The fullest realization of Playstation era Resident Evil.

Replaying this in 2019 and still discovering variances in enemy spawns or other behaviors in the game is an amazing feeling. Absolutely love the level design (the varying paths and whatnot), soundtrack, and slick feeling gameplay in this one. Navigating through rooms of enemies is so satisfying here, the movement is really smooth.

Mild points are lost for me as a result of the dodge function. In theory this is great and a welcome addition to the series but in execution it's kinda wack. The move feels like it gets set off randomly with no rhyme or reason and in areas with multiple enemies at once it can get messy. The one tight hospital hallway with two hunters in it ended up being a dance of death with me dodging multiple attacks and rolling around in circles until I ended up getting cornered and stunlocked to death. Good thing I saved.

was really blown away by how amazing this game was...even tho this is my first time playing through the resident evil series, i do know about the behind the scenes stuff on this game. it was apparently supposed to be a spin-off but changed it to a main entry midway through & it had a limited development time & limited resources.
i have massive respect for developers who can put out a quality product despite these type of limitations.

i feel like this starting off as a spin-off but changed to a main entry was the best case scenario...it probably explains why this game seems to be really experimental...new mechanics like in depth ammo crafting, the choice system, dodging & applying all that in a game with an already established main character (which i'm guessing was the result of the change of the game being main entry) & an improved mr x type enemy really made everything come together perfectly for this game.

the remakes of resident evil 2 & 3 have a high bar to surpass...can't wait to see if they can cross it.

This game. Goddamn, this game.

Okay so let me just get this out of the way quickly: This game is my 2nd favorite entry in the Resident Evil franchise. This game is nothing but nostalgia to me and is the perfect companion to RE2, which is hands down the best game in this series.

It's crazy to think that originally, this game wasn't supposed to be the 3rd game in the series. In fact there were multiple games being developed by Capcom at the time.

One of these projects would be led by Director Hideiki Kamiya, in which it would have been the full debut of the Umbrella badass Hunk from RE2. In the game he was to infiltrate a cruise ship to steal a sample of the G-Virus.

Though Shinji Mikami didn't think that it would have been a good fit as an RE game because it was taking a much more action orientated approach. So it was shelved and later revived as

Devil May Cry. Fuck yeah.

The whole boat idea wouldn't be used until Resident Evil Revelations.
And Capcom had an exclusively deal with Sony so their next game had to be a mainline, numbered RE game. Thus the RE3 I know and love to this day was born.

{ Story }

This game takes place some time before and after the events of RE2.
The dreamy Jill Valentine is stuck in her apartment following the outbreak of the T-Virus in Raccoon City. Very noticeably phased after the events of RE1, she is fueled by revenge on the Umbrella Corporation, so she seeks to escape the city and take them down once and for all, but in a boob tube and a mini skirt.

Yeah, not the kind of attire I would personally pick during a fuckin' zombie apocalypse and a battle against an evil corporation. But for all the horny teenagers in the year 2000, this was fan-service with a capital F.

The intro to this game is probably my favorite in this whole series.
The zombies and BOWs (Bio Organic Weapons) overwhelming every street is just dreadful.

Literally everyone, even the police and the mercenary force sent in by Umbrella are just defenseless. Everyone just gets fucking slaughtered. It seems like the people here haven't watched enough zombie flicks to deal with the infected. It really does set the tone that things are fucked up beyond recognition.

Out of all three intros to each RE game so far, this is the most oppressing and bleak. A conflict that was destined to be one-sided. To Umbrella, this is just another guinea pig test.

This game is even more aggressively paced than RE2. It just keeps getting faster with each game.

So we start our adventure with Jill getting blown out of her apartment for some reason, and we are thrown directly into the streets of Raccoon City.

Umbrella are self-aware of the fact that the S.T.A.R.S members are living proof that they are the ones responsible for the creation and outbreak of the T and G-Viruses in the Spenser Mansion and Raccoon City. So they create an almighty bio weapon called the Nemesis to hunt them all down, Jill being one of the former members.

And the Nemesis is the most horrific antagonist I've ever seen in a video game. A mixture of Jason Vorhees and the Terminator. It leads to some incredibly tense encounters. I mean just look at that face. He's such a smug motherfucker, I love it.

Like the Licker scene from RE2, the moment I saw the Nemesis I was just horrified. I had never seen anything like it when I was just a child. And just like with RE2, I watched my brothers play the game, well try to, instead of playing it myself.

Jill will also bump into mercenaries on the bankroll of Umbrella on a mission to "help survivors."

Fat chance.

One of these members is named Carlos, he is your tag partner for this game. And his main objective is to fuck Jill.

