What’s Good About Resident Evil 7
The first time I got to the first actual safe room in Resident Evil 7 was the moment I realized I was playing a super Japanese take on American Horror. How did I notice? The ring of socks air drying over the dryer, which would only make sense if it were a Japanese laundry room since the power of Japanese dryers is much lower than that of American dryers, so you would need to air dry your loads to fully dry them out. Why the heck am I describing this? Because it’s a microcosm of how Resident Evil 7 carries itself.
Outside of the almost Outlast inspired opening hour of the game, which is a different brand of terror that Resident Evil 7 is full of, it eventually eases into a groove being a more traditional Resident Evil game: finding themed keys for corresponding themed doors, managing a constrained inventory in real-time, solving puzzles, and fighting/running from various monsters. If I had to compare it to another Resident Evil game, the original is the aptest one I can think of; both take place in sprawling locations that split of into several different sub-areas, the former being the Spencer Mansion and the latter being in the dilapidated plantation house of the Baker family. The main plot conceit is that you play Ethan Winters, a new character with no ties to the rest of the series that travels to the aforementioned Plantation house located in the outskirts of the fictional town of Dulvey, Louisiana after his previously thought to be dead wife, Mia, contacts him. From there, he must survive various monsters, traps, and even the Bakers themselves long enough to find out what exactly the heck is going on. The setup and plot unfold in some very interesting ways and it’s worth going in blind. And while I admit to being the kind of guy that prefers his Resident Evil villains a bit on the hammier side (RIP Albert Wesker), The Bakers themselves are an eclectic group of antagonists, to say the least.
The strongest point I can give to the game is that it’s a frankly terrifying depiction of American Horror through a Japanese lens. If the original Resident Evil trilogy (the first game most of all) was making a series of games inspired by the sensibilities of George A. Romero, then Resident Evil 7 is a game that pulls a lot of its inspiration from the likes of Saw, The Blair Witch Project, and most apparent of all: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It strikes a fine line between tense buildup, explosive climax, and calm cool down periods that’s great to see, and even I, an admitted Uber coward that can’t do horror very well, found it to be done very well.
This is bolstered with the game’s shift in perspective to the first person. Because we never see Ethan’s face and the viewpoint change causes the player to readily insert themselves into that space where previous characters in the series would be, it allows the game to do some pretty messed up things to the player and have it stick. There are two moments that best exemplified this that I won’t get into because of spoilers, but you’ll know them when you see them. But that’s not to say it’s all dread all the time, it’s still a Resident Evil game, so it knows when to get buck wild as a means of easing the tension. Let’s just say that there’s a bit involving chainsaws that had me grinning like a goof.
This change to a first-person perspective changes gameplay as well. Because you are in the aforementioned first person, you have inherently less peripheral vision to work with compared to past games, which causes a new tension in that you don’t know what’s going to jump out and claw your face off. This brings us to the one knock I have against the game: The Molded. They’re essentially the game’s equivalent of your standard zombies, but outside of a kind of interesting design of them being walking fungal colonies, all it takes is a couple of well-placed headshots to take them down, and blocking their standard attacks isn’t the most exciting thing in the world. But other than that, I like what the game does with the perspective change and the new mixing of items with Chem fluid to make new stuff. I like that. It’s a cool way to free up inventory space. Oh and there are some rad boss fights, those are a good mix of the tension-to-climax formula I mentioned earlier and some good monster-fighting action.
As a means of returning a series to its roots, Resident Evil 7 is a great example. It’s a tense, terrifying experience that also takes full advantage of being in the Louisiana Bayou and takes the crown of being the most disgusting game in the series as well. If you like your horror on more of the nasty side of things, give it a shot. You’ll enjoy your time visiting the Baker Plantation.
And Welcome to The Family
