Warning, this review will contain spoilers, but I'll spoiler tag them.

I did my playthrough on Hardcore difficulty, I went slow, explored, did nearly everything, took me 23 hours (16 hours on the in-game timer). The reason my review says around 17 hours is because the first session I did completely logged off so I could *cough* play it a bit early.

RE8 is a fantastic game. The biggest compliment I can give it is there's not a section of the game I thought was bad. There's sections I prefer, but I think the whole game is good.

I find it strangely hard to compare the game to other RE games because of how... "fresh" a take some aspects of the game are. It does lack some tonal consistency & trades this off with variety & excellent pacing. The "Village" of the game works as connective tissue to help bring it together though, I don't know if the game would've been as good if you, for example, went linear straight from area to area. The hub Village works to help transition you from the different tones of each area, I actually think without the Village the game would've been a lot worse. It's made me think a lot about game design, since in earnest the developers words of, "Theme Park of Horror" describes RE8 near perfectly.

I do notice each part of the game taps into aaspect of Resident Evil.

The opening prologue hour taps into the sorta "cinematic opening" chapters RE has been doing recently, between RE7, RE:2, RE:3.

Dimitrescu's Castle is an expansion on the "Classic RE Unlocking Survival-Horror" area, like Baker's House in RE7, or RPD Police Station in RE:2, giving a stalker enemy with rooms to solve, puzzles, shambling enemies.

Beneviento's House is an expansion on the Escape Room idea that RE7 had, in Lucas' Birthday Tape section, or the Banned Footage Bedroom DLC piece, except they decided to increase the horror aspect of it.

Moreau's Reservoir is basically an expansive boss fight, something the series has tried a few times to accomplish, but go through an area with the monster harassing you, ultimately ending with its boss fight. I do think his area could've done with a bit more to it, but I think it actually is the most successful attempt at "cinematic horror, monster build-up" the series has done to date.

The Stronghold actually has some of the best battle arenas in the game, & I actually ended up loving it. It felt like taking what they learned from RE4 & RE5's more intense battles, & making a few really well designed combat encounters with tension & crowd control.

Heisenberg's Factory felt like working on labyrinth-esque design & trying to blend tension further into the combat, making trickier to face monsters (a few I noticed pulled from series history, like beserk Chainsaw Majini, a little Garrador-esque for the mini-boss). Then capping it off with an over-the-top dumb but fun battle.

Chris' section feels like an expansion on the side character segments in many RE games, when they tried to go for more action-packed sequences, to make it feel good & empowering, but with new mechanical hooks to play around with in a brief exchange.

And finally, the final boss & sequence just felt like they wanted to make a good final boss fight, & a better than usual RE ending.

I can actually see pretty clearly that RE8 was them further developing a lot of individual elements the series has toyed around with in the last decade, & the biggest compliment I can give RE8 is I feel it's a successful one. I think each area pretty successfully manages to be an improvement of what came before.

And I think the Village helps round it out. I've concluded I really like horror games with "small hub areas", I personally loved it in Silent Hill Downpour, Evil Within 2, & now Resident Evil Village, where there's side areas to do, mysteries to solve, hidden events off the main path to just explore. The Village in RE8 isn't big, but it's very dense, and as I said, I actually think it was the perfect solution to help connect the tonal contrast and help the game feel thematically consistant and connected, as otherwise the huge tonal whiplash between the various areas could've been done a lot more poorly.

I do think the boss fights also end up being stronger than usual for the series, it does feel there's a bit room for improvement, but the series has a rocky, uneven history with boss fights, & I can say Village has more consistently good boss fights than other entries, helped they're all pretty varied to each other.

I really like Ethan's story, I think the reveal how Ethan was essentially a BOW ever since the beginning of RE7, just he and no one else outside of Mia was aware of it, is interesting. It also puts an interesting spin on Mia, who seems to sympathize with BOWs, as she did with Eveline, & seems to still accept Ethan as her husband (& I guess even conceives a child with him) knowing he was essentially a perfected Molded all along.

