Ramón Salazar's arc in the remake of Resident Evil 4 is an intense and stressing game of cat and mouse, which takes place in one of the most impressive and memorable environments of the story, with its evil antagonist rising as a major villainous force, serving also as a determinant character with a crucial role in the development of the plot. Locked in his luxurious castle, contemplating glories of the past among rare treasures and brainwashed minions, Ramón Salazar goes through a complex development himself; a development that gradually unfolds his already evil persona, making him much more powerful as an enemy than his original version.

Osmund Saddler's ominous presence may be looming over the Village in the first part of the story, but it is not until the last sequences of the Island section that he appears physically on screen. Salazar shows up almost as soon as the Castle arc begins, making himself more than obvious and reassuring the intruders about his evil intentions. While Saddler hides in the shadows for most of the story, Salazar makes sure that Leon understands very well who is the boss in the Castle, never missing a chance to pester him by calling him through the technically modern but visually retro monitoring system of his residence.

Salazar first shows up in the Audience Chamber as a grotesque diminutive aristocrat, dressed in an extremely retro style and a white wig, and accompanied by his two faithful guards who are already mutated and covered with robes. Both of them are compelling and intimidating; it is clear that Salazar relies almost entirely on their terrifying presence so as to be able to bully his potential victims without hesitation. The fact that Leon talks back to him, most probably being the sole person in a long time to dare to do so, is one first strike against his pride, which is already fragile enough even though he prefers to not acknowledge it. He becomes furious, although at this point he is still able to control his rage and simply orders his zealot minions to attack Leon and kill him. He does so calmly, marginally succeeding in keeping himself collected; but it is an attitude that will not last for very long.

To better understand Salazar's emotional state and attempt to comprehend his mentality, it is essential that we explore his extravagant residence, which is the exact equivalent of him in terms of architecture and decoration. Although the magnificent Salazar castle had been built many centuries before Ramón's time, it seems to reflect his personality and twisted mind as if it was made by the villain himself. Imposing, eery and marginally intimidating from the outside, it is revealed to be a complex of lush living quarters, deadly battlements, gory dungeons and unworldly halls on the inside.

The interior of the castle unfolds little by little as Leon, either alone or with company, moves deeper and deeper towards its "heart" which is in fact the place where he finally confronts Salazar. Before this happens, however, the various rooms, halls and gardens of the castle are gradually unlocked to him, revealing interesting facts about Ramón in the process, either via scattered journal pages and files or via details in the decoration and structure of the environments. The exterior of the main castle grounds is a multi-leveled area complete with catapults, an old but fully functioning cannon and several towers overlooking its yards. It also features a chapel, guarded by a monk who undergoes one of the creepiest mutations in the game, and a horde of zealot warriors who are determined to not allow anyone go beyond the gates. It is interesting, however, that the castle's drawbridge gate is fully open when Leon arrives with Ashley, implying that the path to Salazar's residence, being the only way out of the village after the ambush at the Villa, was cleverly turned into a trap so as to drag him inside. The drawbridge is closed shut after Leon and Ashley enter the yard of the castle, specifically to lock them in without any obvious escape route ahead of them. Considering that Salazar had become Lord Saddler's puppet, he had apparently received detailed instructions from him after Leon defeated Bitores Mendez in the Slaughterhouse, in order to lure Leon and Ashley in the castle and subsequently attempt to kidnap Ashley and lead her to him. The fact that so many people were enlisted against Leon so that Ashley could be eventually brought to Saddler, says a lot of things about how Leon's skills and intelligence would always obstruct the Lord's evil plans.

 

After Leon breaks open the main gate with the cannon, the story's action is transferred in a series of interior environments which comprise the actual residence of Ramón Salazar. The first room that we see is the Audience Chamber, a vast two-leveled hall with sparse but luxurious decoration, on top of which Ramón makes the aforementioned first appearance. The chamber is partly drowned in fog, something that further highlights the eery, chilling atmosphere of the setting. Heavy chandeliers are hanging from its tall ceiling, and several candelabras holding lit candles are scattered all around, giving off the spooky vibe of a sacrilegious church of sorts. There is also one very unsettling decorative detail in the lower part of this room - big statues hanging upside down from the ceiling, which may be slightly swinging due to subtle gusts of air. It is either a twisted concept adding to the overall extravagant style of the castle, or an equally disturbing warning hinting at what will happen to all unwanted or disobedient intruders.

 

The next area we get to explore is the dungeons, as Leon falls down a suspicious part of the floor in the prison cells. Unlike the gold and luxury of the previous room, this new environment reeks of blood and rot and hosts the Garrador, one of the most terrifying enemies in the Castle section. In his past life, he worked for the masters of the castle as a torturer; apparently he was later infected with the Plagas and became that lethal monster. The dungeons are dirty, forsaken grounds, a private hell obviously reserved for all the unlucky souls who dare to doubt Ramón's authority. Next up is the Water Hall, a vast room with many levels that are connected together with hidden stairs and are riddled with over-the-top unlocking mechanisms. In gameplay, it is one of the most challenging and hostile areas of the whole castle, featuring a large number of enemies that attack in groups and including the infamous double crank sequence during which Leon has to protect Ashley from the zealots as she is struggling to raise two platforms in one of the pools so as to make way for the exit.

 

The next part of the castle consists of a series of rooms that would once cover the side-activities of the residents: a garden with fountains, a wine cellar, a Bindery Room and a small study are all grouped together in a rather limited, mostly narrow wing which, in its turn, leads to the Battlements, a heavily guarded section with a mazey structure and gates that open and close by operating levers marked with sun and moon symbols. There are several towers and narrow corridors, with a horrific armored and extremely hostile Gigante on one of its terraces. Next up is the Courtyard, hosting the infamous Salazar maze with the Plaga dogs, leading to the lavish living quarters of the castle.

The living quarters consist of the Grand Hall, a dining room and a Gallery, featuring also an elaborate wagon - lift which connects this part of the castle with the Audience Chamber via a private train track. This area of the castle features brightly lit rooms with luxurious furniture and precious antiques for decoration, impressive chandeliers and numerous paintings and portraits on their walls. After Leon solves the Chimera statue puzzle, a locked door frees the way to the basement where there is the Library and the Mausoleum, which is the area that we first explore with Ashley and later Leon can visit so as to collect treasures and complete requests given by the Merchant.

 

This same door also leads to one of the most chilling and at the same time charming environments of the castle, which is the Ballroom; a hall that is particularly interesting both as a presentation and as a carrier of semantic significance in relation to the story. Unlike all the rooms and quarters in the castle before it which are in perfect or at least decent condition - the Grand Hall and its side-rooms even look like they are regularly inhabited by human beings - the Ballroom is partly ruined; its ceiling is collapsed, as are several of its columns. Fallen chandeliers, ripped curtains and broken windows, in an eery, round hall with large sections of its floor missing, gigantic mushroom colonies hemmed in its walls and a seemingly endless army of Novistadores, Saddler's horrifying giant insects, floating around its thick, foggy air. 

