Board 8 > Resident Evil Village Postgame Topic

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Unmarked SPOILERS from here on out so if you haven't beaten the game go away.

But rejoin us when you finish.

I haven't decided if I want to do one big thought dump or many small ones, but no one else was making it so here.

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First and foremost though, big shoutout to my dude Jack Baker for successfully murdering a protagonist with a haymaker and a curbstomp. As it should have been, really.

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I really, really enjoyed this game and the only thing that's stopping me from crystalizing deeper thoughts is just how often it completely changes what it's doing. Which is cool, that's a big part of its identity, I think! But this game swings (in order) from RE4 to RE1 to an escape room to an action puzzler to fucking DOOM and then to Call of Duty. Like, holy moly does it bounce around with its gameplay.

It's all very much a part of the structure and clearly super intentional, so my initial thought is that I dig it! It certainly never stops being quality, whatever it is at the given moment. Far "bigger" game than RE7 in pretty much every way, though that may work to its detriment at times.

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It feels almost like the game is a greatest hits collection, trying to do a little of everything for everyone. Which really ends up hurting the villains since we really don't get to appreciate them at all before they're already dead.

Dollar Store Magneto was the closest, but even then I'm incredibly salty we didn't get a fight with him in his base form with the hammer, because that could have been amazing.

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I don't know how people feel about Chris segment but him just going in and mowing down everything I thought was pretty good

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And I am glad we finally got an explanation for how Ethan's body works and I just waive it off as a video game thing

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Now to speculate for years who showed up next to the car that Rosemary was in during the postcredits scene

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I was waiting for a random five nights at Freddy's section after the dollhouse with how random each of the segments felt

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I still can't get over how Ethan has now been the protagonist for 20% of the mainline games and I still don't care at all about him

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I started caring the moment he reattached his amputated arm like it was no big deal

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The fact that even when going third person for his big sacrifice Capcom wouldn't show Ethan's face, they make it hard to care about him.

But really we only play as Ethan for like 30 minutes of RE7 anyway. The rest of the time we're playing as a Moldy Boy who thinks they're Ethan, so maybe that's a design choice after all. I do think that reveal makes RE7 better in retrospect too. It makes a lot more things fall into place.

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Beat the game. Noteworthy moments:

• Chris just happened to send Ethan to a small village in Romania that was already connected to the mold creatures?
• Ethan not immediately asking where Mia is after Chris tells him about Miranda is comical.
• "Boulder-punching asshole" is the standout line of the game.
• For how heavily she was advertised, Lady Dimestriscu barely shows up and has almost no role in the story.
• The game feels a little too long. It could have cut either the doll girl or the Quasimodo guy.
• I feel like the bosses of the game were just drawn from whatever horror tropes the series hadn't done yet. I was willing to buy monsters who just happen to look and act like vampires, and disgusting Quasimodo guy is fine, but "creepy doll girl" doesn't really fit with RE's aesthetic?
• I was fighting Heisenberg when I thought "Huh, imagine this level of insanity in the original RE, where the final boss is basically just a big zombie with a claw."

Whoever said the game feels like the greatest-hits collection of previous games is right, but I'd go further and say it doesn't quite work for me. All of the RE4 stuff feels so disconnected? Like, buying weapons from a merchant, collecting gold, and shooting everything you see makes sense in the context of an action-horror game like RE4, but RE8 is still trying to be atmospheric and have exploration. Then you have the exploration elements, which are fine in the Dimetriscu castle, but everything else barely uses them, and you're meant to just plow through every enemy you see in a series of linear corridors.

I liked the game, but it does feel like a step down RE7.

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It wasn't a positive when I called it a greatest hits collection. It makes the game very disjointed. Instead of nailing one aesthetic they got five kinda right. And two of those I don't even like to begin with!

And they've really wanted to do creepy dolls for long time for some reason. Remember the RE4 Hookman trailers?

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Also I am more critical of the RE series than anything else, so it may seem like I hated this game but I actually quite enjoyed it.

I'm just frustrated because the shell is there for an all-time classic and what we got was just good.

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I haven't beaten the game yet but am aware of the full plot (again, I don't really care for Ethan's saga or anywhere the series has gone post-RE5), and I wanna quickly chime in that both doll lady and fish hunchback's sections seem like they'll be unenjoyable to replay.

That's a pretty big chunk of the game lol

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Dommy Mommy and the Bitey Bunch - The peak of the game and I wish the game was more like this throughout. Criminally underused for how much marketing revolved around this area. No real complaints except for wanting more.

Annabelle and Dababy - Sink baby from PT all grown up, I actually quite enjoyed the puzzle area. But when they strip you of your weapons they also strip any stakes from it and that's the problem of trying to slamjam so many different aesthetics into one game. As a standalone it's great, but as part of the whole it's less so. Also: "Yummy."

