I've been in full-blown Nintendo Mode lately — Zelda! Switch! Mario Kart! Switch! — but earlier in the year I was obsessed with Resident Evil VII: Biohazard.
(Screenshots below taken on my PS4 Pro; resized to 1080p on abload.de)
Resident Evil is my favorite series in gaming, pound for pound. I've always loved the action titles (RE4-6). I've grown to love the classics, with their fixed camera and tank controls (RE0-3). I love the hybrid approach in the Revelations sub-series. Heck, I even love the light-gun games and Mercenaries 3D. I'm not interested in other spinoffs like Operation Raccoon City and Umbrella Corps, but they don't count in my eyes — even if they do make story contributions.
Overall, the RE series is one of the most consistently enjoyable.
That being said, I had my doubts going into REVII. It was hard to reconcile in my head the idea of an RE game where you didn't see the lead character. A big part of the series' appeal, to me, is the soap opera drama that comes with a recurring cast of attractive and loveably dumb characters. And right from RE1, every character has had a strong visual design. Note how the original cast of Chris, Jill, Barry, Rebecca and Wesker were color-coded like Power Rangers, each with armor and accessories that might seem a bit nonsensical (Jill's shoulder pads!) but make them stand out. RE has a legacy of characters that are — warning: buzzword incoming — iconic. So the idea of playing in first-person perspective, where I couldn't see who I was playing, gave me pause.
So, too, did the idea of dropping the amazing combat and mobility mechanics of RE6. Say what you will about the game's campaign, but RE6 is a spectacular shooter/brawler once you attain some mastery of its mechanics. We still need an RE6-II that puts those mechanics to the service of a well-paced campaign.
But as it turns out, RE7 is also superb.
I practically inhaled REVII when it came out, beating it on Normal, Madhouse, and then Easy for the speed run using infinite ammo. I'd like to go back for a fourth run, on Madhouse again, this time using the unlocks and looking for bobbleheads.
The new perspective allowed the devs to build suspense by limiting your spatial awareness, similar to the original. It also allowed them to hide items in places you couldn't look before, like under desks and behind cabinets. This accentuates the survival element by making it feel like you're truly scouring your surroundings for resources. There is a similar appeal to ”immersive sims" like BioShock and Deus Ex; it works just as well here in the more structured survival horror of REVII.
So the gameplay was sound. But so were the characters. And this is where Mia comes into play.
While the game's marketing focused on the Baker Family, the cannibal hillbillies holding you hostage — and rightfully so, since they're amazing villains — the best character to come out of REVII may actually be Mia, the main character's wife.
At first I was expecting Mia to be the typical doe-eyed damsel in distress. And indeed, she starts out the game this way. But there are several developments that make Mia a compelling character.
The first shift happens right in the game's prologue chapter, in the guesthouse. You find a switch hidden in the fireplace and open up a secret passage leading to the cellar. Here you find Mia locked in a cell, but of course there must be a catch — otherwise the game would be over in no time!
What I didn't expect was just how outlandish the twist would be.
Mia disappears for a moment, and the next time you see her, she's climbing up the basement stairs on her hands and knees — hair draped in front of her face, breathing heavily, snarling like a beast. It's imagery straight out of ”The Exorcist," ”The Ring," or in recent videogames, The Evil Within (copping liberally from both films).
You're left with no choice but to defend yourself as she throws you through a wall and tries to kill you. The moment I realized I had to hit her with a hatchet, I froze up, unsure what to do. Then I was stunned again when, moments later, Mia returned and pinned me to the wall with a screwdriver through my hand — and then cut off my hand with a chainsaw! Picking up Ethan's hand and looking at it in my inventory was a ”holy crap" moment I haven't had in this series in a long time.
It all culminates in the attic, where you have to fight your chainsaw-wielding wife in close quarters. On Madhouse difficulty, this scene is on par with the village chase in RE4. It's straight-up one of the toughest boss fights in the entire series. On Madhouse, Mia will sprint toward you with extraordinary speed. The key is to block her running attack and then hit her with the hatchet before running away. You'll want distance between you and her so that you can bait her into her running attack; blocking her close-range attack won't stagger her enough for you to counterattack. Also, note she can cut through doors and walls in her pursuit!
This whole scene left me breathless. Mia, the woman you were meant to rescue, was in fact the game's first boss — and one of the scarier monsters in RE history. But Mia's story doesn't end here.
Turns out the mind-control mold that is controlling the Bakers and attempting to control Mia not only bestows superhuman strength, but also regenerative capabilities, as well. Depending on the decisions you make later in the game, you may run into Mia in her monster form again. Either way, Mia survives the first confrontation, allowing us to learn more about her story. And there is much more than meets the eye.