 

Of all the areas in the castle, the Ballroom is where you can literally see the source of the infection, with the fungus having crept over the hall, the corridor leading to it and - as we are able to see later - its exterior walls as well; which is exactly why this very room is of crucial semantic importance for the story and its development. The infectious fungus has violently invaded the specific hall of the castle that would normally be filled with people and associated with happy times. Now it is has become a nest of deadly giant insects and its obvious decadence is a direct reflection of Salazar's mental and emotional wretchedness. Of a similar semantic importance is also the Clock Tower, the section of the castle where Leon confronts Salazar in a most dramatic finale. Known also as the Tower of Death, this narrow construction hosts a giant stone statue depicting Ramón, which in fact is a death trap, breathing fire out of its mouth (in the original game, the statue would come to "life" thanks to a hidden mechanism and chase Leon in a most memorable quick-time event).

In the original game, Salazar's castle was equally luxurious and impressive, but his persona, albeit undoubtedly evil and cunning, was relatively toned down, also because he was rather clear as a villainous character, the obsession with his glorious family line and his inferiority complex making him a dangerous but nevertheless ridiculous enemy. In his revamped version, he is a threatening being with a very complex psyche, who carries an unfathomable amount of rage towards every breathing soul around him, who hated his father with a venom and teamed up with Lord Saddler agreeing to serve his evil machinations. The new persona, when placed in his lush castle's environment, gains an extra level of grotesquerie; the castle complements Salazar's overweening attitude, and there are signs of Salazar's insanity in every nook and cranny of his extravagant residence.

This new complexity of Salazar's character transforms him from the supporting caricature villain that he was in the original game, to a super powerful entity that may have a human appearance but even before his mutation he is almost as terrifying as his monster form. After defeating him, you leave the Castle grounds with an overwhelming haunting feeling that cannot go away even when you reach the extremely dangerous and hostile island where Saddler's sanctuary lies. Saddler himself is not half as intimidating; before his mutation, all you see is an obsessed lunatic who is convinced that he serves a divine cause. And after he mutates, he becomes a disgusting, marginally ridiculous spider-like monster which goes on babbling the exact same way as before, without the slightest sign of inner struggle. As for Krauser, he maintains his human traits even after his mutation, but although there are stings of bitterness in his words and a good deal of personal grudge against Leon, he remains in a brainwashed state until his very last moments, when he finally snaps out of his delusion and asks Leon to kill him in an unexpected twist of dignity and humility. 

Contrary to all boss villains before and after him, the terrifying thing about Salazar is that, while in his monster form, his delirium is one-hundred-per-cent human as he floats around, including vulgar swearing, disturbing death threats and blood-chilling curses that, obviously, were being directed at him in the past. Because when he calls Leon "tiny, ugly, sickly half-wit", it is more than clear that he spits onto Leon the insults that he was once receiving, as Leon is the exact opposite of all these attributes: he is a tall, devastatingly handsome young man with a brilliant mind and full of health. And when he goes on: "You should never have been born, you demon child! I will send you back to the hell you came from!" it is obvious that these had been words that were once being directed at him, when he was too weak and powerless and unable to defend himself. Salazar is a delusional, brainwashed puppet while in human state, trying - and, to a degree, succeeding - to keep himself together, albeit in his own distorted way, but he abruptly reverts to his deranged, uninhibited and hysterical human self as soon as he mutates into a monster. At some point, he starts listing the parts of Leon's body that he will rip out or maybe even eat, notably screaming that he will leave his eyes for last. This creepily cannibalistic threat concerning one of Leon's most graceful features, his lovely blue eyes, is most indicative of Salazar's venomous hate towards anything that is beautiful.

Salazar's evolution in the remake of Resident Evil 4 results in him playing a far more important part now, similar to that of Stefano Valentini in The Evil Within 2. The analogy is not random, as the two characters have common traits and their roles in the stories they are involved in have more or less the same dynamic. They were both used by a lunatic to achieve a so-called higher goal, but somewhere in the way they got to claim something bigger for themselves. But each one's development is unique: unlike Stefano, who almost completely diverted from his original role after a pivotal moment, Salazar remained faithful to the orders he had received, but for him the big twist was the realization of his personal tragedy which was triggered when he met Leon for the first time. It is safe to say that he had been evil all along, but from that moment and on his limited self-control completely vanished and he became a monster long before his actual transformation. 

Escaping the castle now becomes a far more stressing and difficult task; in the original, Salazar was just one minor unit, placing obstacles here and there that might have been challenging but were somehow functioning as stand-alone threats, mostly and mainly controlled by Saddler. Now, however, every danger and obstruction that Leon comes across in the castle grounds seems to carry Salazar's stamp of sadism and cruelty, and the castle, albeit under Saddler's influence still, is Ramón's absolute reign of terror where noone else is allowed to roam. It is notable that, while in the original the infamous throne room was on the Island and the actual throne where Leon could teasingly sit and pose charmingly was Saddler's, is in the castle in the remake, and it is the same throne that now belongs to Salazar. This change may not look significant, but in fact it is extremely important and emphatic in relation to how the interactions between Leon and Salazar develop until the climactic finale with the boss fight.

Albeit optional, visiting Salazar's throne room is a crucial side-path in the story. The first time that the throne room is seen in the game is near the end of Chapter 10, right after the Ballroom, during the scene in which Leon witnesses Ashley's forced initiation and Salazar's subsequent attempt to kill him by having one of his guards push him in the abysmal pit that is one of the many man-made death traps in the castle. Although all this is a cutscene and we can do nothing at that point, it marks a pivotal moment in which Salazar's attitude completely changes: he abandons the disturbingly playful manner that he had from Leon's first meeting with him until that very moment and gets serious, instantly becoming a no-nonsense, ruthless threat. 

Leon may be able to make it safe from the fall due to his survival instinct and his skills, but there was no way he could have landed alive at the bottom of that pit otherwise. The rotting corpses down there in the sewers say it all. So when Leon returns to the throne room in Chapter 12, at which point we are free to explore that previously unreachable wing of the castle, there is some kind of payback that he can give in return: fulfilling one of the Merchant's requests, he can pick up a freshly laid egg from one of the hens that wander around the room and throw it on Salazar's portrait, defacing it in the most humiliating way.

In addition, he can sit on Salazar's throne with all the grace that his gorgeous figure generously allows him to have, further humiliating Ramón and ridiculing the obsession that he has with his bloodline which at the same time he also despises because he never truly felt any real connection with his family. Quite possibly these two actions are the most powerful strikes against Salazar, hurting him way more than the bullets and knife stabs that he will later receive during the boss fight.