MerMAN - I just did not like this section at ALL. Felt like they tried to use this area for the campiness, but my dude here is no Ricardo Irving. Worst section of the game.

Thrift Store Magneto - I both like and dislike this area. The idea of steampunk BOWs is cool, but it's basically "blasting time" and not much else. And like I mentioned before we really should have gotten a real fight with Heisenberg and not just the cinematic Mech battle.

Boulder Punching Asshole - RE6 flashbacks why are you doing this to me Capcom

Moldranda - For someone so incredibly important to the RE lore apparently, she really didn't have a lot of screentime. Boss fight was good, and the Kano fatality was good.

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https://youtu.be/XYCEBRTX4QY

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https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/645674415652208661/841300671911297075/RE8_commercial.mp4

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I'm relatively on board with all the lore this game introduces - I legit got really excited reading the Spencer letter, constantly telling myself "oh geez this is going to be signed Spencer" until I saw the last page. The direction they appear to be going with Rose is weird for the series but I'm interested to see what that might be like.

But one thing does bug me - if Ethan has been 100% mold since the end of RE7's prologue, why wasn't Eveline able to manipulate him? Seems like he should have been a mind slave the moment he started causing any issues for her. And for that matter, why did he turn out to be such a special case? Did he just happen to be the mold equivalent of Wesker with ridiculous compatibility? Maybe they're saving some of these secrets for Rose to unearth in her own game, but one can't help but wonder.

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Also the Stronghold section (the last major area I've cleared) kinda reminded me of 5-1 and 5-4 from RE4, but not as good.

I'm in agreement that Castle Dimitrescu has been by far the best standalone area and the only one I can see myself enjoying in repeat playthroughs (though I've yet to really check out Heisenberg's meth lab).

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The castle should have been the entire game. It was the only really RE-feeling part. The idea of being chased by sexy vampire chicks and their 9-foot tall mother in a medieval castle is inherently stupid, of course, but it's still the only time you need strategy, route planning, and exploration. I really wish the vampire sisters had been more differentiated with clothing and personality, because I they were ****ing indistinguishable to me. I understand that they didn't have time for that when their section is like 10% of the game, but that just goes back to the castle being the standout section. And it's still less entertaining than the redneck house in 7.

Honestly, this game feels like it was assembled out of all the things RE4 rejected. This series has a huge problem with reusing old ideas -- I'd say only RE1, 4, and 7 have any genuine originality to them at all, and it's not a coincidence that those are basically the three best games (maybe 2 as well). I'd compare it to Rev 2, which is also just recycled out of older ideas, and I'd say it's about the same level of quality as well.

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Also everyone don't be like me and accidentally buy infinite ammo for two handguns rather than getting infinite ammo on a useful gun

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Anagram posted...

The castle should have been the entire game. It was the only really RE-feeling part.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't want more castle myself, but RE is a series that is constantly reinventing itself (sometimes multiple times per game, as we see here) and its true identity IMO is in that fluidity and reinvention. The castle definitely feels like RE1, but the whole game is unmistakably "Resident Evil." Also while I understand and even share the hunger for more stuff in that style, the last mainline game was almost entirely that!

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Xiahou Shake posted...

I'd be lying if I said I didn't want more castle myself, but RE is a series that is constantly reinventing itself (sometimes multiple times per game, as we see here) and it's true identity IMO is in that fluidity and reinvention. The castle definitely feels like RE1, but the whole game is unmistakably "Resident Evil." Also while I understand and even share the hunger for more stuff in that style, the last mainline game was almost entirely that!

You're right, but what I should have also said is that the castle was much better in basically every way than the doll and fish sections. I can only imagine the doll section will be unbearable on later playthroughs.

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Yeah, that's a good point. I loved the doll house on my first run but I can easily imagine it completely destroying the pace on repeat visits.

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Another good thing I'll add is that dopamine rush from backtrack findings. Like after you get the crank and can lower the drawbridge to take the boat around to the fishing pond with the golden catfish and the cave with the laptop and giant mold growth for a little lore dump.

That's RE at its best for me.

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Xiahou Shake posted...

But one thing does bug me - if Ethan has been 100% mold since the end of RE7's prologue, why wasn't Eveline able to manipulate him?

It's weird because Evie does get into his head at times, and he's definitely part of the mold collective because Jack talks to him too. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he was dead first and the mold revived him instead of the mold attaching to a living host? I'm sure there's some sort of "perfect host" situation going on there too.