Lol that's just a joke but he's basically Billy Cohen from RE0, but a Spanish version.

Since this game is back to a single disc, the story isn't as fleshed out as RE2. I can excuse that since this game came out only a year after RE2. Not to mention the gameplay is so fun that I never get bored of it.

However there are two major things that gives this game major replay value. One of these things is that you can change the outcome of the story. This the first RE game and probably the only one to give the player the ability to affect how the story plays out, thanks to the large amount of cutscenes and multiple endings.

Throughout the game you will be given one of two choices to approach a certain situation.

Like for example, going to the restaurant and fleeing into the basement to get away from Nemesis instead of running into the kitchen and blowing him up.

Or attempt to pull the brakes on the train instead of jumping out of the window because it loses control.

These choices, depending on what you select, can actually give you different cutscenes as well as placing the player in different areas.

You can even affect what boss fights you participate in depending on what you choose.

What this does is encourage multiple playthroughs to see every single asset in the story which is an excellent idea, considering this game is only half of RE2's length.

And the other major reason is the RNG during the gameplay, but I will talk about that in the Gameplay section.

What they managed to accomplish in just a year after RE2 is mind-blowing.

{ Gameplay }

Now this, THIS is the good shit. The best adjective I would use to describe it is sexy.

This is the best controlling game out of all the classic RE games. They have been polished to a real mirror shine. This game invented so many revolutionary mechanics that would be used in future games to this very day.

Where should I start?

Well, this is the first game to have the 180° quick turn. Which means that you can instantly turn yourself around with just the push of Down on the D-Pad and Square. It's fucking ace. It's responsive, it's snappy, it's fluent, it's sheer perfection. And it makes getting away from enemies an absolute breeze.

Gone are the days of having to painstakingly turn yourself around manually and risk getting hit by enemies while doing so.

This is also the first game to give you the ability to shove away zombies and dodge attacks.

By pushing R1 or holding R1 and pushing X just as a zombie is about to grab you, Jill will just shove them away instead of just taking a hickey to the chin like in the older games.

The instruction manual says that you do this by rapidly mashing L1, L2, R1, and R2 but don't fall for it. That doesn't actually work.

The older games also had a problem where if you get pincered by zombies, then you can get bitten from both in front and in back of you with no real means of defending yourself.

But if you take a bite in RE3 and another zombie is about to grab you again, Jill will shove away the zombie automatically, which can really save your life.

If you're fighting anything other than a zombie, you can dodge attacks by pushing R1 or R1 + X as the enemy is about to attack you though the timing can vary on what weapon you are holding. It does help but it's a shotty mechanic. Because if you don't have enough space to dodge you can still get hit.

Dodging doesn't make you invincible like in the later games.

Jill will do the standard backward dodge though occasionally she will roll, which uses up a lot of space meaning there is a chance you can still get hit while doing it which just sucks. If you're up against a wall or something you can still get hit while dodging. But having this mechanic at all is better than nothing.

This is the first RE game where you are able to skip the cutscenes. Which makes the game go by so much quicker during a 2nd playthrough. As much as I love RE2, not being able to skip the cutscenes can be a bitch and a half.

This is also the first game to have the Gunpowder mechanic. If you're playing on Hard Mode, ammo is not as common as it was in RE2. That is where the Gunpowder comes in.

You are able to create ammunition out of this Gunpowder. There are two types of Gunpowder: Gunpowder A, B, and C. Just like herbs, it can be combined with each other to create different types of ammo. And the most powerful ammunition can be synthesized.

NOTE: To obtain Gunpowder C, you need to mix Gunpowder A with Gunpowder B.

Here is a list of all of the ammo that can be created from Gunpowder combinations:

[ Handgun Ammo Combos ]

A: 15 Handgun ammo
A + A: 35 Handgun ammo
A + A + A: 55 Handgun ammo
B + B + A: 60 Handgun ammo

[ Shotgun Shell Combos ]

B: 7 Shotgun shells
B + B: 18 Shotgun shells
A + A + B: 22 Shotgun shells
B + B + B: 30 Shotgun shells

[ Grenade Launcher Round Combos ]

C: 10 Grenade Rounds
A + C: 10 Flame Rounds
B + C: 10 Acid Rounds
C + C: 10 Freeze Rounds

A + 6 Grenade Rounds: 6 Flame Rounds

A + A + 6 Grenade Rounds: 12 Flame Rounds

A + A + A + 6 Grenade Rounds: 18 Flame Rounds

B + 6 Grenade Rounds: 6 Acid Rounds

B + B + 6 Grenade Rounds: 12 Acid Rounds

B + B + B + 6 Grenade Rounds: 18 Acid Rounds

C + 6 Grenade Rounds: 6 Freeze Rounds

C + C + 6 Grenade Rounds: 12 Freeze Rounds

C + C + C + 6 Grenade Rounds: 18 Freeze Rounds

[ Magnum Round Combo ]

C + C + C: 24 Magnum Rounds

This gunpowder only comes in limited quantity, so be wise on what you want to create. Despite the faster facing and more aggressive gameplay, this is still a survival game at the end of the day.

