Resident Evil 4/Tips

In this section I'll give some basic tips for surviving with as few problems as possible.

Ammo Conservation
There are a few good ways to converve ammo. I'll go over each, some with more detail than others.

Knife
The knife is your best friend, either when you're low on ammo or not. If you feel the need to compulsively conserve every bullet you can, learn to fight with this. There are some good tactics that can make the knife astoundingly useful.

If you're fighting a regular enemy one on one, you easily kill him without firing a shot. If he's holding a weapon, let him approach and begin to attack. When he's starting the swing, start walking backward (if he's holding a pitchfork, you'll have to back up much farther, so it might not work every time). There will be a delay during which the enemy has to regain his balance. While he's doing that, run up, arm the knife, and slash him in the face. He'll clutch his eyes and stagger around. Dash close, and the "Kick" option should appear. Kick him, and start knifing while he's down.

If there are several enemies around, try and position yourself so only one can attack you at any given time (preferably find a bottleneck somewhere where only one enemy can get through at a time). Follow the strategy above, and when you kick him every other enemy nearby will be knocked back, giving you some time to either attack the guy on the ground or, if some enemies are still standing, retreat to a better location.

A non-combat use for the knife is setting off some traps. The bear-traps, especially, can be set off if you get close, aim at them, and slash with the knife.

Pistol
If you don't feel confidant with your knife skills, you can replace part of the above strategies with single shots from the handgun. Instead of slashing at their face, you can either shoot at their face (which has the same effect as slashing) or their knee/shin. If they get shot in the leg, they'll drop to their knees, where you can either do a variation on the above kick, or a suplex, which is extremely powerful and may instantly kill them.

Against multiple enemies the same strategy applies, but try to only shoot for the head. If you do the kick that comes from shooting them in the head, it will have a great chance of knocking every other enemy over. The other kick will very likely only knock down the one enemy, and the suplex will definitely only hit one enemy, and leaves you open for a few seconds to an attack.

Shotgun
If you're facing a large group of enemies and can't get close enough for kicking (for several possible reasons, one being maybe many enemies have weapons and are attacking one after another), you can use a well-placed shotgun blast to give you some time. Run around until the enemies are grouped as closely as possible, then turn to fight. Arm the shotgun and aim for the head/neck area of the front-most enemy. Wait for them to get close (maybe even until the front enemy begins to attack), then fire. Most enemies should be blown back (maybe killed, at least floored), and any others will at least be knocked back to a fair distance. You can then switch to knife or pistol strategies to mop up the rest.

Rifle
The proverbial long-distance weapon. Try not to use this in close quarters, because its slow turnover rate makes it a huge liability. The units of ammo you will find are generally very small, but it usually only takes one well-placed rifle shot to kill an enemy, so you don't feel the pressure too much.

Grenades
It should be pretty obvious, but the Hand Grenade and Incendiary Grenades are good to use when conserving ammo and taking on large groups, since they're generally fairly commonly found. Flash Grenades would be good for stunning crowds in order to escape, if you don't feel like fighting. They also have the added bonus of being able to kill certain Plagas-carrying Ganados instantly.

General
For the most part, you will be fine as long as your health is in the green, or even high yellow. You probably don't need to heal until you drop into low yellow or red.

Chickens
When you're in the farm area of the Village section of the game, keep a look out for chickens. They will, if left alone long enough, lay eggs that can be used for healing. There are three levels, Regular, Brown, and Gold. Obviously each successive egg is better than the last. Since each egg is only one block in the inventory you can stock up on a lot of eggs and save some room. There are some chickens in the initial Village area, but they tend to lay eggs slower (or not at all). Extra tip: You can equip eggs and throw them at enemies. If you hit their face it acts much like a knife slash. Not very useful (especially compared to the healing abilities of an egg), except maybe if you can't get close enough to stun them without getting hit, but fun to watch.

Yellow Herbs
Yellow Herbs raise your health bar by a small margin. Use them as soon as you can. You can combine them into another herb so that you can just use the combination when you're low on health and you'll just get a boost to go with the healing. No real difference, but it'll let you forget about it and focus on the rest of the game and still have it happen.

Fish
In a couple of sections near the beginning of the game, you can fish some and get a few fish. They act a lot like the eggs, with low level fish, middle level fish, and high level fish. There really isn't much difference, except that they take up a a lot more room (especially the highest level). If you're low on health at the time you find them, though, they can be good free health. You just have to either shoot or knife (if you're really close) them to pick them up.

Buy Only What You'll Use
You won't find infinite amounts of money throughout RE4, and as such it forces you to keep a rather tight budget. Therefore, when you get the opportunity to buy things from a merchant, only buy the things you'll use. It doesn't matter if the Red 9 is a new gun--if you won't use it, don't buy it. The only things this doesn't apply to, obviously, are things like the Punisher (which is free after completing a certain task)

The corollary to this, of course, is sell what you don't need. The attache case has only so much room, and if you don't use something like the Handgun anymore because you prefer the Punisher, then sell it and use the money it nets you for something else.

Be Aware Of Ashley
When you find Ashley, you'll be saddled with an extra responsibility, for she is extremely fragile. While she does duck when you raise your gun to shoot, she doesn't always do it immediately, and one bad shot will kill her instantly and give you a game over. Also, she can be carried off by enterprising villagers/cult members/commandos, and if you let them get away it's also a game over. You can stop them, however, with a bullet to any part of their bodies, which will cause them to drop her. Be aware of where she is at all times.

She, too, has a health bar, and you must heal her as well, so be careful of the strain on your healing items.