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"September 28th. Daylight. The monsters have overtaken the city. Somehow, I'm still alive..."
Jill Valentine

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (also known as Biohazard 3: Last Escape) is the third game in the Resident Evil series, and the first interquel set in the Resident Evil universe, the others being the two Chronicles games and the Revelations sub-series.

Capcom originally intended to make a Gaiden Game using the Resident Evil 2 engine within a short development cycle. That project was revamped into a numbered sequel when the following sequel, which eventually became Devil May Cry, grew beyond the capabilities of the hardware of the time. Capcom then decided to cap off the PS1 series as a trilogy. Like its predecessor, Nemesis was eventually ported to the PC, Dreamcast, and Nintendo GameCube.

The game opens one day before the events of Resident Evil 2, as the now-defunct Raccoon City turns into a true city of the dead. Barry Burton, Chris Redfield, and Rebecca Chambers have all resigned from the Raccoon City Police Department and fled town, leaving Jill Valentine as the last remaining member of S.T.A.R.S.; Jill opted to stay behind and help the survivors. As a result, she finds herself staring at Hell's gates when a firestorm erupts and conditions deteriorate.

Her escape is cut short by a new biohazard: Umbrella's newest Tyrant, code-named "Nemesis." He's on the prowl for witnesses to the Mansion Incident, and no amount of bullets will stand between him and his goal. Carlos Olivera, a hired gun for the company, stumbles upon Jill and helps her out of a tight scrape with Nemesis. After regrouping with Carlos' squad, Jill and the hapless mercs agree to bury the hatchet and escape before the U.S. government deploys a last-ditch measure to contain the virus: a tactical nuclear strike.

Resident Evil 3 eschews the character select from previous games and makes Jill the only playable hero. But it still features Story Branching: this time in the form of real-time selection screens (a precursor to Resident Evil 4's "Press X to Not Die") where the player must make a decision in time or suffer the consequences. Another new feature is a retooling of RE2's "Scenario B", in which Claire or Leon were stalked throughout the game by "Mr. X": Nemesis will frequently appear throughout the game, usually ambushing Jill at inopportune moments. It's up to the player to decide to run or fight. Nemesis drops useful loot upon falling over, but he hits fast and hard... And he'll be back for more later. Other new features include a gunpowder-mixing tool (Jill crafts her own guns and ammo in this one), a dodge maneuver, and a quick turn move.

RE3 also features the first iteration of the minigame titled The Mercenaries, which would become a mainstay in later installments.

Black Command, an iOS and Android game that was released in 2018, has Murphy Seeker as a hired mercenary and the Samurai Edge pistol as a limited edition weapon, part of a Resident Evil collaboration event that started from December 26, 2018 to January 10, 2019.

Has a 2020 Video Game Remake, Resident Evil 3 (Remake).


Resident Evil 3: Nemesis contains examples of the following tropes:

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    A-D 
  • Ace Custom: This game was the first to introduce the "Samurai Edge" handgun used by the S.T.A.R.S. team. A fax straight from Robert Kendo can be found in the RPD, where he states that his brother Joe has completed it, and examining Jill's default handgun reveals it has been customized, matching the one in the fax.
  • Abandoned Hospital: Carlos' mission sees him poking around the Raccoon General Hospital, looking for something to stem the tide of Jill's virus. As fate would have it, the basement conceals an Umbrella laboratory where they keep T-Virus vaccines.
  • Action Girl: Jill seems to have gotten even better at surviving since the Mansion Incident, as she managed to survive despite being outnumbered in a city full of zombies.
  • Actionized Sequel: This was the first Resident Evil where a button press wasn't necessary to navigate stairs, plus Jill could craft her own ammunition using a kit in her inventory, and she had a dedicated dodging move. And of course, there's the fact that Nemesis could follow her from room to room.
  • All There in the Manual:
    • A dedicated explanation of exactly what Nemesis is could only be found in the Wesker's Report mockumentary produced by Capcom, plus subsequent material like the Archive books. He's actually a combination of an Umbrella-developed parasite plus one of their factory-line Tyrant models, meaning he can be programmed with more sophisticated orders.
    • The Capcom-released sourcebook "Biohazard 3 Last Escape Official Guidebook" states that Drain Deimos and Brain Suckers are both irregular mutations, having spontaneously developed from fleas that fed on T-virus infected hosts. Drain Deimos specifically fed on zombies, whilst Brain Suckers fed on "something else", which is why they look so different.
  • All There in the Script: Without consulting guides, manuals or the cast list, you would barely know who Tyrell Patrick and Murphy Seeker are. While Carlos calls Murphy by name in his conversation of that scene, Tyrell is completely unnamed in the game proper.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: The most bonus outfits of the series to date (five in most versions, while the PC and Dreamcast versions have seven). One of them being Jill's old RE1 uniform and another being a Regina cosplay.
  • Antagonist Title: The English subtitle is named after the monster that constantly hounds Jill.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: Any inventory placed into an Item Box will be Colour-Coded for Your Convenience in the scrollbar. Green for healing items, blue for miscellaneous and red for weapons.
  • Artificial Stupidity:
    • There are times when the zombies, especially groups of them, have the weird tendency to suddenly shamble off aimlessly, even while trying to pursue you.
    • Terrifying as Nemesis is, he's not exactly the brightest bulb in the box, frequently getting stuck on walls and in tight spaces. By exploiting this, it's possible to kill him using nothing but the handgun for most of the game.
  • Artistic License – Military: In the manual for the game, Jill is listed as ex-Delta Force at the age of 23. Delta Force is an anti-terrorist unit in the U.S. Army that recruits its combat personnel from the Green Berets and Army Rangers, neither of which allowed women into their ranks in 1998. Even with the gendered admissions seemingly not existing in the universe of the games it's still unusual that she rose so quickly through the ranks.
  • Awesome, but Impractical:
    • The Paracelsus Sword portable rail gun. Sounds cool, right? Wrong. The U.S. Army's Delta Force had to set up a room for this, it can't be aimed, and lost many soldiers luring Tyrants in front of the rail gun to destroy. It takes minutes for it to charge and a while to fire. And by portable, we mean "would need a forklift to transport". Why the Army/Delta Force hauled in such a giant weapon, especially given the city's situation and their original mission to secure the G-Virus, is never explained.
