Resident Evil 4/Trivia

• Actor Allusion: This isn't the first time Jesse Corti voiced a villager in Europe (although it's certainly the first time he plays a village chief).
• Development Hell: Counting the early proposal that became Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 4 was in development for at least half a decade.
• Doing It for the Art:
  • Watch Ramon Salazar's detailed finger movements when he says "I have...absolute control."
  • Salazar again in the cutscene before his boss battle. He walks up a set of stairs, and it's perfectly modeled. Every footstep comes down exactly on a stairstep, and matches perfectly with no clipping. This is almost never done in game.
  • Leon S. Kennedy and Ada Wong's physical interactions are almost perfectly modeled, right down to the smallest contact. Again, this is almost never done in a game. Ditto for when Ashley Graham hugs Leon after her playable section.
  • When Leon examines the pills given to him by the dying Luis Sera, the pills roll individually in the bottle.
  • This game is one of the few to model natural human hip sway. It's most obvious on Ada in her tight red cheongsam, but Ashley's is also noticeable. Even Luis has it in one cutscene. Leon's is a bit concealed by the objects hanging from his belt, but even they sway naturally.
    • Some of this is likely due to the game engine originally being designed for PN03, which featured lots of hip swaying created with no motion capture.
• Fan Nickname: The Merchant of Menace.
• Hey, It's That Voice!:
  • Luis is voiced by Ensign Munrooooooo! The Batman Knights of the Old Republic Revan Rino Romano.
  • Leon is Leon Jacques Blanc.
  • Ashley is Sandy Cheeks.
  • Saddler is Gopher from Winnie the Pooh.
  • Bitorez Mendez is LeFou from Beauty and The Beast.
• Name's the Same: Ramon Salazar; the psychopathic terrorist dabbling in bioweapons, is even crazier than...Ramon Salazar, the psychopathic terrorist dabbling in bioweapons in 24.
  • Given there is a soldier type called Jack Krauser, it can't be a coincidence.
• What Could Have Been: Before the developers settled on what would become RE4, they went through several prototype versions of the game, which are collectively known as Resident Evil 3.5.
  • Development on the first iteration of the game overlapped with that of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (back when that game was still considered to be "Resident Evil 2.1"), predating Mikami's decision to switch to the Nintendo GameCube. According to an interview with 1up.com, Hideki Kamiya claims that, initially, this was to be the third RE game instead of the one that came out. It featured a private investigator named Dante as the protagonist, and its development included several trips to Spain to study castles as inspiration for the environments. This game was deemed to be too great a departure from the Survival Horror genre, and would be retooled into Devil May Cry.
  • Following this was the "Fog Version," whose premise involved Leon infiltrating Umbrella's European headquarters, getting infected with the Progenitor Virus and fighting fog-like creatures that may or may not have been the creations of his collapsing, virus-corrupted sanity. One of the levels was to take place on an airship, and the game would've ended with Leon getting Killed Off for Real by the virus, a move that was unpopular with the developers and one of the reasons why it was scrapped.
  • After that version was scrapped, Capcom made the "Hooked Man Version," which was set in a seemingly haunted mansion and had Leon fighting what appeared to be paranormal enemies, such as medieval suits of armor (which would make it into the final game), living dolls, and the titular, ghost-like "Hooked Man," a possessed-looking chap who wielded a giant hook on a chain. The quick-time events and over-the-shoulder camera angles used in RE games from 4 onward first appeared here -- it alternated between the "classic" fixed cameras when exploring and the OTS camera when aiming. The game was reportedly so scary that, when the trailer debuted at E3, Shinji Mikami told the audience, "Don't pee your pants." However, the game would be scrapped for being too paranormal.
  • The final version proposed reportedly featured zombies again, and was discarded for being too formulaic.