Gadgetory

shinji mikami is a gaming industry veteran and is one of the minds responsible for one of gaming's largest survival horror franchises resident evil well he no longer works for Capcom and resident evil has gone in the direction of an action series mikami has now collaborated with bethesda to bring a new IP that's trying to recapture the classic action horror game the evil within does it live up to the task and bring about that great combination of lack of resources and impending fear of strong enemies well let's take a look first off the game's plot evil within takes place in a modern-day setting though it's hard to place it at any one location as the game constantly shifts you around rather suddenly not because you physically travel a lot but because a ton of trippy shit begins to happen ranging from old villages to insane hospitals ruined cities to abandoned mansions the game covers a number of different popular horror game locales all under an initially very unclear plot the game throws you into the action rather suddenly with little to no introduction for its cast something that is initially bothersome but does get addressed and made up for in the later stages of the game I don't want to go too far into specifics in order to avoid spoilers for a game that is so heavily reliant on secrets and revealed backstory but the main just you need to understand is that a lot of weird stuff is happening and a lot of really crazy looking monsters are out to eat your face now if you played the resident evil series then some of this gameplay is going to look very familiar it's extremely reminiscent of the last resident evil the commie had a hand in Resident Evil for making use of a third person camera focused on the characters back shifting to over the shoulder when aiming your gun gameplay is mostly focused around evading or killing zombie like monsters and other nightmarish creatures while guns are your main option for combat you can also perform really weak melee attacks burn enemies that are knocked to the ground using matches perform a stealth attack that may or may not instantly kill depending on the enemy and make use of a number of different special crossbow bolts that you can craft from parts you find and collect you can try to avoid enemies simply by sneaking by or just by running as fast as you can though in some situations that's just an awful idea because there's some kind of switch you need to activate that does take time to use now monsters aren't the only challenges the game throws at you either the game makes extensive use of a couple different kinds of traps all of which can be disarm and sometimes avoided though the earlier might occasionally require a quick mini game that failing will lead to a bunch of damage taken disarming traps rewards you with parts to create different specialty bolts for your crossbow but leaving them intact can sometimes be in your best interest as enemies may trigger them as well as you get through the game along with picking up a moment items to use you'll also collect green gel that works as a form of experience allowing you to buy passive upgrades that improve your base statistics like health and melee damage upgrade your guns or you're carrying capacity for ammo and other useful items there are also a number of times when progression isn't just as simple as kill some enemies and avoid some traps the game does have a few minor puzzle segments or impossibly difficult enemies that take some strategy to dispatch adding a good bit of variety to keep the core gameplay from feeling too stagnant the game's most consistent form of difficulty mostly comes from how it restrains your resources most enemies are relatively slow and while you can occasionally miss it's not too common the big problem though is that enemies can be rather plentiful at times and even with headshots or stronger weapons it can take a few hits to bring each one down and all of this the fact that melee attacks are pathetic until you practically max the stat and you'll find yourself running skim on supplies pretty often throughout the game I will make note though that this issue mostly exists at the very beginning and end of the game as the midpoint suffers from a little bit of overabundance of supplies the game has a habit of giving you a couple rooms to get a bunch of readings to stock up for an upcoming boss fight or just a new area of enemies plus there are a few items you get during this midsection that are extremely abusable against early on bosses especially the freezing bolt which just makes some bosses completely laughable the very start though does leave you with very few weapon options and late game starts to really bleed you dry of ammo while throwing enemies left and right which is really when the game is at its best one interesting way the game does try to help you with a degree of randomness to is collectible hidden keys that can be found throughout the game which can then be used to unlock lockers that contain healing items ammunition and experience though unless you're using a guide you won't know what you get until you open it sometimes getting just what you need or sighing at the sight of ammo that you're currently maxed on though thankfully the items do stay available until you're able to grab them to be perfectly honest my experience with the evil within was something of a progression while the very very beginning was okay I found myself dislike a lot of the early on content there are a lot of very odd jumps between locations and timing there wasn't very good explanations or destroyed conveyance going on and add on to the fact that very early you get both the shotgun and the agony crossbow making early on opponents just really pathetic making it feel much more like an action game rather than the survival horror genre it was meant to revive but as time went on monsters began to get more diverse and while having a variety of weapons ammo started to come by a little less and less and the story begins to become exceedingly more clear not only explaining but effectively balancing out the games rocky start an introduction the game definitely has its bumps in the road and the overall experience isn't perfect but at the end of the whole thing I found myself having only fond thoughts of the game and in many ways it did recreate much of the classic survival horror action hybrid ranking close to its very clear relative Resident Evil for a single playthrough takes somewhere between 12 and 15 hours of gameplay depending on how much trouble you have with it though it can be considerably less if you're a veteran of the genre or skip a lot of the game's cutscenes if you're the challenge smashing type the game does offer to higher difficulties unlocked after a single playthrough potentially giving you at least a second helping of the game if you're a fan of older school Resident Evil this is a title you simply must check out and even if not and you're just a fan of horror action games in general like dead space then this is still worth the effort it doesn't start off on the right foot but trust me it's worth pushing forward to get to the game stronger latter half well that was my review of the evil within if you guys want to grab a copy for yourselves I do have a link posted down below in the description along with my twitter handle if you guys enjoyed the video as always please make sure to let me know by hitting that thumbs up button and subscribe if you have yet to to stay up to date on all future reviews I'll see you guys soon with more content but until then I'm Kevin kenzan and I'll see you later