I can't believe I put this off due to how many I've heard saying how bad/run of the mill this game supposedly was, this was great lol.
I went ahead and started this game with the sour taste of OG RE3 still in my mouth, my mindset was that at the very least if this remake was in any way similar to the RE2 remake then I could still get way more enjoyment out of it then I could with the original version, and while this game did have some issues I still had a really great time with the remake of 3 and found it to be 10 billion times more enjoyable to boot.
I mean straight up if we're talking presentation wise, whether it's related to visuals, sound design, writing and dialogue, voice acting, everything has received a massive overhaul for the better but that's to be expected for something made years and years after the original I suppose. I especially like Carlos's relationship with Jill in this game, it's all great fun to watch, and Nicolai has more of a presence in the story as opposed to barely being in it at all.
Mechanically it's identical to the RE2 remake which I found to be spectacular previously, except now it carries the spirit of RE3's mechanics on top of everything else. The dodge mechanic returns from 3 and quite shockingly, it actually WORKS this time!!! The timing is fairly consistent to nail down and you get rewarded with a bullet time slowdown to get more damage in. It's easy to understand, easy to execute, and the results are clear cut, a vast improvement over the original game. Same could be said for the quick 180 turn and the shove mechanic as well. The enemies in this game honestly are a lot more fun to fight, though the hunter's instakill attacks are kind of frustrating. It's also kind of odd that blue herbs are essentially replaced by green herbs just for this one game, and it's only towards the beginning. The final boss has the same idea of the original but is executed so much better and it was a joy to play through.
In regards to Nemesis himself though I can agree that the game drops the ball on him in general. With how Mr X was handled in the RE2 remake one would expect Nemesis to follow suit, but he's much more scripted, and towards the end of the game he's relegated to boss encounters only. To be fair, these boss encounters are spectacular, but it's still disappointing when thinking about "what could've been". The game is also rather short, you can beat it in around 5-6 hours, often in even less time than that. It's aspects like this why I still prefer the remake of RE2, but admittedly the campaign being this short offers a bit of replayability with how you can complete challenges to purchase weapons and accessories to boost stats, as well as speedrunning potential.
There is a very valid argument with how not very faithful this game is to the original game. The clocktower is only there to host a Nemesis boss fight and the cemetery is cut entirely, the gravedigger is not here either, there's no randomized item or enemy placements nor any choose your own adventure style QTEs. While I do think there is merit to playing the original because of these reasons, for me personally none of these were really game changers except for the missing locales. The randomized events and QTEs didn't exactly change the way I played the game, and uh...oh noooooo, the grave digger is not in the game now...I'm uh...so saddened by his unfortunate removal. Yup, totally, yeah. Gonna lament over that one for sure.
If you couldn't tell already I didn't like my time with the original game in the slightest, so playing through this was definitely a breath of fresh air. It's too different of an experience to be a replacement, but I couldn't care less, I will play this game over the original any day of the week.
I went ahead and started this game with the sour taste of OG RE3 still in my mouth, my mindset was that at the very least if this remake was in any way similar to the RE2 remake then I could still get way more enjoyment out of it then I could with the original version, and while this game did have some issues I still had a really great time with the remake of 3 and found it to be 10 billion times more enjoyable to boot.
I mean straight up if we're talking presentation wise, whether it's related to visuals, sound design, writing and dialogue, voice acting, everything has received a massive overhaul for the better but that's to be expected for something made years and years after the original I suppose. I especially like Carlos's relationship with Jill in this game, it's all great fun to watch, and Nicolai has more of a presence in the story as opposed to barely being in it at all.
Mechanically it's identical to the RE2 remake which I found to be spectacular previously, except now it carries the spirit of RE3's mechanics on top of everything else. The dodge mechanic returns from 3 and quite shockingly, it actually WORKS this time!!! The timing is fairly consistent to nail down and you get rewarded with a bullet time slowdown to get more damage in. It's easy to understand, easy to execute, and the results are clear cut, a vast improvement over the original game. Same could be said for the quick 180 turn and the shove mechanic as well. The enemies in this game honestly are a lot more fun to fight, though the hunter's instakill attacks are kind of frustrating. It's also kind of odd that blue herbs are essentially replaced by green herbs just for this one game, and it's only towards the beginning. The final boss has the same idea of the original but is executed so much better and it was a joy to play through.
In regards to Nemesis himself though I can agree that the game drops the ball on him in general. With how Mr X was handled in the RE2 remake one would expect Nemesis to follow suit, but he's much more scripted, and towards the end of the game he's relegated to boss encounters only. To be fair, these boss encounters are spectacular, but it's still disappointing when thinking about "what could've been". The game is also rather short, you can beat it in around 5-6 hours, often in even less time than that. It's aspects like this why I still prefer the remake of RE2, but admittedly the campaign being this short offers a bit of replayability with how you can complete challenges to purchase weapons and accessories to boost stats, as well as speedrunning potential.
There is a very valid argument with how not very faithful this game is to the original game. The clocktower is only there to host a Nemesis boss fight and the cemetery is cut entirely, the gravedigger is not here either, there's no randomized item or enemy placements nor any choose your own adventure style QTEs. While I do think there is merit to playing the original because of these reasons, for me personally none of these were really game changers except for the missing locales. The randomized events and QTEs didn't exactly change the way I played the game, and uh...oh noooooo, the grave digger is not in the game now...I'm uh...so saddened by his unfortunate removal. Yup, totally, yeah. Gonna lament over that one for sure.
If you couldn't tell already I didn't like my time with the original game in the slightest, so playing through this was definitely a breath of fresh air. It's too different of an experience to be a replacement, but I couldn't care less, I will play this game over the original any day of the week.