Exploration / Survival Tips

Resident Evil 5 Guide

Exploration and Survival Tips

Top Tips in brief...

o Use hazardous objects around you
o Order your Inventory!
o Use healing items with your partner nearby
o Keep track of your partner's ammo
o Grab everything and look for items
o Dying Status requires immediate action
o Try to stun your enemies and use Melee attacks
o Upgrade Weapon Capacity when clips are empty
o Checkpoint allows you to organize the inventory by using restart
o Set aiming speed to fastest
o Press Start on 2nd controller for Split Screen Co-Op

Destructible & Advantageous surroundings objects

There are various objects which you can use to your advantage to harm your enemies in RE5.  These objects often also cause a stun to the enemy, which you can use to your advantage by using melee attacks.  Below is a list of these objects.

Transformer Box
These are the electricity boxes hanging at wooden poles - they look sparky, and they actually are.  If you shoot them off when an enemy is standing/running underneath it, you’ll have harmed the enemy effectively.

Explosive Barrel
These red barrels are a returning object and explode when shot.  Especially useful for groups of Majinis or Mini-Bosses, but you’ll want to be a few meters away from the blast, and so does your partner.  Mind your fire!

Oil Barrel Stacks
These look like a few smaller barrels stacked onto each other.  When shot they ignite fire in a fair radius, burning the surrounding enemies.

Gas Cylinder
You won’t see these as often, but they’re extremely useful during certain boss fights.  Shoot the cylinder to blow it up.

Gas Tanks
These are large tanks which will generate a blast with an incredible radius.  Fortunately for you, they’re mostly far away from you either way, catching only the bad guys in the explosion.

Keep track of your partner’s ammo
The amount of ammo for your partner’s ammo is displayed twice: Once for the clip which is displayed in green next to the weapon.  The rest of your partners ammo for their equipped weapon is listed next to the small bullet icon, either above or under their name.  If your partner runs out of ammo and you have some that you can’t use, it’s better to let them have it.

Use healing items with your partner nearby
Whenever you use a Herb or First Aid Spray, make sure that your partner is standing right next to you.  Healing sprays will always heal both partners when they are close together, and there are no penalties.  There’s only one reason to use a Herb when your partner is far away, and that is if you’re in caution and an inevitable death will overcome you unless you quickly heal yourself.

Order your Inventory

                   [EXAMPLE 1]                  [EXAMPLE 2]

               .-----.-----.-----.          .-----.-----.-----.
               |     |     |     |          |     |  ^  |     |
               |  1  |  2  |  3  |          |  1  |  |  |  3  |
               |     |     |     |          |     |  |  |     |
               |-----|-----|-----|          |-----|-----|-----|
               |     |     |     |          |     |     |     |
               |  4  |  5  |  6  |          | <-- |  5  | --> |
               |     |     |     |          |     |     |     |
               |-----|-----|-----|          |-----|-----|-----|
               |     |     |     |          |     |  |  |     |
               |  7  |  8  |  9  |          |  7  |  |  |  9  |
               |     |     |     |          |     |  v  |     |
               '-----'-----'-----'          '-----'-----'-----'

Your inventory consists of 9 slots, which I have ordered as in example 1.  You can expect everyone to orden the inventory like this.  You have four “Quick Spots” in your inventory.  What’s so quick about them is that the items in these locations, namely 2, 4, 6, and 8 (see example 2) are automatically assigned to your D-pad.  If you press left on the D-pad, you’ll equip the item that you have in slot 4.  This can save you enormous amounts of time.  A recommended setup is to have your two primary weapons assigned to two slots, a Herb/First Aid Spray in an other slot, and the last slot with whatever you prefer.  Grenades work well for me at the start of the game, and later I swap a third weapon in it, such as the Magnum, Grenade Launcher or Machine Gun (besides Handgun and Shotgun as primary weapons in this case).

Random Items
Wooden Crates, Wooder Barrels, Fruit; These are the kinds of things you’ll want to destroy with you knife to grab the loot that’s inside.  This kind of loot is random and will therefore be displayed in the guide as either [CRATE], [BARREL], [FRUIT].  Fixed items are exactly pinpointed in the walkthrough section, and some items are fixed even in Barrels, etc.  This will be pointed out as well.

Dropped Items
Enemies can randomly drop items you can pick up.

Loot Type
There are various types of loot which you can recognize by the color.  The following colors represent these types of loot:

                       .-----.-------------------------.
                       |Color|Type of Loot:            |
                       |=====|=========================|
                       |Blue |Valuable Gems, Gold, etc.|
                       |Green|Restorative Items (Herbs)|
                       |Red  |Ammunition               |
                       |White|Key Items                |
                       '-----'-------------------------'

Upgrade Weapon Capacity when clips are empty:
If you upgrade a weapon’s capacity, the clip will automatically be completely filled.  That means that if you’re upgrading a magnum with no bullets left in it, you’ll get a whole free clip of magnum rounds!  Not only should you upgrade weapon capacity as much as possible whenever clips are almost empty, but you should also keep them empty if you know a chapter is soon coming to an end.

Checkpoint allows you to organize the inventory by using restart
Whenever you reach a checkpoint you can simply go into the pause menu and select restart to enter your main inventory.  You can now organize and swap any items you don’t need for the upcoming part.  The sooner you realize this, the better you get at the game!

Set aiming speed to fastest
You’ll get used to this setting in no time, and it really helps with killing enemies just a little faster, often on crucial moments.

Press Start on 2nd controller for Split Screen Co-Op
This sounds obvious, but I didn’t quite find it obvious and the way of playing a split screen Co-Op match differs from the demo.  So here you have it, simply press Start in the game on a second controller and the other player will be able to double your fun!  Well, hopefully..

Dying Status means: Take Action .. NOW!
If you or your partner fall into the Dying Status it will not be possible for them to heal themselves.  The only thing they can do is slowly drag themselves away from the danger.  Partner help is immediately required, otherwise you may soon view the game over screen.  You can do one of the following:

1. Heal your partner with a Herb/First Aid Spray - this is the preferred option.
2. Heal your partner with an adrenalin shot.  These will be used if you don’t have any herbs in your inventory and their healing power is small.  However, these shots are infinite in supply, so they can be quite .. a life saver!

Stunning Enemies:
This isn’t about the graphical detail of the Majinis - which indeed looks quite stunning to me - but more so about how to stagger your foes and taking advantage of this.  Headshots often stagger a Majini, but so can a shot to the legs or arms.  When an enemie is staggered and you’re standing nearby (or when you get nearby) you can hit the interaction button to perform a melee attack.
You can stun a Majini in the following ways:

.------------.-----------------------------------------------------------------.
|Target Area:|Stun effects:                                                    |
|============|=================================================================|
|   Head     |1. Majini will grab his face and put a few steps for/backward.   |
|            |2. Majini will look downward.                                    |
|------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|   Arms     |1. Majini will grab his shot arm.                                |
|            |2. Majini will grab his shot arm and leans forward.              |
|------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
|   Legs     |1. When shot in lower leg, Majini will fall to his knees.        |
|            |2. When shot in upper leg, Majini will grab their shot leg.      |
|            |3. When shot in legs while running, the Majini will fall.        |
'------------'-----------------------------------------------------------------'

All stuns can be used to your advantage by using a melee attack.  These are covered in this section.