Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the 1999 video game. For the 2020 remake, see Resident Evil 3
(2020 video game). For other uses, see Resident Evil 3 (disambiguation).
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

North American PlayStation cover art

Developer(s) Capcom
Publisher(s)
Capcom
Director(s) Kazuhiro Aoyama
Producer(s) Shinji Mikami
Writer(s) Yasuhisa Kawamura
Composer(s)
Masami Ueda
Saori Maeda
Series Resident Evil
Platform(s)
PlayStation
Windows
Dreamcast
GameCube
Release
September 22, 1999
Genre(s) Survival horror
Mode(s) Single-player
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis[a] is a 1999 survival horror video game developed and
published by Capcom originally for the PlayStation. It is the third game in the
Resident Evil series and takes place almost concurrently with the events of
Resident Evil 2. The player must control former elite agent Jill Valentine as she
escapes from Raccoon City, which has been infected by a virus. The game uses the
same engine as its predecessors and features 3D models over pre-rendered
backgrounds with fixed camera angles. Choices through the game affect how the story
unfolds and which ending is achieved.

Resident Evil 3 was developed concurrently with Resident Evil � Code: Veronica and
was conceived as a spin-off featuring a different protagonist. It was designed to
have a more action-oriented gameplay than its predecessors and features a larger
number of enemies for the player to defeat. It also introduces Nemesis, a creature
that periodically pursues the player throughout the game and that was inspired by
the T-1000 Terminator from the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Resident Evil 3 received positive reviews and sold more than three million copies
worldwide. Critics praised the detailed graphics and Nemesis as an intimidating
villain, but some criticized its short length and story. Shortly after its release
on the PlayStation, Resident Evil 3 was ported to Windows, Dreamcast, and GameCube
with varying degrees of critical success. In particular, the GameCube version was
criticized for its relatively high retail price and outdated graphics. A remake,
entitled Resident Evil 3, was released in 2020.
Gameplay

The player, playing as Jill Valentine, is evading a zombie. Like its predecessors,
the graphical style of the game features 3D models over pre-rendered backgrounds
with fixed camera angles.
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is a survival horror game where the player controls the
protagonist, Jill Valentine, from a third-person perspective to interact with the
environment and enemies. The player takes control of another character for a brief
portion of the game.[4] To advance, the player explores a city while avoiding,
outsmarting and defeating enemies. The player can interact with the environment in
several ways, such as opening doors, pushing objects or climbing obstacles.
Scattered throughout the city are weapons, ammunition and other items, which can be
collected and put in the player's inventory. Items can be examined, used, or
combined with others.[4] The inventory is limited to a certain number of slots, and
the player must often move items from the inventory to a storage box located in
special rooms to manage space.[4]

The player can use a variety of firearms to defeat enemies, ranging from pistols to
a rocket launcher. Aside from enemies, parts of the environment, such as explosive
barrels, can be shot at, causing them to explode and damage nearby enemies. The
game also introduces the ability for players to dodge attacks or perform a quick
180-degree turn to evade enemies.[5] The player has a certain amount of health
which decreases when attacked by enemies. Health is regained with first aid sprays,
as well as herbs, which can be used separately or mixed together to increase their
healing effect. The game also features an ammunition creation system that allows
players to create new ammunition from different varieties of gunpowder.[4] In
addition to engaging in combat, the player must often solve puzzles that focus on
logical and conceptual challenges.[5]

During certain situations, the player will be put in a perilous situation, where
they will be prompted to choose between two possible actions or suffer a certain
penalty, if not instant death. These choices affect how the story unfolds and which
ending is achieved.[4] Additionally, a creature called Nemesis is encountered
multiple times throughout the game as a recurring boss. Nemesis is considerably
more powerful than the player and has the ability to use a rocket launcher as a
weapon, dodge incoming fire, and pursue the player from one area to the next.
During one of these encounters, the player can choose to either fight Nemesis or
run until he is evaded.[5] A variety of encounters are possible, with some being
mandatory, and some varying in nature and location based on certain choices made by
the player. Even if evaded or defeated during one of these encounters, Nemesis will
inevitably continue to pursue the player until the end of the game.[4]

Once the player completes the game, a mode called The Mercenaries - Operation: Mad
Jackal is unlocked.[4] In this mode, the player must control mercenaries that Jill
encounters during the main game and run from one side of the city to the other
within a limited amount of time and resources. However, the starting time limit
given is insufficient to actually perform this task directly, and the player must
continuously receive time extensions by performing certain actions such as
defeating enemies, rescuing civilians and exploring hidden areas. Depending on the
rank received and difficulty chosen, completing the main game may unlock alternate
costumes for Jill and epilogue files that detail the activities of different
characters following the events of the game.[4] The Mercenaries mode and alternate
costumes for Jill do not need to be unlocked in the Windows and Dreamcast versions
of the game.[6][7]

