Right, time for an update.
Cleared 5-3 a couple of days ago, but haven't had the time to go any further or even post about it, but here we go:

- The Knife Fight I was dreading so much actually went really easy. The scene itself has some cool choreography but it's become kind of a trauma for me after doing it, like, 10 times in a row on the GC.
I lost count of how many times I had to watch Leon wipe his cheek...
But I didn't even mess up once this time!
Another advantage of playing on the Wii is that the 2 possible control inputs needed for QTE's can pretty much be done both at the same time. On the GC it was L+R or A+B, which required different hand motions so if you were a bit too slow you were too late. On the Wii on the other hand, it's either A+B or shaking the Wiimote, which you can do simultaneously, so you're always safe
Take THAT Krauser!

Also, Krauser's line: 'Like you, I'm American' reminded me of Bandit Keith from Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged.
I'm probably alone in that though.

- I like little touches like being able to sit on Sadler's Throne. And then going "I don't have time for this".

- Holy shit, U3 takes a LOT of damage before he goes down. It was absorbing Magnum bullets like nobody's business, and I'm using the Killer7 (nice reference) with an attack power of 30!
Fortunately, this was the last bullet absorbing boss. The rest can be done pretty easily.

- Like Krauser, who went down REALLY easily. Shotgun in the head in the short moment after his backflip when he can't block, Shotgun in the knees to bring him down, Magnum to the face, and the battle was offer in a couple of seconds. I had more than 2 minutes left to get out. Easy-peasy.

Acc 89%, 28 kills, 3 deaths (that'll be the cage fight)

Both RE4 and Killer7 were part of the planned Capcom Five. There is other shared property between some of the games, such as some of the music from P.N.03 being used in RE4's Mercenaries minigame. Not sure which tunes speficially, although I believe they're the themes for Krauser and Hunk.

On to the...

Final Chapter: I have... nothing to say about this really. Between using the action queues from the various girder switches, shooting the red barrels and lobbing grenades, the final boss went down fairly easily (although I did notice that he took several more "hits" than on normal mode). At this point I could drive the jet ski with my eyes closed. A fairly anticlimactic end to a very tense run.

Here are my somewhat embarrassing final stats, not including my many (many, many) restarts:

Hit % - 81%
Enemies Routed - 845
Times Killed - 47
Total Time - 16:39:46
Number of Saves - 44

I've given plenty of praise to the game in previous posts over the past few years, so I don't need to really get into how awesome I think RE4 is other than saying, "Shit, RE4 is f---ing awesome!" I view it as a perfectly-paced, infinitely re-playable title that is in the upper echelon of classic games, along with a small number of others such as Goldeneye 007 and Super Mario World. A true classic.

My reflections on Professional Mode have been captured in my previous posts as I played along, but when I heard the ending theme and watched the credits roll I felt a sense of accomplishment that I haven't felt in a long time. Between the amount of damage that Leon takes, the damage enemies can sustain and the amount of pre-planning and re-programming I had to do in my head before rushing into a scene was intense. When I play Pro again (I can't go back now!), I'll use the strategies I tested out the first time around to get even better stats. Because, let's face it - those final stats look like my first time through, not my ninth. Although, like Angie said before, the normal mode in RE4 is so balanced, I really think that I'm at a level where I prefer Professional Mode. And if anyone is up for an extra challenge, I highly recommend giving it a shot!

Once I finished up, I fired up my special "extra" save that has everything unlocked. My attache case only has a few weapons in it: Chicago Typewriter, Infinite Launcher and a fully upgraded Handcannon, all of which can be unlocked by beating the game or by conquering the Mercenaries and Assignment Ada minigames. I beat the game one more time in one sitting just to let off some steam. There's nothing like a semi-speed run where all you do is shoot the crap out of everyone and kill bosses in one or two hits! Here are those stats:

Hit % - 27%
Enemies Routed - 719
Times Killed - 4 (OK, so breaking Ashley out is not easy with a rocket launcher, although it feels damn good)
Total Time - 2:58:21
Number of Saves - 1 (after the credits)

I'm not sure if everyone's going to get into the minigames that are unlocked once the game is finished, but I recommend having some fun with Mercenaries (it's intense!) and trying your hand at Assignment Ada (item management nightmare). Good stuff.

Thanks again to Dustin for getting this club together. It was a lot of fun playing, posting and reading how everyone else played through the game, both seasoned professionals and first timers, and everyone in between! I hope you all enjoyed this game as much as I do, seeing as how I just finished it for a ninth and tenth time. I'll end with a quote from the IGN review of RE4 (9.8) that sums the experience up perfectly:

"You don't own Resident Evil 4. Resident Evil 4 owns you."

