When I originally beat RE4 back at release, I barely touched Mercenaries more than one or two tries at it. I wasn't very interested in it. I also sucked at it big time for obvious reasons of not really giving it a chance.

None the less, after playing RE5 so much and getting good at Mercs in that, I decided to go back and try RE4's Mercs mode again (GC version), now that I have a better understanding of how Mercs works in general.

Obviously there's key differences between how things work in RE4's mercs and RE5's, but, the basica idea remains.

After about 5 tries on the village with Leon, I hit 68k and got 5 stars and unlocked Ada.

Tried Water World with Ada after that just to see Dual Blade Salvador that I had heard about. I lasted pretty long with her until Salvador decided that an explosive barrel wasn't going to stop him from continuing his approach and decapping me.

That was it for my run on RE4's mercs for now. I'll probably give it another go at another time, but, for now, I just wanted to try out my experience from RE5's mercs on RE4's and see where it got me. And as thought, it didn't take much more than learning the slight differences in game engines and the map in general to get a 5 star rating, in no more than 5 tries at that.


My thoughts on RE4's Mercs compaired to RE5's is that RE4's is WAY easier to wrack up points in rapid succession due to the sheer amount of Ganados that steadily come your way compaired to RE5's where they come little by little or in waves, with major delays in between at times, and them spawning in various spots on the map, often no where near you.

Melee obviously isn't as important in RE4's Mercs. I would head shot Ganados with my handgun and Run up and kick them, they'd still be alive for quite a bit more. Running up to them while on the floor didn't offer any other melee options as Leon doesn't have a stomp or impale option etc.

So Melee'ing didn't seem to really be that worthwhile outside of using it on one ganado to floor an entire group and give yourself breathing room.

Ganados also seem far more aggressive and faster than Majini. You also have FAR less health. About 3 hits usually killed me in RE4's Mercs.

The double edged sword comes in RE4's map and inventory screen. The map bluntly tells you where all the time bonus' are, which is a luxury indeed, but, also removes a bit of challenge from having to actually learn the map.

The inventory also gives too much breathing time. Although one notable quality is the 'lack' of being able to combine ammo to your gun through the inventory in Mercs, which does add to the challenge a bit by forcing you to steadily watch your ammo and reload only when it's safe to do so.

In closing, I think RE5's mercs is a bit more fun in it's setup and options. But, a bit more enemy aggression and far more challenging bosses like RE4's Mercs would have been welcomed to add more spice to it.

I also had a chance to get back into re4's merc's while my ps3 was being repaired. I must say that I did really suck badly at it and never gave it a second thought after always being so close to unlocking a character and failing. But after having quite a bit of experience and success with re5's merc's, I think it helped alot because I unlocked the first 3 characters relatively quickly this time around.

I believe RE5's mercs to be alot better, RE4's just seems to be kill kill kill, RE5's requires actual strategy in my opinion.

And yes, melee doesn't matter at all in 4, shouldn't even bother with it unless you are HUNK, and maybe Wesker.

Got around to this too, tonight. It's really fun; I like that the characters are all really different. The problem with RE5 mercs is that the characters became homogenized, it just felt like the characters were all the same, and the variation was just in model and weapon set.

In 4 you can definitely tell that the developers tried to differentiate each character (for example, Krauser plays nothing like Leon).
RE5 is still great fun (most importantly, it has co-op), but I wish that the characters and a few of the stages from RE4 made it into RE5's mercs.

Hopefully the PC port will get some mods to include the other characters.

OR when they don't come at all! Sitting there, dancing around with those POLES.

I almost liked it more than the main game.

I mostly use Wesker, Jack Krauser though is the best in RE4 mercs then comes HUNK and his neckbreaker, Wesker is a good character to use as well.

I know this is a really old topic. but i played RE4 mercenaries from day one all the way until RE5's release. yeah, i know i'm lame. :)

but i found the mode really fun, but now, it kind of pales compared to RE5 mercs. i still love using wesker and hunk, and hearing there different themes, but i just don't like how slow the mode feel in comparison. the quick aiming is sluggish and having to pause the game to access a grenade sucks and kills the momentum.

I love the scoring system in this one, I don't like the over reliance on melee attacks as the ONLY way to get a high score in RE5 mercs. Yes RE5 is better in almost every other aspect, still I feel that RE is a game about shooting, to reduce it to just meleeing guys I feel limits the scoring system. I find non stop meleeing to be too repetitive and boring after a while.

When I see a master RE5 mercs run it is usually a guy standing around meleeing guys for a long while. Of course there is some movement to get the times and such and different spawn points but the method is the same, melee, melee, melee, melee.

When I see a master RE4 run it is beautiful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXBQowVcmwU. The way he guns enemies down with such precision, his gunplay is incredible. I find that really entertaining to watch and play while I find people doing melee attacks over and over to get boring.

Just my feelings on this, there are people that like meleeing more which is fine. I like shooting things as efficient and quickly as possible.

I prefer the melee in RE4 then RE5. Wesker moves are awesome, not to mention krausers double kick and Hunks neckbreaker.

Crap I shouldn't click that link, the guy in that vid is good at rifle timing.