Impressions
Within the opening 20 minutes of Resident Evil 4 the player fends off masses of zombies in an open ended village, an explosive opening that merely acts as a taster for the rest of the game.
Within the first 20 minutes of Evil Within I was treated to a barrage of cutscenes, forced slow walking, trite suspense with every cliche you've seen a million times before.
Cops investigating a crime that isn't what it seems? An insane asylum? All hell let loose on an city? Jump scare ghost face? Underground experiments? Chainsaw wielding giants.
Hours of cutscenes, never bringing anything new the table, pointlessly obtuse story-telling with no character development, no one to root for, nothing to care for, a ham-fisted attempt at mystery.
Even the obligatory documents littered around for the player to read amount to "I am cop, she is female cop, bad things are happening". I've had more fun reading my electricity bill.
It's an antiquated perception of Western horror, something typical 20-30 years ago, eye-rolling by today's standards.
Gameplay on the other hand inherits the worst traits of modern gaming. Evil Within seems to be designed to serve the cutscenes rather than the cutscenes serving the gameplay. Control is constantly yanked from the player be it camera focus, forced slow walking or scripted sequences. Multiple times the player will find themselfs literally directed in a one direction corridor with fake tension in the force of some artificial chase sequence, whereby minimal interaction results in a constant dues ex machina.
The game thinks it's high concept psychological horror, jumping from disconnected level to level, random scene to scene without ever really understanding what made games like Silent Hill work. It wasn't just random-random-creepy-creepy, it had themes and ideas to go with it. Evil Within has nothing to say. It's like a Donald Trump speech, lots of posturing but completely hollow.
Leveling up mechanics aren't too bad, but they aren't nearly as satisfying as something like Resident Evil. Not just Resident Evil 4, earlier games rewarded the gameplay with a potent sense of gratification. Those hard earn battles with Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 provided gun parts, which in turns allowed construction of some of the most powerful weapons in the game, all optional, but with noticeably more difficult experience.
Comparatively, Evil Within just litters levels with... goo. Collected XP-goo, unlock skills. How exciting.
This leads to another point of contention, it's save system. In Resident Evil 1-4, type-writer was the go to. While it was a simple pop up menu spent with ribbons, in Evil Within, with all it's pretentons of being deep, the player constantly jumps to hospital (with slow walking of course), approach a desk and fill out a form. Travel all the way back, and hold down (A) for 5 seconds to return. All in all eating up about 2-4 minutes of nothing.
I have to ask, who thought this was good design? Was a it George Lucas moment where nobody would say to Shinji Mikami, "Hey Shinji, this idea seems abit shite mate..."
Evil within is not all bad though, in some respects it's arguably better than Resident Evil 4.
One of my chief problems with Resident Evil 4 was the ability to exploit enemies readily, with little effort. This lead to cases where the player was overloaded with resources and the most difficult enemies in the game, a pushover.
Evil Within's opening levels do a fairly admirable job of limiting resources without feeling cheap. Like Resident Evil 4 you can stagger enemies, but unlike in Resident Evil 4 where it become a constant loop of head shot+kick+slash, here the stagger itself has a resource in the form in the matchsticks.
A concept implemented in Resident Evil, but promptly ignored in later games, many enemies litter the levels ready to rise again. Matchsticks acts as a permanent deathstroke, and in the case of combat, and instant death. The player can knock over enemies like Resident Evil 4 via leg shots, but to keep them down, you must light-them up, in the process simultaneously limiting exploitation and encouraging player exploration.
Unlike Resident Evil 4 as well there is a fairly strong focus on stealth. For the most part it's ok, simply follow the pattern, but the constant crouching can get laborious after a few hours. Likewise bottles that litter the area are too plentiful, allowing for some easy 1 hit kills in the early game.
The best parts oF Evil Within thus far are essenailly what it lifts from Resident Evil 4, village levels. These horror toy-boxes let the player express themselfs, exterminating at their own pace. As soon as it tries to be cinematic, it falls completely on it's face.
Overall, it's alright. Not hating it, but not exactly lighting the world on fire.
