this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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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.
I like that as a framing question, and it helps me to further understand why it is that scenes like the RE4 one feels so weird to me.
I think the thing that makes me uncomfortable in that scenario is the fact that Leon is the hero. I'm a woman who has loved gaming for basically my whole life, so I'm used to playing as someone who doesn't look like me — there's a certain amount of abstracting away of gender that's necessary if I want to be able to participate in some heroic escapism. That's why scenes like Leon being a creep are so jarring, because he's the hero. The narrative of the game is endorsing this kind of behaviour because it's being done by the hero.
Dead Rising is a somewhat more ambiguous example, but still weird overall. I don't necessarily even mind that the photography intro quest highlights the fact you can take sexy(?) photos, because the NPC in that quest is written in a way where it's like the game itself is saying "yeah, this guy is a weird creep". Getting points for "erotic" photos is a bit weird though, because whilst you can choose to not take photos like that, it feels like the mechanics of the game are endorsing the creepy dude's mentality overall.
So, to be clear: The idea of Leon doing that in a cutscene was theoretical. The only thing the first game had was an Easter egg triggered from looking at Ashley via low angle, which as described takes specific intentions to pull off.
Luis, a sleazy side character, does say something raunchy to her, and that was removed in the remake. It’s a little more fitting because he’s painted as untrustworthy and imperfect; but, I also realize with how many people like Ashley, it’s the sort of line that has no good response to let her be cool. In the original she just pouted “How rude!!”
Yeah that's a fair take, for sure. Although tbf there was never an explicit cutscene where Leon looks up Ashley's skirt in the game, it was something that only happened when the player or Leons head in general looked up her skirt. That being said, it still felt weird and out of place regardless. Not to mention it just happened too often in weird ways, like suplexing an enemy near Ashley.
Never played it, but it sounds like the achievement is meant to surprise you. Like, it’s not meant to encourage people looking up skirts, it’s more like the console going “Busted!”