Speaking of that, I like how RE8's ending does a lot of, "Show, don't tell," answering questions but raising a lot, & they're legitimately interesting questions & answers. I suspect RE8 will leave a lot of questions & uncertainties for the time being, but I think it makes the future of the series more interesting.

RE8's story is kinda' out of focus until the last hour or so, but I think it's held up by an interesting cast of villains. I'm actually sad the RE8 villain cast only get so much screentime, each one of them felt like they had potential to do more, but that's a huge step up from boring villains the series had going for it compared to some of the recent past entries.

I know I loved RE8, but I need a bit more time to digest where I'd place it on my series chart. Most RE games have a consistent tone that kinda degrades in the last third. RE8 doesn't suffer this problem, but in exchange it switches multiple tones during its course. The Village does help connect them, but they're still quite different to each other. Village is held by its core themes, Village setting, & characters, but the actual gameplay experience goes a bit all over the place.

Compared to, say, RE7, which nailed its hillbilly found footage horror aesthetic & focus on the Baker Family, RE8 is a bit more all over the place. This leads to greater variety, & I think RE8 nails what it's going for, but it's very different, & actually makes them hard to compare for me. I think RE8 virtually solves all of RE7's problems, IE it has a good final boss fight, Chris is really interesting in RE8, new much more interesting enemies, with new enemy types introduced through the whole game, with a better back-half, but it's such a different game than RE7 in so many ways I still find it hard to compare the two.

Which I guess is also interesting, since RE8's foundation is so clearly RE7, that the fact it feels so different speaks to them doing a lot with that foundation to make it something entirely new that doesn't feel like a retread at all.

I'm very curious what fans & Capcom ultimately pull from RE8, but my immediate impressions are glowing. I think it makes the series future exciting. I think it's a very good game, a weirdly experimental RE, but a successful one.

