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A Heart of Steel achievement in Resident Evil 4 (2005)

A Heart of Steel

Clear the game on the highest difficulty.

A Heart of Steel0
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How to unlock the A Heart of Steel achievement

  • Maiden Ty OneMaiden Ty One
    25 Nov 2019 25 Nov 2019 25 Nov 2019
    Here's an alternate strategy that may seem a little unorthodox but I found it incredibly effective

    Summary

    This strategy involves prioritizing weapon upgrades, allowing you to max out all your weapons by being frugal with money. The two major money-saving methods you'll use will be not upgrading the Attache Case until the XL version becomes available, and sacrificing the Rifle for the whole game. These two methods might sound daunting but they actually cancel each other out: without the Rifle you don't actually need to upgrade the Attache Case and saving money on Cases allows you to upgrade the Red9 much faster, which will be your makeshift Rifle.

    Detailed

    1) Don't upgrade the Attache Case until the XL version becomes available in Chapter 3 - 3. I know this sounds crazy but it's nowhere near as hard as you'd think.
    As you probably know the Attache Case doesn't need to be upgraded sequentially. For example, you can go straight from Small to Large without purchasing Medium. My strategy is to avoid purchasing any Attache Case upgrades until the final upgrade becomes available in Chapter 3 - 3. This saves $64,000 you can put into upgrading weapons.

    The prospect of going through half the game with the Small version of the Attache Case might sound daunting but it's surprisingly easy. To maximize space simply sell off some of your most expensive items to the Merchant when they fill up the case; First Aid Sprays, Incendiary and Explosive Grenades, 3 Green Herb Mix, even some ammo if you have enough, which you almost certainly will. Don't worry, you'll never be low on health items as this game practically throws them at you - every playthrough I have an abundance of unused Sprays and Herb mixtures by the end- these are all good cash for your weapon upgrades.

    Mixed GRY Herbs are the most profitable, giving you a whopping $10,000 a pop, so once your health is maxed out start selling these - although you probably won't max your health out by the end of the game.

    Also, avoid purchasing any weapon Stocks until you upgrade to the XL Case.

    Remember to exploit the fact the Merchant refills your weapon's ammo every time you upgrade capacity. Speaking of which...

    2) Prioritize Capacity and Firepower upgrades for all weapons. Don't bother with Firing Rate and Reload Speed until the first two are maxed out - then you can upgrade them all to get the special upgrade. Remember, the special upgrade also refills your ammo even if the upgrade isn't related to Capacity.

    3) Weapons:
    Go for the Red9, the Striker, the TMP and Broken Butterfly as soon as they become available. Sell your starting weapons as soon as their superior equivalent becomes available (if you're a greedy git like me you'll want to use up their remaining ammo first). Also, go for the Blue Ribbon quest thing to get the Punisher handgun and immediately sell it for $10,000.

    Be smart. Don't BUY the Broken Butterfly, get Ashley to open the door in the castle for the free one.


    4) Don't purchase a Rifle. At all.

    I know, I know, but hear me out: I personally find the Rifle to be almost entirely unnecessary in this game. 95% of the combat in this game is close quarters. The Red9 and TMP can handle the other 5% almost as well as the Rifles, especially when you have the Stocks. It really is a superfluous weapon. The only time in the game where you actually 'have to' use it is the Regenerators, but here's the thing: you don't! With a Flash Grenade (which you'll almost certainly have several of by that point) you can simply run right past the bastards. This also means you don't need to bother obtaining the Infrared Scope which in turn allows you to avoid some Regenerators. Or, if you prefer, you can obtain it and sell it to the Merchant for more cash.

    There's only one Regenerator that you absolutely HAVE to kill: the one with the keycard thing. Simply unload a full clip of the Broken Butterfly and possibly a grenade or a few rounds of the Red9 and it'll die. I find this small ammo sacrifice more than worth the inventory space and money the Rifle uses up. Remember, with this strategy every bit of Rifle ammo in the game = free money, and if you time your Broken Butterfly upgrades right you'll get a free refill immediately after this section with the Regenerator from the Merchant via Capacity upgrade.

    5) Obtain as many treasures as you can. If you don't know where they are, for god's sake don't BUY an in-game treasure map from the Merchant - look one up online instead.

    I just go from memory at this point, I miss a few here and there proving that it's not even necessary to get all treasures with this strategy.

    Also, look up a list of treasures that can be combined and treasures that can be sold immediately.


