The House of the Dead 3 - Still the usual zombie apocalypse, but with shotguns and stage selecting [ENG/ESP]
Published on HivePostify by @acstriker · Wed Jul 29 2026
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To think that this somehow was the most recent arcade port from the HOTD series for a decade until the first HOTD Remake arrived in 2022 - putting aside how mixed the results and reception on that one was.
And also putting aside The House of the Dead Overkill which released a year after House of the Dead 2 & 3 on Wii, not to say it doesn't deserve its flowers one day (if anything, it actually was the first one I played as my brothers had it on Wii), but was a standout with the B-Movie tone and being developed by a different studio outside of SEGA.
I say that as the actual last House of the Dead game on arcades, Scarlet Dawn, never made it home in any form either after almost 10 years, so its funny to this that HOTD3 (and Overkill) on Wii were the only thing people legitimately could get at home for zombie shooting action. But in any case, it's still rad SEGA bothered doing that double port for Wii in the first place. Too bad it didn't include the first game as well, but oh well.
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20 years after the first game, shotguns are now in vogue
So...yeah, the first chapter you play is "Chapter 0", with a text mentioning 20 years passed since the 1999 Curien Mansion incident, which is to say it's been that long since HOTD1, and you briefly play as his protagonist (Thomas Rogan) entering a zombie infested base for a few minutes...until he gets ambushed by a big creature, and game cuts to two weeks later, presenting the protagonists of this one: Lisa Rogan (Thomas's daughter) and G (Thomas's partner in HOTD1, now visible aged here as well).
And as you might have inferred by now, you now use shotguns instead of handguns, although in practice its kind of the same as the previous games. What changes is the way the shots fired look and sound, but also having a brief reload animation before actually restocking your ammo that you might have to think about untimely death.
To go into a note about the presentation, it does shift into something a bit more gritty rather than doing a crispier take of what came before (as HOTD2 takes a lot of cues from HOTD1 as its direct sequel), with how the music is more on the dramatic or ambiental side rather than energetic and arcadey, a variety of strange mutated zombies, and a bit more bloody detail for blowing off chunks of zombie bodies as you play.
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Choose your destiny, and then shoot...or...DIE!!
While the first two games already had some subtle alternate paths depending of what you did (shooting at a switch, saving a civilian that lets you go into another path, shooting one or two specific enemies in a split path), and HOTD3 from what I understand still has some of those hidden path splits, it also lets you approach any stages after Chapter 1 (except the final one) in the order you want.
Each of the stages you choose have a specific boss awaiting at the end as well, so you might be able to opt in early for the stage that gives you the most trouble, or test your luck (and ability to nab extra lives) with your better stages before the last one. Although the last stage you play before the finale seems to also affect the ending - if you got a high rank on the three stages you played, that is.
That aside, if you know the previous HOTD games, you'll guess this one is more of the usual: 6 bullets, reload when you run out (complete with a RELOAD voice), and headshots are your best friend to one-tap zombies on sight.
You might want to take note of that last part too, not just for zombies that might jump at you on sight, but also whenever you have to rescue your partner from zombies to be able to get a bonus extra life.
This actually ends up replacing the civilians from the first two games, so you can rest assured you won't shoot any human by accident...but saving your partner every time can be easier said than done if you don't pump them with lead (or headshots) immediately.
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An always visible stop and go against the big fiends
The last stand out aspect from HOTD3 besides the far less colorful enviroments and removal of civilians would be how bosses work slightly different than before.
Instead of having a singular healthbar and switching between phases, every phase a boss might have now has a separate bar below to indicate whenever you've actually dealt enough damage for it to back off before damaging you. But it also means that you'll do zero damage if you shoot at them as long as they don't fill that red bar back up, which usually happens when they start another attack or phase.
For example, when you fight The Fool, you have to shoot down the targeted limb to deplete the red bar and make it stop, but if you don't do this enough times quickly to make it change phase (shaking the walls to make corpses from above fall at you, or changing to lunge attacks), it will manage to get close and swipe a life off you.
And then there's "The Death", this hulking monster that will always greet you in Chapter 1 and give you a "nice massage" with the massive club with skulls if you don't deplete the red bar to make him step back quickly enough. If you end up feeling like he didn't do enough back then though, then you might enjoy that he comes back to torment you more - and don't be fooled by his straightforward nature, because its easy to miss headshots as he runs frantically then take a hit because he got too close.
The Sun (the plant thing you saw before the last two screenshots here) will instead have two or three colored small bars that indicate the two or three tentacles it uses, and only use one full red bar when you get halfway through it, as it switches to singular attacks (and therefore, singular targets to shoot down), although before that you are also meant to shoot at the heads at the center to do a little bit of damage between the moments you fend off the tentacles.
And then the big evil, final boss that makes the Magician and Emperor from the first two game looks like mere mortals, the "Wheel of Fate", takes the cake for the nastiest challenge of the entire game, which is ironic when this game (besides some boss moments) has slightly less gotcha moments, and you can still get bonus lives between stages depending of your final rank (Rank A for one life, Rank S for two) as well as the partner rescues despite the lack of civilians. There's also one extra life hidden in every stage you visit if you check for things to shoot at.
