Showing posts with label game analysis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label game analysis. Show all posts

Shadow Of The Tomb Raider In Retrospect

Thursday, 11 April 2024

 

There is a very special charm about the Tomb Raider games, that may be a bit difficult to describe to people who are not fans of the series or are unfamiliar with them. Speaking for myself, however, I can say that it is mostly thanks to Lara Croft and her adventures that I not only got into gaming, but also ended up loving this particular type of games. The Tomb Raider saga is one of the most popular among gamers, and one of those titles that are vaguely known even outside the limits of the gaming communities. And this is not only thanks to the movies, because those appeared many years after the first games were released; it is because back when Lara Croft made her initial appearance, the available games were much fewer than today and, most importantly, the way the Tomb Raider games were made was very innovative, as they combined a player-friendly game system and interface with an elaborate and impressive - for the standards of their era - gameplay design and environment setup.

Emphasis was always on the exploration and discovery factor in the Tomb Raider games, without them however lacking story and action wise. Lara would fight fierce enemies of all kinds, climb the highest rocky mountains, jump off the steepiest cliffs while searching for mythical artifacts and ancient treasures, and solving puzzles that, most of the times, were difficult to conceive but rather easy to solve. Although the development team behind the games, as well as the publishers, changed in the course of the nearly 30 (!) years that the games are alive, the spirit and atmosphere of Tomb Raider remained more or less the same, in spite of the seemingly radical change that the saga saw with the launch of the series' reboot in 2013. The graphical environment became more elaborate, richer and realistic, the gameplay grew to be more complex and challenging, Lara's backstory underwent minor changes, but overall the games maintained their original charm and style that captivated so many gamers years ago.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider was the latest of this "new generation" Tomb Raider, released in 2018, following one of the best games in the series, Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016). Developed by Eidos (Montreal) and released by Square Enix, Shadow of the Tomb Raider had Lara return to the familiar environments of South America, while looking for an artifact the existence of which was apparently partly responsible for her dear father's suicide. Her quest leads her to Peru along with her buddy Jonah, where she comes across Paititi, a lost city hidden in the heart of a wild and unfriendly jungle. There she meets Unuratu, the rightful but dethroned queen and her son, Etzli, and discovers that Dr Dominguez, a fellow archaeologist and native of said city who also knew Lara's father very well, is going through not so legit activities in order to supposedly ensure that the place remains safe and untouched from modern civilization. Of course his story is much darker and complex, or at least it takes this turn after he gets hold of the artifact, leading to building his unavoidable paranoia and Messiah syndrome.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a game that one may not be able to fully appreciate on first look. In my early Steam review, I had highlighted certain points which I found weak at that time, some of which may still be valid to a certain degree, but after having played the game a few more times since then, and seen with the prospect of time itself, my overall impression has very much changed. Shadow of the Tomb Raider invests a lot in the action and adventure factors, where it shines, but what you really need to focus on so as to deeply understand it is its story. A story that has much more power, meaning and subtext than what may be obvious with the first or second impression, but which determines almost everything in the game, even concerning minor details that may very well be overlooked at first.

In my original review I described how I felt that Dr Dominguez was a weak villain, especially when compared to the imposing Constantin from Rise of the Tomb Raider. Now I realized that he is intentionally a weak villain because, in reality, he is not really a villain. Surely he got fair share of the infamous Messiah syndrome, as I already mentioned and as we can see from a point and on, but initially his intentions were good, and his ultimate purpose was to protect his home and keep Paititi untouched by the outside world, a purpose to which he remained faithful until the end. The real villain of the story is in fact his second-in-command, Commander Rourke.

