Varlinety’s EXP: The Evil Within

Hello everybody, and welcome to another rendition of Varlinety’s Extra Perspective!

So, the spooky/spoopy time of October is here. And as such, everyone’s picked up a horror game, (or horror themed games) especially with the release of The Evil Within 2. Meanwhile, I’m over here and I’ve only picked up the first game now.

I was never really interested in the game when it first came out. I never really saw much of the game, and it seemed really uninteresting.

Fast forward about 3 years later, to where a video came out about the game. The video was made by Nitro Rad, who makes some really damn good content.

But, moving on, the video crossed with figuring out the director was Shinji Mikami, one of my favorite game directors, was enough to make me get the game. Especially since it’s extremely cheap nowadays.

So, why don’t we see how it turned out? As a quick note, I played the game on PS4. With all that said, let’s begin.

:small_orange_diamond: Story :small_orange_diamond:

You play as Detective Sebastian Castellanos, responding to a call about massacre at the Beacon Mental Hospital, along with his partner, Joesph Oda, and a rook they were assigned, Juli Kidman.

When they get there, it’s as they described. Dead bodies and blood everywhere. Joseph finds a singular survivor, a doctor named Marcelo Jimenez.

Seb checks the cameras and see some cops firing at a strange hooded guy, until he teleports up to them and kills them, somehow. The guy looks up at the camera, staring at it.

All of the sudden, he teleports behind Sebastian. The next thing Seb knows, he’s hanging in some sort of slaughterhouse, and has to escape, find his partners, and figure what exactly is even happening.

I will say, the game has an amazing hook. It doesn’t waste anytime getting into the game, and that’s pretty respectable in my book, not to say that long beginnings are necessarily a bad thing.

And, I will say, the game has a surprisingly complex story. Whether you think it’s good is pretty subjective, but I personally thought the story was fine.

However, there’s a pretty big problem with it. The fact that important plot details and parts that are crucial to understanding the plot is in DLC.

This is blatantly anti-consumerism, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Bethesda forced them to split off parts of the story for DLC. But, oh well. At least that nowadays it’s dirt cheap and you can pick up all of it for 10 dollars.

I have finished the DLC, so I can talk about the story as a whole, which is pretty alright. But from what you see in the main game, I’d say it’s good, even if it is pretty needlessly confusing at times.

Although, one complaint I can immediately think of is that the characters are pretty bland. Sebastian is your usual gruff cop with a drinking problem, that’s almost the same as almost any other cop in media. I was way more interested in Joseph and Kidman.

So, in conclusion, the story overall is alright.

:small_red_triangle: Presentation :small_red_triangle:

Welp, this is gonna be an interesting segment to say the least.

Before we get to that, (and I'm sure you know what "that" is) let's just get through the basic stuff.

Visually, I'd say the game looks fine. It all has a film grain filter applied to it. It doesn't really make anything look better, or worse really. It's just kinda there, so there's no worry about it detracting from how the game looks.

I especially have to talk about the atmoshpere and environments. They are all really damn good, and is gonna be most of the source of fear in this game

That, and the soundtrack is pretty good too. But not in the way you'd expect. It kinda goes the Silent Hill 1 route of music. Where, mainly, most of it is undistinguishable sounds that's creepy as all hell. This with the atmosphere makes it great for something for a horror game, and it did a great job of instilling me with fear.

Although, I have to give a special mention to the loading screens. I don’t know how they did, but they were able to keep the tension up, even while you wait for it to reload your last checkpoint.

Moving on, there's a bit of a problem with the frame rate. Normally, it runs fine. However, it can sometimes really slow down. It happened mainly in the earliest chapters, but after that it was mostly fine. It's still worth noting though.

However, now for the most interesting part.

The letterbox.

For those who don't know, the game tries to make itself more, "cinematic," by giving itself letterboxes like any other movie. I hearing Shinji Mikami say it was added for a more claustrophobic feeling.

Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't I don't know, as I didn't wanna risk it and just turned it off in the settings. However, I heard that back then, when the game first came out, letterboxes permanently stayed on.

Furthermore, I heard that it simply just wasn't enough of the screen to work with. I can't imagine how annoying it must've been trying to play this game back then if you hated the letterboxing.

At least they eventually learned to put the option to turn it off in the settings. So at the very least, they fixed it, even if everyone already played the game by the time they did.

So, to sum it all up, nowadays, although the game has a few optimization issues, at least on PS4, the presentation is solid. And, if the letterboxes ruined the deal back then, it's not a problem now. So overall, it's solid.

:small_blue_diamond: Gameplay :small_blue_diamond:

Personally, I’d say that this is the Dark Souls of survival horror.

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I’m kidding. Who could possibly in their right mind unironically compare two games that aren’t even the same genre?

