Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

A decent conclusion of the original trilogy. It's a concise and fun game, and although it was originally developed as a spin-off, it has some unique features, such as slight non-linearity and randomness in locations. And the Nemesis mechanic became a very important element of the series, which lives on to this day in many incarnations.

I don’t think there is a clearer example of the trilogy pattern in gaming than the first three Resident Evil games on the PS1. What I’m referring to, if you’ve never read one of my reviews before, is the arc of quality that fluctuates over three games in the same series and the pattern one can discern of how the IP grows and evolves. The first game introduces a template of the franchise’s tropes, while some gameplay mechanics tend to be inherently rough-hewn and unrefined due to lacking the hindsight of a debut effort. For the sequel, the second title is granted a treasure trove of hindsight, and they use this to smooth out the coarse gameplay elements with a far better understanding of the franchise’s idiosyncrasies. This results in the peak of what the first game established by flourishing its framework to an outstanding degree, crafting the finest experience the franchise has to offer. The third game is then released as an opportunistic endeavor to capture that lightning in a bottle effect generated from the second game’s positive reception. Instead of finding ways to perfect the already solid source of the second game, the third game tends to add some overblown elements while streamlining the gameplay for the sake of accessibility. It’s an indication that the developers have slightly overstepped and that it’s closing time for the series. I did not overtly mention the first three Resident Evil games overtly in this explanation, but I’m sure that anyone who has played every game in this PS1 trilogy knows that this subsequent progression of games fits it like a glove. Of course, I realize that placing RE 3 in this position already sets a negative precedent for this review, so brace yourselves for paragraphs criticizing how Resident Evil 3: Nemesis took the franchise’s survival horror properties and adulterated it with the overblown sins a threequel usually commits.

Technically, from a narrative standpoint, RE3 is a direct sequel to RE2 only on the basis that the number in the title is the successive follow up in numerical order. We do not witness how the T-Virus outbreak has expanded beyond the parameters of Raccoon City and the Arklay Mountain outskirts with global panic ensuing in the streets. Apparently, the singular situation in Raccoon City seen in the second game was so monumentally cataclysmic that we needed ANOTHER storied account from yet another perspective. The person’s point of view, however, should come as a pleasant surprise as its S.T.A.R.S. member Jill Valentine from the first game. Chris’s backpacking conquest across the pond was evidently a solo venture removed from his police adjacent outfit, so Jill is an unfortunate victim of circumstance in the Raccoon City pandemic, who did not fully anticipate this zombie pandemonium occurrence if her comparatively tarted-up civilian clothing is any indication. Her mission now is to use her special training as an advantage in surviving the chaos.

Jill not only gets the special distinction as the first returning Resident Evil protagonist, but one that soaks up the entirety of the spotlight as the sole primary protagonist of RE 3. There are no mirrored events to Jill’s in another campaign playing as another character. Only the one playthrough of RE3 with the little lady from S.T.A.R.S. is necessary to grasp the full breadth of the game’s story. However, I still somewhat recommend playing RE3 twice as a lark to experience what should be the soonest of Capcom’s “bright ideas” to spot that were implemented for the third game. Capcom have decided to (literally) cut out the middleman and omit the normal difficulty selection as an option, offering a “hard” difficulty for the seasoned Resident Evil veterans and an “easy” difficulty level for the flock of newbies that they anticipated would now be interested in playing their popular survival horror series. Despite how it may initially seem, forcing the two types of players to accede to what is a stark division of skill levels isn’t completely baffling. One could argue that someone who has survived two outings of a hostile, zombie-infested environment should challenge themselves by ramping up the stakes of their third excursion, and that uninitiated players should keep it breezy as to not taint their first impressions of the series and deter them away from all other Resident Evil titles as a result. I chose to play on hard not only because of the rationale listed above, but to also preserve any somewhat tangible gamer credibility that I suspect I might have (but probably don’t). As it turns out, with a few exceptions, RE3’s hard mode doesn’t ratchet up the base difficulty from RE2’s normal mode too drastically. Jill begins her trek out of the city with a pistol carrying a modest sum of ammunition as Leon did, and she must collect the formidable firearms as the game progresses. On the flip side, easy mode is so facile that it's hilariously condescending. The player is automatically blessed with a submachine gun, a first-aid pack, an infinite number of ink ribbons, and a whole other bunch of goodies. The developers forgot to include a bib and highchair for anyone playing on this difficulty, but perhaps they couldn’t have fit those in the finite inventory. I kid, of course, but my sincere issue with the unbalanced choice of difficulty here is that a normal difficulty is the solid base of any game’s intentions. Whenever I play or replay a game for a review, I always pick the normal (if difficulty options are offered) option, even if it’s a game I’ve played religiously and am exceptionally skilled at. Without this option, I cannot ascertain what the game is truly attempting to prove with its gameplay, which is why the normal mode is impeachable while the other options aren’t.

