There is a weird thing going on with almost all main DLC's from the latest Resident Evil games, including Resident Evil 7, Resident Evil: Village and the latest Resident Evil 4 remake, that makes them feel and look like alternative versions of the main games with different protagonists. But in the specific context, this is not always a good thing: they give the impression that most of their parts had been considered as possible episodes of the core games that were then sort of reduced for whatever reason to be included in the downloadable content chapters. "End of Zoe" from Resident Evil 7 might have been a slight exception, and I say "slight" because even if it was very good, it had us play with a protagonist who, albeit fairly cool and fun, had never been mentioned or appeared once in the main game. "Not a Hero", again from Resident Evil 7, was a frustrating race with Chris Redfield as a lead struggling in almost every step, with never enough items to go through extremely difficult areas and battles, in the end fighting against an enemy who should have been part of the main game anyway. "Shadows of Rose" from Resident Evil: Village had some interesting elements, but it lacked a believable plot base, resulting in giving strong "what if" vibes instead of being a solid, independent story. And now the highly anticipated, new and revamped "Separate Ways" from Resident Evil 4's remake is one more addition to this bizarre list of DLC's.
"Separate Ways" was initially an extended side game stemming from the original Resident Evil 4, with Ada Wong as the protagonist, where we followed our favorite lady spy in her own mission in the hostile Spanish countryside where the main game also took place. Ada would arrive in familiar areas of the core story, either before or after Leon, and she would sometimes offer a helping hand, even without him knowing. In spite of Ada's spy status, which by the way could have been put to even better use by applying stealth mechanics to her gameplay, the original mission moved in a similar pace with the main game, feeling at times a bit too much for Ada and her way of dealing with things. But this was part of the challenge anyway; the mini game was very well set up and executed, and never felt repetitive or dull although we were called to battle the same kinds of enemies and the same bosses (albeit in different forms, in Saddler's case).
The revamped "Separate Ways" is a different story, however. After a promising and intriguing entrance, with Luis performing flamenco in a prison cell and Ada rescuing him from execution at just the last minute, things start to progressively change. An annoying mysterious enemy makes his appearance, infecting Ada with the parasite that he is carrying and we are forced to fight him at that extremely early stage with our very limited and weak resources. Ada begins to experience weird hallucinations caused by the infection, that severely affect her battling skills. We understand that this enemy, called for the time being The Black Robe (because he is sporting a fancy black robe literally, and by the way it turns out he is a familiar "face": he is the other guardian, besides Verdugo, who, in the main game, accompanies Salazar in his dramatic appearances), will be stalking us for quite a while, because he is not exactly dead after that first fight is over.
Either alone or with Luis for very brief segments, Ada goes through several familiar environments of the main game, but we are also introduced to new areas, an addition that is, in fact, the best and most memorable part of the DLC. The Castle, in particular, is a fantastic stage, what with its new puzzles and treasure-packed rooms (although said treasures are just for admiration, and we cannot take them with us), but unfortunately this does not last for long: the Black Robe appears for a last time, now as a boss in full swing, and it is revealed to be the infamous U3 from the original main game, an enemy that was left out of the remake and now we get to know why. Then Ada, having freed herself from the infection by putting her attacker to sleep for good and spitting out its germ, rushes for the island, now for a new mission that Wesker who, incidentally, shows up in person in the side game's remake, assigns to her. Wesker intends to blow up the island, but Ada disobeys his orders and instead of setting up the fatal explosion, just like he told her, she instead prepares a series of blasts that will not happen at the same time (or at all), so as to give Leon time to escape with Ashley. While on the Island, Ada discovers a secret experiment base and a fierce monster - another impressive addition which also links Wesker to the story even more. Thankfully we do not have to fight this monster, "just" run for our lives the few times that it appears, but we get an idea of what was really going on there under Wesker's all-seeing eye.
Although the revamped side game is well made as a whole and has its fair share of interesting and challenging moments, after a while it starts feeling rather sluggish and forced. Sometimes it looks like Ada cares more about how to pose herself and much less about what is happening around her. The boss fights are quite stressing and weird-looking, especially those with our known enemies. The Gigante sequence in the village and the U3 battle in the Blast Furnace below the Castle feel like grotesque versions of the ones in the main game's remake and the original Resident Evil 4 respectively, because they are exaggerated versions of those. We get to fight a Gigante who is insanely strong, and accompanied by crazed villagers who seem invulnerable to his attacks for no logical reason whatsoever; and the U3 is just too much with its sly movements during the second phase of its boss battle - and why it also has to summon an army of Novistadores as if its exploding bubbles and its trolling running and jumping around are not enough, is beyond my area of comprehension. Regardless, since U3 turns out to be Ada's main boss fight (the final battle with Saddler feels like a joke after it), all you have to do is be prepared to test the limits of your nerves and your patience and just hope that nothing fatal occurs in the course of that second phase, because if it does, you go back to to the very start of the battle even in difficulties lower than Professional.
