THE EVIL WITHIN - PART TWO (THE REVIEW)

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t somewhat enjoy this game but the overall experience left me empty and confused with mixed feelings that made me question whether I want to love this game or hate it. But the point for me overall stands that this is not a Survival Horror game, which quite frankly for me is just disappointing. But thinking back to the days of Survival Horror those games were never that frightening to begin with but were for the most part very memorable and nostalgic and with that The Evil Within itself does indeed feel very nostalgic with some very memorable moments.
 

But in the end it doesn’t change the fact that it is a carbon copy of Resident Evil 4, Silent Hill and even The Last of Us shockingly enough. The game has elements of all these franchises in terms of look, characters, plot, bosses and atmosphere. And while this might seem like a big complaint I do actually like games that can take the best of both worlds from different sources and create its own unique take on it but this game doesn’t feel unique or different. It’s exactly the same, which wouldn’t have been a problem had the game not been advertised and marketed as something that it isn’t.

The flaws I have with The Evil Within range from several faults. This includes both the plot, characters and the way the gameplay structure is designed around it.

 

The Game starts with a veteran police detective, Sebastian Castellanos (Anson Mount) and his colleagues Joseph (Yuri Lowenthal) and Kidman (Jennifer Carpenter) investigating gruesome murders that just took place at Beacon Mental Hospital in the fictional town of Krimson City. (Yes Krimson, not Crimson)

Once they arrive there things go wrong very fast and they along with a surviving Doctor Marcelo Jimenez and his child patient Leslie must escape from the malevolent force known as Ruvik (Jackie Earle Haley), a powerful invincible apparition that seems to have set something in motion that is causing mind games to be played with all of them.

Now you’d probably find that interesting and at first the game does start of interestingly enough after what is a horrid and difficult first chapter but the story of the game never kicks in until about the halfway mark when you finally end Chapter 8 and begin Chapter 9 and characters for the most part aren’t really developed well with the plot never really properly explaining itself.

If one wants to actually get the basics of it then all you’d need to do to understand the big twist of the game is to just read the Tagline and the title of the game box and put two and two together and voila. That’s your plot for lack of better term.

 

The lack of proper character development also makes the whole experience none-engaging. Sebastian as the main character is just bland and boring and never really expresses himself or the world he’s in probably. While Leon S Kennedy in Resident Evil 4 was annoying at least he showed us what a arrogant and cocky with a sense of humor guy he was. Sebastian is the complete opposite and quite frankly nothing is learned about him except for the files and diaries of his that you find, which serve to detail his backstory, a backstory that is never mentioned outside of those diaries thus never really showing the inner turmoil his character is going through.

Joseph comes close to having anything resembling a character arc but just as the game is nearing its climax his character is taken out of the picture with no real emotional conclusion or payoff. Instead his character as a whole just serves as the AI companion that appears from time to time to offer aid and solve all the clues and puzzles for you which makes the whole point of having mystery and puzzles for you to solve just utterly pointless when the AI is doing it all for you. 

Then there’s the pointless character of Leslie whose nothing more than a MacGuffin that is meant to lead you from point A to B with his character serving no real purpose other than to be the object everyone seeks without any proper explanations or development being given to him.

The only character that has any sort of development as a character is Ruvik and it is mostly thanks to the performance of Jackie Earle Haley that makes the character sound so interesting and yet terrifyingly mysterious. Needless to say Ruvik is probably one of the best game villains I’ve seen in a video game for a while now. He oozes atmosphere and crazy and his backstory offers a disturbing look at his psychotic mind with a hint of tragedy thrown in to make us feel some sort of acceptance for him even if his actions in the end make us question what he really wants to accomplish.

But other than that the overall story and characters aren’t that memorable. And a big problem with the overall layout of the game itself is the way it keeps on jumping to new locations and areas because of the mental like style the game’s plot goes for. Add the fact that no one really questions what is happening and it makes getting involved in the plight of the characters uninteresting because if they don’t care or are questioning the reality they are in then why should we even bother to care in the first place?

