Part 5: Episode IV: Walk This Way

Episode IV: Walk This Way

When last we left our heroes, they had encountered the undead and had their fearless leader run off into the night. With that said, let's continue...


Barry takes a rather Wesker like stance in his 'search' of the hallway, by standing in place, walking a few paces, then returning to standing in place. I guess it's up to Jill to check out the area.


The right side of hallway presents two doors. The upper one is locked, the lower one is not. But, we're just investigating. So moving right along...


There is now a rather elaborate portrait found at the intersection of the main stairway. It also has an open door hidden in its depths. But, still exploring...


Two more doors on the upper westside. I'm not liking my prospects of backtracking in the near future. The southern one is locked while the northern one is not. One more scene setting cap, I promise.


The eastern side of the hallway has another pair of locked doors. Another one is off screen, but I don't think we needed yet another dull setting shot to point it out. Let's see what Barry has found.


"Wesker is a traitor and he lured us here to get killed for a vague study of assorted monsters' capability."
"What?!"
"GAH! I mean, Chris is our old partner, ya know."


Just in case you're wondering, Chris does appear later in Jill's game, toward the very end. Though, his disappearing initially makes no sense at all. Chris' game has Jill disappear similarly, but at least then it can be contributed to the something I'm sure has been illustrated in horrifying detail in some Japanese porn comic.


"I'm still not convinced that red stain wasn't catsup."


"Jesus! There's two dining rooms?! It's the mouth of madness!"


Or we can start by NOT FUCKING SPLITTING UP! THIS IS NOT SCOOBY DOO!


"Got to put that college education to good use, right?"








Thus, Jill receives the lockpick, which decreases her inventory induced backtracking to an even smaller minimum.


"Yeah, picked some crap out of my teeth with it, after that big batch of burritos Enrico made us last week. Thing's been in my back pocket ever since."


"So...pointless cutscene here in about a half hour?"
"Sounds about right."

Barry returns to the dining room to investigate absolutely nothing.


One last thing to see in the main hall, before we move on. Couldn't show it earlier, as it would trigger the lockpick cutscene. There's another door behind the stairwell.


At least it's not Chris' sister jizzed all over again. Once was enough. There are a pair of indentations demanding obscure artifacts being placed in them to unlock this spooky gate. That is going onto the list of 'long term goals'. Long term as in we'll be lucky to be at that point in fifteen updates.

Jill gets a bright idea.


Why not just escape out the front? Surely, those dogs couldn't still be out there.


"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY DID YOU ASSHOLES LOCK THE DOOR!?!"


Yeah, not the best of ideas.


The original game just featured an extremely poorly rendered Cerberus stick its head in the door. Capcom punishes you further by actually letting one in, this time.


Let's try not doing that, in the future.

Since Barry is making damn sure there's nothing left to that dining room, and failing at even that, Jill checks out the door on the opposite side.


"An art gallery..." just doesn't have the same flair as "A dining room!?"


Jill can employ the aid of a nearby heavy cabinet, since who wants to climb on shoddy art, to obtain a map of this dump. Which is, of course, atop the statue.


Fuuuuuck... I swear, finding maps are the most depressing parts of these threads for me.


Officer Valentine can check out the back room to discover a nifty new mechanic of this title.


The defense items. In this case, the defense dagger. Jill and Chris both can obtain two different styles of defense items. Both get the daggers, but each get an unique second item. I'll get to that when one crops up.


Now, how does the defense item work, you ask? Well, let's just call upon the aide of this zombie that recent spawned out of thin air.


Jill Valentine ass-to-floor tally is now at two.


Basically, if attacked from the front by any enemy that has a grabbing attack animation, the appropriate button can be pressed (or it can be set to automatic) to initiate the defense item. This will cause Jill or Chris to dodge the creature's advance.


And stab it in the fucking face. Which, on a score of One to Metal, is pretty rockin'. Unfortunately, the defense items are a one time use affair. Which doesn't really make sense for the dagger. But hey, you got away with no damage and a zombie with a dagger in its eye socket. Good enough for me.

Unfortunately, the only other door out in the art gallery is locked with a "Sword Key". A suit of armor is the mansion's kooky flavor of keys. Guess what our next quest is for... Since Barry ought to be looking cryptically at that blood splatter still, Jill tries the second floor of the dining room.


Not much going on up here. A pair of locked doors.


Some destruction of priceless artwork, just to be a dick.


And Chaos Emeralds.

Jill returns to the main hallway and tries the door behind the staircase painting.