What is seriously included in the player’s inventory as a housewarming gift are two tutorial journals that detail every single new aspect that the developers have implemented for RE3. If they felt it necessary to implore the player to read a manual’s worth of text to prepare them for their playthrough, you know the great lengths they went to keeping the franchises familiar formula from stagnating. The result of their efforts are new mechanics and attributes that substantially change the fabric of Resident Evil’s gameplay, and I’m not entirely sure that it’s for the better. For starters, the player might notice what looks like a grinder contraption straight out of shop class in their inventory. One of the journals states that this is the Reloading Tool which is used to craft ammunition with three different types of gunpowder coinciding with the handgun, shotgun, and grenade launcher. One might raise a concern that this new utility mixer will take up a valuable space in Jill’s inventory, a stationary position due to ammo pickups regressing into their unprocessed forms. Fortunately, the usual packs of bullets are still located abound on the Raccoon City streets, so carrying around the damn thing at all times won’t be necessary. However, it still comes recommended if Jill has a square of inventory space to spare because the high-caliber ammo the Reloading Tool can craft is highly effective. The journal tells Jill to keenly look for sizable red objects in the foreground, for shooting them with one bullet will cause a fiery explosion that could potentially blow a swarming pack of zombies to kingdom come, a nifty method of ammo conservation. The explosive barrels will definitely spark a “eureka!” moment for the player, for their prevalence as auxiliary offenses in first-person shooters makes their inclusion here a borderline cliche. The bombs that cling to the wall, on the other hand, confused me for health stations for a second, so I guess familiarity is important. Arguably the most significant alteration to the gameplay is the addition of the dodging mechanic. If timed correctly when unarmed or holding a gun, Jill will duck, jump, or roll out of harm’s way. A skill-based way to better mitigate potential damage seems like a helpful inclusion except for the fact that the timing window on the dodge is incredibly strict when done intentionally and surprisingly swift whenever executed on accident. That, and the type of dodge maneuver Jill performs is seemingly random, which can result in Jill backing herself into a wall and leaving herself far more vulnerable than before. I appreciate that these interesting mechanics drive a discernible wedge between RE3 and the previous game. Still, their awkward and somewhat unnecessary presence is somewhat of an indication that the Resident Evil foundation had already been honed to perfection in the previous game and all these new implementations do is complicate things. However, RE3 does feature a number of quality-of-life improvements that I genuinely appreciate, such as making the items more conspicuous in the foregrounds, a button designated to pull up the map, and a maneuver that swiftly turns Jill around instead of robotically turning her body like a mannequin on a pedestal.

