Some things are eternally etched into your psyche. The last sunset of your favourite beach holiday. The wafting scent of your grandma’s cooking. The gravelly drawl of Resident Evil 4’s merchant asking “Whaddya buyin?”
OK, one of those things is not like the others, granted, but Paul Mercier’s reprisal as the gun-slinging merchant from Resident Evil 4 – my favourite NPC from my favourite video game -will forever occupy a part of my brain.
For the uninitiated, Resident Evil 4 drops the franchise’s zombies for the Ganados – a ‘flock’ of parasitically controlled religious zealots who will stop at nothing to either infect or vivisect you. Think Cordyceps, but before it was cool.
When I first picked up this game, I was a parasitology student with a floppy emo fringe and a healthy scepticism of religion, so naturally I was very much on Team Leon. However, we were vastly outnumbered by Team Ganados, all of whom were too happy to play the sacrificial lamb. In my moment of need, Leon and I needed an ally.
Enter the merchant.
This walking enigma was a seemingly unassuming traveller like you. Despite his glowing eyes, he was unaffected by the mind-controlling parasites and only too happy to sell you a slightly bigger gun. He was always there when you needed him, offering a gravelly chuckle and what you can only assume to be a grin under the signature purple scarf.