Leon's sitting pose mocks the one that Salazar has in the aforementioned cutscene (also pictured in the first image of this article), but it is even more hurtful for Ramón that the sight of Leon on the throne, although mockery, is still eye-candy. Leon could very well be the "king" of that castle, because he is a gifted and good-hearted young man and he is essentially noble without being an aristocrat by title, unlike Salazar who drags around his miserable existence, gaining satisfaction by making his poor victims suffer. In reality however, Salazar is a pitiable human being, emotionally traumatized beyond repair and thus incapable of ever coming to his senses. 

The huge contrast between Leon and Salazar is one parameter of great significance for all the Castle chapters. Salazar calls Leon the noble knight who has arrived to rescue the fair princess, very obviously with much sarcasm and a good dose of bitterness. Although he is very past the point where he would literally be interested in offering his aid to a damsel in distress, as he is too absorbed in his own ego in the irreversibly distorted world that is partly a result of his developing mutation, in theory he would have liked to be acting like a knight himself. As long as he is surrounded by brainwashed zealots and mutated guards, he feels that he is at an advantage; but the moment that Leon arrives and he sees him for the first time, all his illusions disappear in the blink of an eye. Because just then he comes face to face with the realization that the world is not like he wants to fantasize in his golden quarantine, being now forced to deal with someone who has all the attributes that would form a knight as he perceives him. Leon is brave, beautiful, strong, kind and intelligent; and although the new Ashley is not as helpless as the original one, therefore not anymore the typical damsel in distress, she still relies on him for her survival, which is far more essential than her actual rescue. 

From a technical point of view, the boss fight with Salazar is the most well-structured and balanced of the game. Salazar is an extremely tough and violent boss, making the battle against him a demanding challenge; but every single element comprising it makes total sense, something that allows room for building a strategy, while at the same time offering Salazar enough space to shine as a terrifying and unforgettable high-rank enemy. While in the original game's final confrontation with him Salazar's lines are limited to only two phrases that are clearly connected to the story alone, in the remake his mutation and the battle that follows it shoot up his paranoia, revealing a venomous and lethal hate towards Leon personally. This variation is indicative of his overall evolution as a demonic, devilish force that consciously causes harm and brings death and gloom everywhere around him. 

At some point during the fight, he mentions that Leon reminds him of his father, and that the likeness, being so uncanny, makes him want to strangle the life out of Leon. He literally spits out these words with hysterical fury, and it is notable that, although his delirium progressively grows out of control with the battle lasting longer anyway, this declaration further reinforces his descend into an uncontrollable berserk mode. In the throne room, there is a portrait of a man and a woman left and right of the throne; on that of the man, there is a Boot Knife that Leon can take, but notably the weapon sits right on the man's heart. The person that the portrait depicts could be Ramón's father, because as we read in one of the files, the latter was murdered "by the devil" (either Saddler himself, or Ramón under Saddler's influence); so the knife that is stuck on the portrait could mean just that.

However, there are two other portraits, one in the small sitting room overlooking the Courtyard and one in the Grand Hall, which depict two different men that both share a striking resemblance with Leon. Since Ramón uses this exact word, "resemblance", therefore physical likeness, we could guess that the man in the throne room with the knife on his portrait is probably one of Ramón's older ancestors (a grandfather, maybe), and the knife is placed there as a red herring; because if the battle with Ramón ends quickly, he will not have the time to say the comment about Leon looking like his father, and the player (and Leon) could easily miss it. If that is indeed the case, Ramón's father is either the man in the sitting room portrait or the one in the Grand Hall portrait.

The man in the sitting room portrait, shown in the screenshot above, looks way too much like Leon to be a coincidence. Ramón's hysteria when he mentions that the resemblance between Leon and his father is striking truly says something. The other man, the one in the Grand Hall portrait, shown in the screenshot below, also looks a lot like Leon but this is not very apparent when our hero has his regular look; it becomes more evident when he has the Hero outfit on, in which his hair is styled differently, pretty much like the man's in the Grand Hall portrait whose outfit, incidentally, also resembles Leon's Hero one.

Whichever the case might be, Ramón's daddy issues are revealed to be an important driving force for his character development and subsequently his attitude after he goes through his mutation and becomes completely unhinged and uninhibited. In his human days, after he took over the castle following the demise of his family, he would choose to live in a fantasy world, as is hinted by his words before the final confrontation begins: he would see everything as a theatrical play, where both him and people around him had a specific role. 

This view of life and the world would ease his insecurities and make him see himself as someone who mattered. Born with a degenerative illness that also affected his physical growth and would sooner or later lead to his death, Ramón would find moral satisfaction in making people suffer. As we read in the files found in the castle, once he threw vitriol on the face of a servant who teasingly called him "Pulgarcito" (which is "Tom Thumb" in Spanish, the little hero of the well-known folk tale that narrates the story of a diminutive boy). This explains why during the boss fight he "casts" Leon in the role of Pulgarcito for his imaginary play: he is making a projection, in a desperate and vain attempt to rid off his own physical disadvantage.

In fact Ramón's transformation did not happen just at the time of his final mutation. Long before this, he made a pact with Saddler so as to unleash the Plagas that had been sleeping for centuries in the dark depths of the castle's underground after one of his ancestors discovered them and sealed them. According to the castle's files, his mother agreed to have Saddler infect Ramón with the Plagas, because she knew that his illness would lead him to an untimely death and wished to save his life. Of course this could only go wrong. After his mother's death and his father's murder, Ramón remained the sole heir of the castle being also the end of his illustrious family line. He unsealed the underground of the castle, making way for the excavation of the Plagas in the mines that were set up specifically for this purpose - during the final mine cart ride in Chapter 11, Luis shows Leon the source of the Plagas down there in the depths. Several people from the nearby village were employed to work at the excavation site, but all of them were gradually infected, turning into Lord Saddler's puppets.

Given his traumatic childhood and the unavoidable physical, mental and emotional corruption that came with his infection, Salazar eventually became the disgrace of his noble family. The fact that he can be killed with two golden eggs as an alternative to the regular long and tough boss battle, may hint that the people of the region, knowing him as the degenerate and corrupt aristocrat that he was, would occasionally throw eggs at him whenever he would walk out of the castle, so as to ridicule him (it is believed by part of the gaming community that his sensitivity to eggs is due to an allergy that he is supposed to have, but there is no report or evidence anywhere to support this claim). There are only two golden eggs in the whole game, and are always found in two specific places: the first is at the shores of the lake in the village, found as early as in Chapter 4, and the second is in the throne room, locked in a safe which can be opened only with an elaborate unlocking mechanism involving a cube key that is found somewhere else in the castle.

