After a 10-hour journey, my first playthrough of Resident Evil VIII is complete. I mention ‘first’ because I have already mapped out subsequent runs: collectibles, a speedrun, infinite ammo preparations, trophy cleanup and so forth. It’s important because while I did not like RE: Village quite as much as several of its predecessors, the franchise’s post-game roadmap is often just as fun and rewarding as its first experience the game run.
It’s hands-down one of my favorite things in gaming: enjoy the game spoiler-free and fresh before returning to dissect it entirely and finally powering through it with an absurd arsenal and beating it in a fraction of its original duration. Village took me only 10 hours – and that included scouring every corner and exploring every nook and cranny. I’m not sure where it sits among my traditional first-run times, but it felt about right.
Unfortunately, it felt far less cohesive than other Resident Evil installments. I realize people are less fond of VII’s second half, but I quite enjoyed that game throughout. The broken-up nature of each individual area left the latter half of this game as a substantially-different experience than the first half. The crumbling village at the steps of the elegant castle were my favorite areas of the entire game. The house of dolls has ruffled feathers of many but I found only slight unease at the environment. Heisenberg’s stronghold was my least-favorite but longest section of the whole European adventure.
From a narrative standpoint, it’s hard to find fault – this is Resident Evil after all! However, the main nemesis, Mother Miranda, was absent in all but name until the end and the most-used foe Heisenberg, was generally pretty weak. Gigantoid Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters were my favorite creations, sadly relegated to the opening hours. The other boss had a great section, the Bloodborne-inspired windmills and crumbling houses and his hideous design was quite disgusting indeed.
As a total package it felt short of prior installments, but removing said comparisons, it presented a fantastic experience with ample post-game offerings. Contrasting to a title like the original The Last Of Us which had a far superior tale but which I never wanted to revisit – one wonders what the better game really is? Like everything else, that truly depends on what you’re looking for in this medium.
This post comes several weeks after its original publication date and in the time since, I went back to do a collectibles run followed by a speedrun. The hard-mode run (Village Of Shadows) was marred by an annoying-as-heck boss battle with Heisenberg. Coupled with Ratchet & Clank’s release and my impending move, that playthrough was shelved and I likely won’t revisit it. On the plus side, the subsequent playthroughs were rather enjoyable, particularly with infinite weapons and my opinion of the game grew – enough to place it as #6 on my list of favorite mainline Resident Evil games. For now, here is my usual gallery of spoiler-filled snapshots.
