After finding Resident Evil 7 to be a decent game, I was blown away by the remakes that followed, bridging the gap before the next mainline entry. After establishing a new identity for itself, then showing a masterful understanding of how to bring classic Resident Evil back for modern eyes, I was curious where the series would go from here. To return to Ethan Winters’ story, but throw him into the deep end of a fantasy horror nightmare was something I could have never expected. Resident Evil Village is a wonderful time, and one of my favorite games in the series.
To celebrate the series coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 with Resident Evil Requiem, Capcom has also decided to revisit the modern era with ports of Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil 8. The ports largely meet my base expectations and are a decent way to play these two games on a portable system. They target 60 frames per second, hit a relatively crisp resolution target docked, and have nice little features like gyro aiming. It’s also nice that this is the Gold Edition, so you get all the previously released DLC bundled with it.
Resident Evil Village is a much more ambitious game to port to Switch 2 than Resident Evil 7, so the results being comparable to that game’s Switch 2 port are more impressive in my opinion. Despite both games releasing for PS4, Resident Evil Village always felt to me like it was designed around the new hardware of the PS5. The scale is expanded from a single mansion to an entire village, with each section of it being its own genre of horror game. This game is a horror roller coaster, ramping up the experience considerably compared to the last game. It takes the series into brave new territories in a time when playing it safe probably would have been the smart move.
While Resident Evil 7 has the luxury of being a PS4 game that knows its limitations, Resident Evil Village’s large open environments cause the Switch 2 port to stutter more often than its predecessor’s. Any indoor location ran stable in my experience, with minimal dips from the 60 frames per second target. Anything outdoors dropped much more often. I don’t have exact numbers, but despite not cratering to anything below half rate, it would still often jump inconsistently between what looked like 45 and 60 in certain parts of the town. Docked might hit higher numbers, but the VRR in undocked helps to smooth things out slightly. More than ever, this has me wishing that these RE Engine games could have a 30 frames per second cap mode. Indoor locations, however, did not have these performance issues in my testing.
Performance is honestly my only real problem with this port. I was stunned that all of my nitpicks with the visuals of Resident Evil 7 weren’t really felt here to the same extent. The entire presentation for facial and hair rendering has improved a lot since the previous game, so the default look of Resident Evil Village is already strong before any cutbacks. Dithered hair in the RE Engine trying to run on Switch 2 isn’t too bad because of this, with it being genuinely impressive. Maybe it’s my eyes playing tricks on me, but I thought the resolution was crisp both docked and undocked.
The gyro aim has the same issues I listed in my Resident Evil 7 review, with turning the system being the only way to actually move your camera to the left and right. The rest of the game controls like a dream when played with normal analog stick aiming. The DLC added a third-person mode for the main game in the style of the Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 Remakes. This camera version might not be ideal since it wasn’t how the game was designed, but it’s a fun experiment that can add variety to repeat playthroughs. I just wish it didn’t require you to go all the way to the main menu to change it, and I think letting you do it in the options at any time would have been preferred.
As a video game, Resident Evil Village builds off of what Resident Evil 7 established strongly. The combat has improved a lot, tightening the controls but adding constant threats to keep you stressed while solving puzzles. Weapon upgrades and exploration are better than ever as well, giving you plenty of reason to revisit older areas in a way I never got from Resident Evil 7. The double-edged sword for aiming for variety over all else is losing focus. All the segmented chapters aren’t equal by any means, and some of the best experiences do tend to drag on revisits, the dollhouse being the biggest one to come to mind. Yet despite it all, this is a sacrifice worth making. That variety ultimately helps wonderfully with pacing, keeping Village fresh and unlike any other Resident Evil.
This port to Nintendo Switch 2 is impressive, but it would be wonderful if Capcom could address the performance issues. The village is a crucial hub for your adventures, so I wish it could run at a consistent frame rate. The game is just a bit too ambitious for the Switch 2, but remarkably, it doesn’t sacrifice resolution as much as I expected. This gives me hope for Resident Evil Requiem on Switch 2, and if that can manage to be a good version of the game, I hope Capcom can continue porting the rest of the series to the system. I hope a performance optimization patch smooths out the dips, or Capcom offers dedicated performance and quality modes.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review Copy Provided by Capcom
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