When Commander Rourke first enters the scene, during the beautiful and immersive opening in Cozumel, he gives the impression of yet one more henchman, following the lead of Dr Dominguez whom he always seems to accompany. At this point, he appears to be a civilian, and we only get a hint about his identity during a dialogue that Lara overhears, when Dr Dominguez calls him "Commander". On first look, he is an imposing, handsome man with an apparently no-nonsense attitude, but as soon as the actual adventure unfolds, and as Lara can hear the soldiers' dialogues over her radio, it becomes more and more obvious that Commander Rourke is a relentless and cruel military man who doesn't have the slightest sense of morality and totally lacks sentimentality. Whether his character was such by default or it was shaped this way because of his profession, is something that remains unclear, as unclear remain his actual motives for aiding Dr Dominguez. We are never sure if he wants to find the artifact out of mere sense of duty since he was hired specifically for that mission or if he secretly hopes to use it for his own personal gain, but this is yet one more element that adds to the eery mystery that surrounds him. 

 

Commander Rourke is not the typical arch-villain in that the game's final confrontation is not with him, but with Dr Dominguez. But what is essential both for the story and his underlying importance in the plot, is the fact that he has an extremely violent death in the hands of the Crimson Fire, the Yaaxil priestess and primordial spirit who also acted as some kind of alter ego for Unuratu. A few chapters before the finale, Lara comes across the Crimson Fire, in a peculiar confrontation where the priestess lets her go without hurting her. A bit later Unuratu explains to Lara how the Crimson Fire is her own destiny, essentially identifying her own human self with the priestess's spiritual presence. If you take note of this and understand its importance, the subsequent succession of events acquires a most chilling dimension: Commander Rourke shoots and kills Unuratu in a scene that is very brief and may not gain the attention it deserves, but if you consider Unuratu's previous explanation about her connection to the Crimson Fire, you can literally feel something unearthly is slowly waking up at that point.

Close to the culmination of the story, Dr Dominguez, having the artifact in his possession already, is setting everything up for a ceremony that will supposedly restore order and save Paititi, while Commander Rourke and his men are guarding the temple where he is by all means. In a race against time to prevent all this from happening, Lara comes across the Crimson Fire once more and they form a silent pact to work together, this time with the Yaaxil on Lara's side, to rid off the common enemy. Of course Rourke's men are unable to battle against the super-powerful spirits of the Yaaxil and his team is soon eliminated. On her way to confront Dr Dominguez, Lara encounters Commander Rourke and they are intertwined in what seems to be a rather unfair fight since he is manning a lethal mounted gun which is almost impossible to win over. At that crucial point, the Crimson Fire arrives in person, and in a scene that is just as brief as the one with Unuratu's murder, but equally important and far more compelling, she violently attacks the Commander and kills him with her own hands - literally. Given that the Crimson Fire was Unuratu's destiny, it is clear that the deceased queen's spirit had now become one with the Crimson Fire, and the one killing Rourke is in fact Unuratu, avenging her own murder by slaughtering her killer with the hands of her primordial alter ego.

With Rourke gone, Lara rushes to confront Dr Dominguez in a battle where everything seems to be against her, but in the end, moments before his demise and as the effects of the artifact's power are starting to die down, Dr Dominguez confesses that he only wished to keep Paititi safe and has Lara swear to him that she will work to that end, essentially reconciling with her. Dr Dominguez had been Lara's counterpart throughout the whole story, while Rourke had been Unuratu's counterpart. This aspect of duality is not random, as the core of the game's story is built around such connections: the heron and the eclipse, the Chak Chel and the Ix Chel, Dr Dominguez as Amaru (his real native name) and Sayri, his deceased beloved brother with whom he shared a very special bond.

Another interesting aspect of Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the presence of archaeologists that Lara meets in her quest. It is not the first time that this happens, as we had met several of Lara's colleagues in older games, but they were very few and most of the times her rivals: Werner Von Croy, her mentor, was the most notable character, and then there were others who were not exactly archaeologists but their passion was treasure hunting and this made them cross paths with Lara in more than one occasions: Pierre in Tomb Raider 1 and Chronicles, Tony in Tomb Raider 3, Kurtis Trent in The Angel of Darkness, are a few such examples, and we should not forget Margot Carvier from the same game, a professor who worked at the Louvre and was a friend and colleague of Von Croy's. But it is in Shadow of the Tomb Raider where the profession is in full swing, as Lara comes across some quite interesting archaeologists and treasure hunters on the way.

