Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Review – Review

I’m a long time observer of the Resident Evil series. As a child, I used to watch my brother play videogames because I was always too scared to play them. In fact, he used to record his playing on VHS tapes so I could rewatch them later. It’s how I first experienced the entirety of Final Fantasy VII, through these tapes. Similarly that’s how I first experienced the Resident Evil series, nervously over the shoulder of my brother, who then in turn was playing over the shoulder of Chris Redfield. The tapes proved too herculean of an effort for me to watch alone. It wasn’t until my high school years that I was able to muster up the courage to dive into anything meatier than a basic Sonic the Hedgehog, and even later for the Resident Evil series.

Since I was the perfect teenage years for the PlayStation 1 and 2 era, I started my journey with the series from the beginning. Exploring the Spencer mansion as Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, fighting off hordes of zombies and figuring out esoteric puzzles to unlock the secrets of the mansion. The puzzles of figuring out the correct keys, putting the correct pictures in sequence, or some basic math substitutions were always my favorite part of the series, more so than anything scary. In fact, I’m more of a scaredy cat and prefer games like last years, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes which plays as an intensely puzzle filled Resident Evil but without the scares. So why would I sign myself up to play one of the scariest entries into Capcom’s classic survival horror series? I asked myself that about a thousand times this weekend and there’s no good answer except that I must be a masochist.

The finale of Resident Evil 6 mostly put a cap on the evil Umbrella Corporation that’s acted widely as the villains of the franchise so far. Resident Evil VII BIOHAZARD acts as a soft reboot, divorcing itself from what came before it and introducing new horrors to the world, as well as a new protagonist Ethan Winters. After receiving a distressing video message from his wife Mia, who has been missing for 4 years, Ethan travels to the backwoods of Louisiana to find her, but gets more than he bargained for with the Baker family. An awful caricature of a redneck murder family with tons of Texas Chainsaw Massacre cliches and stereotypes that come off initially offensive, but are explained away later within the plot, and let me tell you, the plot’s macguffin around evil mold makes for some off the wall insane plot moments that rival that of the evil corporate Umbrella of the series’ past and I’m here for it. They even include lots of generalized horror movie influences with sections of Saw traps and found footage, Blair Witch style that made me laugh out loud at the audacity.

The Baker family work as the hulking nemesis of the game, showing up as horrifying unkillable beasts that stalk the halls of the different parts of their compound. What makes it scarier is the new transition from third person to first person, which has only occurred in a side game, and not in the mainline numbered entry into the franchise. So being slowly hunted becomes even scarier, especially because the family members can’t be killed initially, only stunned enough to run. They will give up and disappear for sometime, but they are always lurking, even at some points bursting through walls like some sort of terrifying Kool-Aid man. Sure glad I chose to play this at night in the dark, dear lord. Luckily there are designated safe rooms like in the previous games, so if you’re like me, any kind of knock or whisper will send you sprinting right back to safety.

Ethan continues to dig deeper into the mysteries of the Baker Family compound while solving the many puzzles that are strewn about. As far as these are concerned, they have taken a step down from the original with the puzzles fewer and further between, and most can be brute forced or are kind of automatically solved once you’ve gotten close enough to the solution. This is a bit of a knock against it but with the consistent threats of the family members looming, I wasn’t necessarily upset when at least one thing in the game was willing to give me a break. Still, the game could’ve used a few more to flesh out some of the areas. What also hurt was just simply how DARK this game is. I usually try to stick to the recommended brightness settings the game has you set in the beginning, but I still found myself brightening things up, if only to see where I’m going half the time. Maybe it was my setup, but I found the issue on both my 65” living room TV as well as my office monitor.

Speaking of the areas, despite being a full compound, each section of the house is relatively segregated, instead of one massive labyrinthian map of the previous games, we have multiple smaller maps with one family member acting as the threat in each. So despite early sections of the game appearing very similar, as far as a dilapidated horror house, they do vary in format, as well as the nemesis hunting you. I do feel like there could’ve been a bit more variation. There are occasional mold enemies that will spring up, but those were heavily scripted and rare occurrences. What also helped is that Resident Evil VII is one of the shorter games in the series, so even if I felt like I was over the area, there was always an exciting boss fight or event that would move us forward. The game did not overstay its welcome and that’s a key here, for how much it ramped up the scares.

The boss fights were some of the best I’ve experienced. In one area, you are in a climactic chainsaw duel, or being tokyo drifted to death in a garage, but then later you are in a suffocatingly small enclosed space being hunted by an insect lady coming at you from all angles. They are wild climaxes to the chapters that left big impressions on me. They elicited these big hyped up moments or skin crawling dread. BIOHAZARD is nothing if not dynamic. Speaking of suffocating, one of the best mechanics to return is the limited inventory. By limiting your inventory, it ramps up the tension with what weapons you can carry, how much ammo, plus still have room for necessary keys and healing items. It’s always a tight fit, in hopes you can collect one more bullet or herb, especially when item scarcity is very high as well. So you are living and dying with every single bullet you fire, lockpick you use. Everything in this game is built to keep you on your toes.

I’m reviewing this game as if it didn’t come out in 2017, so what I should be digging into is how it runs on the Switch 2. As to be expected, there is a slight graphical hit compared to the maxed out PC version, when it comes to how good the characters look, but I was actively impressed by how smooth everything ran. I didn’t experience any frame drops, or blurred graphical pop in throughout my playthrough. Whatever magic is occurring in the background of the RE Engine, I’m a full believer in the Switch 2 being a viable option for these kinds of mid tier graphical games. In handheld mode with some good immersive headphones or docked in a dark room, Resident Evil VII is terrifying in all ways. And if you are new to the series, the soft reboot nature is a great jumping off point.

Starting my return to the series with Resident Evil VII made me nostalgic for my time as a child, watching my brother play, while also giving me something totally new that can be just for me. Along those lines, there’s so much to love about Resident Evil VII BIOHAZARD. Small ties and influences to the original series for the seasoned vets, with enough new and ridiculous to hook the newbies. The Switch 2 version worked way better than I could’ve expected, especially with how the Switch 1 only had the cloud streaming version, and my well documented disdain for cloud streaming on the Switch. The Switch 2 has the juice y’all, and I plan to continue my journey by jumping into Resident Evil VIII Village soon after I’m done with this review. Maybe after a little break to calm my nerves.