Game journalism is so shit now.

Anyways, dumb joke aside, the best way I’d actually describe it, is if RE4 has more horror and survival elements.

Throughout the game, you’ll be scavenging for ammo and supplies, and taking on enemies, all while not wasting said provisions.

One thing I do love is that you’re going to need to use everything and anything you an find if you want to get out ok. Especially if you play on the game’s recommended difficulty of survival.

However, I find it kind of dumb that I can’t pick the hardest difficulty immediately. Like, I understand not letting me pick Akumu mode immediately, (that’s the mode where you die in one hit for anyone wondering.) but at least let me pick Nightmare mode.

I will say, the gunplay in this feels great. Everything feels especially satisfying to use. Like, it’s all got a good kick to it, that helps you really get into it.

Hell, it’s actually pretty difficult to aim at times, thanks to sway and accuracy stuff. But, it really helps improve the gunplay, in my opinion. Gotta make your shots count.

Moving on, one thing I do like is the match system. In the game, you can pick up matches, and if you don’t feel like using more ammo than necessary for taking out a foe, than you can knock them down and drop a match on them.

However, the cool thing is that it also spreads to any enemy and will kill them instantly if there close enough to the body being burned.

For instance, perhaps there’s about 4 guys chasing you, but there’s a dead body up near you. You can run up, wait for them to run over, time it just right for when they’re near the body, and burn it. Now look at that, you just took out 4 guys with one match.

Or, maybe, there isn’t a body in front of you, well, if one’s a bit further than the others, you can shoot it’s leg while it’s running to make it fall down, and burn it. Or, if you feel like it, you can just use a shotgun shell and knock them all down near each other, and light a match.

There’s a lot you can do with it, and it’s pretty satisfying just lighting one in the first place, thanks to the sound of it. But that’s not all that separates the combat from everything else.

Mainly, because the Agony Crossbow exists. This thing is a ton of fun to mess around with. What it is, is that it’s a crossbow with a variety of different bolts to use at your leisure.

There’s normal bolts, that do a ton of damage, but there’s also Shock, Freeze, Flash, Explosive, Toxic, and Flaming bolts to choose from.

You’re able to craft these bolts by just sort of finding supplies from disarmed traps or scattered around the map. Well, I say crafting, but it’s more like buying them with the parts. You just kinda go into the inventory, pick what you wanna make and than your back in the game.

Although, I’m not sure if this should be counted as a point for or against the game. The fact that some bolts are completely missable. I played through the entire game never knowing that toxic and flaming bolts existed. Hell, I still can’t find them after a second playthrough.

On one hand, it’s good, because it requires you to search every nook and cranny if you don’t wanna miss good stuff. But, on the other hand, if you miss it, then that’s it. You’re not getting it on that playthrough.

Really, I’m not sure whether that’s a good or bad thing, so I’ll just mention it and let you decide.

Finally, there’s the upgrade system. Throughout the game you can find this sorta green juice scattered everywhere. You can then use it for upgrades in the save room.

You can improve just about anything, from crossbow bolts, to your inventory, to weapons, and even crit chances.

There’s a lot of options, but if I had a critique, is that none of them really give you new abilities. Just better numbers. I mean, it’s still satisfying, but I think at least a few new abilities could’ve been obtained through upgrades.

Little tip, by the way, upgrade the sprint meter to at least 6 seconds. Because you can run for literally 3 seconds until you run out of breath.

Now then, there’s a bit of a problem with what the game wants to do. Mainly, the game isn’t very scary.

Don’t get me wrong, the tension that’s built from the atmosphere is great. But, it never really follows up on the tension created. There are a few moments here and there that definitely have a bit of fear factor, but it’s not very often, and that’s a shame.

For this reason, I like to call it a horror-themed game. You know, like, it’s got elements of horror, but it’s not necessarily a horror game. Now something like P.T., that’s a horror game.

Then again, I can say there was more tension here than in RE4, so that’s something.

:black_small_square: Verdict :black_small_square:

I'd say The Evil Within is an interesting return to RE4 styled survival horror. I guess that's to be expected from Shinji though.

So, I guess to conclude, I'd say this game's great. If you're a fan of survival horror, you might as well give it a try. As I said before, the game's dirt cheap.

Just, don’t go in expecting something extremely scary.

Now then, I’m gonna get to work on some stuff. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, as I’m sure you’re aware.

キャッスルオブリビオンでお会いしましょう。

-Varlinety

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Hey... it’s been too long.

So, I don’t have too much to share, other than I’m lazy and really bad at staying consistent.

But, I wanted to say that I’m officially apart of the #GamingNetwork. Really, this shouldn’t change too much other than me occasionally appearing in a collab.

Anyways, aside from that, I think that’s all. See you all next time.