S1E21 - Resident Evil 4 (Part 1)

Welcome back to another episode of Discreet Error, the podcast where every week we dive into the fascinating and extensive library of the greatest selling video game console of all time, the PlayStation Two. I'm Derek Kicker. I'm Ian Golding, and we continue sequel month with our first ever two part episode sequel month on what is maybe one of the most famous video games of all time, of modern video games.

Burger Time.

One of the burger time. Burger Time, one of the most influential games in modern gaming, to be sure, and a game that they just cannot stop. Rereleasing. Remaking. This is the game that won't go away, and I honestly wouldn't want it to. Of course, I'm talking about Resident Evil Four.

Sure you boys didn't just tag along so we could sing Kumbayat together at some Boy Scout bonfire? Then again, maybe you did.

Resident Evil Four, bro. Elsetop you heard of it, you love it. Everyone loves it. This game is on every console you could play. This is basically Doom. Yeah, you can play it on anything.

They play it on a fucking calculator.

Yeah, they've rereleased this game for basically everything you could possibly imagine. Now, a little history of our experience with this game, as I'm sure I've mentioned it a million times on this podcast. I'm a resident. Evil diehard. I have an umbrella tattooed on my back. Sure, I was hyped for this game before it came out. I was losing my mind when it got announced, and I was basically in a Resident Evil coma when it did finally drop, which it did on the GameCube on January 11, 2005. I mean, I've played it on pretty much everything since. I'm pretty sure I've played every version. I think the only version I haven't played of this is I haven't played the VR that's on, like, the Oculus. I don't have an oculus.

I have that. Haven't played can't imagine playing this actually. I can't imagine playing this game on that. I think it would actually be kind of interesting.

Yeah, well, it's great on the Wii version is awesome. The Switch version is fun, and it's on the go. The GameCube version. Obviously, this was a juggernaut for the GameCube. This was of course, yeah. I mean, this was just like to show off everything the GameCube could do.

There was a level with a handle. You walk around with a handle.

Yeah, you got to take your GameCube to your friend's house. But Ian had never played this game.

I only knew that Leon was the main character. I'm not kidding. That's all I knew about residential leon. Yeah. And I didn't love Leon in his previous iterations, so I wasn't hyped to be like, oh, I can't wait to play as Leon some more.

You didn't like him as a naive police officer his first day on the job in a zombie infested Raccoon City?

I liked Chris and what's her name? Claire. I like them. I didn't have a connection with Leon from Resident Evil Two at all. He was just a guy walking around. I don't know. I think I was so hyped about Resident Evil One. I love two. Of course, it's a great game, but character wise, I don't think Leon blew my skirt up.

Yeah, I get that. We'll get into it when we talk about the story, but in Resident Evil Two, he's like a very naive, literal.

First day on the job.

Yeah. Immediately falls in love with the honey pot and betrays him at the first opportunity. I've been waiting for you, Leon.

What are you doing?

You know what this is about. So just hand over the G virus. I don't believe this. I mean, I liked Leon, but then so much time passed between because Residential Two came out on the PlayStation One in 1998, and that's what, eight years. Seven years. Seven years in between these two games. I'd kind of, like, already moved on. I was hoping for a new Chris game because we'd already had Nemesis, so we played as Jill and then Code Veronica, which I love. You play as Claire and Chris, which is dope. So basically the game I was expecting was what ended up being Resident Evil Five.

Right. Which is the one I actually did.

Play, the one in Africa, the one.

That I feel like they got away. Not many people called them out on some stuff in this one, so they kind of kept going with certain yeah.

This was resetting the course of Resident Evil, I think ultimately in a good way, but in Code Veronica, you have Chris squaring off and finding out that Wesker is not actually dead from the first game. So in my mind I'm thinking, oh, the next game. Next game is going to be Wesker and Chris. That's going to be it. And it turns out, no. For better or for worse. I think for better, this is the game we got. So let's talk about the development because there is so much to talk about. This is classic Capcom Shinji Mccami stuff happening right here.

Sure. Where's everyone going? Bingo.

This game actually started development in 1999. So a year after Resident Evil Two, they were working on a Resident Evil sequel for the PlayStation Two, which is funny because this would end up being released on the GameCube 1st.

1St. Yeah.

And they did so much work on this game. There's so much information you can get on this from different perspectives. But I think with how just much of a monster hit Resident Evil Two ended up being like, I don't think they expected Resident Evil One to be the mega hit. It was, but I think they were even more blown away by how well received Resident Evil Two was.

Resident Evil One came out of nowhere. I know I bought it on a whim, but I have no idea what drew me to it. I hadn't seen a commercial. I just was in Babbages or some fucking software store and I was like, looking at PlayStation games like, this looks fun. And I have a weird feeling that happened to a lot of people because, like you said, it was not that it wasn't supposed to be a hit, but I don't think anyone expected to be a hit.