My next mode, professional or not, I'm selling that damn Broken Butterfly as soon as I cap Verdugo with it. That thing made boss fights way too easy. I always sold it before and relied purely on my selection of handgun, shotgun and rifle to see me through (with the TMP and Mine Thrower pretty much rusting from disuse).

It's pretty much the "f--- you" gun

Just put this game to bed.  My final total weigh-in:

Hit % - 84%
Enemies Routed - 837
Times Killed - 16
Total Time - 12:47:49
Number of Saves - 19

Yeah, there is a noticeable pause between actions, but I didn't think it affected the rhythm of the fight much.  I bumped my death count up a few times here, because I sadistically wanted to see all of the Leon death sequences again.  Seeing Krauser plunging the knife into Leon's chest on the last entry is indeed the most brutal.

I blazed through the U3 section, probably the fastest I'd ever done.  I thought I was gonna fumble with the green switches that dropped the cages like I always do, but for some reason, I instinctly knew where each and every one was this time around, and I managed to not get hit once.  The U3 fight itself was over before I could say "Holy pincer!"  I had about twelve Incendiary Grenades left, and so I unloaded about five of 'em, and then finished the job with about two or three Semi-Auto Rifle shots.  "It" went down shockingly fast.

The Krauser duel went about as well as to be expected, though this is one instance where I wish I had the TMP; there's just something viscerally cool about a machine gun versus machine gun battle.  But yeah, the knife works wonders here -- and the auto lock-on feature of the Wii version makes this even easier to pull off.

Heh, I remember having a crap-ton of trouble during the big commando base raid on Professional, and you've just reminded me why.  Thanks for nothing, Mike! >_>  I remembered thinking, god, I wished I owned the Chicago Typewriter for the Pro playthrough -- so I could go all Rambo on these assholes.

Great accompanying musical track, by the way. One of my favorites in the entire game.

As for the final battle, I concur with the rest of you in that it's pretty tame, especially in light of all the spectacular confrontations that have come before it.  I will say, though (and without spoiling things explicitly), that Separate Ways handles its interpretation of the final events with more panache.  It's worth playing through the mode to see how things unfold on the other side.

Finally wrapped up the game yesterday evening and, well, I don't really have much to say for the final 2 stages.
5-4 wasn't very eventful on normal. I remember the last time I played this game was on Professional, and the part with Mike was pure HELL because, as Zane said, the guy is totally useless. I was actually laughing when he came crashing down in a rain of fire.
On normal however, WOW. He pretty much swept through the whole area when I hadn't even reached the halfway point yet. Way too easy.

I guess this chapter served as the last stand-off against the Ganados, which is okay, but it's not much more than that.
Some of the cutscenes are cool though.

The final boss was easy too. I used only my handgun and some grenades, and he went down pretty easily. Kind of an anti-climax.
The mrs. was watching over my shoulder again. She has actually been watching frequently and she seemed to like what she saw, although it was a bit graphic for her tastes.
She quickly noted the Final Boss was kind of a push-over, and she also noted: "Why doesn't Ada just fire the Rocket Launcher herself!?" which I guess is a valid question, because I don't know the answer.

Also, HOW DO YOU JUMP INTO A HELICOPTER FROM ABOVE!?
That's got to be the ballsiest action EVER.

In all, it took me a little over 13 hours with a total of 44 saves (Hi, Zane!)
I can see how some people would tire of the game come the 5th chapter, and it certainly is not as interesting as the first 4, but I think the game manages to stop shortly before overstaying its welcome.
Although the jetski scene was really unnecessary. It always gets me killed at least once (>_<)

AND HOW ABOUT SOME OVERTIME HUH?

Slut.

Still, I agree with Zane, this game is motherfucking awesome, still very much so after 4 years, and miles better than RE5.

Don't even try acting like you wouldn't hit that like a disobedient spouse.

PS: How is everyone enjoying the extras? I'm almost done Separate Ways, and I'm liking the added bit of story for Ada (especially liking that they chose not to expand on character development for her, she works better as a mysterious third party), and it really explains a lot of the side events in the game.

You're talking about a woman who somersaults and spin-kicks through combat in high heels and an ankle-length dress.  I don't think there's a legitimate expectation of plausibility in what Ada does.

Actually, I wouldn't.
Ashley is FAR from my type, even if she were real.
Unless you mean actually literally HIT.

Then yes.