The Raccoon City setting is something that should’ve been reworked entirely as opposed to being augmented like the game’s mechanics. I fully realize that the game’s events run parallel to those of Leon and Claire from the previous game, so placing Jill in the same predicament makes sense. Still, I fail to comprehend why Capcom thought the Raccoon City epidemic needed an additional point-of-view when the events had been exhausted after two almost identical campaigns. As it stands, RE3’s depiction of this doomed city is a reversal of how RE2 coordinated it. The city streets where Leon rushed through to reach the police station are now the primary place of excavation to escape the unremitting madness. Jill also revists the police station briefly, albeit a truncated version of the precinct with new impenetrable barriers to signify that this takes place in the aftermath of Leon/Claire’s campaigns. Not only does the game fail to refresh the rehashed environments from the previous game, but treating the city streets that were once rightfully a straightaway trek the same as an exquisitely floored establishment is the most fundamental flaw with RE3’s direction. Sure, the worlds of Metroidvania games, the 2D cousin of the survival horror genre that shares the same sense of utility-gated progression, tend to be a collective of areas that vary in topography and thresholds of claustrophobia. With this logic, a Resident Evil map could flourish with the same design philosophy, but RE3 proves that this can’t be the case. The Raccoon City roads simply can’t transcend their initial workings as a linear series of paths no matter how many back alleys and piles of wreckage impeding Jill from crossing over the boundaries that the developers have placed. The richly labyrinthian constructions with their multiple stories that have served the series well in the past has been flattened to the ground floor, seeping across the broad radius of a metropolitan area. The breadth of a cityscape makes the backtracking of a survival horror game incredibly tedious, marching to and fro for a marathon’s length of retreaded steps to reach one objective. Any floor of an establishment from the previous two games, no matter how lofty, was never more than a few sets of hallways with several branching rooms as one would realistically expect from an architectural standpoint. I criticized the police precinct setting when it was still a centerpiece in RE2 for exuding too much of a domestic atmosphere for a horror game, but at least it was modeled just as exquisitely as the Spencer Mansion. The developers even had to separate the city into two “uptown” and “downtown” districts with two distinct maps, admissible proof that a linearly designed, sweeping environment does not gel with the survival horror genre.

It is not until the second half of the game where Jill crashes the railcar she’s using to flee the Raccoon City scene that the game provides the player with some truly impeccable survival horror settings. The clocktower is the kind of enclosed, gothic construction that I was craving as a potential successor to the Spencer Mansion, enhancing the dark, eerie atmosphere akin to the first game’s iconic stomping grounds with that desperately needed graphical maturation. The neighboring cemetery park is a competently restrained outdoor area compared to the urban streets of the city, and the underground laboratory efficiently refurbishes what is now a series motif. To heighten my feeling of engagement and admiration with these latter-half areas, they also include puzzles that are bonafide brain teasers, something that the second game was lacking.

Of course, the definitive difference and unique signifier to RE3 is the character in the right side of the full title’s colon. Before entering the gate of the police station, the gameplay will be interrupted with a cutscene of Jill’s S.T.A.R.S. ally, Brad Vickers, getting horribly and forcibly impaled by some fleshy tentacle of a colossal monster wearing a trenchcoat. Once Nemesis, the monster in question, refocuses his attention on Jill after decimating his previous victim, he’ll acutely stalk her like a lion does to a wildebeest for the duration of the game. Upon hearing the premise of an intimidatingly invulnerable tank of an enemy pursuing the female protagonist, one might wonder why Mr. X’s skin has been melted to a Freddy Krueger crisp because the previous game already toyed with the idea of placing a hostile, formidable figure with seemingly impenetrable defenses on the field for the player to contend with. In RE3, if one couldn’t infer his top-billing from the title, Nemesis has a larger presence here than the former superhuman stalker ever did. Nemesis is truly a T-Virus Terminator that will trounce any target he sets his sights on. On top of his hulking body that is as durable as kevlar, Nemesis charges at Jill like a raging bull even in the tightest of corridors, as if he’s Frankenstien’s monster composed out of the corpses of the NFL’s finest linebackers. If Nemesis is unable to reach Jill and fling her around like a ragdoll, he’s strapped with a rocket launcher that he will not hesitate to use even in the tightest of indoor corridors to assure that Jill’s ass is grass. Not every encounter will involve the choice-based prompt either, so I suggest running like hell and forgetting about the potential rewards he might drop if you manage to subdue him. All of the evidential context surrounding Nemesis should make him a player’s worst nightmare, but there is something about his determination and overpowered attributes that conjure up feelings of irritation and frustration rather than fear. Nemesis popping in unexpectedly to give Jill a thrashing felt more like encountering your school bully in the hallways and making me groan with painful anticipation. There needs to be an aura of creepy subtly to elicit a scare factor with this type of villain, something Mr. X already accomplished splendidly.