Yeah, and you can tell too, because I believe it was Shinji Mccami's first game he ever directed. He had been a designer. He was actually a designer on Goof Troop for the Super Nintendo, which is funny, amazing, but I don't think people expected it to be the monster it was. And then Resneval Two came out, and I'm sure they were expecting it to be a hit, but even then it just blew past everyone's expectations. That was the first game I ever saw a midnight release for was Resident Evil Two, and the line from the EB games was down the block. Immediately afterwards, it was Resident Evil fever. They went into development with Resident Evil Three, which wasn't supposed to be a mainline title, it was supposed to be a spin off, which is why it largely feels like an expansion of Resident Evil Two. But that game, of course, was directed by Hadeki Kamiya, Resident Evil Two, and he was the original director of Resident Evil Four, which is kind of a cool, full circle kind of thing. So yeah, so development on this pretty much started right after Resident Evil Two, but it's hard to say exactly what was kept from that early stage because we know of at least four different versions of this game, three of which were completely scrapped.

Interesting. Completely like nothing was brought in.

Yeah. So Hideki Kamiya had started work on what would be his version of Resident Evil Four, and it was more supernatural and basically Shinji Mikami felt it didn't mesh with what Resident Evil was. So that game spun off and became Devil May Cry.

Fuck. Block off, Featherface. Or you can stick around and find out the hard way. Devil may cry.

So Devil May Cry is basically an abandoned version of Resident Evil Four.

Right. That's crazy. Yeah.

Which also oni Musha. Right oni, musha. Heavily influenced by Resident Evil and kind of I mean, if you ever play oni Musha feels very similar to Devil May Cry. So Capcom is very incestual when it comes to this kind of stuff.

Right. They borrow from themselves quite a bit.

Yeah. But of the versions that didn't actually become anything else, there is what's known as the Fog version, which was developed when Resneil Four restarted development at the end of 2001. And this version was announced in November of 2002. And this is when they announced that Resneil Four was going to be part of the Capcom Five, which were the five games that Capcom had promised to be GameCube exclusives.

What were the other four?

All except for one, I think would one of them would not end up even being made, and then all except for one would end up being on another console. Those games were PN three.

Okay.

Which is a GameCube. It's a pretty fun GameCube. Game. I think it's pretty fun. Which Shinji Mccami also directed.

Wow.

Beautiful Joe.

Okay. I know that game.

Yeah. Which directed by Hadeki Kamia. Resident Evil's roots run through the gaming industry more than I think most people would know.

Hundred percent, yeah.

Dead Phoenix, which was never completed, never released.

Never. Obviously ever heard of it.

Resident Evil Four and Killer Seven.

Oh, killer seven. That's a good game. Yeah. Wow.

So those were all going to be GameCube exclusives. And famously, Shinji Mccami said that if Residential Four ever came out on a console other than the GameCube, there's differing translations. He would chop his own head off, or he would eat his own hat.

Those are vastly different things.

Yeah, I've seen both of them.

Yeah. I mean, I'd say he probably said he's chop his own head off. That's what my gut tells me.

Yeah. He's also, like, a weirdly, serious guy.

Right.

Which I love because I pretty much love all of his games. I like PNO three a lot. I like vanquish. Vanquish is a super fun game. I like evil within. I think evil within is pretty good.

But yes.

So the Fog version, this was the first one shown and was about 40% of the way through, and it largely took place in a European castle. So here we start seeing the threads that would come through. And there were still, like, zombies.

Okay.

And there was also influence from Resident Evil Zero, as in the main bio organic weapon of this one was the progenitor virus, which was the primary virus in Resident Evil Zero. And he would get, like, a hidden power with his hand. This is something that Shinji Mikami would not let go because he did end up making God Hand.

Jesus.

So you can see that every version of this game kind of spun out and made something good on its own, even if it didn't make it.

It's crazy, too, because you're a creative person. I'm a creative person. I will start a thing, and when I change something, I don't file it away and say, I'm going to make a whole new thing based on this one thing that no one liked in this script I wrote or whatever. But he's just like these little things. He's like, I want superpower hands. People like little hokey. He's like, all right, I'll just make a whole fucking game about that.

Yeah, well, I think it's like and maybe this is his real talent, is that he sees something that's good, but might not work here. But instead of writing it off completely and removing it, he's like, well, let me keep that in my mental filing cabinet, and maybe something will come along later that this will be good for. He's a hoarder of ideas.

Yeah, I was just going to say a hoarder. That's funny.

Yeah, which is cool. I like Godhand. Godhand is a fun game.

Sure.