Apart from Dr Dominguez, who is the main antagonist and is present throughout the whole story, there are also several others who cross paths with Lara, either randomly or during explorations and quests. Near the start of the story, Lara finds a local archaeologist in Mexico whom she saves by killing Rourke's thug who is about to execute him. As it turns out, Dominguez's team had hired him to guide them to the dig site, but as soon as he did they attempted to silence him by killing him in cold blood. Lara arrived just in time to save his life, and subsequently learn from him important details about the dig and the team that was after the artifact.

Later in Mission of San Juan, Lara meets three archaeologists and friends, Guillermo, Sara and Isabella, who are exploring the local mysteries and are searching to find a legendary crypt that is famed to be hidden in the depths of a hostile cave outside the town. There is a kind of "rivalry of love" going on among them, as Guillermo and Isabella seem to be an item, and Sara is their closest friend. Although Sara and Isabella are very good friends, they are constantly bickering, mainly because Isabella's view of the profession and its methods are rather radical. 

After such a quarrel, in which all three were involved, Isabella left in a fury to find the crypt the existence of which was seriously doubted by her friends. Soon after she went missing, and Lara, whom Guillermo and Isabella recognized as the illustrious archaeologist that she was, set out to find her. As it turned out, Isabella was right all along, as Lara managed to locate her, wounded but well, in the depths of that infamous crypt.

And then there is Manu, an old man and amateur raider who has lost his sight, apparently an avid treasure hunter in his youth, who sends Lara to reveal the location of a tomb, then return and describe it to him in full detail. Manu is accompanied by a group of local children to whom he narrates stories of his past adventures and who, like little raiders in the making, are in their turn looking for treasures in the grounds of the nearby cemetery.

This more human approach of Lara, her profession and the dangerous lifestyle that goes with it, is unique in the Tomb Raider world, and it offers a much more realistic insight of the heroine and her environment. Of course we had seen her more genuine side in Tomb Raider: Legend, but it was not as much highlighted there, and it was used mostly as a means to support certain events and (re)actions. Her more human depiction essentially started with the Reboot in 2013, but her character was not that much elaborated there and in spite of the game's many good elements, it did not manage to give that much needed boost to Lara's story. This happened with the excellent Rise of the Tomb Raider, but although overall I still believe that the latter is the most complete and most powerful of the three games of Tomb Raider's new era (Reboot, Rise and Shadow) what with its fantastic supporting cast (Jacob and Sofia), its fascinating arch-villain (Constantin) and its great Byzantium-themed story, I believe that Shadow of the Tomb Raider has reached a point that no other Tomb Raider had achieved before, that of the complexity in its character development and the multi-levelled interpretations of the story it narrates.

Time To Go Our Separate Ways?

Monday, 25 September 2023

There is a weird thing going on with almost all main DLC's from the latest Resident Evil games, including Resident Evil 7, Resident Evil: Village and the latest Resident Evil 4 remake, that makes them feel and look like alternative versions of the main games with different protagonists. But in the specific context, this is not always a good thing: they give the impression that most of their parts had been considered as possible episodes of the core games that were then sort of reduced for whatever reason to be included in the downloadable content chapters. "End of Zoe" from Resident Evil 7 might have been a slight exception, and I say "slight" because even if it was very good, it had us play with a protagonist who, albeit fairly cool and fun, had never been mentioned or appeared once in the main game. "Not a Hero", again from Resident Evil 7, was a frustrating race with Chris Redfield as a lead struggling in almost every step, with never enough items to go through extremely difficult areas and battles, in the end fighting against an enemy who should have been part of the main game anyway. "Shadows of Rose" from Resident Evil: Village had some interesting elements, but it lacked a believable plot base, resulting in giving strong "what if" vibes instead of being a solid, independent story. And now the highly anticipated, new and revamped "Separate Ways" from Resident Evil 4's remake is one more addition to this bizarre list of DLC's.