    6) This is more just a useful tip that applies to all playthroughs and strategies: every 'loading' door you go through (when the screen goes all blurry instead of Leon kicking it open) is a free checkpoint. This can be exploited massively and is incredibly useful in some of the more difficult and larger battles. For instance, when you're in a room with lots of heavily armed enemies - like the bridge rooms in the castle - and you manage to kill several enemies without getting hit, exit through one of these doors (usually the one you came through) and immediately re-enter the room. Now, if you die, or lose a lot of health, you can just reload the last checkpoint and you won't have to start from scratch.
    You can use this tactic to get perfect victories against hordes of enemies without losing a pixel of health.
    This means you'll never have to start a room "all over again" when you get down to the last few enemies only to have one kill or seriously injure you.


    Also, it goes without saying to use the Special Costumes 2 making Ashley immortal. This means you don't need to upgrade her health, allowing you to maximize yours much faster.

    Conclusion


    That's about it. With this strategy you can actually get a fully maxed out Red9, TMP, Striker and Broken Butterfly as soon as their max upgrades become available. I've done this myself and not only was it surprisingly easy, I STILL had an abundance of health items, grenades and unused ammo AND cash by the end of the game. :)

    Guide not helping? View 6 more guides for this achievement.

    Showing most recent comments. View all comments.
    iTzDanski92I'd like to add that when in the cage with the blind brute in chapter 3.2 or 3.3 unload around 20bullets of TMP to immediately break the lock, run straight to the exit and if you want to kill him you will have only 2 enemies plus the brute to kill = 15,000 currency plus maybe 2 random items from the enemies and the treasure I tested it out as I kept trying to kill him inside the cage but the bow and arrow guy destroyed me each time 😂
    Posted by iTzDanski92 on 27 Mar 23 at 22:42
    iTzDanski92@Zhoban I personally didn't upgrade until Red9 and sold the starting shotgun for a semi auto rifle just for the bow and arrow guys mainly in the whole castle for long ranged enemies
    Posted by iTzDanski92 on 27 Mar 23 at 23:06
    ShadowBotboiIf it doesn't unlock try beating the last boss again then watching all the cutscenes and credits after don't skip any after I did that it popped.
    Posted by ShadowBotboi on 21 Jul 23 at 04:24
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  • smokemaresmokemare
    06 Dec 2020 07 Dec 2020 08 Dec 2020
    Right! I did this in about 20 hours or so, on my first attempt at a professional run. I did read a few tips here and there first, and combined these ideas, plus put my own spin on it a bit too. I honestly think, this should be the easiest method/strategy to get through this, so if you're struggling - please give this a read and try it. Then let me know how you get on.

    General Strategy
    The biggest issue you face in a 'Professional' run is running out of bullets. You get a steady trickle of health items throughout the game and things often kill you in a one to three hits at the worst of times anyway, so generally health won't be your issue. Especially if you use the loading doors to set continue points regularly and save often. If you get killed you can always reload and try again. However, if you get to a big boss and find you're dead out of ammo - then basically you're screwed and will have to go back several save points to try and do the last bit more efficiently. So, in your strategy FOCUS on preserving ammo! It's also key to use the 'Special 2' costume you are awarded for completing 'Separate Ways' scenario. Ashley is invulnerable in the armour and allows some powerful strategies for knifing ganados who try to pick her up.

    How to preserve ammo

    1. Preserve pesetas and use them to buy ammo.
    So, first things first. Forget upgrading your attache case until late in the game. You CANNOT afford to buy the medium, or large cases. Just save your money for the XL case you can get later in the castle. Also, don't buy the treasure maps. If you want to 100% the treasure look it up online. Here's a guide:-

    Also, combine your treasures for max pesetas. There are lots of guides for this, here's one:- https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=24046...

    1.a How to manage a small inventory
    It sounds like a pig getting through the village and a chunk of the castle with no inventory space, but it isn't actually that hard. The first thing you have to do is accept you are NOT buying a stock for any weapons until you have the XL case later. This saves a ton of space and they don't do much anyway. Secondly, accept you are NOT buying the rifle. The bolt action is annoyingly slow to load and takes up too much space. You can manage without the rifle - trust me. Don't sell the rifle ammo, unless you're desperate for space, because it IS worth buying the semi-auto rifle later. There's actually a lot of running back and forth at the start of the game, so if you can't fit some ammo or a heal in your box, just leave it and pick it up later. Combine your herbs to save space and if you have more than one stack of ammo for a weapon try to use that weapon for the current enemies to get it down to weapon + 1 stack of ammo. Grenades take up a lot of space, so consider using them if there's useful bunch of enemies to take out. Particularly if you have a lot of ganados with exposed plagas and a flash grenade. That will save serious ammo. An exception is incendiary grenades at the start. For some reason these seem to big damage to chief Mendez so save as many as you can to save wasting too much ammo on that boss fight.