And then the next one would be the most famous prototype of this game, which is the Hook Man version. And this is the version of the game that most people this is their first look at the game. I remember seeing this on Xplay, maybe Attack of the Show. One of those G Four shows had showed the E Three 2003 footage of Resident Evil Four that has Leon in his leather coat like he would have in the final game going through a castle. And then he gets a disease and he's fighting basically like ghosts and animated suits of armor, which again, this is something this version may have been scrapped, but there are things that made it all the way through. Like the animated suits of armor, living dolls. This is something that would come back in Residential Eight village.

Wow.

And a ghost like man with a large hook. And I remember seeing this and being like, holy shit. This is going to be the scariest Resident Evil of all time. And of course, Residential Four would end up being probably the least second least scary Resident Evil game up until this point. But at this point it was insane. But this also was the first time it showed off the thing that would revolutionize video games from this point on, which was the over the shoulder camera angle. I remember a lot of people thinking that it was going to be a bust, that this camera angle couldn't really work. And people were already kind of weirded out at the fact that there was no longer going to be pre rendered backgrounds and it was going to be so different. But I think by the time Code Veronica had come out not even Code Veronica by the time Resident Evil Zero had come out, which was, I believe that's the final pre rendered background resident Evil, that style of game was feeling a little long in the tooth.

Absolutely.

So I don't think it was ever going to be that kind of game. But I remember seeing this and being like, oh my God, this is going to be so much fun. But it also showed that this game was leaning more towards like an action oriented thing.

Right.

Which residential fans there's no pleasing them. Except for the Residential Four remake that seemed to hit all the boxes. And then there was another version that was basically just a story concept, which was the Hallucination version, which was an attempt at making it upping. The horror part of it gleans more into the progenitor virus stuff. And it's basically like, you can't tell what's real, what's going on, stuff like that. So think like Eternal Darkness because I think Eternal Darkness had come out at this time. So there's probably, like, some influence there.

Yeah.

And then this would end up being the Hook Man version. But yeah, after that after that is when Shinji Mccammy took over as director, which I believe he did with the remake, too. I think someone else was supposed to direct the remake, and then he saw, like, a prototype and was like, la, fuck it, I'll do it myself.

We ain't doing it that way. Yeah.

And when he took over, I was actually very surprised to see this, but he wrote the entire story in just three weeks.

Wow.

And this is the thing that I never knew before. He was inspired by Oni Musha Three Demon Siege, which you haven't played any of the Oni Mushes that's the one with genre now.

Oh, boy. Okay.

I like it. It's a fun game. I like all the oni musha. Even the bad Game Boy oni Musha tactics. Yeah. And it says Mccammy had enjoyed playing Oni Musha Three, but felt it could have had a better could have been better with a different view, which is where he decided to place the camera behind the character.

I did not know that this was the first game that used that. And it is such a fucking home run that my level of appreciation for this game went up because it combines it's everything you want, honestly.

And it is entirely possible that it's not the very first game to have ever dabbled in this.

No.

But it is the first mainstream game that made it like that, knocked it out of the park. It works so well.

So well.

And I think that's a hallmark of this game, is how easy it is to pick up and play.

Yeah. No.

Compared to something with tank controls.

Yeah. Of course.

Once the game was in full production, the English voice actors recorded all their parts in four sessions over a few months. And then before it was even released so this is how fast the Capcom Five fell apart before Resident Evil Four was even released. On Halloween of 2004, it was announced that residential four would also come to the PlayStation Two.

Wow. How many kids bought fucking GameCubes just to get ready for it?

And then oh, my God. Well, I mean, that that is interesting because there is differences between the GameCube and the PlayStation Two version. But it was and funny, it was announced alongside Resident Evil Dead Aim, which is a Resident Evil game that only fans even know exists, and Resident Evil Outbreak, which I mean, I'm begging for a remake. Give us a remake of the first online Resident Evil. But I would say that the changes from GameCube to the PlayStation Two ultimately worth it.

Okay.

And I think all the changes they made were for the better.

Sure.

Now, having been such a long time since we had seen Leon, I know I was. And I think a lot of people were very excited to find out what this game would be about.

Yeah.

And I don't think anyone could have, like, accurately predicted the insane story that this game has. So let's get into that.

Used to be a cop myself. Only for a day, though. I thought I was bad.

Resident Evil Four story is fucking bonkers. And I don't think Resident Evil has ever been a franchise that's, like, known for its realism.

No, of course not.

But this just goes completely off the rails in a great way, I think.

Oh, yeah. Of course.

There's also a game that doesn't take itself too seriously, which I love.

No, it knows. It knows.

Yeah. How could it not? But this game starts out with a bold move, which is a prologue. And this prologue gives us what is probably the biggest seismic shift in the story of Resident Evil to ever. We had been dealing with Wesker, and we've been dealing with Umbrella t virus, t virus, T. Veronica virus.

Nemesis.

