When the Resident Evil 2 REmake released in January last year I was genuinely taken aback at how good it was. I said at the time I thought it was the best remake to date and in my summary the only negative I could muster was that I had an agonising wait ahead of me before the third game would be released with the same care and attention. Little did I know back then that we would only have a little over a year to wait.
You see as the story goes the original plan was to release remakes of both Resident Evil 2 & 3 in the one package. That however was scrapped and instead RE3 was teamed up with Resistance, an asymmetrical multiplayer game that is so far removed from the single player game that it has it’s own separate tile on the PS4 home screen. They even give you the option to only install one or the other, which was a nice gesture as this review will focus solely on remake of Resi 3.
Having played the demo which was handed out to the public two weeks before release a lot of the opening half hour of the game was pretty familiar to me. However, what caught my attention immediately was the graphics. It’s not that there have been large improvements since Resi 2, because I’d wager they are exactly the same. But damn! That RE engine produces some insane looking environments. While I did review the game on a PS4 Pro I am still rocking a 1080p TV, so I can only imagine how good this would look on a better screen.
Resident Evil 3 is set 24 hours before the events of RE 2 in the immediate aftermath of the T-Virus and so throughout your journey you will encounter characters and locations from the previous game. I always love experiences like this that take you back and flesh out the narrative and give you a new perspective on certain individuals. If anything it would have been nice to see them lean more into this with a few extra scenes.
This time around our protagonists are Jill Valentine, making her triumphant return from the first game and newcomer Carlos Oliveira who is a member of the Umbrella team. Instead of having separate campaigns for each character like the previous instalment, this time their stories intertwine. Many reviewers have pointed to this as a negative because the overall playtime is lower, but to me, the 5 – 6 hour run time is perfectly acceptable. If anything it is nice to see a game that doesn’t outstay its welcome these days.
While the two characters themselves move and control identically, Jill’s sections feel a lot more like classic Resident Evil. Ammo is scarce and you have to be tactical when navigating the world. On the flip side Carlos comes sporting an assault rifle and while the time spent in control of him isn’t Resident Evil 6 levels of action (thank god), it does feel more fast paced. The switches between the characters was well paced out and I thought it really benefited the story.
The main threat throughout the 5 – 6 hour campaign is the Nemesis. A near indestructible monster who is laser-focused on taking out our protagonist Jill. The game does an excellent job of keeping you on the edge of your seat, as you never know when he is next going to burst onto the scene. Boss battles are comprised of fighting Nemesis, who mutates into a different form each time you defeat him.
Trophies follow the normal Resident Evil formula, you’ll have to beat the game multiple times at increased difficulty, but farming points will allow you to unlock bonuses from the shop like a grenade launcher with infinite ammo. If you are willing to see it through the platinum can be obtained in 3 playthroughs but I would recommend 4 as ‘Hardcore’ difficulty may be a little much for your first run.
Overall Resident Evil 3 is exactly what I hoped for after the stellar re-imagining of RE2. I have seen criticism that the game is too short, but given that YouTube has countless RE2 speed runs hovering around the 50 minute mark, it feels like a stretch. Plus, if you are hurting for content there is an entire online game attached that I haven’t even covered here. If you are a fan of the classic Resident Evil games I highly recommend diving in and playing the new definitive version of Resident Evil 3.
-Craig
Reviewed on PS4 Pro.
