RE Village Video Walkthrough on Hardcore

[Frag Maniac]

OK, as promised, this is a full fledged walkthrough via a fresh start on Hardcore. By full fledged I mean I'm showing pretty much everything, linking segments together with saves at the typewriter. I'm even showing weapon upgrades, loot sales, and purchases from The Duke, as well as how to separate and combine items for utility purposes and valuable loot.

This first segment via two videos covers the Prologue, Arrival (everything up to the front doors of Castel Dimitrescu), and the first daughter fight and the Mask of Sorrow.

Prologue/Arrival

As is often the case with Survival Horror type games, the encounters in the first part of the game are about shock value, and surviving with minimal resources. I learned a lot about how to save ammo via ways to safely use, barricades, the pistol, and the knife by watching the experts play. I credit this mostly to CarcinogenSDA's narrated no damage Hardcore video.

Spoiler

I almost survived the entire Lycan attack in Arrival unscathed, but made a mistake taking too long to decide to cut and run after the barricades broke, which cost me a wasted shotgun round and a health vial.

Castle: Bela/Mask of Sorrow

I learned a very valuable technique for this part of the game that helps immensely with the Moroaicas in the dungeon. It has to do with the fact that they are programmed to return to their spawn point if you lure them just past the end of their scripted path. This is called tethering by CarcinogenSDA, the one I learned it from. The valuable trick to know, is while on this return trip, they are not combative, which means you can stand in front of them and knife away. Once in a while if you do not lure them successfully they will turn around before reaching the end of their scripted path, or even disappear and teleport to their spawn point, so it CAN involve some risk, as it requires staying close enough to keep them on your tail.

Spoiler

Apologies for my ignorance, but I missed a key point in CarcinogenSDA's narrated no Damage Hardcore video where he said the way to knife non stop is to mash block and knife simultaneously. I also made a mistake fighting Bela, pushing my luck taking one too many shotgun shots at her before moving, which cost me a health vial. So bear with me, as this video has a longer than necessary knife kill segment, and a noob mistake. Still nothing too unreasonable considering the considerable saving of resources.

 

[Frag Maniac]

This set concludes the Castle portion of the game. It contains the boss fights against Cassandra, Daniela, and Lady D, the Masks of Pleasure, Joy, and Rage, and the placing of the 1st flask at the Altar.

Castle: Cassandra/Daniela & Masks of Pleasure/Joy/Rage

I managed to cram a lot more into this video vs the last one, despite being a bit more than a minute shorter. Part of that is due to my using a more efficient knife killing tactic this time, but much of it is due to the dungeons in the prior video requiring lots of lure time to knife kill, as well as the lure tactic not being viable for many enemies in the wine cellar area.

Spoiler

I had a really good result against the Samcas on the rooftops, by using a different lure tactic I learned. To do this successfully you must kick the ladder down before entering the Mask of Rage tower, then stay crouched. I added a short segment to the end to pick up a few items I forgot or was not able to access yet. Sorry that I at times forgot to verify search complete in certain areas by showing the map, but I DID get everything before taking on the boss.

Castle: Lady D & Altar: 1st Flask

Here you will see how to do lots of damage up close after sniping Lady D out of the air, how to avoid her bug swarm unscathed, as well as tricks to get extra money from crows by shooting them from a distance to not scare them.

Spoiler

Since I had forgotten to verify search complete in some areas in the prior video, I showed every level of the castle via the map to indicate all areas cleared before taking on Lady D. The fight against her was going pretty well, and in a reasonable amount of time, but I made a mistake on the final phase in the tower taking too many shotgun shots and got attacked by the dragon, which cost me a health vial. Since I picked up one on the way to the fight though, I still had the 3 that were in my inventory after the fight.

 

[Frag Maniac]

OK, now the beyond the Castle stuff. This includes pretty much everything you can do up until the save point just before the Moreau boss. About the only thing I missed so far was the 3 fish in the pond near the Castle gate, but I'll get those when I go back to the village to get the Pigeon Blood Rubies to make Lady D's necklace. Note, there's far more to each of these videos than their titles imply. I only listed some of the more recognizable items in their titles to signify what part of the game they're associated with.