Just like he is mostly humiliated and defeated when Leon defaces his portrait and then sits on his throne, getting hit with something as mundane as an egg, albeit golden, hurts him way more than the weapons hurt his body, because it is a strike against his dignity and his pride. The egg being golden signifies his own high-society status which, however, means nothing in his case as he is unable to do justice to it. From a literary point of view, we could say that when Leon kills him with regular weapons, he kills his physical side, and when he defeats him with the two golden eggs, he causes his symbolic death, depriving him of his pride by humiliating him so easily.

After he dies, Salazar leaves behind his Lip Rouge, a bright pink cosmetic powder that he apparently used on a regular basis so as to cover up the ghostly paleness and the notable signs of the infection on his face. This partly tragic and partly humorous detail is yet one more remain of his aristocratic background, as it nods to the rouge pomade that members of high-society in the Baroque era used to apply on their faces. Salazar had all the material elements that would make him a member of nobility: the title, the castle, the luxury, even the lip rouge; but in his real essence he was rotten to the core. In a not so unexpected twist, given the events leading up to Salazar's ending, as the Castle section reaches its finale with the boss fight at the Clock Tower chamber, Leon turns out to have been Ramón's rival awe all along and therefore the most appropriate to seal his fate.

 

» Salazar's Castle: A Comprehensive Gallery

» Salazar Boss Fight Dialogue Lines in Resident Evil 4 Remake 

» Salazar Boss Fight Full Dialogue Version Gameplay

 

 

Time To Go Our Separate Ways?

There is a weird thing going on with almost all main DLC's from the latest Resident Evil games, including Resident Evil 7, Resident Evil: Village and the latest Resident Evil 4 remake, that makes them feel and look like alternative versions of the main games with different protagonists. But in the specific context, this is not always a good thing: they give the impression that most of their parts had been considered as possible episodes of the core games that were then sort of reduced for whatever reason to be included in the downloadable content chapters. "End of Zoe" from Resident Evil 7 might have been a slight exception, and I say "slight" because even if it was very good, it had us play with a protagonist who, albeit fairly cool and fun, had never been mentioned or appeared once in the main game. "Not a Hero", again from Resident Evil 7, was a frustrating race with Chris Redfield as a lead struggling in almost every step, with never enough items to go through extremely difficult areas and battles, in the end fighting against an enemy who should have been part of the main game anyway. "Shadows of Rose" from Resident Evil: Village had some interesting elements, but it lacked a believable plot base, resulting in giving strong "what if" vibes instead of being a solid, independent story. And now the highly anticipated, new and revamped "Separate Ways" from Resident Evil 4's remake is one more addition to this bizarre list of DLC's.

"Separate Ways" was initially an extended side game stemming from the original Resident Evil 4, with Ada Wong as the protagonist, where we followed our favorite lady spy in her own mission in the hostile Spanish countryside where the main game also took place. Ada would arrive in familiar areas of the core story, either before or after Leon, and she would sometimes offer a helping hand, even without him knowing. In spite of Ada's spy status, which by the way could have been put to even better use by applying stealth mechanics to her gameplay, the original mission moved in a similar pace with the main game, feeling at times a bit too much for Ada and her way of dealing with things. But this was part of the challenge anyway; the mini game was very well set up and executed, and never felt repetitive or dull although we were called to battle the same kinds of enemies and the same bosses (albeit in different forms, in Saddler's case).

The revamped "Separate Ways" is a different story, however. After a promising and intriguing entrance, with Luis performing flamenco in a prison cell and Ada rescuing him from execution at just the last minute, things start to progressively change. An annoying mysterious enemy makes his appearance, infecting Ada with the parasite that he is carrying and we are forced to fight him at that extremely early stage with our very limited and weak resources. Ada begins to experience weird hallucinations caused by the infection, that severely affect her battling skills. We understand that this enemy, called for the time being The Black Robe (because he is sporting a fancy black robe literally, and by the way it turns out he is a familiar "face": he is the other guardian, besides Verdugo, who, in the main game, accompanies Salazar in his dramatic appearances), will be stalking us for quite a while, because he is not exactly dead after that first fight is over. 

Either alone or with Luis for very brief segments, Ada goes through several familiar environments of the main game, but we are also introduced to new areas, an addition that is, in fact, the best and most memorable part of the DLC. The Castle, in particular, is a fantastic stage, what with its new puzzles and treasure-packed rooms (although said treasures are just for admiration, and we cannot take them with us), but unfortunately this does not last for long: the Black Robe appears for a last time, now as a boss in full swing, and it is revealed to be the infamous U3 from the original main game, an enemy that was left out of the remake and now we get to know why. Then Ada, having freed herself from the infection by putting her attacker to sleep for good and spitting out its germ, rushes for the island, now for a new mission that Wesker who, incidentally, shows up in person in the side game's remake, assigns to her. Wesker intends to blow up the island, but Ada disobeys his orders and instead of setting up the fatal explosion, just like he told her, she instead prepares a series of blasts that will not happen at the same time (or at all), so as to give Leon time to escape with Ashley. While on the Island, Ada discovers a secret experiment base and a fierce monster - another impressive addition which also links Wesker to the story even more. Thankfully we do not have to fight this monster, "just" run for our lives the few times that it appears, but we get an idea of what was really going on there under Wesker's all-seeing eye.

Although the revamped side game is well made as a whole and has its fair share of interesting and challenging moments, after a while it starts feeling rather sluggish and forced. Sometimes it looks like Ada cares more about how to pose herself and much less about what is happening around her. The boss fights are quite stressing and weird-looking, especially those with our known enemies. The Gigante sequence in the village and the U3 battle in the Blast Furnace below the Castle feel like grotesque versions of the ones in the main game's remake and the original Resident Evil 4 respectively, because they are exaggerated versions of those. We get to fight a Gigante who is insanely strong, and accompanied by crazed villagers who seem invulnerable to his attacks for no logical reason whatsoever; and the U3 is just too much with its sly movements during the second phase of its boss battle - and why it also has to summon an army of Novistadores as if its exploding bubbles and its trolling running and jumping around are not enough, is beyond my area of comprehension. Regardless, since U3 turns out to be Ada's main boss fight (the final battle with Saddler feels like a joke after it), all you have to do is be prepared to test the limits of your nerves and your patience and just hope that nothing fatal occurs in the course of that second phase, because if it does, you go back to to the very start of the battle even in difficulties lower than Professional.

