On the same day as Resident Evil Requiem, the previous two non-remake Resident Evil games are making their way to Switch 2 as native versions this time, not cloud versions. You can read our original reviews of Resident Evil 7 biohazard and Resident Evil Village here, so let's get right into the Ethan Winters duology on Nintendo's latest console.
As these are both the Gold Editions of each game, you're getting all the DLC and goodies ever released for these titles including Not a Hero, End of Zoe, Banned Footage, and various coins for 7, and the full Winters' Expansion (the third person mode, The Mercenaries Additional Orders, and Shadows of Rose) as well as Rose's Street Wolf Outfit for 8. It's a little weird to open up your storage box and find a ton of items already stuffed in there, but it's nice to see everything included.
Along with the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3, Resident Evil 7 biohazard and Resident Evil Village were already available on Switch 1 and 2 as the aforementioned cloud versions. So, how do these native Switch 2 ports compare? Well, for one, they're actually playable for me - I have pretty bad internet and only the earliest cloud version games like Hitman 3 worked before they started adding more games, such as Kingdom Hearts. RE 7 and 8 both target 60 fps in docked and portable modes and, for the most part, they hit that target comfortably. There are a few dips occasionally, and I did encounter a weird, singular stutter that would occur after playing the game for an hour or so, but otherwise they're super stable.
They look pretty good too. You're not going to get the same fidelity as PC or PlayStation 5, for example, and you can certainly see some artifacting in screenshots, but the image in motion is clear and you don't lose too many fancy effects. I have to assume that DLSS or a similar upscaling technology is pulling a lot of weight here, but that's not a bad thing. If it can look and run better than either game does on Steam Deck, I'll certainly take some slight downgrades.
The games also add motion control aiming, which is always a welcome feature. It's disabled by default, so you have to go into the options menu to toggle it on, but once you do you get the comfort of a controller along with a bit more precision similar to a mouse. This only goes into effect when you're aiming, so no need to worry about a scare causing you to jump and move your camera all over the place. There's no option for mouse controls, which is a bit disappointing, but I assume that's because the game wouldn't be able to keep up with how fast you'd be able to move the camera, causing theoretical performance issues.
Despite already owning both of these games' Gold Editions on PC, I'll probably play through them in full here on Switch 2. Well, at least Village - 7 is a bit too scary for me. I simply prefer the option for portability, at least right now, and am more than willing to sacrifice some visual quality or super high framerates for it. Especially if I also don't have to listen to a fan screaming as it tries to cool the console down a bit (I love you, Steam Deck, but you are too dang loud sometimes). These are great ports, and a solid choice whether it's your first time in Ethan Winters' shoes or your fifteenth.
