Oh Hype, thy touch offends so and yet I long for you, desperate and dearly. It truly is terrifying to think how dependant I am on such a destructive yearning, and yet anyone who used to know me could attest to how worked up I get over these things. Be glad, dear reader, that you and I are separated by the veil of the Internet, because excitement like this has the tendency to make me even more unbearable than usual. But then, as a fan of gaming and the Industry, why shouldn't I be unreasonably excited for the coming year? (Aside from the obvious.) Disregarding the dawn of the new console age, which I am comparatively ambivalent about, this year will see the release of Cyperpunk 2077, Watch Dogs Legion, Breath of the Wild 2 (allegedly), Final Fantasy 7, Doom Eternal (which just got another trailer), an unnamed Arkham game, (at least that's rumored) Star Citizen's Squadron 42 (At least until it gets delayed into next year again) and, the topic of today, the Resident Evil 3 Remake.
What is it exactly about this game that I find so much more tantalizing than all those other titles? I couldn't really say for sure, apart from the plain fact that last year's Resident Evil 2 was easily one of my all time favourite games and I'm still amazed with how much that title gelled with me. As far as Horror games go, it is an absolute masterclass and I feel the way it got snubbed at the VGA's was downright criminal. All my hopes and dreams are, therefore, shifted onto their next big remake and the grand promises it has of rewriting the lukewarm Resident Evil 3 into something more grandiose. I suppose I find that goal more appealing than the Final Fantasy 7 Remake because I'm still unsure about what Square Enix have to really fix about that title. FF7 is a classic, why mess with that? But Resident Evil 3 is the second-to-last true Resident Evil title before they all went weird for a decade, and that makes it worthy of some touch up to properly reflect it's emanate place in RE history.
Obviously, the only reason I'm bringing any of this up is due to a new trailer that dropped recently, so I'm about to dive into that world and bring all of you along. Dubbed 'The Nemesis trailer', this RE3 trailer revolves around the titular monster and his special relationship with our title character Jill Valentine, whilst also giving us our first official look at his new mug. (Which we've already seen in great detail thanks to the leaks, so I won't go over my thoughts on his redesign again.)
As a BOW specifically designed to kill of the members of S.T.A.R.S, Nemesis will follow the player throughout the game and face off with them through multiple encounters, and we see a few of these encounters throughout this trailer. First we go back to the burning corridor from the first trailer (Which I now presume to be Jill's apartment complex) whereupon we see that this beast appears to be so resilient that it is unaffected by fire. (A trait that most Tyrant-class BOW's share, now I think about it.) Nemesis picks up and knocks Jill around with such abandon throughout this trailer it's a wonder how any bones in her body are left unbroken.
One of the most interesting returning features from the original would be the slimy tentacles that the Nemesis could resort to should the player not be close enough for his meaty fists. With the redesign of Nemesis I was wondering how and if this would come into play, and it would seem that the team have decided to make these tentacles a traversal technique. In the trailer we see a brief shot of the monster flying up a floor to reach the player with only his tentacles. This makes him more agile than he was in the original was well as more threatening than the RE2 Remake's 'Mr. X', although I do wonder how effective that scare will be up against the relentless dread of stomping boots.
Another key scene from this trailer would have to have been the shot of Nemesis wielding a flamethrower and going ham. This is nothing new with the Nemesis by any means, in the original he wielded a rocket launcher, but it's still cool to see the ways that they've bought that aspect of him back to life. Umbrella specifically designed this BOW to be able to hunt and kill a group of survival experts, so his ability to wield heavy weaponry sort of makes sense. (In a weird don't-think-about-this-too-hard kind of way.) This characteristic even showed up in the second Resident Evil film wherein that Nemesis wielded a minigun against his foes. (Personally, I'm hoping that minigun makes it into the game. We already know the model exists as it pops up at the end of Claire's playthrough in RE2. Fingers crossed!)
Aside for the title boy, we also got a brief glance at the way that Carlos will be interacting with Jill and attempting to ingratiate himself with the viewers before his inevitable death at the end of the game. Interestingly, I noticed that he introduced himself plainly to Jill as an agent from Umbrella, and I wonder how that will play out seeing as how Jill is very well aware of their involvement in the BOW program by that point. We also had a chance to see some of the action of this title, highlighting how this'll be faster paced than the previous game; and we saw a Hunter up close, which was pretty cool. Interestingly, the Hunter seemed to be docile in the presence of an immobile Carlos, which implies that the creators have borrowed the sound=death mechanic from RE2's Lickers. (But that's just speculation.)
This title will launch on April 3, and I just feel the need to stress once again how astounding it is that Capcom have put this title together in the space of a single year. 20 years ago when they pulled it off with the original RE2 and 3, it was a commendable feat, whilst today it is nothing short of wizardry. In a world where it is taking longer and longer to make high quality games, for obvious reasons, it's insane to think that Capcom could manage this remake so deftly, but multiple teams and appropriate time management does seem to have it's benefits. The only doubt in my mind from this point is whether or not this title will be able to survive in the same launch month as Cyberpunk 2077, but I'm hopeful. (Even if the statistical evidence isn't.)
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