Resident Evil IV (remake).
Is it just me, or are these games actually quite hard? I found the same initial struggles in RE Village (but I did complete it).
I find them a mix of easier than they first appear, yet noticeably harder on specific boss fights.
For instance in RE4 Remake there's a way in the Wine Cellar in Chapter 8 with the new stealth attack and wise use of the Bolt Thrower to easily take out 3 Zealots on the upper walkway, then plant two mines, one at the landing atop the long stairs to the walkway, and one on the lower floor by the barrel just below where the Summoner is standing. If you go into this area crouched and hidden, you can tell by Leon's "Just..., don't mind me" dialog that the devs are hinting stealth can make things much easier here.
What triggers the desired result in this scenario is creeping crouched down the small stairway at the other end of the walkway to get your 4th and final sneak kill in. When the Summoner sees you kill him he jumps over the railing he's standing by and lands on or near the mine near the barrel, taking a fair bit of damage. He then scampers up the long stairway and triggers the other mine, which should explode that barrel as well if it was well placed (hard to do from a spot that allows enough time).
I then reverse direction and run back up the small stairway, face shotgun a Zealot if one happens to be in the way, then go immediately to the Summoner. To make sure he's at the least seriously injured, I toss a grenade in the little room atop the long stairway. By then the barrel may (or may not) have exploded, but if not, he can be finished with a melee kick and/or a shotgun blast. These methods demonstrate what it takes on Hardcore mode.
The beauty of this method is, the two Zealots he mutated slowly follow him up the long stairway, which are easily dispatched with one flash bang. He will also not mutate any other Zealots, so you can fairly easily mop up the few left by luring them near the other barrels and shooting them with the pistol. Note that the mines slowly tick down, so it's best to place them both from the far end of the railing at the other end of the walkway from the landing atop the stairway. This means it can be hard to get the mine atop the stairway close enough to the barrel to make it explode, but you WILL have time to sneak from where you place them down to the 4th sneak kill, also allowing time for the Summoner to get to the top of the stairs before that one explodes.
There's also some tricks in RE Village that can make certain bosses easier, like positioning yourself at one side of a structure on the roof edge of the house the waterwheel Varcolac first traps you in. He gets stuck trying to pounce straight at you, but smacks into the structure and falls flat on his face. You can safely kill him with repeated pistol shots from this position. Then there's the Giant that appears near the entrance of Donna Beneviento's house, who will not go very far up the stone stairway leading toward the house. So he can be taken out from a safe distance on those stairs.
That said, the boss fights with Ramon and Moreau in RE 4 Remake and RE Village are both long and difficult fights, especially on the hardest modes. On Village of Shadows mode, the Moreau fight can easily take upwards 40 min, and drain most if not all your ammo. However there's a trick even in that fight where if you can manage to get him stuck in between the opening of one of the corner porches of one of the buildings where it has a vertical supporting post at the very corner, you can get in a lot of close up powerful shots as Moreau exposes himself in the mouth of the monster.
RE Village Waterwheel Varcolac Fight
RE 4 Remake Chapter 8 Wine Cellar Fight
I just discovered after trying it this way, then checking YouTube to see how others did this Wine Cellar segment, it's actually a lot easier than I thought. Some are just running past the 4th guy I sneak killed and still managing to sneak kill the Summoner. I'm not sure if that is possible on Hardcore though, which is the mode I'm playing on. It would seem unrealistic since on that mode even though his back is turned to you as you sneak kill the 4th guy he immediately vaults over the railing, yet not be alerted at all as you run past the 4th guy, alerting him and the Zealot standing across from him. So I will have to test this method next play through to see if it's possible to sneak kill the Summoner on Hardcore or Professional.