An excuse for the possibility that because it has a dream like quality going for it that such reactions and expressions are acceptable but for me that’s not a good enough excuse as there’s no real sense of urgency or mystery to be had, instead its just lots of things happening here and there without any real thought going into it with questions not been asked or answered in a understanding way and mostly because some of those questions are being left to be answered in the upcoming DLC with Kidman, which is a shame as unlocking a whole new chapter or separate short campaign to play would’ve been more rewarding as the game doesn’t really offer much replay value besides going back and forth to just upgrading every weapon, item and skill one has obtained. 

Replaying this game just feels like a chore in the end with nothing really beneficial being obtained besides a few weapons that aren’t much fun to use when one has all the original weapons fully upgraded to the max.

And as mentioned before the way the level structure is designed stops it from having any kind of actual exploration in it. And the way sections of the game are ended by Chapter Screens kind of takes one out of the atmosphere the game is trying to set up and thus ruining the pacing at times. While previous titles used this method all the time those games had a long pacing in between chapters to give it a proper sense of a journey.

The Evil Within however has you going from chapter to the next in the beginning sections at a fast pace and the overall running time for beating the game depending on difficulty would only last between 14 to 15 Hours. In fact if you decided to just rush through the game without taking your time to explore every nook and corner and managed to survive all the traps and enemies then you’d be able to complete the game in just about 5 hours. There’s even a trophy that requires you to do this that really signifies how fast paced and quick this game can actually be. 

The game starts off difficult but once on Chapter 2 and onward the game has it going easy until about Chapter 7 to Chapter 9 where the game starts to properly show what its made of.

But what’s actually disappointing in this regard is that no matter what, the first time you start the game you are forced between picking between the Casual (Easy) or Survivor (Normal) Difficulty Settings with the Nightmare (Hard) and Extreme Modes not being unlocked until after you’ve completed the game once, which also unlocks New Game Plus.

However the game doesn’t allow you to play on the harder settings on New Game Plus until only after you’ve completed the game on New Game again on those higher difficulties making upgrading weapons, skills and collecting all the files and collectables on your previous setting meaningless when you have to do it all over again making the replay value of the game as said before just a chore and thus a whole waste of time.

With that said the actual level design and settings help to establish an interesting and terrifying environment and world at times. While the Graphics might not be as good, at times looking very similar to look and feel of Resident Evil 4, 5 and even 6 surprisingly it won’t distract from the great looking locations that the game surrounds itself with. And while the game does suffer from frame-rate issues it doesn’t stop what enjoyment can come out of it.

The game has a level of variety that makes each chapter fill different and apart from each other with its own unique settings and challenges that do eco games of the past and it is probably the strongest element of The Evil Within. The First Chapter is an entire Stealth section based around escaping from a Chainsaw Manic where as Chapters 2 and 3 echo the night village sections from Resident Evil 4, all the way down to the weapon welding Ganado like enemies and the chainsaw boss at the end of it.

Chapters 4 acts as transition of sorts from moving from the village setting to a more hallucination and building complex like environment while taking on Nemesis like Bosses before continuing onto Chapter 5 where the game continues its Resident Evil 4 inspiration with very working well AI Companions actually aiding you properly and effectively and elements of psychological puzzle like traps being implemented into it. Chapter 6 continues on with the concept of a Companion traveling with you where the game turns into mix of the Resident Evil 4 Daylight chapters that takes place at a Church filled with various Bosses and Traps.

It is by Chapter 7 where the Resident Evil like feeling moves over to those experienced in the Silent Hill games with the appearance of the game’s inspirational enemy The Keeper, a carbon copy of Pyramid Head with a Safe Head instead that The Evil Within starts to actually shine.