    • The Mine Thrower, while a cool weapon and powerful to boot, is practically ineffective. Not only does the weapon only fire the mines in a straight line (making it possible to miss), the mines don't explode until some time has passed (which allows the enemy to close distance and cause damage from the mine's detonation). There's also barely any ammo for the weapon to begin with. However, if you've gotten the infinite ammo case from Nemesis and combine it with the Mine Thrower (or bought the Infinite Ammo upgrade from Mercenaries mode), the mines not only get more powerful, but they explode on contact, pierce through enemies, and have homing capabilities.
    • Nemesis himself, as a bioweapon. Whereas Umbrella soon managed to take the conventional Tyrant to a mass-production level, the complications in the sophisticated parasite used in Nemesis mean that only one was ever deployed, despite the fact he's one of the few bioweapons Umbrella made that could actually be a viable product. However, background documentation implies the Nemesis project was undertaken by Umbrella Europe as an independent project from Umbrella America's Tyrant and Hunter projects, so the existence of additional Nemesis prototypes cannot be entirely ruled out.
    • The dodge mechanic. Good in theory, extremely dangerous in practice. The entire mechanic is RNG-based and requires very precise timing, there's even a dodge in which your character will roll over, kneel down and fire faster than usual. Sounds awesome, right? Too bad most of the time, your character will "dodge" towards the enemy and help it hit you faster than it would've if you had simply run past it. There are no invincibility frames, meaning even if you successfully pull a dodge on one of your enemies, they can still hit you simply because you didn't perform the right dodge.
    • The unlockable infinite ammo minigun you get from the Mercenaries mode. It has incredible stopping power, but it takes several seconds to spin up. Everything in-game dies in fraction of a second while under fire from this weapon, to the point where spin up/wind down is actually longer than the shooting itself and the game lacks the crowds of enemies big enough for this weapon to be worth it. And Nemesis, the only enemy that won't die in a second, will just rush you the moment it gets hit and either grab or punch you and you will have to spin up the weapon again.
  • Back for the Dead: Brad is back but ends up a victim of Nemesis and a zombie.
  • Badass Longcoat: Nemesis wears one until the battle at the clock tower, where it gets burned off.
  • Badass Normal: Both of the main characters, and the surviving members of the U.B.C.S. How many times should Nikolai have died, but didn't? What makes Nikolai such a great example is that he is probably the most normal villain in the entire series. No crossdressing, opera singing, elaborate robes, kooky traps or magical viruses. He is just a man who wants to escape the city and get paid.
  • Bait-and-Switch: A lone zombie walks out from behind the hospital counter. Carlos shrugs at it, being used to it by now. Then the zombie gets decapitated, and in jumps a Hunter. Suffice to say, many players did ruin their underpants at that moment.
  • Big Bad: A unique twist in the series. Rather than some Umbrella personnel being the main source of conflict, it is one of the corporation's creations that takes center stage as the main threat.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: The Nemesis of course, and Nicholai Ginovaef as the human antagonist.
  • Big Damn Heroes:
    • Carlos gets a minor one in a cutscene should you jump off a bridge (the canonical choice) instead of shoving Nemesis off. Jill gets surrounded by zombies, in waist-deep sewage water, and then Carlos blows them all to hell without hitting Jill.
    • If you choose to jump at the dead factory bridge, Barry Burton shows up at the end to airlift you to safety before Raccoon City is bombed.
  • Big "NO!":
    • When entering the alleyway outside the warehouse where Dario is located from the direction of the Bar Jack, you'll encounter a woman being menaced by a pack of zombies. She gets away, but when she makes it to just outside the warehouse, a zombie will get her, and her last word is a loud "no".
    • Depending on the path you take you can hear Carlos scream "NO!" as he runs away from a group of zombies. During the segment when you get to play as him, he'll also scream "NO!" if he fails to prevent Nemesis from reaching Jill in the church room and killing her.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Could be seen as a Downer Ending as well considering that Jill, Carlos, and Barry escape Raccoon City while the rest of the citizens (numbering 100,000) perish in a mushroom cloud, Umbrella would go on to avoid blame for the incident for years to come until Albert Wesker testified against the company in court with the information he acquired about them, and even then subsequent games have shown that all the worst creations of Umbrella except for Nemesis still exist.
  • Bizarrchitecture: One example that really sticks out is a restaurant that, for some reason, has the freezer and some other weird stuff located in an underground sewer passage that can only be accessed through a metal ladder. And of course, it doesn't have a bathroom. Notable also is City Hall's entrance; it requires specific gems inserted into a clock mechanism to open. Said gems are open and accessible to anybody, and would be a prime target for thieves if the city wasn't in the midst of an outbreak.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation:
    • "It is not enough to make the device to work."
    • "A dried pumpkins is placed here."
    • "A well maintained contro room."
    • The official spelling of Nikolai's last name, "Ginoveaf", is actually mistranslated of the Russian surname "Zinoviev".
  • Body Horror: Nemesis has what appears to be one eye with the other having been stitched shut, his gums are showing along with a row of enraged teeth giving him a permanent grimace, and once he hits his later forms he basically becomes an indefinable mess of flesh and tentacles.
  • Boss-Altering Consequence: If you had Jill jump out of the cable car, then Carlos won't show up before the fight to destroy Nemesis' rocket launcher. If you used the emergency brakes, then he will make an awesome action hero style jump to the rescue to blow it up for good. Doing this also changes Nemesis' model during the fight, leaving him scarred as a result.
  • Bottomless Magazines: The assault rifle never has to be reloaded, though it does have limited ammo. Defeating Nemesis at every encounter will have his final item drop be (if luck is on your side) a suitcase that gives one gun infinite ammo when combined. Unlocking the infinite ammo item from the Mercenaries mini-game will apply this to all weapons.
  • Bragging Rights Reward: Completing Operation Mad Jackal with Nikolai is definitely the hallmark of a master Resident Evil player, but if you're trying to unlock stuff, the cash rewards you get for doing it aren't much higher than using the easier Carlos or the much easier Mikhail.
