Category: Video Games

True to my word, I’ve still been deep into Resident Evil 7. I have beaten it three (3) times now, and have started up a fourth run. This run is what I’ve been dreading since the start… the Madhouse run.

“Madhouse” difficulty is RE7’s hard mode. Unlike standard hard modes, it doesn’t just increase the health of monsters and the damage you take. It does those things and more, like shuffling around key items to slightly change how you progress through the game. It locks certain items behind collectibles. It removes almost all checkpoints, and makes you use consumable items to save, just like the REs of yore. There’s probably even more to it, but I’m still stuck on the boss of the first chapter. I spent nearly half an hour last night being killed by her over and over again, each time inching ever closer to victory.

Needless to say, Madhouse is really, really hard. I am terrified of how bad the rest is going to be.

I also began playing some of the “Banned Footage Vol.1” DLC pack. The first “tape” is called Nightmare, and it’s a mini-game that tasks you with surviving several waves of enemies. And it plays out in hours from midnight until dawn, so it kind of feels like RE7’s take on the Five Nights at Freddy’s formula. I ran it twice, and made it to about 4:30 on the second try before I accidentally got backed into a corner and torn to shreds.

The game takes place in the basement of the Baker house, and you have to craft items and weapons from scrap. Scrap is collected from several machines around the area, which will constantly be filling up throughout the run. The game kind of forces you to mix it up too, as every time you craft something, the cost in scrap goes up a little. So you can really only fall back on that shotgun for so long. You can also place turrets and traps throughout the basement, which I definitely need to fit into my strategy better.

The cool thing about it is that even failure moves you closer to getting through the night. You score at the end of every run is added to a running total, and once you hit certain thresholds you’ll unlock some helpful feature. Sometimes it’s an increase to the scrap you start with, sometimes its new things to craft. The final reward, infinite ammo, is placed at a cumulative score of ten million points. By the time you earn that sucker, you’ll probably have gotten good enough to clear the game without it anyway. Probably helpful for the harder Night Terror mode.

I did not play the “Bedroom” mini-game at all. I have no idea what it’s about.

The last bit of DLC is the “Ethan Must Die” mini-game, wherein you’re plopped down in a super-hard remix of the Baker house, with the goal of unlocking the greenhouse and killing the boss there. You start with nothing, and you only find items in crates, which are randomized. When you die, you leave behind a statue that lets you reclaim one (random) item you had been holding. I tried playing once, and found two chem fluids, which left me with only the knife to battle through a gauntlet of Molded. As one might expect, it didn’t go so well.

I think that there’s definitely some appeal here, but it’s going to be a long road. People are finishing the mini-game, but they’re probably people more dedicated than I. If it allowed you to earn upgrades through failure like Nightmare, I may be more inclined to keep playing. However, it’s more like Dark Souls where the upgrades you earn are knowledge of the layout of the house and where all the monsters are placed. From that point on, you’re just hoping that the crates work out in your favour.

Anyway, I think the point here is that I’ve cleared all of the easy stuff in RE7. It’s all expert-level content from here on out. I might have to dial it back to easy mode and complete the 4-hour speedrun to unlock… a thing… that might help the Madhouse run. It’s the only unlockable item that I don’t have yet, so it’s my last chance to soften than extreme difficulty even a bit.

But enough of the blah blah blah. Time to get back to dying playing!

After only a week, Resident Evil 7 is beaten. That was a few days ago now. I haven’t really had a chance to make more words about it until now. Though I don’t know if I really have that many more words about it? I guess we’ll see when we get to the end of this post.

When I last left off, the protagonist of the game, Ethan, has mysteriously vanished and I was now in control of another character aboard a wrecked ship. There was a flashback sequence that played more like a run and gun shooter, but back in reality, the actual ship level is more evenly paced. While it does play like the rest of the game, for whatever reason, the ship level didn’t really grab me. I think maybe it’s just because I kept getting lost. Thinking back on it, there’s nothing really overly wrong with it.

The final stage is… it’s semi-traditional. There’s a secret lab where you learn all the final pieces of the plot, but it’s like two rooms at the bottom of a mine. The entire mine area is a fairly straighforward gauntlet of monsters, which isn’t out of the ordinary for RE, and is actually more of a final boss than the actual final boss. Also, not a single MO disk to be found. I’m okay with that. It’s 2017, after all.

And finally, because being cyclical makes it more impactful, you end up back in the guest house that served as the game’s first chapter. You’re alone and searching for a girl again, and the night has passed into day.

What really separates this game from the rest of the series is that you feel a pang of guilt when you kill the final boss. Make no mistake, it needs to be killed because it is a living weapon that murders people without remorse, but it is a somewhat pitiable entity. It’s not your typical RE crazy person that’s gone and mutated himself in a mad quest for world domination or revenge. Well, I guess Birkin was kind of sympathetic, too. I’d better replay Resident Evil 2 again to make sure.

And yes, you are thrown a weapon and told “use it!” to finish off the final boss. It’s not a rocket launcher, but the spirit of the tradition is present. I am content.

Then, at the very end of this 12-hour game in which I only spotted two teeny-tiny references to previous Resident Evil games, Ethan is airlifted away from the Baker property by none other than Chris Redfield. And he is looking skinnier than ever. And he is riding around in an Umbrella helicopter. What is happening!? I don’t think these really count as spoilers, because they don’t really have any bearing on RE7’s main plot. There is a (free) DLC episode featuring Chris on the way, but otherwise he is merely a way to connect RE7 to the rest of the Resident Evil canon.

Some final thoughts: I love the ambient sounds. The creaking of the houses and random thumps are a great way to get little frights, and they also put you on edge. Was it just a random noise? Or is there an enemy skulking about, ready to spook you?

Speaking of spooking, I am so glad that I didn’t play this in VR. I like being scared, but RE7 would have been way too intense. Plus, 90% of the jumpscares are of the in-your-face-screaming variety that is so popular these days, and I just couldn’t handle that without the reality buffer.

I was a little wary of the game’s new style at first, but it really came into its own once Jack stopped stalking me. Its crazy how much pressure was caused by the fear that Jack could show up to ruin your day at any moment. Looking back, his patrol areas are actually very small, and he won’t even chase you all that far. In the end, he seems to be a lot more menacing than he actually is.

Coming down off the high of finishing the game (I quite enjoyed the credits sequence, BTW), I immediately popped open the Playstation Store and bought the DLC season pass. I was going to do it as soon as I bought the game, but decided to wait just in case I ended up not liking this very different Resident Evil.

The first DLC pack is out and downloaded onto my PS4, but I haven’t played it yet because I started a new game to try for the 4-hour speedrun trophy. Either I am much slower than I thought, or I accidentally left the game running while I left to do something else, because about half an hour in, I noticed that my timer had picked up an extra hour somewhere. Needless to say, the speedrun was doomed. Guess I’ll just have to try again! (Hooray!)

I do not relish the idea of playing the game on Madhouse difficulty. But I’m certainly going to try. I’ll probably unlock all the bonus items first, to ease the burden a little.

And that’s about it, I guess. For now, at least. Look forward to hearing more about this game in the future. I can’t get enough!