Expanding the Village
Resident Evil Village took a lot of what Capcom did right with the previous entry and made it bigger and more robust. So when they announced a DLC expansion was coming to the game I was intrigued. Shadow of Rose brings a new adventure to expand upon the story of Village while also including a new perspective on the original game and even a chance to play as everyone’s favorite vampire lady all wrapped up in a neat package. While the expansion is brief and retreads a lot of old ground, it is still worth a look for hardcore fans.
Shadow of Rose picks up 16 years after the events of Village. Rose has grown up without her father Ethan and is struggling with her gifts. I don’t want to use more descriptive words in case there are people coming into these games fresh. Play Village, it is awesome. A friend knows about her struggles with these powers and finds a solution by injecting her consciousness into a chunk of Megamycete. Yeah these games go places, and Shadow of Rose is no exception.
MSRP: $19.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $19.99
The story is brief, but powerful. This is one of the most emotional stories told in this universe and definitely worth checking out for those wanting to expand upon Ethan and Rose and their family mess. The campaign clocks in at around three hours so it won’t eat up a bunch of time.
Sadly the brief run time is not the DLCs biggest issue. First off the game recycles a lot of the assets from the original game. Expect to see a lot of the same areas as well as enemies. There are new encounters, including one that rivals the scariest parts of Village, but a lot of this will feel familiar. The game also focuses a bit much on stealth sections, including insta-death sequences that truly need to die in gaming. Nothing is more frustrating than making one small mistake and having to start all over. It is right up there with escort missions as the worst mechanics developers keep adding in.
Combat in this DLC is minimal. Instead, Rose focuses her attacks with her abilities. Taking in energy and releasing blasts on enemies. However, this makes up a small part of the overall game. Instead of collecting ammo and such, the game focuses more on stealth, puzzles, and chase sequences. It is a nice change of pace, but if it was longer than three hours it would certainly get old. Thankfully the brevity actually works to the game’s advantage here.
The new third person perspective is actually really well done. It takes me back to classic Resident Evil. I was also happy to return to the original game in the new perspective. This really feels like a different game in third person. Still cannot get a good look at Ethan’s face, but that is by design. The new mercenaries mode additions are also neat, but still not capturing my attention. Even playing as the villains from Village isn’t all that interesting. I wish I liked this mode more.
Shadow of Rose is a neat package with a solid campaign as well as new features for the original game. At $20 this is a solid pick-up. It was great revisiting the main game and the new content really fleshes out Rose’s role in this whole universe.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
