4/5 ★ – MechaniChris's review of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.

I made the mistake of playing the remake before this one and I gotta say, you guys were right. This one really is the superior entry. Everything from the puzzles, the Nemesis encounters, even the level design works better in the original than the remake. I’m not sure why, admittedly I am still often frustrated by the classic controls and largely prefer the feeling of the over the shoulder view. I even somewhat understand why the experience was streamlined a bit in the remake. There’s a lot of running around aimlessly looking for items that they cut out, and I get it! That can be tedious! But that’s all part of the charm of these games. Backtracking ten areas to find a fire hose you remember seeing is essential to the experience. I had a hard time ranking this with Code Veronica, which I also like, but I think the mercifully shorter campaign combined with the slightly less silly story is what barely edges it out. All of these classic RE games are pretty much the same in terms of gameplay though. There’s really not much more to say about it. I don’t know, maybe now that I know what they’re riffing on, I should revisit the remake again, but I have a feeling I’ll come out even harsher against it. Nemesis just fully sucks in that game, and here he kinda rules? Each fight was exhilarating and fun, and in the remake he’s just annoying. Oh well guess I should at least check out the original RE2 now, though I doubt that will beat the remake for me. The RE2 remake is incredible.