5 Tips for Survival in Resident Evil 3

Resident Evil 3 is a game about characters conquering insurmountable challenges, and Nemesis is certainly in that category. But there are a variety of enemies that are dangerous as well. Every enemy in the game, even the basic zombie, can take you down.

Given how limited ammo is, this means you have to play smart. Save your bullets, aim your shots, and blow things up when you need to. But there are a few strategies in Resident Evil 3 that not every player is aware of. These are tips that can help you get through the game with only a few bites. If you want to survive in Resident Evil 3, you need to do the following.

1. Bust Some Kneecaps

Resident Evil 3 features hordes of zombies. If you’re lucky, you’ll encounter one or two at a time, but it will be common to fight four of more zombies simultaneously. With the erratic movements of the walking dead, it can be hard to land headshots, especially under so much pressure. After all, seeing a wall of zombies advance towards you is frightening.

In order to give yourself some space, you should not aim for the head but aim for the legs. If you shoot a zombies leg enough, they will fall to the ground, and, chances are, they won’t get back up. They will start crawling towards you, rendering them much slower and much easier to avoid. Do this to a few of your enemies, and you’ll be able to line up some better shots or escape. You can, of course, do this with any zombie, but this is most helpful when there are large crowds.

Now, be warned, it takes a few shots with certain weapons. One-shot with the shotgun will sweep them off their feet, but two or three shots are required with a pistol. Once you have decided you are going to cripple some zombies, make sure you commit. Realize it might take a few shots, but it will be worth it.

Also, make sure you don’t forget about them! They move much slower and are far easier to evade, but they are also low on the ground and sometimes hard to see. If you forget about them and step on them, they’ll crawl onto you and take a chunk out of you. Just be aware of your surroundings, and you will never be anything you have to worry about.

2. Knife ‘Em When They’re Down

Now that we’ve talked about getting zombies on the ground let’s talk about what to do with them when their friends aren’t around. Ammo is scarce, regardless of how action-oriented the game is, and so saving every bullet is of the utmost importance. But, unlike in Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3 features an unbreakable knife. Use this to your advantage!

If you knock a zombie down, get behind it and start knifing away. Try and hit the head if you can because this does more damage. It will, of course, turn to grab you, but you can take advantage of its slow speed. As you knife, it turns with the zombie, which allows you to dish out damage while staying safe. It will take more than a few stabs to kill it, but it saves a bullet or four. No sense wasting bullets on basic enemies when we can keep our ammunition for more strenuous encounters.

Another note: don’t stop knifing even if the zombie performs its death animation. Often, they aren’t dead. Continue to knife them until they no longer react at all to your stabs. That’s when they actually die.

You can also use this strategy to find out if zombies that litter the environment are actually dead or not. If you knife every zombie you come across, you won’t get surprised when it wakes up. If they are alive, and you knife them before they can completely stand up, you’ve managed to do some damage before the fight even started. Just be careful. Zombies, as they are getting up, can lunge towards you and bite you. Make sure to stay behind them or, better yet, back up as they are standing up. From there, you can decide to go for the headshot or blow out their kneecaps.

3. Dodge Like Your Life Depends on it…Because it Does

In other Resident Evil games, if a zombie’s close enough, there’s no way they aren’t grabbing you. No two ways about it. After all, limited movement is a staple of the series. But Resident Evil 3, including the original, has a dodge mechanic.

Pressing the dodge button will prompt Jill to scramble in the direction of your choice. If you time it right, however, you will execute a perfect dodge. Jill will roll quickly, allowing her to cover more ground and briefly slow downtime. A perfect dodge can get you out of more than a few nasty situations.

So, this is my advice. One: remember to dodge. Sounds obvious, but because most Resident Evil games don’t have this mechanic, I found myself forgetting quite often in the beginning. My life would’ve been easier if I had utilized the dodge mechanic at first.

My other piece of advice is to practice it. It’s harder to pull off than it sounds. When I first started, I would accidentally dodge into zombies, mistime the perfect dodge, or perform other embarrassing actions I would rather not disclose. If you perfect the skill, you’ll have an easier time with the entire game. Otherwise, you’ll look like a bumbling idiot, like me!

4. Take Down Nemesis When You Can

Now, hear me out. Yes, the Nemesis is terrifying, a hulking beast of strength and speed, and he isn’t easy to kill (well, impede). Oftentimes, he takes a lot of resources, healing items, and ammo to fight. But, if you can take him down, you will be rewarded.

If you “kill” Nemesis the first two times he appears, you will get weapon upgrades. Knocking him down the first time will cause him to drop the Handgun Extended Magazine. Reloading less is always better. Take him down when he appears a second time, you’ll get the Handgun Moderator upgrade, which silences the pistol and increases the chance of critical shots. Critical shots are what make heads explode like watermelons when you get a headshot. So, we like those.

Also, sometimes Nemesis will pursue you when there are new places to explore. Stopping him in his tracks will give you the time to search these locations for valuable resources. But, again, Nemesis’s intimidating appearance is only matched by his right hook. If you need to run, do so. But if you can take him down, I advise you do.

5. Craft, Craft, Craft

Ammo is still scarce in Resident Evil 3, regardless of its more explosive tendencies. You might not find enough boxes of a handgun or shotgun ammo littered throughout the environment, but you will find gunpowder, both standard and high-grade. Combining these gunpowders in different ways will yield a large amount of ammo.

Crafting becomes especially important when we start talking about the grenade launcher. There are a lot of different ammo types for the weapon: acid, explosive, flame, and mine rounds. You can’t craft mine rounds, but you can use different combinations of Explosive A and Explosive B to craft the others. You will find explosive and flame rounds in the environment, but probably not as much as you would like. But I seldom find acid rounds; they have to be crafted. Considering how useful acid rounds can be, especially with bosses, it’s very important to craft them when you can.

Basically, if you stay on top of crafting, you won’t run out of ammo. You’ll get low, but you’ll find you always have a shot or two left, even after the most intense encounters.

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Those are the five most important tips for surviving in Resident Evil 3. If you can get these essentials down, you’ll almost be ready for Inferno difficulty. Almost.

If you’re like me and already looking forward to the next entry in the Resident Evil series, there have been some rumors about Resident Evil 8 shaking up the series.

What are some of your tips? Any of these helpful to you? Did you like Resident Evil 3? Let us know in the comments below!