prefacing this by saying this is less of a substantive review and more of an informal attempt at placing it within a broader context, which i feel is somewhat necessary given how often it's excluded from discussion.
the claim i used to stake was that any developer attempting to remake resident evil 4 is intentionally subjecting themselves to one of the most grueling and unenviable tasks conceivable, but in retrospect it’s so abundantly clear to me that reimagining resident evil 3 was the harsher position. resident evil 4 is both universally adored and ubiquitous to such a ludicrous, unheard-of extent that shinji mikami’s original vision is permanently entrenched in the gaming landscape regardless of how many newcomers falsely attempt to claim its systems are in desperate need of modernization (never listen to these people btw they need god). by contrast, resident evil 3: nemesis was already regarded as an awkward and polarizing project when it launched in 1999, representing a shift away from shrewd investigation and route planning and a shift towards action and spectacle that seemed holistically incompatible with its predecessors. very few people appear to genuinely like RE3, and the majority seem to mostly appreciate it only for what it could be. this is, ironically, far from the ideal starting point for an audience-pleasing remake that it initially sounds.
for a game so divisive to nonetheless finally receive a highly requested and sought-after remake suggests a latent urge to somehow salvage the original release and restore it to working condition. after all, it’s widely understood in the community that nemesis humbly began as a mere side project, not a fully-fledged numbered entry in the resident evil canon, and this pervasive stigma seems to have clouded critical discussion wherever its memory is invoked. surely it was precisely this truncated development window, frequent asset reuse, and shift in design methodology that so directly bore an ambitious, if lacking project? if only nemesis was given the time and attention it rightly deserved – maybe, just maybe we could have an impressive title.
my contention with this line of thought is simple: i really like nemesis, and it’s my favourite of the classic resident evil trilogy. i don’t really think it needs a lot of fixing, or tuning up, or what have you. i think it’s, for the most part, perfectly fine the way it is. i find it impressive how well it’s able to convey the panic and dread associated with classic resi at a faster clip, without desensitizing the player to the genuine threat each enemy represents. it’s definitely more oriented towards action, but i think it works given both the expansion of resource management present in the title as well as the overarching design theme of a ‘desperate escape’. i really enjoy how much narrative continuity is shared with 2; across games it imbues the events of the raccoon city outbreak with a really strong sense of tragedy and melancholy. and while less accomplished than the zapping system, branching choices were still more than enough to enrich subsequent playthroughs and keep the pace contained to a singular narrative. but chiefly i have a particular fondness for its bleak atmosphere. with the drama not being contained to a series of interiors, the level design is free to be sprawling, untamed, and suffocating. it’s stunning to whittle a city down to its barest essentials through this unconventional level design – it may be anathema for classic resi structure but through gorgeous pre-rendered environments it imparts the illusion of an open environment while evoking this constantly simmering dread and paranoia as you dart through alleys and skulk around scaffolding.
given its significant departures from the original game and reliance on setpieces, i think it’s this core theming of despairing to escape an inescapable situation which the RE3 remake (henceforth, RE3R) developers latched onto, but whether or not they were successful has obviously been a source of debate. it’s uncanny but capcom were inadvertently able to replicate the zeitgeist surrounding resident evil 3 in 2020: the overarching notion that the remake is unsuccessful compared to its predecessor. in both instances RE3 came out only one year after its predecessor, and in both cases neither represented a radical overhaul or improvement on the form.
in examining why this cold reception remains the case, it’s worth pointing out that any existing problems are more or less foundational. the problems run a lot deeper than either the exclusion of content or the somewhat misplaced accusations of scripting might imply. when capcom set about remaking resident evil 2, 3 eventually wormed its way into the fold in discussion and at a certain point development for both entries was concurrent. it’s impossible to speculate what priorities were being assigned or what was happening behind closed doors, so i won’t, but im struck by the sense that resi 2 remained the centerpiece for the project from beginning to end. the implication this has for 3 is simple: there could be no departures from the design document or from the production pipeline. effectively this means that whatever mechanics were designed for 2 became the basis for 3’s moving forwards, ensuring that in order to successfully replicate the action of 3, all that could really be implemented were simple tweaks to the pace and mechanics. there was never a chance for this remake to be its own project. even the original release managed that much.