That said, although the U3 part in the original was one that I loved to hate, it was an iconic and highly challenging sequence in Leon's story, and therefore not a good idea to take it away, let alone to put it in "Separate Ways" as one more boss fight for Ada. I also didn't like the fact that the title of the achievement that you gain for defeating U3 is one of the most characteristic lines that Saddler directs at Leon in the original. Which reminds me of the emblematic laser corridor that, again, was one of Leon's shining moments in the original game and not only it was left out of his story in the remake but it too was given to Ada. And unfortunately these are not the only instances of iconic moments / sequences that were part of the original main game and now were included in Ada's mission. The gondola part, the pounding pistons, the insect-inhabited flooded waterway in the Castle that you need to unflood so as to proceed, Bitores grabbing Leon from the neck as he opens the door in his mansion (I know there is a similar sequence in the remake, but the one in "Separate Ways" is literally a replica of the original's scene with Leon), getting the Blue Moonstone in Salazar's maze (albeit the procedure is different), even a couple of Leon's iconic one-liners, all so deeply connected to the classic game's plot, were now left out of the main game and were implemented in Ada's story. This was kind of expected, however; because an important part of Ada's original story, that which involved her meeting Krauser, saving Leon from his blade and later facing him in a boss fight, was cut from the remake, her new story needed an extra boost, moreover since a unique segment from the original "Separate Ways", the sequence with Saddler's battleship, was completely left out of its revamped version.

In her revised standalone mission, Ada seems a bit lost and, at times, out of place. She relies on Luis to get her the Amber, she relies on Leon to keep insanely strong enemies busy and away from her, and although her own path is filled with danger and challenge, most of the times she is more of an observer and less of someone actually doing something to push the action further. This works in the main game, but not in her own adventure. What she does mostly depends on what other people have done before her, and with her overall "ennui" kind of attitude she gives the impression that she is not 100% there and focused on her mission, although her determination does shoot up in the final scene, where she appears to completely disregard Wesker's plans by ordering the pilot of her helicopter to change course at gunpoint. The fact that Ada is bored and eventually not as effective is highlighted by Wesker's obvious dismay and disappointment every time something doesn't go according to plan. We know our beloved arch-villain is a paranoid perfectionist, but to be fair, he is not exactly overreacting in this case. 

From a technical and structural point of view, the revamped "Separate Ways" has a lot of good moments, with flowing gameplay and nice surprises. Ada's grappling attacks are fantastic and it's a pity we don't get the chance to make use of them more often and not strictly in specific and prompted quick time events and moves. The search for the three ingredients in the Castle and the puzzles involving them are among the highlights of the whole mission and the full game as well. The Facilities section on the Island has a chilling atmosphere and is a reminiscent of and a tribute to several older movies and video games that included the exploration of an abandoned lab. Luis's inclusion in the story as an active partner is a great plus, although I still wish an extra episode with him as lead was released, showing his path in the adventure, possibly including an earlier encounter with Krauser in the Castle grounds.

As I already mentioned earlier, Ada has no interaction with Krauser in this new version, and there is no boss fight with him in her story; a change that makes sense since in the main game's remake she doesn't encounter him at all, and it is Luis instead of her who is present in Leon's knife fight with his former mentor, and the one who subsequently saves him from a fatal hit from Krauser. Luis is far more connected to Leon's story in the game than Ada, therefore his role in how Leon's encounter with Krauser plays out is far more important and determinant, also aiding the plot in that, as we see in the end, Wesker leaves the island with Krauser's infected body so as to examine the virus that it carried and see how he could possibly take advantage of the strain's potential, like he did in Antarctica, where he escaped with Steve Burnside's infected body in "Code Veronica". That scene could also imply that Krauser is not really dead for good or that maybe Wesker had the means to "resurrect" him somehow. This is Resident Evil, after all; death is never that simple in its universe.

The revamped "Separate Ways" is an averagely good side game with some fairly nice moments but also marginally disappointing at times, lacking flexibility as far as gameplay strategies are concerned (there are a few instances in the DLC where following a specific plan looks like the only way to survive, but said plan is a pain to execute with precision due to an undue overkill in enemy and obstacle placement) and with several weaknesses that have to do, on the one hand, with the fact that so many iconic elements from the original main game were implemented here, as if in an attempt to make "Separate Ways" look more grand because it would probably feel inadequate on its own, and on the other with the limited development of its lead character. The road that Ada takes in this new version of her story is so distant that she nearly separates herself from the whole plot. But maybe this was done on purpose; her solitary path fits her spy persona and helps her watch things from a distance and plan her moves accordingly. Maybe this is how she should have appeared from the start, and in this sense her mission's remake was what her story needed to be properly narrated. In a past article, I mentioned that probably it's about time for Ada to have a game of her own; now, however, seeing how both her persona and her gameplay design have been altered in the new "Separate Ways", I dare say that maybe it would be better if she retired. Like I said in my article about Claire and Leon's development in the remake of Resident Evil 2, the connection between Leon and Ada has already become a quaint detail in the universe of the games, having lost its original flair almost completely. This is very obvious in the remakes themselves, considering how Leon's very attitude towards Ada has been changed in both of them.  

Another parameter that played a major role in Ada's degradation in the remake is both Ashley's and Luis's development. From the one-dimensional side-character that Ashley was in the original, with just a couple of scenes and a few lines moderately giving her a little bit of flesh, she now bloomed into a full-fledged, absolutely realistic person with whom Leon could truly connect on a human level. Now Leon is not alone in his quest with a paper-cut character running after him, but he has a partner in adventure with whom he can interact, share jokes, whom he can console, even tease and and view as a considerable ally. This of course has to do with the main game, but it also affects Ada's mission because it's the same events that occur in both stories. Similarly Luis has become a powerful, pivotal character in the remake, bonding with Leon in a genuine, deeply emotional way and playing a most important role during that part of the story which later proves to have carried the heaviest emotional load for Leon, which is his encounter with Major Krauser. And in "Separate Ways", although the protagonist is typically Ada, as during the course of the story the focus and the spotlight turn temporarily to Luis, he literally steals the show whenever he appears: although we see him in only a few scenes, his character development is deep and essential, highlighting his emotional struggle as he is constantly on a tight leash, trying to fulfil his part from the pact with Ada and at the same time doing all that he can in order to get back to Leon and Ashley in time so as to give them the temporary antidote for their infection. 

Because of Ashley and Luis not being developed enough as characters in the original, Ada gained more substance there and stood out as an instrumental part of the plot; but with both of them being so fully shaped in the remake and especially with Luis playing a much more important role in Leon's story, Ada loses most of her allure and, contrary to her seemingly protective manner in the main game, now in "Separate Ways" where we see her actions from a different angle, she shows signs of relentlessness that may be just a strategy to carry out her mission, but they are still there and you can never tell if they are fake or not. In the end it looks like Luis's urge to do good no matter what has somehow affected her, but even then it is more like she disobeyed Wesker's orders because she wanted to show him that she was her own boss and less like she did so out of her good will and sense of altruism. Wesker, by the way, was also developed more in the remake, something that is very obvious even in his very brief but unforgettable appearances; incidentally, the fact that he shows up both at the village and on the island raises questions as to why he sent Ada on those missions when he could clearly take them on himself: with his intelligence, ruthlessness and physical strength he could very well hunt for and steal the Amber and handle Saddler and all those tough bosses without batting an eyelash. The bottomline is that all characters around Ada evolved impressively, while she looks like a shadow of her original "Separate Ways" version. Having her getting infected now (something that did not happen in the original game) does not add much to either her story or her development; it only highlights even more how powerful and determinant Luis has become as a character, since it it thanks to him that she is able to pull through the symptoms of the infection until she finally rids of it for good.