But then there are Chapters like 8 that don’t offer anything new or different and fill like filler to pad out the rest of the game until the next good level with Chapter 9 emitting the spirit of the original Resident Evil with its Mansion like setting filled with traps, puzzles and immortal ghosts that you have to run away from. In fact that entire chapter resembles elements from the original Resident Evil 4 Beta down to the random ghostly encounters with the supernatural elements. 

Chapter 10 ends what remaining elements of Horror there were to begin with its Silent Hill hellish outer world settings filled with multiple Boss encounters before the game finally reaches the 3^rd Act and decides to go out all action with Chapter 11 to 14 with the game taking place in a City environment that fills like something out of the movie Inception, filled with enemies that instead of just using Sniper Rifles and Pistols now start firing off automatic Rifles and explosives including a section with a enemy using a Turret Placement, which just fills out of place and unneeded, again showing parts that are just put there to pad out the game longer than is necessary.

The Final Chapter consists of just using everything the Player has found, saved up and upgraded to go all out in a action set piece against horde of enemies and mini-Bosses including traps before the final confrontation that is just a cinematic set-piece with no real challenge at all making the whole ordeal to getting to the final boss a waste of time considering the sheer size and scope of what the Boss represents. 

But instead of treating it like the typical Bosses you need to think of a strategy of beating, a dozen bullets from a turret and rocket launcher prove more effective, bland and boring, resembling to a certain degree the type of Boss one encountered in the Resident Evil 6 game, again showing that instead of proving the naysayers wrong, Shinji Mikami opted for the more ripping-off approach instead of coming up with something better and while people will probably say its just paying homage to it, which is very unlikely, a lot of the moments in this game just come off as cheap knockoffs from games that did it better in everyway.

The Enemies and Bosses for example are basically every Ganado, Zombie, Nemesis, Pyramid Head put together. If you’ve faced and beaten those then you’ve faced and beaten them all. The enemies are nothing more than bullet sponges that go down after a few basic hits and pretty much all the enemies are defeated with simple headshots.

The only thing that makes fighting them difficult is that the accuracy of aiming is very difficult making you take caution with ammo you have not to go to waste as ammo is pretty low in early chapters but once you’re at the halfway point you’ll have enough ammo for your various weapons to survive any encounter, especially if you managed to obtain the Agony Bolt, a Cross Bolt like weapon you obtain during Chapter 3 if you take the time to explore the various building environments. 

The Agony Bolt allows you to use various types of arrows that range from Explosive, Flash-bangs, Freeze, Harpoon and Electric Rounds for example, which are made using the various repair parts you obtain that are scattered around the chapters including parts gotten from traps included. Obtaining and using the Agony Bolt makes fighting hordes of enemies and Bosses a lot easier, especially on the much harder difficulty settings.

The various Bosses and Enemies themselves prove to be difficult because of something that makes the game at times just frustrating to play and that is the unlucky one-hit-kills that come with them making fighting some enemies just dangerous and making deaths feel cheap and random and just having to go through certain sections all over again stressful.

But at times some Boss Battles offer a choice of either retreating or fighting, that sense of choice having a nice callback to some Boss Battles in the earlier Resident Evil games.

In terms of actual gameplay and controls the game basically plays like the recent Resident Evil titles with a over the shoulder view but with the moving camera present in Resident Evil 6 for example, which at times can become very annoying to control.

There is also the Stealth that is similar to the way it worked in The Last of Us and trying to stealth your way through various sections at times is both useful and a complete waste of time. But it at least breaks up the action like gunplay at certain points and offers a new way of playing the game when the chance calls for it.

The only real complaint I have in terms of the gameplay and controls is the lack of proper melee. If there is one thing that separates The Evil Within from the new Resident Evil titles is the way melee is used in them.

Resident Evil 6 improved on its dodgy and outdated control systems by revamping the entire control scheme and offering a level of freedom never seen in the franchise before. Being able to perform multiple kinds of moves and attacks made the combat system more engaging and creative to play with.

