September 28th. Daylight. The monsters have overtaken the city. Somehow, some way... I'm still alive.
If you played the original Resident Evil 3 Nemesis PSOne release back in 1999, those words are probably burned into your brain alongside the sound of a door crashing open and a low, gutteral moan of "STARS..." It’s a weird game, honestly. It wasn't even supposed to be the third numbered entry in the franchise. Capcom originally had a different project slated for the "Resident Evil 3" title—a high-budget, ambitious title set on a luxury cruise ship—while this Raccoon City escape story was being developed as a spin-off. But Sony wanted a numbered sequel on their console before the era ended, so the spin-off got a promotion. And thank God it did.
Because while Resident Evil 2 is often cited as the "best" of the classic era, Resident Evil 3 Nemesis PSOne is objectively the more mechanically sophisticated game. It’s faster. It’s meaner. It introduced things we take for granted now, like the 180-degree turn and the ability to dodge. It also introduced a persistent stalker that made the previous game’s Mr. X look like a mall cop.
The Stalker That Actually Scared Us
Nemesis changed everything.
In the second game, Mr. X was a slow, predictable hunk of meat that followed you through specific corridors. You could hear his heavy boots. You could loop him. But Nemesis? Nemesis could run. He could jump. He had a rocket launcher. Most importantly, he could follow you through doors. That was the big "oh no" moment for every kid playing this in the late nineties. We had been conditioned to believe that loading screens were safety zones. The door animation was a sanctuary. Then Nemesis broke that rule, and suddenly, nowhere in Raccoon City felt safe.
The AI for Nemesis wasn't just a simple "A to B" pathfinding script. Director Kazuhiro Aoyama and his team gave him specific spawn triggers that felt random even when they weren't. You’d be walking through a quiet hallway in the Raccoon City Police Department—a place you thought you knew from the previous game—and he’d smash through a window. It wasn't scripted for every playthrough in the same way, or at least it didn't feel like it. The game gave you choices. Do you fight? Do you run? Do you hide in the kitchen? These "Live Selection" moments were the first time the series really experimented with branching paths that actually mattered for your survival and the items you’d receive.
If you chose to stand your ground and "kill" him (temporarily), he dropped special weapon parts. This created a high-risk, high-reward loop that hasn't really been replicated as well since. You wanted that Eagle 6.0 handgun or the Western Custom shotgun? You had to sweat for it. You had to waste your precious magnum rounds on a hulking beast that was just going to wake up five minutes later anyway.
Raccoon City as a Character
One thing most people overlook about the original Resident Evil 3 Nemesis PSOne is the sheer scale of the environment compared to the first two games. You aren't just stuck in a mansion or a police station. You are out in the streets. You're in the back alleys, the pharmacies, the sales offices, the parks, and eventually, the terrifyingly sterile Dead Factory.
It felt like a real city in collapse.
Capcom used pre-rendered backgrounds to create a level of detail that the PSOne’s hardware shouldn't have been able to handle. There's trash everywhere. There are posters for movies and products that make the world feel lived-in. When you see the barricades that failed or the piles of bodies in the street, it tells a story without a single line of dialogue. It’s environmental storytelling at its peak.
Jill Valentine also feels different here. She’s not the "master of unlocking" from the first game who needed Barry to save her every five minutes. She’s a survivor. She’s wearing a tube top and a sweater tied around her waist—not exactly tactical gear—but she handles a grenade launcher like a pro. Her struggle against the infection and the looming threat of the Nikolai’s betrayal adds a layer of tension that the other games lacked. It was personal.
The Mechanics of Panic
Let's talk about the gunpowder system. This was a stroke of genius. Instead of just finding boxes of ammo, you found Gunpowder A and Gunpowder B. You could mix them to create different types of rounds. If you mixed them enough times, your "reloading tool" skill would level up, allowing you to create "Enhanced" ammo that did more damage.
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It added a layer of resource management that felt rewarding. Do you turn all your powder into shotgun shells now? Or do you save it up hoping to make enough freeze rounds for the next Nemesis encounter?
Then there’s the dodge.
A lot of people hated the dodge mechanic because the timing was tight. You had to press the aim or fire button exactly as an enemy attacked. If you messed up, you were zombie food. But if you mastered it, Jill would perform a roll or a shove that made you feel untouchable. It shifted the gameplay from "tank-control survival" to something bordering on an action game, which eventually paved the way for the radical shift we saw in Resident Evil 4.
Why the Remake Missed the Mark
It’s impossible to talk about the PSOne original without acknowledging the 2020 remake. While the remake looks beautiful and the combat is tight, it cut a massive chunk of what made the original special. The Clock Tower? Basically gone as a playable area. The Park? Gone. The Grave Digger boss fight? Deleted.
