Because Ashley in OG 4 looks like a child, especially weird since she's supposed to be 20 in the game but her face looks like she's only 14 (typical Japanese lolitacon fetish for the time).
Remake is a total upgrade and Ashley now looks like a model and a WOMAN, not a cherub faced girl.
G*mers just to want to be unabashed pedos.
Great shift to be making, despite gamer malding it's far more successful now. Who woulda thought that the sweaty gamer archetype isn't the only audience you have to cater to?
I don't think the old tone was driven primarily by Capcom trying to pander to horny otakus. RE was mostly a pretty non-horny franchise, some character designs or that extremely jarring slimy stripper monster boss in RE6 not withstanding. RE4 was the only game with that particular kind of horny anime shit like pantyshots but even then I think Shinji Mikami intended those to be played for laughs given the whole tongue-in-cheek tone of the game.
I think it was more that the games were written and directed in a vacuum by Japanese people with Japanese sensibilities whereas I'm pretty sure they now involve more international partners in every stage of the creative process. I'm pretty sure RE7 was written by an American writer, for example
More proof RE4 was the worst one
It is the best written of the old games since it fully commits to being self-aware action schlock. From what I understand Shinji Mikami ended up just writing the plot himself in like two weeks after the staff couldn't decide on a scenario and just sort of half-assed it so they could get the game back on track