Interestingly, you can see how Ada threatens and treats Luis just like Wesker threatens and treats her. The chain of action between the three of them, however, is not exactly balanced: Wesker sends Ada to bring him the Amber, but Ada cannot do it on her own, so she turns to Luis who is the one not only able to retrieve the Amber, but also to create the antidote for the infection that it causes. So nearly all of the background action belongs to Luis, and later this action is transferred to Leon who "frees" the Amber from Saddler's possession by killing him for good. These facts reduce Ada's role to just sneaking around as far as the major plot points are concerned (she may be tasked at some point to find the ingredients for the antidote, but in reality only one of them is truly a challenge to get) and whenever she has to take heavy action for her own good, things get frustrating and messy what with the awkward way in which she switches weapons (she literally needs ages to put one gun away and take another) and her extremely slow running; the most characteristic instance of the latter is the sequence where she comes across the unkillable monster in the facilities: she mutters "You don't look friendly" as she runs away from it slower than death no matter how fast or hard you press that goddamned button. I think that the developers might be officially trolling us at that point. 

And when it comes to fleeing hordes of attacking enemies, it's one of those instances where you wish there was a fast-forward button. For whatever unexplained reason, Leon too is programmed to run slower during chasing / battle sequences in the main game, but Leon is faster than Ada by default, so his slower running is faster even than her default one. In fact Ada runs slower than Rosemary Winters in Shadows of Rose who runs slower than Lara Croft in The Angel of Darkness (Lara in AOD is always an accurate reference for such cases). What's more, there is one sequence in Chapter 3 where Ada's stealth expertise is completely cancelled: in the village square before the Gigante fight, all the enemies in the area that have her back to her, will sense her presence and turn around even before she approaches them; Ada is unable to stealthily kill them and most (if not all) of them will grow plaga heads, forcing the player to either deal with them the hard way, wasting a lot of precious ammo, or run away in a haste, most of the times leaving behind several necessary items. Whether these peculiarities are due to bad design or deliberately featured so as to produce a supposedly more realistic experience and make tough gameplay sequences harder for the sake of it, is a question that will probably never find an answer.

Resident Evil 4 Remake: The Coming of Age of a Legend

It's been eighteen years since the release of the classic Resident Evil 4, one of the most iconic games of the Resident Evil saga, and its recent remake marks a big change in the way that its story plays out and how it evolves along with its emblematic, unforgettable characters. With its remake, Resident Evil 4 is no more the fairytale-like story of a brave agent on a mission to rescue a damsel in distress. It is a dark and gloomy tale where the characters carry the weight of their pasts and the burden of their environments, and their actions and decisions are direct corollaries of both these factors. Similarly, Leon S. Kennedy, its equally iconic lead character, has become more cynical, more sarcastic and distant, and far less keen on trusting people, as a reasonable result of all that he had gone through. It is not that all these elements did not exist in the original game, it is simply that the view of the classic Resident Evil 4 was much different, in that it focused more on the adventure and action factor and much less on the characters themselves. Now everything has equal presence in the game; there is adventure, there is heavy action, but there is also room now for a good deal of character development.

Resident Evil 4 has grown with its audience reaching its own allegorical coming of age, by toning down its playfulness for the sake of a much more serious and compelling version of its story. The gloomy atmosphere is not only due to the fact that both Leon and Ashley are seriously infected and time is not on their side; this was also part of the original plot anyway, although now the symptoms that they are experiencing are far more chilling and scary. With how the game and its characters have "grown", and coming from the remade story of Resident Evil 2, Leon's backstory can now be seen under a new light. Leon carries a heavy trauma from his Raccoon City experience, further intensified by the prestigious but not so desired position that he was blackmailed into accepting as a government agent, following his return. While in the original Leon seems to have accepted all this and looks quite confident and cool, Leon of the remake is far more realistic in his reactions and even from his narration in the intro it becomes more than obvious that he has neither forgotten nor forgiven anything or anyone. Directly opposed to this is his innate tendency to help and protect people, which was his main motive for wanting to become a police officer back in the day. 

Throughout the development of the story in Resident Evil 4, this conflict between Leon's sincere sense of duty and offering and the always present awareness that he had been in fact forced to accept the position that eventually threw him into this hell, is a persistent nightmare that is very hard to ignore. Ashley's presence is a constant reminder for him of all the things that he was forced to do and comply with and all that he had to go through because of the orders imposed on him in the first place. Leon's bitterness over this situation is illuminated during his dialogue with Luis in Chapter 11, after Luis gives him the medicine that can temporarily stop the growth of the plagas inside him. When Leon tells Luis that "Ashley is the priority", there is a deep sadness in his eyes and his voice, expressing his bitter acknowledgement that his life does not matter because the President's daughter is the one who should be saved. And although Ashley is innocent in this and is the last person to blame since she is a victim after all, the mere fact that she has a high status therefore she should be the one to be prioritized and saved before everyone else is something that Leon may have accepted because of his position in the mission and his own sense of duty, but at the same time he knows that he is merely being used as a means to save her, and in the case where he died, it wouldn't have mattered much if he had sacrificed his life to make sure Ashley would be saved.

Directly related to this is the theme of voluntary and involuntary sacrifice that slowly becomes prominent as the story progresses. At the end of the game, Ada has a conversation with Wesker during which he blatantly expresses his ambition to cause the death of millions of people so that only one - meaning himself - will survive like some kind of God. This however is not the only time that such a theme is mentioned or hinted at. Much earlier, while on the boat with Ada, Leon has a moral doubt about the value of doing everything you can to save someone when, in the course of this, many other people have to die. This doubt is not random and it is connected to him being in a stressful situation, having to save someone who comes from the exact environment that originally forced him to take on a position he didn't want. In his struggle to save Ashley, Leon put himself in extreme danger by getting infected; he nearly died. He had to save himself primarily because he had to survive so as to save Ashley, as the survival for his own sake would always come second. In the process, Luis was killed; even Krauser was a victim although he only realized it when it was too late. Which is why this doubt comes for Leon after two incidents of major importance, connected to the two men: Luis's murder and the unexpected encounter with Krauser. Leon's former mentor had been in a situation similar to his in the past, when most of his soldiers were perished during an ill-fated mission. So in his turn, Krauser comes from this traumatic past, having witnessed an involuntary sacrifice that drove him insane and turned him into a cynical, sadistic maniac. Luis, on the other hand, sort of signed his fate when he initially worked for Los Illuminados, and his change of heart was not enough to save him, because the forces he had to go against were bigger and much more sly than he expected. Regardless, they had both been victims, each one of them carrying a different degree of responsibility, but this didn't matter much after the point in which they both were unable to escape their destiny.