And just like with my RE1 and RE2 reviews, I will leave a list of all the herb combinations.

G: Heals 25% of your health

G + G: Heals 50% of your health

G + G + G: Heals 100% of your health

G + R: Heals 100% of your health

B: Heals poison

G + B: Heals 25% of your health and cures poison

G + R + B: Heals 100% of your health and cures poison

With faster, more polished gameplay comes a much bigger threat than Mr. X from RE2 and that's the Nemesis. He's fast, he has a RE5 Chris Redfield punch that hurts, he can toss Jill around like a sack of potatoes, and he can use a rocket launcher, which really hurts if you get hit by it, and he has a fetish for tentacle hentai.

Just like a feminist on Twitter he will fucking stop at nothing to cancel the living shit out of you. He reeeally craves a Jill on rye. You can choose to either fight him or run away from the big bastard, and the latter is the recommended option. Because just like the Terminator he just does not fuckin' die, and he can seriously fuck you sideways if you don't know what you're doing.

The Nemesis is actually weak against certain ammunition so he's not completely invincible.

If you actually are ballsy enough to fight him, then knocking him out by shooting him will cause him to drop an item. These items can range from gun parts to healing items. Keep in mind that you can only get these items playing on Hard Mode. And they are dropped in this specific order:

1st knockdown: Eagle Parts A

2nd knockdown: Eagle Parts B

3rd knockdown: First Aid Box

4th knockdown: M37 Parts A

5th knockdown: M37 Parts B

6th knockdown: Another First Aid Box

7th knockdown: Either the Assault Rifle or Infinite Ammo for any one of your weapons (you can only get that after beating the game.)

The Eagle Parts are parts for the Handgun which makes it stronger, and the M37 Parts can turn the Shotgun into a powerful lever action rifle.

If you're playing this game for the first time, I do not advise fighting Nemesis just to get these rewards until you have at least beaten the game. Or have an idea on how to fight him properly.

There will be times you will have to fight him as a boss fight, but fucking hell he can be difficult to deal with.

There is one part in the game where you fight him at a clock tower and even now as a veteran player who has been playing this game for years now, I still die a few times trying to beat the son of a bitch.

His punches and his rocket launcher just hit you like an 18 wheeler. Dying here can be easy if you're not careful.

Also, about Hard Mode.. If you are playing this game for the first time, do yourself a favor, and do not play this game on Easy Mode.

Why?

Because Easy Mode is literally what I like to call Game Journalism difficulty, or Dean Takahashi Mode.

The game just holds your hand through everything. It's so piss easy that it practically lets you win. It's like playing Rookie Mode in RE2. The game gives you the Assault Rifle, Handgun, Shotgun, Magnum, a First Aid Box, maximum ammunition for each weapon, infinite Ink Ribbons, and the amount of ammo obtained from a pickup is increased by 2 or 3x.

There is no challenge to be found and the point of a Survival Horror game is completely lost when the game just gives you everything so you can just Bullet Hell everything.

Don't let Hard Mode intimidate you. It's not actually a Hard Mode difficulty. Hard Mode is just the name for the game's Normal difficulty. If you want the true Survival Horror experience, play Hard Mode.

The game isn't that hard. Just dealing with the Nemesis can be a pain at times.

Out of the classic RE trilogy, this is the toughest one of them all, but even then, the game does a great job with balancing its difficulty.

Now I'm talk about the RNG. And this is what makes the game fresh to play with each playthrough despite how short the game is compared to RE2.

All of the enemy placements, item placements, and the moments that Nemesis appears can change when you play the game during a 2nd playthrough. For example in the City Park, you could walk down to the water walkway and there will be zombies, but then in your next playthrough, Hunters can pop up.

So every time you play, something different can happen. Sometimes Nemesis will appear in one area, and then the next time he doesn't.

Maybe choosing what to do during a cutscene can also change what enemies will spawn in. This gives the game unique flavor as you most likely will never know what you will run into.

There is also a moment in the game where a key item will change location depending on what you choose during a cutscene when Nemesis pops up.