it’s tempting to claim that the original RE3 was developed under similar conditions – after all, there are certain expectations set in place for resident evil titles, and clearly RE3 endeavored to meet many of those expectations. to illustrate why this isn’t a clean parallel, you need only look at nemesis himself. nemesis in the original RE3 is the game’s core mechanic. he’s an unpredictable, erratic wall of gnarled flesh who will pursue you until you are mangled and pulseless, and the game wisely mixes up his encounters through clever scripting, organic player-driven decisions, and determinate branching choices. there is explicit consistency to his encounters discerned across repeat playthroughs, but within that framework there is that little spark, that little ghost in the machine that ensures he is a presence to be feared. even though he is somewhat scripted, agency drives almost every encounter in such a way that the player’s decision-making is always being given primacy while establishing him as the game’s narrative rival. as you respond to the threats he poses and occasionally take him down at various intervals, he evolves alongside you, eventually giving way to one of the most satisfying moments in the entire series, which is in itself a potential choice because the player is more than capable of running out of time at this segment. beautiful, no notes.
i think, for a lot of reasons, that the original game’s depiction of nemesis remains the gold standard of a stalker enemy, but it’s worth noting that the idea never strayed too far from capcom’s mind. mild parallels can be drawn to the verdugo in RE4 or the ustanak in RE6, for instance. but the pace set by a stalker also informs the rhythm of resident evil 7’s opening arc, as you struggle to navigate a derelict house with the seemingly invincible jack baker at your heels.
conversely, the resident evil 2 remake features an expansion of the mr. x concept. originally a quaint nemesis-esque figure meant to shock the player in the B scenarios, he was altered in the remake to unceasingly hound either leon or claire through the halls of the racoon police station. he arrives unannounced at certain points of the game to deter you from completing obstacles and force you down various chokepoints that test your knowledge of the police station. he’s an omnipresent force-of-nature who might appear at any moment, and as a result he’s an organic nuisance in a way that nemesis isn’t – it’s a differing take on a similar design goal. and by the end of leon’s campaign, leon is expected to have a showdown with the seemingly invulnerable tyrant who’s stalked him for near half the campaign and put him down for good.
if it sounds familiar, that’s because it is, which poses a significant conceptual obstacle for RE3R. by the time capcom’s developers were supposed to be fleshing out work on a remake of a game which featured a stalker as one of its central concepts, its predecessor had already gone and totally invalidated the idea by taking the arc for its own – an arc that wasn’t present in the original game. as if that wasn’t enough, mr. x’s nature was intimately tied to map design and objective design. his functioning at-all is credit to impressive programming and level design which ensures he’s never too far away and lends itself nicely to both trepidation and the ability to recalibrate routes and goals. this set standard now has negative implications for nemesis, who to be successful must now conform to and iterate upon an existing design ideal rather than flesh out his original concept. not an easy task!
keeping all this in mind, it seems fair to suggest that the idealized stalker type many envisioned for nemesis requires at the very least an increased budget, a greater degree of technological sophistication, total commitment, an expansion of scope, increased attention to design, and a strong level of polish which is all but unprecedented for the kind of project RE3R was. in a proposed 1:1 remake of RE3 – which is to say this overriding and frankly unrealistic idea that capcom would take the mr. x concept present in RE2R and meaningfully evolve it to match RE3’s design - this would be virtually impossible to achieve with the structural constraints of the map’s design unless one was to expand raccoon city vertically, which, again, need i remind people – scope, commitment, budget, design, etc.
so RE3R doesn’t bother. by this point in the modern resi timeline, we’ve already dealt with two stalkers (RE7, RE2R), and RE3R bucks this trend and ironically returns the titular nemesis to his roots: scripted encounters. this was a central point of criticism for RE3R so it’s worth reiterating that the scripting in itself is not the problem. after all, the original nemesis was great, and many of his encounters were scripted. but if there’s a failure of RE3R’s nemesis, it’s the failure to meaningfully interweave choice into these encounters. for the most part nemesis as a ‘stalker’ is only present for a very small segment of the game’s first arc, which also happens to be the only portion of the game where you can down him for rewards, a key mechanic of the original release. at every point afterwards he’s either something to run away from or a boss to wrestle with. admittedly, each one of these boss encounters is better than any of the bosses in RE2R, and arguably better than the original’s boss suite, but they’re lacking the flavour the original presented because nemesis’s rendition in RE3R is a total negation of possibility. he is a determinate obstacle, whereas the original was an indeterminate vector.