    1.b Saving Pesetas
    Make sure you collect every dropped box of pesetas. If you're running out of inventory space consider selling surplus grenades or heal items. Of the grenades, I'd be inclined to prioritize, normal grenades first, then flash bangs, then incendiary (Mendez boss battle aside). Grenades are useful, but take up a lot of space. The standard grenade does a lot of damage to anything, flash bangs are great if you have a room of ganados with exposed plagas. They can save you a lot of ammo and that's important. Make sure you pick up the free shotgun from the upstairs room when you first enter the village, the free Broken Butterfly Magnum from the castle after you've re-united with Ashley:-
    AND the free Rocket Launcher!

    While you're in the village, if you're feeling low on cash and don't mind sinking some time into it, you can effectively get infinite money by running around the farm area with the chickens and cows, collecting all the eggs, brown eggs and gold eggs, then exiting and re-entering the area and doing it all again. Don't shoot any chickens! Eggs are 300 pesetas, Brown eggs are 600 pesetas and Gold Eggs are 3000 pesetas. This video explains it better:-

    2. Preserving bullets & Buying Bullets
    One major annoyance you'll find with this game, is that though the Merchant is always well stocked with weapons, heals and upgrades, however the idiot NEVER has any bullets in stock! Personally It think this is seriously bad businessmanship as there have been times when I'd have happily cleaned him out of several different bullet types. He DOES however stock capacity upgrades, which is a bit like bullets. Unless you know you need to have your guns loaded for a tough battle, don't reload them! Keep them with zero or a minimal number of bullets actually in the gun. Then when you get to the Merchant, check your inventory. If there's a gun you can buy a capacity upgrade for, which has no bullets or only a couple in it - buy the capacity upgrade. Over the course of the game this will add a massive amount of bullets to your arsenal. Take the TMP, if you buy the last capacity upgrade when it has zero bullets loaded, you are adding 250 TMP bullets to the game. This is especially true of the Magnum. When you maxed out the capacity of the Broken Butterfly and emptied it of bullets - try to avoid using it any more. Switch to the Killer7 and start buying capacity upgrades to get more bullets.

    2.b Preserving Bullets: Knife strategies
    Now I'm not expecting you to attempt a knife-only run. Technically this is impossible in RE4. However, there are many times when it's possible to use the knife to save a lot of bullets without putting yourself at risk. If there's a lone ganado approaching, knee-cap him, with the handgun. When he drops, run over and start slashing. If you keep at it the stun lock will mean he can't get a hit in on. One bullet, one death, no risk.

    Another example is the ladder strategy, if you're up high and melee gandos are climbing a ladder to get to you - stand at the top and slash every time they get near. This is a quick and easy way to save bullets, just be weary of ganados sneaking up behind you.

    If a mob of ganados is in a tight space, smash them once with something like the Stiker, if they all fall into a neat pile, you can run and slash your way through the lot with little to no risk.

    Another key knife moment is Krauser. There is NO REASON to use bullets against him. Certainly not for the final tower-top battle. I used a few bullets in the run-around bit getting the first two insignias. When I was on the tower, after Krausers insignia I had a few tries and found myself running out of bullets and time. I recalled someone saying it was easier to knife Krauser so I checked again and tried it for myself. I killed him knife only on my second go. It was a doddle. You just have to be close, persistently slashing and ready for the odd set-piece button press. Knifing Krauser saves you a ton of time and ammo. For some reason being slashed with a knife seems to be Krauser's weakness:-

    You can also use the environment to kill several enemies. So if they are queueing up behind a door to attack you kick the door open. It'll do damage and can knock them down so you can run in with your knife. If you see exploding barrels or oil-filled lanterns where ganados are standing, one bullet can kill several enemies at once.

    Earlier in the guide I mentioned Ashley wearing the armour in the 'Special 2' costume? You can really use that to your advantage. For example, if when you get to the water room, you run past the ganados into the little room down the stairs with the two pressure plates, ganados will enter through the door or drop through the ceiling. Tell Ashley to wait near the centre then wait by one of the pressure plates. A ganado will grab her, then fall over, so you can run in and knife him to death before he can get up. You can use Ashley to save a ton of bullets this way.

