While survival horror games existed before the Resident Evil franchise, I would say that the Resident Evil franchise is what brought that terminology into common parlance. “Resident Evil 3: Nemesis,” released for the PlayStation in 1999, is the third game in this franchise and like the others was published by Capcom. It immediately follows the events of “Resident Evil 2” continuing the story of the zombie infested Raccoon City. The main character of this game is Jill Valentine, a member of the Special Tactics and Rescue Service (STARS). The story involves her attempted escape from the city during the continuing zombie outbreak. And of course ther is a new major antagonist to deal with. This one is called Nemesis, hence the title of the game.
The main goal of Nemesis is to hunt down surviving STARS members. Nemesis, of course, is much more powerful than your average run of the mill zombie. It also has a nasty habit of popping up seemingly at random. You might find it smashing through a nearby wall or otherwise sneaking up on you at any time.
At least Jill isn’t alone in her struggle. In this game she teams up with Carlos Oliveira who is a member of the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service (UBCS). He also finds himself trapped in the city and like Jill, he is trying to escape.
This game could best be described as a refinement of the two previous entries in the series. It has all of the zombies and various mutations of the previous games along with some new ones, most notably the Nemesis. The graphics are excellent for the time featuring pre-rendered backgrounds, detailed character models, and otherwise nice looking imagery. Likewise, the soundtrack and sound effects are excellent and help add to the sense of suspense. The voice acting is really just okay but it was about as good as you could expect based on the standards of the time.
The game play mechanics are also refined. This iteration of the franchise introduced a more action oriented approach vs. the first two games. Whether this is actually an improvement or not is somewhat a matter of opinion. If you are like me, then you might prefer the slightly slower pace of the first two games. For those that prefer action though, I’m sure this was generally seen as an improvement.
Nemesis does offer quite a bit of replayability so at least it isn’t (or doesn’t have to be) a game limited to one play-through. There are multiple endings based both on your choices and how well you do. However, assuming you survive long enough, you will eventually have a final showdown with Nemesis and escape (or not) the city.
There are a variety of locations to explore throughout the course of the game. Thse include the Raccoon City police station, the streets of Raccoon City, underground areas leading to Raccooon City’s sewer system as well as a laboratory, and more. The environments are highly interactive and you will have to explore and solve puzzles to unlock certain areas. As mentioned above, there are multiple endings and the storyline ends up evolving from a mix of scripted events and player choices.
If you are a fan of survival horror or the earlier Resident Evil games, then this is one you will definitely want to play. While it isn’t going to be the choice of most for best game in the series and it does not represent as big of a leap as Resident Evil 2 did over the original, it is still a solid game worth playing. In order to play the original you’ll have to grab a copy off of ebay and have an original PlayStation (or PS2) lying around or use emulation. Resident Evil 3 was also ported to the Dreamcast, GameCube and Windows however, despite some improvements, they are also flawed in various ways. It’s probably best to stick with the PlayStation version though the differences are not huge. While Resident Evil 3 was remade for various systems in 2020, I usually tend to always recommend the original. Having said that, the remake is said to do a pretty good job of recreating the feel of the original and it has the advantage of looking much nicer, especially on a high definition screen so there isn’t anything really wrong with the remake if that is the direction you prefer.
