Resident Evil 3 Remake

Watched a speedrun. Have to note that I'm already not a fan of the first few minutes being purely unskippable drivle. It feels so extremely handholdy compared to the fear present in the original where you were in this giant town with no idea where to go. But seriously the first 6 minutes of the run is the same for everyone. Sad.

Game looks dropdead gorgeous though, very fluid, art-direction could use some work still, but mostly great.

Gameplay-wise it really seems like an optimized run already. Dodge this guy, walk here, don't attack that guy. Run past everything. I still remember those two zombies in vanilla RE3 man, where I had to make a split decision choice. Fight or flight. Here it's not even an option. It really looks like a speedrunning game where guns are more specific tools to avoid enemies than to offer an option. I guess there's validity to such a game, but not something I played RE for personally. What's the opinion on the game by its more hardcore audience / fans? I'd be interesting to see where they see the value of this game.

I assume all the randomized segments of vanilla RE3 are gone too?

Regarding its worth. Let me put it this way too: is it worth my time? Time I could also spend playing NGII, ZoE2, MGS2 (what is it with these twos...) etc. Opinions?

>optimized run

Yep, game was optimized a few weeks after release and you really can’t stray from it too much when there’s mobs, the game just doesn’t have the details to let you make your own strat most of the time.

>opinion by hardcore fans

Not sure, the fanbase is so split up at this point I don’t know what’s what anymore. Can only imagine the OG fans aren’t liking it too much(like me). Forgot to point out, as a remake of RE3, it’s worse than RE2make. Really shocking how much was cut, and different every character is. The only part of the clock tower that’s in is the courtyard where you fight a boss.

>randomized segments gone?

Yep.

>worth time

When you put it that way, I would say no. Honestly I was getting back into ZoE2 pretty hard again but I stopped because I felt I couldn’t pass this game up since it was on sale, and I should have just stuck to other games. It is incredibly short, and you can see everything the game has to offer quickly, but that’s not exactly a good thing, since the game doesn’t encourage experimentation. If you didn’t love RE2 then maybe just skip it altogether until you have a massive drought in your backlog(which, if you’re like me, will never happen).

Finished Inferno, and wow that final boss makes me almost hate this game. It’s a game of not-Sekiro where you’re forced into perfect dodges or else you die in one hit, but the attacks are horribly telegraphed and the game basically forces you to use the handgun. The whole game basically being Perfect Dodge and Explosives: The Game gets tired very quickly. The lack of defensive items really hurts resource management and defensive play, because the game now shills dodges for every enemy type(you can’t outrun anything in this game like in every other RE).

Bleh. I may take back what I said about still liking the game. I really don’t know if I want to play this again.

Did a couple more playthroughs this last week. Want to clarify a few things:

-Nightmare and Inferno are basically gimmick difficulties. I would say the definitive way to play this game is on Hardcore, since the game’s restrictive nature absolutely suffocates you on N/I. That being said, there is a reason I hated these difficulties as much as I did, and that’s because the game clearly wants you to use the shop items to clear these. You can obviously do so without them(which is what I did the first time) but the one hit kills with no checkpoints, unstoppable hordes, forced dodges etc, really make it so that the shop items are needed to have any kind of fun whatsoever. Don’t even bother fighting enemies if you’re doing a no shop run on N/I.

-The main difference between Nightmare and Inferno is that there’s no checkpoints on Inferno, and roughly half of the typewriters are removed. So it takes a difficulty that’s already very reliant on speed running strats and takes away checkpoints in a mode where you mostly die in one hit. Really counterintuitive.

-There are defense and attack coins in the shop, which you have to carry in your inventory to get the effect. It’s neat that you sacrifice inventory space for a bump in attack/defense, but it shouldn’t be needed in a series where you can usually dodge everything and enemies don’t have such insane health pools. The other problem I have is that this game probably has less of a focus on inventory management than any other game in the series. You find new inventory slots about every 45 minutes and this has less puzzle items than any other classic style game. The knife and handgun are trash so you don’t have to worry about those either. It just feels redundant to make these passive items with the risk being in managing your inventory space, when it’s never an issue to begin with.