The Evil Within on the other hand consists of just tapping a button and having the player character swing his arm at any nearby enemies with hardly any damage being dealt. It does serve as a form of distraction as it helps push enemies away but overall the use of it just seems pointless and it never practically helps once you start getting swarmed by hordes of zombie demons.

In other words the control scheme just seems like a step back compared to games that have started to push the boundaries of what can be done it. And considering The Evil Within isn’t really a proper Survival Horror Game in the first place the lack of a proper melee system doesn’t fit the style of game that it is. And considering the melee system Shinji Mikami used in Resident Evil 4 along with another unique style that the Resident Evil Remake also had, The Evil Within really seems like a massive step back. 

In conclusion, The Evil Within is a decent return to the world of Survival Action but at the same time it is a disappointing mess that is confused by its own identity, not knowing whether it wants to be a Survival Horror or Action game in the first place and mixing and matching moments from other games that while give off a nostalgic feeling of the past is sadly wasted with the added features of negative modern elements that ruin the flow and pacing but at the same time is also frustrating to play because of the backwards controls that are clearly not well designed for a game that is so obviously not a Horror Game.

Add the confusing plot that jumps all over the place with no real explanation given on certain plot threads and questions and the underdeveloped characters along with predictable and cliché jump scares, enemies and bosses with easy puzzles along with some annoying and random frustrating moments make The Evil Within as a whole just unbearable to comprehend.

The more important question would be whether this game is worth buying and playing and the truth is that it is but accepting anything like what you’d have played years ago but better is something you’re not going to get. Add in the fact that Shinji Mikami seems to be lost in the past to the point that he’s just remodeled better past games into something that isn’t all that impressive to behold and you have a game that screams to be more than it could’ve been. 

Overall The Evil Within was only a decent effort that could’ve been handled better had Shinji Mikami remained true to his original concepts instead of attempting to create a hybrid that fairs no better than other recent so-called horror titles by other companies. The game is a hit or miss but in the end of the day it depends on ones taste and what feelings and experience they hope to gain from it because Classic Survival Horror this is not and it never will be.

But for what it is and does do at certain points the game gets an acceptable pass from me. I just wish I could’ve enjoyed it more because in the end of the day, having played it and now written this review, it makes me realize that for me personally, the game really in the end just left me feeling very empty inside and disinterested in ever wanting to play a proper Horror Game again.

If I want to play Classic Horror Games then I’ll play the classics and if I want a proper good Survival Action game then I’ll play what’s already available. There are certain things that should stay dead and I think at this point any attempts at truly bringing back what remains of Survival Horror is just a futile attempt because in the end no one will ever get that concept right again.

If one wants to play a proper game with atmosphere, tension and unpredictability then you’re far better off playing something like Alien Isolation because The Evil Within or Shinji Mikami if you want just doesn’t deliver what was promised.

If you managed to read all of this then I thank you for your time and patients and hope you understand my opinions on the game but also try to understand why I didn’t, couldn’t enjoy this game as much as I tried. But that doesn’t mean you can’t so go ahead and knock yourself out. I’m not stopping you, I just want you to understand why my thoughts are the way they are and always will be. Thank You again. Have a good day and A HAPPY NEW YEAR Too.

THE EVIL WITHIN - PART ONE (PRELUDE TO THE REVIEW)

For those of you do read these reviews, welcome back and welcome back to me. I haven’t done this in a while so I’m a bit rusty, in other words be patient with what I’m trying to get across here. 

So, I’ve had the pleasure of playing and completing The Evil Within or Psycho-Break as it is known in Japan. This is a game created by the so-called father of survival horror who brought us the original Resident Evil back in 1996 and then Resident Evil 4 in 2004. In other words this man is a genius, or is meant to be. Personally I think Shinji Mikami is an overrated hack who likes to complain more than actually stand his ground and give people something new and better but instead makes a carbon-copy of games that were better in everyway.