it’s a shame for the project to have been utterly kneecapped from the start like this, but it also happens to be far from the disaster it’s frequently made out to be. i think it’s short enough and hectic enough that stepping in for a couple more chances at bat would honestly be pretty engaging. the level design is obviously less compelling than either RE2R or the original RE3, but it trades that for a mostly engaging sense of momentum at all points in the adventure; for all its lapses as a remake it remains a solidly paced action title. neither of these remakes have really even come close to holding a candle to the original releases they’re based on (and i wish people would scrutinize RE2R with even half the severity of RE3R given that lobotomizing the zapping system is a far greater sin than the removal of the clock tower), but i grew to appreciate RE3R’s attempts at divergence. a few changes made to the narrative are well-considered and refreshing compared to RE2R undercutting the emotional arcs of the cast present in the original game. ultimately, i kind of just wish it was given enough time to be more of its own thing, because while the magic of the original release is faded here, the thrill new dangers and new textual interpretations could have presented is really enticing.
addendum: m-two worked a lot on RE3R, and i would have appreciated seeing m-two’s take on the RE4 remake before they got axed from the project; they reportedly wanted to do different things with it, but the lesson capcom unfortunately seems to have internalized from RE3R is ‘people will complain loudly if things aren’t 1:1’ and not ‘uh-oh we shouldn't kneecap the game's identity prior to release' or 'man developing two games at the same time can sometimes be problematic'
addendum 2: despite what i've said here i dont really like mr. x or jack baker ¯\(ツ)/¯
addendum 3: if you felt cheated by RE3R, try the evil within 2! you might find it a good degree more satisfying
the claim i used to stake was that any developer attempting to remake resident evil 4 is intentionally subjecting themselves to one of the most grueling and unenviable tasks conceivable, but in retrospect it’s so abundantly clear to me that reimagining resident evil 3 was the harsher position. resident evil 4 is both universally adored and ubiquitous to such a ludicrous, unheard-of extent that shinji mikami’s original vision is permanently entrenched in the gaming landscape regardless of how many newcomers falsely attempt to claim its systems are in desperate need of modernization (never listen to these people btw they need god). by contrast, resident evil 3: nemesis was already regarded as an awkward and polarizing project when it launched in 1999, representing a shift away from shrewd investigation and route planning and a shift towards action and spectacle that seemed holistically incompatible with its predecessors. very few people appear to genuinely like RE3, and the majority seem to mostly appreciate it only for what it could be. this is, ironically, far from the ideal starting point for an audience-pleasing remake that it initially sounds.
for a game so divisive to nonetheless finally receive a highly requested and sought-after remake suggests a latent urge to somehow salvage the original release and restore it to working condition. after all, it’s widely understood in the community that nemesis humbly began as a mere side project, not a fully-fledged numbered entry in the resident evil canon, and this pervasive stigma seems to have clouded critical discussion wherever its memory is invoked. surely it was precisely this truncated development window, frequent asset reuse, and shift in design methodology that so directly bore an ambitious, if lacking project? if only nemesis was given the time and attention it rightly deserved – maybe, just maybe we could have an impressive title.