"Separate Ways" was initially an extended side game stemming from the original Resident Evil 4, with Ada Wong as the protagonist, where we followed our favorite lady spy in her own mission in the hostile Spanish countryside where the main game also took place. Ada would arrive in familiar areas of the core story, either before or after Leon, and she would sometimes offer a helping hand, even without him knowing. In spite of Ada's spy status, which by the way could have been put to even better use by applying stealth mechanics to her gameplay, the original mission moved in a similar pace with the main game, feeling at times a bit too much for Ada and her way of dealing with things. But this was part of the challenge anyway; the mini game was very well set up and executed, and never felt repetitive or dull although we were called to battle the same kinds of enemies and the same bosses (albeit in different forms, in Saddler's case).

The revamped "Separate Ways" is a different story, however. After a promising and intriguing entrance, with Luis performing flamenco in a prison cell and Ada rescuing him from execution at just the last minute, things start to progressively change. An annoying mysterious enemy makes his appearance, infecting Ada with the parasite that he is carrying and we are forced to fight him at that extremely early stage with our very limited and weak resources. Ada begins to experience weird hallucinations caused by the infection, that severely affect her battling skills. We understand that this enemy, called for the time being The Black Robe (because he is sporting a fancy black robe literally, and by the way it turns out he is a familiar "face": he is the other guardian, besides Verdugo, who, in the main game, accompanies Salazar in his dramatic appearances), will be stalking us for quite a while, because he is not exactly dead after that first fight is over. 

Either alone or with Luis for very brief segments, Ada goes through several familiar environments of the main game, but we are also introduced to new areas, an addition that is, in fact, the best and most memorable part of the DLC. The Castle, in particular, is a fantastic stage, what with its new puzzles and treasure-packed rooms (although said treasures are just for admiration, and we cannot take them with us), but unfortunately this does not last for long: the Black Robe appears for a last time, now as a boss in full swing, and it is revealed to be the infamous U3 from the original main game, an enemy that was left out of the remake and now we get to know why. Then Ada, having freed herself from the infection by putting her attacker to sleep for good and spitting out its germ, rushes for the island, now for a new mission that Wesker who, incidentally, shows up in person in the side game's remake, assigns to her. Wesker intends to blow up the island, but Ada disobeys his orders and instead of setting up the fatal explosion, just like he told her, she instead prepares a series of blasts that will not happen at the same time (or at all), so as to give Leon time to escape with Ashley. While on the Island, Ada discovers a secret experiment base and a fierce monster - another impressive addition which also links Wesker to the story even more. Thankfully we do not have to fight this monster, "just" run for our lives the few times that it appears, but we get an idea of what was really going on there under Wesker's all-seeing eye.

Although the revamped side game is well made as a whole and has its fair share of interesting and challenging moments, after a while it starts feeling rather sluggish and forced. Sometimes it looks like Ada cares more about how to pose herself and much less about what is happening around her. The boss fights are quite stressing and weird-looking, especially those with our known enemies. The Gigante sequence in the village and the U3 battle in the Blast Furnace below the Castle feel like grotesque versions of the ones in the main game's remake and the original Resident Evil 4 respectively, because they are exaggerated versions of those. We get to fight a Gigante who is insanely strong, and accompanied by crazed villagers who seem invulnerable to his attacks for no logical reason whatsoever; and the U3 is just too much with its sly movements during the second phase of its boss battle - and why it also has to summon an army of Novistadores as if its exploding bubbles and its trolling running and jumping around are not enough, is beyond my area of comprehension. Regardless, since U3 turns out to be Ada's main boss fight (the final battle with Saddler feels like a joke after it), all you have to do is be prepared to test the limits of your nerves and your patience and just hope that nothing fatal occurs in the course of that second phase, because if it does, you go back to to the very start of the battle even in difficulties lower than Professional.

