2023 Ashley the embodiment of western d*generacy
(G*mers literally believe this)
I think I'm the only person who didn't like the original re4 that much. It marked the downfall of survival horror for me turning the genre into a hammy action fest then quickly dying out completely. I do very much like the remake though and new Ashley is superior in every way.
Everyone always regards 4 as an evolution to the genre and revolutionary. Evolution of what? Killing survival horror? 4 birthed 5 and 6 then capcom had to throw it all in the bin and start again to make 7
Have you played any game with an over the shoulder camera since 2005? All thanks to RE4
I also fucking love classic survival horror but Capcom had milked the series to death by the mid 2000s. A reinvention was necessary
Have you played any game with an over the shoulder camera since 2005? All thanks to RE4
I'm honestly having a seriously hard time remembering any i liked. Dead space is one, maybe cold fear i liked kinda. The thing movie tie in game? Othe than that I'm drawing a massive blank.
Gears of War rules. Just a bunch of yoked bros talking about their feelings while shooting bugs
Everyone always regards 4 as an evolution to the genre and revolutionary.
Ironically it mainstreamed a lot of design ideas that people now complain about, like quicktime events and contextual button presses (actually do people still complain about that? I know they used to after quicktime events got shoehorned into everything for like a decade after RE4). Basically everything about its design and controls was practically cutting edge for the time, even if it didn't invent any of it itself. I don't particularly like RE in general, but RE4 was genuinely an important practical example of a bunch of design principles that have since become standard.
Did you like the original Dead Space at all?
You're right, though, I fell off survival horror for a bit after RE4. I think I got back into the genre with Alien Isolation.
I do like dead space but that game sits in isolation to everything else re4 spawned. I don't even like dead space 2 or 3 just the first one.
Thing is i like it for the vibe, story, atmosphere. The gameplay itself is meh
I didn't even bother playing Dead Space 3 lol
Thing is i like it for the vibe, story, atmosphere. The gameplay itself is meh
I think you're onto something here. Vibe, story, and atmosphere are the key ingredients of a horror game. Gameplay is secondary, but can really enhance the vibe and atmosphere part if executed well.
If i think back to some of my most favourite horror games the gameplay generally hasn't been that great. I still have very strong memories of crawling through spider infested tunnels with some glow sticks in penumbra and coming across notes left behind and it sending chills down my spine. No monsters just imagination, writing, atmosphere. Signalis is similar, basic gameplay yet one of the most effective psychological horrors I've played in years.
One thing that actually felt revolutionary to me is the concept of a stalking monster which alien isolation did so perfectly. That game for me is my revolutionary horror game. And on the back of that Mr X in resi 2 remake and amnesia the bunker are just perfect.
Third person shooting, qte's, action focus gameplay, a resounding meh. Winback is my third person shooter of choice, so much fun to try and beat my times on that game.
Signalis is a beautiful game. Really well made. Good distillation of 90s survival horror gameplay.
I think it's less that it was revolutionary for the survival horror genre and more that it was revolutionary for third person shooters. Basically every third person shooter took some design cues from RE4.
I definitely agree with you though, that it basically ended the era of horror games being mainstream.
Were they ever that mainstream? Resident Evil was the only horror mega blockbuster in the PS1 era (I'm including the first two Dino Crisis games among them since they're basically RE spinoffs) and in retrospect I don't think it was the survival horror the average gamers liked, it was blasting monsters with guns. With the exception of Silent Hill, none of the other big survival horror games came close in terms of popularity, and even then Silent Hill was a pretty distant second.
Just to illustrate what I mean, Project Zero/Fatal Frame was considered one of the major survival horror franchises of the early to mid 2000s among RE, Silent Hill and Siren, and to date the entire series has sold 1.3 million copies. In comparison, Dino Crisis 1 sold 2.3 million copies and Dino Crisis 2 1.2 million.
The marker of downfall of horror to me was Amnesia. Now too many horror games are about hiding in a closet or under a bed as a spooky monster shambles outside. It kills the pace and kills atmosphere. Alien Isolation was the only game in that style I've enjoyed because of how reactive the monster is.
Silent Hill 2 is still a high point of horror gaming that's never quite been matched. RE7 was kinda cool though, I dug it. Reminded me of my Louisiana family in some weird coincidental ways.
When it came out Amnesia was a breath of fresh air (even though it was largely just an evolution of Frictional's previous Penumbra series) simply by actually focusing on horror. In 2011 we were one year away from RE6, Silent Hill was in the toilet and Dead Space 2 had just come out, which while a great game, leaned even more on action than the first Dead Space.
While I enjoyed Amnesia and to a lesser extent the first Outlast, I definitely did not like how horror in video games basically became synonymous with first person games about jump scares and hiding in closets from unkillable monsters. The thing is though, at the time Amnesia came out horror games had been mostly boiled down to shooters with gloopy monsters and flickering lights.