I'm partway through chapter 3, and to me Separate Ways sure feels tacked on.  Maybe the story gets better later on, but so far it's been the amazing true story of how certain objects end up where Leon finds them.  I also disagree that this sub-game preserves Ada's mystique.  Having her mow down wave after wave of Ganados just like Leon kills the illusion of Ada gracefully flitting from place to place like one of the butterflies on her dress.

As for the other extras, I haven't replayed Assignment Ada yet, but I have acquired all of the five-star rankings in Mercenaries.  Mercenaries is brilliant but maddening.  I almost had an aneurysm from the constant barrage of arrows in the castle and the Drs. Salvador in water world.  I dropped a grenade in front of one while he was on a chainsaw-swinging rampage, it exploded right at his feet, and he didn't even flinch.  He just kept swinging.  That's bullshit.

It DOES look like shiyt.

Another 11th-hour catch-up. I actually came to post this a half-hour ago when I cleared 5-4, but when I saw everyone else had gone ahead and finished the thing, I said what the hell. Let's get this out of the way:

Hit % - 76%
Enemies Routed - 890
Times Killed - 45 (if I count those damned restarts on the prologue, it should be 57)
Total Time - 19:31:16
Number of Saves - 70

I know, it sucks. Onward to commentary!

First things first - I've meant to mention this before but keep forgetting to. One of the best things about the Wii Edition is being able to flip between the menu call and the Mii Plaza theme over and over while booting it up. "RESIDENT EEV--doo doo doo doo-doo~-RESIDEN-doo doo doo doo-doo~-RESIDENT EEVILLL.....FOUR!"

On another note, the way they just recycled the villagers' voices and distoted them to be 'new' islanders' voices was kind of lame.

5-1

Yeah, sod all that. I tried taking the first sucker in the hallway down by knocking him down and knifing him. My rhythm was perfect but it took so long his buddy snuck up and started to feed. Then I decided to try TMP spray inside the freezer, with less than successful results. Then I decided for my first danged time through the game, I'll damn well use the rifle and phooey to the complaints.

The rest of 5-1 is really easy once you make that purchase, turns out. Pooched the crane bit (only got one), but other than that, smooth.

5-2

Stupid, stupid Game Over where I flipped the sewer gate switch and accidentally cut Ashley off in the part right next to Spike. *sigh*

Also blew it in the room with the lava pool once because I didn't realize a Ganado could grab Ashley even though I'd left her on higher ground, and I was getting tag-teamed by tentacle-heads when she was carted off into the Red Door of Doom.

Bulldozer bit was fun (though I initially thought I blew it when the flaming truck landed on me). But I realized shortly afterward how much ammo I was burning through, and starting with this chapter the game decided to force-feed herbs hand-over-fist instead of bullets and such. That made the next chapter a bit of a problem.

5-3

Botched the very first QTE of the conversation first time around, but didn't miss a beat after continuing.

The laser room (which reminded me for all the world of Conker's Bad Fur Day) took a few tries, because I wasn't paying attention. Hilarious to see those last QTEs in motion though.

Who was Leon supposed to be imitating with that pose on the throne? It looks so familiar.

'It' was kind of a mixed bag. It was a nice sequence on its own (though I finished the bit with almost nothing left of my ammo stores - I was chucking grenades by the end), but he struck me as kind of a retread between the Right Hand and Bouncer fights, and I felt that this was where they were starting to run out of ideas.

Or it seemed that way until the Krauser showdown, anyway. Great sequence, though I still like the Right Hand fight a tiny bit more. I botched the timer fight the first time because I erromeously thought I was supposed to lure him to one tower and then shoot the dynamite while he was the only one there, and wound up wasting too much time. Second time I actually got him down, after depleting EVERYTHING I had in weaponry save 13 Rifle shots and an Incendiary Grenade, but the time ran out before I could open the door. Third time I decided to try saving ammo and cornered and knifed him instead...and he went down in about a half-minute. What the hell?

5-4

Aside from the time he blew up one of the buildings when I was running around it, yeah, that's what I call back-up. He was so effective I managed to get my ammo stores back up to normal (not that it ultimately mattered outside of the last islander horde). I felt bad laughing when he died, but what kind of terrible last words are, 'I know a good bar?' Bonus points to Capcom for the sly MGS reference though.

Speaking of nods to other games, did that floppy body bag seem Silent Hill-ish to anyone else? I ultimately decided not to shoot it, mainly because I didn't know if it was supposed to be somebody I had to save or whatnot.

After all that build-up I'd have sworn that I was going to have to do some Quick-Time parasitectomy, Trauma Center-style. I was kind of releived and also, kind of disappointed. The build-up with talk of the successful ritual and her red eyes seemed wasted, as well.