Nemesis, the progenitor virus. But basically umbrella. Treachery.

Oh, yeah, of course.

And this game starts out with Leon letting us know that Umbrella has been found guilty and punished for their crimes and is no longer around.

No, they're gone. See ya. And we don't the big bad guy. We didn't get to do any of this.

Did you hear it?

Yeah, we didn't do it. We had nothing well, we don't know, but we as players had nothing to do with this.

Yeah, but to add some context to this, I will be connecting some of the lore pieces with info learned from Dark Side Chronicles, resident Evil dark Side Chronicles for the Wii. Perhaps a little bit from the Resident Evil Four remake and stuff that we would learn from Resident Evil Five and Six.

Okay, just a little bit.

Not too many spoilers. But there is a greater context that's kind of hard to explain. And they clearly went into this game knowing there was going to be a bunch of Resident Evil games.

Yeah, of course.

So, yeah. Umbrella has fallen. Leon, after the events of the Raccoon City incident, as it would come to be known, was enlisted against his will as a special operation. A tier one operator.

Sure.

Yeah. A black rice coffee company guy.

They saw something in the guy who had been a cop for a day, and they said, you know what? You are clearly the best of the best.

Yeah. And then after his stint in Special Ops, he would, of course, join the Secret Service. But I do think it's very funny that they enlisted him in the Secret Service after the first time he met a woman, immediately falls in love with her, and turns out she was working against the United States.

Of course. Trusting. Yeah, a little trusting.

He just immediately fell in love with the first person to, I guess not be nice to him.

Pretty much. Yeah.

Talk to him because, I mean, not Claire. Not he didn't fall in love with Claire. I think I think Leon doesn't like redheads. I think that's okay. I think that's his thing. He's not a fan of the redheads.

He doesn't like the gingers.

So then once he joined the Secret Service, he was tasked with protecting the president's daughter, Ashley. President Graham's daughter Ashley. Ashley Graham. A task which he immediately bungles.

Oh, yeah.

Because she gets kidnapped.

Yes.

And the game starts in earnest with you being driven to a small Spanish village, which intelligence has informed you was the last place she was cited. And the local police, local PD, Alicia, are driving you out there and giving.

You some Sass and offering you cigarettes.

Offering you cigarettes, giving you Sass, and then, of course, one of them disappears, and you go into this shack. It's actually not a shack, exactly.

Little house.

Honestly, I would live there.

That's a nice little fucking place.

It's two stores.

There are no rooms.

Yeah, but that's not I mean, it's open floor plan.

Exactly. More modern than a lot of people realize at the time.

Yeah. These aren't just animals. Right. They have aesthetic choices. But you go in and you run into a man who is seemingly making some stew yeah. Of some sort, something, and basically you're like, no. You bust into his fucking house.

Yes.

And then you're like, hey, have you seen this girl?

Yeah.

And under his breath, he's muttering like, fuck this, dude. Break into my goddamn house.

He says shit. This is my castle doctrine time.

Yeah. And kind of gives you a little guff. And your response, of course, is to be like, whoa. I'm sorry, dude. And then he exercises his rights and swings a hatchet at you, which he.

Just he happened to have in his hand. Yes. That's how you prepare stew. Secret agent.

Leon didn't clock the hatchet.

No.

He didn't give the perp an ocular pat down at all to assess the threat.

He took it at this point, and I think he takes for the rest of the game almost everything he comes across at complete face value.

Yeah.

Which is shocking.

So if you thought baby face naive Leon was gone just because he's got a sweet jacket and a new haircut sweet jacket.

Yeah.

You're wrong.

You're wrong. He's still there. He's still the Leon you know and love.

Yeah. And after you roll that's, the main thing he learned in combat Ops was he's very agile. He flips rolls.

Oh, yeah.

Does all kinds of crazy shit. And then you got some moves, and then you kinetically engage the enemy. And he terminates the threat.

Yes. Engages the enemy. Yeah.

And at this time, everything goes to shit.

The entire fucking the ripple in this pond is the rest of the game.

He looks out the window. He sees the car that he came in rolling away or is on. I can't remember, if it's rolling where it's on fire. There's a truck on fire somewhere in this game, but it's all rolling away. There's one cop in the car, and he just dies with the car. And then he sees, oh, no. More enemies. Quite a few enemies. You tactically engage them. And then you get a call from a reoccurring character in this game, Hunnegan, who so clearly wants to bang Leon, so fucking clearly so obviously has the hots for Mr. Kennedy.

She's down for that.

Yeah, but she's safe somewhere else. Just providing him with communications support.

It's a little Metal Gear solid here.

Yeah. It's like snake. You piece of shit.

You piece of shit.

