So, I've been meaning to collect my thoughts on the game.
First off, it's a rather hard game to classify. It's a survival horror, clearly, but you can't really point to one certain series and say , 'Yeah, it's like that'. The mechanics have similarities to RE4, but once you play it more, you realize it's more a passing resemblance than anything. The overall style and tone of the game is much more in tone with Silent Hill, though, at least so fair (I'm on Chapter 7 out of, I believe, 15), so it's hard to tell where it's going. The section I'm at now feels more RE-ish. The pacing feels like it's going in a similar direction as RE4, which things gradually getting bigger and bigger, but I can't say that yet.
It's use of stealth, especially, make it stick out from RE. The first 2 chapters basically force you to go stealth since you're given almost no ammunition at first. It does feel like the option becomes a little less viable as you progress, but they may be because I'm being super conservative with my ammo, since the game definitely calls back to the older RE titles with how little ammo it actually gives you. There's been numerous occasions where I got into a fire fight and ended up with only a few bullets. It's definitely tense, but not extreme enough where you feel like the game is screwing you over or anything. You will find plenty of ammo pick-ups, but usually with a small amount of bullets. Plus, before you upgrade your capacity, your guns can only hold a small amount of bullets. I think the first pistol you get only holds 10 at first.
And boy, this game is hard. I remember Mikami said he was going for challenging, but I guess I was torn off by it somewhat. Enemies, even common ones, can be really deadly. Before I upgraded my stamina, I was dying in two or three hits. How the enemies behave is similar to RE4, but they tend to be a little quicker, and a swarm of them is bad news.
Part of the difficulty comes, too, from the odd camera and aiming. It is a TPS, but I can't think of one where the camera gets so close to you like this, especially when aiming. It's disorienting. I think this is Mikami's way of reinventing the old tank controls and fixed camera angles from the old school RE titles. I think it works, because it gives that strange off feeling without being frustrating. It's not as cheap as those old RE tricks, it just throws you off from what you're used to in the genre.
The game can straddle the fence between challenging and frustrating, though. Mainly because the game really doesn't tell you much. It explains the basic concepts in brief snippets, but a lot of it is left up to you to figure out. For example, the chapter 5 boss: you are shown through an earlier sequence what to do to kill it, but when you get to the battle itself, it's not very clear exactly how you do it. This resulted in a lot of me running around like an idiot trying to figure out what it was that I was actually suppose to do. This was particularly teeth grinding, because the boss kills in one shot. I actually had to stop and walk away from that one for awhile. Another, more general, example is that when you first find a glass bottle, the game tells you you can use it to distract enemies or stealth kill them. How? Well, figure it out your ****ing self is pretty much the games reply.
The art-style of the game is...just fantastic. The imagery, particularly, is striking, as well as the sound design. I'm getting vague memories of Silent Hill 2 in them so far. The use of shadows, especially, gives the game such a unique visual feel. The environment is so tense and oppressive in the early chapters. That first enemy sequence was nerve-wrecking to the say the least.
So, overally, thus far at about the halfway point I'm really enjoying the game. Depsite reports of this running really horrible on consoles, I'm not having any real issues on the Xbox One version I'm playing. There's a lot of echoes of other games in it, but it really is it's own original little creation. It's not really like anything else out there in how it presents its elements. I'm optimistic that this is going to stack up pretty well. It's not for the "casual" player, though, that much is for sure.
Well, I hope they patch something into the game if this is an issue with many.
