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Shinji Mikami’s highly anticipated game The Evil Within has been released for a week now and for the most part it has gotten mixed reactions. Some people were expecting a return to classic survival horror and felt let down. But where do I stand when it comes to The Evil Within? Having beaten the game yesterday, I can finally answer that question.

Introduction: My Thoughts on Classic Survival Horror

This entire section will have no effect on my review score as this is a super opinionated introduction to help understand my thoughts on the Survival Horror genre. It will however, give you an idea on how I viewed this game from the get go.

When the original Resident Evil games were released I was a bit too young to play them. In fact, I didn’t play the original three Resident Evil games until I was in my teens. I thought they were good but I didn’t understand why people thought that the games were legitimately scary. To me, what made the games scary was the lack of proper control that you had with your character compared to other 3D games out at the time. I felt a similar way about Silent Hill though I am one of the people who thinks that Silent Hill was actually more scary than Resident Evil. Regardless of that, I didn’t quite understand why the game was considered “Survival Horror” at the time. Yeah you really had to work on item management skills to survive in the game but I felt, and still feel, that the controls were more terrifying than anything else in the entire game.

So now it’s 2014 and thanks to the modernization and genre change that Resident Evil has experienced after the departure of Shinji Mikami, the original creator of the series, many people are claiming that Survival Horror is dead and none of the games coming out in the modern era are scary at all. So naturally people were pretty excited when Shinji Mikami prepared to release his return game: The Evil Within. Many people were hoping that it was going to be a return to classic survival horror.

It wasn’t. In my opinion, Classic Survival Horror is just that. Classic. The genre has evolved just like the game industry has. However, this doesn’t mean that The Evil Within is bad. In fact, I thought is pretty good.

Plot, Characters, and Creatures

You play as Sebastian Castellanos, a detective for the Krimson City Police Department. Sebastian, or Seb as he’s referred to by many characters, is a troubled man with a past that is uncovered through collectable items throughout the game. Obviously I won’t go into too much detail about it to prevent spoilers but it’s definitely something to note. Sebastian has two partners that join him throughout the game: Joseph Oda and Julie Kidman. Two other major supporting characters are Leslie, a patient from Beacon Mental Hospital, and Dr. Marcelo Jimenez. The last major character is none other than the villain of the game: Ruvik. As it turns out, Ruvik is by far the most interesting character in the game with Leslie coming up as a close second. Seb, Joseph, and Kidman are characters that you’ve seen before. Seb is the veteran badass alcoholic, Joseph is incredibly smart and pays attention to all of the details around him and Kidman is your mysterious character with unknown motives. The last character I’m going to talk about is the nurse that you encounter in the save/upgrade area. Her name is Tatiana and she is by far the most mysterious character in the entire game, at least to me. She serves as a guide to Seb and introduces a lot of the game’s mechanics to him early on.

At the beginning of the game the three major protagonists are in a squad car with another officer responding to a call coming from Beacon Mental Hospital. Upon arriving you notice that there isn’t a single person around. Upon entering the Hospital you uncover a brutal massacre. Bodies and blood are spread out across the entrance hall. It doesn’t take long before Ruvik is introduced and Seb wakes up separated from both of his partners and is suddenly tasked with defeating zombie-like creatures that have suddenly appeared in the world. As the game progresses you uncover the mystery behind Ruvik and his powers and just what exactly has happened to the world that Seb once knew. There will be a special section closer to the end where I talk about the ending in particular. It wouldn’t be quite be a survival horror game without creatures though and this game has plenty of them that are thrown to impede your progress.

I’m only going to talk about three major examples of enemies that you encounter in the game. I don’t want to spoil the fun for everyone. The first enemy I’m going to talk about is the regular enemies that are called The Haunted. At first glance you might think these are zombies and with good reason. They honestly act and sound a lot of like them. Their appearance is and behavior is quite different though. The Haunted are intelligent and have no problem using the weapons they have if it means they’ll be able to defeat you faster. You’ll encounter Haunted that simply grab you and bite you. Some will carry weapons like knives, hatchets, and torches. Defeating those enemies will actually let you pick up the hatchets and torches when are the only powerful melee weapons you get in the game. You also encounter other variations of The Haunted including fat ones that have more health and ones that are invisible.

This review is INCREDIBLY long and surpasses the Blog's Character Limit.

If you want to read the rest of the review, click here.