Chapters 4 and 5 today? Let’s try. There’s a LOT here.
The Terminally-Kidnapped Girl
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IT'S HOT IN HERE! Why does a castle in the modern age
need a foundry?
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The last piece of the chimera insignia is at the end of a foundry over lava, accessible through a cart. I’ve stopped wondering what isn’t in Salazar's castle. The insignia is placed and the blocking columns goes away; Leon and Ashley access a second cart, taking them to yet another building. More exploration ensues, including areas where Leon can partake in “shooting range”-style minigames to earn bottle caps. Mostly bragging rights rewards. There's 5 of those and they’re alright, but I was focused on finishing the plot for these articles.
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You can't even do anything with the bottle caps afterwards.
Can't even sell them! |
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Good thing those armors are old and break with just a few
bullets, huh? |
Further down, the two encounter more suits of armor possessed with parasites, some of which animate and attack. This is the only section where this enemy appears properly, by the way.. One thing I noticed while watching the longplay I use for screenshots is that when you know what’s coming, you can easily tell Ashley to stay somewhere safe while Leon deals with approaching threats. However, when you don’t know, she’s by your side as you destroy various horrors, and she becomes another variable in the fight. Her smaller health bar makes her a prime target.
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Ah yes, the classic difficulty spike of "Just throw more
tough enemies at the hero". |
More traps around the castle, like a falling ceiling that can be stopped by shooting at four red lights. And what about that giant drill taking up a hallway? One tower contains a giant Novistador nest. As she ventures through that room alongside Leon, Ashley gets taken (again!!) by one of those flying insects. We chase her captors through a tower with a giant mechanism, over a long bridge, and into another castle area where we fight TWO Garradors. This game has a pattern with major mooks; introduce them in a fight with just one, have a second battle with another on harder terrain (like a small cage, or a tight ravine), and later, pit Leon against two of them.
In the next room, Leon finds Ashley surrounded by guards, with Salazar smirking. When he runs to rescue her, the villain triggers a trap that sends Leon down a chute. He hooks himself to the walls to make sure he doesn’t fall onto the bed of spikes at the bottom, then descends slowly. Doesn’t matter how deep we are, there’ll be a merchant nearby selling his wares.
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| Freeze, mister! |
This underground area starts in the sewers. On his way to reactivate an elevator, Leon encounters Verdugo, Salazar’s right hand and a powerful Plaga bearer. It's a tough fight, though you can often knock over tanks of liquid nitrogen to freeze it in place and shoot it repeatedly. You can either attempt to survive long enough to kill it (this takes a while), or dodge its attacks until the slooooow elevator shows up. It’s satisfying to see Verdugo shatter, though.
Settling The Score With Salazar
Before the next part, we see Saddler talk to some soldier guy, telling him to take “the girl” away and dispose of Leon. Hmm...
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In the longplay I use for screenshots, Leon bought a
rocket launcher just to insta-kill one of these two freaks. |
The elevator leads to the mines where Las Plagas was first found and secretly kept – thus, it’s packed with Ganados working the place and attacking intruders. In there, Leon enters a small room over hot lava, with a trapdoor and a mechanism to open it; and he’ll need it, because he fights two El Gigante in this damn room. What was I saying, earlier? Rule of Two? Yeah, you can dispatch one in the lava, but you’ll still need to beat the other one normally.
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| Gotta set up a bug zapper, or spray some OFF... |
After a long walk and a fight against swarms of Novistadors, we resurface away from the castle, with a giant tower in the distance. Following some ancient ruins, Leon enters a stage in mine carts, some of the most fun I’ve had in the game; it wasn’t easy, but it was enjoyable. I could often kill enemies before they jumped in the carts. And when they managed to, there was a fighting chance. It was a tricky part due to the occasional QTEs, but it was a lot of fun.
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| Suddenly, we've become an on-rail shooter. Eh? ....Eeeeh? |
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Despite the horrific imagery, Resident Evil prided itself on
its pulp, slightly silly tone, and you can't get sillier than
getting chased y a giant statue in a zombie game. |
With that, back in the castle, Leon finds a hall housing a giant clockwork statue of Ramón Salazar. After the zealots have been defeated and the path has been properly opened, Leon is literally chased by this towering fucking thing that keeps knocking columns in his way. Again: Lots of QTEs, so you better pay attention! You fail just one of these, and it’s instant death. Good thing the game is lenient with checkpoints. Leon barely makes it past a bridge that collapses under the weight of the statue, and enters the final tower.
In there, he is greeted by the despicable Salazar. Leon gets to wipe that smug grin off his face by throwing his knife at the asshole’s hand. So satisfying to see him run away crying like a coward after the shit he’s put us through. Salazar hides on the top floor, and we’ll have more zealots to kill on the way. Getting used to this by now.
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Well, at least Salazar looks scary this time.
