Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose, the review of the expansion dedicated to Ethan’s daughter

Capcom has certainly managed to tell a different story than usual with the Ethan Winters saga, to which the last two chapters of Resident Evil have been dedicated. Thanks to the introduction of the first-person view and an approach often tending to passive survival horror, that is, those in which the protagonist is a normal person who reacts to the horror by running away and hiding instead of fighting, the Osaka house has been able to renew a series that on the narrative front had not been able to express anything new for some time.

If you have completed Resident Evil Village (warning: if you have not, better don’t keep reading) you’ll know how Ethan’s story ends. After the credits, however, there is an ending set several years after those events, with Rose now a teenager: at that moment we discover that the girl has special powers and that Chris Redfield sometimes uses her help for some missions .

Well, how did we get to this point? We tell you about it in the Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose reviewthe long-awaited expansion of Capcom’s survival horror included in the Winters’ Expansion package along with the third-person view for the base game and new characters for the Mercenaries mode.

Story: I don’t want to be a monster

Rose Winters is endowed with special powers, we said: she obtained them during her stay in the Village because of the “ritual” to which Miranda subjected her, but they did not improve her life, on the contrary. Marginalized by classmates due to the visual manifestations of these abilities, which color her skin with white patches, the girl finds herself alone and desperately looking for a way to get rid of what she considers a curse.

Well, it seems that a solution exists: a man explains to Rose that by using his powers near a megamycete champion he can access some sort of dream dimension based on the consciousness of people linked to the mysterious mold and there to find out where is a crystal capable of absorbing the substances present in her body, making her a normal girl.

Setting: return to the Village

Coming into contact with the fragment, Rose finds herself projected into a world built on the basis of Miranda’s memories … and beyond. There are mainly two settings that we can visit in the Shadows of Rose expansion, namely Dimitrescu Castle and Casa Beneviento, with a short excursion through the streets of the Village: a choice that is anything but random, if we consider that these are the most fascinating and inspired locations of the last episode by Resident Evil.

Of course, there are no new scenarios and this is a bit annoying; but it is a lack that is narratively justified (the adventure locations can only be those actually visited by certain characters) and that in the end does not detract from the value of this DLC, especially considering the affordable price of the Winters’ Expansion and the ‘inclusion of a couple of extra content in addition to the Shadows or Rose campaign.

In the world rebuilt by the megamicete the Duke presents himself as a mocking and cruel enemy rather than as a neutral and even benevolent figure: with his face covered by a mask, the corpulent merchant will try in every way to kill Rose (and her numerous “shadows”) unleashing the power of the megamycete and evoking aberrant creatures, born from the reddish slime that covers much of the scenery.

The latter arises in the early stages of the story as an insurmountable obstacle, but the appearance of a sort of guardian angel will allow the protagonist to use her powers to transform the sewage into ashes and open the way to new areas, as well as resolve in such a way. way some of the environmental puzzles that enrich the expansion’s brief campaign, whose duration settles on three hours.

Gameplay: Third person again

Taking advantage of the new option that allows you to replay Resident Evil Village using a third person view instead of the first one, Shadows of Rose immediately adopts this solution, traditional for the Capcom series, although some technical details (see the fact that the doors open by pushing them, without a specific animation of the hand turning the handle) leave a little to be desired.

The movement of the character resumes in some ways the typical canons of the brand and its woodiness, referring however to the dynamism of the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3. The “presence” gradually provides Rose with different weapons to be able to defend herself from enemies ( pistol, rifle, grenades), as well as substances that amplify i powers of the girl and add to his repertoire a sort of Dead Space “stasis” with which to slow down the movement of the opponents before riddling them with shots in the most sensitive areas.

The mix of escape, combat and puzzles works well, albeit with a view to a rather short experience, but the developers have also given up the whim of experimenting with new mechanics in the section set at Casa Beneviento, which starts by mimicking what happened to Ethan in the Resident Evil Village campaign (included some successful jumpscare) to then propose sequences stealth exciting in a nightmare made of killer dolls and creepy mannequins.

There is no shortage of interesting ones either boss fight: some traditional and more demanding, others original but a little inconsistent; including a final battle well constructed also on a narrative level, which opens the doors to what in theory should be the definitive conclusion of the adventures of the Winters family.

Technical realization: teenage nightmares

Having the possibility of starting from already very solid foundations, those that constitute the technical and artistic foundations of Resident Evil Village, Shadows of Rose does not even have to commit too much to deliver us a visually solid and well done experienceThe videos are excellent and the model of the protagonist is really well done, thanks to the sophisticated technologies implemented by Capcom for some years.

Returning to the rooms of the Dimitrescu Castle and among the corridors of Casa Beneviento, as mentioned with a brief parenthesis in the Village, will only please the many players who have enjoyed the last chapter of the franchise, but who will inevitably notice the lack of scenarios. unpublished: a justified choice on a narrative level, we have already explained it, but the data remains.

On PS5 the expansion graphics run smoothly a 60 fps, without noticing particular uncertainties, and the level of detail is always kept very high. The design of the creatures that emerge from the slime clearly cannot boast the character of the gothic monsters of the base game, but from this point of view the sections with dolls and mannequins make up for it.

Finally, as regards the audio sector, the soundtrack manages to accompany the action on the screen very effectively, adding depth and involvement to the various sequences. Excellent dubbing in Italianwith a great Riccardo Peroni who takes pleasure in playing the bad guy again, and a capital performance also by Valentina Pallavicino.