And she tells you to go to the village. And this is where the game really starts. So you go to the village, they're burning the police officer. You engage it. And this game can really be broken down into thirds. The first third of the game is basically the village section. This is Act One, and it involves you going through the village. The main goal of the first third of the game is to just find Ashley. In the course of trying to find Ashley, you come against all manner of sickos and ghouls and monsters more than, I think any Resident Evil game to date.

Okay.

Because you have your ganados, right? Your main villagers, who have what is like a Mexican accent, which is not accurate to Spain, which they would end up getting a lot of shit for.

Which is funny, which they should. Yes.

Then there's the doctor, Salvatore, which is the Chainsaw Man, who's very difficult to take down. And the first thing, if you're a residential veteran, that you notice is that there is so many more enemies.

Yes, it is not so many more.

Enemies than you'd ever like. This isn't like you're in a hallway and there's three zombies. So you're like, oh, my God. The village really is a trial by fire. Because it's timed. You have to kill 15 enemies before it will go up, before it'll be done.

You're sure?

I'm pretty sure. You have to kill 15. In the remake, it's timed.

Okay.

In the remake, it's four and a half minutes. I think you killed 15 enemies.

Yeah. Well, okay.

Interesting. Blood runs freely in this game.

Oh, yeah.

There's also dogs. Really fucked up dogs with tentacles come out of their backs. They're all fucked up somehow. Just nightmare dogs. Because in the original games, there was dogs. Dogs are like a hallmark of Resident Evil bioweapon. Dogs are like apple pie for Resident Evil.

Right. There's salt in this recipe. Yeah, it's going to be in there.

The dogs are kind of a joke in the other games, right? Like, they famously have trouble hitting you while moving.

They look really cool lunging, but they don't really hit you most of the time.

Yeah. And they're relatively easy to juke. They telegraph their moves pretty well, these ones are fucked up. These are fucked up dogs that are not good. And then there's Delagos, the first true boss of the game. And I have a huge amount of respect for Capcom making the first boss in this game be one that you don't use a gun for.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

You have to harpoon this fucking salamander to death.

When I fucking first came across that thing, first of all, I was already just so happy to be in a boat. Because you're in a boat. You're in a nice little rowboat. I didn't even notice the harpoons in there. Yeah, I was just having fun. I was boating around. I was like, this is fun. I like this mechanic. I'm just going to boat around. And then everything kind of changed. Everything kind of showed up. Shit.

Yeah. Fun fact in the original, and they made it something that transferred to the remake, if you shoot the water before you get in the boat, the Delago will come and eat you immediately. It's instant death.

Oh, and you can't fight him.

No, he just comes and eats you. Eats you off the he eats you off the dock.

That's awesome. Yeah, that's super cool. Yeah, try that.

And then there's, of course, El Higante, which is the first time you fight Eligante. It's so fucking wild yes. That you're like, I don't even know, and think. This is before demon souls. This is before Dark Souls. Before the time of every boss is, like 50 times fucking bigger than you. Yeah, it was incredible. I remember the first time that fight is like the way that that level design is. And this world that you inhabit, this village seems fucking massive.

It does.

Even though if you look at it from, like, a bird's eye view of the level, it's not that big. It'll be much bigger in the remake. It feels incredibly huge.

Yeah. They did a really good job of making it feel I don't know if it was just the way I was playing, but I would come into areas that I just came from, and it felt like I had gone a lot farther before I did the circle. But then I'd like, look. And I'm like, oh, no. There's something about the game, the level design, that makes you think it's a lot bigger.

Yeah, the design makes you think fools you into thinking that this game is way bigger than it is. But it's definitely not a small game. Which is why on the GameCube, it is two discs, but it feels fucking massive.

Right.

There is, of course, the final boss of the village area, which is Bittores Mendez, who seems like he was almost like the mascot villain of this game when it came out, which is so funny because he's honestly not in it that much. No, you have, like, two encounters with him before you actually fight him, one of which you get your. Ass saved by returning cast ada Wong yeah. And then you kind of kill him and then he never that's it. That's kind of it.

I was expecting him to be a bigger part of the whole game. I was shocked when he turned into when it was the boss of the first era. I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, okay. I guess that's him. I thought maybe I didn't finish the job or something. But no face value. Yeah.

This is something that seems to almost be a reoccurring theme with the Resident Evil games because they would do the same thing with Village. They made Lady Demetresque got big goth mommy out to be like the main villain of the game. And she's literally the first boss.

Oh, crazy. Yeah.

Which I mean well, the first main boss. There's several mini bosses before her.

Yeah. Like this white this game.

I do think the Mendez fight is one of the best looking fights in the game. I do think it's a really cool fight. And I think his dialogue is really cool.

Yeah. He is a well done character. They did a really good job with him.

And then after that, you go into what I would call and we'll get into this. When we talk about the gameplay, we'll get into the first major skill check of this game.