To understand The Evil Within and why it’s a game I find to be very lackluster and only decent at best is to understand the hypocritical mindset of its director. This is the man who kicked off the survival horror genre with Resident Evil, which originally believe it or not actually started off as an action game. Whether it was indeed meant to be a first person shooter with co-op implemented isn’t well known. 

What is known instead is Shinji Mikami was a Producer on Resident Evil 4, which went through several different versions that would later become known as the Beta Versions or Resident Evil 3.5 that included supernatural elements and hallucinations before he finally decided the game just wasn’t scary or Resident Evil enough for such a concept, a concept he was so fast to dismiss and one that he ends up using for this newest creation.

So he was given a choice. Either end the franchise with the last game and have it go out with a bang while finally concluding all the storylines and plots that were being built up since the sequels or reinvent the gameplay and attract new audiences to the franchise while pissing off the current ones. 

And thus Resident Evil 4 was born and the series itself was reinvented into what would become a series of Survival Action. Not Survival Horror but Survival Action. And gaming in general was reinvented thanks to what Resident Evil 4 brought to the industry.

It was a good game, a great one in fact but it wasn’t Resident Evil. Certain elements of it might have remained but the game took every opportunity to serve as a Side-Story instead of continuing the plot-threads that had already been established but left on a cliffhanger. Fans would understandably be pissed but Shinji Mikami obviously didn’t care as long as he was bringing in the green. And let’s not forget the decision of making it a Nintendo Gamecube Exclusive when the series started on the Sony Playstation originally, a decision that Shinji Mikami had insisted upon supposedly. 

In fact one of the main reasons the action route was taken in the first place was because of the lackluster sells with the Resident Evil Remake and Resident Evil Zero, but that is because of the decision to exclusively have those games on the Gamecube resulting in less sells if it had been multi-console instead. Thank the great Shinji for this arrangement, proving that his business decisions were on a whole other level of stupidity then the ones Capcom have been performing for years now.

This is the man responsible for reinventing gaming for years to come but sacrificing his franchise and loyal fans to ensure that. But it wouldn’t have mattered because after all, with the sequel he could improve things and give us what we really wanted right? No. 

What happened next after was that Capcom decided to port the Gamecube Exclusive to the Playstation 2 with exclusive content included, a decision Shinji Mikami didn’t agree on and it is for this reason he decided to quit from the company that he had invested so much time in and instead of staying and attempting to fix the problem he had obviously left his baby in he abandoned it like a coward who wanted nothing to do with the responsibility given to him considering they were his choices that led to these consequences. 

So why am I bringing this stuff up? What importance does it play you may ask? Everything. It has to do with everything including why my thoughts on The Evil Within are the way they are.

With its creator gone the Resident Evil Franchise for better or worse was in trouble. But considering this was a series whose sequels were pretty much glorified remakes and remodels of the original game in everyway it simply meant that the next sequel would just have to be a carbon copy of its predecessor with slight improvements and features. 

And thus Resident Evil 5 was born and it included developers of the original game working on it, the team who originally wanted to create an action co-op game. And since Shinji Mikami had reinvented Resident Evil with the creation of the Survival Action Genre it only made sense that Resident Evil 5 would continue in that route and in spirit the game would indeed go back to its roots as the series did as mentioned before start off as a action game and with the direction that Shinji Mikami had now set it on this vision would finally come be realized and come to pass. That and a few comments about Racism from the press pushed the game into a more complicated direction then it started off on sadly.

Resident Evil was never meant to be what it had started of as. It was an accident because of the limits of the technology that was available at the time but it was an accident that had great benefits and rewards. But in truth the term Survival Horror never really existed. Playing the older games now doesn’t deliver the same results that many Players, myself included, experienced when we were children. 

But we’re not children anymore and Resident Evil 4, even though it had moments that caused us panic and fear, in the end we had more fun with it then we did had fun playing the older games because the idea of horror had been so strongly implanted into our fragile minds that we automatically were afraid with the games before they even started. 

