Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Review - DetroitOtaku Reviews
I'll admit, when I saw the first footage of this game, I was skeptical. This game was obviously made in fan response to the fact that nobody was satisfied with Resident Evil 6, the game that nearly killed this franchise. The fans were disappointed with how RE6 did away with the Metroidvania gameplay features of previous entries and continued going down the path of being a typical, linear 3rd-person shooter game, which started with Resident Evil 5 and to an extent - Resident Evil: Revelations (come on now, Revelations was somewhat linear to an extent). They wanted change.
And so, the folks at Capcom went back to the drawing board and decided to go back to this series roots. Literally. The end result was actually surprisingly good, even with it's obvious flaws.
This is Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, which came out on the PS4 and Xbox One in 2017. I've played both versions, including the Gold Edition on PS4, but I'll just be primarily focusing on the main game for this article, not the bonus content.
The Plot
Resident Evil 7 takes place five years after the events of Resident Evil 6, and is set in the swamps of Louisiana. The game follows a new protagonist, Ethan Winters, who, after receiving a text message from his missing wife, Mia Winters, drives to the town of Dulvey, Louisiana to take her home. He arrives at what appears to be an abandoned plantation. After searching the premises, he finds Mia in the basement. However, Mia tells him that she did not send the text message and that he shouldn't have come here. Just as the two of them are about to escape, Mia is possessed by an unknown force, becomes violent, and Ethan is forced to fight her off.
He then gets a call from a woman named Zoe Baker, who offers help, but then he is attacked by a revived Mia. Ethan finds a gun and "kills" her again. However, he is then knocked out by Jack Baker, the patriarch of the Baker family. Ethan is then tortured by the other members of the Baker family - Lucas, who is Jack's son, and Marguerite, Jack's wife. Ethan manages to escape, but he is constantly confronted by Jack, who has shown that he has the ability to heal many fatal wounds, such as head shots, severe burns, and total decapitation. However, Ethan eventually manages to defeat Jack by destroying his upper body.
After leaving the mansion, Ethan enters a mobile home belonging to Zoe, who contacts Ethan again, and reveals to him that she, Mia and the rest of her family have been infected with a mysterious ailment, and must be cured with a special serum. It is up to Ethan to find the necessary components to make it, which are in the hands of Marguerite. Ethan heads to the old house to find the components of the serum, and eventually kills Marguerite. Then, Ethan starts to have hallucinations of an young girl.
Just when he arrives back at Zoe's trailer, he gets a call from Lucas telling him he has captured Zoe and Mia, and presents him with an ultimatum: if he wants to free both of them, he must navigate through his booby-trapped barn to find them. Ethan manages to make his way through the traps set in the barn, rescuing both Zoe and Mia and forcing Lucas to retreat. Using the ingredients Ethan got, Zoe creates two vials of the serum. However, a heavily mutated Jack returns and ambushes the three of them. Ethan is forced to use one of the vials to seemingly finish Jack off for good.
Ethan is then forced to cure either Mia or Zoe. He chooses the former, and promises to send help to Zoe. As he and Mia escape on a boat, they come across a crashed tanker where they are attacked by a creature and knocked from the boat...
The Gameplay
(Top picture is Ethan, bottom is Mia)
RE7 is the first game in the main series to be set in first person. Though it controls like a typical first-person shooter like Call of Duty, the game is in no way like CoD. RE7 plays very much like any old-school Resident Evil game. It brings back the old Metroidvania-style gameplay formula seen in Resident Evil 1-4, with many forks in the road, save points, puzzles, and a map system.
There are also some minor stealth elements as well, such as crouching to hide behind small objects and making as little noise as possible, and you'll spend certain sections of the game trying to avoid Jack and Marguerite. You may have seen something like this before in Resident Evil 3. Jack and Marguerite operate similar to Nemesis from RE3 - if you engage either Jack or Marguerite in combat, you can only neutralize them temporarily until their respective boss battles. You can also avoid them as well if you want to save your ammo and resources.
Like in the older Resident Evil games, you have a limited inventory, so you need to decide what you want to take with you. Regular items such as ammo and health items take up one slot, while weapons like the Shotgun, Flamethrower, and .44 Magnum Automatic take up two slots in your inventory. However, your inventory space can be increased. You can do this by acquiring backpacks, and there are only two throughout the entire game. RE7 also brings back the Item Boxes, which are available at most save points. The Item Boxes have unlimited space, and you can store excess items there.