That said, although the U3 part in the original was one that I loved to hate, it was an iconic and highly challenging sequence in Leon's story, and therefore not a good idea to take it away, let alone to put it in "Separate Ways" as one more boss fight for Ada. I also didn't like the fact that the title of the achievement that you gain for defeating U3 is one of the most characteristic lines that Saddler directs at Leon in the original. Which reminds me of the emblematic laser corridor that, again, was one of Leon's shining moments in the original game and not only it was left out of his story in the remake but it too was given to Ada. And unfortunately these are not the only instances of iconic moments / sequences that were part of the original main game and now were included in Ada's mission. The gondola part, the pounding pistons, the insect-inhabited flooded waterway in the Castle that you need to unflood so as to proceed, Bitores grabbing Leon from the neck as he opens the door in his mansion (I know there is a similar sequence in the remake, but the one in "Separate Ways" is literally a replica of the original's scene with Leon), getting the Blue Moonstone in Salazar's maze (albeit the procedure is different), even a couple of Leon's iconic one-liners, all so deeply connected to the classic game's plot, were now left out of the main game and were implemented in Ada's story. This was kind of expected, however; because an important part of Ada's original story, that which involved her meeting Krauser, saving Leon from his blade and later facing him in a boss fight, was cut from the remake, her new story needed an extra boost, moreover since a unique segment from the original "Separate Ways", the sequence with Saddler's battleship, was completely left out of its revamped version.
In her revised standalone mission, Ada seems a bit lost and, at times, out of place. She relies on Luis to get her the Amber, she relies on Leon to keep insanely strong enemies busy and away from her, and although her own path is filled with danger and challenge, most of the times she is more of an observer and less of someone actually doing something to push the action further. This works in the main game, but not in her own adventure. What she does mostly depends on what other people have done before her, and with her overall "ennui" kind of attitude she gives the impression that she is not 100% there and focused on her mission, although her determination does shoot up in the final scene, where she appears to completely disregard Wesker's plans by ordering the pilot of her helicopter to change course at gunpoint. The fact that Ada is bored and eventually not as effective is highlighted by Wesker's obvious dismay and disappointment every time something doesn't go according to plan. We know our beloved arch-villain is a paranoid perfectionist, but to be fair, he is not exactly overreacting in this case.
As I already mentioned earlier, Ada has no interaction with Krauser in this new version, and there is no boss fight with him in her story; a change that makes sense since in the main game's remake she doesn't encounter him at all, and it is Luis instead of her who is present in Leon's knife fight with his former mentor, and the one who subsequently saves him from a fatal hit from Krauser. Luis is far more connected to Leon's story in the game than Ada, therefore his role in how Leon's encounter with Krauser plays out is far more important and determinant, also aiding the plot in that, as we see in the end, Wesker leaves the island with Krauser's infected body so as to examine the virus that it carried and see how he could possibly take advantage of the strain's potential, like he did in Antarctica, where he escaped with Steve Burnside's infected body in "Code Veronica". That scene could also imply that Krauser is not really dead for good or that maybe Wesker had the means to "resurrect" him somehow. This is Resident Evil, after all; death is never that simple in its universe.
The revamped "Separate Ways" is an averagely good side game with some fairly nice moments but also marginally disappointing at times, lacking flexibility as far as gameplay strategies are concerned (there are a few instances in the DLC where following a specific plan looks like the only way to survive, but said plan is a pain to execute with precision due to an undue overkill in enemy and obstacle placement) and with several weaknesses that have to do, on the one hand, with the fact that so many iconic elements from the original main game were implemented here, as if in an attempt to make "Separate Ways" look more grand because it would probably feel inadequate on its own, and on the other with the limited development of its lead character. The road that Ada takes in this new version of her story is so distant that she nearly separates herself from the whole plot. But maybe this was done on purpose; her solitary path fits her spy persona and helps her watch things from a distance and plan her moves accordingly. Maybe this is how she should have appeared from the start, and in this sense her mission's remake was what her story needed to be properly narrated. In a past article, I mentioned that probably it's about time for Ada to have a game of her own; now, however, seeing how both her persona and her gameplay design have been altered in the new "Separate Ways", I dare say that maybe it would be better if she retired. Like I said in my article about Claire and Leon's development in the remake of Resident Evil 2, the connection between Leon and Ada has already become a quaint detail in the universe of the games, having lost its original flair almost completely. This is very obvious in the remakes themselves, considering how Leon's very attitude towards Ada has been changed in both of them.