However, what is terrifying is the fact that Jill will be forced to fight this burnt-looking behemoth twice. His final fight in the laboratory should be prepared for like any other final boss, but the other one occurring at the clocktower beforehand is a traumatic experience. The front lawn of the tall tower is the arena when dueling Nemesis, and Jill will be cramped up against the surrounding walls and the burning debris of a helicopter while she is limping from an unavoidable status effect given to her during the cutscene that introduces this fight, giving Nemesis ample opportunity to have his way with Jill more so than in any standard encounter with him. Get ready to exhaust all ammunition and master the finicky dodge maneuver, because this is what is expected from the player for this fight. Also, pray a few times just to be safe. After being taken to the cleaners far too many times by Nemesis, I could not revert to my last save and explore the clocktower meticulously for any missing items, for the cutscene locks Jill to the top of the tower. This kind of action-intensive fight is not suitable for a survival horror game with tank controls and limited supplies. This encounter seriously made me consider restarting the game on easy difficulty and or abandoning the game entirely. So congratulations Nemesis, you are the newest inductee to the exclusive club of video game bosses that have made me whine like an upset puppy and raise my blood pressure from furiously screaming obscenities. Don’t pat yourself on the back with a sense of pride: if I had some sort of statuette of Nemesis, I’d imbue it with voodoo magic and shoot it point-blank with a revolver and burn the remnants.

Surprisingly enough, or maybe not so much if one reads deeply into Resident Evil’s linear notes, Nemesis is not the main antagonist of the game of his namesake. The apex of villainy across the Resident Evil series is and has always been the Umbrella Corporation that caused this entire mess. In fact, Nemesis was created by Umbrella as a countermeasure to eradicate all members of S.T.A.R.S that might blow the whistle on their involvement with the zombie pandemic, hence why all Nemesis can gravelly utter is the name of the organization. But Nemesis isn’t the only Umbrella associate out on the prowl tonight in Raccoon City. Jill will meet three members of an armed Umbrella task force assigned to dispose of anything infected by the T-Virus and rescue any remaining civilians. Jill is right to be untrusting of anyone who bears the symbol of her mortal enemy, but she must work along these guys due to running low on options for lucid human interactions to aid in her escape mission. It turns out that only one of the three men is an unscrupulous bastard, and that’s their leader Nikolai. This Soviet army veteran treats the whole T-Virus epidemic as a front for business, willing to exterminate all that keep him from financially benefiting from it including some of his own men. Shoot this guy down with a bazooka when given the opportunity. Speaking of which, the other two Umbrella mercenaries are disgusted at Nikolai’s callousness that they defect to aiding Jill instead. Carlos, one of the men who becomes the game’s secondary protagonist, takes a temporary role as a playable character in a hospital section where he retrieves a vaccine for an infected Jill. We see less of the other noble mercenary, Mikhail, on account of his grievous wounds, but sacrificing himself to save Jill on the cable car is certainly a noteworthy action of decency, right? Besides Wesker, these three men give the Umbrella corporation a face to attach with, and the reference we obtain from the mixed bag of interactions and intentions between them illustrates a complex moral quandary for what was previously an enigmatically evil force in the franchise. Perhaps the same complications of duty versus dogma can parallel real life factions with bad reputations.

