As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Who were you expecting, Pyramid Head?
Resident Evil 2 was already bad enough with the introduction of Lickers, alongside G-Birkin and Mr. X chasing after you. 3 introduces someone worse than G-Birkin. And then the remake shows how much more it could be worse...- Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is trying to be scary, it's Survival Horror, but it does better than expected with the eponymous monster. The reason? Unlike most of the enemies, it can appear anywhere. The only clue that it's about to attack you? The music turns dramatic and a voice groans "STARS..." from just offscreen.
- Not only that - sometimes he never makes an appearance in a particular area, there's no music, and you'll still hear that distinct "S.T.A.R.S....
" off in the distance. There's a reason why he's nicknamed the Pursuer.- Just the sheer idea of a hulking monstrosity constantly stalking you, and being specifically created to come after you until you are DEAD is scary as all hell.
- Nemesis' introduction sets the tone for the rest of the game when it abruptly appears in front the RPD without warning, quickly snatches a terrified Brad, and then thrusts a tentacle from its hand right through Brad's mouth.
- A particularly scary music is the misleadingly titled "Never Give Up The Escape", heard mainly in empty rooms, of all places. A low drone piece punctuated by bell scare chords, and ominous ethereal choir.
- Let's not forget "Feel the Tension" playing in the background when the Nemesis can still show up at any time as he's the only one that's completely immune to the "can't go through doors" issue that all other enemies have as you need to run fairly far enough away to shake him off without fighting. It even plays when you're in a Save Room, and while he'll never burst into the Save Room, you'll still need to progress beyond it to a waiting Nemesis eventually regardless... And sometimes Nemesis patiently waits right beside the Save Room door.
- The Clock Tower has this in spades once Jill has been infected. Making your way back from the Hospital as Carlos, Nemesis suddenly attacks in the main room with the stairwell, he doesn't follow you into the dining room, but then promptly proceeds to blaze in through the flames the room outside the save room. Then, when in control of Jill, he shatters the door leading into the dining room, throwing away all effects of subtlety. That entire sequence, unless you're trying to fight him for weapon drops, is an exercise in 'ohGodohGodohGodohGod'.
- If you run away from Nemesis while you're playing as Carlos, he'll go after Jill in the chapel instead and it is possible for him to kill her.
- Even if you stand your ground and fight when he appears, it's very easy to run out of ammo, just because of how much punishment he can take in each encounter. For comparison, the first time you met Mr. X in 2, he went down with about a dozen handgun shots. In your first encounter with Nemesis, it takes that same number of shotgun shells just to get him at half health. Nemesis has definitely eaten his share of spinach to get so tough.
- Another unsettling detail about Nemesis is just how unnaturally resilient he is to all sources of damage. When you fight his second form in the Dead Factory, you can damage him enough by breaking the acid containers with him next to it, to the point where his head melts off as he is splashed by corrosive acid. And he'll still continue to go after you while missing his head.
- While the SD Perry novels aren't exactly canon, the remake confirms the idea that Jill's been having severe nightmares from her PTSD of the incident at the Spencer Mansion. The novels show Jill repeatedly having her nightmares involve the tyrant chasing her down, actively hunting her to kill her, so Nemesis winds up being her nightmare tyrant in reality and that much more terrifying as an antagonist for her; it is her fears and nightmares made manifest....
- Not only that - sometimes he never makes an appearance in a particular area, there's no music, and you'll still hear that distinct "S.T.A.R.S....
- In one cutscene, either Carlos or Nikolai is forced to kill a comrade named Murphy who is turning into a zombie.
- In RE2, one file found in the station mentions the loss of several cops, including an officer named David; here you find one that he left behind. He talks about how he ran as a fellow officer who saved his life was killed, screaming for help, and how hopeless and insane the situation is. He ends the letter mentioning how his old friend Mossberg is going to be "turning one more body into fertilizer".note
- The very idea of Nemesis - a Body Horror-infused Implacable Man with Combat Tentacles and the brains to use heavy weaponry, whose sole drive overriding everything including pain and any instinct for self-preservation is to hunt you down and kill you. Early in game, it's unlikely you'll have enough ammo to take him out. Ah well, there's always the ability to run; Tyrants are always slow in their first form. Except for this one. He can chase you down right from the get go. Add in the rocket launcher, the fact that he can chase you between rooms, and his instant death attack in his first form, and you've got nightmares.
- And while some of his appearances are scripted, others aren't. The Nemesis can find you anywhere. The only place he can't show up is the Save Rooms, and if you were running from him, he'll be right at the door when you leave the Save Room...
- Even worse, Nemesis' non-scripted appearances don't even have a music sting to alert you ahead of time. The best you tend to get is the sound of a door slamming and thumping footsteps, and a second later he's sprinting straight at you from off-camera.
