“This pandemic is spreading faster than any disease in modern history...” are the first lines uttered in the opening cutscene of Resident Evil 3 Remake — words that sound like they are straight out of today’s headlines.
- Developer: Capcom
- Publisher: Capcom
- Price: ₹3499 for Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC
However, the pandemic in question in Resident Evil 3 turns those infected into zombies or worse. Hot on the heels of the success of the remake of Resident Evil 2, Capcom revives another classic in all its gory glory.
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Endless highs and lows
Resident Evil 3 Remake puts you in the shoes of a hunted Jill Valentine, a S.T.A.R.S officer in the virus-ravaged Raccoon City, who is targeted by a bio-organic weapon known as Nemesis. If you thought the Tyrant (a humanoid monster from the previous game, also known as Mr X) was a waking nightmare, this hulking creature of violent mutation will make him look like a kitten.
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Where the Resident Evil formula works best is when creatures like Nemesis are placed into the equation. Just look at Mr X and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard’s Baker family — the survival horror just amplifies the gameplay of RE3 Remake with several injections of urgency and the constant feeling that something is following you, thanks to tell-tale growls, thudding footsteps, and whooshes of wind. RE3 Remake constantly has you on the edge of your seat in the best ways.
Well-portrayed here, Jill Valentine makes for a strong female protagonist, while also resembling Milla Jovovich (who portrays Alice in the Resident Evil movies). As we would expect, Jill stands strong and often revs up to take on monsters.
RE3 Remake stumbles, well, in the stumbles. There is not much in the way of mobility apart from a dodge, but both playable characters, Jill and mercenary Carlos Oliveira, move at frustratingly sluggish paces. I found myself yelling at the screen most of the time, run faster. For a game with this level of urgency, more dynamism in the mobility would have been appreciated. Couple this movement with enemies that sometimes appear off camera and attack with far reach, and there are times I felt that the experience meant fighting the camera and controls more.
- Along with Resident Evil 3, you also get a multi-player game bundle called Resident Evil: Resistance, which pits one mastermind against four other players, all for whom the former has laid out traps. As one of those four players, you have to fight through those odds to defeat the mastermind as the final boss.
In true survival-horror fashion, you are constantly starved of health items and ammunition, leaving you to scrounge everywhere. Resident Evil 3 is light on the puzzle-solving, which the previous game had in abundance. The few puzzles are mostly environmental, leaving you more focused on exploration to find certain items or keys that open certain doors. Since the timeline sort of runs in parallel to the previous game; if you have played that, then it occasionally gives you slight context.
Elevated in tech
Resident Evil 3, in its original avatar in 1999, marked the franchise going more cinematic and it translates well with the new graphics engine. No graphics engine renders flesh and gore better than Capcom’s RE (Reach for the Moon) Engine. Zombies get chunks blown off them realistically, revealing layers of flesh, muscle then bone, which looks incredible from a technical standpoint — but also real enough to lose your lunch over.
The facial-scanning process Capcom has is magic, and Jill, Carlos and the rest of the cast look impressively realistic. A lot of care and detail has gone into the animations, especially of the protagonists and the zombie variants, transforming that tired old monster trope of ‘the walking dead’ into something to be feared again. The rollercoaster game will take you about eight hours to complete, and it is not worth missing.