He won't be as easy to punt anymore. |
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| The eye imagery in this game, I swear. |
When Leon arrives at the very top, he finds Salazar awaiting with his second Verdugo. The asshole claims that Ashley was indoctrinated into the cult minutes prior, and is being taken to an island lab. Since everything else failed, the castellan will deal with Leon… by merging himself and his guard into the Queen Plaga, the giant creature right behind them. Cool, if I kill the Queen, does it kill every Plaga? No?
shotgun reload sound Let's try anyway.
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| Yep. This is gonna be satisfying beyond words. |
This is a climactic boss fight, and I remember it being quite tough. You can run out of ammo here, forcing you to venture onto the bottom floors of this arena, where Leon will get assaulted by spider-like Plagas (which are very likely to drop ammo). This damn thing has two massive tentacles on the sides, and likes to launch QTE-based attacks in the second half. How do we hurt it? Shoot the open eye of its “head” enough times, which causes the protective shell around Salazar to open… switch to a powerful gun, and fire right into that smug face. Killing this stain is so satisfying, I swear.
After Leon comes down, he reaches a dock where he sees Ada at the wheel of a boat. Guess we’re getting a ride to the Island.
The Island Of All The Messed Up Experiments
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God damn it, which side is she on?
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Good on the game's early statement in Chapter 5 that
what's coming up is gonna be TOUGH. |
The island lab is where Las Plagas' destructive power was harnessed for all sorts of dangerous monsters. Forget the pitchforks; enemies here are an infected soldiers, and they have the guns to prove it. Ada just leaves the boat by flying off with her grappling hook pistol. Leon stops the boat and gets off, then heads to the facility, reaching it in time to see Ashley being taken in. Like a warning, our first roadblock is a heavyset soldier wielding a Gatling gun. I hate these guys. One miscalculation, and Leon dies, with more holes than a strainer. It’s a trip across several barracks to get to the lab, and every enemy feels more dangerous than the villagers and zealots were.
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In the remake, those things are also implied to be cannibals.
They need to feed constantly, on anything, in order to keep
up their regenerating metabolism. Yikes! |
While exploring the lab, Leon finds notes from Luis indicating that he once worked there, and knew a lot. No wonder he wanted to repent! We also encounter the place’s experiments. Specifically, the Regenerators, which don’t even look human anymore. These things can regenerate lost body parts while they have Plagas within them – and they usually contain 3 or more of those damn things. You can either shoot them a lot, or aim for the parasites specifically, which is tough since they remain hidden under the skin.
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| One, two... three spots! Now if it could stop moving... |
You do get an infrared scope to equip onto a gun with a visor, so you can see the warm spots indicating Plagas within a Regerator; those are your targets! In my personal playthrough, I was hesitant to use guns with visors, because despite the massive damage they deal, it meant taking the time to aim and I thought it left me too vulnerable against the waves of enemies. I did included one of these weapons, and used it only in specific situations, like against Regenerators. Just one misaim and that’s one bullet wasted. And using these guns means constantly stepping back and away from those things to have room (and time) to aim for these weak points!
If you thought those were bad, wait till you see the Iron Maidens: Regenerators covered in spikes and quick to skewer anything that comes close. Oh, and they’ve got even more parasites in them! It speaks volumes that these enemy types are only encountered around here, as if their creators realized they had gone too far and tried to keep them hidden. (I know a big part of RE’s myth arc is the creation of bio-organic weapons – AKA, monsters – but still.)
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| Naaaah, I'm sure he's a very friendly and affectionate guy. |
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Don't worry about me, Ashley, keep driving! I'll deal with
the garbage. By the way, you drive the bulldozer really well! |
Leon can try to contact his team for help, but it won’t work. After rescuing Ashley, the only way to leave is through the garbage chute, so they fall down there, and because nothing is simple, there’s two Iron Maidens in that area. …Again with the Rule of Two, huh. After which there’s a sequence where Ashley drives a bulldozer through a tunnel while Leon deals with the coming enemies.
This joyride takes them to a room where Saddler awaits. With his hand, he hurts Leon through the agent's Plaga, and mind-controls Ashley's to follow him. Kidnapped again. One paragraph, all it took was one goddamn paragraph.
Fighting Krauser
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Quick press A and B together to dodge! Now, swing the
Wii remote to slash! Good job, you're not dead! |
Unbeknownst to Leon, things are being plotted. Ada is in contact with Jack Krauser, the military guy Saddler was talking to. Krauser a mole in Los Illuminados, working with Ada under Wesker’s orders to steal the Plaga sample in Saddler’s possession. But Krauser seems to enjoy working with Los Illuminados a little too much. The guy isn't just ex-military; he taught Leon everything about being a special agent, before “disappearing” in a plane crash two years before these events. Our protagonist encounters Krauser a first time and they have a QTE knife fight, from which Leon is saved by Ada.