    3. Weapon Loadout
    Lots of gamers recommend the Red9 handgun, and for good reason. In terms of firepower it outclasses all of the others. Firing speed in Professional isn't necessarily a big deal as you need max damage per bullet purely because of the scarcity of bullets. Pick up the free shotgun in the village. Don't buy the rifle. Get the TMP as soon as you can. Save as much rifle ammo as you can for later. In the Castle buy the semi-auto rifle, but don't buy the improved scope. I say this, because aside from a flash bang the rifle is the best for killing exposed ganados. Having the infrared scope for the regenerators will make your life easier too. One rifle shot to an exposed plaga in a normal ganado will kill it. When you can get the Striker, use the remaining shells in the shotgun up, then sell the shotgun and buy the Striker - it's great for crowd control. Make sure you pick up the free Broken Butterfly. keep upgrading the capacity to buy more bullets. You can upgrade the fire-power a bit too if you want. When you can't upgrade the capacity anymore, (Level 4 [12 Bullets]) unlocked at Chapter 5-1) sell the Broken Butterfly and buy the Killer7. Then start upgrading capacity to get more bullets.

    3.a Weapon Upgrades
    Spend most of your money on upgrading capacity. Only buy it when your gun is empty or nearly empty though. You can also improve firepower as this will save you ammo in theory too. The reload speeds and special upgrades are entirely optional. I personally hardly bothered with any of them, except I maxed out the TMP near the end because I had money to burn. You SHOULD end up with a good wedge of money in the final chapter. At that point, and that point only, sell the semi-auto rifle just before you meet Saddler for the final time and buy a Rocket Launcher. It makes the last boss fight a lot simpler. Save the free Rocket Launcher for Salazar or Verdugo as it makes these otherwise tough fights a doddle. Once you have the XL case, buy stocks for the TMP and Red9. You won't have the space before then.

    3.b Which Weapons to use where
    Red9 should be your staple, go to gun. If it's a lone ganado one shot, then knife them. The shotgun is your crowd control weapon. Shoot crowds of ganadoes, if they all go down run and knife them. You can use the Red9 to snipe until you get the semi-auto rifle. Once you get the rifle, use it to snipe, head shot and take out exposed plagas. The Magnum should be saved for bosses and tough enemies. Flash bangs are great for hoards of exposed plagas, expose as many as you can then throw. Grenades are great for crowd control and clearing a room also. Incendiary grenades are okay, but they are super effective against the big cheese of the village - Mendez. Try to save half a dozen for him and it'll make that fight super easy. The TMP is a great all round weapon. Try to save it for when you need it.

    4. Health
    The game pretty much throws health at you. If Ashley is wearing the armour she won't need any. So combine your herbs and give them all to Leon. Try to mix two green herbs together rather then eat two green herbs one after another as the mixed ones are always more efficient at healing. The only exception here is early on in the game where you have hardly any health. At that point never mix as it wold be a waste.

    5. Boss guide
    The first boss you'll meet are the chainsaw ganados. They aren't really a proper boss, but can deliver a one-hit kill. Keep your distance, try to put them on the floor then knife them to death. The ladder strategy with the knife works well on them at times.

    5.a Del Lago
    There's no particular clever strategy to this. Try to avoid being knocked out of the boat and hit him with as many harpoons as possible.

    5.b El Gigante

    Keep your distance, unload bullets into him until he falls to his knees. At that point, you can either jump on his back and knife the plaga, or shoot. If you have a powerful gun like an upgraded TMP or Shotgun at the right range I'd go for that. If you're down to handgun bullets jump on and start slashing. When you meet two of these later in the game it's possible to kill one with a trapdoor over lava. You miss on some pesetas this way I think, but it's worth it as he can be a bit of a bullet sponge.

    5.c Mendez
    The village big chief can be a beast, However, he seems very susceptible to incendiary grenades, so save as many as you can for him. Strategy wise cclimb the ladders to collect extra herbs, ammo and a grenade and keep as much distance as you can from him. He's tough, but he's not worth a rocket.

    5.d Garrador
    These are the blind guys with Wolverine blades on their hands. They hunt by sound so walk, don't run. You can sometimes use bells to get them to charge, but you only do damage when you hit the plaga on their back. Early on in castle these guys are worth a few rifle rounds. Later on if you have a surplus of Magnum ammo it might be worth dropping a few rounds on them with that. Otherwise go shotgun.