But going back to the final boss...screenshots don't make it any justice. The weak spot is the obvious glowing orb on his chest, but the bastard will move around erratically in most of his phases, making it likely that you'll take a hit as it rushes at you because you can't damage him enough in time to stop his rushes. When he doesn't rush you, he instead throws a lot of lightning bolts that can be hard to see with the already glowing grid of a background, and that also distracts you from rapid firing at his weakspot when you finally happen to have a moment to look at it easily.
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Conclusion
Its funny to think that this is the next one on the "chopping block" of Forever Entertainment remakes that people now fear after HOTD2's came out with similar issues to the first one, although I'm not sure if SEGA will ever outsource a HOTD3 remake when it doesn't have that same "old classic" appeal the first two games had (which the Panzer Dragoon games, also ported by them, have as well).
But considering SEGA already had an avenue to port HOTD2 by using the Wii port as a base yet never did (or even more bafflingly, have ways to port the arcade games through emulation as shown by ports in Yakuza games, such as the Model 3-based Ocean Hunter in Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii), it seems like an unwinnable scenario of either having to wait and bite on a cobbled together remake of this game just to have it in modern platforms...or get nothing and have to go track down a Wii just to try it out "legally".
Putting aside this being an obstacle some can jump over in ways you can imagine, HOTD3 for how it strayed from the first two games's formulas, its still a fun game to blast through and learn even if the tone is different, although having to run out of credits just to get an extra starting life in the Wii port just to eventually have a chance against the final boss isn't exactly nice.
Ghost Squad still had you replaying the game a lot just to unlock more stuff on the Wii, but at least had infinite credits off the get go for any beginners to stumble through, while here you'll need to keep coming back each time you run out to keep increasing your margin of error. The only upside is that HOTD3 somehow feels more lenient than HOTD2 besides the final boss, oddly enough, more so when there's only four full sized chapters before the final boss, compared to HOTD2's five AND a half boss rush awaiting before the end.
Anyhow, pretty cool game to play - definitely worth a shot if you have the ways to play it, especially in co-op. Even when I have lost my few runs so far on it to the final boss (and sometimes get cheapshotted by a boss's weakspot not dying fast enough), it was still a thrill to play overall anytime I give it a go.
Thanks for reading, and see you next time.
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Spanish translation with [DeepL](https://www.deepl.com/translator). All screenshots were captured by myself.
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Español
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Y pensar que, de alguna manera, este fue el último juego de la serie HOTD adaptado de las máquinas de arcade en toda una década, hasta que llegó el primer remake de HOTD en 2022 —dejando de lado lo dispares que fueron los resultados y la recepción de ese título—.
Y dejando también de lado The House of the Dead Overkill, que salió un año después de House of the Dead 2 y 3 en Wii; no es que no merezca su reconocimiento algún día (de hecho, fue el primero que jugué, ya que mis hermanos lo tenían en la Wii), pero se destacó por su tono de película de serie B y por haber sido desarrollado por un estudio independiente, ajeno a SEGA.
Digo esto porque el último juego real de House of the Dead para salas de juegos, Scarlet Dawn, tampoco llegó a los hogares en ninguna forma después de casi 10 años, así que me resulta curioso que HOTD3 (y Overkill) para Wii fueran lo único que la gente pudiera realmente tener en casa para disfrutar de la acción de disparar a zombis. Pero, en cualquier caso, sigue siendo genial que SEGA se haya tomado la molestia de hacer ese doble lanzamiento para Wii en primer lugar. Lástima que no incluyera también el primer juego, pero bueno.
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20 años después del primer juego, las escopetas están de moda
Así que... sí, el primer capítulo al que juegas es el «Capítulo 0», con un texto que menciona que han pasado 20 años desde el incidente de la Mansión Curien de 1999, lo que significa que ha pasado todo ese tiempo desde HOTD1, y juegas brevemente como su protagonista (Thomas Rogan) al entrar a una base infestada de zombis por unos minutos... hasta que una criatura enorme le tiende una emboscada, y el juego salta dos semanas más adelante, presentando a los protagonistas de esta entrega: Lisa Rogan (la hija de Thomas) y G (el compañero de Thomas en HOTD1, a quien ahora también se le nota el paso del tiempo).
Y como ya habrás deducido a estas alturas, ahora usas escopetas en lugar de pistolas, aunque en la práctica es más o menos lo mismo que en los juegos anteriores. Lo que cambia es la forma en que se ven y suenan los disparos, pero también hay una breve animación de recarga antes de reponer realmente tu munición, lo que podría hacerte pensar en una muerte prematura.
En cuanto a la presentación, se inclina hacia un estilo un poco más crudo en lugar de ofrecer una versión más nítida de lo que vino antes (ya que HOTD2 toma muchas referencias de HOTD1 al ser su secuela directa), con una música más dramática o ambiental en lugar de enérgica y de estilo arcade, una variedad de zombis mutados extraños y detalles un poco más sangrientos al hacer volar por los aires partes de los cuerpos de los zombis mientras juegas.
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Elige tu destino y luego dispara... o... ¡¡MUERE!!
Tags: #gaming#lightgun#hgc#sega#houseofthedead#hotd#houseofthedead3#wii#spanish