So I played and beat Resident Evil 7 this weekend, and I want to pass along some impressions specfically geared to those who played and disliked the demo.

When I played the demo, I was uneasy, anxious, at times terrified. However, I thought it all too similar to games like Outlast and Amnesia. I felt like Capcom was overcompensating for the high-octane action in Resident Evils 4-6. And, indeed, the first hour of RE7 plays very much like those aforementioned first-person horror games. The hero Ethan is essentially helpless and must sneak around to survive. It was an OK experience but other games have done this kind of thing better. 

About an hour into the game, things open up. Ethan finds weapons, ammo (not much of it), herbs, and other items to keep him alive. The game introduces puzzles and hidden items. There's combat. There are boss encounters. There's item crafting. Gradually I realized that Resident Evil 7 is very much a love letter to the original Resident Evil, only set in a first-person perspective.

So, if you crave the old-school RE experience, don't let the first hour of Resident Evil 7 fool you. There are about 11 more hours of pure RE goodness after that

tl;dr version: after the first hour, RE7 turns into the old-school survival-horror action-adventure we know and love.

I honestly miss the action. Still a great game though.

Thats a rather narrow view of it in my opinion.While I also miss the good old zombie, RE is not defined by it, but rather the survival elements and the horror, combined with the exploration and light puzzles that the first RE introduced.I barrly began playing, but so far I am really enjoying it!Its been a loopoong ehile since I last enjoyed a horror game this much.

I really need to play this game as soon as I can. I keep getting spoiled up, down, left and right everytime I venture on the Internet. :(

glad to hear you liked it. i however hate horror games so this i my queue to not play it. xD

is there coop? i enjoyed playing 5 in coop.

People over-exaggerate how bad 5 & 6 really were. Still, the Revelations series already had the focus back on horror.

Isn't this new RE an First Person Shooter? How can this be called "returning to its roots"? The original games played much like Onimusha and had a camera view similar to Devil May Cry. I've never been a big fan of the series but when I realized it's just another FPS I decided to skip it all together.

The hide and seek parts are, thankfully, few and far between. Some of the "dumber" enemies can't open doors so you'll be safe in certain rooms. Backtracking and exploration are a big part of RE7, and you will definitely be able to do so without constant fear of interruption.

Haven't played the game, but considering how the trailers of the game seems to make it, he just "teleports" for the next chase scenario, and the previous areas become safe.

There aren't that many chases or mandatory hiding sequences. It's not too hard to escape once you know the layout, and they won't follow you into a save room no matter what. As Veknoid said, doors also stop the zombie looking things. Standard molded are pretty much the same as zombies. If you want to fight a bunch of them, make a lot of noise in the basement ;) There's more action later on as well.

Once you clear the boss in an area you have all the time to explore in safety, and normal enemies don't come back.

It's even more old school on madhouse difficulty. Hardly any checkpoints, limited saves, no health regen, fewer resources, 2 hit death at the start. Thankfully the max health increasing steroids are still there. On normal you can still beat the chase characters (although they keep coming back until the boss fight) yet on madhouse you don't want to take the chance or waste any ammo on that. Hhidin/running is for once a lot more efficient.