    5.e Verdugo
    Salazars right hand... Man? Well, whatever he is, he's tough. You can only damage him when he's been frozen by having a liquid nitrogen cannister toppled over him. One shot with a rocket launcher will finish if you freeze him first. Otherwise it'll be several freezings and a lot of ammo. If you have the cash, consider buying a rocket for him to save ammo.

    5.f Salazar
    Salazar is a tough fight. I would say, he's another boss that is worth a rocket to save ammo. However, I actually think the free rocket is better spent on Verdugo. To kill Salazar shoot his eyeball on a tentacle thingie to open the bit where the guy is. Then unload something juicy into him, like a few Magnum rounds? Again, if you have the cash and you used your free rocket on Verdugo, maybe but a rocket for this guy.

    5.g U-3
    Saddler calls this thing 'It'. For the first part of the fight, you can't kill it. I don't even know if any damage you do in the cages is carried over to the second phase. So save your ammo and only shoot him to stun him so you can run by and hit those switches. Once you're on the final phase, use the barrels in the arena to do big damage, then run through the tunnel and close the gate behind you. Before he can smash through the grate use the Striker to stun lock him over and over and if you're lucky he'll be onto the last 'burrowing' phase. When he's doing this keep your distance, be ready for the set pieces and shoot the parasite on his back. You'll probably empty your Magnum and most of your other guns on this guy as in professional mode he is a serious bullet sponge.

    5.h Krauser
    For the first part of the fight when he's dodging around and shooting arrows use the TMP and shotgun. He's very good at dodging, but if you spray and pray you should get some hits in. There are points where you can run away from him and others where you have to fight. Don't waste too much ammo on him at the start though as again, I'm not sure damage is carried over to the finale. During the final battle, at the top of the tower grab all the ammo and heals first then pick up the insignia. Now, here's the weird part. Your instinct is to start shooting, but don't! Get your knife out, dodge around and when he's in range slash as fast as you can with your knife. If you're close enough and fast enough you'll stun-lock him, cancelling all his attacks. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but I've tried both methods and he has a serious weakness to being slashed. It saves a mountain of bullets AND takes less time! Put your guns away, use your knife.

    5.i Saddler
    This isn't actually that hard a fight. Before you meet him sell your semi-auto rifle and any remaining ammo for it to the last Merchant. Use the money to buy a Rocket Launcher and any other upgrades you can get. When the fight starts run past him, then hit the exploding barrel when he's near it. Next, run back, climb the steps and hit him with the crane. Now run past again and spray away at the eyes with the TMP until he drops. While he's down quickly hit him with the Rocket Launcher. This should be enough for Ada to throw you the special rocket launcher. You CAN kill him without it, but it'll take forever so aim carefully, make sure you hit him and BOOM! You've won! (Jet ski set piece aside! Good luck!)

    6. Conclusions
    That's all I've got. Using these strategies you should have a reasonably easy time of earning this high-ratio achievement. In summary, use Ashley's armour. Use your knife as much as you can. Don't buy any attache cases until you can get the XL. Don't buy the stocks scopes or bolt-action rifle. Knife Krauser to death. Maximise the bullets in the game by buying capacity upgrades when your gun is empty or nearly empty.

    Hope this helps someone out! If it does, please let me know with a comment! :)

    Martyn Stanley
    Showing only comment.
    DiegoOCH82Hi there! Congrats for the guide! Just a tip for Saddler (final boss): you don't have to unload tons of bullets in his body. The weak points are the eyes on the legs. A hand granade or the mine launcher can drop him at every explosion (better than aim with normal weapons). Then you can stab his central eye until receive the rocket lancher from Aida.
    Posted by DiegoOCH82 on 22 Dec 23 at 14:06
  • BigDaddy KratosBigDaddy Kratos
    17 Dec 2019 20 Dec 2019 20 Dec 2019
    Watch any Pro Run Speedrunner on Youtube, for the best tricks on how to skip hard parts and easily kill the bosses.

    I recommend Phaer0, he has the world record run time.
    He uses some PC only glitches, but just do as much as you can the way he does. Buy Rocket Launchers for bosses, use the "restart from checkpoint " liberally as health is more scarce and you take more damage.

    Always use whatever gun you are comfortable with and try to do the shooting practice for easy money. Try to skip as many areas as you can, no need to waste ammo or health on areas not necessary to fight through.

    Use Special 2 Costume, at least you won't need to waste health on ashley, and can use her as bait to lure enemies and lob grenades or use the Shotgun.
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