Overall it was pretty good - had some good things, had some questionable things.
The best thing is visual design and aesthetic. Sound, including voice-over and music, was pretty cool.
The okay thing is combat. I liked it overall, but I'd prefer having more options for melee interaction. Current implementation feels a bit repetitive - your only option is basically just kiting. It is ok, but having more variety would've been better.
Inventory management felt a bit redundant. The reason it made sense in, say, first RE - is because there you couldn't truly clear the environment, so the trip to the safe room had some cost to it. It was an active decision - you may gain some, you may loose some. Here you may fully clear the root - so the cost of going back is just time, which feels like a waste.
Writing generally was okay, I was paying attention to the most of the notes / logs / etc I was finding. Though the amount of these things kinda felt a bit excessive. But overall it was interesting to figure out the story.
The biggest failure for me - is hiding true ending behind NG+ without altering the bits of the story.
Like Silent Hill F showed how to do it - if you want to build NG+ as a second loop into your narrative - like it is a different events within universe - you gotta change gameplay and how the story unfolds.
Here, after the first run you get two options in the end - one of them clearly is "repeat the cycle" - and the second one looks like "break the cycle" - but it is a bad break. But like at that point the correct solution is rather clear - and it doesn't make narrative sense to not have it right there. Repetition is not justified narratively. And mechanically - it is play the game again exactly how it was the first time to watch a different two minutes cutscene in the end. And again, after the first run you already have a pretty decent understanding of what it should be about.
And it is a running theme with the "bad" design decisions in the game - they implement things that don't add to experience but rather feel like a waste of time.
It goes for inventory management, it goes for hiding ending behind NG+, and I can mumble about smaller ones for quiet some time. I wouldn't dwell on it longer, but I'd oblige myself and say one more thing on the topic.
You have a tool called torch - it burns enemies around you stunning them - and it is also used for clearing some debris blocking the passage. It takes consumable to use, but every safe room has dispenser that gives one for free any amount of times.
But you can also craft it from materials outside the base if you'd like to.
And you may buy an upgrade that will allow you to carry two torch consumables and you'll be able to craft two charges from the same amount of materials.
Sounds fine.
The only problem with it - you can't take the second charge from a dispenser in a safe room, it gives you only one and only if you have none.
You can have two on you - only if you found it in a crate outside the safe room or crafted it .
But like why? It is free and unlimited already.
It is a very minor and irrelevant thing. But the moment you realise it - it feels so incredibly petty by the devs.