Little details like that makes the game fresh. Some might find it annoying, I think it's unique, and it's what makes RE3 stand out from the other games.

Now I'm gonna talk about the weapons, my favorite part.

Jill's arsenal consists of a standard Pistol and a Shotgun which both can be upgraded as mentioned in the Nemesis rewards, a Magnum, which is one of the best guns for boss fights, a Grenade Launcher, a Mine Thrower which I don't use that much, it's pretty powerful but you get almost no extra ammo for it, an Assault Rifle, which is a great for crowd control and has plenty of ammo, and you can also unlock infinite ammo weaponry like a Rocket Launcher and a Minigun.

The Grenade Launcher can fire Flame, Acid, Freeze, and Explosive Rounds, and the most powerful out of all of these are the Acid Rounds. They just demolish bosses. But they suck against Nemesis so use something else.

This is the first game in the series where you are able to unlock infinite ammo for any weapon found in Jill's journey.

You do this by playing The Mercenaries, unlocked after beating the game. All you do is kill enemies while reaching a certain destination under a time limit. Killing multiple enemies adds a bigger increase to the timer, as well as dodging attacks.

When you beat the mode you get Points, and then you spend these Points on whatever gun you wish to unlock infinite ammo for. Each one has a different cost but if you want all guns with infinite ammo unlocked at once, there's a bundle you can purchase for 10000 Points. Getting that amount of points is on the grindy side, though there are easy tricks you can do to get more Points at a faster rate.

And just like RE2, the gunplay in this game is fantastic. Each gun feels great to use. You can just feel the impact of each shot. Combine this with the orgasmic sound effects, and it's a game that deserves the use of your best headphones of choice. The gunplay feedback is among the best in the series.

Just like with RE2, this game is a blast to play. It's excellent gameplay still holds up even to this day. It's a game that I just don't get bored of which is a testament to its design.

It's the catharsis of creating tons of different kinds of ammo with Gunpowder, blowing off zombie heads, shooting explosive barrels to blow multiple enemies into pieces at once, the adrenaline rushes of engaging Nemesis, and finding new surprises with every playthrough because of the RNG system, makes the game always fun for me. This game is a fucking joy to play.

{ Presentation and Soundtrack }

The first thing I noticed when I was younger is that for the first time, you're actually outside.

I know you were outside in RE2 but that was for like 10 minutes in the introduction. But in RE3, the majority of the game is you running around the zombified alleyways and streets of the Raccoon City, which changes the mood from loneliness to paranoia.

With every street and alleyway you run down, you don't know what you're gonna encounter. Capcom really went out all out with this game's production value, it just pushed the PS1 to its limits.

This game is beautiful to look at. The backdrops and pre-rendered backgrounds are even more detailed than the ones in RE2, there are no sharp edges anywhere, and the FMV cutscenes are probably the best looking on the PS1. They're just so clear and very detailed. You can see the rotting flesh on each zombie, it's just grotesque, it's like moldy pizza.

And Jill's character model is a lot more detailed than before. There are multiple different kinds of ways to die which can affect Jill's character model. For example when she gets eaten by a zombie or a dog you can see the bite marks and gashes on her skin.

And when Nemesis shoves that lovely hentai tentacle of his inside of Jill her skin changes to a purpleish color which implies that Nemesis just injected her with the T-Virus.

I really love little details like that. I can tell the developers took a big step to give Jill as much detail as they could.

The soundtrack is brilliant just like RE2, but RE2 still has the edge over RE3 to me. You can hear the ambience in the music as gunshots and people dying can be heard in the distance. It gives me a bigger sense of dread than RE2. But there is no doubt that this game has better boss music.

The music that plays when you fight a boss is so goddamn addictive I just hum it to myself. This game is just junk food for my eyes and ears.

{ Best Version? }

There really is no wrong way to play this game, but as much as I have played the PS1 version, it's actually not the best version in my opinion. This game was released on the PS1, Sega Dreamcast, PC, and the Nintendo Gamecube.

The only difference with the Gamecube version is that the FMV cutscenes run at 60 FPS. I think it's 60 FPS, I could be wrong about that.

And the Sega Dreamcast version is better graphically than the PS1, with 480p resolution and a higher polygon count, but does that really matter since we have the PC version?

Out of all of these versions, the best one would have to be the PC version.

Why? One word: Mods.

Holy shit, the mods for this game. There are tons of texture, high resolution, and challenge mods like Nightmare Mode that just can completely change how we played RE3.

Oh, and you can skip the door animations. You enter a lot, and I mean a lot of doors in this game. The play time reaaaally adds up when you have to watch door animations 90% of the whole game.

