4/5 ★ – SoftLockJake's review of Resident Evil: Village.

Resident Evil Village is my favorite Resident Evil so far, which is shocking because it lacks the major things I loved about 1, 2, and 3. The gameplay in Village is satisfying throughout, and despite its hiccups, it maintains gameplay variety and intrigue. This game is beautiful, less in fidelity and more in sheer design and attention to detail. All of this makes up for the absolute lack of any redeeming characters or story threads and the absolute trashcan on fire of a character that is Ethan Winters. Gameplay: The action in RE Village is fantastic, both in its moment-to-moment gunplay and action setpieces, but also its overall puzzle layout and rewards system. I felt powerful for much of Village, which is a stark contrast to how weak I felt in other entries (not a bad thing, just a difference). Overall, though, enemy placement and durability still kept me stressed, particularly in some later sections. My favorite gameplay element from previous Resident Evils was their focus on puzzle solving, and while Village departs from this in many ways, the puzzles that were present were still very well thought out and intuitive. More doesn't mean better in this case, and I walked away feeling great about the puzzles (except those in the Dollhouse area of the game, those were pretty annoying). Atmosphere: The visuals on Xbox Series X were absolutely stunning. Character models and some lighting effects took a hit compared to RE2 and RE3, but since the game's scope is so much larger, I'll take that trade. Landscapes, buildings, setpieces, and cutscenes were still rendered in such high fidelity, complimented by a masterclass in visual design and set dressing, that they blew me away. Third-person mode was awesome and made the experience much more cinematic, and even in this camera mode, it was genuinely scary throughout, including true scary scenes and moments of genuine panic. It isn't nearly as scary as Biohazard, but it has its moments. Narrative: The story in Village is abysmal, and I unabashedly dislike it. Its connections to the broader Resident Evil lore were cool, I suppose, but the story is largely self-contained and left me blown away by the fact that a publisher as large as Capcom let this happen. There are no consequences, no stakes, and no perceivable plot threads that could be predicted in any way. The game's main four antagonists, while interesting in their own way, really have nothing to do with the game's overall plot and are merely big bad bosses for gameplay reasons. I loved that all of their areas were unique and fit them, and I enjoyed each of their small stories enough, but they were largely inconsequential to any goals that Ethan had. And speaking of Ethan, thank god this man is gone (hopefully) because I could not stand Todd Soley's performance any longer. I know RE is a B movie, and that dialogue is purposefully cheesy and silly, but that's no excuse to just botch the execution. Leon Kennedy kills something and says a cheesy one-liner with confidence and believable emotion: cool; Ethan Winters awkwardly steals something, looks his target in the eyes, waits for a pregnant pause, and says, "Yeah... I'll just be taking this" with no emotion or confidence: VERY NOT COOL. Overall: 8/10 Like I said above, Ethan doesn't ruin the game. In fact, making fun of him might be one of my favorite things to do! This is truly a great experience in spite of its flaws, and if you just go along for the ride and spectacle, you'll be much happier than overthinking why anything is happening. The gameplay is terrific, the setting is truly breathtaking, and the design of the game is so masterfully thought out that I would recommend this to anyone who is even vaguely interested in survival horror or horror action games.