Also, you can really tell the first Evil Within came out during the height of the Amnesia trend. It's mostly a RE4 clone (from the same director) but the beginning of the game has some really clunky and annoying closet-hiding sequences awkwardly jammed in
If you liked Silent Hill 2 I would recommend the game Signalis that came out last year, if you haven't played it. It's very Silent Hill inspired and has great atmosphere
Edit: Nevermind lol I just scrolled down and saw you talking about it already
Really lovely game. Devs knew exactly which buttons to push. Thanks for the recommendation though
I've had this argument with my friend who's played and liked all the Resis (except Zero, she obviously doesnt like Zero, actually I think she doesn't like Code Veronica either) and that includes her not getting why people hate 5 and 6.
For me, Resi 4 original is a fun game, but I agree its a franchise (and genre) original sin moment and its not really Survival Horror, its a third person shooter with zombies and a few jump scares. I honestly can play and enjoy 5 and 6 as well but 6 especially just feels completely soulless.
Like idk. I think the original 4 is well designed so I can't bash it, but I totally get where you're coming from.
Isn't she literally wearing more makeup in the newer version? By what possible metric is this a downgrade? I struggle to see what design any "concerned fan" could make that wouldn't resemble the newer one and not be awful.
The huge eyes and flat mouth made her look like a child. To them, that's what was downgraded.
I refuse to believe something so silly. Is it really just
?The original Ashley also had huge breasts that Luis commented on, and you could peek under her skirt which she would react to. You know, the usual Japanese game shit
Gamers were fuming because remake Ashley wore shorts
Now it makes sense. Capcom turned her from vapid weebbait into an actual character and they will never forgive them for it.
I played through the 2005 RE4 again recently and what struck me most is how empty Ashley is as a character. She barely has any dialogue other than screaming or "help me." Complete void of a character which sticks out in comparison to all the wacky people like Luis or Salazar.
It isn't until much later in the game, around the island, that Leon and her start to have any meaningful dialogue. It feels weird
Very true. I mean I'm a HUGE fan of the scene where Leon turns her down after she propositions him because its absolutely hilarious, but even that was handled better character wise in the Remake even if its less funny.
She should have her ears out. I actually believe this
All these dinguses whining about Ashley when the real crime is what they did to Leon and Wesker
Also the two games had very different art styles. While RE did base their character models on real people on occasion even in the sixth and seventh gens (Re0 Rebecca was based on a Japanese pop star, Jill from REmake until RE3Remake was based on a model IIRC), before REVII pivoted to stricter photorealism the older games had that very distinct semi-realistic but still kind of anime look many Japanese games have
They were not going to find a model with the same cartoon features as original Ashley
While I think the switch to photorealism in RE7 was good enough to excuse it, I do miss the "anime-esque realism" they went for in the original series sometimes.
I'm pretty indifferent on the channel, but I'm curious: what makes you hate it?
Smearing turtle rock studios by omitting basically every shitty thing Valve did to them to circle the wagons on B4B. Gameinformer has a good documentary on it. Eurogamer has a good article on this, too.
Waxing poetic about Xbox live of all things was also really funny.
Was that the channel that did the "soulless" video on this?
Yep! There are lots of videos on that channel rightfully comparing first and latest games in a franchise, which is partly why the RE4 take was so quickly cemented into their brains- though that shit had been festering ever since RE2make.
Y'know I'd never actually seen a side by side, and this has made me realize that the thing that makes new Ashley look "wrong" to me is probably the different eye color.
Also this whole spat of drama was very funny because Ashley was universally hated in RE4.
I liked the original Ashley (and not just for coomer reasons).But yeah it is funny to see gamers say the remake "Ruins" a character they fucking despised.
In-game Leon looks like he got stung by twenty bees while constipated (seriously, what is wrong with his in game expressions?). Compared to him she honestly looks great in the new one!
It was meant to emphasize his angst and trauma over the RC Incident more, as well as trying to fit the serious-ish tone of the remake series. Wouldn't have worked if they tried to adapt the OG RE4 Goofball Leon, who was fairly nonchalant about being trapped in an infected murder village.
Yeah the writing in the remake is actually quite good from what I can tell, it’s just the character models that look really weird. Luis viewing his actions through the lens of DonQuixote is awesome, esp since he clearly views Leon as his sidekick, not the main character
I had no idea this was even a thing. A few guys I've known who played the game talk about how hot Ashley and Ada Wong were.
I have friends who are into resident evil and they also gush about the redesigns. Are people complaining about Ada too? Maybe its different if you play the games but she seems almost exactly the same to me.
People are complaining about her voice actress mostly. And to be fair, the delivery is exceptionally wooden relative to how great the rest of the cast is
I don't know if they are tbh but I've never seen a complaint about Ashley's redesign until going online
So many damn remakes now thatbit's a sub-genre on YT making comparison and critique videos about them. And since it's all just "content" made for money or to fill the void the criticism is going to vary from legitimate to nonsensical.
