Resident Evil Village - Shadows of Rose

2024-12-01
Part of the joy of these RE games is that there is some power curve where you start off weak and become powerful. Shadows of Rose posits "What if we made them play a gimped character for the entire game?" It's about as bad as it sounds. Though they do buff our precious Rose for the final boss fight which does low-key rule. I mean, playing someone with proper super powers and a dodge in an RE game? Help! Someone spilled Devil May Cry in my Resident Evil and it's... delicious.

You might think well, even if the gameplay sucks, the end of RE8 teasing Rose working with the OG, Chris, seemed SO cool so at least we got that. Nope you got a half-baked, and kind of incoherent story where Rose tries to remove her powers and just retreads the same ground that her father did. Sure Papa Ethan shows up near the end and there's a little bonding there over fungus but overall it's just hey now Rose gets to fight Eveline. Now Rose gets to fight Miranda. Ok.

I hope we get more of Rose because this game feels like a missed opportunity.

2023-05-07
I'm a little bummed about this DLC. One, overall I honestly didn't enjoy my time with it. The fact that you spend the entire game pretty much gimped from a combat perspective sucks. Part of the joy of these RE games is that there is some power curve where you start off weak and become powerful. This game you're weak until the literal last boss fight. Which admittedly the last boss fight rules. You finally get to control a Rose with actual powers that feel cool (we get a dodge in a RE game which feels wild). But I ended up only enjoying the section of the game where there are no enemies and you're just doing puzzles. There's another section where you're doing stealth and that sucks the most of all. So all and all I probably enjoyed like 10-20% of this game as I played it.

The other area that was a bummer is the story. The end of RE8 teasing Rose working with Chris seemed SO cool to me. Oh man we're gonna get this bad ass female character with special powers working alongside the OG Chris. Nope we're going to get a half-baked, and kind of incoherent story where Rose tries to remove her powers and just retreads ground that her father did. Sure Papa Ethan shows up near the end and there's a little bonding there but overall it's just hey now Rose gets to fight Eveline. Now Rose gets to fight Miranda.

I hope we get more of Rose because this game feels like a missed opportunity.