I’ll admit: I play games that are sexualized in a cringey way. But I don’t want those themes aggravating people that just want a fun zombie apocalypse, forced to play as a hero that randomly reverts to a horndog at random times.
That said, saying it now I wonder about Snake’s personality in the MGS3 remake, since every bit of that game is classic…
But I don’t want those themes aggravating people that just want a fun zombie apocalypse, forced to play as a hero that randomly reverts to a horndog at random times.
To be fair, nobody is forcing them to play the game. Zombie game market has a lot of options.
This really feels like a cop-out answer. I understand it’s the same feeling as when difficulty is too high for a game. But I think it’s different when someone has an opinion like “This game feels exactly like what I wanted!…Except for this one big issue.”
Sexualized scenes that make people really uncomfortable (or just un-immersed) can be one of those issues, and high difficulty can often put a barrier on content.
In this case, I genuinely cannot think of too many open-world zombie swarm evasion games that work quite like Dead Rising, complete with its arcadey aesthetics. Having that “one thing” can exclude some people from that exact type of game, even if that doesn’t affect many people. And for those seeking sexualized scenes - the same could be said. No one is outlawing them, just ensuring people get what they’re expecting.
And, to be clear since I brought up difficulty, Dark Souls has so little in the way of direct storytelling, people arguably wouldn’t find much interesting if the game had a story mode that skipped/trivialized gameplay. So in that case, the “one thing” isn’t really a barrier to much other than the credits.
I never really considered how weird some of this stuff really was until remakes changed it. Like the voice line for looking up Ashley's skirt in RE4. Lots of weird stuff like this in games where it kind of doesn't fit, although I did think the erotic bonus in dead rising was funny in a kind of campy B movie way. Sexualized zombies are kind of a staple of the culture in a way, I think.
Now, I hear they're making a Lollipop Chainsaw remake and I hope they don't change anything there, as an achievement of shame for looking up the characters skirt was pretty funny and fit the general aesthetic of the game well.
Something that I think is a good criteria is whether an inclusion negatively affects the experience of someone who’s, let’s say, “normal”.
Ex: A female streamer plays Resident Evil 4, really enjoys the characters for Leon and Ashley. Then, Leon for some reason tries to peek under her skirt in a cutscene. Even if some people find it funny, it makes the streamer feel uncomfortable - both for a character she likes getting violated, and for making it clear “Even if you like fighting zombies, this game was made for horny BOYS. Not for YOU.”
Contrast that with players, in gameplay, spending time at a ladder with a sniper rifle to set up a curious angle. That requires specific player intention, and once it’s clear the player is involving themselves with that stupidity, it’s perhaps more appropriate to quickly lampshade it.
That said, I’m glad the remake had enough creativity it wasn’t invested in remaking tired jokes like that. You could say Lollipop Chainsaw is perhaps more ready to keep those elements given that the intention is clear from its cover art.
How? You're removing something who is from the OG. The thing they're remastering. So how can it be a remaster? Looks like Capcom playing a word game with remaster and remake. This is a remaster so it's okay we remove stuff.
I mean, a small part of me dislikes the lost potential for satire. Dead Rising was always an over-the-top franchise, and Frank always came off as a kind of "wants to be taken seriously, but often finds himself selling candid shots of celebrities to tabloids to get by" kind of photographer. But the presentation was too serious and felt ultimately creepy, rather than being funny or coming off as social commentary.
Yeah I thought that was part of Frank's character? He's a has been that never was that reluctantly finds himself becoming a hero.
In the second game, he's shown to be moreso a sleazeball, as he's basically making a living selling the rights to his story and starring in a survival game show.
I do think the sleaze is an integral side to Frank's character that should stay or he would be a lot less interesting. I don't think anything in the article actually demonstrates that they are changing his character despite the headline. If I recall correctly, Off the Record also included the mechanic even though Frank was not the protagonist so perhaps it was never meant to reflect on his character and was just there to reward the player for being kind of gross.