  • Brick Joke: Has one that is Played for Drama. The first actual survivor Jill meets in the warehouse, a man by the name of Dario Rosso, rants about how he lost his daughter in the outbreak. The player later finds the corpses of a mercenary holding a girl, with a prompt describing how "he looks as if he was trying to protect someone's daughter" at the Clock Tower. To compound the "joke", Dario claims he'd much rather starve in a box than let the zombies get him and locks himself in a shipping container to do just that. If you stop by the warehouse later on for any reason, you find the box Dario was hiding in has been thrown open, with Dario's corpse and a few zombies nearby.
  • Canon Marches On: Resident Evil 3 contradicted many plot elements that were present in other media tie-ins such as the S.D. Perry novels and the Biohazard 2 audio dramas that were produced by Flagship (the same company that wrote Resident Evil 2). Particularly, the cause of Raccoon City's destruction was changed from a fire that spread across the entire town to a nuclear missile launched by the U.S. government.
  • The Casanova: Carlos is a firm believer:
    "All the foxy ladies love the accent".
  • Cassandra Truth: In the prologue, Jill talks about how she tried to warn the citizens of Raccoon City about Umbrella, only to be ignored due to them either truly not believing her or being too scared to say something bad about the company.
  • Clipped-Wing Angel: Nemesis' final form, which is not only slow, but its ranged acid attack is fairly weak.
  • Clown-Car Grave: There are some areas that have a lot of zombies to deal with.
  • Combat Tentacles: Nemesis shows these off in his first appearance in front of the police station, as poor Brad's face finds out the hard way; it just takes him a while, some small arms fire and his coat burning off to be able to extend it further from his hand.
  • Continuity Cameo: Barry appears as an unseen, but recognizable figure, saving Jill and Carlos from Raccoon City at the last moment if the player chose the branching paths that ensured there would be no escape for them otherwise.
  • Continuity Nod: In the intro, the RPD SWAT team is shown wearing uniforms like Leon's in RE2. It makes Leon's outfit no longer seem out of place, though it does make one wonder how a rookie managed to get assigned to the SWAT team for his first assignment.
  • Continuity Snarl:
    • The police station has a few doors barricaded in order to prevent Jill from exploring areas that she doesn't need to visit. Funnily enough, most of the barricaded doors were just locked electronically in RE2, meaning that there was no point having them barricaded in the first place. This is justified in that the player may have wasted time trying to find a way to unlock these doors. There's also a window Nemesis jumps through in the police station that was undamaged in the previous game. Not to mention the plot holes involving Leon and Claire being able to enter the city with the inclusion of the military martial law plot.
  • Contractual Boss Immunity: No matter how badly he's beaten in the first ten encounters, plus the one encounter as Carlos, Nemesis won't die, and will show up good as new the next time. Jill can only kill him permanently the eleventh and final time.
  • Contrived Coincidence: After Jill was infected with the T-Virus, Carlos is able to manufacture a vaccine for the virus from a hospital owned by Umbrella near the church.
  • Critical Hit: The Eagle 6.0 handgun has a random chance of doing more damage, which can blow off the heads of zombies and dogs.
  • Cut and Paste Environments:
    • Some assets from RE2 are recycled here, most notably the Police Station interiors and a few music cues.
    • Chief Irons, or more precisely his character model, also appears as an Umbrella executive at the end of Operation Mad Jackal whose face is obscured by shadows. For what was originally not a main game in the series, however, a lot of work went into it, including new zombie models and creatures in general.
  • Cutscene Incompetence: The way the shotguns, sub-machine guns, and assault rifles wielded by both the RPD and UBCS forces barely even faze the zombies in the opening cutscene would've been a real problem had it translated into the actual gameplay. Possibly justified by the police not shooting to kill.note 
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: The zombies in the opening cutscene casually soak up bullets without even slowing down.
  • Darkest Hour: Just as Jill is about to escape Raccoon City, the rescue helicopter is shot down by Nemesis, who then infects her with the T-Virus. Jill manages to drive him off before she passes out and Carlos gets her to safety, but she spends the next two days unconscious. No other help is coming, and they're probably two of the few people still alive in the city. Chances are the player will be feeling as low as Jill and Carlos are.
  • Dashing Hispanic: Carlos. At least, he likes to think so.
  • Death by Irony: Despite yelling that he'd rather starve to death in a shipping container than be eaten by zombies, Dario is later eaten alive by zombies shortly after coming out of the container. Also implying he had a change of heart regarding his earlier attitude towards Jill.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Dario is utterly broken after he loses his mother, wife, and daughter to the chaos of the outbreak. As a result, he refuses to accompany Jill and instead shuts himself inside a shipping container, saying that he'd much rather starve to death than be killed by the zombies.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • Choosing to leave the bar before Brad has killed the zombie attacking him will automatically trigger the cutscene of him killing it and collapsing. The player's lack of concern for him will be passed onto Jill, who doesn't ask if he's okay, and Brad, likewise annoyed by Jill abandoning him, will be far more terse in addressing her.
    • If you should visit the cable car without all the parts to get it running again, then Mikhail will use the barrel next to the car to blow up a pack of zombies. Unless Jill already blew it up, then he'll use a grenade.
    • During your fight with him as Carlos, if you aren't actively shooting him or at least keep him in the same screen as Carlos, Nemesis will break off the fight and head for Jill the first chance he gets. Also, if you knocked Nemesis out before getting back to Jill, Carlos's dialogue with her will change.
    • On the Barry ending route, once Carlos starts trying to use the comms equipment in the Dead Factory control tower, leaving the room via the door you came in and re-entering the tower (rather than making for the ladder downward) triggers a bonus scene where Carlos gets a transmission from Barry Burton desperately trying to get ahold of Jill. This will also change the last bits of dialogue at the very end right as the chopper lands.
  • Diabolus ex Nihilo: Nemesis's specific origins have never been explained in any canon medium, which is weird because just about every other creature Umbrella has ever thrown at you has some kind of documentation or a plot point revealing what it used to be or how it was created. The closest one there is to an explanation is that it's a Tyrant imbued with an NE-T parasite developed by Umbrella's French division. Interestingly, Nemesis does get an origin story in the related film series.