The original Resident Evil 3 Nemesis PSOne was a dense game. It had the "Mercenaries" mode (Operation Mad Jackal), which was arguably the best version of that mini-game. You had to run from the trolley to the starting warehouse under a time limit, rescuing civilians along the way to earn more time. It was stressful, fast-paced, and incredibly addictive. You could play as Carlos, Mikhail, or Nikolai, each with their own loadouts.
The remake turned Nemesis into a series of scripted chase sequences and boss fights. In the 1999 original, he was a constant, looming threat that could appear while you were just trying to solve a puzzle. He felt like a hunter. In the remake, he felt like a movie set piece. That’s why the original still holds so much value today—it’s a more "pure" survival horror experience despite the increased action.
The Nuance of the Multiple Endings
Believe it or not, your choices in the original game actually changed the ending. Most people know about the "Canon" ending where Barry Burton shows up in a helicopter to save Jill and Carlos. It’s a great "fist-pump" moment for fans of the first game.
But depending on how you handled certain encounters—specifically the bridge fight with Nemesis where you can choose to jump off or push him—you could end up with different scenes. You could see Nikolai escape, or you could see him meet a very messy end at the hands of Nemesis or Jill herself. This gave the game a replayability factor that was huge for the time. You wanted to see every variation. You wanted to unlock all the different costumes, like the Regina outfit from Dino Crisis or Jill’s classic STARS uniform.
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A Masterclass in Sound Design
Listen to the game with headphones on. The ambient noise in Raccoon City is haunting. You hear wind whistling through alleys. You hear distant screams and gunfire that remind you that you aren't the only one dying in this city. The music, composed by Masami Ueda and Saori Maeda, is iconic. The "Save Room" theme is a perfect mix of relief and lingering dread. It’s not as "cozy" as the RE1 or RE2 save themes; it has an edge to it, reminding you that the clock is ticking.
And then there's the heartbeat. The way the controller rumbled in sync with Jill’s health state. The way the screen would flash red. These were subtle cues that kept your adrenaline spiked for the entire three-to-five-hour runtime.
Technical Legacy and How to Play It Now
The game pushed the PlayStation to its absolute limits. If you look at the character models, they have significantly more polygons than those in Resident Evil 2. The animations are smoother. Even the way the blood splatters on the ground was improved.
However, playing it today can be a bit of a challenge. You have a few options:
- Original Hardware: If you have a PS1 or a PS2/PS3, you can hunt down a physical disc. Warning: they aren't cheap anymore. Collectors have driven the price up significantly over the last few years.
- The PC Port (Sourcenext): This is widely considered the best way to play. There is a fan-made project called the "Seamless HD Project" that uses AI upscaling to make the pre-rendered backgrounds look stunning on modern monitors. It also fixes compatibility issues with Windows 10 and 11.
- Emulation: DuckStation or RetroArch can run the game flawlessly. You can even use internal resolution scaling to make the 3D models look sharp, though the backgrounds will remain pixelated unless you use a texture pack.
- GOG Release: Recently, GOG released a DRM-free version of the original trilogy. This is the easiest, most legal way to get the game running on a modern PC with minimal fuss. It includes the original FMVs and all the Mercenaries content.
Moving Forward With Jill Valentine
If you’ve only ever played the remakes, you owe it to yourself to go back to the 1999 original. It’s a different beast entirely. It’s a game about pressure. It’s a game that respects your intelligence by letting you fail, letting you run out of ammo, and letting a seven-foot-tall mutant beat you into the pavement because you mistimed a dodge.
The original Resident Evil 3 Nemesis PSOne is a testament to what developers can do when they are forced to work fast and use existing assets. It shouldn't have been as good as it was. It was a "stop-gap" game that ended up defining the horror genre for a generation.
To get the most out of your next playthrough, try these specific steps:
- Focus on Gunpowder C: Don't just make handgun bullets. Mix A and B together to make C (Grenade Rounds), and then mix those with more powder to get the specialized rounds. Freeze rounds are the "easy button" for Nemesis fights.
- Kill Nemesis on the first encounter: It’s hard, but the rewards are worth it. Use the environment—like the explosive barrels—to weaken him before dumping your ammo.
- Play the Mercenaries mode immediately: Don't skip it. It's the best way to learn the layout of the city and master the dodge mechanic without the pressure of a limited save system.
- Check the map for the "hidden" items: There are several spots, like the pharmacy and the newspaper office, that have randomized item placements. Every run is slightly different.
Stop waiting for a "perfect" version of this story and go back to the source. The tank controls might take ten minutes to get used to, but once they click, you'll realize why we were all so terrified back in '99. Raccoon City is waiting, and Nemesis hasn't finished his hunt.