Hoo boy... I just finished my first playthrough of this game and I wanted to immediately give my review.

First off, let's get the obvious out the way: this game is harder than eskimo nipples. Despite its difficulty, one very important aspect of the game that sets it apart from other metroidvania games is that when you die (and you will), it's not game over and losing all of your progress since your last save. Instead, you are brought back to your last save point with a minor debuff to your mana until you recover the spirit(?) of you dead body at the location of your death. There are a good amount of save points throughout the game so the trek back to your last death point should never be too far.

Speaking of traversing the map, this is one of the more tedious gameplay moments. Warp rooms are in very short supply, and since this is a metroidvania style game, you will be backtracking a lot. This can lead to some rather lengthy progression, especially if you aren't exactly sure where to go next. There is a method of unlocking the ability to fast travel between save points later on in the game but this upgrade is not made known to the player (it's unlocked via a very obscure method).

My absolute favorite thing about this game is the visuals. The pixel art cutscenes are brilliant and the grotesque religious imagery used throughout the entire game was so good that it actually gave me unsettling chills at some points (most notably some of the bosses). The music also perfectly compliments the theme of the game.

The boss fights are very well done with a solid variate of styles among them. They're all very challenging with the exception of the final boss, who was a pushover.

The story? Yeah, I have no idea. Good luck trying to follow this one. I was lost from the start.

Overall, it's 9/10 for me. The only thing stopping it from being 10/10 is how much of a nightmare this game is for a completionist like myself. Don't wait until it's on sale. This game is worth every penny of $24.99.

*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS*
*THIS REVIEW IS TOO DAMN LONG*
*TL;DR - 3/10*

Let me start by saying Resident Evil is one of my all-time favorite gaming series. My first experience was RE2 for the PS1 back in the late 90's. With the exception of RE6 and a few of the spin-off titles, Capcom has always knocked these games out of the park for me. When the RE2 Remake was released last year, I played about 30 minutes of it and was very disappointed from what I played in those 30 minutes. Mainly, the very beginning of the game, which in the original game started off by running through the city streets for several minutes and setting the horror tone before reaching the RPD station. So when I played the remake and found out that whole segment was cut and you arrive at the RPD station instantly after the start of the game, I was severely turned off by this and assumed Capcom had botched the entire remake. I didn't give it a fair chance. I refunded the game, got my $60 back, and waited until it went on sale for $20 before I repurchased it and gave it another chance. Then, after playing through the entire game and seeing that the areas I thought had been cut were just rearranged into later parts of the game, I realized I was too quick with my criticism. Capcom nailed everything that a remake of RE2 should have been. It was a brand new game that stayed true to the original, both in terms of the story and the overall experience. RE2 Remake is now one of my favorite games.

Why am I talking so much about RE2 Remake in a review for RE3 Remake? Because that humbling experience made me promise myself that I would give RE3R a full playthrough before I cast my judgement. And that's exactly what I did. So I can now confidently say... this game is BOOTY CHEEKS. Not the good kind, either. Where do I even begin?

Well, let's start with the price. $59.99. My first playthrough was four hours, and I spent time exploring every nook and cranny because that's the type of gamer I am. The game can easily be beaten in under two or three hours by the average player. That's not a huge deal because I beat RE2R in under two hours. The difference? RE2R has four different scenarios to play through. RE3R has only one. Which is true to the original game but at least the original had slightly branching story paths depending on certain choices that are made (more on this later). Well, since the campaign sucked, at least you can kill time playing the mercenaries mode. They brought back the 4th survivor mode for RE2R so they have to bring back mercenaries mode for this game, right? Capcom says: "Nah, but thanks for the money, chump." What about other additional content, like extra costumes? RE2R had lots of cool costumes (I would have paid money for the Classic '98 costumes if they weren't already free). RE3R gives you one additional costume for Jill/Carlos once you beat the game, and one additional "costume" if you pre-ordered the game. I use the term costume loosely for that second instance because the only thing it changes for Carlos is his hair. His... Hair... Talk about rewarding your true supporters!

Moving on to the gameplay. I cannot emphasize enough how watered-down this game feels compared to RE2R. For the most part, the entire game is on rails. There's no big areas for you to gradually explore as you unlock new areas through puzzle-solving and back-tracking. It's basically just "find this item that allows you to advance to the next area of the game, repeat." Oh, you like puzzles? How about two puzzles in the entire game, because that's all you get. Also the logic and creativity of both said puzzles are pitiful. I brute-forced both of them because the solution wasn't discernible. Well, who needs puzzles anyway when you have the tense horror of Nemesis chasing you all throughout the entire game just as he did in the original game? Oh... he only does that for literally the beginning of the game (about the first 30 minutes) and then every single encounter after that is a scripted boss fight. There goes 90% of what made RE3 such a terrifying game right out the window. As for other enemies in the game, remember the Drain Deimos/Brain Suckers from the original game? They make a return. For one single area of the game. You kill about 7-10 (much smaller versions) of these and then never see them again. They even introduced a new game mechanic that gives you a parasite if you get grabbed by them, which can only be cured by eating an herb. What an interesting concept to never be revisited a single time in the game. How about something that wasn't even visited once in this remake from the original game? Live selections. There were several parts in the original game where time would briefly slow down and you would have to make a choice between two actions on how to proceed with certain situations, which resulted in slight changes to how you progressed through the game. One of the most iconic and unique features of RE3. Nowhere to be found this time around. Shameful.

It's not over yet, though. Capcom still has a chance to save this game with a fantastic story. But they chose not to, I guess. Because the story doesn't even come close to anything from the original game, and the re-imagined story doesn't deliver enough to justify the change. Remember when I said I was upset about the beginning of RE2 being "cut" from the remake, only to find out that it was there all along later in the game? RE3R cut the ENTIRE clock tower level. Not just rearranged when it was visited in the game, but straight up removed it. One of the biggest parts of the game. Gone. Why? Capcom obviously didn't redirect their efforts into focusing more on the (extremely lackluster) design of the hospital and underground facility areas. Looking back on it, maybe it's for the best that they didn't even try.

My final gripe is that Nemesis looks absolutely ridiculous. When I first saw the leaked images of him, I thought there was no way they would stick with that. He looks so goofy with his over-sized teeth and trashbag jumpsuit. And yet, this is the final design they decided on. If they weren't gonna fix him, at least he couldn't possibly look any worse than that. Ah, wait, did I mention he turns into this weird dog thing halfway through the game? When did that happen in the original game? I must have missed it on account of it never ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ happened. Mr. X was ten times more scary/more of a threat than this wimp.

It's blatantly obvious Capcom rushed to get this game out ASAP as a quick cash grab, riding on the successful coattails of RE2R. There's just such a huge, inexcusable void of content and it doesn't help that the game has very low replayability value. It should be a crime for them to sell this as a full-priced game when it's barely anything more than a glorified DLC for RE2R. Please learn from my mistake and do not purchase at full price. It's a $10-$20 experience at best.