The first Resident Evil 3: Nemesis was released in 1999 when I was 9 years old. I was (ok maybe still am) too scared to play it, but I loved watching my stepdad play it. To this day, I’ll still look up and watch walkthroughs of the Resident Evil games. The first remake is my favorite by far, and it had been a long time coming for Capcom to also remake 2 and 3. The other 2 games deserve their own post, and I’m probably working backwards here starting with 3, but since it’s the most recently released I’m the most excited to talk about it right now. I’ve watched through the remake a couple of times now…I won’t lie here I’m too scared to play it! There’s some things that I really love and was so excited about in the remake, then there’s some things that I didn’t love as much.
Character designs
First off, Jill looks beautiful in this game! She looks like a real person, and I love that they gave her more attitude. With that being said though, she isn’t recognizable to me as Jill Valentine. Without her haircut and blue top, I wouldn’t know who that is supposed to be. Throughout the more modern Resident Evil games, Jill has a really similar look and translates between each game. Here, they gave her a completely new face and features. She’s pretty, but I don’t know why they didn’t make her look more like herself. She’s far from looking the the Jill in the original Nemesis, but I didn’t want her to look like that Jill anyway. Ever since the first Resident Evil was remade and Jill’s look was updated, it seems like that’s the look Capcom has been going with with any other installments in the franchise. That’s the Jill I’ve come to know.
You can seen here that Jill looks similar in each game. Even with the long blonde hair in the last picture, it still looks like her face.
Here, she looks completely different to me. I don’t see it as a negative, but the part of me that’s so nostalgic wanted her to look more like the Jill that I’m so familiar with.
Another thing that I noticed was her outfit. In the original, she was wearing a blue strapless top, a black skirt, and brown boots. Now she’s wearing a blue tank top, black pants, and black boots. Her outfit is definitely more practical for an apocalypse this time around, but at the same time I wanted to see her as she was in the original. I always interpreted her outfit as something she just happened to be wearing that day, but then shit happens and she just has to get going. No one really has time to change when shit hits the fan. Practical as her new outfit may be, it doesn’t seem like a very fun cosplay outfit. To be fair, you can get a costume of her original outfit, so I’m really glad that they included that, but only if you pre-ordered the game, so that’s a little bit of a bummer. Speaking of her outfits though, once you beat the game, you are able to purchase her S.T.A.R.S. outfit, so that’s cool.
Here you can see someone’s modified Jill’s look to be closer to the original, and I love it! Towards the end you can see the new Nemesis as well.
I didn’t hate the new look of Nemesis, I wasn’t too crazy about it either.
The first time I saw the new Nemesis, I immediately noticed his teeth. I don’t know if I’m alone in this, but I preferred his smaller, more pointed teeth from 99 over the pearly whites he has now. They’re so tall and skinny…I don’t know, I just don’t find them as intimidating. I’m also not a fan of his sideways nose, they also completely took away his neck. My husband said that he found the new design to be really terrifying, so maybe it’s just the 9 year old in me clinging to the monster that I knew.
Bro…where is your neck?!
As much as I kept feeling like Why would you make changes to these characters that I love?! when I saw how Carlos was updated, I loved it. I’m all for it. His original design was pretty bland and cookie cutter. Now he seems like a real person with his own unique look. I like how his hair is different; I like the texture and waves he has now. It does kind of look tall though, like maybe he used a blow dryer before coming into work that day lol. Is that just me?
Hey Carlos, holla at me with which hair products you’re using, thanks!
If you pre-ordered the game, Carlos has a ‘Classic’ costume, so if you’re more nostalgic like I tend to be, that’s cool to see, but again, a little bit of a bummer that it’s only for the pre-orders.
Differences
I knew going in that this was a Re-MAKE not a Re-MASTER. I knew that there would be some changes and not a shot-for-shot remake of the game that I knew. In some cases, I like the additions and changes, then there’s some things that I wish were included.
