Resident Evil is an impressive series, pulling new fantastic entries out of nowhere and successfully rebooting itself multiple times. Resident Evil Village, which was the culmination of the Winter’s saga, is available as a “Cloud Version” on the original Nintendo Switch, but Capcom has now ported it properly to Nintendo Switch 2, leveraging the work they put in to make the port of Resident Evil Requiem. Can it stand on its own two “hands” though?
Ethan’s story originally landed in 2021 on PS4/5, Xbox and PC. It was critically acclaimed for its uniquely Resident Evil design. Village somewhat shadows Resident Evil 4‘s bonkers set pieces and string of antagonists. Heck, even its European setting, though this time in an Eastern country reminiscent of Romania. Join Ethan as he chases down his baby, Rose, from the clutches of Mother Miranda and her cabal of freaky antagonists. After witnessing the murder of his wife Mia by returning character Chris Redfield, Ethan is set on a path of hand-based torture and crazy locations. He wakes up next to an overturned van, bodies lie around him. Picking himself up, he wanders through the dark woods, encountering murderous werewolf-like creatures and ending up in the titular Village.
What follows is a very well-structured, though fairly incongruous set of levels, each reflecting the realm and story of the antagonist he faces in that quarter. Dimitrescu, the tallest lady in the realm, is the most well-known with her massive castle and her three daughters. Her segment is decently long and interesting, with some amazing rooms to explore; the wine/blood-filled basement a particular highlight. Overall, these antagonists are the lifeblood in Village; in fact, they are all written fairly well, though some of it is just in notes. Mother Miranda herself is also excellent and weirdly tragic. This continues Resident Evil‘s new writing style that gives characters a bit of depth and is not scared to amp up emotions where necessary. It’s a fantastic story that deserves the attention it gets.
This port is a complete package, featuring all the DLC and added extras the Gold Edition brought to other platforms. The entire campaign be played in third-person, for example, though for first timers it is recommended to use first-person to amp up the horror and preserve the original vision of the title. This version supports all the usual Switch 2 features resulting in a decent experience, although there is no use of the system’s new mouse mode here.
While it looks amazing, with all the expected bells and whistles (except for the ray tracing of course), it does occasionally lag. The amount of detail and the fact the Switch 2 is pushing to look as clear as possible via its DLSS implementation means it just can’t hold the framerate at 60fps. When it does though, the experience is fantastic and this far outstrips the previously available Cloud Version. In general this is a great to play with little input lag when aiming and shooting, leaving its combat satisfying and the moment to moment movement feeling fresh. It does struggle a bit when trying to pick stuff up in the environment as though the reticule or the hit boxes on the items are too small, meaning picking things up can be fiddly every now and then.
Audio is also standout, and unlike some previous gen ports, not compressed. Here is a perfectly excellent surround sound setup, even making use of the subwoofer, something that first party Nintendo titles often neglect. The acting in Village is great and really elevates Ethan’s character.
Outside of this, there are loads of things to collect and as Nintendo doesn’t offer an achievement system this game does. Completing challenges, and generally making progress unlocks these challenges that then give you spendable points for unlockables both as the adventure is ongoing and after completion. In fact this is a fairly content dense product, especially with the expansion material bundled in, yet it splits itself up into handy handheld chunks.
The only downside really is that this is only available physically as a Game-Key Card, meaning true physical ownership isn’t possible. This is true of all of Capcom’s Switch 2 ports so far, and is a shame as this is a stellar game. For a review of the DLC check out Cubed3’s review of Winters’ Expansion on Xbox as it’s exactly the same as the one here.
