A great game on its own, but a shameless attempt to make quick money by Capcom
The game follows the story of Jill Valentine after the incident in the mountains of RE1, and her escaping from the city while Umbrella's latest weapon, called Nemesis, is trying to stop you. Unlike the past two games, you play only as Jill, but what makes the game replayable is that during the game you'll encounter moments where the game will ask you to choose from two decisions that will affect the path or the monsters you'll face, for example if Nemesis finds you, you can choose to stay and fight (and be rewarded if you succeed) or escape, and many more different choices.
Although the game is more or less the same as in all RE games, emphasizing the exploration and survival rather than combat, it adds some new features to facilitate combat. It keeps the same "tank" controls, using "relative" controls rather than real analog control, and a lot of people have complained about this but I don't mind it. The controls are a little bit clunkier than the more recent entries, but not that much. It features new moves, such as defensive moves by pressing a button, enabling you to parry attacks. Unlike the older versions of this game, you can go up and down the stairs using the stick, and not using the Action button (as it was originally). This was the game that added the 180 degrees turn, so expect it back here.
This is a very old game, so don't expect fancy graphics. But still, you'll find a wide variety of creatures and all look good artistically speaking. One thing I noticed is that, although the original polygon models and prerendered backgrounds remain, the game corrected many of the original game's glitches, such as clipping of the arms with the body and reducing the jaggies; actually, you could say that the game has never looked better than this; unlike the RE2 GC port, the backgrounds don't look washed out, and even look sharp and clean.
I have the RE4 demo disc and in it there are some RE videos so that you can see the evolution of the saga, and they included the introduction FMV of RE3, and it amazed me how sharp it looked, it was cleaned up and recompressed in a better format, so it's a shame they didn't do this with the RE3 GC port, as all FMVs in the game look very blurry, and this was their original state back in '99 but you can see the laziness on behalf of the programmers. The game sounds almost the same, with its campy voice acting and cool sound effects, but you'll start noticing that sound quality isn't as good as today's games; the music is great, though.
This is the RE game I like the least (but I still like it). Since you only have one character, there aren't so many changes. Once you get past the branching, there isn't too much to add to the main game, and some of the branches aren't even that different. Every time you beat the game you'll unlock an epilogue about a different character of the series. Also you'll unlock a minigame called The Mercenaries (sounds familiar? it does if you played RE4) where you must get from one point of the map to another in a certain amount of time. By finishing the minigame you'll earn money to buy enhanced weapons for the main game. But those are all the features it has.
I first played this game for the GC, so I tried to play this game by breaking the barrier of the graphics, and I enjoyed it very much, but I was annoyed by the fact it didn't receive the proper effort to make it better. BUT DO YOU KNOW WHY I COMPLAIN SO MUCH ABOUT NOT MAKING IT BETTER? BECAUSE CAPCOM PRICED IT A FULL $40 PRICE TAG! Yes, it was shameless. You could find it for PS1, PC and even looking the same on Dreamcast, all costing less than $20, with the same features. Even now it is expensive, since it's considered a rare item and you'll get it used for at least $40.
This is a great and solid game, revolutionary at the time, and I can't stop recommending it, even on the GameCube, don't get me wrong, but being charged a full retail price for a product that doesn't meet today's standards is what affected this review. But if you're a collecting maniac like me, then go ahead and try finding it.