The Haunted Hoard: Resident Evil 3 (Xbox Series X)

The 2019 remake of Resident Evil 2 impressed and terrified players with its execution of Mr. X, a hulking figure who relentlessly marched towards you any moment he saw you with lethal intent. Navigating your way around him and trying to shake his dogged pursuit added an extra layer of danger to an already stressful survival situation, and when it came time for the Resident Evil 3 remake, it was easy to think we’d see that concept evolve even further with Nemesis. In the original he already pursued players through multiple rooms and did his best to hunt you down and react intelligently despite being an undead monstrosity, so the idea of taking Nemesis and using ideas developed for Mr. X seemed like an obvious idea. Surprisingly though, the Resident Evil 3 remake did not elect to build on their Mr. X success, this survival horror shooter deciding on its own approach to design likely because it was designed concurrently with Resident Evil 2 and thus not able to necessarily carry on its ideas.

 

Resident Evil 3 takes place in Raccoon City a short time after the incident in the first Resident Evil game. Jill Valentine, having discovered the mansion in the mountains where the pharmaceutical company Umbrella developed viruses to mutant people into undead weapons, is regrouping in the city at the same time one of those viruses is now spreading around the populace. The same night that zombies begin to lead to widespread chaos around town, Jill prepares to leave only to very quickly meet a monstrosity that will be a consistent thorn in her side: Nemesis. A seven foot tall muscular monster of a man wrapped in black and with the ability to launch tentacles from his flesh, his only goal is to wipe out members of the police unit who investigated the mansion, meaning not only is Jill trying to escape a city overrun with the living dead, but she’s got a relentless brute cropping up time and time again to try and wipe her out before she could share the truth of Umbrella to the world. Funnily enough though, Jill ends up allying with a mercenary named Carlos Oliveira who works for Umbrella as part of a unit to contain the bioweapon outbreak. Unaware of the truth of Umbrella’s involvement, Carlos is willing to work with Jill and gives her someone alive to actually speak to, the two developing an enjoyable dynamic that pays off well in Carlos even having a stint as a playable character helping with the city escape.

While trying to find a way out of Raccoon City you’ll find a few small moments where you interact with civilians who react to the chaos in interesting ways and you do have the character of Nicholai who works alongside Carlos but provides a more human adversary for the plot’s events, but there is a pretty tight focus on Jill’s struggles to escape with a few dark and dangerous areas around town serving as sources of slow and tense exploration or bombastic battles with Nemesis. Coming off the heels of Resident Evil 2’s remake, it’s easy to think the zombies aren’t quite the fearsome foes they once were. While you’ll have limited resources from whatever you can scrounge up on site, if your aim is good, you can often afford to shoot down most zombies you encounter without feeling your ammo reserves get strained. The undead can still catch you off-guard and the sight of one biting into you is certainly gnarly, the panic after getting caught flat-footed by an unexpected attack still instilling some terror into a player trying to navigate the city streets or carefully investigating a dark building interior. A dodge maneuver does give you a means to avoid some of the threat they pose and Carlos even has a heavy focus on utilizing an automatic weapon during his segments, but you also have much larger hordes to deal with as him and mismanagement can lead to a terrifying scramble to try and salvage the moment without wasting your less common healing items.

 

More potent danger often comes from the more unusual bioweapons found throughout Raccoon City. While a zombie is the most common and easily dealt with, there are strange and capable beasts such as Hunter Gammas who look like enormous mutant salamanders and often slough out of a hiding spot to come at you with a splitting jaw big enough to scoop you up in one enormous bite. Faster creatures or ones with long range attacks start appearing so you can’t take your time lining up shots so easily, and foes who are much harder to kill pepper the later moments of the adventure as you find the shotgun ammo and grenades you were holding onto for a rainy day both becoming far more crucial while starting to dwindle if you’re not able to keep calm and use them well. While it won’t match the Resident Evil 2 remake in its moment to moment tension, Resident Evil 3 still keeps you on your toes as the action whips up effective moments through applying a great deal of pressure with its heavy hitters.

Nemesis, despite not living up to high expectations of being the successor to Mr. X, is still a potent tool used for the game’s most memorable and dangerous moments. His cinematic introduction is perfect for framing him as this dauntless juggernaut that Jill struggles to counter, and even when you get your hands on better firepower, he’s the kind of threat where explosives only slow him down for a bit and he’s back on your tail shortly after. When he’s patrolling the city streets or pursuing you directly, Nemesis can be a fearsome foe that leaves you nervous any moment you can’t see what exactly he’s up to. You need to flee and can’t focus your third person camera on him at all times, so when he comes slamming down from above or whips you with a surprise tentacle, there’s definitely some panic as you need to adjust rapidly to avoid perishing. The areas he is in can often be filled with too many zombies to feasibly wipe out as well, leading to another variable to manage as you try to safely work your way to your destination. He can almost feel a little too potent with how quickly he can cover ground at times, but at others it can feel like the game held back a bit. Looking at Nemesis standing outside a thin toy shop window waiting for you to leave does feel a bit silly, but it’s also hard to complain that you found a brief refuge to regroup a bit.

