“It was Raccoon City’s last chance… and my last chance… My last escape.”
Resident Evil 3 Nemesis concludes the PS1 trilogy of Resident Evil games, and what a finale it is! Choosing to set the game at the same time as RE2 works incredibly well, with the crowded zombified streets of Racoon City testing any veteran’s ability to juke zombies and save ammo. Jill really grows into her own as a hardened suvivor from the first game. Her assertive attitude & distrust of Umbrella aligning with the player’s 2 previous adventures thwarting their schemes.
What I didn’t expect about RE3 is how much this game feels like a playable Terminator movie. Nemesis is an ever-present threat, his theme kicking your anxiety into gear as you search for a way out. He’s incredibly fast, and can insta-kill you at low health. I’ll never forget feeling safe after a loading screen only to have Nemesis bust down the door and throw a haymaker. The downtime without Nemesis only leaves you wondering when he’ll inevitably be back. By the time you finish him off once & for all (with Jill’s iconic line), you feel the full weight of Jill’s determination to make it out of this nightmare alive.
In terms of small things I enjoyed, the short length & branching decisions made the game have less of the usual “back half of an RE game is much worse than the front half” feeling. The pre-rendered background art was gorgeous, with highly detailed environments that sell the idea of a city gone to hell. Also thank GOD this game added a quick-turn. You really need it when navigating all the game’s narrow alleyways.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Possibly overtakes the og RE2 for me, if not at the same level of quality. So disappointed to hear from fans how much the remake butchered the og game.
MystValkyrie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 hours ago
I actually played RE3 original this month too. I didn’t feel like either were very scary and that both leaned more toward being action experiences. I was pleasantly surprised with the original, but I didn’t think either the original or the remake provided a definitive experience.
In the remake, Jill has a much more dynamic and satisfying character arc. You can see she’s processing the trauma of the events of RE1 and she’s actively investigating the missing STARS members, which provides a bit more buildup to Nemesis compared to the exposition dump you get from Brad on PS1. By the ending, you feel like she’s finally faced her demons and won, and I really enjoyed that depiction of Jill. None of that’s really present in the original, where she’s basically self-actualized as a character after the first game.
I loved the gameplay of the original and being able to use dodging as an offensive tool. It’s basically the most fun I’ve had with tank controls since Onimusha and Outbreak, and I prefer Jill’s dodge in the original than in the Remake.
The Nemesis stuff is probably better in the original, but a few things were frustrating about how he appeared in the original. He has a major weakness in that he’s incredibly easy to dodge if you circle around his right arm, so he was only really scary to me in cramped hallways, whereas he was always stressful in the Remake. I was really frustrated with the PS1 version because I actually beat Nemesis in his first encounter, but then he didn’t drop the weapon parts because that’s exclusive to hard mode. Why? I beat him fair and square when I could have just taken the other branching path, so I should get the same reward for my trouble.
I’ve been hearing for years from fans of the original that there’s a bunch of cut content in the remake and that the original is so much bigger and expansive, and that’s not what I personally observed. I actually finished the original in half the time, and while some areas were cut, the remake adds so much more detail to the stores and streets that stayed it. Quantity versus quality, almost.