The old Resident Evil is dying, and a new Resident Evil struggles to be born; now is the time of zombies.
I don't think that this exists in the space that it wants to. It's too linear and not strict enough to play like Resident Evil 2; it's not fun and frenetic enough to play like Resident Evil 4. It exists in this in-between area of not really living up to what came before, and it fails to sufficiently set the stage for what's to come. Between the linearity, the immense amount of resources you're constantly being given, and the frequent scripted sequences that consist of little more than holding forward and the run button, Resident Evil 3 Remake more closely resembles Resident Evil 6 than it does any other game in the series. I hope you haven't gotten sick of the words Resident Evil yet.
This is a game with zero restraint. Jill walks into the sewers with a full stack of shotgun shells to pump into the faces of the hunter gammas with their instant kill attacks. Carlos starts his side of the story with an assault rifle(!) that holds 30 rounds in a magazine(!!) and a reserve 200 rounds(!!!) in his pouches. Both characters rely on a counter mechanic that's both completely broken and often useless in equal measure; either there's a swarm of zombies in front of you and dodging one will throw you directly into the next one, or there's just a single zombie and there's no reason not to fish for the perfect dodge so that you can auto-aim onto their heads for easy crits. Just about everything that isn't a standard zombie or Nemesis — yes, Nemesis is only about as dangerous as a standard zombie — has an attack that instantly kills you, but typewriters are fucking everywhere. Often the most optimal play is to walk through an area, fish for as many dodges as you can get, and then save for free once you clear a couple of rooms. Sure, you'll probably fuck your dodge up and die, but dying will never actually cost you more than a couple of minutes. Nothing is threatening, mechanically or narratively.
I've seen a lot of complaints that the remake ruins Jill's character, and I'm not entirely sure that's true, because Jill Valentine is a different character in every single game that she's been in. I'm not convinced that Capcom has ever had any idea what they want her to be. The deepest characterization she's ever gotten was in the original Resident Evil, where she was a sort-of parallel to Chris; she was smart, and a skilled pianist, and vaguely nice. From there, though, I don't think she's ever had anything consistent enough that you could call a "character": Resident Evil 5 turns her into a brainwashed babe in a bodysuit; Revelations makes her into something akin to Batman from the Arkham games, complete with Detective Mode; Death Island ends with Chris remarking that he's glad to have "the old Jill back", but which Jill he's talking about is left as an exercise for the viewer. And, in keeping with this pattern, she's a different character in Resident Evil 3 Remake as well. I've given you a lot of preamble to lead into the fact that I don't really care for the way she's written here. There's just something about the glib quipping that constantly undercuts the severity of the situation everyone is in. Nemesis stumbles out of a burning alleyway into a river and Jill practically looks to camera like Office Jim and says "bitch can't even swim". She doesn't really seem to give a fuck about Nemesis at all. I mean, I get it, considering how you can lob one grenade at his feet to instantly down him, or just walk away at a brisk pace to lose him completely, but I'm hardly sold on the idea that I should be afraid of him when our protagonist is rolling her eyes whenever he's on-screen. People say that she swears too much, or that she's too rude to Carlos when she finds out he's Umbrella, but I don't think those are at all the problem. It's no surprise that everyone seems to have universally attached themselves to Carlos, largely because he's always ready to throw himself back into the fray, he can crack a joke, he's a stone-cold professional — all things that I imagine Jill isn't in this solely because they didn't want to have two characters with the same personalities, and not because they thought it made sense in-universe.
In a series that already isn't renowned for being well-written, the writing in this is poor. There are just so many bad lines in this. The aforementioned quip about bitches who need to be taught how to swim is one, but it stands shoulder-to-shoulder with other complete misfires like "get off my train, shitbird!" and "I'm goddamn Nathaniel Bard!". Bard himself is easily the worst part of the game; it's not enough that his rant to the nurse is written like a PSA about workplace harassment, but his voice actor is fucking terrible. The lines he's given are trash, but he is giving by-far one of the worst performances I've heard in a AAA game in a long while. It's no coincidence that Mikhail is also doing a really bad, forced Slavic accent, because it's the same fucking guy doing both voices. I don't know how he made it through casting for two different characters. It probably shouldn't be a surprise that this is a Bang Zoom! production, because this is dubbed exactly like a bad seasonal anime, all the way down to the lip flaps regularly not even matching up. Half of the in-engine cutscenes look like Kung-Pow.
The game as a whole isn't terrible, but I would have been nervous if I had played this after the Resident Evil 2 Remake and before Resident Evil 4 Remake. It's clear that the team who worked on this didn't really understand why Resident Evil 2 worked. It wasn't just because the hallways were tight and the inventory was restrictive; it was how it kept making safe areas unsafe, how Mr. X was practically invincible and constantly pursuing you so that you couldn't afford to take it slow, how one zombie represented a drain on your limited resources even if you played it optimally. The irony that the game that introduced Nemesis does Nemesis worse than its predecessor.
It's not really worth recommending to people who liked Resident Evil 2, and it's not worth recommending to people who liked Resident Evil 4. It's a game that doesn't know what it should be, and some very obvious budget and time restrictions make this feel more like a bad piece of DLC rather than a standalone sequel to one of the best releases of the past decade.
I'll have to check out Resident Evil 3: Nemesis now, because I'm curious just how much was lost in remaking it.