Being able to skip these animations can be a godsend when you just want to breeze through the game. And the game is pretty easy to get running on a modern day system thanks to the PC Wiki.

{ Final Thoughts }

This definitely was the swan song of the RE games on the RE1. Originally Code Veronica was to be the true sequel to RE2 but because of the whole Sony exclusively deal, Code Veronica was treated as a like a spin off game, and to be honest that was the better choice.

RE3 is amazing. This game is just as good as RE2 despite being shorter. The amount that was accomplished between RE2 and RE3 is almost paranormal. The content and replay value on the disc is staggering, it's both eye and ear candy, and the Nemesis must have made many kids and teenagers easily shit themselves.

If only was the remake was as good.. Even thinking about that lukewarm half-assed remake still annoys me to shit. But that's a topic for a different review. I was actually so disappointed from RE3 Remake that it was the main reason why I even went back to the original game in the first place.

And the moment I started playing through this game, I just said two words: "That's better." It really just shows how timeless the original release is.

I give this game 9 Jill Sandwiches out of 10.

Não joguei RE3 em sua época - pulei do 2 direto pro Code Veronica (que só joguei um pouquinho, não cheguei a zerar). É interessante ver como no próprio PlayStation a série foi deslizando cada vez mais para a ação. Claro, as mudanças trazidas por RE4 foram bem mais radicais nesse sentido, mas RE3 foi um passo importante para isso.

Não obstante, achei que RE3 faz um bom balanceamento entre horror-exploração-ação... Pelo menos no início. O primeiro ato, em especial, está no mesmo nível de qualidade de RE2. Entretanto, senti que o jogo começou a deixar a peteca cair a partir do segundo ato (Clock Tower) e o final foi bem apressado.

This is the gaming equivalent of puberty. You look at Resident Evil 2, you look at Resident Evil 4, and you're like wow, Resident Evil 3 must have been awkward. And it was. This attempt at combining action and horror didn't end up being polished, like having a dodge function which isn't bound to a button of its own, but activates when you try to shoot an enemy. Riposting zombies like you're in Bloodborne sounds neat, but because the ability is also tied to your attack, its usage as an alternative to attacking is a confusing thing to wrap your head around. Nemesis chasing you around also sounds pretty neat, but he's easy to shake just by transitioning zones and not very scary after the second encounter. The splitting narrative paths were fun, but the binary selection is a far cry from how much RE2 accomplished with its multiple playthrough system. The strides it took are admirable, but it remains an awkward transition game instead of a great game in its own right.

A game about getting the fuck out.

A pretty good take on the gameplay of RE1 and RE2; it's cool how despite the game being basically just as full of corridors and solitary rooms like it's older siblings, it still, with the help of the GOD level painted backgrounds and camera angles, evokes the feel of a large, sprawling and most of all, OPEN environment; the early part of the game is easily the best, when it feels like you're truly lost in the middle of a city where everything wants to kill you.

No surprise then that the latter half of the game, with it's use of a big Clock Tower and the required RE secret lab, is nowhere near as good as the city part, what with their way more limited and isolated feeling; I'm sure that's the point, but it's still lame. Some of the more tedious puzzles in that half too.

The star (or uhhhh s.t.a.r lol) of the show is of course Mr. Nemesis, who's primary role as a very persistent random boss is absolutely legendary. The fact that more games don't use the idea of a stalker to the extent RE3 used it is fucking stupid; there's realass palpable tension in every single room because you don't truly know if Nemmy will pop in - even when I'm pretty good at playing this game (robbing a lot of the tension), hearing Nemesis' theme and his droning speech is still a potent way to get some adrenaline flowing.

Jill Valentine created the concept of hot girl summer in this game.

Very flawed compared to its predecessors, but with a number of unique strengths. The Nemesis is an excellent persistent antagonist, who helps tie together what could otherwise have been an uneven Resi experience. The pacing is a bit strange, but the escalation of the Nemesis encounters offers a clear through-line to ramp up tension. The dodge mechanic is terrible, but the quick-turn is perfect for a more action-oriented experience. The multiple choices are arbitrary and weird, but the game is stronger for their inclusion as they add replay value. [Insert weakness] isn't good, but [insert strength] is good AND new, repeat...

My point is that Resi 3 offers a lot of give and take. On balance, it's a great game, and might be the one I'm most inclined to replay. Despite only offering a single playable character, the multiple choices, hidden scenarios, and slightly randomised item and enemy placements make for a Resi experience that is worth a few playthroughs, and one that keeps you on your toes. Definitely give this a try if you enjoyed either of the first two PS1 titles.