  • Difficulty by Region: The enemies have more strength and durability in the export versions.
  • Dodge the Bullet: Nemesis can dodge shots from the grenade launcher and mine thrower if fired from further out than near point blank range.

    E-Q 
  • Early Game Hell: The Nemesis becoming a threat in the first ten minutes is the reason why the difficulty curbs upwards so early. Nemesis Can't Catch Up, but he does start off a mile ahead of you.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The Mercenaries mini-game makes its debut here, but the rules are a bit different from the later incarnation featured in RE4 and onward. The objective here is to go from the cable car in Uptown Raccoon City to the office at the very beginning of the main campaign before time runs out. Killing enemies here merely serves as means to extend the time limit, rather being an objective itself, while additional ammo and recovery items can only be obtained by saving civilians, who can be killed if you took too much time to get to them. It's worth noting that the mini-game is technically an improved version of RE2's own minigames Extreme Battle and 4th Survivor. The main objective of both is to collect a set of special items and reaching a determined point on the game, respectively.
  • Easter Egg:
    • Trying to move the bell in the Clock Tower as Jill shows a scene of her trying, failing and kicking the bell in annoyance.
    • This only triggers on the Barry ending route, but in the control tower near the end, leaving the room via the door you came in once Carlos starts messing with the communication system, then re-entering will lead to a garbled transmission from Barry himself playing. This also changes the dialogue in the very last in-game scene.
  • Easy-Mode Mockery: Playing on Easy starts Jill off with an assault rifle, an ink ribbon with unlimited use, and a box with three First Aid Sprays inside. However, you won't have access to the items Nemesis drops when you knock him out or some of the unlockable content like the Epilogues.
  • End-Game Results Screen: The result screen at the end varies depending on whether Jill and Carlos escape Raccoon City by themselves or with Barry's help.
  • Establishing Character Moment: We don't get to see a whole lot of Mikhail since he's wounded and babbling feverishly due to delirium, so there's not a lot to be said for his character outside of his mourning his platoon. While there is another scene showing his character, it requires the player going out of their way to find it. Nemesis then attacks the cable car and he bravely and selflessly tells Jill to get out of the car while he blows himself and Nemesis up with a grenade to save her.
  • Exploding Barrels: The red barrels dotted throughout the game explode when shot at, which can help clear out a cluster of enemies or put the hurt on Nemesis. Naturally, being too close to the blast yourself can severely injure you or even outright kill you. There are also bombs planted on some walls that function the same way as the barrels. Additionally, two areas have variants of this, which are so well-hidden that many fans never find them: in the industrial area, the hanging wood pallets can be shot to drop them on the Brain Suckers that prowl the area, whilst in the park, the lamps can be shot to create a fiery explosive that incinerates whatever it touches instead of blowing them to pieces.
  • Fetch Quest: The second quarter of the game revolves around Jill needing to find blended machine oilnote , a fuse, and a power cable to repair a damaged cable car so that she and the UBCS survivors can escape the city.
  • Firing One-Handed: The one time in the series that a character fires a Magnum one-handed happens here, should you choose to "execute the monster" in the final Live Selection:
    Jill: You want S.T.A.R.S.? I'll give you S.T.A.R.S.
  • Foreshadowing: Choosing to drop into the pit created in the parking garage will show the shed skin of a massive worm like creature. It's the Grave Digger's.
  • The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Things such as going into another room or the door loading screens won't stop Nemesis from continuing the pursuit and will appear as soon as the door is out of frame. Although Nemesis is incapable of entering save rooms, it's programmed to wait outside the door until Jill leaves if she entered while he was in pursuit. If this happens, his theme even overlaps the save room lullaby and he can even be heard muttering "S.T.A.R.S.".
  • Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Jill slaps Carlos when he nearly gives up after reaching the Clock Tower (which only happens if you used the emergency brake or didn't do anything during the Live Selection in the cable car).
  • Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: A giant worm called the Grave Digger shows up with very little foreshadowing (you need to fall into the hole created during the Live Selection in the parking garage, at which point you'll see its shed skin) and almost zero explanation. The closest thing there is is when an earthquake heralds its arrival and Nikolai shouts out "another mutant!" in response before running off.
  • Godzilla Threshold: At the end of the game, the US Government decides that the situation in Raccoon City has become bad enough that a sterilization of the city with a nuclear warhead is warranted.
  • Gory Discretion Shot: Occurs when Brad is killed by Nemesis.
  • Guide Dang It!: Trying to unlock Jill's Diary on your first playthrough is simply not going to happen without a guide. You have to pickup and read every single file in order, but there is nothing in the game that tells you what order that is or if you're even reading a file out of order. You also must read them fully, not just cancelling them out when they come up on screen.
  • Handicapped Badass: Mikhail was pretty hurt, but he fought like he wasn't.
  • Hard Mode Perks: Playing on Hard gives you a chance at accessing items that Nemesis drops if you defeat him in one of his encounters. Items include boxes containing three First Aid Sprays, gun parts that can create a custom handgun and shotgun, rare ammo, and, should you go out of your way to defeat Nemesis every time he shows up, a box with infinite ammo that gives one of your guns infinite ammo for the remainder of the game. It's the only way to legitimately use infinite ammo outside of unlockables. You can also only unlock the Epilogues by finishing the game on Hard.
  • He Knows Too Much: Umbrella wasn't pleased that S.T.A.R.S. found out about their secret experiments during the events of the Mansion Incident, so they created Nemesis and programmed it to specifically hunt down and kill the survivors of said incident in order to cover their own ass and prevent more secrets from being leaked. Nemesis kills Brad and spends the entire game hunting down Jill.
  • Helpless Kicking: Jill and Carlos desperately kick their legs if they get swallowed by a Hunter Gamma. Jill also kicks away whenever Nemesis grabs her for his tentacle impaling move.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Mikhail against Nemesis by way of Taking You with Me.
  • High-Voltage Death:
    • After collecting an item from the power station needed to advance in the game, the player will then see a cutscene of a group of zombies trying to break in via the front gate. The player is then given two options, either escape through the back door or redirect power to the gate electrocuting the zombies and killing them.
