After Resident Evil 6 took an all-out action approach, Resident Evil 7\u00a0brings everything back to what first defined the series: survival horror.<\/p>\n
You now explore the world from first-person, and the environments are suitably dark and dingy, recapturing the sense of dread and suspense from the earlier games.<\/p>\n
And with Resident Evil 7 releasing this week, reviews have already started rolling in from the international publications; but what do they think of the reinvented scare-veteran?<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the end of the campaign, I was ready for the game to be over, but that\u2019s okay. RE7 ends just as it starts to outstay its welcome, and after the fact, I felt like I\u2019d survived a truly harrowing journey. The boss fights may be slightly inconsistent and certain sections might drag after a while, but RE7 is still a remarkable success. It has a clear vision and executes it with impressive patience and precision. By returning to horror, Resident Evil has once again become something special.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have been pleasantly surprised with much less than Resident Evil 7 brings to bear. I would have settled for, been excited for \u201cnot bad.\u201d But the Resident Evil series has thrived for over 20 years now in part because of a willingness to change the franchise, to mutate with the times. Resident Evil 7\u2018s changes \u2014 especially the shift to first-person \u2014 may be off-putting to some. But it\u2019s an evolution that fits perfectly into the world and source material Capcom has created. It\u2019s hard to know if Resident Evil 7 will stand the test of time as much as classics like the original, or RE4. Taken on its own, however, it\u2019s an excellent game that pushes the series in worthy new directions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cResident Evil 7 grounds itself in elements that made the original great while still indulging in a risky new shift in style that both helps and hurts the beloved formula in equal measure. But it\u2019s also the closest a numbered sequel has come to recapturing Resident Evil\u2019s slow, but thrilling and atmospheric adventure game roots in a while \u2014 a welcome return that I truly hope to see more of in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201d2005\u2019s Resident Evil 4 was an astonishing redefinition, not only of its series but also, thanks to the introduction of the \u2018over-the-shoulder\u2019 perspective, of third-person action games in general. Resident Evil 7\u2019s impact is more localised, but no less effective. Reinventing older game series\u2019 to fit ever expanding technological boundaries while maintaining their quiddity is one of the great challenges in game design. Indeed, it\u2019s one that Resident Evil\u2019s creators have failed to meet on numerous occasions. Resident Evil 7, by contrast, is a masterclass: breezily new, yet quintessentially in character with its illustrious forbearers.\u201d<\/p>\n