Chapter 5-3

Now, you're going to have two significant boss fights in this subchapter, so try to conserve your ammo as much as possible. You'll need plenty of magnum and TMP rounds for the boss at the end, but there's one in the middle that might tax you a bit, as well, so, well, save up on everything. Normal enemies should be taken out with headshots and kicks, if at all possible.

In the room in which you begin the chapter, you can find 5,000 pesetas off to the left of the stairs, and the ominous "Our Plan" document which Saddler thoughtfully left behind for you. Typical stuff: we shall crush the Rebellion in one swift stroke, etc.

As the fadeout when you exit the room implies, a rather odd cutscene will play. You won't have much time to worry about it, though, as you'll soon be barreling through soldiers. There's a metal door at the bottom of the first stairwell here, so use that as your chokepoint. Both of the masked freaks that'll be coming through have a better than good chance of turning into slasher tentacles, so be careful. You don't necessarily have to kill everyone here, but if you do, you'll be able to search out some reserves of cash and ammo in both the room at the top of the stairs and the storage room before moving on to the next zone.

An Old Friend

You'll meet up with Krauser as soon as you enter the next room. This isn't your typical boss fight - that'll come later - but is, instead, set up to be really, really annoying for those of you trying to get through the game without ever having to continue. Your little mano-a-mano duel takes place entirely within a cutscene; you're going to have to fend off death not with your weapons, but with your ability to hit the dodge buttons as quickly as possible.

Two men enter…and hopefully, two men leave, because otherwise you're dead.

In case you haven't picked up on this yet, the dodge combinations are always going to be either B+A or L+R; it's randomized each time you play through this little vignette, and you'll have half a dozen or so dodges here, so you'll be best served by putting your fingers in such a position as to have both combinations readily accessible. We found that putting our right thumb over the B+A and then having the index fingers on L+R worked pretty well, and, well, we guess that's pretty much the way you're going to be playing the game normally anyway. Just find some way to comfortably hold the controller without sacrificing your ability to quickly hit the buttons, and you should do all right.

If you miss even a single dodge prompt, then you're dead; don't pass go, don't collect 200 dollars, don't make pithy references to Monopoly. While the prompt buttons are random, though, the prompts themselves will always appear during the same parts of your conversations with Krauzer - and he will attack you during the middle of a talk, make no mistake - so if you replay the fight a couple of times, you should get pretty handy at knowing when the prompts are coming up.

At the end of the fight, immediately after Krauzer mentions Umbrella - you knew they'd be popping up at some point, didn't you? - he'll jump on you and force you to rapidly tap the A and B buttons in succession to prevent his knife from plunging into your heart. If you do so, the encounter will end shortly thereafter.

No More Movie References, Please

Intimidating, yes, but quite dodgeable.

In the little hallway leading up to Saddler's inner sanctum, you'll have to deal with a number of laser traps, in a sequence quite reminiscent of the first Resident Evil film. The first two are manually avoidable; just walk through when there's enough room for Leon to pass by unharmed. The last three are all dodges, though, but luckily, they all appear to be hardwired to the L+R buttons, meaning that you don't have to have your fingers hovering over the B+A buttons. The game may just auto-adjust the difficulty of the dodges based on your past performance, though - we'll admit to having died and continued a few times during the Krauser bit - so be careful. Anyway, you'll have to dodge one laser trap, then the second trap will require you to dodge it twice. The third laser trap is activated when you flip the switch by the far door. It will slowly come down the hallway towards you, then rapidly accelerate when it gets close to the door; it's much easier to hit the dodge buttons here if you actually run towards it a bit, so that it doesn't get the chance to run you over.

In Saddler's little throne room, you can find both an Emerald on his chair, and an Elegant Headress dangling from the ceiling above the door you entered from. You can sit on the throne if you wish, but your real objective is the lift behind it. It'll lead you down to a little cavern; grab the herb and the emerald from beneath the stairs, then grab the loot around the merchant (be sure to grab the five magnum rounds in the room behind him), upgrade, and save your game before heading outside.