Yup, spoilers from here on in.
Not sure if anyone else beat the game yet, but I've beaten it twice now, once with a normal playthrough, and the second started out with me going to do all the coins and bobble heads, but changed my mind and did the under 4 hour run of the game. I managed to do it in 3 and 1/2 hours and it wasn't even an ideal run. I was also able to use the Albert during this run which is a great gun combined with enhanced bullets, even if it's only a 3 shot gun, it makes up for it in power. I imagine speed runners are getting this game down to like nearly 2 hours.
While I feel like this is a top notch game, really fantastic, I do have a few nitpicks I'm unsure about, so I'll talk about those.
As much as I like the video tapes, I think they are really stretching how believable they are, running around with a giant VHS recorder. Clancy and Mia's first tapes are fine enough, they are clearly holding cameras, though they screw up by showing Eveline in Mia's tape, which makes no sense as Eveline is a hallucination whenever she is seen in the game other than Mia's second tape. The second time though, clearly they aren't holding cameras. Sure, it's a game, but they are trying to make things relatively believable and when I realized it, it kinda bugged me. There could possibly be an excuse that Mia's time in the past could not actually be a tape, but Eveline just giving her memories back, but still relies on a tape with information related to her.
I actually had an issue with Lucas being unresolved, but stupidly I only really now realized that the bit where Umbrella and Chris would be explained in that free chapter coming, that Lucas and Zoe could be resolved in that chapter also. I was initially annoyed that it would be a cliffhanger or possible paid DLC conclusion, but clearly we'll deal with them there. My guess is that this chapter was initially meant to be something unlocked after you beat the game, but due to deadlines, they needed more time, so cut it, that way they could get another month or so of development to finish up. I'm alright, cause it's clearly extra and it doesn't hurt the main game at all, unlike Final Fantasy XV.
My other issue is the ending. That boss fight is real weak. Cool looking, but it is very lackluster compared to the other boss fights we had. It's very modern RE, but I feel like they could've done something more engaging. The boss has a lot of scripted elements and it takes abit to learn them since only certain parts matter if you shoot and others don't. Made for a couple real dumb deaths.
One other minor thing would be that enemy variety is minimal. I'm glad it wasn't just zombies, but 4 types of mold guys and the Bakers is very low in variety, especially when the last third of the game introduces nothing new. I mean why didn't we get like a moldgator? That would've been awesome. It's not a bad thing, because this game is meant to be kind of a scaled down reset for the series, but it would've been nice to have more molded variety. I feel like it's open for more possibilities.
Otherwise, I really love the game. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of creepy horror games, like I love zombie games and things with good atmosphere like Metro 2033, but I don't play hardly any horror games and I'm glad I played this though. It's creepy, it's scary, it's regularly unsettling. Can't say that about any other RE game.
Next I plan to playthrough to collect everything. I highly recommend you to do it on your third try. First beat the game on normal, then do the under 4 hour run. Doing that, it gets you a defense item and you get both a new and stronger melee weapon, but X-Ray Glasses, which is a permanent psychostimulant. Then if you want to have a real tough time, do Madhouse. I might try it, but I'm not one for crazy hard difficulties, though from what I understand, the difficulty comes from rearranged items, lower ammo, and that now you have to use tapes to save, like with the old games.
*EDIT*
Figured I'd start into my Madhouse run. Normally I hate frustrating difficulties, but I figure with the circular saw, albert pistol, and two defense items, I might be able to get through. Took me an hour and 15 minutes to get to the item box. Died nearly 10 times trying to get past the Mia chainsaw fight. It's a much more terrifying fight, where she takes much more hits, you will run out of ammo unless you have 100% headshot accuracy, and she only has to hit you like twice, even guarding, to kill you. I can only imagine how a few of the fights are going to go.
Also got the X-Ray Specs, so I'm gonna use those to try and 100% the game for collectibles. There's way more coins to find in the game on Madhouse difficulty.
