There's only two rifles to choose from, but which one is best?
Rifles in the Resident Evil series have generally been the Assault kind. Similar to a machine gun. Not in RE4, these are essentially Sniper rifles and there are no Assault rifles to be found. Resident Evil 4’s camera changed from pre-rendered backgrounds to behind the player’s shoulder. Which allows for a farther view of what’s around you. So, having a rifle that can shoot enemies from a distance makes sense.
But, which rifle to use and upgrade with those hard-earned pesetas?
I’ll tell ya.
2. Rifle
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Rudimentary but powerful.
The first long-range rifle can be bought from the merchant for 12,000 pesetas the first time you meet him. Which is a good point to obtain it, as the camp in your way has enemies that can be killed from a good distance away before even opening the door. This makes the next section a lot easier as you only have to worry about the ganados on the ground.
The Rifle is quite powerful making it a viable alternative against bosses with its exclusive upgrade giving it a firepower of 30.0. Even before then, it decapitates enemies with ease, including the plaga heads.
It’s an old-looking gun and it behaves as such. Being a bolt-action rifle, after every shot Leon has to manually set the next bullet. Which takes you out of aiming mode and leaves Leon vulnerable in an unstoppable animation.
The slow reloading and firing also do not help this weapon, but the firepower is useful.
Pros:
Head-hunter – Takes heads and asks questions later
Magnum lite – Powerful enough to be effective against bosses
The rifle’s contemporary cousin. Quicker in every category and you don’t get taken out of firing mode after every shot. It also has a larger capacity.
The Semi-auto Rifle costs 35,000 pesetas and can only be bought once you get to the castle in chapter 3-1. It’ll cost you 351,000 pesetas to fully upgrade the SaR plus an extra 10,000 if you want the extra-long range scope (unnecessary).
It does not get the firepower boost though; it literally has half the power of the Rifle at its fully upgraded 15.0. However, it does get a nice boost in firing speed, dropping from 1.83 to 0.8. The speed of the Semi-auto means you can use it in medium and close combat and is very effective against the regenerators for this very reason.
Like the Bolt-action rifle, once upgraded this can be used against bosses, even if not as effective as its more powerful relative.
Pros:
Speedy Gonzalez – quick at everything compared to the Bolt-action
Packs a punch – still has enough firepower to be used against nearly all enemies
Cons:
Lack of power – Not as hard-hitting as its Bolt-action cousin
Something to note is that the infra-red scope used to effectively fight the regenerators fits only on both rifles.
To wrap things up, the Rifle is good at the start, but the Semi-auto is simply better. The firepower of the original Rifle does not make up for the slowness in which it fires and reloads. Plus, YOU CAN ONLY FIRE ONE SHOT AT A TIME. Buy the rifle, don’t upgrade it, sell it when you get to the castle and use the Semi-auto for the rest of the game and subsequent playthroughs.
