You must be knowledgeable of the game before trying and beat hard mode. It sounds like an answer you could’ve easily guessed, but it is true. Knowing your enemy’s health, hitboxes, item placements, and quickest paths can make or break your game.
These are the things you’ll be expecting:
- Jill will start his fight only with a handgun and a knife in her inventory.
- You’ll begin with eight inventory slots (you’ll get four more additional slots when you get to Carlos on the city tram).
- The zombies and Nemesis do more damage (Zombies can hit you up to three or four times before lowering your health, while Nemesis can hit you two times before turning your green health (excellent) to yellow (caution).
- Likewise, your enemies also withstand more damage.
- Lesser resources (scarce ammunition and fewer first aid sprays).
- Ink ribbons are limited (most can still be found next to the typewriter)
- The dodge mechanic is manual on hand. (Compared to natural, which helps you out a bit).
- Nemesis drops individual items that are exclusive in hard mode only (Infinite Bullets case, Eagle 6.0 parts.)
Tips on Surviving
- First of all, don’t try an all-out Rambo style on hard mode. I would not recommend it.
- Be tactical in your approach, like figuring out which path to the next segment of the game would be the quickest and safest for you to take (there isn’t any secure path. It just means the route that would lead you to considerably lesser trouble). If possible, plan your journey.
- You do not have to kill every enemy you see in sight. It would be best if you run through their sides, or kill only the enemy that’s blocking your path.
- Be conservative with your resources. Since the number of ammo and healing items would be halved in hard mode, you need to be wise in using them.
In some cases, you would want to save up gun powders until you can combine three of the same or mixed kind with your reloading tool as the number of gunpowder of the same type increases the more of the mentioned rounds increases.
To give you an honest idea, here’s a list of gunpowder combinations:
- Gunpowder A: 15 handgun ammo
- Gunpowder A+A: 35 handgun ammo
- Gunpowder A+A+A: 55 Handgun ammo
- Gunpowder B+B+A: 60 Handgun ammo
- Gunpowder A+A+B: 22 Shotgun shells
There will noticeably be lesser first aid sprays in hard mode. Consider combining your green herbs with red herbs more frequently.
You can kill up to three zombies in the head with one shotgun shot if they’re close enough in range.
Always Be Conscious of Your Health And Ammo
While Jill can show if she’s severely wounded (caution health) when she puts an arm on her side and if Jill is critically injured (critical health) when Jill begins to limp and can’t tell you visually the number of bullets she has left on her weapon.
Keep checking on your inventory now and then to see how much you have left. You can reload bullets from there where you wouldn’t have to bother risking being defenseless with going through reloading animation.
Be mindful of your health at all costs. Some non-boss enemies in hard mode also tend to kill you instantly, even when you’re just in cautionary health (Drain Deimos, Brain Suckers, and Hunters).
Save at least once in every area once you get to them
- Uptown and downtown
- Raccoon City Police Station
- Raccoon City Hospital
- Raccoon City Outskirts
Tips on fighting the Nemesis
- Fighting the Nemesis is an option (not until the end, at least). But if you consider fighting him, take every chance to do so and take him down as he drops individual items. You’ll have to prepare for it. Your first encounter would be the hardest (as you are at the point of the game where you have just barely gathered any ammo or powerful weapons). Here are some tips on your first encounter:
- You’ll need at least 45 handgun ammo to take him down and make him drop a particular item.
- Don’t bother using the shotgun, as it puts you at a considerable risk of being damaged by Nemesis. At the same time, pump it after every shot (If you do., though, it is recommended for using it when he is down. You would only have one to two shots before he gets up, then switch back to your handgun).
- Always shoot from a distance when he is just walking. You can only shoot until he is two steps away from you. It gives you at least three to four handgun shots and a maximum of five before re-positioning (If you’re confident enough in your dodging skills, you can ignore this).
- He will sometimes go berserk, doesn’t shoot when he’s running like this and evades and outruns him when he does so as much as possible, as a single bullet trade-off is not suitable for one nemesis punch. You can prevent him from doing so by cautiously being close to him at all times, as going too far from him will often trigger him to run toward you in an attempt to get to you. Being close will inhibit this trigger. It takes some practice, though (He will almost always guarantee to go berserk (run at you) after being down).
- Two nemesis punches will turn your green health into yellow health.
- Try not to run in a straight line. Curve your motion when he’s chasing you.