Which leads to, of course, a cemetery. Since, were I to build a several acre mansion, I'd make damn sure to plop it right atop a cemetery, plant a flower garden over the Indian burial ground, and put a swimming pool over the Deep Ones shrine.



A crypt at the end of the area demands some manner of arrow head. No doubt to appease the vengeful Native American spirits which haunt the dead. I'm surprised the series hasn't had ghosts yet. I think it just needs aliens and ghosts to complete the full gauntlet of stock enemies, as Umbrella Chronicles seems to be covering the sorely missing Nazi category.

Since Barry seemed to have wandered off from his dining room investigation, Jill decides to check out the hallway that held Kenneth's dead black ass.


This hallway has a pair of doors on the far end, then a staircase leading down to yet another door. All three are locked by a latch on the other side, and armor keys, respectively. Jill takes the door opposite Kenneth's body.


Which leads to a stairway which began with a corridor that I believe only existed to give a camera angle to show off Jill's bouncing boob physics. But, since that doesn't translate well to picture and I'm not going to be arsed to record fanservice; you'll have to take my word on it.

Jill heads upstairs into the next area.


Nothing like a hallway which leads to a hallway which leads to a connecting stairwell which leads to another winding hallway. I wonder what this door will lead to...


Oh, a stairway with cryptic poetry. The architect of this place was a genius of subtlety.


Spiffy. A key at last. Roughly fifteen hundred locked doors later.


Look, buddy. I'm up for fucking sainthood after going through this fucking series, so shove the enigmatic messages, 'kay?


Resident Evil presents the jerk move of requiring you to examine a key item, usually by flipping it around in the inventory screen, before its proper name is revealed. Got to stack on those precious five seconds of gameplay. This is the Armor Key, by the way.


Eh?


Is a man not entitled to the Armor Key? No, says the abstract Resident Evil puzzle. It belongs to a retarded fetch quest.

Jill returns the key, causing the spinning blade of doom to back off.


There's also a helmet key door at the end of this winding corridor. We'll be getting back here soon enough. And by soon enough, I mean like three hours...

Jill returns to the winding hallway lacking spinning blades of doom.


This game will actually explain its silly traps and puzzles later on. However, the copious amounts of statues, paints, and assorted works of art? Sadly, there's not a serial killer rapist police chief to explain those away, this time.


Anyhow, as 'survival horror' is essentially a more combat oriented spin-off of the adventure genre, we'll be seeing quite a bit of the nonsensical keys to puzzles lying about. Luckily, it's also a very much dumbed down derivative of the genre. So, instead of having to find some sort of mixing agent, obtained by disguising yourself in a mustache cobbled together by cat hair and syrup.


You just need to screw the end off in the inventory screen. Okay then. You keep packing on those extra five seconds of gameplay, Capcom. You wild kids you.

Jill follows the long hallway to its end and heads out the door she finds.


Back to the dining room overlook area. Why a dining room needs some sort of observation area is anyone's guess.

Back to the cemetery, arrow head in hand.



Am I the only one puzzled by why Jill can easy shove in an emerald arrow head into this slot, well above arm length. But has to push a cabinet across the room to obtain an arrow of equal height?


The crypt top slides open to reveal, what else, but a secret entrance.


Umm... Okay... Some sort of furnace dungeon beneath the cemetery. Nothing creepy about that at all. Welcome to the primary objective of this act of the game. If you'll notice the slots behind Jill, each has a key item it needs. What key items, you ask? Well, death masks, of course.


A Three Stooges skit gone horribly awry.


mouth should be.

I didn't know Joan Rivers was making a cameo in this title.


Well, shit. Jill's got that one covered.


My dream girl.

What does all this lead up to, you ask? Well, that's simple to answer.


It unleashes a blood filled coffin suspended in mid air by rusted chains. Did you expect any less?


One which has the Necronomicon's gay younger brother beneath it.


Surprisingly light on the language.

Jill flips the book over.



Where would the Sword Key be but on the back of an ancient tomb in the crypt of a shackled menacing coffin lit only by undying flames? Oh yes, there's an excerpt to be read from the Book of Curse. The first proper file of the game. Are you excited as I am?

Book of Curse

Read: Fetch quest resulting in a mini-boss forthcoming.

And with that we come to a close. Tune in next time for our heroine puking and almost being turned into a sandwich!

Bonus Content:

Defense Weapon Demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si5luqG51Ak

Original Game Bonus Content:

Infamous Master of Unlocking Scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyghKl72R0