I'm also wondering how soon the epilogue is after the main game. Evie has shown that there could be advanced aging going on, and Rose talks about Chris still. Even if she's like 16 that would put Chris in his 60s, but if she's only like 3 or something then I could still see Chris being involved.

But then where does 9 go? Do we take out the BSAA right after this or go after the time jump with Rose? Or is it the same timeframe after all?

Comedy option 3 is always ignore Rose's epilogue completely just like they did with Jake's.

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Ethan was only infected for like a day by the time RE7 ended, whereas the Bakers were infected for years by the time the game starts. I know there's DLC where they slowly lose control, but it still took longer for that to happen than Ethan had to finish the game. Lucas was also already crazy before the game started.

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I'm pretty sure that the Bakers were also alive when they were infected and Ethan was not.

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Raid on the BSAA feels like prime DLC material, and I'd very much prefer to get that out of the way in something like that while building hype for Rose or whatever else.

But also some people have pointed out there is a lot of villager material from the trailers that didn't make it into the final game so if we're only getting one big DLC I'd probably rather it be a horror one about the fall of the village rather than more Call of Redfield adventures.

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Oh also calling this mode Mercenaries is a joke when there is only one mercenary. And it seems more rng based than previous modes.

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Xiahou Shake posted...

Raid on the BSAA feels like prime DLC material

This is definitely possible because they made an effort to give Chris' team some personality and they didn't die for a change. But it would also require a lot of new assets, and I'd assume they would want to tell more stories about the Village itself. Who knows.

Maybe the BSAA raid will be Rev3 or something.

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The asset issue does make the villager idea seem like the more likely one, which I'm fine with! There's an awful lot of RE on the leaked Capcom schedule and we really have no idea what most of those titles are, so I guess we'll see where they take us!

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Give me more Spencer tbqh

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Speedruns are already around an hour fifty so it looks like after peak routing this will fall in line with the 90 minutes mark every other (non-RE6) game will have.

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FFDragon posted...

The fact that even when going third person for his big sacrifice Capcom wouldn't show Ethan's face, they make it hard to care about him.

I was reading through the topic and just saw this on my Youtube feed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAQqgWpP_As

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Oh yeah his model has always HAD a face, they just go out of their way not to show it.

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The cut plague doctor Ada storyboards look awesome and I'm sad we didn't get them.

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But it's so much work to make and model a face so why would they bother?

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I'm not liking Heisenberg's Factory much either =/

I'm in the awkward situation where a friend bought this game for me and insisted I accept the gift because I'm the only other RE fan he knows. I otherwise would have passed on this perhaps altogether, or at least until it was like $15 on sale.

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Just finished

Unlocked a couple pieces of concept art. Its really cool that there are short descriptions in the viewer that go in depth on design choices. Apparently Dracula means child of dragon? so thats why Dimitrescu became a dragon thing.
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I mean if you go by the Village of Shadows storybook:

Lady D - (Vampire) Bat
Beneviento - Weaver/Puppetmaster
Moreau - Fish
Heisenberg - Metal/Gear Horse (Horse emblem in the factory)
Miranda - Witch controlling them all

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CaptainOfCrush posted...

I'm not liking Heisenberg's Factory much either

I liked it at first, but I have to explore everything and man do I keep getting turned around in this area.

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Im pretty mad that there was a point of no return without me realizing it so now I have to start a whole new playthrough to do a bunch of side stuff I didnt finish
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Legit question - from someone who hasn't played it (and doesn't intend to), are people here actually enjoying the game? Most of this topic and half the other RE8 topic has been pointing out flaws, qualified at the end with 'it's still good though I swear'.

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working on my own speed run right now for the various trophies and PS5 definitely has the advantage. Outside of the fact there's no loading screen at the very beginning after the prologue, all the elevator rides are about half the length on PS5 as well.

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

Im pretty mad that there was a point of no return without me realizing it so now I have to start a whole new playthrough to do a bunch of side stuff I didnt finish

I didn't get all the goats of warding and documents in my original run so I'll have to do another anyway to get those, but I would have had to do one anyway to raise enough money to get infinite ammo on the STAKE Magnum for Village of Shadows mode.

I'm actually surprised Capcom has resisted to do what they did with DMC5 and let you just buy in-game currency for real money

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KamikazePotato posted...

Legit question - from someone who hasn't played it (and doesn't intend to), are people here actually enjoying the game? Most of this topic and half the other RE8 topic has been pointing out flaws, qualified at the end with 'it's still good though I swear'.

Yes, I mostly really liked it. The one part that was just like an escape room was kind of a drag, but I was into the rest of the game.
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So in regards to the post credits scene apparently Ethan is the figure in the distance the car stops at?

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no
how

that cant be true, that would be so stupid
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