Finale

Pretty easy final boss actually, in the Zelda tradition. It was fun, sure, but I was expecting something more intimidating. You'd think Leon could've been the hero and smashed the dang sample.

Kind of pissed that they didn't bother saving the merchant. That's some sense of gratitude Leon's got.

Escape bit reminded me a bit of the first DMC, which I suppose makes sense. Didn't screw it up, even when I had to go faster (thank you Sonic Unleashed).

Creepy how the ending shows the villagers slowly get infected like that. It also made me keenly aware that all the children were gone by the time Leon arrived. Eeegh.

So that's that. A good game, and a damned fine choice for the first to play together - there's not many games in recent memory as dynamic as this one was. That said, I'm in no hurry to play it again, or to jump into the bonus content anytime soon. It's probably due to my playing it in such meaty chunks, but I kind of burnt myself out on it by the end. Oh well. Awesome game, regardless.

So what's next?

Wait, what? Did I miss something?

Also, I think something went wrong in trying to spoiler-tag your write-up, cos only "5-1" is invisible for some reason.

If you wanna talk about neat little additions for the Wii, for me, it's the sound your weapon reloading emanating from the Wiimote's speaker.  There were times this time around when I've had to play the game with the television turned way down, and I could, for the first time, more clearly hear those sounds.  And it's freaken cool!  I've even taken to mimicking Leon's reload animation for the Red9, specifically when he 'throws away' the clip.

From a gamers' perspective, I would imagine most would drift to the Prince of Darkness himself.  All that's missing is a wine glass to throw, and the words on his lips, "What is a man?"

Try as I might, I too am drawing a blank.  Panda, enlighten us.

Another one of my personal favorite Leon quotes, after Ashley asks how he feels:

"Like a million bucks."

Oh, he survived.... if you believe he survived.  He's a smart cookie; he surely would've gotten off the island before shit hit the final fan.

She does kind of flit gracefully from place to place. Several people just seem to die while she does it.

Really? Anyway - After downing an aircraft, Saddler asks, 'Are you telling me you've never swatted a bothersome fly?' All I could think of was Liquid's first lines of dialogue, personally.

As far as my spoiler-tagging on my other post, it looks fine on my PC, but not on my PS3. Huh.

I really should have seen that. I am disappoint. >_<

Wow. I never thought of that for a single second...

As for the spoiler thing, it looks fine on Explorer, but not on Firefox for me.
Go figure.

I would have liked an optional side quest during the countdown in which Leon breaks the merchants (I'm assuming that Leon isn't encountering the same person repeatedly) out of a locked room before it fills with lava, and then to see them speed away from the island on their own boat.

You've been playing Super Metroid lately, haven't you?

With our Resident Evil 4 playthrough now a done deal, I thought this would be a good time to again direct folks to Gametrailers.com's most excellent Retrospective series.  Episode 5 in particular, which specifically covers RE4:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/episo … evil/46330

It's a great watch, summarizing everything from pre-production of the game, the overall story, the ports, bonus modes, and its lasting effect on the history of the series.

Finished it as well this weekend! 

Final Stats:

Times Killed: 67 (5 were that last ski-doo section  )
Time Played: 14:27

and the rest seems trivial.

I did like the build-up to the last boss; section 5-4 is easiliy my favorite part of the game.  The music comes way outta left-field and stays bombastic through the entire scenario.  There's nothing like infiltrating a base full of Granados with a hail of gunfire and music to match the intensity. 

Hey, yo, I'm Mike, the helicopter operator.  I'm from Brooklyn (apparently?). 

Big fat man-spoiler Leon's a fool for turning down "overtime." That would have been the best sex he'd have in his life.

For those playing it for their first time, what'd you think?  Was it as good as all the hype or did it lack in a couple of areas?  Will you continue with the series?

To answer my own questions, I rather liked it.  Granted, it took awhile to grow on me but once I got the hang of things, it was a great experience!  The "hype machine" never worked on me with this game, mostly because I hadn't played 1 through 3.  Still, I could sit down for a couple of hours and knock out chapter after chapter.  It's rare that I can do that with games and not get bored.  Pure adrenaline filled-action from the get-go. 

I can now appreciate the lack of ammo.  If there was any more, it'd be too easy.  There would be no motivation for perfect aiming or waiting for just the right shot.  Leon's one of the best, and I dare anyone else to say otherwise.

This being my only RE game, I can safely say that I don't think I'll be playing the others any time soon.  They'd all be a step back. 

I'd like to take a second to thank everyone who made this group so successful.  It was great to have some veterans around to help us newbies and to provide some excellent perspective on points we might have missed.  Let's give everyone another week to finish it off and do some of the extra content if they'd like, eh?