Another parameter that played a major role in Ada's degradation in the remake is both Ashley's and Luis's development. From the one-dimensional side-character that Ashley was in the original, with just a couple of scenes and a few lines moderately giving her a little bit of flesh, she now bloomed into a full-fledged, absolutely realistic person with whom Leon could truly connect on a human level. Now Leon is not alone in his quest with a paper-cut character running after him, but he has a partner in adventure with whom he can interact, share jokes, whom he can console, even tease and and view as a considerable ally. This of course has to do with the main game, but it also affects Ada's mission because it's the same events that occur in both stories. Similarly Luis has become a powerful, pivotal character in the remake, bonding with Leon in a genuine, deeply emotional way and playing a most important role during that part of the story which later proves to have carried the heaviest emotional load for Leon, which is his encounter with Major Krauser. And in "Separate Ways", although the protagonist is typically Ada, as during the course of the story the focus and the spotlight turn temporarily to Luis, he literally steals the show whenever he appears: although we see him in only a few scenes, his character development is deep and essential, highlighting his emotional struggle as he is constantly on a tight leash, trying to fulfil his part from the pact with Ada and at the same time doing all that he can in order to get back to Leon and Ashley in time so as to give them the temporary antidote for their infection.
Because of Ashley and Luis not being developed enough as characters in the original, Ada gained more substance there and stood out as an instrumental part of the plot; but with both of them being so fully shaped in the remake and especially with Luis playing a much more important role in Leon's story, Ada loses most of her allure and, contrary to her seemingly protective manner in the main game, now in "Separate Ways" where we see her actions from a different angle, she shows signs of relentlessness that may be just a strategy to carry out her mission, but they are still there and you can never tell if they are fake or not. In the end it looks like Luis's urge to do good no matter what has somehow affected her, but even then it is more like she disobeyed Wesker's orders because she wanted to show him that she was her own boss and less like she did so out of her good will and sense of altruism. Wesker, by the way, was also developed more in the remake, something that is very obvious even in his very brief but unforgettable appearances; incidentally, the fact that he shows up both at the village and on the island raises questions as to why he sent Ada on those missions when he could clearly take them on himself: with his intelligence, ruthlessness and physical strength he could very well hunt for and steal the Amber and handle Saddler and all those tough bosses without batting an eyelash. The bottomline is that all characters around Ada evolved impressively, while she looks like a shadow of her original "Separate Ways" version. Having her getting infected now (something that did not happen in the original game) does not add much to either her story or her development; it only highlights even more how powerful and determinant Luis has become as a character, since it it thanks to him that she is able to pull through the symptoms of the infection until she finally rids of it for good.
Interestingly, you can see how Ada threatens and treats Luis just like Wesker threatens and treats her. The chain of action between the three of them, however, is not exactly balanced: Wesker sends Ada to bring him the Amber, but Ada cannot do it on her own, so she turns to Luis who is the one not only able to retrieve the Amber, but also to create the antidote for the infection that it causes. So nearly all of the background action belongs to Luis, and later this action is transferred to Leon who "frees" the Amber from Saddler's possession by killing him for good. These facts reduce Ada's role to just sneaking around as far as the major plot points are concerned (she may be tasked at some point to find the ingredients for the antidote, but in reality only one of them is truly a challenge to get) and whenever she has to take heavy action for her own good, things get frustrating and messy what with the awkward way in which she switches weapons (she literally needs ages to put one gun away and take another) and her extremely slow running; the most characteristic instance of the latter is the sequence where she comes across the unkillable monster in the facilities: she mutters "You don't look friendly" as she runs away from it slower than death no matter how fast or hard you press that goddamned button. I think that the developers might be officially trolling us at that point.
And when it comes to fleeing hordes of attacking enemies, it's one of those instances where you wish there was a fast-forward button. For whatever unexplained reason, Leon too is programmed to run slower during chasing / battle sequences in the main game, but Leon is faster than Ada by default, so his slower running is faster even than her default one. In fact Ada runs slower than Rosemary Winters in Shadows of Rose who runs slower than Lara Croft in The Angel of Darkness (Lara in AOD is always an accurate reference for such cases). What's more, there is one sequence in Chapter 3 where Ada's stealth expertise is completely cancelled: in the village square before the Gigante fight, all the enemies in the area that have her back to her, will sense her presence and turn around even before she approaches them; Ada is unable to stealthily kill them and most (if not all) of them will grow plaga heads, forcing the player to either deal with them the hard way, wasting a lot of precious ammo, or run away in a haste, most of the times leaving behind several necessary items. Whether these peculiarities are due to bad design or deliberately featured so as to produce a supposedly more realistic experience and make tough gameplay sequences harder for the sake of it, is a question that will probably never find an answer.
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