    • You can kill the Grave Digger this way by knocking over one of the street lamps into a large puddle of water after they've been loosened by the giant worm's subterranean movement.
  • Hope Spot: The game looks like it's going to end at the clock tower, when the UBCS helicopter comes to pick Jill and Carlos up in soft lit slow motion, with an ethereal background song. Then the Nemesis literally blows it out of the sky.
  • I Cannot Self-Terminate: In one scene, Jill solemnly tells Carlos to just kill her if he sees signs of zombification following her infection to Nemesis.
  • Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The three Mercenaries in Operation Mad Jackal due to their respective load out:
    • Mikhail is the easiest, since he wields a shotgun, magnum revolver and rocket launcher.
    • Carlos is moderately difficult, wielding an assault rifle and a custom handgun.
    • Nikolai is the hardest, since he wields only a standard handgun (which can use enhanced bullets, if he's lucky enough to find them) and a knife.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Brad's head, courtesy of one of Nemesis' Combat Tentacles.
  • Implacable Man: Nemesis. Even more so than his "cousin" Mr. X, he just will not stop no matter what Jill hits him with. It takes at least fourteen shotgun shells just to knock him down, and that's on Easy. During the course of the game, Nemesis is repeatedly shot, blasted out of a cable car with a grenade, passes out into burning helicopter wreckage, soaked with acid, is decapitated with either bullets or more acid, falls into a pit of yet more acid (and did we mention all this acid is a special formula designed to break down B.O.W.s?) and is blasted with a Wave-Motion Gun, but still won't quit! The worst part is, while there are only three times you have to fight him in a boss battlenote , Nemesis will show up a further ten times in optional fights. Suffice to say, Nemesis might be considered the survival horror equivalent of an SNK Boss.
  • Impossible Item Drop: There are ten encounters with Nemesis throughout the course of the game where you have the choice to either fight or evade him. If you opt to take him out on Hard, he drops a special item case, which contains a different item based on how many times you've knocked him out over the course of that specific run through the game. The rewards include the parts for the Eagle 6.0 handgun (a scoped 9mm with a better chance of delivering a critical hit) and the M37 Western Custom lever-action shotgun (which fires faster than the standard Benelli and lets Jill do the one-handed flip-cock reload from Terminator 2: Judgment Day). There is no other way to get either gun, although Carlos wields the Eagle in Operation Mad Jackal. Nemesis can also drop First Aid Boxes, which allow you to hold three First Aid Sprays in one item slot. The best reward is saved for last: either a fully loaded assault rifle, or in subsequent playthroughs of the same save file, an Infinite Ammo upgrade which can be combined with any one weapon. Incidentally, it's probably the one item drop that best fits this.
  • Interface Screw: The mandatory battle against Nemesis in the Clock Tower has him infect you with the T-Virus, causing your health indicator to show as such and can no longer display your actual physical condition. On top of this, Jill is always limping during the fight.
  • Irony: The Nemesis was deployed to Raccoon City to seek out and kill the surviving S.T.A.R.S. members in order to silence them, but by the time it had arrived, Jill and Brad were the only two members left in the city. The others had already left.
  • It Can Think:
    • Two scenes in the game, the intro at the hotel and the hospital, implies that zombies apparently have retained enough higher function to know how to use elevators.
    • Nemesis is not just another mindless tyrant. He's smart enough to hunt you and use a missile launcher. Later, he has the sense to prevent your escape by shooting down the rescue helicopter.
  • It's the Only Way to Be Sure: The United States government decides to obliterate Raccoon City with a nuclear missile to stop the infection.
  • It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: When Jill wakes up after being infected by Nemesis, she narrates the situation.
    Jill: October 1st. Night. I awoke to the sound of falling rain. I can't believe I'm still alive.
  • Karma Houdini: Nikolai can survive the events of the game, depending on which path the player takes. This is the canon ending.
  • Legion of Lost Souls: Due to the hazardous quality of their duties and their high death toll, the U.B.C.S. is comprised entirely of the most ruthless mercenaries and convicted war criminals from around the world, most of whom have been hired with the promise that Umbrella would get them out of whatever punishments they're facing. For example, Carlos was an anti-government guerrilla member who was hired by Umbrella after his original team was slaughtered, and one file is written by a merc who falsely confessed to war crimes.
  • Let No Crisis Go to Waste: For a company that's sweating ice over being implicated with the T-Virus, Umbrella is going hog wild with its bioweaponry here. The U.B.C.S. is deployed into the city under the guise of assisting the police, but in truth, they have no intention of stopping the spread of the virus. Quite the contrary; the mercenaries are here to destroy evidence and gather samples from the bloodshed. Once the town is marked for destruction, the company sets loose more B.O.W.s into the city to see how they perform. Unsurprisingly, this little stunt didn't impress the Dow Jones.
  • Lethal Joke Item: This is the first game where the knife is actually somewhat useful, as even on Hard, zombies can go down in as little as four hits. Factor in that zombies will lurch towards Jill and Carlos' right (their knife hand) when you back up, the copious amounts of narrow alleys Jill makes her way through making it very easy for a zombie to get stuck or even turned around in, and the fact that the knife can be used for certain environmental hazards, the knife becomes a fixture in the player's inventory. This only really applies to Jill, however, as she uses a backhanded slash to make her attacks, instead of Carlos' thrusting stab, which enables her to make two attacks in the time it take Carlos to make one.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Nemesis is always able to run faster than you. He gets faster. His last form doesn't run. Most of his attacks, specifically his right hook, can be easily telegraphed and evaded without resorting to the dodge button (since he's using his right hand, just run past his left and his fist will miss you entirely). However, on occasion, he will suddenly hit you with a left hook without warning. His running attack is also a bit trickier to dodge.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Aside from Sergei and the Monitors, the U.B.C.S. is left in the dark about Umbrella's true nature and believes their cover job is all there is to it.
  • Made of Iron:
    • A minor case with Nemesis. Has an added healing factor to make up for it.
    • There's also Jill, who can take a rocket launcher shot to the face with just a minor loss of health.
  • Mascot Villain: Nemesis, to the extent of being featured front and center on the game's box art.