Now, before we fully leave the village, I want to talk about some stuff. So I'm going to say some elements that happen in the first third of this game. I'm going to see if you are familiar with these elements. Kidnap president's daughter. Sent in to get her. Get a shot in your body that is going to affect the rest of the story. Nothing.

I mean, Residential Four is so like, in my brain that I hear that and I think Residential Four.

But escape from La. Escape from fucking La is the same storyline. The shot you get is the bomb in his head that they're going to blow up if he fucking doesn't save her in time or goes rogue. But it's the same fucking story. And I couldn't let go of it. I was just like, did they know? I doubt they did because it's escape from La. But still. I saw Escape From La probably 30 times because I worked at a movie theater when it came out. And I just would be in the theater because it was the thing playing and I was the Usher. So I just had to stand there and it was like, yeah, there's a lot of interesting similarities between the two.

I'm glad you brought that up because before we leave the Village, too, we also have to talk about what is the bio organic weapon of this game. It is called Los Plagus.

The Plague.

Yeah. Brilliant, right?

Yes.

And to give a quick synopsis of what it is exactly. And this is something that would be explained much better in the remake. And also part of Darkside Chronicles. Basically, underneath the castle, which is the second major part of the game, there is, like, Amber, like, think Jurassic Park Mosquitoes. And in that Amber lives the plagus. And the plagus has two types, the dominant strain and the submissive strain. Right now, there's very few of the dominant strain ones, and only a couple characters in the game have this dominant strain. One, including the main antagonist of the game, lord Osmond Sadler, who is an old guy in a purple robe with a staff that's got tentacles on it for some reason, and an eyeball, or I wish I loved anything as much as Resident Evil loves oddly placed fucking eyeballs.

They fucking love someone somewhere had a fucking twin absorbed in the womb.

Absolutely. I mean ever. The most iconic image, I think, of Resident Evil Two is William Birkin's. Shoulder. Eyeball.

Shoulder.

So they do be loving their weird eyeballs. And what the dominant strain allows Sadler to do is control everyone with the lesser strain. So he controls the ganados. He controls he's the leader of this cult called Los Illuminatos, who are, for all intents and purposes, a terrorism group bent on world domination.

Well, they're trying to take down the United States. Right. By using Ashley as, like, a sleeper.

Yeah. So their whole plan on in kidnapping her and we'll get into how she was kidnapped because I think that's one of the most interesting parts. Their plan basically is to infect her with the submissive strain of the plague, send her back to Washington, have her infect the President, and take over the world via parasite.

Yeah.

Which I guess is not like the dumbest plan in the world.

No, it's not.

It's very cartoon villain, kind of.

But it's a video game plan, of course.

Yes. So you run into him for the first time, I believe. In the church.

In the church, yeah.

But at some point when you first meet who will be a reoccurring character? Luis. Sarah.

I love me some louise he's a tit man.

Yes, of course he is. Ash has got those ballistics.

Ballistics, yes. That's why, you know he's a tit man.

You get knocked unconscious, and while you're unconscious, they inject you with the submissive strain of the plagus. It takes a while to take hold.

Oh, yes. You dream about it taking hold. Somehow you can view the inside of your spinal cord and spinal column, rather. What I liked about the shot when you get the Los Plagas is like, you see it and like the first shot, it just looks like a purple liquid, but then in the next shot, you see there's something like the size of a pea in there and it's white, and you're like, oh, that would hurt going in. Yeah. That's not going to feel good in your bed.

That's what she said.

Tit man. Ballistics.

Oh, God. So, yes, early on in the game, you meet Louise sarah. Oh, my God, I've butchered this village thing. But, hey, we're going with it. You meet Luis Sarah, who clearly has a past and something to hide, but you will find out more about that later. And you also meet what I think is the best character in the game, the Merchant. What are you buying, stranger?

You're back already? What do you got?

What are you selling now?

You said the stranger, and this was a question I had. So it's just one guy.

Okay, I think it's one guy. But how does you can kill him.

I didn't know that I never would try. He's so delightful. Why would you try to kill him? Yeah.

And if you do kill him, he will show up in his other spots, but he will never interesting. He will never show up in that spot. The spot where you killed him again says different guys.

That proves it's. Different.

Maybe, but, I mean, he remembers you.

He's his cell phone. He's calling the other guy.

I don't know if they have a guess. They have good customer service. They have at and T, I suppose.

Yeah. They have good coverage. They're good. They got fucking what is this? Two G? One g at that point. Well, no, I'm not even sure. I think they would have to have Blackberries because iPhone didn't hit till 2007.

Yeah. So you have this merchant, and he'll be at random points in the game, and you use him to buy weapons, sell weapons, sell treasures. You find he will also upgrade your weapons, which is when we get into the gameplay mechanics. We'll get into it. But he's an amazing character.