There are Green Herbs and First Aid Med bottles that you can use to recover health. To make a First Aid Med bottle, you must combine a Green Herb with Chem Fluid, which you can find in most areas. Using a Strong Chem Fluid will make a Strong First Aid Med. Combining either type of Chem Fluid with Gunpowder will create either regular or enhanced handgun ammo. You can also use either type of Chem Fluid with Solid Fuel blocks to create more Burner fuel for the Flamethrower or Flame Rounds for the Grenade Launcher. There is no way to create any ammo for the .44 Magnum.
Like RE4, there is an in-game currency. Throughout the game, you'll be picking up Antique Coins, which you can use to unlock certain items that will aid you in your quest, such as the .44 Magnum, Steroids (which increase your max health), and a Stabilizer (which decreases reloading time).
Though there are many in-game documents that you can track down, new to this game are the VHS tapes, which are interactive in-game files. These are optional, but offer a much better understanding of the story, in addition to showing you areas yet to be discovered, as well as solutions to various puzzles. But unlike files, VHS tapes allow the player control of the character recording the film.
Another new addition is the Phone. This can be discovered in various areas of the game, and it is used to receive calls from Mia, who provides Ethan with tips and details regarding the serum and other useful information about the other members of the Baker family.
The Characters
Ethan Winters – Age: 33 – Ethan is the main protagonist of Resident Evil 7. You control him from a first person perspective, and you are not able to see his face for pretty much the entire game. Ethan is from Los Angeles, California, and had a job as a systems engineer for a tech company. He married Mia in 2011, who he believed was a high-ranking employee in a trading company, but in reality works for an unknown crime syndicate that manufactures illegal bio-weapons. After receiving an text from Mia, who had been missing for three years, he drives down to Louisiana to go rescue her.
Mia Winters – Age: 32 – Mia is the secondary protagonist of RE7. She is from Texas, and is Ethan's wife. In 2010, she began working as a researcher for an unknown crime syndicate specializing in production of illegal bio-weapons. This was kept secret from Ethan, who she would marry in 2011. After taking on a babysitting job in 2014, she vanished without a trace until she sent an text to Ethan – which she claims was never sent by her. Ethan discovers that she had been infected by a mysterious ailment, and tries to kill him twice, but is defeated by him both times. She can only be cured by a special serum that requires certain ingredients.
Zoe Baker – Age: 23 – Zoe is a major supporting character in RE7. She is the daughter of the Baker family, who has been infected with the same ailment as Mia. She talks with Ethan over the various phones that he comes across throughout the game, and tells him about the serum, which can cure both her and Mia. Like Mia, Zoe is also on the run from the infected members of the Baker family, and the two of them work together to try and escape the Baker property and create the serum which can cure both of them.
My Thoughts
After the disappointment that was Resident Evil 6, I had little faith in the franchise going forward. After hearing that this game was developed by some of the people who worked on Resident Evil: Revelations, I decided to try it out, so I got it for a friend of mine for his birthday. And I was quite surprised. This game is actually really good. The controls are great, the story is solid, and the characters are decent, despite the fact that you don’t know too much about these newcomers to the series. It plays very much like an old school Resident Evil. The Metroidvania-style gameplay still works very well even today, and it’s scary. Literally. I’d say it’s even scarier than the GameCube entries and even Resident Evil 2. Though some of these are jump scares, they are all well implemented.
The stealth segments are scary as hell too and had me at the edge of my seat, though I would have preferred a Metal Gear-style radar system at the top left corner of the screen so you could know where Jack, Marguerite or other creatures were at all times. Going first-person has also worked out very well, and it was very much the same case in Resident Evil 8 (don't worry, we'll get to that). It’s also a lot less linear than previous entries.
The bonus content that you get in the Gold Edition is also excellent as well. You get to experience what it was like for Zoe when the Bakers were infected, and you also get extra chapters that take place after the game where you play as Chris Redfield. You'll also get to play as Joe Baker, Zoe's uncle, where he must find a way to cure Zoe and bring her to safety.
This is what Resident Evil is supposed to be, but, there are issues. Some characters, especially Mia, can be over-dramatic at times. The controls can be clunky at times, especially when you’re trying to turn around. The game isn’t all that challenging, and could have been at bit harder. Also, the game is rather short for a Resident Evil game, as this can be completed in a single day (it took me only two days to complete it). Though first time players will need a guide (I recommend Polygon's walkthrough).
But overall, Resident Evil 7 is a very good game, and the best game in the series in quite some time. It's not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction.
8.25/10
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