Last night the final demo of Resident Evil Village, centered on the Castle , was released before the game’s launch in stores. A new preview, with temporary exclusivity on PlayStation consoles, before the final opportunity on May 2, now on all platforms and with both demos available at the same time.
Last week, on the occasion of the village demo, Capcom completely sold me the final game. There they were already seen its novelties at the playable level , apart from knowing better how Ethan’s nightmare begins when he reaches that remote village in Romania. Nothing to do with the very first demo of a few months ago, quite a bit of a hallway and with many limitations. This sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard has to do very badly so that it is not among my favorites in the saga .
A demo full of more dangers than the previous one
The most significant change of this third demo compared to the second is the fact of moving to a closed environment , where we will revisit a good part of the rooms that we saw in the first demo a few months ago, although with more open doors and many more dangers, of course. In fact, this demo is more in line with what we will receive on May 7 , with the final version, contrary to what happened with the first demo, more for the “gallery”.
The first surprise is with the appearance of the Duke , the merchant of this new installment. It is doubly surprising, since he meets the mysterious merchant from Resident Evil 4 (in case the similarities with that chapter were no longer evident …) and his market is located in a small adjoining room that connects with the main entrance of the castle. There we will not only be able to buy ammunition or medicines, but also to unlock the plans to be able to manufacture ammunition for other weapons, one of the novelties of Resident Evil Village .
Of course, we can also buy weapons (shotgun), expand the space of the briefcase, get accessories to improve these weapons or do the same with the statistics of our arsenal, such as increasing the rate of fire. It will be our most valuable ally and the one we will turn to to sell jewelry for money.
Yes, in this demo they repeat those highly valuable crystals that are well hidden, as happened with the gems in Resident Evil 5, for example. They shine from time to time and are generally located in elevated areas, although you can also see some inside certain furniture, for which your protective glass will have to be broken first with our knife. And the vases will not be lacking either, being important to emphasize the randomness of the objects that they keep inside . For example, if we carry the shotgun, we will get the ammunition for it.
And in this demo you will need the ammunition, of course. Although against the daughters of Lady Dimitrescu we can do little, except to stun them briefly so that they allow us to escape, in the final part several disturbing-looking beings (such as zombies ) that we had timidly seen in the first demo will come together.
That strange tranquility of the castle on our arrival immediately turns into a most hostile environment because of that constant flight when we run into the first two daughters of the aforementioned Lady Dimitrescu. The demo knows how to play with tension very well, because it forces us to look closely at our surroundings to know how to successfully escape from each one. Luckily we also have the map at hand, in case we get disoriented with one of his bug attacks.
The captivating castle of Resident Evil Village
Here we again have the 30-minute limit to play, seeing another little glimpse of what awaits us on May 7 with its final version. There are flashes of more puzzles , such as a series of statues in the main hall, various keys or a mechanism with a series of balls in what amounts to a miniature recreation of the castle, right in the room where our beloved Duke is.
One of the puzzles is based on physics with fire , being able to solve it both with the knife and with pistol or shotgun shots. While another relapses in a classic of the saga: calmly investigate an object to be able to extract another from it.
There are documents in which the experiments that have been taking place in the castle for a long time are evident again, when talking about candidates and discards. Let’s not forget that Ethan is here looking for his daughter and that the town has been living a nightmare since his arrival, when before they were calm with mother Miranda … Everything is very murky and smells like a nightmare , of course.
Without going any further, the ostensible aspect of the castle changes radically when we travel to the depths of its interior, when we enter the so-called “chamber of comfort”. There we go to a gloomy environment, where Ethan has to turn on his flashlight so as not to get lost in its labyrinthine corridors … until he comes face to face with several monsters and we have to use the weapons available, being very useful the homemade bomb that is located successfully to create an explosion.
This demo, in any case, does not give as much play as the previous one in relation to the use of the environment to get out of a complicated situation gracefully, since in the village we had sacks of flour to temporarily stun the lycans, being able to even create barriers with wooden boards in the windows. Rather, it is a demo that seeks to create tension in its final minutes by fleeing from dangers by being at a clear disadvantage with Dimitrescu’s daughters .
I had already been convinced last week. Now all you have to do is count the days until you get your hands on the final version and if it manages to overcome the impact of the previous Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, my favorite in a tough fight with the remake of the first Resident Evil. Everything will depend on the insistence of Lady Dimitrescu as a nightmare villain , emulating Tyrant in Resident Evil 2 or Nemesis in Resident Evil 3. Or knowing what the hell has happened to our dear Chris Redfield …