Warning, this review will contain spoilers, but I'll spoiler tag them. I did my playthrough on Hardcore difficulty, I went slow, explored, did nearly everything, took me 23 hours (16 hours on the in-game timer). The reason my review says around 17 hours is because the first session I did completely logged off so I could *cough* play it a bit early. RE8 is a fantastic game. The biggest compliment I can give it is there's not a section of the game I thought was bad. There's sections I prefer, but I think the whole game is good. I find it strangely hard to compare the game to other RE games because of how... "fresh" a take some aspects of the game are. It does lack some tonal consistency & trades this off with variety & excellent pacing. The "Village" of the game works as connective tissue to help bring it together though, I don't know if the game would've been as good if you, for example, went linear straight from area to area. The hub Village works to help transition you from the different tones of each area, I actually think without the Village the game would've been a lot worse. It's made me think a lot about game design, since in earnest the developers words of, "Theme Park of Horror" describes RE8 near perfectly. I do notice each part of the game taps into aaspect of Resident Evil. The opening prologue hour taps into the sorta "cinematic opening" chapters RE has been doing recently, between RE7, RE:2, RE:3. Dimitrescu's Castle is an expansion on the "Classic RE Unlocking Survival-Horror" area, like Baker's House in RE7, or RPD Police Station in RE:2, giving a stalker enemy with rooms to solve, puzzles, shambling enemies. [spoiler]Beneviento's House is an expansion on the Escape Room idea that RE7 had, in Lucas' Birthday Tape section, or the Banned Footage Bedroom DLC piece, except they decided to increase the horror aspect of it. Moreau's Reservoir is basically an expansive boss fight, something the series has tried a few times to accomplish, but go through an area with the monster harassing you, ultimately ending with its boss fight. I do think his area could've done with a bit more to it, but I think it actually is the most successful attempt at "cinematic horror, monster build-up" the series has done to date. The Stronghold actually has some of the best battle arenas in the game, & I actually ended up loving it. It felt like taking what they learned from RE4 & RE5's more intense battles, & making a few really well designed combat encounters with tension & crowd control. Heisenberg's Factory felt like working on labyrinth-esque design & trying to blend tension further into the combat, making trickier to face monsters (a few I noticed pulled from series history, like beserk Chainsaw Majini, a little Garrador-esque for the mini-boss). Then capping it off with an over-the-top dumb but fun battle. Chris' section feels like an expansion on the side character segments in many RE games, when they tried to go for more action-packed sequences, to make it feel good & empowering, but with new mechanical hooks to play around with in a brief exchange.[/spoiler] And finally, the final boss & sequence just felt like they wanted to make a good final boss fight, & a better than usual RE ending. I can actually see pretty clearly that RE8 was them further developing a lot of individual elements the series has toyed around with in the last decade, & the biggest compliment I can give RE8 is I feel it's a successful one. I think each area pretty successfully manages to be an improvement of what came before. And I think the Village helps round it out. I've concluded I really like horror games with "small hub areas", I personally loved it in Silent Hill Downpour, Evil Within 2, & now Resident Evil Village, where there's side areas to do, mysteries to solve, hidden events off the main path to just explore. The Village in RE8 isn't big, but it's very dense, and as I said, I actually think it was the perfect solution to help connect the tonal contrast and help the game feel thematically consistant and connected, as otherwise the huge tonal whiplash between the various areas could've been done a lot more poorly. I do think the boss fights also end up being stronger than usual for the series, it does feel there's a bit room for improvement, but the series has a rocky, uneven history with boss fights, & I can say Village has more consistently good boss fights than other entries, helped they're all pretty varied to each other. I really like Ethan's story, [spoiler]I think the reveal how Ethan was essentially a BOW ever since the beginning of RE7, just he and no one else outside of Mia was aware of it, is interesting. It also puts an interesting spin on Mia, who seems to sympathize with BOWs, as she did with Eveline, & seems to still accept Ethan as her husband (& I guess even conceives a child with him) knowing he was essentially a perfected Molded all along. Speaking of that, I like how RE8's ending does a lot of, "Show, don't tell," answering questions but raising a lot, & they're legitimately interesting questions & answers. I suspect RE8 will leave a lot of questions & uncertainties for the time being, but I think it makes the future of the series more interesting.[/spoiler] RE8's story is kinda' out of focus until the last hour or so, but I think it's held up by an interesting cast of villains. I'm actually sad the RE8 villain cast only get so much screentime, each one of them felt like they had potential to do more, but that's a huge step up from boring villains the series had going for it compared to some of the recent past entries. I know I loved RE8, but I need a bit more time to digest where I'd place it on my series chart. Most RE games have a consistent tone that kinda degrades in the last third. RE8 doesn't suffer this problem, but in exchange it switches multiple tones during its course. The Village does help connect them, but they're still quite different to each other. Village is held by its core themes, Village setting, & characters, but the actual gameplay experience goes a bit all over the place. Compared to, say, RE7, which nailed its hillbilly found footage horror aesthetic & focus on the Baker Family, RE8 is a bit more all over the place. This leads to greater variety, & I think RE8 nails what it's going for, but it's very different, & actually makes them hard to compare for me. I think RE8 virtually solves all of RE7's problems, IE it has a good final boss fight, Chris is really interesting in RE8, new much more interesting enemies, with new enemy types introduced through the whole game, with a better back-half, but it's such a different game than RE7 in so many ways I still find it hard to compare the two. Which I guess is also interesting, since RE8's foundation is so clearly RE7, that the fact it feels so different speaks to them doing a lot with that foundation to make it something entirely new that doesn't feel like a retread at all. I'm very curious what fans & Capcom ultimately pull from RE8, but my immediate impressions are glowing. I think it makes the series future exciting. I think it's a very good game, a weirdly experimental RE, but a successful one.