He also has little challenges for you. He does have 15 medallions.

He has a little challenge in the remake. He'll end up having tons of challenges.

Oh, that's right. He only had the one in the beginning.

Yeah.

And he went easy on us.

Yes.

The thing is, out of 15, he's like and just do ten.

You get the yes.

That first gun, which doesn't we'll talk about it in gameplay, but I didn't really feel a difference.

Yeah, it's not great. So those are all basically all the characters you meet in the village. Ada will become a bigger part of the game later on. Luis, you will get more info on his backstory. But the village section basically ends. You have a massive skill check. It's a huge part of the game. It is a huge skill check. If you have been coasting through the game so far, you will cease to be coasting at this part of the game.

Why are you looking right at me, Derry? You don't know anything. You don't fucking know anything. I was not coasting. I was exploring.

Had you been coasting, this will test you. And then after this section, you end up at the castle.

Yes.

And the tone of the game shifts pretty dramatically. It's very impressive. The tonal shift this game goes through.

When you said the four version things, I thought you were going to tell me that they just combined three games. Because that's what it feels like. Yes. It feels so different each section.

And I think that's what keeps this game. This was a relatively long game for its time.

Yeah.

This was first play through. This was like a 30, 40 hours game.

Yeah, I think well, I sometimes would watch some videos, so I think I went through it.

But if you're exploring everything, like this is it is a long game. And they keep it fresh by giving you dramatic changes of setting. And the setting changes the enemies, which is kind of incredible how they do this. Yes, it's very so you enter the castle, and the castle starts with this huge set piece of you having to use a cannon to blow open the door of the castle. It is fucking awesome. It is so cool. And then you get into the castle and of course the merchant's already in.

The castle over here. Stranger a merchant. I'm sticking with more than one guy.

He's just chilling in the castle. Nobody seems to care that this dude's around. It's kind of like the Duke in village where it's like, how has no one killed you?

Right? Because well, I mean, he has got a lot of weapons. They're probably like, that guy can upgrade any gun.

Yeah, he is flashing off his rocket launchers quite a bit.

He does that little move the first time. Well, a couple of different like sometimes he's got his own shop, which I like because it feels like that version of him or his friend or them has a little more like business sense. But I like the first time you meet him. And a couple of times he gives you the old, I want to buy a watch with his jacket. He just opens it up.

Yeah, it's so good.

It's so good.

First time you're like, oh my God, is this dude about to show me his dong?

Yeah, totally. But then he's got like indistinguishable shapes in there. Like you don't really even see guns. It just looks like there are gun parts, honestly.

And there's things that are clearly grenades.

Yeah.

But you get into the castle and you meet one of the most colorful antagonists of the game. And the person who will be the primary antagonist for the second act of the game, ramon Salazar, who's the castellan of this Spanish castle. I've been expecting you, my brethren.

No thanks, bro.

His family has owned this castle for generations or whatever. And way back in the day, this is something they explained better in the remake. They basically were like in charge of making sure the plague has never got out.

Right?

And then when he was the final one, he's like a little bitch. He's like short and sickly and he's like 20 years old, but he looks like he's fucking 800 years old.

He looks like I didn't know he's supposed to be that.

Yeah, he's supposed to be like, 20. But Sadler was like, oh, hey, I mean, why do you got to do what your family said? Fuck your family.

Just let that shit out.

Be your own man.

What bad could come of you releasing a fucking virus? Yeah.

And he is flanked by two horrifying creatures that are just kind of like hanging out.

Right.

And throughout the castle you will run into new Ganados that are like priests and they have Goath heads on and they do things and you'll run into more dogs and then you run into Garridors which are these enemies that have long claws but their eyes have been sewn shut, so they can't see anything, but they can hear you. And you kill them by shooting bells and confusing them.

It's like the little slimy. Aren't those guys blind in the first one? Those little guys who would chop your head off in one shot?

Hunters are not blind.

They're not blind.

They're not blind.

Why did I think they were? I don't know.

Liquors in the second one?

Liquors are blind. Okay.

Yeah, that's true. That is a good comparison. Kind of like liquors more violent than much more. Yeah. But they are definitely the liquors of this game. And then midway through the castle, there is another pretty massive skill check moment. And throughout the castle, you find out that Luis was a researcher working on the Plagus and that he gives you and Ashley, because Ashley has already been injected by the Plagus at this point, gives you medicine that will help slow the progress before he is ultimately murdered by Sadler, which is some bull. It is some bullshit. He was too horny for his own good and murked by Sadler. You will also have a little bit more of a run in with Ada Learn. Ada, why are you here? I thought you were dead. You fell off the bridge. To which she replies, Shut up and don't ask me fucking questions. Pretty much tired of saving your ass. And then the castle area kind of ends with you fighting Ramon Salazar.

Ramon.