Once you escape the plantation with your wife in tow, your small boat traveling downriver is capsized by an unseen monster in the swamp. You fall into the drink and black out. And when the player comes to, they are no longer controlling Ethan, but his wife Mia. It's now time for HER to rescue HIM.
Sprawling before Mia is the beached shipwreck of an oil tanker. This section of the game is criminally underrated. It's dark... It's harrowing... The suspicious silence at the start inevitably gives way to monsters on the prowl, but they're slow to appear. And with virtually nothing for defense, Mia has to sneak, run, and slam doors behind her. All of this leads to the point where Mia has a flashback to her past.
This flashback is great on multiple levels. First, we get to see the tanker when it was seaworthy, sailing the Gulf of Mexico in the middle of a storm. The corridors are clean; the floors gleam under fluorescent lights. The intrigue is immediate as Mia, brandishing a high-powered assault rife and consulting a special wristwatch, comforts a dying colleague and sets out to find an escaped subject.
As it turns out, we're not only playing as the woman we thought we'd be rescuing; she's also a badass who knows how to handle herself in a firefight. And she's no saint, either.
Everything awful that transpires in REVII is to some degree Mia's fault. She works for an unnamed bioweapons company, as the personal handler of their ridiculously dangerous "E-series" model. As the subject, Eveline, runs across the ship, vomiting up multiple times her body weight in hazardous black mold, Mia must now hunt her down and neutralize her. The black mold has the unfortunate side effect of spawning Molded, which are killing the crew and stand in Mia's way. This is one of those moments in classic RE where the devs are saying, ”Hey, we've resource-starved you all this time — feel free to kill some baddies." In this moment, Mia in REVII goes from Ripley in ”Alien" to Ripley in ”Aliens."
This reversal of power makes Mia a compelling female character. But so does the moral ambiguity. She is capable of heroic actions, but there are shades of grey here — character qualities to admire, but also to question as we realize that Mia is not what she appears, and that her double life may have been hurting not only innocent strangers, but also her husband Ethan.
Mia and Ethan will have a lot to discuss once they get home from their helicopter ride at the end of the game!
So what are your thoughts on the character of Mia and the way Capcom handled each of her shifts throughout the story? What do you think about the characters of REVII in general? Would you like to see more of Mia and Ethan in the future? And where does REVII itself rank for you in the grand pantheon of RE titles?
I'm interested to hear your thoughts... In the meantime, it's back to Mario Kart for me. :-D
(Screenshots below taken on my PS4 Pro; resized to 1080p on abload.de)
Resident Evil is my favorite series in gaming, pound for pound. I've always loved the action titles (RE4-6). I've grown to love the classics, with their fixed camera and tank controls (RE0-3). I love the hybrid approach in the Revelations sub-series. Heck, I even love the light-gun games and Mercenaries 3D. I'm not interested in other spinoffs like Operation Raccoon City and Umbrella Corps, but they don't count in my eyes — even if they do make story contributions.
Overall, the RE series is one of the most consistently enjoyable.
That being said, I had my doubts going into REVII. It was hard to reconcile in my head the idea of an RE game where you didn't see the lead character. A big part of the series' appeal, to me, is the soap opera drama that comes with a recurring cast of attractive and loveably dumb characters. And right from RE1, every character has had a strong visual design. Note how the original cast of Chris, Jill, Barry, Rebecca and Wesker were color-coded like Power Rangers, each with armor and accessories that might seem a bit nonsensical (Jill's shoulder pads!) but make them stand out. RE has a legacy of characters that are — warning: buzzword incoming — iconic. So the idea of playing in first-person perspective, where I couldn't see who I was playing, gave me pause.
So, too, did the idea of dropping the amazing combat and mobility mechanics of RE6. Say what you will about the game's campaign, but RE6 is a spectacular shooter/brawler once you attain some mastery of its mechanics. We still need an RE6-II that puts those mechanics to the service of a well-paced campaign.
But as it turns out, RE7 is also superb.
I practically inhaled REVII when it came out, beating it on Normal, Madhouse, and then Easy for the speed run using infinite ammo. I'd like to go back for a fourth run, on Madhouse again, this time using the unlocks and looking for bobbleheads.
The new perspective allowed the devs to build suspense by limiting your spatial awareness, similar to the original. It also allowed them to hide items in places you couldn't look before, like under desks and behind cabinets. This accentuates the survival element by making it feel like you're truly scouring your surroundings for resources. There is a similar appeal to ”immersive sims" like BioShock and Deus Ex; it works just as well here in the more structured survival horror of REVII.
So the gameplay was sound. But so were the characters. And this is where Mia comes into play.
