Part 2: Trial Contents
Resident Evil 4 Trial (GCN)
The demo as most know already follows Leon's
journey from his leaving the police vehicle to Leon battling it out with the
villagers before the church bell rings. Most of the journey is the same however
there are a few differences when compared to the final release. A brief summary
of those differences is below:
The warning logo is different, with the background being a rough
parchment texture.
The main menu displays Trial Edition below the game. There are
two options, Start and Options. Options simply leads you to an INVERTED AIM
ON or OFF setting while Start, of course starts the game.
A brief series of text takes the place of the intro and it does
a fairly good job of keeping you up to date with what's been happening up to
this point. It does however seem to throw a bunch of major happenings at you
just through the texts which were a little hard to swallow. I, like many others
weren't exactly enthusiastic about the presidents daughter being chosen for
the kidnap victim. However things seemed to have worked out a bit better once
we got our hands on the final game.
One of the first things I noticed was the voices were not in
sync with the speech being played as in the final version. This was particularly
apparent on the two police officers as Leon discusses his game plan with them.
Once Leon leaves the car there is no call from Hunnigan, she is not featured
in this demo yet. It gets straight to the action. Attempting to shoot the officers
yields no mention of his "Get this over with will you!" line. In fact
nothing is said at all and you cannot fire upon them.
You may also notice in the screen shots that Leon's health bar
is not divided up into sections as it is in the final version of the game. After
firing upon the first few crows you can see the item light that radiates from
dead bodies is very faint in the Trial. As is the laser sight on Leon's weapon,
making it very difficult to get a proper aim on certain enemies at a distance.
Picking up money has also changed, with just a simple text below your screen
letting you know how much money you have received.
The item screen has changed as well. In the trial Leon has an
infinite amount of item slots. Leon's character model is simply a picture in
the trial rather than a full fledged 3D model. The Item and File sections are
blocked in the trial however moving over to the map section we can see even
more changes were made. I would have much rather preferred this style of map
albeit with the same zoom features of the final release.
Its also worth saying that the quick knife switch does not work
here. This was one of the major complaints as players had to waste ammo or spend
the time going to the item menu to equip the knife. A severe problem that Capcom
has since fixed in the final release. Leon's binoculars can also be used any
time you desire, allowing you to zoom onto any object as you see fit. This was
removed in the final version most likely because people would zoom in onto distant
objects which were only flat 2D images and it would ruin the illusion of a 3D
world.
Ashley's picture that Leon carries has also been modified for
the final release. Some major clipping issues are present with the camera in
the trial edition.
We can see here again the faint color of red indicating an ammunition
pickup after dispatching of this Ganado.
Checking on the river area where the police car has been dumped
into plays a slightly extended cut scene from the final version. Attempting
to save leads to no success with it being disabled for the demo. Also of note
is the lack of red herb in the wooded area near the wolf that you can free.
Some item pickups were also different, such as this Onyx stone.
Presumably it would be used to combine with other objects to increase its value.
Herb mixtures as well as various other items have different avatars and in some
cases different models all together as is the case with Grenades.
The trial also lacks any female Ganado's (apart from the dead
on inside the hut before the bridge). As seen here a male Ganado does the water
dumping in the village. Normally a female Ganado would be doing this action.
Leon also lacks the ability to jump down from the tower in the village, taking
the time to climb down instead which disrupts the hectic pace of the village
area.
The audio used for the Chainsaw Ganado's appearance has also
been changed, with Leon not swearing. Three more stones can be found in the
village. The first is located on the roof of the Shotgun house, the second one
is located on the House Chainsaw Ganado's body after he is defeated and the
final one is found on the Door Chainsaw Ganado's body. Flashbangs still stun
opponents however you cannot kick them as in the retail game when they are stunned
like this.
The demo ends as abruptly as it starts and we are left wanting
more! However we will now delve into the Japanese demo to find if there are
any other differences in that build.
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