What’s Good About Resident Evil (2020)
If you’ve talked to me for longer than five minutes, then you’d come to quickly understand that I’m kind of a huge Mark for Capcom. The original Mega Man X is my favorite game of all time, I’ve spent more time in the Bloody Palace mode of each Devil May Cry game than I have with some members of my own family, and I’ve spent more time playing their fighting games than I reasonably want to admit. But weirdly enough, I’ve never fully gotten into the Resident Evil series. Considering my mark nature, this surprises me; but at the same time, it doesn’t. Because every single time I ask why I haven’t gotten into the Resident Evil games more, I immediately go “Oh right, it’s because I’m a massive fucking coward.”
Horror games are one medium of the horror genre I generally don’t interact with because I’m the one controlling the character and thus the horrible shit happening on screen is happening to me and that’s no good. And that interactivity combined with all of the other tricks that both games and the horror genre use to scare you have me nope’ing the hell out of there. Where was I going with this tangent? Oh right, I bring all of this up because I played the 2020 version of Resident Evil 3, a game I originally never played, over the last week and that was some a damn fine video game, I tell you what.
Taking place roughly around the same time as the Resident Evil 2 remake and two in-universe months after the events of the first game, you primarily play as former S.T.A.R.S. member Jill Valentine, who upon getting ready to skip out on Raccoon City during a T-Virus pandemic, is targeted by Nemesis, a parasitically enhanced Tyrant with only one thing on its mind: the deaths of the members of S.T.A.R.S. and since Chris Redfield ain’t here and other things happen, guess who he focuses on? Although the events of the story, as I’m told by friends who have played the original version, largely play out the same with some different tweaks, I appreciate the use and design of this game’s world as a means to help tell its story. It uses a lot of smart environmental storytelling; it conveys the tone of “shit is fucked in Racoon City” through a combination of scenery, interactable files that can be read through whenever, and the layouts of the levels themselves being blocked off to keep the zombies. Combine this with several nods and Easter eggs found in a particular part of the game I won’t spoil here and it all contributed to Racoon City feeling like a lived-in place that exists outside of the confines of the narrative. It’s great stuff.
As a game that you play, Resident Evil 3 takes a more action-horror approach compared to the RE2 remake, feeling more akin to what Resident Evil 4 would be like if it was released today. You still got your zombies and mutants to worry about, but Jill is far better equipped to fight them compared to Leon or Claire due to her precision dodge ability. When used at the last second, Jill will do a quick roll to get out of the way to whatever tried to rip her face off. Afterward, you can aim to go into slow motion and squeeze off a shot or two at whatever was attacking you. Combine this with several high-powered weapons you get throughout the game and you’d think this was easy Street, right? Well, not for me because I have a tendency to miss shots and it leads to shortages of ammo. After a while it led to me playing the game like it was Dead Space, just kneecapping zombies to get away from them and preserve ammo. Not sure if it was intentional, but it was an interesting way to do it. But, I’ll admit that by the time I got to the final area, I was getting so much ammo that I didn’t need to do that. Curse you Resident Evil Power Scaling.
To break up the pacing of running around and doing puzzles while avoiding fights you can’t win, the game will sic Nemesis after you. And sometimes, they will lie as to actual, legitimate boss fights. These are straight-up my favorite parts of the game because they are such a radical shift from the general pace of what the game does normally, that I can’t help but love them. The image of Nemesis walking through a field of fire while also being on fire is gonna stick with me for a long time.
Another way they break up the pacing is by giving you control of Carlos, a member of the Umbrella Counter Bioterrorism Service that Jill runs into at the beginning. While not as successful as the Nemesis encounters, they at least give you a beefy assault rifle with a ton of ammo to mess around with (best fired in controlled bursts for maximum efficiency). A potential knock I could give the game is that it’s really short (about 6 hours was logged on my initial play-through), but it’s so expertly crafted that I decided to start up a fresh save to try a 100% file. I rarely do that, so bonus points.
Overall, as someone who never really engaged with Resident Evil in the earlier days, the Resident Evil 3 Remake was a damn good way to spend a weekend. Its expertly crafted, doomed world and larger-than-life, unstoppable heavy of an antagonist go a long way to cover up its small issues. If you want a good time in Raccoon City (as realistic as a good time can be in a zombie apocalypse), then give Resident Evil 3 a chance. Just aim for the head and knees when you can or you’ll be seeing stars.