While the game's marketing focused on the Baker Family, the cannibal hillbillies holding you hostage — and rightfully so, since they're amazing villains — the best character to come out of REVII may actually be Mia, the main character's wife.
At first I was expecting Mia to be the typical doe-eyed damsel in distress. And indeed, she starts out the game this way. But there are several developments that make Mia a compelling character.
The first shift happens right in the game's prologue chapter, in the guesthouse. You find a switch hidden in the fireplace and open up a secret passage leading to the cellar. Here you find Mia locked in a cell, but of course there must be a catch — otherwise the game would be over in no time!
What I didn't expect was just how outlandish the twist would be.
Mia disappears for a moment, and the next time you see her, she's climbing up the basement stairs on her hands and knees — hair draped in front of her face, breathing heavily, snarling like a beast. It's imagery straight out of ”The Exorcist," ”The Ring," or in recent videogames, The Evil Within (copping liberally from both films).
You're left with no choice but to defend yourself as she throws you through a wall and tries to kill you. The moment I realized I had to hit her with a hatchet, I froze up, unsure what to do. Then I was stunned again when, moments later, Mia returned and pinned me to the wall with a screwdriver through my hand — and then cut off my hand with a chainsaw! Picking up Ethan's hand and looking at it in my inventory was a ”holy crap" moment I haven't had in this series in a long time.
It all culminates in the attic, where you have to fight your chainsaw-wielding wife in close quarters. On Madhouse difficulty, this scene is on par with the village chase in RE4. It's straight-up one of the toughest boss fights in the entire series. On Madhouse, Mia will sprint toward you with extraordinary speed. The key is to block her running attack and then hit her with the hatchet before running away. You'll want distance between you and her so that you can bait her into her running attack; blocking her close-range attack won't stagger her enough for you to counterattack. Also, note she can cut through doors and walls in her pursuit!
This whole scene left me breathless. Mia, the woman you were meant to rescue, was in fact the game's first boss — and one of the scarier monsters in RE history. But Mia's story doesn't end here.
Turns out the mind-control mold that is controlling the Bakers and attempting to control Mia not only bestows superhuman strength, but also regenerative capabilities, as well. Depending on the decisions you make later in the game, you may run into Mia in her monster form again. Either way, Mia survives the first confrontation, allowing us to learn more about her story. And there is much more than meets the eye.
Once you escape the plantation with your wife in tow, your small boat traveling downriver is capsized by an unseen monster in the swamp. You fall into the drink and black out. And when the player comes to, they are no longer controlling Ethan, but his wife Mia. It's now time for HER to rescue HIM.
Sprawling before Mia is the beached shipwreck of an oil tanker. This section of the game is criminally underrated. It's dark... It's harrowing... The suspicious silence at the start inevitably gives way to monsters on the prowl, but they're slow to appear. And with virtually nothing for defense, Mia has to sneak, run, and slam doors behind her. All of this leads to the point where Mia has a flashback to her past.
This flashback is great on multiple levels. First, we get to see the tanker when it was seaworthy, sailing the Gulf of Mexico in the middle of a storm. The corridors are clean; the floors gleam under fluorescent lights. The intrigue is immediate as Mia, brandishing a high-powered assault rife and consulting a special wristwatch, comforts a dying colleague and sets out to find an escaped subject.
As it turns out, we're not only playing as the woman we thought we'd be rescuing; she's also a badass who knows how to handle herself in a firefight. And she's no saint, either.
Everything awful that transpires in REVII is to some degree Mia's fault. She works for an unnamed bioweapons company, as the personal handler of their ridiculously dangerous "E-series" model. As the subject, Eveline, runs across the ship, vomiting up multiple times her body weight in hazardous black mold, Mia must now hunt her down and neutralize her. The black mold has the unfortunate side effect of spawning Molded, which are killing the crew and stand in Mia's way. This is one of those moments in classic RE where the devs are saying, ”Hey, we've resource-starved you all this time — feel free to kill some baddies." In this moment, Mia in REVII goes from Ripley in ”Alien" to Ripley in ”Aliens."
This reversal of power makes Mia a compelling female character. But so does the moral ambiguity. She is capable of heroic actions, but there are shades of grey here — character qualities to admire, but also to question as we realize that Mia is not what she appears, and that her double life may have been hurting not only innocent strangers, but also her husband Ethan.
Mia and Ethan will have a lot to discuss once they get home from their helicopter ride at the end of the game!
So what are your thoughts on the character of Mia and the way Capcom handled each of her shifts throughout the story? What do you think about the characters of REVII in general? Would you like to see more of Mia and Ethan in the future? And where does REVII itself rank for you in the grand pantheon of RE titles?
I'm interested to hear your thoughts... In the meantime, it's back to Mario Kart for me. :-D
_/¯