Plot
On September 28, 1998, 24 hours prior to the events of Resident Evil 2, former
Special Tactics And Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) member Jill Valentine attempts to
escape from Raccoon City. Most of the population has been transformed into zombies
by an outbreak of the T-virus, a new type of biological weapon secretly developed
by the pharmaceutical company Umbrella. On her way to the Raccoon City Police
Department, Jill runs into fellow team member Brad Vickers, who is later killed by
a new enemy. This creature, Nemesis-T Type, is a bio-organic weapon programmed to
target the remaining surviving S.T.A.R.S. members, who had knowledge of Umbrella's
experiments. As she evades Nemesis, Jill encounters three surviving members of the
Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service (U.B.C.S.): Carlos Oliveira, Mikhail
Victor, and Nikolai Zinoviev. Nikolai explains to Jill and Carlos that a rescue
helicopter can be contacted if they manage to reach the city's Clock Tower to ring
the bell.

As they make their way to the clock tower, Nikolai was presumed dead, but Nemesis
corners the remaining members of the group onto the cable car as they headed to the
tower. as Mikhail would sacrifice himself with a grenade, causing the car to crash
into the tower's central courtyard and separating Jill and Carlos briefly. At the
Clock Tower, Jill summons the helicopter by ringing the Clock Tower's bell before
being confronted by Nemesis, which destroys the helicopter and infects Jill with
the T-virus. Jill manages to temporarily defeat Nemesis but she would fall
unconscious due to the T-virus infection given by Nemesis. as Carlos finds Jill and
takes her to safety within the Clock Tower. Three days later, he finds a vaccine
for Jill's T-virus infection in a nearby hospital. He then returns and administers
it to Jill, saving her.

After she regains consciousness, Jill proceeds towards the Raccoon Park and enters
the park caretaker's cabin. There, she runs into Nikolai, who reveals that he is a
"supervisor" sent into Raccoon City to gather combat data on Umbrella's bioweapons.
Nikolai retreats, and Jill later is confronted by Gravedigger which is a massive
worm-like creature. as Jill defeats the monster and escapes to an abandoned factory
at the rear of the park. Inside the factory, Jill meets up with Carlos, who tells
her that the U.S. government is planning to launch a nuclear missile into Raccoon
City to eradicate the T-virus infestation. After confronting Nemesis and grabbing a
keycard needed to escape, Jill learns from the factory's control tower that the
missile attack on Raccoon City has begun, with only a short time left before the
city is destroyed.

Depending on the path taken by the player, Jill's final encounter with Nikolai will
differ. In one version of the events, Nikolai will attempt to start a gunfight with
Jill, only to be taken by surprise by Nemesis and killed. In another event, Nikolai
will hijack Jill's intended escape chopper, and the player must either reason with
Nikolai or destroy the helicopter. If Jill negotiates with Nikolai, he reveals that
he has killed the other supervisors and boasts about collecting the bounty placed
on Jill by Umbrella before escaping. Regardless of Nikolai's fate, Jill makes her
way to the rear yard and confronts Nemesis one last time. After an intense battle,
Jill defeats Nemesis with the help of a large prototype railgun before meeting up
with Carlos and escaping the city via a helicopter. If the previous escape chopper
was stolen by Nikolai, Jill, and Carlos will instead meet up with S.T.A.R.S. Alpha
Team's weapons specialist Barry Burton, who helps them escape in his helicopter.
The nuclear missile vaporizes Raccoon City, and Jill swears revenge on Umbrella. A
newscast then briefly details the destruction and offers condolences for the lost
lives.

Development

Resident Evil 3 was the last numbered Resident Evil game developed for the
PlayStation.
Resident Evil 3 was developed by Capcom and produced by Shinji Mikami, who had
directed the original Resident Evil and produced Resident Evil 2.[8] After Resident
Evil 2 was released, Capcom was working on multiple Resident Evil projects, with
Hideki Kamiya directing what was planned to be the next main installment.[9] This
game would take place on a cruise ship and would involve HUNK attempting to bring
back a sample of the G-Virus.[9] However, Capcom cancelled the project after Sony
announced the PlayStation 2, claiming that its development would not be completed
before the PlayStation 2's launch.[9] Because Capcom did not want fans to wait
years for a new Resident Evil on PlayStation, it promoted one of its side projects
as the third main game while Kamiya's team moved onto Resident Evil 4.[9]

