Looking back from the end of Resident Evil 4 there’s one big tip that becomes apprent for players: Do not sell your gemstones! Resident Evil 4 Remake has a bit of a complex economy, with The Merchant as the central banker. The Merchant will give you seemingly high prices for the treasures and gemstones you come across, but when you combine these items, you can gain vastly increased pesetas in exchange. The key point here is that it’s worth saving your gemstones until you have a treasure in which you can inlay them, and even then you should wait until you have the optimal gem color combinations.
How to Get the Most Valuable Gem/Treasure Combos
Here’s how gemstone color combinations and gemstone inlaying in treasure works:
- Find a treasure that you can inlay gemstones in — note that any treasure or item like a key that you can freely sell without care is marked with a For selling only message in your Sell section a The Merchant.
- Pause and Enter the Items menu and then select a treasure to inlay gems. Here you can bring up a menu that shows what color combinations are the best, by pressing a button noted on the inlay screen.
- Using multicolored gems, all gems of one color, or pairs and triplets results in bonuses of up to 2x the value of the original treasure.
These gem combinations will lead to a higher price at The Merchant.
- Gems are also worth different amounts, with the yellow round gem and the red rectangular gem being the most valuable.
- The combination of the above two points will result in the highest value. Even though five colors has a 2X bonus, inlaying two yellows and three reds will actually yield the best value in the crown treasures, for example.
Here are some additional treasure hunting tips for Resident Evil 4 Remake:
- The most valuable treasures, and the two that can trigger the Achievement/Trophy Astute Appraiser – Sell a single treasure for 100,000 pesetas are the Elegant Crowns. Here’s where to find them:
- Spinel cannot be inlaid but instead used to buy special items from The Merchant. Don’t sell these! Your best early purchase would be treasure maps which reveal both treasure and some gem locations, considering all of the advice above!
- The Splendid Bangle you get in Chapter 15’s Specimen Storage is the last socketed treasure you can inlay in Resident Evil 4. After this you can freely sell your remaining gems.
- Enemies that drop gems only do so if they die in an accessible place. So shooting bugs that are flying above pits or dumping the Gigantes into the lava in that particular boss fight means you won’t get the loot.
- Enemies that drop gems include Novistadors (the big flying or camouflaged bugs) which randomly drop Sapphires; Armadura (the parasite infested suits of armor), which always drop Spinel; and minibosses like Brutes or Chainsaw Villagers which always drop a gem.
So hold on to your gemstones, and good luck treasure hunting in Resident Evil 4 Remake! For our full list of treasure locations check this out, or play along with our walkthrough which will show you where all the treasures are, in order, maps included! And for the many awesome weapons you can purchase with your treasure loot, head over here.