- No Alternate Endings
Depending on which choices you made throughout the game in the original, you would get a different ending. Some characters could live or die depending on you. This time around, the story is linear and only has one ending. - No Action Choices
When running into Nemesis, the original would pause these moments and give you two options, which in turn would leave the player to either fight or flee in each situation. Depending on what the player chose would lead to those alternate endings referenced above. - Brad
Brad dies in both games, but how he dies changes. In the remake, he gets bitten by zombies while protecting Jill. We do see him as a zombie later on outside the police station. We also see that he’s the one who bites and infects Marvin Branagh, the officer in Resident Evil 2 that helps you out but ends up turning. In the original, Brad is killed outside of the police station by Nemesis. Personally, I liked this change. I think I still would have preferred him to be killed by Nemesis, but seeing him come back and infect a familiar character was a nice way to tie the two games together. - No Clock Tower
This one bummed me out a bit. The Clock Tower was an iconic location in the original where you solved some puzzles and had one of your encounters with Nemesis. This is also the location that Jill got infected with the T-Virus in the original. Since you don’t go to the Clock Tower in the remake, Jill gets infected somewhere else. You can at least see the Clock Tower in the background at one point in the remake, but I really, really wish they would have just included it in the game. - Speaking of Jill’s infection…
In both games, Jill can thank Carlos for finding a vaccine for her. In the original, Carlos takes the infected Jill to a small chapel, where she can be safe while he goes to the hospital to find the vaccine. In the remake, Carlos has her lay in a bed at the hospital. In the grand scheme of things, the location change isn’t a huge deal, but I still felt bummed about it. - Grave Digger
After Jill heals up in the original, she goes through Raccoon Park and encounters the Grave Digger boss. This boss is completely left out of the remake. - Dead Factory
After the Grave Digger boss in the original, Jill then heads to the Dead Factory, which is where the player will have the final fight with Nemesis and escape from Raccoon City. The Dead Factory has been left out the remake, and Jill instead goes to Nest 2, a lab beneath Raccoon City. - Puzzles
One of the things I loved about the first few Resident Evils was the combination of feeling intensely scared merging with the calmer moments of solving puzzles. In this remake, there’s virtually no puzzle solving, especially since they chose to omit major locations in the game that had those puzzles that I remember. The flow of this remake is more action focused, and that give and take of exploration verses running for your life is lessened a lot for me.
samsies
So now for the things that they carried over in the remake that I was excited to see!
- Dario Rosso
Towards the beginning of the game, when you enter a warehouse, Jill sees Dario lock himself in a shipping container. In the Remake, if you approach the container and try to talk to him, he’ll say “I’m not going anywhere! I’d rather starve to death in here than be eaten by one of those undead monsters! Now leave me alone!“, which is the same quote and scenario in the original. - Nemesis Drops
Even though the remake doesn’t include the action choices when you run into Nemesis, you can still decide whether or not you want to fight him or flee. Like in the original, if you choose to fight him and he falls, he’ll drop some loot. You can take him down by either shooting the heart container on his chest a bunch, or with grenades. You can also use generators, which thankfully recharge, to give him a big shock, which in turn will give you some time to shoot his heart container.
The first time you encounter him, he’ll bust through a brick wall in the street. The first take down will reward you with the Extended Magazine, which will allow your handgun to carry 33 bullets at a time before needing to reload.
The second encounter will be near the Toy Uncle store. You’ll see Nemesis infect someone, and then he’ll be after you. After this take down, the next case will have the Handgun Moderator. This upgrade will reduce the noise from your handgun and increase the critical hit chance.
The third encounter will be at the subway station. If you choose to fight Nemesis here, this drop only has shotgun shells.
The next encounter will be back at the Toy Uncle store and Nemesis will destroy the head on top of the store. This time around, the case will have grenade launcher flame rounds.
As you can see, the things that excited me was a shorter list than the things that bummed me out 😦
Overall, the aesthetic looks great, it was nice to see a few ties to Resident Evil 2 (Marvin being one that was mentioned, and Jill running into Robert Kendo is one that was not…don’t want to spoil everything), but I feel like so much of the nostalgia was left out. I’m aware that better technology can allow better story telling and mechanics, and I like to see new approaches to the games so many of us grew up with and loved. But I don’t think it was a good call to leave out as much as they did. The thing that makes revisiting these worlds so exciting is getting to see the places that we remember 20 years ago, and getting to see them in HD! But then you get there and find out that you don’t get to see the things you were hoping to see…just kind of a bummer 
Having said that, I do still like the game, I don’t think it’s a bad game, and I do think that I’ll revisit it one day. I do think, however, that the first was better.
BizzBirdNerd 