my contention with this line of thought is simple: i really like nemesis, and it’s my favourite of the classic resident evil trilogy. i don’t really think it needs a lot of fixing, or tuning up, or what have you. i think it’s, for the most part, perfectly fine the way it is. i find it impressive how well it’s able to convey the panic and dread associated with classic resi at a faster clip, without desensitizing the player to the genuine threat each enemy represents. it’s definitely more oriented towards action, but i think it works given both the expansion of resource management present in the title as well as the overarching design theme of a ‘desperate escape’. i really enjoy how much narrative continuity is shared with 2; across games it imbues the events of the raccoon city outbreak with a really strong sense of tragedy and melancholy. and while less accomplished than the zapping system, branching choices were still more than enough to enrich subsequent playthroughs and keep the pace contained to a singular narrative. but chiefly i have a particular fondness for its bleak atmosphere. with the drama not being contained to a series of interiors, the level design is free to be sprawling, untamed, and suffocating. it’s stunning to whittle a city down to its barest essentials through this unconventional level design – it may be anathema for classic resi structure but through gorgeous pre-rendered environments it imparts the illusion of an open environment while evoking this constantly simmering dread and paranoia as you dart through alleys and skulk around scaffolding.
given its significant departures from the original game and reliance on setpieces, i think it’s this core theming of despairing to escape an inescapable situation which the RE3 remake (henceforth, RE3R) developers latched onto, but whether or not they were successful has obviously been a source of debate. it’s uncanny but capcom were inadvertently able to replicate the zeitgeist surrounding resident evil 3 in 2020: the overarching notion that the remake is unsuccessful compared to its predecessor. in both instances RE3 came out only one year after its predecessor, and in both cases neither represented a radical overhaul or improvement on the form.
in examining why this cold reception remains the case, it’s worth pointing out that any existing problems are more or less foundational. the problems run a lot deeper than either the exclusion of content or the somewhat misplaced accusations of scripting might imply. when capcom set about remaking resident evil 2, 3 eventually wormed its way into the fold in discussion and at a certain point development for both entries was concurrent. it’s impossible to speculate what priorities were being assigned or what was happening behind closed doors, so i won’t, but im struck by the sense that resi 2 remained the centerpiece for the project from beginning to end. the implication this has for 3 is simple: there could be no departures from the design document or from the production pipeline. effectively this means that whatever mechanics were designed for 2 became the basis for 3’s moving forwards, ensuring that in order to successfully replicate the action of 3, all that could really be implemented were simple tweaks to the pace and mechanics. there was never a chance for this remake to be its own project. even the original release managed that much.
it’s tempting to claim that the original RE3 was developed under similar conditions – after all, there are certain expectations set in place for resident evil titles, and clearly RE3 endeavored to meet many of those expectations. to illustrate why this isn’t a clean parallel, you need only look at nemesis himself. nemesis in the original RE3 is the game’s core mechanic. he’s an unpredictable, erratic wall of gnarled flesh who will pursue you until you are mangled and pulseless, and the game wisely mixes up his encounters through clever scripting, organic player-driven decisions, and determinate branching choices. there is explicit consistency to his encounters discerned across repeat playthroughs, but within that framework there is that little spark, that little ghost in the machine that ensures he is a presence to be feared. even though he is somewhat scripted, agency drives almost every encounter in such a way that the player’s decision-making is always being given primacy while establishing him as the game’s narrative rival. as you respond to the threats he poses and occasionally take him down at various intervals, he evolves alongside you, eventually giving way to one of the most satisfying moments in the entire series, which is in itself a potential choice because the player is more than capable of running out of time at this segment. beautiful, no notes.
i think, for a lot of reasons, that the original game’s depiction of nemesis remains the gold standard of a stalker enemy, but it’s worth noting that the idea never strayed too far from capcom’s mind. mild parallels can be drawn to the verdugo in RE4 or the ustanak in RE6, for instance. but the pace set by a stalker also informs the rhythm of resident evil 7’s opening arc, as you struggle to navigate a derelict house with the seemingly invincible jack baker at your heels.
conversely, the resident evil 2 remake features an expansion of the mr. x concept. originally a quaint nemesis-esque figure meant to shock the player in the B scenarios, he was altered in the remake to unceasingly hound either leon or claire through the halls of the racoon police station. he arrives unannounced at certain points of the game to deter you from completing obstacles and force you down various chokepoints that test your knowledge of the police station. he’s an omnipresent force-of-nature who might appear at any moment, and as a result he’s an organic nuisance in a way that nemesis isn’t – it’s a differing take on a similar design goal. and by the end of leon’s campaign, leon is expected to have a showdown with the seemingly invulnerable tyrant who’s stalked him for near half the campaign and put him down for good.