That said, although the U3 part in the original was one that I loved to hate, it was an iconic and highly challenging sequence in Leon's story, and therefore not a good idea to take it away, let alone to put it in "Separate Ways" as one more boss fight for Ada. I also didn't like the fact that the title of the achievement that you gain for defeating U3 is one of the most characteristic lines that Saddler directs at Leon in the original. Which reminds me of the emblematic laser corridor that, again, was one of Leon's shining moments in the original game and not only it was left out of his story in the remake but it too was given to Ada. And unfortunately these are not the only instances of iconic moments / sequences that were part of the original main game and now were included in Ada's mission. The gondola part, the pounding pistons, the insect-inhabited flooded waterway in the Castle that you need to unflood so as to proceed, Bitores grabbing Leon from the neck as he opens the door in his mansion (I know there is a similar sequence in the remake, but the one in "Separate Ways" is literally a replica of the original's scene with Leon), getting the Blue Moonstone in Salazar's maze (albeit the procedure is different), even a couple of Leon's iconic one-liners, all so deeply connected to the classic game's plot, were now left out of the main game and were implemented in Ada's story. This was kind of expected, however; because an important part of Ada's original story, that which involved her meeting Krauser, saving Leon from his blade and later facing him in a boss fight, was cut from the remake, her new story needed an extra boost, moreover since a unique segment from the original "Separate Ways", the sequence with Saddler's battleship, was completely left out of its revamped version.

In her revised standalone mission, Ada seems a bit lost and, at times, out of place. She relies on Luis to get her the Amber, she relies on Leon to keep insanely strong enemies busy and away from her, and although her own path is filled with danger and challenge, most of the times she is more of an observer and less of someone actually doing something to push the action further. This works in the main game, but not in her own adventure. What she does mostly depends on what other people have done before her, and with her overall "ennui" kind of attitude she gives the impression that she is not 100% there and focused on her mission, although her determination does shoot up in the final scene, where she appears to completely disregard Wesker's plans by ordering the pilot of her helicopter to change course at gunpoint. The fact that Ada is bored and eventually not as effective is highlighted by Wesker's obvious dismay and disappointment every time something doesn't go according to plan. We know our beloved arch-villain is a paranoid perfectionist, but to be fair, he is not exactly overreacting in this case. 


From a technical and structural point of view, the revamped "Separate Ways" has a lot of good moments, with flowing gameplay and nice surprises. Ada's grappling attacks are fantastic and it's a pity we don't get the chance to make use of them more often and not strictly in specific and prompted quick time events and moves. The search for the three ingredients in the Castle and the puzzles involving them are among the highlights of the whole mission and the full game as well. The Facilities section on the Island has a chilling atmosphere and is a reminiscent of and a tribute to several older movies and video games that included the exploration of an abandoned lab. Luis's inclusion in the story as an active partner is a great plus, although I still wish an extra episode with him as lead was released, showing his path in the adventure, possibly including an earlier encounter with Krauser in the Castle grounds.

As I already mentioned earlier, Ada has no interaction with Krauser in this new version, and there is no boss fight with him in her story; a change that makes sense since in the main game's remake she doesn't encounter him at all, and it is Luis instead of her who is present in Leon's knife fight with his former mentor, and the one who subsequently saves him from a fatal hit from Krauser. Luis is far more connected to Leon's story in the game than Ada, therefore his role in how Leon's encounter with Krauser plays out is far more important and determinant, also aiding the plot in that, as we see in the end, Wesker leaves the island with Krauser's infected body so as to examine the virus that it carried and see how he could possibly take advantage of the strain's potential, like he did in Antarctica, where he escaped with Steve Burnside's infected body in "Code Veronica". That scene could also imply that Krauser is not really dead for good or that maybe Wesker had the means to "resurrect" him somehow. This is Resident Evil, after all; death is never that simple in its universe.