- Finally, there's Nemesis' final form. After sustaining so much damage, his body is reduced to a torso with one arm and leg. However, the Nemesis Alpha parasite is still alive and is basically the only thing keeping its host body functional at this point. When the parasite devours the remains of a T-103 Tyrant, it transforms into a giant blob of flesh with tentacle limbs and a pincer/beak mouth that spits corrosive acid venom. And even though the rail cannon pretty much destroys it, it still has enough energy to crawl and make one final desperate attack on Jill.
- The first time the player enters the chapel save room in the clocktower. After collecting one of the keys at the back of the room and making their way to the exit... the ceiling suddenly vibrates. Plaster rains down. The soothing save room music abruptly stops. Nothing else actually happens, but the fact this happens in a save room is horribly unsettling.
- The aptly named "Dead Factory". The complex itself is nightmarish; it's a treatment facility used to clean up after Umbrella's mess and do away with the bodies, but in the events leading up to the game the factory overflowed with bodies and failed test subjects that the treatment fluid became contaminated and the virus began to spread within the factory. The place is gravely unsettling when you visit it. The most chilling fact however is that there is a document found in the complex which details employees how to handle trespassers even if they accidentally stumble upon the factory. Basically if they resist, they shoot the civilian and if they surrender they are taken captive and used as test subjects. What the hell?!
- Some of the death animations (you can see all of them here, but be warned, it's not for the faint of heart) are pretty disturbing, like when the Nemesis picks up Jill and slams her to the floor over and over again, and when the Hunter-Gammas swallow Jill whole. The former is especially disturbing because of the overkill aspect.
- The destruction of Raccoon City itself is incredibly eerie, especially with the creepy ethereal choir playing over the FMV showing the missile exploding. Not to mention that said scene was accurately depicting the effects of a nuclear bomb going off. Not to mention this game broke a pattern with the ones before it; where as RE1 and RE2 both fell into bittersweet territory, not even Jill, Carlos and Barry Burton whom comes to rescue them via helicopter can soften the blow of the horrifying scene of Raccoon city being leveled to rubble.
- Nikolai, much like Irons, is fairly unique among Resident Evil villains in that he has no grand schemes of world domination, nor does he have any direct involvement with any of the viruses. Unlike Irons, though, Nikolai is not a raving lunatic, but a pragmatic and cunning Sociopathic Soldier. He's out to manipulate the situation he's in and everyone in it, coldly removing anyone who gets in his way, for no other reason than to make a lot of money. Even Irons, in his own twisted way, tried to remain loyal to the company who hired him, and HUNK's loyalty to Umbrella borders on religious zeal. But Nicolai is only ever in it for the money. The worst part of it all? Canonically, he gets away with it. Not only does he achieve his goals, but said goals are to steal combat data from Umbrella regarding B.O.W's, meaning he likely had a hand in the post-Umbrella proliferation of B.O.W's that plagues the series and its protagonists to this day. Also, he's still out there...
- The Gravedigger. It's an enormous, mutant, carnivorous worm that's burrowing around underneath the city streets. It has only minor foreshadowing and no explanation as to where it came from or what it is. A Supervisor's journal found just before your final showdown with the creature even has a Lampshade Hanging, with the author noting that they don't want to know what kind of events spawned such a monstrosity.
- There's certainly something to be said about the intro FMV for the game. The first time you see this, you WILL get a scare that will stick with you for quite a while.
- The insanely creepy face in the sky of Raccoon City. No one knows why it's there, there are multiple fan theories trying to connect it to Regina from Dino Crisis, but those are just speculations note . It's so out of place even for a horror game like Resident Evil, truly looking like something straight out of Silent Hill instead.
- This game can be cited to be one of the more psychological Resident Evil games, placing you directly in the heart of a zombie virus outbreak at its peak, and lets you know all the time from beginning to end, you are not safe. The introduction shows a premonition of the dangers you will eventually face. Nemesis is already on screen with a dead Brad at the title screen. The menu options show an enigmatic microscopic diagram of cells.... which can be presumed to be a close up example of a T-virus infection on living human tissue, letting you know there is a foe unseen and potentially eating away at you. The entire city, loaded up, is dead, with no sign of life or everyday human activity. All bystanding civilians you come across cannot be saved, ever. All of this adds to the pressure of surviving, knowing that this is the heart of darkness and evil, and rarely anything will give you psychological relief other than the idea of actually escaping with your life, and as Dario Rosso has shown, giving into despair will only grant you a fate worse than death. So never forget as you load this game up: you will not be safe.
- Crosses into Tearjerker territory, but while Jill's opening monologue shows some resentment towards the city's populace for ignoring her warnings, SD Perry's novelization goes into detail about how Jill has, up to the game's starting moments, been actively trying to save people from the zombies but failing each time. Think about that every time Jill says during the game some form of "Somehow....I'm still alive...". Read it one way as someone amazed at being able to beat all odds where everyone else hasn't...and read it too as someone horrified that THEY are surviving while everyone around them is dying. Just how heavy is the guilt and trauma weighing on Jill....?