4 Winged Key & Donna Boss

This starts with a lot of scavenging, and minimizes enemy contact via a clever shot to destroy a padlock on a door through a fence. To do this correctly, you must also avoid going left down the narrow alleyway (5:28 mark), and instead take the ramp through the hole in the brick wall. I'm not sure what makes the enemies in that alleyway disappear (you can definitely hear them when you pass by), but I believe it may be going through the door the lock was shot off of after entering through the hole in the wall, because that is not the intended path.

Spoiler

There's a scary battle at the 3:20 mark, with enemies I didn't want to leave behind, due to needing to return there for loot (well). I avoided killing the Samcas when raiding Luiza's house. The outhouse after going inside it is a good cover spot to take them out from no harm, but I didn't want to waste time and ammo on them, so I dashed through. I was able to clear House Beneviento a lot quicker this time just by picking up only the Winding Key from the mannequin, which is all you need if you know the lock code for the main door and dial codes for the cellar door.

Berengario's Chalice & Sluice Gate

This, again, is largely scavenging valuables and key items, but it also has a very handy cheese tactic against the Varcolac you encounter right after entering the South Village area with the Unborn 4 Winged Key (2:08 mark). It also shows a handy trick to get Berengario's Chalice (House Beneviento Treasure) without fighting the giant that guards it (8:15 mark). Lastly, one of the trickiest parts for me was attempting to kill all but the armored Lycan in the cave where you get the boat key, while also reducing my shotgun and sniper clips to 0, and my pistol clip to 2 (13:58 mark). The reason for this was to A) avoid wasting valuable explosives on the armored Lycan, which I'm saving for Moreau, and B) use the others to get my clips down to zero, so I get max free ammo when upgrading their capacity for the Moreau fight, while gathering their loot.

Spoiler

I accomplished my difficult goal of zero clip size, 2 on the pistol, gathering their loot, using no explosives, and taking no damage, using the ladder you enter from as a momentary escape a couple times. However, to my dismay, I wasn't thinking about the gemstone on the rock wall near the catfish pond (20:46 mark) Otherwise those 2 pistol rounds left would have been all I needed for shooting both sides of the collapsible bridge (23:26 mark).

 

[Frag Maniac]

OK, here's the next two, and these are whoppers. The average length of these two videos is about 42 minutes, and combined they contain a total of 6 boss fights.

Moreau Boss/Moreau Treasure Boss/3rd Flask

This picks up at the Reservoir Gatehouse after opening the Sluice Gate and draining Moreau's "precious water". So needless to say, it starts with the boss fight against Moreau. I was having a tough time attempting fast weapon switches between the shotgun and sniper rifle to maximize DPS while the beast was stunned from an explosive, and different key bindings didn't help.

The part after the Windmill Shack save I had previously captured via killing the Varcolac that guards the Moreau treasure (Wolfbane), with 2 Magnum rounds. and even uploaded it to YouTube. I decided to go back to that save and recapture everything after it. It was a bit time consuming to re-edit, compress, and upload it all again, especially since I had already deleted the source clips of the first part. It came out looking pretty good though, via cutting it out of the compressed video.

Spoiler

I managed to take down Moreau without taking damage, and wound up OK on resources. I'm still not sure whether I might have been able to save a mine, as he triggered one while on his Godzilla walk, and doesn't seem affected by them in that phase. However, this time I DID explore the area near the boat dock after killing him, which has an extended area that's reachable after the water is drained (something I was unaware of before). It contains some flash grenades, a treasure, and a pond with two catfish. The main reason for recapturing the part after the Moreau fight was to save the Magnum rounds, using a snipe and retreat tactic from the foot bridge instead. The fight took about 5 minutes, but was well worth it I think. I also made sure my sniper and shotgun magazines were empty before going back to The Duke, to maximize the amount of free ammo when upgrading their capacity.

Stronghold/Giants/Varcolac Alpha/Urias

I decided to go back and take on the Beneviento Giant, then straight on to the tough Varcolac Alpha. From there I went to the Stronghold after cashing in the treasures and saving, and headed to the Mill Giant after taking out Urias, cashing in more treasure, and saving.

