Dance Moves Are Potent Zombie Killers In 'Resident Evil: Revelations 2's' Raid Mode

"Resident Evil" is a long-running franchise from the distinctly Japanese studio Capcom. It may be pretty Americanised, but a bit of the characteristic Japanese brand of weirdness does creep in from time to time. Veterans of the seminal survival horror series might remember how the fourth unlockable survivor from "Resident Evil 2" was an anthropomorphic chunk of tofu, replete with its own single player campaign.

"Resident Evil: Revelations 2," the latest episodic instalment in the franchise, has received its own brand of weirdness in the game's Raid Mode. Kotaku reports that gamers have discovered the ability to kill enemies with gestures. The ability to kill with plethora of gestures, ranging from voice and hand signals to the more elaborate taunts and dance moves, was discovered as one of the passive abilities for an unlockable character.

The ability can be accessed by unlocking the bonus character Gina Foley, which can be achieved by beating the first episode. Once that's done, Gina is available at the character selection screen with a passive skill that transforms any gesture into a deadly weapon enabled by default. The skill can be used by binding up to six gestures to the function keys on the keyboard, or the gesture access menus on the gamepad, and simply standing close to an enemy while activating the move.

If that sounds fun enough, it is possible to have that passive ability transferred to other characters in the Raid Mode. This can be done by using the Inheritance feature, which allows players to make the ability universally accessible once you have upgraded it to the maximum possible level.

Interestingly, the skill is more useful than amusing, as many users on a Reddit thread about the subject have found that it can one-hit-kill most enemies. Additional gestures can be unlocked by levelling up characters and meeting certain requirements within the Raid Mode. Users on the "Resident Evil" subreddit have pointed out that certain gestures work better than others. The Let's Do This gesture, for example, is quick and seems to deal potent damage, whereas the Hip Hop Dance loops infinitely and helps with dispatching a large stream of enemies.

User LexCrunch – an accomplished speedrunner who posts regularly on the "Resident Evil" subreddit – found the skill good enough to carry his Gina Raid Mode build to level 20. This is widely considered to be an impressive feat, because Raid Mode gets extremely difficult at the higher levels and mandates players to seek out powerful weapons and upgrade them to stand a chance against increasingly tougher enemies.

The Raid Mode is a score attack mode interwoven with RPG-like mechanics. It was introduced in "Resident Evil: Revelations" on the Nintendo 3DS handheld console and has been popular enough for Capcom to include it in the sequel. It's essentially an addictive update of the Mercenaries mode, which first came out in "Resident Evil 3: Nemesis."

In its latest avatar, Raid Mode pits players in many of the series' familiar locations, where they are required to dispatch enemies and perform other objectives. Both the player and enemies level up and gain various skills, which spice up the gameplay mechanics. The mode also incorporates upgradable weapons that scale up according to player skill level.

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Resident Evil Revelations 2 All Barry Burton Raid Gestures (credit: SuperNormalMode YouTube channel)