  • MegaCorp: Before this game, Umbrella was only known as a large pharmaceutical company that also performed dangerous experiments with the T-Virus. When the story kicks off for RE3, it's revealed that Umbrella is so massive that they literally own Raccoon City. Because of their influence, everyone in the town refused to help Jill get the dirt on them and/or refused to evacuate because they feared repercussions from the company.
  • Minidress of Power: Although Jill just incidentally wears one. One of the bonus outfits gives her an even shorter one.
  • Minigame: Operation Mad Jackal, otherwise known as the first iteration of The Mercenaries minigame, although this earlier version has more in common with the Extreme Battle mode from RE2 than the later incarnations featured in RE4 and onward. The objective is to reach the goal before time runs out. Killing enemies and rescuing hostages will extend the time limit, and the latter also provides additional ammo (or healing items) for the player.
  • Mission-Pack Sequel: The game was made on a modified version of the RE2 engine and even some of the areas from the Police Station are recycled. Besides that, it's mostly composed of original models and backgrounds made for this game.
  • More Dakka: The Gatling Gun. It has infinite ammo and a rate of fire to take down anything in your path with ease. With its piercing ability, a horde of zombies can be destroyed in less than five seconds.
  • Mother Russia Makes You Strong:
    • Subverted in the main game with Mikhail. He's undeniably a badass, fighting a swarm of zombies and winning while heavily injured bears that out nicely, but he's shown to be a very compassionate man who feels deeply guilty over the fact that his men have all died and he tries his hardest to help the remaining survivors get out of the city, to the point of making a suicide attack on Nemesis to save Jill and Carlos. Played straight with Nikolai, who's a right cold-blooded bastard through and through.
    • Literally applies in Operation Mad Jackal, both are stronger than Carlos and Mikhail even has a better weapon load out.
  • Neck Lift: Prior to getting his coat burned off, Nemesis uses this as a setup for throwing Jill to the ground. Otherwise, he holds Jill still to infect her with his other arm.
  • No One Could Survive That!: Its possible to have Nikolai in the same room as a gas station explosion that levels a city block and consumes it in fire. He will show up later unscathed and offering no explanation.
  • Non-Linear Sequel: This game takes place both before and after RE2. The introductory level is set on September 28, shortly before Leon and Claire arrive on the scene. Jill's ordeal continues after she is infected with the T-Virus by Nemesis and passes out, which puts her in critical condition for two days.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: Several of them:
    • In the Nemesis encounter at the restaurant, Carlos being killed will end the game.
    • When playing as Carlos, failing to prevent Nemesis from reaching Jill in the chapel will have him break down the door and kill her.
  • Noodle Incident: Later games established that the outbreak in Raccoon City started on September 22, a full six days before the start of RE3. What Jill did during that period remains a mystery, although it could readily be assumed she held out in her apartment for that period of time. The novel attempts to fill in the gaps by telling the reader that Jill pushed herself to exhaustion helping survivors reach an abandoned school, but gives up after everyone in the school ends up infected and turns her focus to escaping the city. As the novels take place in a separate canon from the games, though, it's questionable how accurate this is to the game canon, although it fits Jill's character better than just holing up for a week.
  • Nostalgia Level: Early on, you go into the police station, which shares many of the same screens and assets from RE2. You don't explore it as thoroughly as you did in that game, though; it's more of a pit stop to acquire some key items before moving elsewhere.
  • Nuke 'em: How the military decides to solve the problem. Though they never actually call it "nuclear". Later games retcon this weapon into an experimental thermobaric warhead (a fuel/air explosive). The 2020 remake retcons it yet again back to a nuke.
  • Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: This was the first numbered entry in the series (and until the release of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard in 2017, the only one) with a subtitle, both in Japan and abroad. This was likely due to the fact that this was a side story originally and wasn't initially planned to be a mainline entry.
  • Off with His Head!: Nemesis' head is melted off his shoulders in the waste disposal battle. And despite this, he's still going, as the Tyrant host may have finally been killed but the NE-alpha is still alive.
  • Oh, Crap!: Jill understandably has this look when Nemesis first drops onto the scene with her and Brad. She has a slightly less epic but equally understandable reaction when Nemesis pops up again to shoot down her getaway chopper.
  • One-Hit Kill: If Jill gets thrown to the ground by Nemesis and fails to get up before he grabs her again, the results aren't pretty. It is possible to jam on the buttons hard enough to break free, though.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Nemesis is so transfixed on his target, only he gets to kill Jill. In one path, he kills Nikolai while the latter is in the middle of trying to murder Jill, thus removing him from the competition.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Carlos is Hispanic, except when he isn't. He seems to lose his accent every third line.
  • Outrun the Fireball: Jill and possibly Carlos have to outrun the gas station explosion that levels an entire city block.
  • P.O.V. Sequel: It takes place during the same incident as in RE2, only from Jill's perspective.
  • Permanently Missable Content: Taking off on the rail car will permanently lock off the streets of Raccoon City. Sure hope you got that weapon out of the power plant.
  • Personal Space Invader:
    • Zombies, zombie dogs and zombie crows all make their classic return here.
    • The Sliding Worms - a giant leech like enemy that is generally believed to be the larval form of the Grave Digger - has a special attack where it clings to your character and starts sucking blood, turning increasingly red as they drain health.
    • One of Nemesis' main attacks in his first form is grabbing Jill and hoisting her up in a Neck Lift. Then, depending on her health, he'll either toss her aside (requiring the player to mash the controls to make her get up) or get ready to impale her with his arm tentacle.
  • Police Are Useless: Justified. When Jill finds Brad in a bar, she asks him why the police aren't helping. Brad responds by pointing out that the police aren't trained to handle anything like a zombie outbreak. Additionally, by this point in the outbreak, the RPD has been decimated by zombies and the main police headquarters is overrun.
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Right before making Nemesis see stars:
  • Pre-Rendered Graphics: Pre-rendered cutscenes were used for important moments, such as Nemesis killing Brad.
  • Press X to Not Die: Not exactly, but certain points in the game prompt the player to choose between two options, they majorly involve deciding whether to fight Nemesis or flee. Or you can let the timer run out and gamble on a much more advantageous position.