So seen under this light, Wesker's ambition and Ashley's rescue have more things in common than one would think, although of course Ashley is completely innocent while Wesker is consciously and clearly aiming at eliminating whomever he thinks should die. These two parts of the plot are in fact two extremes that marginally come to a dangerous close when the circle of the story is complete. Which is why Leon, while genuinely wanting to save Ashley because he is a professional above all, never actually bonds with her, because she has the "curse" of being the bearer and reminder of such a heavy negative load. It would not have been the same with Luis, or even Ada. Luis and Ada may have been associated with dark forces, but they were independent individuals, conscious of their actions and decisions, for which Leon could face them straight and directly; which in fact he did in both cases. But he keeps his distance with Ashley because, unbeknownst to her, she is part of the wider environment that eventually brought him to a situation where essentially his life did not matter. And although he always has in mind that Ashley belonging to said environment and her innocence in all this are two different things that he never confuses, for the exact same reason, because his mindset is constantly clear and fair, he can never pretend that the first undeniable fact is non-existent. Although he of course cannot demand accountability of Ashley, as she is not the one to blame for anything, her being part of the system that controls him is a given, and one that cannot simply get brushed off. 

From this perspective, the mind control that Saddler has on his victims is not much different from the control that Leon's superiors have over his life. From the safety of her office, Hunnigan keeps ordering Leon to not let anything happen to Ashley, and her worry about his own well-being is strictly connected to how effective he can be in rescuing the President's daughter. Leon is well aware of all that, but this doesn't mean that he accepts everything without having his own moral dilemmas. On several instances throughout the story, he mentions how he cannot forget things that scarred him in the past. And this is something that Ashley would never be able to fully comprehend, in spite of her obvious kind heart and good will, because she is coming from a world that is so different from Leon's. This becomes even more evident in the final scene, where Ashley, in a rather awkward flirting attempt, asks Leon if he is interested to become her personal bodyguard, essentially demanding exclusivity, something that sounds completely opposed to Leon's sense of serving the common good and society as a whole, which is why he diplomatically rejects her offer. In the remake of Resident Evil 2, in the scene where he and Ada come across Kendo and his infected daughter, Leon tells Ada that the reason why he joined the force was to help everyday people like the gunshop owner. Leon was never interested in offering his services to the elite; when he accepted to work for the government, it was a result of that infamous blackmail. Doing this, was a considerable personal sacrifice from his part, given moreover how cruel the subsequent training had been; in his own words, the punishing missions he had to go through nearly killed him. 

From that point and on, he did his duty the best way possible, as from his position as a government agent, he indirectly served the common good, which was some kind of moral and emotional compensation for him. But becoming the personal bodyguard of someone with such a high status as Ashley was, would practically mean excluding himself from society in order to serve strictly one person, something that would contradict his moral standing and betray his ethical conscience. It is worth noting how lightheartedly Ashley passes from "I will become an agent like you" (which would mean stepping down to become equal with Leon) at the peak of the adventure, to "why don't you become my bodyguard to keep me safe" (therefore she would be maintaining her status and social supremacy) as soon as she is out of danger. This hints that she never really understood the gravity of the situation, and she comprehended it only to the degree that it affected her personally. So for the time during which she was infected and was afraid of what would happen to her, she was well aware of the danger, but as soon as the danger passed for her and she was no longer a victim, her heroic aspirations had no reason to exist anymore and she went back to the expected attitude stemming directly from her bourgeois environment. Because when she was depending on Leon to save her, he was her hero; but on the way back to normal life, she regained her status and the instant when she asked Leon to become her bodyguard, she literally viewed him as a potential employee, therefore her inferior. If social class wasn't an issue for her, she could have said something along the lines of "let's keep in touch after all this is over". This comes to an interesting contrast with the original Ashley's "overtime" proposal, which might have sounded more daring at the time, but it showed a far more friendly approach from her part, hinting also at how possibly she ended up not caring about social status and class, while at the start she was rather bratty: remember how she introduced herself to Luis as "the President's daughter", as if her father was the only president in the world and everybody should know her; but at the end of the adventure she seems to have changed quite a bit. While the revamped Ashley may look and sound more down to earth even from the start, but then it turns out that her elite upbringing is deeply rooted in her conscience and her attitude.

 

Although the game is definitely not political overall, such nuances are inevitable, given the realism of the characters, the differences in their status and the depth of the revamped story. Leon clearly comes from an average working class, but although he ended up raising his social status, he essentially never left his roots as far as his mindset and view of the world were concerned. Jack Krauser probably has a similar background more or less. Ashley comes from a bourgeois social circle of high society obviously, since her father is the President of the United States. Luis Serra apparently spent his childhood in the poor Spanish village where Leon's mission takes place. Having lost both his parents, Luis grew up with his grandfather who had very little to offer to him. In spite of this, and because he was an intelligent boy, Luis managed to escape his predetermined miserable life at the village, and even managed to be hired by Umbrella's dream team of scientists. So we could say that Ashley and Luis stand opposite each other from a sociopolitical aspect, since they share common elements but also extreme differences: they were born and raised in completely different environments, both socially and financially, but later in their lives, coming from different paths obviously, they entered the academic world. Ashley is probably studying something related to engineering (since she knows how to handle the wrecking ball truck), and Luis studied Biology. From what we can deduce, Ashley is an averagely clever person, while Luis was a child prodigy. It is a safe guess that Ashley, thanks to her social standing, had plenty of opportunities before her and was able to choose her field of studies among a vast array of possibilities, while Luis did not have much choice in his hands, although he clearly was far more gifted. Regardless, he managed to distinguish himself among his peers at a very young age, which is why he eventually drew the attention of Umbrella. Although he resigned from the company after realizing their real intents, upon returning to his village he accepted to work for Osmund Saddler and Los Illuminados; and judging by his last words, he must have been forced to do several compromises that did not go exactly by a moral code, something that he regretted later on, but unfortunately it was too late. Had he grown up in a more privileged environment, an environment like Ashley's for example, both his path in life and his fate would have probably been much different.