if it sounds familiar, that’s because it is, which poses a significant conceptual obstacle for RE3R. by the time capcom’s developers were supposed to be fleshing out work on a remake of a game which featured a stalker as one of its central concepts, its predecessor had already gone and totally invalidated the idea by taking the arc for its own – an arc that wasn’t present in the original game. as if that wasn’t enough, mr. x’s nature was intimately tied to map design and objective design. his functioning at-all is credit to impressive programming and level design which ensures he’s never too far away and lends itself nicely to both trepidation and the ability to recalibrate routes and goals. this set standard now has negative implications for nemesis, who to be successful must now conform to and iterate upon an existing design ideal rather than flesh out his original concept. not an easy task!
keeping all this in mind, it seems fair to suggest that the idealized stalker type many envisioned for nemesis requires at the very least an increased budget, a greater degree of technological sophistication, total commitment, an expansion of scope, increased attention to design, and a strong level of polish which is all but unprecedented for the kind of project RE3R was. in a proposed 1:1 remake of RE3 – which is to say this overriding and frankly unrealistic idea that capcom would take the mr. x concept present in RE2R and meaningfully evolve it to match RE3’s design - this would be virtually impossible to achieve with the structural constraints of the map’s design unless one was to expand raccoon city vertically, which, again, need i remind people – scope, commitment, budget, design, etc.
so RE3R doesn’t bother. by this point in the modern resi timeline, we’ve already dealt with two stalkers (RE7, RE2R), and RE3R bucks this trend and ironically returns the titular nemesis to his roots: scripted encounters. this was a central point of criticism for RE3R so it’s worth reiterating that the scripting in itself is not the problem. after all, the original nemesis was great, and many of his encounters were scripted. but if there’s a failure of RE3R’s nemesis, it’s the failure to meaningfully interweave choice into these encounters. for the most part nemesis as a ‘stalker’ is only present for a very small segment of the game’s first arc, which also happens to be the only portion of the game where you can down him for rewards, a key mechanic of the original release. at every point afterwards he’s either something to run away from or a boss to wrestle with. admittedly, each one of these boss encounters is better than any of the bosses in RE2R, and arguably better than the original’s boss suite, but they’re lacking the flavour the original presented because nemesis’s rendition in RE3R is a total negation of possibility. he is a determinate obstacle, whereas the original was an indeterminate vector.
it’s a shame for the project to have been utterly kneecapped from the start like this, but it also happens to be far from the disaster it’s frequently made out to be. i think it’s short enough and hectic enough that stepping in for a couple more chances at bat would honestly be pretty engaging. the level design is obviously less compelling than either RE2R or the original RE3, but it trades that for a mostly engaging sense of momentum at all points in the adventure; for all its lapses as a remake it remains a solidly paced action title. neither of these remakes have really even come close to holding a candle to the original releases they’re based on (and i wish people would scrutinize RE2R with even half the severity of RE3R given that lobotomizing the zapping system is a far greater sin than the removal of the clock tower), but i grew to appreciate RE3R’s attempts at divergence. a few changes made to the narrative are well-considered and refreshing compared to RE2R undercutting the emotional arcs of the cast present in the original game. ultimately, i kind of just wish it was given enough time to be more of its own thing, because while the magic of the original release is faded here, the thrill new dangers and new textual interpretations could have presented is really enticing.
addendum: m-two worked a lot on RE3R, and i would have appreciated seeing m-two’s take on the RE4 remake before they got axed from the project; they reportedly wanted to do different things with it, but the lesson capcom unfortunately seems to have internalized from RE3R is ‘people will complain loudly if things aren’t 1:1’ and not ‘uh-oh we shouldn't kneecap the game's identity prior to release' or 'man developing two games at the same time can sometimes be problematic'
addendum 2: despite what i've said here i dont really like mr. x or jack baker ¯\(ツ)/¯
addendum 3: if you felt cheated by RE3R, try the evil within 2! you might find it a good degree more satisfying
2 Comments
when it becomes clear that all of ew2 is just a survival horror rendition of a divorce and subsequent custody battle, well, that’s just video game magic baby
Ardwyw_mp3
1 year ago