Eternal Evil (PS5) | REVIEW | Budget Priced Resident Evil

Mimicking the gameplay structure of the Resident Evil series while bringing forth a different kind of supernatural threat we find, in Eternal Evil, a vampiric outbreak that has turned the populous into flesh and blood hungry carnivores. As either Hank or Marcus you will set out on two paths to investigate the origins of the phenomenon. This involves Hank starting at a mansion, and Marcus in a forest. In true inspired fashion. With a gun in hand, a knife, and limited inventory space they must unlock puzzle gated access to the items, weapons, and enemies necessary for progress.

Unlike the obvious inspiration, Eternal Evil is a somewhat genre aware game that aims to flip the script with pre-game buffs/nerfs, and some extra content past the main storyline. The story itself is initially hinted at through still comic book panel images with voice-acting, and sound effects tacked on. Beyond this artistic intro it has you first choosing to toggle on or off several different features that can hinder or help. You can turn on limited saves, increase inventory space, turn on a shooter mode that has a machine gun with infinite ammo, and a few other things. This let's the player custom tailor their experience, or go in as the game was intended to be played with no options toggled on. 

When it comes to gameplay it is the usual Resident Evil Formula dependent upon key items being found, and puzzles being solved to progress further into the mansion, or further out of the woods depending on which character you chose to play as. The lore within is built upon through found notes, and journal entries, as one might expect. Gunplay, and inventory management is a different story though. At base level Eternal Evil gives you very limited inventory space, and very limited ammo. The gun, itself, has a red dot laser sight for aiming accuracy, and can be reloaded so long as you have the ammo for it. Making headshots a must, but even this can prove problematic with the jerky animations of the undead. The only thing left when you run out of bullets is a combat knife, and as per usual this is more likely to get you killed than helping you in dealing death.

Progress through each location basically involves searching series of areas or rooms of interest for clues, items, ammo, and weapons. This will require some puzzle solving which can be negated to a degree if you find and use special skulls that give you a free pass for one puzzle per each. Saving progress along the way is a must due to the grueling difficulty and this is done, not by typewriter, but by journals located at various places. Inventory space must also be minded as it is limited, and only allows for the carrying of a handful of items if you don't have the larger inventory modifier turned on.

Outside of the two character specific story paths you can use found in-game currency to unlock weapon skins, and some special content for follow-up playthroughs. Completing the game will effectively unlock a wave based Survival mode, and a Realistic mode that is more or less a Hard setting. In total there are three menus worth of unlockable after-game items, and all of these incentivize completion. Sadly, completing this game without the buffs is easier said than done. I do think the developer made the game too difficult upfront, and this is why they added the game modifiers.

The Presentation ...

Beyond character and creature models the game has some modern visual appeal. It looks closer to one of the Resident Evil remakes than the older ones when it comes to environmental detail. Again, outside of the creature designs. The creature designs, themselves, leave a lot to be desired though and are very poorly crafted, in general. Despite having added gore effects, and slightly realistic movement these zombie-like vampires offer little to nothing to the overall experience. And while their are some more notable monsters among the lesser ones it does nothing to make them look as good as it's set piece counterpart. Even the voice-acting suffers as it is monotone, and dull in performance. There's no real emotion to it, and it does little to help in the sound department.

The Verdict ...

Eternal Evil is an ambitious take on a tried and true survival horror series that it, sadly, fails to resonate with on a meaningful scale. The artificial difficulty, and the answer to that, that is the pre-game modifiers only serves to show developmental shortcomings, and a lack of genre understanding. While it nails the inventory, weapons, key items, and puzzle aspect of it's inspiration the bare bones gunplay, and hard to hit creature targets only makes the progress all the more frustrating. The fact that I died so early on into my playthrough despite being a Resident Evil veteran who completed the original trilogy is a testament of how progress is crippled, artificially. For these reasons I cannot recommend it at the release pricing. It's just not a game Resident Evil or survival horror fans will find inviting.