Resident Evil 4 – Boss Guide

We all had trouble with bosses here and there in RE4 rather it be Normal or Professional here are some tips to busting the bosses without using a rocket launcher to solve the problem.

Delago

Delago Is the both the simplest to explain how to beat while at the same time is the trolliest boss in the game and in a speedrun. Just balance between chucking a harpoon at it (usually 1-3) then either avoid the floating stumps or prepare to avoid Delago from coming back up once it dives.

From time to time it’ll dive and then you have to guess where it’s going to pop up, moments before it pops up you’ll have an arrow indicator where, once popped up you’ll need to hit it with at least 1 harpoon to avoid taking damage. repeat hitting him until it dies.

Tap A quickly to not die as fast!

El Gigante

Best weapons to use in this fight is any handgun, Hand Grenades, and Rifle.

While Intimidating at first he’s quite easy if you have the rifles firepower tuned up as far as it can go then soften him up the handgun or grenades (TMP is useful for this task as well) once enough damage is dealt then The Giant will take a knee like he got hit by a migrain exposing his parasite.

Normally when it comes to damaging the parasite the game expects you to jump on him and slash at it with your knife, while thats true in this instance you’ll first want to shoot at least 1 rifle bullet into him (firing 2 will deal more than the damage threshold) then cut it to deal roughly 75% – 80% of his health in 1 cycle. Repeat the soften up step then just fire another rifle shot or 2 into the parasite and he should die immediately.

Bonus

Remember that dog back in chapter 1-1? if you freed it by interacting with the trap it will come in and help distract The Giant which will happen after the first cycle of damage has been done to his parasite.

Cabin Fight

While not a boss so to say I am including it in the list.

There’s a few things to remember for this fight.

  1. This section is timed
  2. You can bypass the time if a certain number of kills are made
  3. Luis is immortal to enemy attacks
  4. Luis will throw you Handgun Bullets roughly every 30-60 seconds OR if using your knife
  5. Luis can and will kill you if you shoot or slash him 4-6 times
  6. Luis will always dodge roll away from your grenades

Once the fight starts break the window in front with your knife (Luis will assume you have no ammo and should immediately throw you some) then do the same to the other windows (this is to flow as many ganados into the cabin as possible) then run upstairs and ready your shotgun and blast any and all ganados that come up it. Save a few flash grenades if possible for the unlikely event of multiple plaga spawns.

Once halfway through the time limit Luis will tell Leon to go upstairs, and this is when the challenge of this section comes in as there will be more Ganados flowing through downstairs than upstairs which can be remedied with a couple of explosives. If a large group is at the bottom of the stairs from you shotgunning them then throw a nade to save some shells (Incendiary if possible) while keeping an eye out for ganados climbing ladders.

Make sure you’re managing on the Ganados coming up the stairs and the window ladders near you and Luis since Luis will pop them coming up the ladders if he’s facing in their general direction. You’ll know time is almost up when you hear Luis say “There’s no end to them” then just try and hold out as long as possible as by now the plaga spawns are more frequent and with your current weapons and tune ups it isn’t going to be enough to deal with that many.

Bonus

As mentioned in the list “You can bypass the time if a certain number of kills are made” well this number (IIRC) is about 50 which has a nice call from the Luis bottle cap voice that says “Did you send out those invitations? I told you no more than 50 people” giving you a good estimate of how many kills needed to progress.

If on NG+ and using the Plaga Removal Laser 412 you can actually meet the number of kills before Luis even moves from his initial spot.

Bitores “The Big Cheese” Mendez

Remember G4 and the show Cheat? yeah looking back on it the tips for this boss wasn’t very effective as the strategy I’m going to tell you will speed up the fight drastically.

Phase #1

Usually you’d unload into him (his body/head and not his spine) until he enters Phase 2, well that’s still viable but what if i told you that you can end this fight in 4-5 grenades? That’s right this entire fight not just the 1st phase.