The revamped "Separate Ways" is an averagely good side game with some fairly nice moments but also marginally disappointing at times, lacking flexibility as far as gameplay strategies are concerned (there are a few instances in the DLC where following a specific plan looks like the only way to survive, but said plan is a pain to execute with precision due to an undue overkill in enemy and obstacle placement) and with several weaknesses that have to do, on the one hand, with the fact that so many iconic elements from the original main game were implemented here, as if in an attempt to make "Separate Ways" look more grand because it would probably feel inadequate on its own, and on the other with the limited development of its lead character. The road that Ada takes in this new version of her story is so distant that she nearly separates herself from the whole plot. But maybe this was done on purpose; her solitary path fits her spy persona and helps her watch things from a distance and plan her moves accordingly. Maybe this is how she should have appeared from the start, and in this sense her mission's remake was what her story needed to be properly narrated. In a past article, I mentioned that probably it's about time for Ada to have a game of her own; now, however, seeing how both her persona and her gameplay design have been altered in the new "Separate Ways", I dare say that maybe it would be better if she retired. Like I said in my article about Claire and Leon's development in the remake of Resident Evil 2, the connection between Leon and Ada has already become a quaint detail in the universe of the games, having lost its original flair almost completely. This is very obvious in the remakes themselves, considering how Leon's very attitude towards Ada has been changed in both of them.  

Another parameter that played a major role in Ada's degradation in the remake is both Ashley's and Luis's development. From the one-dimensional side-character that Ashley was in the original, with just a couple of scenes and a few lines moderately giving her a little bit of flesh, she now bloomed into a full-fledged, absolutely realistic person with whom Leon could truly connect on a human level. Now Leon is not alone in his quest with a paper-cut character running after him, but he has a partner in adventure with whom he can interact, share jokes, whom he can console, even tease and and view as a considerable ally. This of course has to do with the main game, but it also affects Ada's mission because it's the same events that occur in both stories. Similarly Luis has become a powerful, pivotal character in the remake, bonding with Leon in a genuine, deeply emotional way and playing a most important role during that part of the story which later proves to have carried the heaviest emotional load for Leon, which is his encounter with Major Krauser. And in "Separate Ways", although the protagonist is typically Ada, as during the course of the story the focus and the spotlight turn temporarily to Luis, he literally steals the show whenever he appears: although we see him in only a few scenes, his character development is deep and essential, highlighting his emotional struggle as he is constantly on a tight leash, trying to fulfil his part from the pact with Ada and at the same time doing all that he can in order to get back to Leon and Ashley in time so as to give them the temporary antidote for their infection. 

Because of Ashley and Luis not being developed enough as characters in the original, Ada gained more substance there and stood out as an instrumental part of the plot; but with both of them being so fully shaped in the remake and especially with Luis playing a much more important role in Leon's story, Ada loses most of her allure and, contrary to her seemingly protective manner in the main game, now in "Separate Ways" where we see her actions from a different angle, she shows signs of relentlessness that may be just a strategy to carry out her mission, but they are still there and you can never tell if they are fake or not. In the end it looks like Luis's urge to do good no matter what has somehow affected her, but even then it is more like she disobeyed Wesker's orders because she wanted to show him that she was her own boss and less like she did so out of her good will and sense of altruism. Wesker, by the way, was also developed more in the remake, something that is very obvious even in his very brief but unforgettable appearances; incidentally, the fact that he shows up both at the village and on the island raises questions as to why he sent Ada on those missions when he could clearly take them on himself: with his intelligence, ruthlessness and physical strength he could very well hunt for and steal the Amber and handle Saddler and all those tough bosses without batting an eyelash. The bottomline is that all characters around Ada evolved impressively, while she looks like a shadow of her original "Separate Ways" version. Having her getting infected now (something that did not happen in the original game) does not add much to either her story or her development; it only highlights even more how powerful and determinant Luis has become as a character, since it it thanks to him that she is able to pull through the symptoms of the infection until she finally rids of it for good.