If I’ve played any third game of any franchise beforehand, and I certainly have, then my experience with Resident Evil 3: Nemesis should come as no surprise. The unification of Resident Evil’s tropes and mechanics seen in RE2 made it a tough act to follow, which can be said for most sophomore sequels for a number of franchises. Still, quelling the sensation of yearning from fans after they’ve played the peak of the series by rounding it out with a third game is always a requisite, even if these last hurrahs tend to overflow the foundation with additional attributes. Most of the additional attributes that RE3 wove into the fabric of the franchise are flawed at best and infuriating at worst, and I wish I could avoid them as deliberately as the unyielding monster at the center of the game. The best aspects of RE3 that make it a worthy entry are improving on the elements already in the franchise that Resident Evil 2 lacked, such as challenging puzzles in eerie environments instead of all the window dressing they figured would make a substantial difference. With a few noteworthy gripes withstanding, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is still an effective note to end the franchise’s reign as the champion of survival horror on the original PlayStation.

This is one of those games that has a ton of great ideas that aren't utilised to their full potential, mainly because the campaign is way too short for many of them to have much impact even if the game is clearly designed to be played over and over again. As such, it's a game I respect more than I love, however I do enjoy this game overall hence its high ranking from me.

The true appeal of this game are the live selections as they allow the story and approach to completing certain objectives to change depending on which option you go with. This naturally begs replay value as you can complete the campaign in multiple ways which makes up for the fact there’s only being one campaign, character and sidekick to play with. What's disappointing is that not only is the main character recycled from the first game (Jill Valentine) but so too is some of the level design as she visits the police station from RE 2 in addition to some of the other areas clearly been taken from the mansion and its grounds from RE 1. This in combination of the shorter campaign gives the impression the game was rushed which does hurt its overall experience slightly. The only other complaint I have is that the tank controls sometimes get in the way of boss fights, meaning I usually flee from them during the live selections which I've realised watching playthroughs of this game deprives me of higher rewards. That out of the way, the game is still fantastic, specifically how you get a different "where are they now" sequence after every completion of the game, further incentivise you to replay it.

It's a sold entry into a solid franchise, it has its flaws but is way better than most of the competition.

Traz melhorias mecânicas muito relevantes pra franquia e introduz um de seus personagens mais marcantes e aterrorizantes. A ameaça de Nemesis é atemporal por conta da sua imprevisibilidade.

Como ponto negativo, no entanto, Resi 3 é quase que uma segunda (terceira?) campanha do 2, uma vez que compartilha cenários e se passa em momentos praticamente idênticos.

Gonna be one of "those" guys and say I do view Resident Evil: Code Veronica [バイオハザード コード：ベロニカ] as the real third game in the main series, and I often refer to this game by a truncated title: Resident Evil: Nemesis. The main thing to me is that Nemesis doesn't much advance the plot from the original Resident Evil [バイオハザード]. Resident Evil 2 already has a "File" for Chris's diary, in which he mentions heading off to Europe to hit Umbrella's HQ; we can assume Jill tagged along, so Nemesis really just exists as a means of showing how Jill found her way out of Raccoon City. 2 already expanded the T-virus threat to the streets of Raccoon, as well as introducing Claire (who will be the protagonist for most of CV), Leon (who will be the protagonist for Resident Evil 4's transition from virus to parasites, and from horror to action), and Ada (who operates behind-the-scenes and is integral to the end of the Redfield/Wesker story in Resident Evil 5 [バイオハザード5] and Resident Evil 6). In terms of the series as a whole, writing from 2021, the story of Nemesis is less significant for Jill than it is for... well, Nemesis. The Nemesis is introduced as a new brand of Tyrant powered with a super-special parasite; similar parasites would be used for the rest of the series in bullshit borderline-magic ways. While I don't expressly dislike any particular game in the franchise's main story (even 6 at least has fun gameplay), I never much cared for how parasites stole the limelight from the viruses. Even the beloved remade Resident Evil [バイオハザード] is less-fun to me than the 1996 original, largely because I feel the Lisa Trevor shit is extraneous, though ironically I do respect how it better ties the Nemesis parasite to the T- and G-viruses - indeed, I was strongly against the new lore in Nemesis until I played RE1make, and the harmony between both games' stupid fucking parasite nonsense helped me better appreciate the parasites, and prepare me to better enjoy 4 and 5.