Which is a cool boss fight.

Yes, it is.

And then from there, you realize, my princess is in another castle.

God damn it. I had the same fucking thought that they were pretty much saying that.

And of course that other castle, because this is also the time of the game where you play Ashley for a hot minute, which is a hallmark of Resident Evil, since Resident Evil Two is playing playing as the secondary character for a minute, but she gets re kidnapped because of course she does. She's fucking used.

She does.

And then she gets taken to an island. An island compound that you will later find out is also a lab.

Sure.

And you hitch a ride with Ada, because, of course, you do. And you enter the final act of the game, the island fortress, which is the shortest part of the game.

Yeah, I was surprised how short it.

Was, but it is probably also the most dense. It is almost nonstop. Go, go.

You're fighting everything.

Yeah. So you get to the island, Ada abandons you. You sneak into a fortress. You can sneak or you can. I mean, really what it is, is you're murdering everyone inside.

Yeah.

The Ganados are, like, in the castle, a little different. They have guns now, and they have tasers, and they come out and they come out of ovens randomly and scare the shit out of you. And then you run into and again, this is what this game does so well, is it keeps it you would think, okay, I'm 20 plus hours into this game, there's no way outside of bosses that there are new enemies.

Oh, no.

And that's where you'd be wrong when you run into the first regenerator, which might be the most horrifying fucking monster in Resident Evil history.

Hundred percent.

These things sound horrifying. They are fucking terrifying to look at. And once you think you finally got a handle on killing them, which is incredibly difficult because you need, basically, a thermal scope to shoot the parasites inside of them inside.

Yeah, through their body.

Once you think you got a handle on that shit, the game throws you a curveball and introduces a new subvariant called the Iron Maiden, which can grab you from across the room, which is similar to a bandersnatch from Code Veronica, and pull you into them and then shoot spikes out everywhere and instantly kill you. One shot. You just right when you fucking thought.

For a second this is the Dunningkruger game of like, as soon as you start to hit, get out of the Valley of Despair, it shoves you right back.

Absolutely.

And you don't feel like you've skilled any skill at all.

And then we get to a part where I think this is one of the oddest it feels very odd in this game, but in the remake, they managed to kind of perfect this and explain it better, and it feels much better. But you run into an enemy who is a ghost from Leon's past, Major Jack Krauser. Now, this game is famous for QuickTime events and people bitching about them. I like your first fight. Me, too. Your first fight with him is entirely is a three minute long quick time event of you knife fighting with him. And it is so fucking cool. Yes, it is so cool. Unite fighting with him, and then you end up will end up fighting him. You find out later that he is working with Ada, and of course, Ada is working for Albert Wesker always. He's always behind it.

Yeah.

And you end up fighting having a boss fight with Krauser, where you learn that he accepted the dominant plague from sadler, and that's a sick fight. It is such a good fight. It is an amazing fight. And then eventually, basically, your goal at this point, right, is you retake Ashley, you find her, and the goal is to get the plagueis out of both of your bodies, which you finally do throughout. And there's another boss fight on the island, too. There's U Three, which is the only boss they cut from the remake, which, I guess, story wise, is fine, it's whatever, but it is kind of a cool boss. And then at the end, you fight the big cheese himself, Osmond Sadler, getting a cool line from Leon. You're a small time sadler. Sadler, you're small time, which is brilliant. And of course it ends how every Good Resident Evil game ends with a rocket launcher being thrown from somewhere else and you take him out and then you cruise on a jet ski to freedom.

Happy music plays.

You and Ashley, no longer ridden with parasites, no longer have heartworms. Yeah, you found that a machine that, like, laser beams the plagueis out of.

You, which doesn't seem like it was that high tech or unbelievable that someone would use this technology for that.

Also, if I was saddler, I would simply not let them make a machine to do that.

Yeah. Say no, stop that.

Yeah. Within the remake. They better explain it.

Oh, do they? Okay. Yeah.

I also love how you escape this island on a jet ski.

Yeah.

And Ada throws you the key. How did Ada have the key to this jet ski?

It's a fair question. Maybe it's a master key to all jet ski. I mean, it's ada Wonk might have.

The jet ski key.

Jet ski key.

Yeah. That's the end of the story of Resident Evil Four and its development history.

And that's also the end of our first episode.

Next week, we're going to be talking about the gameplay, we're going to be talking about all the fucking ports of this game, and we're going to be talking about the remake and this game's legacy, which is pretty substantial, in my opinion.

Thanks for listening to this half, and.

We will see you next week. Follow us on our socials. You can find us on Instagram at Discreet Errorpod, or you can find me at Funeral Casual Games.

I'm at Ian Golden Games.

You can also find us on Whatnot at Funeral Casual, where we sling games, make shitty tier lists, piss people off, and just shoot the shit.

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