Interestingly, you can see how Ada threatens and treats Luis just like Wesker threatens and treats her. The chain of action between the three of them, however, is not exactly balanced: Wesker sends Ada to bring him the Amber, but Ada cannot do it on her own, so she turns to Luis who is the one not only able to retrieve the Amber, but also to create the antidote for the infection that it causes. So nearly all of the background action belongs to Luis, and later this action is transferred to Leon who "frees" the Amber from Saddler's possession by killing him for good. These facts reduce Ada's role to just sneaking around as far as the major plot points are concerned (she may be tasked at some point to find the ingredients for the antidote, but in reality only one of them is truly a challenge to get) and whenever she has to take heavy action for her own good, things get frustrating and messy what with the awkward way in which she switches weapons (she literally needs ages to put one gun away and take another) and her extremely slow running; the most characteristic instance of the latter is the sequence where she comes across the unkillable monster in the facilities: she mutters "You don't look friendly" as she runs away from it slower than death no matter how fast or hard you press that goddamned button. I think that the developers might be officially trolling us at that point. 

And when it comes to fleeing hordes of attacking enemies, it's one of those instances where you wish there was a fast-forward button. For whatever unexplained reason, Leon too is programmed to run slower during chasing / battle sequences in the main game, but Leon is faster than Ada by default, so his slower running is faster even than her default one. In fact Ada runs slower than Rosemary Winters in Shadows of Rose who runs slower than Lara Croft in The Angel of Darkness (Lara in AOD is always an accurate reference for such cases). What's more, there is one sequence in Chapter 3 where Ada's stealth expertise is completely cancelled: in the village square before the Gigante fight, all the enemies in the area that have her back to her, will sense her presence and turn around even before she approaches them; Ada is unable to stealthily kill them and most (if not all) of them will grow plaga heads, forcing the player to either deal with them the hard way, wasting a lot of precious ammo, or run away in a haste, most of the times leaving behind several necessary items. Whether these peculiarities are due to bad design or deliberately featured so as to produce a supposedly more realistic experience and make tough gameplay sequences harder for the sake of it, is a question that will probably never find an answer.

Resident Evil 4 Remake: The Coming of Age of a Legend

Monday, 26 June 2023

It's been eighteen years since the release of the classic Resident Evil 4, one of the most iconic games of the Resident Evil saga, and its recent remake marks a big change in the way that its story plays out and how it evolves along with its emblematic, unforgettable characters. With its remake, Resident Evil 4 is no more the fairytale-like story of a brave agent on a mission to rescue a damsel in distress. It is a dark and gloomy tale where the characters carry the weight of their pasts and the burden of their environments, and their actions and decisions are direct corollaries of both these factors. Similarly, Leon S. Kennedy, its equally iconic lead character, has become more cynical, more sarcastic and distant, and far less keen on trusting people, as a reasonable result of all that he had gone through. It is not that all these elements did not exist in the original game, it is simply that the view of the classic Resident Evil 4 was much different, in that it focused more on the adventure and action factor and much less on the characters themselves. Now everything has equal presence in the game; there is adventure, there is heavy action, but there is also room now for a good deal of character development.

Resident Evil 4 has grown with its audience reaching its own allegorical coming of age, by toning down its playfulness for the sake of a much more serious and compelling version of its story. The gloomy atmosphere is not only due to the fact that both Leon and Ashley are seriously infected and time is not on their side; this was also part of the original plot anyway, although now the symptoms that they are experiencing are far more chilling and scary. With how the game and its characters have "grown", and coming from the remade story of Resident Evil 2, Leon's backstory can now be seen under a new light. Leon carries a heavy trauma from his Raccoon City experience, further intensified by the prestigious but not so desired position that he was blackmailed into accepting as a government agent, following his return. While in the original Leon seems to have accepted all this and looks quite confident and cool, Leon of the remake is far more realistic in his reactions and even from his narration in the intro it becomes more than obvious that he has neither forgotten nor forgiven anything or anyone. Directly opposed to this is his innate tendency to help and protect people, which was his main motive for wanting to become a police officer back in the day. 