My feelings for Nemesis are terribly complex. I first got into the franchise through Resident Evil: Apocalypse, which starred the Nemesis as a major enemy, and who was extremely cool to my ten-year-old self, as I'd never before seen a giant zombie with a rocket launcher. But it would not be long before I would play Resident Evil: Deadly Silence, my third game after 4 and Resident Evil: Outbreak [バイオハザード アウトブレイク], but the first I actually played to the end, and replayed several times. It was enough to make me dislike the action focus of the Anderson movies, but I was also really feeling the lack of stereotypical B-movie creatures like the Yawn, Black Tiger, and Plant 42, and I thought the Tyrant's clawed arm was a hell of a lot cooler than the conventional weaponry of the film Nemesis (and later, when I finally played Nemesis's game, I would see that he mutates quite a bit, reminiscent of Birkin and Mr. X, which would make me respect Nemesis more, but Paul W. S. Anderson less). As far as the game itself, I appreciated the dodge mechanic, which would infrequently work when I tried to use it, but would often activate when I'm shitting myself versus Hunters, and led to a couple cool moments of Jill teleporting around the lizardmen's claws while I try to get some shotgun shells fired off. The environmental hazards were a neat touch, allowing me to save a few dozen bullets by shooting one into an oil drum and taking down several zombos, rather than making a choice between wasting twenty rounds or risking popping a few off to stun zombies and run past them. And the ammo-crafting was a very nice touch, as I was able to make a shitload of shotgun shells and ultimately kill almost every zombie in Raccoon City before making my way to the Dead Factory for the final showdown; I often enjoyed using the "infinite ammo" cheat code in RE2 for a quick run through the game, destroying everything in Leon and Claire's path just for the hell of it - RE3 has no such cheat, but the ammo-crafting and its ability to level-up allows for a decent, fair simulation... if not a little too game-breaking! Unfortunately, the dodge, environmental hazards, and ammo-crafting turn Nemesis into far more of an action game than past installments, paving the way for 4 to drop the "horror" almost entirely (and definitely do away with the "survival" by adding ammo drops to fallen enemies!), culminating in the oft-maligned 6, a rather fun (if flawed) action game, but very weak on the horror (and extremely silly in its narrative...). To me, you can't hate the TPS games while also liking Nemesis... so my plan is to be hypercritical of Nemesis to allow myself to shit on later games if I so choose (which backfires, as I enjoy 5 WAY too much...!).

This game introduces a number of QoL factors, which improve upon the series. For one, you can skip many cutscenes now, instead of just FMVs, making replaying parts after dying a hell of a lot simpler, and allowing for speedruns without clutter (if I'm playing the same game over and over, I don't really need to see the same cutscenes over and over). We also have the quick turn, allowing Jill (and Carlos) to do an instantaneous about-face by pressing the Run button while pressing Down, making it easier to dip out of unwanted situations, including dodging Nemesis (though, I must say, I'm far too used to the lack of a quick turn in the first two games, that I sometimes forget to do it here...). You can also mash buttons to free yourself from enemy attacks, which is something I've often tried doing in the prior games, but which I don't think actually worked. Jill can thus take only minimal damage, while also pushing the offending zombie back into the cluster of his mates, knocking them all down, and freeing Jill to run through them.

What I don't really like too much is that the game does away with the multiple playable characters and alternate routes, at least in the ways the previous couple games handled these ideas. I mean, you get to play as Carlos for a bit, but it's not much different from the short Ada segments in 2. There isn't an entire Carlos game, as there is for Jill, as there was for Chris and Jill in the Spencer Mansion incident, or Leon and Claire in the RPD escape. Nemesis makes up for this by offering alternate paths during the games, similar to the choices in RE1 regarding whether or not to allow Rebecca and Barry to survive. In certain cutscenes, the game will momentarily freeze time allowing you to choose from one of two "Live Selections," often resulting in different events for the game overall, including allowing a couple painless Nemesis takedowns, and an alternate ending. Beyond the Live Selection gimmick, the game also has some random chance for certain item pickups or enemy encounters; e.g. the STARS room in the RPD HQ has a 50% chance of holding either the Magnum or the Grenade Launcher, with the other weapon appearing in the Substation; some rooms have a possibility of holding Green Herbs or leaving them out, while others may hold Gunpowder between disparate locations. The hallway to the RPD meeting room may contain regular zombies or dogs, and other rooms elsewhere in the game may get nastier with the possibility of Hunters or Brain Suckers existing instead of basic zeds. This keeps the game somewhat fresh as you play it eight times for the epilogue Files for other characters, or if you want Jill to wear Regina's costume from Dino Crisis [ディノクライシス] but don't want to play everything exactly the same as a prior run through the story.

