So today I finally beat the game a second time through with Jill in a mere 3 hours and 8 minutes. I was honestly aiming for under 5 but now I'm kicking myself in the foot because I should have aimed for the 3 in the first place (see kids, this is why you never aim low). Anyway, since I have now completed the game with both Jill and Chris I have pretty much unlocked all the extra modes you possibly can in the game, something I never did when I played the Gamecube version a few years ago. The two things really tempting me have been hard mode and eventually I thought I'd try my hand at the real survivor mode which sounds more like a chore than fun! That is... unless you're a freaking huge Resident Evil fan like myself!

Anyway, since I beat the game under 5 hours I unlocked the Samurai Edge pistol which has unlimited ammo. While that is all fine and good and I feel rewarded for my accomplishment, I feel like having that weapon defeats the purpose of the higher difficulty setting. Since it literally counteracts the idea of even more scare resources than the previous difficulty, I feel like I won't get a true go at it. I know it's pretty dumb to ask people how to play a game, but I'm curious how other players tackled the hard mode and if its worth it to hold off using the samurai edge till another speed run or something more challenging like the stupid (and hilarious) invisible enemies mode. Again, I know it's kind of a superfluous question that can be answered simply by saying "play how you want dude," but I guess its more of a question of asking you guys how you played it and how satisfied you were with it?

On a side note, I can't believe how long its been since I've actually sat down and written a post on Giant Bomb! Life has been pretty busy the past few years and I gotta say, it feels good to be typing this and I may make a habit of doing it more when I get the chance. May even throw up a few blog posts about diving into my favorite series all over again! Oh, and big shout out to @yummylee for keeping up with all things Resident Evil on the site, my love for the series glows as bright as his but he is much more active at showing it than I. We may just have to change that now if I can make this writing thing a habit.

I look forward to reading what you guys write and hopefully I can get back on here and give some fun experiences I've had with this crazy ass franchise that I so deeply love.

As a first time player I finished the game once using Jill, then jumped into hard mode with Chris. I would imagine the unlimited ammo gun would negate the challenge of hard mode, which for me came down to being careful about my routes, and only killing zombies that I knew would be blocking my path later in the game.

If a room had one item I needed I would run in, try and avoid the zombies, grab it and run out. As a general rule I only used ammo on zombies in hallways, and only if I had enough kerosene with me to burn them up immediately. If not, run past and come back later with kerosene. Some corridors though, like the one in the East Wing that produces 4 zombies through the windows at one point, don't seem worth a clear, and are easily avoided if you plan right.

With Chris I wasn't careful about using the door that breaks outside the save room in the East Wing, and ran into a bit of trouble after I killed the dude in the coffin and was ready to move on to the courtyard. The ground floor of the East Wing gets hairy at that stage, and the aforementioned 4-zombie corridor gets in your way if that door is busted, or if you haven't unlocked the gate in the back garden for the alternate route through that stained glass corridor (no problem for Jill but Chris needs to spend a key to do it).

Ammo is scarce, especially as Chris with no grenade launcher available, and you need a certain amount for the boss fights, except for Yawn, who Chris can kill with the knife only (It seems to take much longer with Jill, she moves slower or something, anyway on survivor mode i had her use some ammo to speed that fight up).

In the Lab section I didn't bother killing any of the bug things, just ran past them, saving ammo for the fight with the tyrant, they seem to just keep spawning anyway. Likewise don't spend ammo on the little snakes in the courtyard, just run past.

Survivor mode isn't that much harder really, you just have to be a bit more careful with your aim, and do a bit more planning and running back and forth, but if you've cleared your paths right it's no real hassle.

@hh: hmmm I see your point and it definitely meets what I thought would happen if I used it. I do have 2 cleared saves, one with and one without the gun but of course if I want "one dangerous zombie" active I'll have to use the one with it. Anyway, I suppose I could ignore it, although I did quickly boot up the game and noticed the samurai edge takes place of the survival knife which isn't a big deal normally but sounds like it's quite useful against yawn. My guess is its just placed in the inventory box, hopefully it's not actually been replaced.

It seems like the type of weapon that'll make getting under 3 hours a breeze but for an actual experience in hard I think I am just gonna bury it in my chest and play how it was meant to be. I think I may try my hand at chris first but that sounds like a much more daunting task than Jill. I competely forgot how much easier Jills senario is compared to Chris