The selected project was a spin-off developed by an inexperienced team led by

director Kazuhiro Aoyama.[9] It was intended to introduce a new character who would
escape from an infected Raccoon City. However, after the promotion, Capcom made
Resident Evil protagonist Jill Valentine the main character and decided that
Raccoon City would be destroyed.[9] Unlike the majority of the early scripts in the
series, the story was not created by Capcom's Flagship studio but by internal
Capcom writer Yasuhisa Kawamura, who had little experience with Resident Evil.[10]
[11] Kawamura played the original game to familiarize himself with its fictional
universe.[11] The story was proofread and sanctioned by Flagship to avoid
continuity errors with other games, an issue that was also given attention in
monthly meetings between all directors and producers.[10]

Resident Evil 3 uses the same game engine as its predecessors.[12] The environments
consist of 2D pre-rendered backgrounds while moving objects, such as enemies and
some interactive elements, consist of 3D polygon graphics.[13] The developers chose
this technique because having full 3D graphics would not allow them to create
graphically rich and detailed environments.[10] According to project supervisor
Yoshiki Okamoto, "the number of polygons allocated for the enemies would not be
sufficient. We did not want to have blocky, pixelated zombies."[10] Interaction
with the environment was improved so that the player could shoot objects such as
explosive barrels to damage enemies.[13] The developers also added more zombie
varieties, which can take the form of policemen, doctors, and ordinary citizens,
among others.[10]

Unlike previous Resident Evil games, which mostly took place inside buildings,
Resident Evil 3 takes place largely in the streets of Raccoon City. This allowed
the developers to create more varied environments.[14] Capcom introduced more
action mechanics, which resulted in the addition of the 180-degree turn and a dodge
feature to avoid attacks.[12] Additionally, the developers designed the game so
that up to nine enemies can appear at the same time, and improved their artificial
intelligence to hunt the player up and down stairs.[12][15] The Nemesis creature
was inspired by the liquid-metal T-1000 from the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment
Day.[12] According to Mikami, "I wanted to introduce a new kind of fear into the
game, a persistent feeling of paranoia. The Nemesis brings that on in spades. When
it disappears after the first confrontation, you live in constant dread of the next
attack. The idea is to make you feel like you're being stalked."[16]

The game was developed concurrently with the Dreamcast version of Resident Evil �
Code: Veronica. It was originally referred to as Biohazard 1.9 or Biohazard 1.5
because it takes place between the first two Resident Evil games.[10][11][17]
Although Code: Veronica is set after Resident Evil 2, Capcom wanted Nemesis to be
the third numbered game to keep the PlayStation games consistent.[10] Development
began with a team of 20 people, but the size gradually increased to between 40 and
50 staff members.[18][19] Unlike Resident Evil 2, which features two discs with two
different protagonists, Resident Evil 3 is a single-CD game that centers on Jill
Valentine.[10] Capcom chose her as the only protagonist because she was "the only
suitable character remaining", noting that Claire Redfield and Chris Redfield had
already been chosen for Code: Veronica.[12]

Marketing and release

Resident Evil 3 was featured at the Tokyo Game Show in March 1999.[20] A playable
version was available at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 1999. At the time,
the dodging feature had not been completed and was absent from the demo.[21] To
promote the game, Capcom included a brief demo of Resident Evil 3 in the US
shipments of their earlier game, Dino Crisis, which had a successful launch in
Japan.[22] Prior to the release of the game, Capcom spent US$20 million on
advertisement campaigns for Resident Evil 3 and Dino Crisis, as well as the
Nintendo 64 version of Resident Evil 2.[23][24] The marketing campaign included
dedicated television advertising, print advertising, and incentives to the
consumer.[23] A double soundtrack album, composed by Masami Ueda, Saori Maeda and
Shusaku Uchiyama, was released on September 22, 1999.[25] A novelization, Nemesis,
written by S. D. Perry, was published in 2000.[26]

Resident Evil 3 was released for the PlayStation video game console on September
22, 1999 in Japan and November 11, 1999 in North America. The first 500,000 units
of the game included additional demo discs of Dino Crisis.[27] The game was a
commercial hit, selling more than 1 million units worldwide by early October.[28]
According to NPD, Resident Evil 3 was the top-selling game for the PlayStation in
the US during the first two weeks of November 1999.[29] In Europe, the game was
released on February 21, 2000 and became a bestseller in the UK,[30] where it
received a "Gold" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software
Publishers Association,[31] indicating sales of at least 200,000 copies.[32] As of
May 2008, a total of 3.5 million copies of the PlayStation version had been sold.
[33]