This game also introduces the "Mercenaries" mode, an evolution of the "Extreme Battle" and "4th Survivor" modes from 2, and blueprint for future Mercenaries and Raid modes in later games (though I don't think later games give you survivors to save, focusing strictly on combat instead). I can't write too much about this mode, as I'm not very good at it, so I'll have to come back later :)

If I had to bitch about anything, it would be that this game's setting is perhaps the most nonsensical of the series. The labyrinth of the Spencer Mansion makes some sense because... Gothic horror and Scooby-Doo. Spencer was weird, and architect Trevor was weird, so it adds up. The RPD used to be an art museum, which explains its basic design, and also Chief Irons was weird, which kinda explains the puzzles. The mayor of Racoon is eccentric enough to maybe justify having some puzzles made out of wacky landmarks (e.g. the colorful clockface beside the entry to City Hall), but... I think his past as an engineer isn't a great enough excuse for why there are fucking doors closing off alleys. Or maybe other cities in reality do have doors everywhere? I just don't know. Anyway, the point of the game is to have Jill escape Nemesis through the streets of Racoon City, but the game also includes the Mansion-like Clock Tower and the Lab-like Dead Factory as major locations, both of which have you spend significant time indoors, and both of which recall standard location-types for the series thus far (there's a Hospital as well, which is perhaps more innocuous). I don't have any problem with the Clock Tower or Dead Factory, by the way, and I do miss their absence in the remake Resident Evil 3; I'm just saying the game does kinda fall back on "tried and true" location-types to ensure it's not going too far away from the skeleton of a "classic" Resident Evil experience. For that matter, I don't see how anyone could take too much issue with the backtracking in Code Veronica throughout Rockfort, as I feel it's at least marginally more "logical" than running all over a city (even if Racoon is quite small compared to a real city; I've always just assumed Rockfort would be a smaller island than Racoon is a city...). CV and Resident Evil Zero are probably inarguably inferior games, but I think their settings and the aesthetics thereof make a bit more sense in their context, versus Nemesis which prioritizes "video game logic" over believability. Not that I look for realism in RE games, but... whatever.

A good game hindered by deadlines. That's the best way I can describe Resident Evil 3, but that's not to sound negative or disparaging. When I say it's good, I mean it, giving us a rewarding experience familiar to the first 2 games veteran fans know and love, with the action dial turned up even higher than 2. The game's showpiece, Nemesis, is easily the most iconic monster in the franchise. Even 20+ years on, his implementation and AI is quite impressive, guaranteeing a challenging playthrough for the uninitiated. What holds this game back is content (although compared to its Remake, it feels like a fucking Zelda game). The game was originally going to end at the helicopter scene at the Clocktower, but they felt it was too short and decided to add more content. And while I completely agree with their decision, the content added does feel a bit tacked on and underdeveloped in contrast to the earlier sections. Barring that, I really have no complaints about this. The level design still features the things we know and love about the OG trilogy, this time expanding out into the streets of Raccoon City, treating the city like a sprawled out Spencer mansion or RPD, having the user explore and backtrack through the city streets/establishments to find key items and solving challenging puzzles to progress, and I wouldn't have it any other way (take notes, R3Make). I also think that staggering the story to 24 hours before and after the events of RE2 was a neat touch.

If you're a fan of the OG style RE games, I don't see how you wouldn't like this either. After 2 and REMake, this is the next best game in this style.