no hotties so I probably won't make an attempt to play it again. I'm sure it was fine for a game in itself.
 

Jen

Girly Gamer
Premium Elite
Premium
It's no secret that I was one of the people who wasn't overly excited or happy with the direction of RE7, but I'm going to start off with a few positives about it. I approached it with an open mind, and as a game in itself, I actually had fun with it. The atmosphere was at times creepy. I enjoyed exploring the Baker house and I was intrigued as to how the family would fit in with the overall plot. I even went so far as to platinum the game, which I wouldn't do if I didn't enjoy it somewhat. In Madhouse I thought using cassettes to save was great and that it should have been implemented into all difficulties.

Now for my negatives. To echo what has been said above, most people think that if you didn't like RE7, then it had to be to do with the first person view. I actually could have forgiven the first person camera (even though I personally am not a fan of first person) if only we had the characters and connections to previous stories in the series. In regards to the argument with RE4, to add to what's been said above I'd also say that at least they attempted to move the story forward with Leon's narrative at the start of the game, giving us a short explanation of how we got from A to B and how Leon ended up in Spain, plus then we had an entire game that continued the story of a character we know. RE7 came from out of nowhere; we went from global bio-terror attacks to a comparatively tiny house in Louisiana with no connections to anything. Now don't get me wrong, I understand that they wanted to scale down the games but they could have done it in a way that was still connected to the rest of the series.

Capcom also said that they didn't use the main characters from the series because they were 'superheroes', and they wanted an inexperienced character to bring back the horror. However, as we progress through the game, Ethan is blasting monsters away with handguns, shotguns, machine guns, flamethrowers, grenade launchers, magnums etc. with no problems and with little evidence of his inexperience. Because of this, I see absolutely no reason why, with a little tweaking to the story, we couldn't have had the series mainstays in this game.

I'm literally just making this up off the top of my head, but imagine if Natalia had started acting strangely in the Burton household and so had to be transported by TerraSave or the BSAA to a secure location so they could help her. With a bit of fleshing out she could have ended up in a small town like where the Bakers lived and have been terrorising the people there, maybe getting the Bakers to kidnap people for her to experiment on. It could even have been a similar situation where the boat crashed and whoever was transporting her was being held captive too. Perhaps it could be Claire transporting Natalia and Chris gets involved to rescue her. It's a crappy example, I know, but I've literally just thought of it within ten minutes; surely a team of professional writers could have done something similar and made it make sense. It would also be easy to think of a reason why a rescuer ends up losing their gear.

I also thought that Ethan was extremely bland, and his lack of reaction to things going on around him just didn't make any sense. For the majority of the game he was hardly fazed by anything. I found Mia extremely annoying and over the top with everything.

As for the enemies and bosses, like other people here, I think that it could have benefited from additional different types of enemy, rather than a few different variations on one type of enemy. In Revelations they did this with the Ooze, but at least we also had several other different types of enemy alongside these and the main bosses, whereas in RE7 this was lacking. It would have added some interest to introduce entirely different enemies to fight every now and again.

As for the whole 'Redfield' twist... ugh. Had the guy actually looked like Chris, I think that I would have been more shocked and intrigued by his appearance. At the time, my thoughts were, 'is this Chris or someone pretending to be him?'. Maybe Not A Hero will change my feelings on this, I don't know, but I just remember feeling like it was a cheap way to try and shock people.

This message turned out to be a lot longer than I originally intended it to, so I'm going to stop there. I guess my final thoughts on this game can be summed up by saying that I had fun with RE7, but I felt it lacked the connection to previous instalments and felt like a spin off. If other people enjoyed it and thought it was a great main RE game then that's great, I'm glad you think so I'm happy for you, but it didn't really pass muster for me.
 

bSTAR_182

Sexually Active Member
Capcom also said that they didn't use the main characters from the series because they were 'superheroes', and they wanted an inexperienced character to bring back the horror. However, as we progress through the game, Ethan is blasting monsters away with handguns, shotguns, machine guns, flamethrowers, grenade launchers, magnums etc. with no problems and with little evidence of his inexperience. Because of this, I see absolutely no reason why, with a little tweaking to the story, we couldn't have had the series mainstays in this game.

I agree with your whole post but can we all just take this part in for a second?
That's all I could think about while in the salt mines blowing crap up.

Just think how much more shocking it would have been to see a series hero get their arm cut off versus an expendable newbie. I look at this game as a missed opportunity at properly continuing on with the story of the actual heroes in the series.



Also I just wan to say that I'm not trying to bully anyone here that may love RE7- maybe it was the perfect RE game to you. Maybe you don't care about reoccurring characters in a series and enjoyed everything that was presented in this game (how can anyone else know when you don't even provide your thoughts on the matter?). However, I do have a hard time believing that some of you have absolutely no complaints about this game- I know I have complaints and critiques on my favorite RE games. The fact that there is very little activity in the RE7 section since the game came out says a lot though... It's like the elephant in the room that some just want to avoid- even the ones who supposedly loved this game...
 
