Resident Evil 3 Remake: Did it fail?

Blog post by: Gemma @ Juicy Game Reviews / TheGebs24

Resident Evil 3 Remake

As I write this the Resident Evil 3 Remake has a 6.3 Metacritic score for the PlayStation 4 and an even more shambolic 5.9 on the Xbox One version. This forces me to question just how much of a miss the long awaited Resident Evil 3 Remake was for Capcom. This comes after last years Resident Evil 2 Remake; making a much bolder impression on the series' fans. At the time of writing this Capcom's Resident Evil 2 Remake rocks a bold 8.8 Metacritic user score. I am unable to fully explain why Capcom clearly missed the mark in delivering the Resident Evil 3 Remake to its full capacity but what I can do is share some of my feelings in playing through the game twice on stream. Having played through it twice I feel like I'm in a position to navigate towards answering whether or not the RE 3 remake is worth buying today?

The first thing I noticed about this remake was just how beautiful it looked. Even the darkest and greyest corners of Raccoon City seemed to ooze charm. From the crackling of small fires in the dilapidated streets of Raccoon city to the warm neon glow of Moon Donuts. Resident Evil 3 shines in the aesthetics. The constant backtracking provided an opportunity to take in more of the gorgeous details each time I went by. One point worth noting in regards backtracking, was just how small Raccoon City felt compared to Police Department in the Resident Evil 2 Remake. That's right, Raccoon City Police department felt larger than the entire geographical layout of Raccoon City. Now this is not a scientific fact! I can, with certainty, memorise the streets in the latest Resident Evil 3 remake but if you asked me what was on the second floor of the East Side of Raccoon Police I would not have a clue. It felt as though Capcom had rushed the world known as Raccoon City to a point where I felt disappointed. After all, the amount of missing content in the remake is frustrating enough (Raccoon City Park, Graveyard, The Press Office and more), let alone what was there; felt a like it needed a bit more meat on the bone. Needless to say, Raccoon City, and surrounding areas, look totally lush. 

Performance wise, Resident Evil 3 Remake did not feel too bad. As I write this I do not recall any painful glitches and the general mechanics felt okay. Bosses comprised of mutated variants of Nemesis, each feeling slightly more difficult as time went on. My first playthrough was on a normal difficulty to which it actually felt a little too easy. My second playthrough, however, felt more punitive. I played on the hardest difficulty setting which almost brought me to tears on stream during the rooftop Nemesis battle. Nemesis had a flamethrower mounted to his back. In any normal circumstances a flamable barrel would be easy to ignite and essentially would destroy anything in the blast radius. Not on hardcore mode! I must have spent three hours jostling with this immensely difficult variant of Nemesis. The step up in difficulty from my first playthrough to the second seemed like worlds apart. It felt like there should have been a difficulty mode in the middle.

Jill Versus Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 Remake

Switching to Carlos just over half way through the game was a nice touch. With him, we stepped back in to the dark infested halls of the Raccoon City Police Department. It was one of my favourite parts of the game. The cross-over between the Resident Evil 2 Remake and the third got me feeling all warm inside. So much so that I felt like I wanted to never leave Raccoon Police Department. Now not every aspect of the Police Station was accessible and personally I would have liked to have seen a little bit action in this area. Does the lack of time in the police department burden the story? Not at all? If anything it felt like it amplified the story. More time in there would have elevated the game even more during my time with it.

Now did the Resident Evil 3 Remake fail? Is it actually worth playing? Raccoon City is small but looks absolutely stunning. Combat is steady and the overall delivery of the story is okay. It is a far fall from legacy of the Resident Evil 2 Remake in 2019 but it will do. If you can buy Resident Evil 3 Remake on sale then I'd say "go for it".

​Blog post by: Gemma @ Juicy Game Reviews / TheGebs24

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