When the Fight starts equip your Incendiary grenades and hit him with 3 (2 on normal) of them while keeping each throw spaced out, wait for him to recover before throwing more. Make sure that you don’t blow up the barrel on the other side of the arena as that’s the key to quick killing him in phase 2, if he’s by chance still walking after those grenades then just hit him with a few bullets to end phase 1

Phase #2

If you have a high firepower weapon equipped then the set up for the kill will be easy. Let Mendez get close then knock him off the beam with either a gun or flash then throw a Hand Grenade next to him and the red Barrel to the right and if lucky both will hit him dealing 2 instances of damage instantly killing him. By some chance he survives then his Health Pool should be low enough to finish him off in a few shots.

Bonus

Mendez for some reason takes more damage from Incendiaries than any enemy in the game, which could be hinted at in the the starting cut scene when he is lit on fire before exploding making his trench coat burn off. A lot of burning going on there, nice touch.

Verdugo

Salazars Right Hand, while the easier strategy would be to just Rocket Launcher him with the free display one really the only strategy I can give is to use your strongest weapons against him when frozen and experiment with the damage threshold on him as too much damage will make him break out of the frozen state.

The main weapons of choice to use here is either a Shotgun or the S.A. Rifle (tuned up as much as possible) and as a fail safe the Broken Butterfly when ammo reserves run out for the S.A. Rifle. As mentioned experiment with the damage threshold as once you get close to it prepare to move for the next nitrogen tank then shoot him again to break the threshold and rinse and repeat until all canisters are gone or the elevator arrives.

The main reason to kill Verdugo is to obtain the treasure piece he holds (a part of the Salazar Family Crown) and to speed up the elevator wait time, if by some chance he isn’t dead and the elevator has arrived and you still have magnum ammo left then unload into him and hope for the best. If you run completely out of ammo and he’s still kicking then reload last checkpoint and just stall for time.

Verdugo is a serious threat as his attacks linger on so long that even with a dodge prompt you still run the chance of getting hit (mainly the tail attack) also his claws have the capability to stun lock you, lucky for you he’s only ever fought solo.

Bonus

When using the Ditman Glitch it is possible to run past all his attacks that normally prompt a QTE (30FPS only).

Dos Gigante

Very similar to the regular El Gigante except there’s two of them meaning two times the loot, well that’s if you can even get enough hits off on it as these two have much more HP than the ones in the Village the only easy route here is the Lava Pool allowing you to dunk one of them (I believe the one with slightly less HP will always stay in its range) and only one of them as the lever no longer functions after that.

Do be careful if you do dunk one as if the vat is open and you get close the Molten Giant will emerge up and grab you for an instant kill.

Bonus

This fight can be skipped entirely by activating Ditman and climbing up the ladder and using the zip line then running straight back and using the zip line again before it fully resets and this will put you out of bounds allowing you to walk to the door (no Gigantes are present only when the door opens will they spawn in).

Ramon “Napoleon” Salazar

Dwarf Spanish Napoleon is now flesh wall monster and he’s not that dangerous or spongy as his insta-kill bite only hits where the gate is so if you move to the side you can avoid it then move back and continue to pop the eye until the little man exposes himself (he also does this moments before doing the insta-kill). Whip out the S.A. Rifle and pop him in the head multiple times, rinse and repeat until he’s dead.

He does have a tentacle grab that will deal a good amount damage to you as well as throw you down below where and endless supply of Parasite Plaga spawn which on 60fps they will be the real threat of the fight as damage is taken rapidly and immediately when it grabs you (can easily do about 40% of your health or outright kill you if no yellow herbs were used).

However this can also be used to farm handgun bullets if you camp out at its spawn and swipe away.

Regenerator / Iron Maiden

While being probably the scariest enemy in the game and the most damaging enemy the Regenerators and Iron Maidens aren’t that difficult to kill, all you need is a Shotgun or Rifle.

There are three ways to kill one of these.

The Wasteful Way

The name implies exactly that wasteful, meaning dump your ammo reserve into it until it goes pop. these things can take a serious beating and only hard hitting weapons like the magnum and grenades will actually stagger it.

Close Quarters

With Regenerators you’re going to want to use a shotgun and blow its legs off, wait for it to lunge at you (backpedal to avoid) then run up and begin knifing it until it submits to the mighty knife. Iron Maidens however require a bit more percise positioning as when getting close it’ll puff out its spikes which will deal damage and some knockback but you can still reach its head while remaining out of its range(a bit harder but do-able).

