LogFAQs > #943291909

Resident Evil 3 Remake
https://i.imgur.com/URxrDXI.jpg
The gun shop makes new pistols by taking old work and slapping on a few new assets? Haha, who would ever be stupid enough to buy that? Jill Valentine

Everyone agrees that RE3R is significantly worse than RE2R, but its hard to really nail down why, because the actual gameplay is virtually identical. Ill tell you why: exploration and sense of danger.

If you dont know, the original RE3 was rushed out in a year by reusing assets from RE2, to the point where something like 70% of the game is reused. So, RE3 is kind of a bad, lazy game buoyed up by a single brilliant idea: a super monster that chases you through the game, who just cannot be stopped. I cant imagine how RE3 would be remembered if Nemesis wasnt in it. Youll be trying to carefully maneuver through two or three zombies when Nemesis just casually shows up and shoots a rocket at you, forcing you to take a chance and run through the zombies without taking your time. You run through a door to escape him, assuming that he cant open doors because no enemy in the series up to this point can but then he just casually walks through the door and shoots you in the face. Nemesis is an excuse to get the most possible mileage out of RE2s game assets, but it actually is a brilliant way to challenge the player in its own right.

RE3R has that sense of immediate, unexpected danger happen once, during the early game in the streets, and then never again. After that, Nemesis is reduced to a series of chase sequences and boss fights, destroying the element of casually showing up and ruining your careful planning that makes him fun in the original game. To emphasize the point: there is a huge difference between a powerful enemy unexpectedly showing up in normal gameplay and you having to react to his presence, and a boss who shows up at specific times for a planned fight in a controlled arena.

RE3R also really ratchets down the exploration and decision-making aspects that make RE2R fun. Theres an intolerably long introduction where Jill and Brad go through the city, its like twenty minutes before the game lets you start exploring. Compare that to RE2R, where the introduction takes like two minutes in a gas station, and you can skip all of the cutscenes if you want to, and then youre free.

Unlike rookie cop Leon and normal civilian Claire, Jill is an elite cop and ex-military woman, so I can accept it as sensible that the game has way more combat and an emphasis on fighting instead of running. But like, without the element of Nemesis showing up randomly and shooting you in the face, this is no longer really a survival-horror game, its just an action-horror game. Hell, the game even seems to misunderstand how action geography works. In RE3, the streets Jill has to navigate are tiny, there are lots of alleyways that make it difficult to dodge around zombies. In RE3R, the streets are usually wide and open and you can put a million miles between yourself and the nearest zombie. And yes this also happens in RE4, where the areas Leon traverses are gigantic and allow him to freely move around a lot, but the difference there is that Leon cant shoot and move at the same time. Every decision you make as Leon is significant. Jill is mobile, heavily armed, and has a dodge move, so without Nemesis there to punch you in the head, theres basically no more moment-to-moment decision making or even a need at all for the careful route planning.

The only times when you do have appropriately small hallways is when the game directly reuses assets from RE2R. And yeah, its worth saying that RE3R reuses a ton of assets from RE2R, which I guess is true to the spirit of the original. I think the only area in this game not at least partially reused is a zombie hospital, which I will admit is fun and cool and makes sense, but its all the game has to offer.

The game is also much shorter than RE2R, and yet inexplicably doesnt have any of the additional content RE2R has. There are no Ghost Survivor or HUNK modes here. The only additional mode is the multiplayer, which, in full honesty, I havent touched, but Im sure I wouldnt enjoy. Even the unlockables are pathetic. Jill has two bonus costumes, both of which are paid DLC, and Carlos single bonus costume is literally just his classic hair on his new body, with nothing else changed. The original Resident Evil 3 has seven bonus costumes, and none of them are paid DLC. I also havent touched the hard mode, but people tell me its horribly unbalanced. So yeah gameplay-wise, this base of this game is okay-to-fine, but all of the areas and scenarios around you are tweaked from RE2R to be a little worse in every way.

Thats not to say the game is without redeeming qualities, however. The combat itself is good and crunchy and flows well, Carlos is delightful, and the boss fights with Nemesis are better than the boss fights in RE2R. I like how the Umbrella Security guys are played up as sketchy and potentially evil, but then they turn out to all be completely on the level except for Nicolai. And hey, the long introduction actually does one thing well that the original did not: Brad Vickers. In RE1, hes a coward who abandons his friends to zombies, then saves them at the last second. In RE3, hes randomly killed by Nemesis. In RE3R, though, hes written so that he just will not abandon Jill again and redeems himself by saving her. One of the very few story moments in all of Resident Evil that genuinely works is Brad, having been bitten by a zombie, asking Jill if theyre still a team, and her not hesitating to say always. But like, thats a one-minute scene in a five-hour game.

Overall? RE3R is the definition of okay. Its not good, its not bad, its okay. Poor Jill. I like her well enough, Id be happy to see more of her. She doesnt deserve her fate. People think of her as one of the major characters of the series, but she just got completely sidelined. Her only appearances after this are Revelations, where shes billed as the main character but has no presence in the plot, and RE5, where shes not at her most dignified. Even in RE6, a game with seven playable characters, she doesnt appear. I dont think she would have ever appeared again after Revelations but for RE3R being so easy for Capcom to fart out.

---

Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005