Its deficiencies wouldn’t be so bad if it had much to offer in terms of setting, story, or puzzles.
The remake knows exactly when to subvert expectations to ratchet up tension.
The game’s dedication to graphical fidelity feels like a blinder to thinking outside the box.
The game branches the series out in new directions without trying to fix what wasn’t broken about its predecessor.
The Medium is at its best whenever the player gets to lives up to the game’s title.
The element of fear that Resident Evil is known for isn’t as fully baked into the mechanics of this remake as it could have.
The game meets the baseline level of quality we might expect from a big-budgeted joint, yet it remains a tiresome, empty experience.
The game assures that the malicious ideas that guided Resident Evil 7 may become the governing principles of the series moving forward.
Red Barrels’s game is an immature and hateful slight at anyone who dares to believe in a divine creator.
In terms of tone, viciousness, subtext, and sheer oppressive fear, Resident Evil 7 is a beast unlike its predecessors.
Africa and its people are, essentially, exotic props in this game, with no humanity or purpose.
Any potential for excitement is squandered by the fact that the zombies you encounter are typically unthreatening.
The game renders its gory images in detailed and creative ways, never hinging on generic jump scares.
Instead of improving upon the original game’s basic mechanics, this remaster instead indulges in fan service.
This is the action-packed gauntlet fans of the original Resident Evil never knew they wanted.
A convoluted compendium of horror clichés that superficially invokes mental illness.
Many of this game’s issues were easier to swallow on the DS.
All of them have earned their right to be here, either by standing on the shoulders of giants or wildly impaling creatures of the night.
Portions of the game may deliver high-octane thrills, but its paramount moments are frightening because they’re understated.
While it lasts, the game is a challenging blast, even if the story offers only the skin-deep and all-too-familiar choice of siding with a potentially mad scientist to defend and use the Anomaly for mankind.