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.
Ashley's face model is a literal idol in Japan. I think the Ashley outrage was as much about other stuff surrounding her characterisation in the remake as her new face. They changed her outfit from a skirt to a pair of shorts and removed all the interactions where she calls the player a pervert for looking up her skirt, Luis and Leon don't make snide remarks to her about how big her ass and tits are in the remake, she's no longer a ditzy damsel in distress, etc
With Resident Evil there's been a marked change in the series' overall tone since RE7, though I argue it began with Revelations 2. All the games from 1996 to 2012 had a very distinctly Japanese anime feel to them in terms of plot, dialogue, characterisation, character design, and so on. It always felt like you were watching a dubbed anime with awkward stilted dialogue (some more than others- see Code Veronica and Zero). The modern era has acting, writing and direction that feels more authentically like the Hollywood movies the games have always tried to emulate from the start.
With the new tone the way the series treats its female characters has also changed, moving away from anime heroine tropes. Gamers were also mad about Jill Valentine's characterisation in the RE3 remake where she wore more practical clothes and gasp swore
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
Code Veronica
I actually like Code Veronica
The plot and voice acting are Very Bad but it manages to hit such a high level of ridiculous camp energy it's very entertaining. Compare this to Zero which is equally stupid but is just very leaden and boring throughout. I also just like the classic RE formula and Code Veronica is a huge slab of the stuff
Can't wait to see how they remake it