@KennedyKiller Right! The same thing happened to me and herbs. My first playthrough I was failing pretty badly, first time trying to beat the game on hard, and there were herbs a plenty. Second playthrough I'm doing MUCH better having gotten readjusted to the controls from the first playthrough but I'm trying to stock up on herbs just in case I need them. Nowhere to be found! Not even later on in the game where the randomized item placement would have them if they weren't in the first location!
@Albertwesker959 I definitely get the different item placement and, when I played the game on easy I thought it was random. After my experiences the past few days, not so much. (Especially considering the instance above, and others, when the items wouldn't even show up in the other area they were supposed to if they weren't in the first area.)
I honestly feel like this was an early attempt at adaptive difficulty and it just wasn't called that at the time. It would make sense too considering the other new mechanics they tried to implement with this game - ie; dodging, quick turns and mixing gunpowder. It's part of the reason I get so angry when people down on this game and call it the weakest or the worst of the originals just because it was shorter.
The story
wasn't intricate, it was extremely simple; doesn't mean it was bad. And if you look at the gameplay you can see why. This game was really trying to change how we played Resident Evil and I just wish that more of those elements had been carried over. Dodging wasn't implemented again until 6 and there was so much potential to be found in mixing your own ammo. You could literally play the game any way you wanted because you were in control of what ammo you had.
I can't speak to whether items are tied to some sort of adaptive difficulty, but there was one thing that has stuck with me in Resident Evil 3 that made me think the game was just randomized to keep each playthrough fresh and scary, and that was when I went up the elevator in the hospital.
My brother and I were playing through the series side by side and I remember when he went up the elevator, there was nothing there, but when I did, there were tons of zombies instantly swarming me and I was so p*ssed because he didn't have to deal with them.
I honestly couldn't say that I was doing better than him for the game to spike up the difficulty because it was my first time playing and he had gone through the game multiple times already. I just always assumed the game had some sort of randomization. Really do want to play the game again before the remake though.
I guess my first confession is that I only ever played the game once. I never disliked it and I was very fond of all the new elements they did include that kept the series fresh, but it was never a standout for me. A lot of the other titles have some kind of achievement associated with them, like Resident Evil ushering in the era of survival horror, Resident Evil 2 completely blowing the first one out of the water in size and scope, REmake being the definition of how to remake a video game, and Resident Evil 4 was just absolutely revolutionary. The rest are just kind of there, playing around with the formula.
And ackchually, Revelations brought back the dodge before RE6, which I've always wondered was done as an homage to RE3, another "spin-off" starring Jill Valentine.
Anyway, confession number 2, I only beat Resident Evil 0 once as well. Again, not because I didn't like it, but like Resident Evil 3, it just kind of worked out that way since they both don't really require more than 1 playthrough to get the whole story. I actually really liked 0 as well, like RE3, I thought it did some cool things to change up the formula in some interesting ways, even if a lot of people did find it controversial. Personally, I think they should have really just re-released the game with item boxes patched in, with an option or difficulty setting simply removing them.
My final confession is the one I have the most shame for, and it's the fact that I still haven't ever played Code Veronica, despite owning it on multiple platforms. I just never got to it and the reason my brother and I didn't get to it 10 years ago when we played through the series together was because he just wasn't looking forward to the tedium of the game again after he already beat it.
A part of me is still slightly intimidated to start it simply because of the way he described it, and it's not just him either, I've heard similar takes on the game all over the internet despite its rather positive following, even often being called the best one in the series. I don't really know which side I'll end up leaning towards, but it's certainly not something I'm eager to jump into after such conflicting and drastic opinions. But I've been slowly coming around to the idea of starting it after my latest playthroughs of REmake last year.