Spoiler

The Beneviento Giant went pretty well, as did the Varcolac Alpha, with no damage taken. The battles at the Stronghold entrance and den went very well. I had to use one health vial in the fight against Urias though, which I chalk up to a claustrophobic battle area I despise. I got the Mill Giant with no damage taken, but missed badly on 3 sniper rounds. I also discovered in watching the captures that I missed picking up 3 sniper rounds at the entrance of Stronghold after breaking the crate they're in, and perhaps one Crystal Skull near the first gate lever. I also forgot to pick up the Large Crystal I shot off the gate arch behind the church after exiting the Stronghold. I managed to get the shotgun and sniper magazines empty before seeing The Duke at the Factory, as well as just one round in the pistol magazine. This should help immensely when I upgrade capacity of each, especially after all those boss fights.

 

[Frag Maniac]

These two videos conclude the walkthrough, as they bring us to the very end of the game. They include everything from the bridge to the factory where we left off, to the end. The only thing omitted in this whole guide is 2 or 3 times where I organized the location of inventory items. I was playing at well over 100 FPS this time, as I discovered the game doesn't really need Vsync on. The only place you can see screen tear is when the huge vent propeller flies off, but it's very brief.

Heisenberg's Factory

This time I managed to cram all of the Factory gameplay, up to the point of beginning the actual escape anyway, in one video. I was able to kill the Soldats, and most of the Haulers, with much better efficiency this time. The higher FPS has pretty much eliminated the hitching I was often getting while aiming, so that and using better strategy on Haulers and Soldats is why this run had more efficient kills. I also used a different route to get past the Panzers, which is also safer and a bit faster.

Spoiler

Rather than using 2 shotgun rounds on each Hauler like before, which usually but doesn't always kill them, this time I attempted to shoot their visor off with the pistol, headshot them at close range with 1 shotgun shell, then finish them off with the pistol. Ideally this is done with just the one shotgun shell and 3 pistol rounds, which I often achieved. I also nearly perfectly killed the Soldats, by luring them into a lunge, then relocating to hit their weak spot. I only missed one shot at a weak spot on the first Soldat Zwei, which are the harder to kill ones with 2 auger arms and the weak spot on their back. I had a close call with a Hauler I didn't see until I was right near him in the Engine Room, but evaded him just in time. I took no damage through the whole Factory segment.

Sturm/Heisenberg/Urias Strajer/Miranda

This time I was able to get all these fights done in pretty good time, under 32 minutes. I used a slightly different, more efficient tactic this time on Sturm, and captured the whole Redfield segment non stop. I had a slight bit of trouble with Urias Strajer, again, due to a claustrophobic battle area more than anything, but the fight against Miranda went very well.

Spoiler

This time against Sturm I used just the shotgun instead of the Magnum, and made far better use of the flashbangs than last time. I also managed to pin him in tight spots before he used the flame thrower, limiting the threat of ground flames. I confused one of Urias Strajer's attacks as a leap, instead of a horizontal mace swing, and took a slight bit of damage there, but never had to use a health vial for either of these videos. Despite having far less ammo vs my NG+ fight against Miranda, I killed her very quickly, largely due to the use of pipe bombs, and an upgraded pistol at the very end, which is the fastest firing weapon in the game when it's fire rate is fully upgraded.

As I said before, I was quite surprised that killing all optional bosses on a fresh start Hardcore run was not only possible, but with plenty of ammo and resources, and very little risk as well. Though I did use some tactics I gleaned from CarcinogenSDA's video, he did not recommend killing the Varcolac Alpha, or even the Beneviento Giant. I also decided to use my own tactics against the Moreau Treasure boss, as I felt his wasted Magnum ammo.

In looking back at this run, I could see accomplishing, at the very least, not having to use any health vials, but that's not the purpose of this guide. This guide is meant to encourage those whom think Hardcore mode, or even the game in general, is too hard for them to beat. Again, I found it to be a lot easier than I first thought to not only beat Hardcore on a fresh start, but via killing all bosses safely, and retaining plenty of ammo and resources. It's about playing smarter, not harder.

Thanks to all whom watched the videos, and hopefully they were helpful to some. I will now go back to finishing up my GRID 2019 walkthrough, then start a Realistic playthrough of Monster Energy Supercross 3, in between finishing my run of Doom Eternal Ancient Gods (not ready for a walkthrough of DEAG yet). At some point I will be doing an attempt at beating RE Village on Village of Shadows difficulty via a fresh start though, and if it goes well, I'll make a walkthrough of that too.