Game #869: Resident Evil 3(2020)

  Did anybody order STARS for breakfast?

 The original Resident Evil 3 was the first survival horror game I ever played, and it alongside Martian Gothic were enough for me to decide that... yeah, as much as I loved horror, this genre wasn't for me. If this blog can attest to anything it's that I was quite wrong and deprived myself from games I'd end up loving later in life.

 Resident Evil 2 Remake was all sorts of amazing, so I wasn't gonna miss out on this remake, no way Jose. After playing this game, well... it's a much looser reinterpretation than Remake 2, and I think I can guess why... Capcom wanted to push for their new online multiplayer game, so they used a lower budget REmake to push it onto consumers. So, getting down to brass tacks, this game recycles a ton of assets from REmake 2, makes a ton of changes to the source material and is quite short to boot, my blind playthrough took me 5 hours to complete. And there are no bonus modes here, remember mercenaries? Gone. Remember REmake 2's bonus mode? Gone. All you get is the online component.

 I'll say it now, as much as I enjoyed the game, I understand why longtime fans could potentially hate it. The thing that made Resident Evil 3 Resident Evil 3 is gone, for Nemesis is now 100% scripted and you've no say in how to deal with it. You'll either have to run because the game decided that your guns won't work, or you'll have to fight him because he is a boss.

 I really liked Jill and Nemesis' new designs, the older Nemesis is a bit more iconic but in the new one's defense, the older one had more time to seep into people's memories. Carlos... I didn't like as much, I don't like scruffy characters, but it was probably done in an effort to make him stand out from the other pretty boy, Leon.

 The game has a live-action opening, say whaaaaaaaaaat? And all the talk about the biggest pandemic in the world just got a lot more topical considering current real life events. The game has a hidden install, at least on PS4. After the game installed, and I started playing it, I met up with Carlos and... 'The game hasn't finished installing, returning to the main menu'. Wait, what? There's no progress bar, there's nothing, I only realized the hidden install finished because the disc drive stopped making noises. Hidden Installs are not cool, yo!

 REmake 2 was a blast to play, and this this game uses the same engine you can bet it's just as fun. This game is a bit more linear, and 'puzzle zones' are a bit smaller, remember, lower budget. Unlike Claire and Leon, Jill can't use grenades or knives defensively, but she gets a R1 dodge. If you learn the timing right, you'll be able to dodge zombies and thus conserve both ammo and health. I liked this new mechanic, having more options is always nice.

 While a lot of enemy zombies got recycle from the first game, there are new enemies here. Pale Heads, fast zombies that can take a lot of punishment before going down, big sewer-creeps with a zombie mouth inside their mouths, insects that love to shove tendrils down peoples' mouths, Japanese-style, to infect them with bugs as well as Hunters, lizard-like beasts that hit hard, so it's not like they recycled everything.

 Carlos is playable in two sections of the game. He gets his own inventory and his own chests, but you don't really need to use the chests as him, as he is supposed to be a bit more action-based. He even gets an Assault Rifle with lots of ammo to spare, as you are supposed to gun down everything in his path. Remember how Chris punched boulders? Well, Carlos' dodge is actually a punch that shoves enemies away. Still, I think his bits are well integrated into the Jill's campaign.

 Two boss fights were a bit hard to predict, since there wasn't any build-up or clear indication that they'd come up. You could say that that adds to the Survival Horror elements of the game, but I tend to run around with the minimum amount of weapons, ammo and healing items necessary in order to grab as many items I can find lying around, so I had to fight the first boss with just my handgund, and I had to restart the second boss fight because there was no way I was taking him out with the handgun and what little ammo I had on the grenade launcher.

 I think REmake 2 is better than REmake 3 in every single way. Better story, better characters, more and larger environments which lend themselves to more exploration, and thus better puzzles and set pieces. Heck, even better extra content. That said, Resident Evil 3 Remake is really darn good, because it uses the same fantastic engine REmake 2 did, and while you can tell that the budget wasn't as high, they still came up with a few new environments, enemies and puzzles to play way, maintaining the same level of quality as before, only smaller in scope. Still, it'd be a mistake to approach this game expecting as faithful a remake as REmake 2 was.

 8.0