I don't think that this exists in the space that it wants to. It's too linear and not strict enough to play like Resident Evil 2; it's not fun and frenetic enough to play like Resident Evil 4. It exists in this in-between area of not really living up to what came before, and it fails to sufficiently set the stage for what's to come. Between the linearity, the immense amount of resources you're constantly being given, and the frequent scripted sequences that consist of little more than holding forward and the run button, Resident Evil 3 Remake more closely resembles Resident Evil 6 than it does any other game in the series. I hope you haven't gotten sick of the words Resident Evil yet.
This is a game with zero restraint. Jill walks into the sewers with a full stack of shotgun shells to pump into the faces of the hunter gammas with their instant kill attacks. Carlos starts his side of the story with an assault rifle(!) that holds 30 rounds in a magazine(!!) and a reserve 200 rounds(!!!) in his pouches. Both characters rely on a counter mechanic that's both completely broken and often useless in equal measure; either there's a swarm of zombies in front of you and dodging one will throw you directly into the next one, or there's just a single zombie and there's no reason not to fish for the perfect dodge so that you can auto-aim onto their heads for easy crits. Just about everything that isn't a standard zombie or Nemesis — yes, Nemesis is only about as dangerous as a standard zombie — has an attack that instantly kills you, but typewriters are fucking everywhere. Often the most optimal play is to walk through an area, fish for as many dodges as you can get, and then save for free once you clear a couple of rooms. Sure, you'll probably fuck your dodge up and die, but dying will never actually cost you more than a couple of minutes. Nothing is threatening, mechanically or narratively.
I've seen a lot of complaints that the remake ruins Jill's character, and I'm not entirely sure that's true, because Jill Valentine is a different character in every single game that she's been in. I'm not convinced that Capcom has ever had any idea what they want her to be. The deepest characterization she's ever gotten was in the original Resident Evil, where she was a sort-of parallel to Chris; she was smart, and a skilled pianist, and vaguely nice. From there, though, I don't think she's ever had anything consistent enough that you could call a "character": Resident Evil 5 turns her into a brainwashed babe in a bodysuit; Revelations makes her into something akin to Batman from the Arkham games, complete with Detective Mode; Death Island ends with Chris remarking that he's glad to have "the old Jill back", but which Jill he's talking about is left as an exercise for the viewer. And, in keeping with this pattern, she's a different character in Resident Evil 3 Remake as well. I've given you a lot of preamble to lead into the fact that I don't really care for the way she's written here. There's just something about the glib quipping that constantly undercuts the severity of the situation everyone is in. Nemesis stumbles out of a burning alleyway into a river and Jill practically looks to camera like Office Jim and says "bitch can't even swim". She doesn't really seem to give a fuck about Nemesis at all. I mean, I get it, considering how you can lob one grenade at his feet to instantly down him, or just walk away at a brisk pace to lose him completely, but I'm hardly sold on the idea that I should be afraid of him when our protagonist is rolling her eyes whenever he's on-screen. People say that she swears too much, or that she's too rude to Carlos when she finds out he's Umbrella, but I don't think those are at all the problem. It's no surprise that everyone seems to have universally attached themselves to Carlos, largely because he's always ready to throw himself back into the fray, he can crack a joke, he's a stone-cold professional — all things that I imagine Jill isn't in this solely because they didn't want to have two characters with the same personalities, and not because they thought it made sense in-universe.
In a series that already isn't renowned for being well-written, the writing in this is poor. There are just so many bad lines in this. The aforementioned quip about bitches who need to be taught how to swim is one, but it stands shoulder-to-shoulder with other complete misfires like "get off my train, shitbird!" and "I'm goddamn Nathaniel Bard!". Bard himself is easily the worst part of the game; it's not enough that his rant to the nurse is written like a PSA about workplace harassment, but his voice actor is fucking terrible. The lines he's given are trash, but he is giving by-far one of the worst performances I've heard in a AAA game in a long while. It's no coincidence that Mikhail is also doing a really bad, forced Slavic accent, because it's the same fucking guy doing both voices. I don't know how he made it through casting for two different characters. It probably shouldn't be a surprise that this is a Bang Zoom! production, because this is dubbed exactly like a bad seasonal anime, all the way down to the lip flaps regularly not even matching up. Half of the in-engine cutscenes look like Kung-Pow.
The game as a whole isn't terrible, but I would have been nervous if I had played this after the Resident Evil 2 Remake and before Resident Evil 4 Remake. It's clear that the team who worked on this didn't really understand why Resident Evil 2 worked. It wasn't just because the hallways were tight and the inventory was restrictive; it was how it kept making safe areas unsafe, how Mr. X was practically invincible and constantly pursuing you so that you couldn't afford to take it slow, how one zombie represented a drain on your limited resources even if you played it optimally. The irony that the game that introduced Nemesis does Nemesis worse than its predecessor.
It's not really worth recommending to people who liked Resident Evil 2, and it's not worth recommending to people who liked Resident Evil 4. It's a game that doesn't know what it should be, and some very obvious budget and time restrictions make this feel more like a bad piece of DLC rather than a standalone sequel to one of the best releases of the past decade.
I'll have to check out Resident Evil 3: Nemesis now, because I'm curious just how much was lost in remaking it.
1 Comment
You should give Nemesis a shot, since they did in fact lose a lot when remaking it. Really, REmake 3 feels like it walks backwards every step of the way, just pulling whole chunks of the original game out while putting nothing new in its place. It handles fine and looks good because it's built atop REmake 2, but design-wise drops the ball on things even that game gets right. Really feels like it was an obligatory step towards RE4, and the resulting end product plays no better than half-hearted DLC that got slapped with a full 60$ price tag.
Weatherby
2 months ago