Resident Evil 3 is a game remade recently using the RE Engine, and many fans were disappointed with areas cut from the experience the original provided. Now that I played the original game, I understand what most of the cut sections were and why people were upset. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (which I will refer to as RE3N from now on) is a great game, and when I played RE3, I was blinded by my love of the RE2 Remake. So now, I will take a look at the Resident Evil 3 Remake in the context of a Remake instead of just a new game.
The areas of RE3N are diverse from each other, and the puzzles in them are creative. The Clock Tower is probably the most notable area cut from the remake, and it's really easy to see why people were so mad about it. The area may be short, but one of my favorite puzzles in the games I've played so far is the music puzzle, where you match a song played on a music box by switching up little pins. This puzzle itself could've been modernized by doing some kind of item collection like finding parts in RE2 and then matching the song up with segments of visualized sound waves you can play. That would've been awesome! But no. The developers just skipped out on all of that area. Carlos' section in the original took place in this section, and was moved to the hospital in the remake, which also was increased dramatically in length(even though it was fun). Along with a nice boss encounter with Nemesis, the Clock Tower deserved to be included in the remake.
The Clock Tower has a fun Nemesis fight at the end!
RE3 has lazy choices, maybe from a possible rushed production due to the stress of living up to the massive success of RE2. Areas like the sewers and the final NEST area feel like extensions or just reused areas from the last game. The best part of RE3 is the city area, and even though the rest of the game is great and has some fun puzzles, it still lacks in length and replayability. The original RE3N has multiple scenes where the player is able to choose between different options of how to tackle the situation they're in. An example of this is when Jill arrives at the restaurant, the player is able to choose between fighting nemesis or fleeing to the basement. Some of these "Live Selection" events, as they're called, end up being trivial to the story, but in the endgame, multiple endings come from the choices made. In the ending I got, Nikolai was killed, and that left me to deal with Nemesis, finishing him off with the railgun, which made an appearance in the remake. Replayability has been a part of Resident Evil from the beginning. The first game allowed players to play as Jill or Chris, that had little things changed in the story. Resident Evil 2 does this as well, and the remake does it even better by including a new story segment that only Claire can do. RE3N effectively convinces the player to come back to the game by allowing them to choose what actions Jill takes to evade or defeat Nemesis.
Live Selection is a cool mechanic in RE3N.
For Resident Evil 3 Remake's $60 price tag, there is not enough meat on its bones to stand up to the original. The cut areas from RE3 are important to the game's theme of a last escape from Raccoon City, and there is a lot of great replayability in finding the multiple endings, and choosing different scenarios to play out. Looking at Resident Evil 3 through a new lens, I bestow upon RE3 Remake a 3 frizzy Carlos hair out of 5! And the original gets a good 4 SSSTTAAAARRRRRS out of 5!!
Of course, Nemesis looks super dope in the Remake...
Credit for the side by side thumbnail: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkZo89Vll2c&ab_channel=SafariGeek