But in reality, playing the games now offers no real scares. A few Jump Scares here and there sure but other than that the older games were nothing more than Puzzle games and Fetch Quests with enough ammo and health scattered about that one could shoot and kill anything that dared take our heads off.

The only real possible reason one could even attempt to call those games Horror is because they were hard and they were hard and challenging because of the terrible, now outdated controls system and the dodgy placed cameras that helped to create a sense of the unknown and not knowing what to expect at every turn and corner. But if those elements were not there then I imagine the games wouldn’t have the atmosphere and challenge that they came with in the end. 

But what does this have to do with Shinji Mikami and The Evil Within? 

Because quiet simply The Evil Within is NOT a Survival Horror Game even though Shinji Mikami has advertised it as such but in truth it is not. The game is another Survival Action game that relies on predictable elements and clichés seen in old so-called horror games and other action games that did them better and Shinji Mikami knows it. So what is my problem with it then you wonder?

Resident Evil 5 became the Best-Selling and Highest Grossing Resident Evil game and even today it is still selling. One cannot deny that the game did something right. Was it a Resident Evil game? Not really. Did it fill like a Resident Evil? For me personally it did and that’s mostly because it didn’t ignore the established mythology and characters and did its best to reconnect to the past games and serve as a sequel and conclusion to some plot threads.

That to me made it a better Resident Evil game than its predecessor was but I won’t deny that when it came to gameplay, atmosphere and just the feel and look that Resident Evil 4 delivered on that more and for the most part The Evil Within retains that exact atmosphere and feel and that to me is a positive outlook for the game. But it isn’t what annoys me. It isn’t what makes me want to hate it and look down on what Shinji Mikami has made.

It’s the fact that Shinji Mikami, since his departure from Capcom has spoke ill of the company and its actions, expressing during Resident Evil 5’s release that he wouldn’t play the game and that he’d had done things differently. There’s also the fact that Capcom like to release their games with Content Locked that would be unlocked by buying the DLC that comes with it, actions that every game company has actually been doing for a while but ones that many, including myself aren’t particular happy with. But if you hate games that do this because the majority of the plot is actually explained through them when the main game doesn’t bother with it then you will be pleased to know that The Evil Within suffers with this exact problem.

The Evil Within is not a Survival Horror Game. It is a game that reuses old ideas and gameplay elements but worst of all it is a game that uses modern elements found in the recent titles of Resident Evil including Resident Evil 6. For someone who says he would’ve done things differently, Shinji Mikami has simply remodeled Resident Evil 4 and combined it with elements from the Silent Hill Franchise while including gameplay elements from the recent Resident Evil titles that so many ‘Fans’ complained about and refurbished into a product that while decent is nothing more than, well, a glorified remake for the current gen consoles. 

In other words Shinji Mikami is a hypocrite and a liar to top it off. While many would complain about Capcom’s actions with recent titles, in the end of the day the games are at least different and try to offer variety and different gameplay elements. But Shinji Mikami in his attempt to ‘rebirth’ Survival Horror while bad mouthing Capcom has done nothing but sunk himself into the same boat. And this act of behavior and attitude coming from him has made the experience of playing The Evil Within feel like a boring chore that at times offers some surprising things but in the end is just a frustration to play in the first place. 

What really gets me is that Capcom has been using this kind of development with the past and present games for years but what’s worse is that people would proceed to say that they are ripping of better games. But The Evil Within is a product of the same sort and it infuriates me to no end that people will complain about one but not the other and this idea of fanboyism so to speak is what will blind people to what they’re actually playing.

But with that said how is The Evil Within as a game as an overall whole? Does it offer improvements? Does it play better than the recent titles that Capcom have dished out and does it show that perhaps Shinji Mikami should have stuck with Capcom to deliver quality games that they can’t seem to do anymore or is Shinji having left a godsend that shows that for all intents and purposes that Capcom is actually better off without him? Well lets read on shall we, if you are still willing too.