Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
System: Playstation
Release date: September 22, 1999
Where to begin with RE3? Do I start talking about how the story seems shoehorned and makes little sense? Do I talk about the destruction of Raccoon city or do I talk about the Nemesis, probably one of the best bosses of video game history?
I guess I’ll start by putting things into pespective. After the monster success of RE2, Capcom was working on its next gen Resident Evil title for the Dreamcast, Resident Evil Code Veronica. In many ways, Code Veronica is the real RE3. It continues the story started in the previous games and Capcom wanted to take the series to the next level. Problem was, the Dreamcast and the game were still quite a long bit away and they wanted to cash in some more on the success of RE2. So they did what most company does, they rushed a new RE title and named it Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.
And while it may have been a disaster of epic proportions, it turned out to be great success for one main reason, the boss of the game, the Nemesis. I swear, having that huge monster pop out all the time carrying a rocket launcher and pursuing you like a good slasher movie monster does make for some great moments. RE3 also turned out to be the game where I died the most thanks to that monster in no small part. That constant threat of having him pop up and kill you is what made Nemesis such a memorable monster.
In the end, the game generated mixed reactions, some loving it for the boss and others hating it for it’s weird story.
He looks so happy to see you
Let’s nuke it all
In the grand overall scheme of things RE3 contributed very little to the Resident Evil mythos except for two very important things. First, it established firmly Umbrella as the evil company we now know, who controls everything and can do whatever it wants. Second… they nuked Raccoon city.
Yeah… the city you’ve been playing in and trying to survive? Gone… just like that. I think Capcom couldn’t have made it clearer that they wanted to move away from the original games with the next one and that’s the way they found… nuke the whole place. A lot fans resented that decision and some even do to this day, considering that the series died along with the city.
Personally I don’t think it was a bad move because it allowed the games to move away from rehashing the city forever but I can understand why some people hated it.
Enough with pixels!
Next up is Code Veronica and I have to admit I’m happy to be finally done with the Playstation era. They’re not bad games but some nicer graphics with less pixels will do wonders. I heard before the Code Veronica had one of the crazier stories so I can’t wait to see for myself.