Thanks for setting this up, Dustin.  It was fun, and I think I have a greater appreciation of the game now than when I first played it back in '05.

Yeah, it's hard to peg his accent given that it changes between scenes.  It seems to travel from the New York tri-state area to somewhere in the middle states.

The what of ammo?  I didn't tune any of my weapons to increase their firepower, and I still ended the game with a full inventory in the XL case.  Granted, I reset frequently for a clean run, but I still wouldn't say that ammo is scarce.  That's probably for the best, since the availability of ammo lets you choose your playing style.  You can go the miserly, item-managing route, which was necessary in traditional RE, or you can choose to blast away.

Nah, Ada is probably 'quicker on the draw', if you know what I mean.

Alright!  So who's officially finished the game?  Sound off!

Adoru
Allyourbaseare - finished on Normal mode.
Amazingu
Angela
Ashley Winchester
Herrkotowski
Pellasos
Qui-Gon Joe
Raziel
rein
SonicPanda
Wanderer
Zane

It sounds like most of us have, but I'd like to take a tally just to make sure.  Please post your difficulty as well.

Aye, aye, sir!

Zane:

- Finished on Professional Mode.
- Assignment Ada completed.
- Mercenaries completed (5-star rankings on all four maps with all characters)

Unlocked: Professional Mode, Mercenaries (all characters), Assignment Ada, Special Costumes, Chicago Typewriter, Matilda, Handcannon (fully upgraded), Infinite Rocket Launcher.

Sorry, haven't played in ages because of lack of time.

School.

Finished Normal, fresh start and also finished Separate Ways from clear save, just to be able to have fun with Chicago Typewriter with Ada.

Unfortunately, I was completely sidetracked by life and I'm still back in 2.3. I hope to do some catch-up this weekend because this is embarrassing!

Finally finished my Chicago Typewriter-aided playthrough tonight.  Despite blasting through it super quickly, it still took a bit over 6 hours.  Played through on normal.  Man, it's still such an amazing, amazing game.  I wish I could get ANYWHERE in the stupid Mercenaries mode.

Finished the main game on normal difficulty with 1577720 pesetas and an inventory with a total resale value of 186730 pesetas

Got all five-star rankings on Mercenaries (high score: 172770 with Krauser in the castle stage)

Normal Mode here (first-time player). I considered trying out Seperate Was and then the weekend took a turn for the terrible.

Kinda curious as to what everyone's routes for weapons looked like. Did you max out every gun you got before upgrading, or did you hold off? What did you choose to have maxed, and why?

My own route this playthrough (Wii version) was to keep the basic Handgun until I acquired the Punisher from the Blue Medallion sidequest. Looking at it's stats, it comes with a level 1 firepower boost (making it marginally better than the handgun). Afterwards, Punisher was sold in favour of the Blacktail. Since I went for performance vs cost on this playthrough, I kept the basic Shotgun and Rifle until the Striker and Semi-Auto rifle became available. When they did, I used the money I had saved on customization towards maxing them. By the end of this playthrough, I had maxed everything except for my Broken Butterfly (which I only needed the exclusive for).

Traditionally, I sell both the Rocket launcher you get in the castle and the Broken Butterfly, but kept both this time around. The rocket made short work of the bug nest where Ashley gets kidnapped yet again (also guaranteeing me a Blue Eye, which is rare like a hooker in church), and the Broken Butterfly was the gun I used on bosses, making them fall like flies.

I kept the standard handgun, shotgun, and machine gun.  They were all upgraded to their max (headshots FTW!).  I also ditched the standard rifle for the semi-automatic one.  Not having to reload after every shot was a blessing!

I kept the Handgun until the Red9 became available, and once you could shoot down the medallions to get the bumped Punisher, I did that and then sold it; I picked up the Red9 once both of those were out of my inventory and gradually upgraded the gun as I saw fit.

I got the Shotgun from the house in the village, and didn't upgrade or purchase a new weapon until the Striker became available. I also kept the Bolt-Action Rifle (didn't purchase until 3-1 or something) and upgraded that as well. Same with the free Broken Butterfly. I used the free Launcher on Verdugo for an easy victory.

By the time I finished the game I had all of my main weapons completely maxed out, with some change to spare. If anything, RE4's inventory reflects my personal collecting habits: max out the great stuff, organize so you can find things easily, and sell excess inventory whenever possible!

So since this has pretty much died down, would you guys be up for another game starting October 1st?   I'd like to get a general consensus and if there's enough support, I'll start another voting thread.