Resident Evil 4 Remake charms are little trinkets you can attach to your storage case to gain buffs and benefits, and they go a long way to helping you survive what the remake has in store. In my playthrough, I got the Black Bass charm, which increases healing from eating black bass by 100%, so I survived by chowing down during combat like some fish-crazed murderer.
There are lots of different charm effects, and you can stack up to three on your case, tweaking the benefits toward your particular playstyle or weapon preference. Here, I’ll explain how to unlock the shooting range, how to get charms, some info about trying to reroll, and a list of all the charms and their effects we’ve found so far.
How to unlock the shooting range and get charms
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To get yourself some charms you’re first going to need to head to the shooting range run by the merchant. This is accessible in the merchant’s first big shop near the lake in chapter three—you’ll have to pass through the Quarry and then you’ll arrive at his store. Take the elevator just to the right of the merchant to head down into the range itself.
Completing target shooting challenges in the shooting range rewards you with bronze, silver, or gold tokens, but you’ll only be able to use certain weapons for each challenge. If you want the highest score—or to shoot every skull symbol for an extra gold token—you need to unlock the bonus round by completing the extra condition. While there is only one shooting range in the village area, there are multiple in the castle and the island, and more challenges unlock at each subsequent one. You can retry the old challenges at each range, too, so don’t worry about getting perfect scores before you leave the village. The four most important tips to remember are:
- You can shoot dynamite to destroy every target at once
- Headshots don’t give you extra points
- Rifles and the Punisher shoot through targets
- During some challenges you can switch weapon
Once you’ve got your tokens, take them back to the prize vending machine near the entrance and insert them to roll a random charm. You have a better chance to score a rarer charm if you insert three gold tokens, but you can also mix and match the token types. Once you’ve got your charms, you can equip up to three of them to your attache case at the typewriter, which provides you with their benefits.
When you meet the merchant in chapter 11, you’ll be able to purchase gold tokens for three spinels each, though since that currency is limited and very valuable, I’d advise against buying too many of them.
Resident Evil 4 Remake charms list
There are 30 charms to collect overall across three different rarities: common, rare, and epic. Here are all of the charms I’ve gotten so far:
- Don Jose (common): +15% handgun ammo craft bonus frequency
- Don Esteban (common): +15% shotgun shells craft bonus frequency
- Dr. Salvador (common): +20% rifle ammo craft bonus frequency
- Zealot w/ Scythe (common): +20% submachine gun ammo craft bonus frequency
- Leader Zealot (common): +10% health bonus recovery from green herbs
- Zealot w/ Bowgun (common): +20% bolts craft bonus frequency
- Zealot w/ Shield (common): +20% shotgun ammo craft bonus frequency
- Soldier w/ Dynamite (common): +30% craftable mines attach bonus frequency
- Soldier w/ Hammer (common): +20% handgun ammo craft bonus frequency
- Black Bass (rare): +100% health recovery from black bass
- Leon w/ Rocket Launcher (rare): 20% off rocket launcher at merchant
- Leon w/Shotgun (rare): +40% ammo resale value
- Ada Wong (rare): 30% off body armor repairs
- Ashley Graham (epic): +50% health recovery for green herbs
It’s worth noting that you can’t use saves to reroll your charms. For example, if you roll three sets of three gold tokens, load a save, and roll again, you’ll always get the same three charms you did previously. If you are intent on rerolling charms, then try different coin combos to what you did before, as this seems to change the results slightly. You can also roll charms you already have, but sadly you can’t stack them to double their effect—sell them back to merchant for little bit of money.
What are the best charms?
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Out of the charms I’ve found so far, I think any that offer a 20% craft bonus frequency are strong, since they boost the chance you’ll get extra bullets when you craft that specific ammo type. Ada Wong is also very good, reducing the cost for repairing body armor, which is something you’ll likely be doing at every single Merchant you meet in the game.
That said, I think the most powerful charm I found was the Black Bass, increasing health recovery from eating fish by 100%. There are loads of locations in the game where you can effectively stock up on bass, such as the Lake in the village, the fountain near the Courtyard in the castle, or in the watery part of the Depths area. The big ones do take up a lot of space, but pack a load of small bass into your case and you won’t have to worry about healing items at all. The bass also seem to respawn, so you can revisit the castle fountain to grab more in later chapters.