Slime-drenched aquatic horrors await in Salvatore Moreau's reservoir. You're gonna need a bigger boat.
"Dirty little sneak-thief!"
Congrats! You've made it past that demonic desecration of a baby!
To snatch up the next flask it's time to visit the third of the four lords- and possibly the most tragic.
Belching toxic waste and crippled by the parasitic spores of the megamycete, Moreau sequesters himself in a deserted, dilapidated reservoir.
It's a true Lovecraftian nightmare.
Bubbling walls of slime and scum block your path at every turn, but aside from Moreau himself (and one or two beefed-up lycans) this part of the game is very sparsely populated with enemies. Yes, not even the other bloodthirsty beasts venture out to these parts- that's how much of an outcast the good Doctor is.
It's very easy to feel sorry for the guy. That is, of course, until he transforms into a lumbering fish-man and chunders acid rain all over you during his boss fight.
Why is he....the way he is?
Just like his siblings, Moreau's body was not strong enough to contain his parasite and serve as a vessel for Miranda's ceremony.
The megamycete caused Alcina Dimitrescu to grow into a 9-foot tall blood-supping dragon, and disfigured Donna Beneviento's face so badly that she hid behind a shawl (and Angie) for the rest of her life. Karl Heisenberg, who we have only met briefly by this point in the game, seems to have lost his mind and is able to manipulate magnetic fields.
But unlike his siblings, Moreau undergoes the most disturbing transformation of them all. He is rendered totally alone thanks to Miranda's "gift".
Alcina has her daughters, Donna her dolls, and Heisenberg his Frankensteinian monsters. Moreau has nobody except his television to keep him company.
When you try and steal his flask, you interrupt Moreau watching one of his favourite old romance films...
So is he all that bad?
A far cry from the likes of legendary Resident Evil baddies Mr X and Nemesis, Moreau is driven by more than the blind desire to carry out evil biddings.
The Four Lords are essentially driven by the same thing as Ethan:
Love.
As you snake through Moreau's labyrinthine puzzles, he dives over and beneath you to try and jostle you off balance and into the murky depths.
But when he does surface, his only battlecries are for his mother.
He is jealous of Ethan for monopolising so much of Mother Miranda's attention- why is she so fixated on Ethan rather than Moreau, her own son, who has spent countless years trying to make her proud with his experiments on the villagers?
Moreau was not strong enough for Miranda's intentions, but Rose- Ethan's daughter- is. He wants to kill Ethan to show Miranda that, in his own words, he is the best.
A pretty fearsome belly-flop if I've ever seen one.
Moreau as an antihero?
Flip the script and you have Ethan as the bad guy.
He blasts his way through the village, laying waste to its oldest and most revered inhabitants, all the while risking everything for the safety of his family whilst discarding the families of others.
Alcina Dimitrescu was enraged by Ethan's slaughtering of her daughters. Donna was a lonely puppeteer who yearned for a family of her own. Heisenberg has been driven mad by a desire for revenge on the woman who stole his life by turning him into a mutant.
And Moreau just wants his Mommy.
The next and final instalment will examine Karl Heisenberg and Mother Miranda, tying together all the themes touched on here and in Parts 1 and 2...
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Jasmine GW