 

This sociopolitical dimension is highlighted also by how Ramón Salazar and his story have evolved. Unlike his depiction in the original game, where he was blatantly proud of his ancestry and marginally entertaining at times, in the remake he is a terrifying, grotesque figure who had even disgraced his family line and now he is trying to distance himself from it - "call me Ramón", he says while introducing himself to Leon, leaving out his - apparently historical - surname. Salazar is no more a spoiled boy with delusions of grandeur. Now he is a demonic force in the form of a midget; a ruthless, horrifying creature, that can raise havoc within seconds. Long before his appalling mutation, he is a miniature walking terror, controlling his huge castle with a ruthlessness that is contrasting his diminutive figure in a shocking way. By observing his dressing style and the decoration of his castle, it is easy to deduce that he still lives in the glory of the past, although at the same time he despises his deceased family, being the sole successor of the Salazar generation thanks to the infection from the Plagas. Ramón is a decadent aristocrat, holding on to a past that is long gone, falsely believing that the power provided by his infection is enough to keep him in this state forever. Having been fatally ill, he was "saved" by the Plagas, and this resulted in him having aspirations of immortality that eventually led him to believe that he was omnipotent.

The big twist of the remake's plot that has Krauser killing Luis instead of Saddler is the highest point of the revamped story, and where the real focus actually goes, backed up more by another big twist that has Luis saving Leon's life from Krauser instead of Ada. Krauser and Luis turn out to be an integral part of Leon's life, personality and evolution, and in the climax where all three of them are present, it feels as if the mission to find and save the President's daughter was simply the triggering event that brought Leon face to face with a dark period of his past, that which involved Major Krauser, while at the same time bringing him together with someone who was, indirectly, involved in the Raccoon City nightmare and who now becomes his guardian angel and the only one able to save him, and that is Luis Serra. This twist that expands the roles of Luis and Krauser brings the story closer to Leon and establishes him as the real and essential driving force of the plot. In its turn, the sub-plot that involves Luis and Krauser has way greater dynamic than the main story. It can be seen as a separate "arc" within the leading plot, and it fills the null space between the three characters (Leon, Luis and Jack) who are inter-connected in more than one ways: Krauser used to be Leon's mentor and is now on the hunt of the Amber sample which was developed by Luis. Luis used to work for Umbrella which was responsible for the Raccoon City incident which led to the series of events that led Leon to become a government agent, subsequently meeting Jack Krauser.

Krauser's evolution as a character is also very interesting, as now his story is much more related to Leon and his past. While in the original games he was a mercenary, randomly picked thanks to his abilities to accompany Leon in his mission in South America, in the remake he used to be a Major, Leon's trainer in the elite military group that he was forced to join after surviving the Raccoon City incident. As we can tell from the brief scene in the prologue, Major Krauser had been a particularly tough and relentless trainer, showing traits of a sadistic character that eventually burst to the surface after the incident that caused the death of his men in South America. As it turned out, he and Leon were the sole survivors, but while Leon managed to put all this behind him, at least to the degree where it would not affect his subsequent life, for Krauser it was something that proved impossible to get over. 

Because Leon continued to work for the government after this, Krauser interpreted his reaction as treason, without taking into account the fact that Leon was under constant threat and blackmail and there was little that he could do to get out of a situation that might have seemed glamorous and desirable by many, but in fact was extremely stressing. When the opportunity arrived with Saddler tasking him with kidnapping Ashley, Krauser found his golden chance to take his revenge in the most effective way: the President's daughter might have been an innocent civilian, but she was still part of the system that let his men die in the jungle, so harming her would cause a direct blow to those people who were responsible for the tragedy he had lived. It is notable that Krauser's state in the remake is pretty similar to Chris Redfield's after the dramatic events in Edonia in Resident Evil 6, although Chris managed to maintain his sanity, and the post-traumatic syndrome caused him "only" a short-term amnesia and emotional resignation, while in Krauser's case the aftereffects were much more severe and irreversible.

It is hinted in the game that, because of the long hours of private training, Leon and Krauser had developed a special bond, and Leon respected his mentor in spite of his relentlessness. That bond of mentor-mentee or teacher-student was apparently strengthened more during the mission in South America, only to be abruptly broken after the mission's tragic conclusion. This was one more heavy emotional burden that Leon would carry from that point in his life and on, one that was very hard - if possible at all - to put to bed. On first look, this new connection between Leon and Krauser might feel like it somehow weakens their original dynamic, as in the classic game they were equals and Krauser openly and clearly respected Leon as a rival while in the remake Krauser had been Leon's superior and he still insists on treating him as a "rookie" although he is not one anymore. This change, however, leaves room for slowly building an emotional climax between them during their encounters, culminating in the dramatic denouement where Krauser comes to his senses, realizes that he had not been himself all this time and finally calls Leon by his name instead of "rookie", revealing that in fact he did respect him and accept him as a worthy rival, but the arrogance resulting from his infection's superior power did not let him show it before.

The teacher-student dynamic is not limited only to Leon's relationship with Krauser. While accompanying Leon in an important part of his journey, Luis saw himself as a modern Don Quixote, having been a fan of the eponymous literary hero since he was a little boy, and would call Leon "Sancho", who was Don Quixote's faithful attendant. This dipole did not yet represent a teacher-student relationship, but a a bit later Luis differentiated his peculiar "roleplay" by giving Leon the role of a squire - a nobleman who attends to a knight before reaching an equal status himself. It is interesting how both Krauser and Luis saw Leon as their apprentice, while in reality Leon was almost as intelligent as Luis (according to Ada's notes in the original game, he is a genious), and nearly as strong as Krauser himself. Quite ironic as well, since Leon managed to survive them both.

Contrary to the roles of Krauser and Luis that have been expanded and developed, Ada's role is now very limited, but this should not be viewed as a downgrade. As I had mentioned in past articles, Ada's mysterious figure had almost always been omnipresent in Leon's adventures although in practice she never really helped to push the stories forward. There had also been a considerably important oversight concerning her persona, the fact that someone who was supposed to be a spy made her presence so loudly obvious in critical situations. Now all this seems to have been fixed, as Ada moves mostly in the shadows, watching the events from a distance, and she appears as a force of balance, almost a motherly one, at times reassuring even, in spite of Leon's justified cynicism and aggressiveness towards her.

 

The remake of Resident Evil 4 has brought a legendary game into the modern world, with all the additional features and changes that should come along anyway. Although the original is one of those games that are insuperable, the remake has managed, by differentiating itself on crucial plot points and character traits, to gain its own place in the Resident Evil universe. As a side note, I would love to see a DLC with Luis as the protagonist, so that we have the chance to accompany him in his race against time to find both the Amber sample for Ada and the medicine for Leon and Ashley. I am guessing that at some point between the Courtyard and the Depths, he would have to face Major Krauser, which would guarantee a thrilling hide and seek chase and, why not, a most dramatic fight between them.