Reception
PlayStation reviews
Aggregate score
Aggregator Score
Metacritic 91/100[34]
Review scores
Publication Score
AllGame [35]
Computer and Video Games 9/10[36]
Edge 8/10[37]
GamePro [38]
GameRevolution A-[39]
GameSpot 8.8/10[40]
IGN 9.4/10[5]
Next Generation [41]
PlayStation Official Magazine � UK 10/10[43]
Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine [42]
Upon its release on the PlayStation console, Resident Evil 3 received "universal
acclaim", according to Metacritic.[34] GameSpot editor James Mielke considered it
the most sophisticated and accomplished Resident Evil game in terms of graphics and
gameplay.[40] Official UK PlayStation Magazine called Resident Evil 3 "a modern-day
classic", concluding that the game "creates a believable environment, populates it
with a host of evil adversaries and uses Raccoon City's urban sprawl to enhance the
fiendish puzzles."[43] Computer and Video Games (CVG) remarked that the game
preserves the best features of its predecessors and adds "some exciting new
elements".[36] Similarly, Edge described it as "engrossing", despite its similarity
to its predecessors, and found the Mercenaries mode a valuable addition.[37]

The pre-rendered backgrounds were credited for their rich details and dark art
style. According to IGN editor Doug Perry, "Crashed cars, rubbish and rubble,
totally destroyed city streets, and scattered broken glass and debris, all are
housed in a suburban area that truly looks devastated in the worst possible
way."[5] GameSpot felt that the 3D modeling of Jill Valentine was greatly improved
compared to the "blocky" models in the original game.[40] The music and sound
effects received similar praise, with GamePro remarking that the game "keeps the
action hot by hiding what you shouldn't see, but telling you about it through the
audio".[38] The introduction of the Nemesis creature was praised. Official UK
PlayStation Magazine described the first encounter as shocking, while CVG said that
the creature increases the tension level "to an insane degree" because the player
never knows when he will appear.[36][43]

GameSpot praised the prompted choices during certain points in the game as they
encourage replay value, but felt the game was too short compared to Resident Evil
2, with only one disc and one protagonist.[40] Perry praised the live-action-choice
feature, stating that it "speeds up the pace, increases the tension, and forces a
decision that varies the following scene".[5] He found the 180-degree turn and
dodge moves as welcome and necessary additions.[5] In contrast, Official U.S.
PlayStation Magazine criticized the dodge feature as impractical and for relying
too much on timing, resulting in doing more harm to the player.[42] GameRevolution
and Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine criticized the simple premise and voice
acting,[39][42] while Next Generation said that the game might be a bit tiresome
for players familiar with its predecessors.[41] Resident Evil 3 was nominated for
GameSpot's 1999 Adventure Game of the Year.[44]

Legacy
Ports and re-releases
Resident Evil 3 was ported to the Microsoft Windows and Dreamcast platforms in
2000, featuring enhanced 3D character models and higher resolution graphics.[45]
[46] The Dreamcast version includes more alternate costumes than in the PlayStation
version.[47] Critical reception for these ports was not as positive.[48][49] The
Microsoft Windows version was criticized for not being optimized for keyboard and
mouse and for not letting players save their progress at any time.[6][45] Critics
noted that some of the pre-rendered backgrounds in the Dreamcast version of the
game were not improved, resulting in them looking not as good as the PlayStation
version's due to the Dreamcast's higher graphic fidelity.[46][50] CVG generally
praised the Dreamcast version, but admitted that the difference in graphical
quality between Resident Evil 3 and Code: Veronica was very large.[51]

A GameCube version of the game was released in 2003 as part of an exclusivity

agreement between Capcom and Nintendo.[52] The GameCube version received mixed
reviews from critics and was mainly criticized for its relatively high retail price
and outdated graphics.[53][54][55] AllGame noted that the fact that the game was
not priced as a budget title could mislead buyers into thinking that it was an
enhanced update similar to the 2002 Resident Evil on the GameCube.[56] GamePro
remarked that, while the game's graphics on the GameCube were not like those of the
2002 Resident Evil or Resident Evil Zero, they were better-looking than previous
versions of the game.[57] As of November 2003, 41,395 copies of the GameCube
version had been sold in the U.S.[58] Resident Evil 3 was digitally released on the
PlayStation Network in Japan in 2008 and North America in 2009, allowing
PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable users to play the PlayStation version of the
game via emulation.[59]

Remake
Main article: Resident Evil 3 (2020 video game)
A remake, entitled Resident Evil 3, was released in 2020.[60] The game is played
from an over-the-shoulder, third-person perspective and runs on Capcom's
proprietary RE Engine.[61][62] Although it features the same premise as the
original game, many parts were rearranged in favor of a more focused story. Some
features such as the original game's multiple endings, several locations and The
Mercenaries - Operation: Mad Jackal mode were removed.[62][63] The game received
generally positive reviews from critics.[60]