-N/I do mix up enemy compositions quite a lot, but they do it in a way that hurts the game most of the time, since as I’ve said many times, they’re just roadblocks and things to avoid rather than hazards to interact with. Some rooms that had 2-3 zombies will now have zombies plus 3 plaga zombies, if you don’t dodge or use explosions then good luck getting through these mobs. Re-arranging enemy placements could have went a long way to put a new perspective on the encounters and they really just made them less interesting than before.

-Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but you couldn’t use special items to S rank RE2 could you? Here you can, which makes me just think the high difficulties were made for items even more.

I guess my point is this: I’m a firm believer that just about any game is best experienced at its highest difficulty, but this game is a huge exception for me. Even with the items(really, infinite ammo weapons? Lame) I didn’t enjoy N/I at all.

We're so alike.
Last week: "this game is trash"
This week: "so I finished a couple more runs..."

Haha! Too recognizable.

> Ranking in RE2
Using any infinite use items limited you to S, so S+ wasn't attainable.

> nightmare and inferno
On paper it sounds interesting. Basically a harder mode with less safety nets and remixed enemies. That said if this is a game, as you noted, so heavily focused on speedrunning techqniues I can see it get dull (really) fast.

> you find a new inventory slot every 45 minutes
So two in the whole game? Ha!

> remixing didn't work out
If your core combat loop is busted, no remixing is going to save it. Compare it to NGII who could learn a lesson or two from other games in terms of remixing enemies, but still shines because the core loop is excellent.

> coins for boosts
A neat idea but not for this game. They tried the same in RE5 with the vests. In the end these always win as they're a big win in the long run. If the coin saves you 1 bullet per stack, that's already a win. Even moreso if it's a % boost i.e. Magnum nuking.

> knife is trash
Saw some sort of weird super-red-knife? I assume there's only one costume in the shop, the rest being DLC?

NOTE: had hoped it would drop really badly in the Steam Sale, but alas. 35 bucks is too much imo.

EDIT: here's a Inferno Fresh run: https://youtu.be/hEhpVbA59Fs
EDIT2: did some skimming of the run. It really is 'dodge or die', damn.

>replaying trash games

It’s a curse! Haha. I just feel that in order to properly criticize a game I really need to know my stuff. I think 7 playthroughs, two of which were on the hardest difficulty, should suffice for now.

>Inferno getting dull

Once the initial shock value wears off(seeing 3x the enemy counts from hardcore is pretty crazy) it just becomes tedious. Pretty much the same strats through the whole game.

>two in the whole game

Heh, basically. I really appreciate RE4’s inventory system all of these years later. The case size is purchased with the same currency that you use for your weapons, and you have so much freedom as to what to store and discard and how to arrange things. Here the game is just throwing slots at you all the time, and almost everything takes up one slot. RE4 is the only game in the series where items all took up vastly different numbers of slots. That game is a treasure...

>remixing can’t fix a broken loop

This is true, especially in a game where the higher tier enemies are actually more poorly designed than the standard ones(I can’t even convey how much I hate the plaga zombies in this one).

>coins are a big win

They’re some of the cheapest items in the shop and there’s actually two of each type, if you hold two defense coins for example you gain an added bonus. I was actually quite shocked at much it reduced damage on inferno(aka OHKO mode), and it would obviously be a no-brainer to use them. Not a fan of the shop being this weird thing in the main menu of the game, rather than being incorporated into the world itself, like RE4 or...most games ever made.

>only one costume in the shop and the rest DLC

And bingo was his name-o.

>35 bucks too much

Yep, wait for 25 or less.

>dodge or die

You better believe it. The game gimps the weapons and turns the enemies into something that don’t even belong anywhere near this title and you’re forced into dodging everything. It’s especially crazy because some attacks are so horribly telegraphed and when Nemesis chases you there’s usually enemies blocking your path, so you have to try to look back at him while dodging in front of you, or vice versa.

I decided to do a proper combat critique of this game. As much as I sort of tore this one apart, I do think the game is good overall, it’s just heavily flawed. Think it’s important that people are fair when they criticize things(most either say everything is amazing and the best thing ever, or complete trash). Booted it up for fresh notes and it’s certainly got issues, but it’s enjoyable digging in again.

Why do you keep wasting your time on this game that you sort of dislike? Now I know how my subscribers felt when I kept trying to give Vanilla NG3 a chance haha