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black 93

Well-Known Member
I'd actually like to see some posts from people who did like RE7 in here to provide another perspective and add some balance to the discussion. :)
Couldn't agree more. Tbh that's why i started this thread because everyone's gone pretty silent on RE7 lately. Not interested in arguing with anybody but id love to hear from someone that loved the game. Someone could disagree with every single point i mentioned and that's fine, but im genuinly interested as to why.
 

Spikeyroxas

Pencil Artist
Premium
I have been absent from the forums for a while.

From reading this thread I can see that the feelings and opinions for all those who didn't have high expectations of the game (myself included) have at least gave it a go and the general consensus is that it was okay, but should not have been a main series game.

I don't want to start a war but there seems to be less positive opinions over the game now it's released then before release.

This tells me that the game indeed has not surpassed the majority of expectations.
It's a shame.

I was planning on writing my own review after I completed the game but I decides not too due to the upcoming free dlc, and the fact the majority of people here have expressed the same opinions as I had anyway. My opinion was slightly soured at the time as well due to the weird dlc download game breaking bug I was affected by (twice!)
I don't personally see how a dlc to a game with virtually no story can salvage it.
Im relying on vendetta to give me more story with regards to Chris Redfield.
 

Eagle5

S.O.A.
I really enjoyed my first play through. It was enough of a departure from the original series for me to appreciate the subtle Easter Eggs (Clive O'Brian's book, the Arklay Mountains painting), and the nods to classic Resi in terms of gameplay (item boxes, the broken shotgun) almost felt like natural elements of a game that sold itself as 'survival horror'. Although I didn't fully understand the concept of the story and it's connection to the lore, the ending was vague, and mysterious enough (excluding Redfield) to inspire me to play through again - if only to pick up on the things that I'd obviously missed the first time around. Overall, my first impression was that RE7 had a lot more to offer.

However, after completing it a couple of times, it dawned on me how linear the game actually was. For example, when I first fought Jack in the garage, and found out that I could shoot the car's tyres out - and even get in the car without the game actually prompting me to - led me to believe that there would be tons of hidden ways I could beat the bosses and explore the house, and it would take me hours to find and try them all. Except, there really aren't any other ways to complete the game other than the specified route, which is pretty easy to follow. Even minor aspects like using your knife to cut tape - I saw so many boxes/trash bins in the hyper-detailed environment that looked like they could be cut open but it never let you do it. In terms of gameplay, I feel like it promised a lot more than it delivered.

When I realised that I hadn't actually missed anything in terms of story, I was also left feeling underwhelmed. I realise that a large aspect of writing horror is amplifying what you don't know - letting the audience's mind wander, leaving things unexplained. It's a difficult, but effective way to establish the fear and frustration of a real survival scenario. What irritated me about RE7 is that it had the perfect opportunity to do this but instead, it just made the writing seem lazy. It revealed the parts that would've been creepy left unknown (a possessed little girl, really?) and I don't expect to ever figure out how it fits into the franchise, even with all of the promised DLC and returning characters. It's as if they're afraid to screw up anything belonging to a title so beloved in gaming history, that they're purposely leaving it out.

As a returning fan, I can't shake the impression that the RE title has been tacked on to a fun but forgettable indie survival game, in order for it to have access to the company's massive budget and an opportunity to try to sell in a mainstream market. It's like the developers used RE's decline as a franchise as a means diversify into something that didn't quite fit into what the series was known and loved for, and put up with adding a few well-known gimmicks to stay true to it's name. A sort of give-and-take deal, if you will.

I don't think it's a bad game, but I'm in the RE fandom too deep not to focus on plot holes. Although this 'review' sounds harsh, I am glad that I don't completely hate it and will probably play through many times again in the future - with classic Resi firmly detached from my mind. Waiting on Not a Hero with some trepidation, though. Borrowed gameplay elements are one thing, but if they end up screwing up one of my favourite characters, then I'll be really disappointed.
 

Venomous Oddball

Also Known as Maddy
I love the game. I can understand how people think it's different from past games, but personally I can see the similarities. If it was had fixed camera angles, it would probably feel a lot like REmake. If it was behind-the-shoulder, it would probably feel more like 4. The story is about what RE has always been about: BOWS and shady companies. I find the game extremely fun. Hiding from the Bakers was nerve-wracking, the tapes were a brilliant idea, and the puzzles were great.
 

Hel

Goddess of the Dead
Premium
If there's one good thing I can say about RE7 (without having played it myself), it's that it introduced me to Aunt Rhody. I love this version of the song in particular:


(The music starts at 00:47.)
 

Turo602

The King of Kings
If there's one good thing I can say about RE7 (without having played it myself), it's that it introduced me to Aunt Rhody. I love this version of the song in particular:


(The music starts at 00:47.)

Yeah, however, I really like the one from the game/trailer.
 
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