Resident Evil 3 Remake Review

Capcom has been on a roll with bringing their old properties back from the dead – pun not intended – so much so that it feels like it was only going to be a matter of time before they dropped the ball. That is sadly the case with Resident Evil 3 Remake, a re-imagining of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis in the style of the stellar Resident Evil 2 but features so many changes to the original that feels like a completely different from the Playstation classic.

Resident Evil 3 follows Jill Valentine, one of the survivors of the first Resident Evil game, as she attempts to escape Raccoon City during the Zombie outbreak that we see in Resident Evil 2, in fact both games are overlapping each other with events happening before and after Leon and Claire’s adventure. However, Jill’s final escape has one nasty problem, a hulking beast called Nemesis who is out to eliminate her at all costs.

Along the way, Jill teams up with a group of Mercenaries who work with Umbrella security team, who have a plan to evacuate some survivors from the city. Here, we’re are introduced to a secondary character, Carlos, who is the more trusting of the team members and believes that they’re doing good and not knowing Umbrella’s ulterior motives.

While much of the game does follow a slight resemblance to the original game’s storyline, Resident Evil 3 Remake is more of a re-imagining of the story, placing you in control of the same characters and fighting the same unstoppable beast, but misses out on some of the more memorable moments.

If you played through Resident Evil 2 Remake, you have an idea of what to expect here. The game takes much of the same mechanics introduced in the highly praised remake and what the series has learned in Resident Evil 7 with the RE Engine, however it is pushed in more towards a more action oriented experience. Ammo isn’t very scarce, and there is huge action scenes involving Nemesis that are intense.

Sadly, after being spoiled with scares in both Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil 2’s Remake, Resident Evil 3 doesn’t seem to cut it. The biggest sin of this is the beastly Nemesis who acts as the game’s major boss. While Nemesis does give chase and can be a scary encounter at the beginning of the game, much of that goes down hill after the first actual battle with the monster. After being able to beat him once on the rooftops, taking him out in his other forms in later battles just felt too easy even on higher difficulties.

That’s not saying that the action isn’t good, by far Resident Evil 3 has some of the better aiming and combat seen in a Survival Horror game thanks to the new dodge mechanics and stronger gun-play. There were several moments between playing as Carlos and Jill that just makes you feel like a bad ass taking down zombies in almost John Wick like fashion, and the increase of zombies to attempt to balance it out does raise the tension.

Which brings us to the graphical leap. Yes the original was released late in the original Playstation’s life, but this is more gushing over Capcom’s RE Engine which powered Resident Evil 7, 2’s Remake and Devil May Cry 5, all of which have been graphically amazing when it comes to animation, lighting and damage. Resident Evil 3 doesn’t seem to push the engine much harder than what we got for Resident Evil 2 but it still looks stunning.

Resident Evil 3 Remake, by itself, is alright. It is far from the worst Resident Evil game out there, but it’s missing something that would make it great. The problem is that I can’t tell if its the pacing, the heavier focus on action, a laughable Nemesis or a mixture of the three. However, it does serve as a good companion piece to round out the Raccoon City saga.