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I'm perfectly fine not giving this thing a name if it means I
can forget all about it once I've pumped it full of bullets. |
After both have left, our agent explores the facility, running through a hallway of deadly lasers, ending up underground, and crossing containers hanged from the cave ceiling. But he’s not alone; another monster so fucked up it defies naming conventions (Saddler says “It”; the official experiment name is U3) appears. It loves to strike at random points while we try to cross the chasm, dropping containers through mechanisms and hoping it will fall along and stay dead. We end up finishing this damn thing on solid ground. It’s a very tense sequence due to time limits; you have to escape containers before they fall, and U3 can get in your way.
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Krauser knows what's up. I swear he knows when he's in
Leon's visor, and will get out of the way with acrobatics.
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I've had all night to train with this knife. You don't stand
a damn chance, Krauser! |
Leon comes back up to a set of ruins where he encounters Krauser again. The ex-soldier blocks the way by holding one of three emblems required to open the door forwards. Leon picks up the other two, fending off repeated attacks from his opponent, who’s got weapons, endurance, expertise, endurance, and strategy. He’s hard to hit due to his mobility and his arsenal – like a villainous version of Leon. To top it off, he’s a bearer of a dominant Plaga strain that transforms him into another freak for the final round. He sprouts metal bones that can form into a sword, or into a shield, forcing Leon to aim for Krauser’s legs to hurt him and lower his guard. Oh, and that round is set to a 3-minute timer, as the ancient tower they’re on will get blown up afterwards. (First time I defeated Krauser, I could not escape the toppling tower in time. Talk about a trick!)
Due to the ambiance, the décor, and the absolute ruthlessness, this boss was one of the most memorable. Oh, and what’s the most effective weapon against Krauser? The freaking knife! I love boss battles where the backup and/or worst weapons are suddenly the best.
Fighting Saddler
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This 'copter won't survive the night, but for now, it's a
lifesaver, cutting down on the enemies we kill ourselves.
Leon is the one being escorted around, this time! |
Leon kills Krauser, gets the emblem, and escapes the ruins before the explosion. The next area is the most openly militarized space on the island; Leon can't deal with all these heavily armed soldiers on his own. Good thing the helicopter coming in to pick him and Ashley up, arrives and lends a hand by shooting and bombing the camps! It helps a lot in the area, there’s just one problem: It's a helicopter in a
Resident Evil game. Its pilot might as well wear a red shirt in Star Trek. Yep, the aircraft gets shot down by a mook with a rocket launcher.
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On one hand, we kill literally hundreds of people throughout
the night. On the other, all of them can pretty much already be
considered dead before they even taste our bullets or blade... |
Leon will find another way; first, he needs to save Ashley. He reaches more ruins, where he is joined by Ada right as the infection is taking over. He strangles the mercenary, but she snaps him out of it with a stab of her knife. She heads off while he enters another lab, encountering more guards and monsters on the way to Ashley. When Leon finds her in a pod in a lab, Saddler shows up as well. And when Ada arrives to shower the cult leader with bullets, he practically brushes them off. Leon barely has time to free the girl and run again. Another room further down contains a machine that fires radiations that can exterminate an injected Plaga without killing the host, and they each take a turn under the beam. Their parasites weren’t adults yet, so Leon and Ashley survive the procedure.
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The reason Saddler has a machine to remove Plagas from
bodies? He wanted to reverse-engineer this to figure out how
to make the parasites resistant to those radiations. |
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Ewww, the entire thing grew out of his neck and left his
body to hang and limp around like a floppy... uh...
Well, to be fair, Saddler has always been a dick. |
At the end, before going up an elevator, Leon asks Ashley to stay back. What’s up there? Ada, captured, and Saddler, ready for the final confrontation. Leon rescues Ada, then faces off against the cultist, who transforms into an enormous monster with four legs, eyes on those legs, a nasty claw with his face on it, and an eye in his mouth. The strategy? Destroy each leg eye, it forces him to reveal the core eye, and stab or shoot the core eye. There’s a spot where you can ram a whole steel beam into this guy. Saddler is, admittedly, not tough for a final boss. I had to retry beating several bosses prior to this one. This guy? First try. I wasn’t disappointed, but it did feel like a little step down. Leon can either finish the guy with classic bullets, or he can pick up a rocket launcher tossed by Ada and blow the cultist to smithereens. Good riddance.
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Yeah... Chapter 5 had me trust her for a while. Guess I fell in
that trap too. |
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| I better get a goddamn medal for all this. |
Leon takes the Plaga sample, only for it to be stolen by Ada at gunpoint. The spy flees on another helicopter, her mission successful; she’s nice enough to give Leon the keys to a jet-ski, before she triggers a timer that will blow the island up in three minutes. Leon runs back to Ashley, they get to the jet-ski, and he drives through the caves beneath the island, dodging stalactites and falling debris. They get out just in time. All that’s left now is bringing this girl home…
Phew! This took a while. But I’m not done. The Wii edition includes a few DLCs from other editions of RE4, so I’ll talk about those in Part 4 before my final summation.
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