not a hero saved resident evil 7 for me, i wasn't the biggest fan of 7 when i played it and even now i'm still not that much into it as it's easily my least favourite resident evil game (and i'm including some of the multiplayer games like umbrella corps and outbreak in that) and i still dislike a lot about it like its tone, writing and gameplay, i've calmed down on my dislike now that it's became apparent that its direction is not the future of the series, even village had a third person mode, and i will one day return to give it a replay in VR like it was seemingly intended, but not a hero helped me at least tolerate 7 even during my most dissapointed moments, not a hero felt like a real return to form for the series after how i felt about 7 and i actually really like it, it's still not amazing but it's the best part of 7 by a large degree.

i think the main reason for this is because it wasn't made by the same people, rather than an internal team at capcom it's made by hexadrive, the people behind games like the 3rd birthday, ex troopers and helping out with a ton of final fantasy projects like 15 and type 0 HD. the dlc feels much less dark and edgy than the maingame and feels much more in line in tone with the likes of resident evil 5 and 6 rather than anything in how 7 felt, even when chris is interacting with the villain in the dlc it still feels more resi than anything from the main campaign, the dlc in general is the most resi of anything in 7 with chris's cheesy quips and him outright shooting a computer server to death at one point, it just feels more silly and campy and what i want out of a resident evil game, even lucas who was probably the worst part of the main campaign and many of the other dlcs with his wannabe saw-antics being the low point and just destroying the tone of the campaign with how overly dark and edgy it was, but here he feels more like a silly resi villain with him exchanging quips with chris, it's exactly what i wanted from the main campaign but never really got, a traditional resi adventure. it doesn't have the interesting ost or locals of a usual resi adventure though, you do just get a mine area and a little lab here and while they're cool enough areas, it's nothing amazing and the RE:engine just makes areas seem very bland in this game, i'm not sure how to describe it, the music is pretty good though, it's not the catchiest like a lot of early resi themes or dead aim but it works really well for the vibe and some of them are kind of scary, there's even a battle theme (moulded ambush) that sounds right out of a different games mercs mode, could have used a better ending theme though.

the game part of it is also better i feel, gone is all the stealth of the main campaign, which was easily the worst addition to the game (other than the first person viewpoint which i've never really warmed up to) and replaced with much more direct action similar to the later levls of the campaign, chris has a handgun and a shotgun here, as well as his knife and a punch attack, because its chris, and they all get good use in the hour or so of playtime you have, while it's less variety than the main campaign with the weapons, the length means you won't mind, same with the enemy variety, where in the main campaign fighting the same enemy got boring after the second area, here you really only have that short runtime so it's not so bad and you do fight all the varients of the moulded (though one is new and requires specific ammo to take down, a welcome addition) , plus a boss near the end, the other main gimmick is the fact it's less linier for the most part, you have 3 areas to do from the start and you can go in any order you want, though some will be very difficult to start with, with each you'll also pick up an upgrade that'll make one of the other areas much more managable, it's almost like a metroidvania vibe and it's a unique take on the formula the games already had since now the items you get will directly effect gameplay, rather than just being key items, it's cool and a real defining feature of the mode.

the best part of all this really is that it's free, wholley, while it's annoying that it doesnt come on disc in the resident evil gold edition, it's still a wholley free experiance so if you already own 7 in some form then you have to play it, and while it's hard to say if its worth buying the whole game for like i would say seperate ways is, if you'll be there anyway its a must try experiance especially with its brief 1 hour length, for that price you're more than getting your moneys worth. replaying this did make me feel like giving 7 another shot in VR this time to see if i enjoy it more, but even if i don't i love this mini-campaign, while some of the other DLC is very miss, this, the survival mode and end of zoe were all hits to me and all 3 were better than the main campaign but i felt not a hero was so good that it deserved its own coverage, i really like the changes it made and the different structure it tried, it's a cool little experiment from a different developer that vastly improved the game overall. sadly hexadrive hasn't done much since this game came out and their credits are very difficult to find as places will just list the full credits as "hexadrive" with people credited as just, hexadrive, but they did work on monkey king hero is back (which was also one of the final games by japan studio) as well as the online port of super bomberman R. i hope we see more original projects from them because this shows they have some real talent!