  • Properly Paranoid: Upon meeting Carlos for the first time, Jill doesn't believe for a second Umbrella actually sent him and the other mercenaries there just to rescue some civilians. She turns out to be right, Umbrella sent the mercenaries to Raccoon City to gather their combat data against the infected monsters, something the mercenaries themselves are not aware of.

    R-Z 
  • RPG Elements: The more you use the Reloading Tool, the more bullets you make with it.
  • Recurring Location: Jill ends up traversing a sizable portion of the RPD headquarters towards the beginning of the game.
  • Red Shirt: Nikolai/Carlos encounters a fellow U.B.C.S. operative (Murphy Seeker) who is about to become a zombie inside one of Umbrella's offices.
  • Red Shirt Army: The RPD officers and Umbrella mooks in the opening cinematic. By the time the game properly begins, less then 10 of the original 120 mercenaries are still standing; their numbers are slowly whittled until only Carlos and Nikolai remain.
  • Remixed Level: You'll find yourself backtracking through parts of the city (even to the very beginning of the game) and you might think these revisits aren't going to be as bad. It's probably worse than when you first ran through. Zombies and dogs will bust out of windows in previously cleared areas.
  • Replay Value: The branching story, unlockable upgrades via arcade minigame, and randomized story beats and item placement give this entry by far the most replayability of the pre-RE4 era.
  • Retcon: The destruction of Raccoon City. While this game implies the missile that impacts the city is nuclear (or even thermonuclear), later games revise this to an experimental thermobaric (fuel/air) missile, which makes more sense. note 
  • Rule of Sexy: Why is Jill dressed like a streetwalker? Even more importantly, who cares? The novels at least try to lampshade things by saying her choice of outfit makes her harder to be grabbed by zombies. This paid off big time in Resident Evil: Apocalypse and in later games in which the outfit is available.
  • Russian Guy Suffers Most: Jill finds herself having to work alongside three U.B.C.S. members — Nikolai, Mikhail, and Carlos. Guess which one won't get a game over with his death?
  • Sadistic Choice: A subtle one with the gun powders. Do you make the simple powders and have no problem with regular enemies yet struggle against the Nemesis? Or do you hoard and make the C powders and have an easier time with the titular B.O.W. at the cost of having to be more defensive and prudent around the regular monsters?
  • Sanctuary of Solitude: The chapel in the clock tower becomes this for Jill and Carlos, as after the Nemesis shot down the rescue helicopter, the second floor is blocked off, and zombies and monsters are swarming the western half of the tower. It's also the only room with one way in or out and no windows, so they only have one entrance to cover.
  • Scenery Dissonance: The lighting of the game doesn't look it, but the early part of the game happens during the day, as mentioned by Jill. Once you leave the police station, it's clearly night as the streets of Uptown will have a darker tone and the street lamps will be lit.
  • Shout-Out: See here.
  • Similar Squad: The U.B.C.S. closely mirrors the original S.T.A.R.S. lineup. They're even being led around by a duplicitous leader who's trying to get them all killed.
  • Skippable Boss:
    • Many of the encounters with the titular creature can be run from, and since you start off so poorly armed, you need to. He only really has to be fought in front of the clock tower, in the Dead Factory dump room, and in the final encounter (all of which are places you can't escape from; the clock tower is blocked by helicopter wreckage, the dump room's door is sealed and the final encounter again has a sealed door.)
    • The Grave Digger, the only other boss fight in the game, can actually be skipped in both fights. The first, if you're quick enough in lowering the ladders, you can just simply leave. The second is trickier, because the game can sometimes not feel like doing it, but if you're lucky, a lamp post will get dislodged near a pool of water, and if you shoot it at the right time, you can fry the beast without ever truly fighting it.
  • Soiled City on a Hill: Jill makes clear in her opening narration that there's no stopping the outbreak, and that Raccoon City is finished. She expresses some bitterness at her fellow citizens for being too timid to challenge Umbrella.
  • Steel Ear Drums: Subverted. Carlos, if he is with Jill when the gas station goes up, will complain about his ears ringing, and mention both of them should be deaf by now. Similarly, in the novel, after the explosion that starts the game, Jill will doubt her ability to hear a brass band afterwards.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Jill's apartment goes up, the Stagla gas station explodes thanks to a wire placed in a puddle of gasoline, there's explosive barrels and packs placed sporadically around the city, Nikolai rigs the hospital to blow via a time bomb, and the entire city gets nuked at the end. Yeah, there's more explosions in this than any other classic era Resident Evil game.
  • Super-Persistent Predator: Nemesis cannot be stopped. Justified as he was literally created for the purpose of being a one-unit death squad and to kill his targets at all costs. It's implied that the only reason he fails is because he is highly experimental. With proper care, Umbrella could easily make more. Just look at the advancements between the Tyrant in RE1 and Mr. X in RE2.
  • Survivor Guilt: It's never made clear within the game itself, but the novel points out that Jill has somewhat mixed feelings about being cured of the T-Virus after she's given the vaccine. The feeling of knowing she lived due to a vaccine while so many others died from infection bothers her but she shuts that line of thinking down quick when she realizes that the likelihood of Umbrella having plenty of vaccine for the entire city is just out of the question.
  • Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: This is almost entirely thanks to the presence of Nemesis, though, since the game rains down even more healing items, weapons and ammo on the player than its predecessor did, and you'll need every bit of it to put Nemesis down.
  • Taking You with Me: How Mikhail dies trying to kill the Nemesis. Also, depending on how you progress through the hospital, Tyrell (the injured UBCS supervisor) will attempt this on Nikolai with a grenade.
  • There Was a Door: Mostly averted. Most of the times Nemesis appears, he actually uses the door like a normal person. You even hear the door open and shut offscreen. That being said, as a Tyrant model, he's obligated to play this at least once, which he does in the police station when he jumps through the window. He does it again in the clock tower while you're controlling Carlos, and presumably this is also how he got onboard the moving cable car.
  • Title Drop: In Japan, the game is subtitled Last Escape, the two words Jill ends most of her monologues with:
    "It was Raccoon City's last chance, and my last chance... my last escape."
    "Farewell to my life, farewell to my home. This is my last chance at survival, this is my, last escape."
