Resident Evil 3 Remake: Missing Crucial Beats But Worth Revisiting

Resident Evil 3 Remake is a prequel and in the same time a sequel to Resident Evil 2 as players take on the role of Jill Valentine as she finds her way to escape from Raccoon City. A remake of the original 1999 game named Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Resident Evil 3 brings the players into the intense conflict between Jill as the protagonist and the Nemesis which gives ways to strong survival horror moments the series can offer.

Jill Valentine is a member of Special Tactics and Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S), a special forces unit under the Raccoon Police Department which was created to combat terrorist threats and emergencies. She is indeed a capable survivor and a well-suited person to handle the troubles by the bioweapon enemies. In the game Jill can execute slow-mo evasive rolls and open a clean shot at the enemy’s weak point.

Similar to 2019’s remake of Resident Evil 2, the remake of Resident Evil 3 brings the classic survival horror game through a modern lens, proper over-the-shoulder shooting, modern controls, redesigned locations and altered crucial events with a significantly revised story. The idea of the game remains the same – the outbereak of T-virus overhelming the city which turns everyone it infects into a zombie.

Raccoon City is again functions as the background location to the outbreak but this time you have the chance to fully explore a selection of the streets and interiors as you can backtrack for items as well as looking for bullets and Green Herbs. Unlike in Resident Evil 2 which quickly took you off the streets of Raccoon City, the available areas have been expanded to the point where it feels like a real-life location. The game follows Jill’s plight to meet with the Umbrella Biological Containment Service (UBCS) where she meets Carlos Olivera.

Completing the game opens up some additional features which come in the form of a shop in the main menu that lets you purchase new costumes, weapons & items thus allowing you to customize your next playthrough, increasing your attack power & defensive capabilities as well as providing you certain key items earlier than it supposed to be.

In this remake version of Residen Evil 3, the game looks more beautiful with modern graphics with more instinctive control thus it is much easier to play this version compared to the original one. You now have unlimited saves on all difficulty levels plus you never lose too much progress when you die and making surviving every encounter a little less critical.

Resident Evil 3 Remake is indeed a much faster-paced game than Resident Evil 2 with more emphasis on action & less focus on puzzle-solving challenges.

However as the game goes on – it becomes obvious that Resident Evil 3 Remake struggles to maintain its essence & seems to relies on recycling many of Resident Evil 2’s tricks and affect the game’s focus on momentum. As for Nemesis, it is undoubtedly an iconic villains of the Resident Evil series, thus it’s disappointing to see it effectively sidelined & seems like the standard boss along the game.

In addition it is quite heartbreaking to see important areas from the original Resident Evil 3 are absence as & the Dead Factory no longer exist while the Clock Tower makes only the briefest of appearances. However it is fair to see classic locations like Downtown and Hospital recreated for the game as well as one more difference which is the absence of branching paths and different endings based on your decisions made in cutscenes in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.

Resident Evil: Resistance – an asymmetrical online mode which brings 4v1 multiplayer is also included with the remake. Resistance has interesting ideas as it brings the series’ survival horror gameplay online yet the overall execution of the game’s mechanics looks undercooked. The controls for the survivors feel unresponsive at the peak moments especially when you are trying to get a clean hit on fast-moving targets.

Resident Evil 3 Remake is a much more action-oriented experience than its predecessor which is completed with a dodge mechanic, a surplus amount of ammunition & more zombies that you need to eliminate. However the package is less appealing & it feels more like an expansion to Resident Evil 2 Remake than an entirely new game. To be fair that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth playing but it does mean you should know what you’re getting before you start to give expectations for this game. The revisit to a seemed bygone era loses sight of what made the original game became so memorable to the players.

This remake of Resident Evil 3 is missing some crucial beats that could have offered a more effective and satisfying story. Whatever it is, the game is still worth revisiting so you can enjoy the terrifying moments of Jill’s journey to escape the infected Raccoon City.

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