 

However, the segments where he pursues you aren’t as numerous or as long as one might expect, and he starts shifting more towards a range of boss encounters where, while certainly unique, the tone has shifted towards taking down a persistent giant monster rather than facing off with some intelligent pursuer. Each one having its own style and diverse mechanics at play does make them interesting battles in their own right though, Nemesis’s fortitude meaning sustained gunfire can’t be the solution in itself. The game easing up on Nemesis’s oppressive presence does allow segments like the hospital to be more about gradual exploration though, the game’s map carrying on the convenient element from Resident Evil 2 where you’ll be able to see if you’ve found everything of note in an area. On one hand it does mean you can remain pretty stocked up on useful items and ammo despite your limited inventory, but on the other it might also encourage you to plunge back into danger for a goodie and jeopardize yourself as a result of your greed. Resident Evil 3 doesn’t seem like it’s trying to be too hard or discouraging in its design though, content to make clearing its six to nine hour adventure feel fairly achievable despite the dangers it presents. Notably, the Xbox Series X and PS5 versions of the game do not include Resident Evil Resistance bundled in, the multiplayer shooter left out so this is purely solo experience mostly good for a single playthrough despite there being some unlockable bonuses and difficulties for those content to play the adventure through again.

THE VERDICT: While not able to hit the same highs as the Resident Evil 2 remake, the Resident Evil 3 remake’s greater focus on more involved action doesn’t rob it of its moments of terror thanks to effective atmosphere and the potency of its threats. You can put up a powerful fight but you must manage a precarious balance since it can crumble after one mistake, and once you start encountering new monster types beyond zombies you do find yourself fearing for your life and scrambling to make your tools work to save your skin more often. Nemesis works for the role assigned to him even though expectations might have been high, the big brute bringing some unique boss fights to the table and still feeling like the persistent predator you know you’ll always need to work hard to overcome when he shows up.

 

And so, I give Resident Evil 3 for Xbox Series X…

A GREAT rating. The funny thing about the Resident Evil 3 remake is it is more like what I expected the Resident Evil 2 remake to be. This game is visually exceptional in making its dark city in disarray unnerving, the zombie designs effective at looking gruesome but you are fairly free to gun them down. More potent monsters still keep the danger levels high with their unique tricks and greater cost to put down, but it’s not like Resident Evil 2 where you felt like each creature you killed had a chance of rising back up to cause you trouble later. The tension in Resident Evil 3 instead comes from moments with stronger directed presentation, Nemesis more often thriving in constructed situations rather than the period where his encounters can be more organic and unscripted. Jill and Carlos both feel capable yet the game effectively sells the idea that when you do get hurt or cornered, you really are in great danger. Threats need to be kept at arm’s length, and like a lion tamer, if something gets in too close, your options for survival start to thin. It is easy to entertain the idea of Nemesis leaning more into the dauntless stalker archetype Mr. X relied upon but Nemesis dominates situations he’s involved in so perhaps he would have been a bit too oppressive. Instead we get a series of effective and unique boss battles where he carries on his established image of being imposing and nigh unkillable by forcing you to try and take him down in different ways. The breather periods where you do slower exploration are a wise way to give you some time between appearances so his return is more impactful, and creatures like the Hunter Gamma make sure there’s still some true danger and unique things to find along the way. A bit more flexibility in structure would be appreciated, this remake stripping away a system from the game it’s remaking where you made some decisions that impacted the story’s events, but for a single run through the story you still have a good deal to enjoy whether you like blasting through the undead or those moments of tension where you’re uncertain you’ll make it out alive.

 

Resident Evil 3, when viewed separately from any expectations on what it could have been, is still an enjoyable survival horror shooter with some strong ideas on how to construct situations and encounters to make the player feel in control at one point and vulnerable at another. Nemesis is a beast you need to respect whenever he’s around, but you are given moments of catharsis where you can more easily mow down a group of zombies to compensate. Resident Evil 3 doesn’t lose its energy either, instead moving you between moments of involved action and tense exploration with there always being some present threat, but the variance isn’t so great you fall off or get sidetracked from the fairly focused story being told. The original version of Resident Evil 3 was an elevated spin-off, so in some ways, this Resident Evil 3 remake feels appropriate as a companion piece of sort to Resident Evil 2, presenting its own unique ideas and having a distinct approach to designing encounters rather than trying to build off the successes of the game that came before it.