I recently replayed an emulated version of Resident Evil 3 1999 on PS1 and while I felt it was just "good", the game wasn't as good as Resident Evil 1996 or Resident Evil 2 1998. Enter the remake of Resident Evil 3 released in 2020, I honestly didn't like the remake of Resident Evil 2 released in 2019 all that much despite me being super excited for it at the time, I found the game to be a tedious experience and it was vastly inferior to the Resident Evil 1 2002 remake, so when I originally played Resident Evil 3 2020, I barely had any high expectations for it, I recall enjoying it more than the 2019 remake of Resident Evil 2, but not by an overwhelming degree, I feel much the same way now, I "like" Resident Evil 3 2020, but not super highly, I found it to be a "good" remake for a generally solid game.
One thing right away I have to address is the start of the game, it's....not good, I'd say it kind of enters into the realm of bad. I'd argue this opening sequence is kind of where the game gets it's bad reputation for being pretty over the top. I argue RE was always that, but this opening gameplay section is the kind scripted I found to be patronizing and obnoxious, just hit forwards a lot of the time, doing some super scripted action movie style sequence with barely much thinking or depth as you go down forced corridors getting chased by Nemesis and zombies, I get very agitated when I was supposed to go down one corridor but a zombie bit me and it was an instant game over because I didn't run fast enough down that said corridor.
However once you get to the subway station and get to the Raccoon City portions of the game where you have to get the subway up and running is when the game starts getting good and doesn't get as obnoxiously scripted again, it does get scripted but it's not as bad as the opening sequence. Raccoon City if you played the original can feel much smaller compared to the original game, and I didn't mind since I felt RE3 1999's version was just a little too big for my liking, you do get the much superior map from the 2002 remake of RE1 and you could argue they could've made the place as big as original RE3, but I didn't mind, it felt decently sized enough and I found the exploration of finding items, solving puzzles, managing inventory space while shooting enemies to have a satisfying enough execution here, it is the most open RE3 2020 gets and I might like this portion the best but the rest of the levels do a good job at satisfying that exploration itch since the rest of the levels are open but not linear where all you need to do is run across a straight line. RE3 1999 also gets more linear as the game progress as well.
I might as well mention a common complaint with this remake is that it "cuts" out content, and while that is true to some degree, I argue it's more "playing with the expectations" of original game players than "cut content". Sure the Clock Tower is cut out but there is an expanded upon Police Station section and an expanded upon Hospital section so it's even trade. Plus the Grave Digger fight was mostly a filler boss at best since it just randomly halted progress than being a geniune threat. Carlos is much more developed and expanded upon compared to the original game too since he goes through more of an arc by comparison to how much of a goof ball he was in the original game. Also, Nemesis himself isn't THAT persistent in the original game, he does chase you at certain points in the 1999 game but he does screw off at a lot of the parts, I was only able to beat RE3 1999 at all was because of the long sections where Nemesis isn't actively stalking you.
Other good things is that there is a dodge button this time around and it just irkes me why the series is never consistent with this. Some games have a dedicated dodge command while others don't. The Resident Evil 4 remake doesn't even have this and it just makes me wish Capcom would just actually incorporate a proper evade command in their RE games because this indecision just annoys me, I would like to be able to evade with a button press instead of having it be a QTE, I would at least have more mobility options. I'm not a fan of how REmake 3 has rolling be contextual but I'll take this.
I have heard many complain about how short REmake 3 is, but I argue it's actually more of strength. One of the big reasons why I don't like REmake 2 is because it has a lot of annoying quirks the original games managed to avoid like the camera following you when bitten by a zombie instead of being static like the original making it disorienting, a zombie's head doesn't get kicked off after being grabbed from below, the guns particular the shotgun not taking nearly as many shots to kill a zombie and my least favorite of all, being unable to tell if a zombie is actually dead. I would shoot a zombie while they are down and they would make what appears to be a death animation just for them to get up or bite me even though I swore I saw them die. With REmake 2, the 2nd run playthrough means I got to deal with this stuff for much longer to get the true ending but with REmake 3, it's over before it starts really pissing me off. So to me, this is a strength.
Overall, solid game but nothing amazing. A big reason why I probably like this remake at all is because I never had that big of an attachment towards the original game.
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