    "I will survive, they can't stop, my last escape..."
  • Too Awesome to Use: Subverted. Grenade freeze rounds and magnum ammo are pretty rare and are serious overkill against the vast majority of enemies you'll face, but they actually make for a fair fight against Nemesis, so you will want to use them. Aside from dealing significant damage, they can make Nemesis stagger with each hit.
  • Turn in Your Badge: At some point after the first game, Jill leaves the RPD, likely because of Brian Irons.
  • Underground Monkey:
    • This game had the largest assortment of different zombie skins of the three original PlayStation games.
    • Hunters Beta & Gamma are essentially reskins of each other, but they also serve as reskins of the original Hunter Alphas from the first game.
    • Like the Hunters, the Drain Deimos and Brain Suckers are not only cosmetic tweaks of each other, but are also reskins of the Chimera from the first game, with the added ability to poison your character.
  • Unfriendly Fire: Nikolai admits to having spent most of the time in Raccoon tracking down and killing other Umbrella supervisors, just so he can monopolize the reward money from collecting Bioweapon combat data.
  • Unique Enemy: The only place the Gamma Hunters will show up with any certainty is the hospital, when they burst out of their tubes in the hospital basement. The only other place you'll see them is on the water walkway in the park, where you only have a 50/50 chance of encountering them.
  • Unwinnable: Due to the German version's censorship, which omitted the bonus time you get while killing zombies in Operation Mad Jackal, it is practically impossible to get the infinite ammo for everything.
  • Urban Ruins: Even before the zombie apocalypse hit, it provided unwilling "test subjects" for the local Evil Inc, which practically owned the city and could easily 'disappear' any one of Raccoon's inhabitants. Post-outbreak, it is a grimy bloodstained tangle of streets and buildings that horrific safety code violations will kill you almost as much as the actual zombies. Thankfully, the ending involves Raccoon City being nuked to high heaven.
  • The Usual Adversaries: Strangely, Jill never comes across any Lickers in her travels. Instead, we get the old assortment of RE1 enemies that were previously wiped out at the Arklay Lab: Hunters, along with Brain Suckers and Drain Deimos, both of which are functionally similar to Chimeras with the added bonus of having a chance at poisoning Jill. These particular ones were flown over from Umbrella Europe for field testing.
  • Vapor Trail: An electrical spark ignites a puddle of spilled machine oil in a gas station garage, leading to the entire station exploding spectacularly.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment: Jill is dressed in a miniskirt and a tube top and later on gets a harness which adds inventory space. Yet she can somehow carry more than Carlos, her erstwhile ally who is dressed in military fatigues loaded with pockets. Her alternate outfits don't explain it either.
  • Villainous Rescue: Should you chose to run out the back when the zombies attack the power station, Nemesis will blow them up with his rocket launcher. Of course, now you have him to deal with. He does it a second time should you push him off the bridge that leads to the dead factory. When Nikolai has Jill cornered in the hallway leading to the dumping room, Nemesis grabs Nikolai and pulls him into the ceiling, brutally murdering him. Once more, you have to deal with Nemesis afterwards.
  • We Cannot Go On Without You: If Carlos dies while he is under AI control, it's Game Over.
  • We Have Reserves: Following the completion of their objectives, the U.B.C.S. mercenaries are left to rot. Even with the utter annihilation of the U.B.C.S., the mission is considered a resounding success due to the combat data collected from their deaths. Only the unit commanders are let in on the true nature of the mission, which is why said commanders were recruited from the absolute worst of Europe's war criminals.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?:
    • Carlos is completely MIA since the end of RE3.
    • Resident Evil: Survivor, which is set after the events of RE3, features a file written by Nikolai and The Umbrella Chronicles confirms Nikolai's survival in a letter from Sergei Vladimir addressed to him dated a few months after the events of RE3. Other than that, the character hasn't been featured in another game since then (outside Outbreak and Operation Raccoon City, both which are set during the RE3 time period).
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • In one scene in the newspaper office, Carlos responds to his comrade Murphy asking him for a mercy kill by unloading an entire magazine into his chest. Bonus points in that he completely missed the poor man's head, guaranteeing that he will come back as a zombie (granted, headshots aren't necessary for killing zombies in this series, but it saves a lot of ammo). If Nikolai's there, he just shoots Murphy in the head immediately, while said guy begs Nikolai to "Wait!"
    • Carlos gives one to Jill should she choose to toss a lamp at a gas valve in order to fend off Nemesis in the restaurant:
    Carlos: Are you crazy?! You could've barbecued both of us!
  • "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The epilogues that you unlock after beating the game detail what certain characters from both this game and previous games did after. You unlock a new epilogue each time you beat the game, in this order: Jill, Chris, Barry, Leon, Claire, Sherry, Ada, and HUNK. Yes, that's eight times that you have to beat the game just to unlock those epilogues. And they're only available on Hard mode. Good luck.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: To The Terminator. Substitute Sarah for Jill, Terminator for Nemesis, bar the grenade launcher the rest of the guns from the film are gained by fighting Nemesis, and to further drive the reference home, Jill does Arnie's shotgun flip.
  • A Winner Is You: The reward for beating the game nine times is a congratulatory message that will only appear that one time, and unlike the prior eight Epilogues, cannot be reloaded again.
  • You Shall Not Pass!: Mikhail's last stand sees him defiantly block Nemesis' path to the bitter end, destroying the cable car (and himself with it) to halt Nemesis for the time being. Mikhael's efforts would ultimately pay off, even if he didn't live to see it.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Jill makes it to the clock tower with Carlos and signals the evacuation helicopter, but Nemesis blows it out of the sky with his rocket launcher.
  • Zerg Rush: The RPD didn't stand much of a chance against these guys. The zombies simply ignore their machine gun fire and march straight through the blockades.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: Unlike Resident Evil 2, which barely touched upon the death and destruction a city full of zombies and mutants would entail, this game gives us the full tour of what it would look like if a mid-sized city went through one.

 
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Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (also known as Biohazard 3: Last Escape) is the third game in the Resident Evil series, and the first interquel set in the Resident Evil universe, the others being the two Chronicles games and the Revelations sub-series.

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