Inferred Scope

A special Scope that can be used with either the Rifle or S.A. Rifle allowing you to see basically invisible plagas on the Regenerators and Iron Maidens with the Iron Maidens usually having one on their back. This is by far the easiest method to handling them but it does cost a little bit of ammo to do.

Bonus

The Regenerator in the Prison acts different from the others or at least with barred walls as you can approach up to this one (as long as you walk) and look at it directly in its face and even get a scoped weapon and zoom in on its eyes as its looking all over the place all spastic like.

U3 “it”

This is only going to cover the fight after the 3 cages dropped as U3 is technically unkillable in that section.

This boss is by far the most Tanky boss in the game as it will eat your bullets like candy so make sure you have enough for your stronger weapons and in the event of running out then you can always knife U3 in a pattern of “1, 2, move” as this will take about 5 or so minutes from full health. As far as QTE’s go is only when he dives underground he will pop out his pincer 1-3 times before coming back up, he seems more likely to do this at farther distances as a means to close the gap on you.

Weapon choice will be the S.A. Rifle and Broken Butterfly while keeping their tune ups up to date if possible if not that then at least the firepower. Ditman will help when knifing him allowing for more swings before needing to move. If health is in caution then theres a good chance you’ll die if you get hit by the pincer attack.

Bonus

I should mention that if doing the Rocket Launcher on him then just know this thing has the Second Wind ability equipped as he can tank the rocket but will still go down after a knife swing or a couple of shotgun blasts.

Jacked Krauser

For the sake of order I’m going to include all instances of him in this section.

Been a long time, comrade

Nothing special here just dont mess up on the QTEs, although this has gotten a lot easier from the PS2 version onward as the Gamecube version actually force failed the QTE if you pressed the wrong buttons(if you pressed L+R instead of A+B) and while a good feature on there having to sit through a cutscene every time you mispressed a button input is a bit punishing.

Collecta-hunt

Nothing too special here on the first encounter just climb up the ladder and wait for him to rambo up the ladder then knife him a few times to shoo him away. Second encounter just wait for an opening (it’ll be Bow, TMP, or Grenades) then run inside and ambush him. Third encounter he’ll catch on and ambush you from behind the pillar, just avoid and knife. Fourth encounter after picking up the first part just run underneath and hop he blows himself up, if not then wait for him to jump down and knife him a couple times, Last encounter before the boss fight can be avoided outright just by jumping in the window to turn the corner and he’ll never spawn in to ambush you.

Prepare for your death Leon

This fight hard no doubt about that, but it can also be a complete push over if you get him stuck in a corner as all you need to do is knife his legs then his head then his legs then his head then his legs then his head… you see where this is going.

Bonus

Despite being easily defeated by a knife Krauser will tank bullets and its not fun as then you have to worry about QTEs popping up every 2 seconds and not to mention Krauser hits like a truck as one hit will deal over 50% of your health (maxed out) so taking a hit for sure means needing a heal.

Saddler

This is it the final Boss, before coming into this fight make sure you have explosives on hand as well as some healing and max out your guns if needed (if you stick to one gun and not upgrade any other variants except the rifle then you should have more than enough to max out a gun or two).

Use your handgun to shot his leg eyes then jump on and stab him in the eye as this deals 30% of his current HP, repeat this process until the eyes become hard to hit or are gone outright. Switch to grenades or the mine thrower and stagger him with that then switch to your magnum or rifle and shot him, after Ada throws you the Special Rocket Launcher ignore it and repeat the 2nd step over and over again until dead.

Note that Saddler does hit hard but you should be able to tank a hit or two before healing. If at any point you run out of explosives just unload your arsenal into his body until dead.

Additional Notes

  • Each battle arena will have at least 1-2 boxes of ammo (usually suggests what weapons to use).
  • Arenas will have one of each Grenade type (Hand, Incendiary, Flash).
  • Arenas will have one of each herb type laying around (Green, Red, Yellow).
  • Chapter 5-3 is the only chapter in the game to have 2 boss fights within it.
  • Salvador and the Bella Sisters don’t really count as bosses as they serve more as a mini-boss than anything.
  • U3 onward if shot with a rocket will survive, Saddler takes 3 before Ada throws down the special one.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*