Capcom is removing the lecherous ‘Erotica’ bonus from photos
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…
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!”
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 don’t care that they remove it from the base version of the game, but if you’re going to remake the damn thing I want the full, authentic, experience. If it requires me to download “horndog pack” as a free add on, so be it. Getting anything less is just a subpar product that isn’t worth discussing.
I would have no problem if they left it in this game as long as there is an option to turn it off at the beginning of the save.
Thats fine I got the og if i wanna get my creep on
If you remove stuff from a remaster is it still remaster?
Yes.
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.
When movies are remastered a lot of times undesirable parts of it (vhs tracking lines, static, film scratches and the like) are removed. Same as when songs are remastered and they take out mistakes on the original recording. Hell, look at the amout of stuff that was changed with the “special edition” remasters of the Star Wars OT. In each case things are removed or changed, but it is still a remaster.
You’re talking about mistakes. But the Erotica bonus from photos is not a mistake.
You asked how stuff can be removed from a remaster and still be called a remaster. I explained how that can be so.
The Special Edition in particular is relevant because Lucas changed things based on decisions he made later. Removing the Erotica bonus is equivalent to making Jabba a CG slug in his scene in A New Hope rather than a human gangster, as he was originally envisioned (yes the scene was cut from the theatrical release but the footage of human Jabba still exists). It’s a change in artistic vision that the creators want reflected in their new definitive version.
With any luck Capcom won’t pull a Lucas and make it nearly impossible to get the original version if someone wants to play it warts and all.
Hal’s argument sounds more like pedentry about what a remaster is vs what a remake is, and I would have to agree that this game sounds like a complete remake, and not simply a remastering of the original with what has been detailed about it.
Sadly, I’m sure there’s a dark corner of the internet where someone is very angry about this.
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.
You mean Twitter and Lies Antisocial?
Yep it’s called reddit dot com
Thank fuck. Those parts of the game were grating.