Throughout the development of the story in Resident Evil 4, this conflict between Leon's sincere sense of duty and offering and the always present awareness that he had been in fact forced to accept the position that eventually threw him into this hell, is a persistent nightmare that is very hard to ignore. Ashley's presence is a constant reminder for him of all the things that he was forced to do and comply with and all that he had to go through because of the orders imposed on him in the first place. Leon's bitterness over this situation is illuminated during his dialogue with Luis in Chapter 11, after Luis gives him the medicine that can temporarily stop the growth of the plagas inside him. When Leon tells Luis that "Ashley is the priority", there is a deep sadness in his eyes and his voice, expressing his bitter acknowledgement that his life does not matter because the President's daughter is the one who should be saved. And although Ashley is innocent in this and is the last person to blame since she is a victim after all, the mere fact that she has a high status therefore she should be the one to be prioritized and saved before everyone else is something that Leon may have accepted because of his position in the mission and his own sense of duty, but at the same time he knows that he is merely being used as a means to save her, and in the case where he died, it wouldn't have mattered much if he had sacrificed his life to make sure Ashley would be saved.

Directly related to this is the theme of voluntary and involuntary sacrifice that slowly becomes prominent as the story progresses. At the end of the game, Ada has a conversation with Wesker during which he blatantly expresses his ambition to cause the death of millions of people so that only one - meaning himself - will survive like some kind of God. This however is not the only time that such a theme is mentioned or hinted at. Much earlier, while on the boat with Ada, Leon has a moral doubt about the value of doing everything you can to save someone when, in the course of this, many other people have to die. This doubt is not random and it is connected to him being in a stressful situation, having to save someone who comes from the exact environment that originally forced him to take on a position he didn't want. In his struggle to save Ashley, Leon put himself in extreme danger by getting infected; he nearly died. He had to save himself primarily because he had to survive so as to save Ashley, as the survival for his own sake would always come second. In the process, Luis was killed; even Krauser was a victim although he only realized it when it was too late. Which is why this doubt comes for Leon after two incidents of major importance, connected to the two men: Luis's murder and the unexpected encounter with Krauser. Leon's former mentor had been in a situation similar to his in the past, when most of his soldiers were perished during an ill-fated mission. So in his turn, Krauser comes from this traumatic past, having witnessed an involuntary sacrifice that drove him insane and turned him into a cynical, sadistic maniac. Luis, on the other hand, sort of signed his fate when he initially worked for Los Illuminados, and his change of heart was not enough to save him, because the forces he had to go against were bigger and much more sly than he expected. Regardless, they had both been victims, each one of them carrying a different degree of responsibility, but this didn't matter much after the point in which they both were unable to escape their destiny.

So seen under this light, Wesker's ambition and Ashley's rescue have more things in common than one would think, although of course Ashley is completely innocent while Wesker is consciously and clearly aiming at eliminating whomever he thinks should die. These two parts of the plot are in fact two extremes that marginally come to a dangerous close when the circle of the story is complete. Which is why Leon, while genuinely wanting to save Ashley because he is a professional above all, never actually bonds with her, because she has the "curse" of being the bearer and reminder of such a heavy negative load. It would not have been the same with Luis, or even Ada. Luis and Ada may have been associated with dark forces, but they were independent individuals, conscious of their actions and decisions, for which Leon could face them straight and directly; which in fact he did in both cases. But he keeps his distance with Ashley because, unbeknownst to her, she is part of the wider environment that eventually brought him to a situation where essentially his life did not matter. And although he always has in mind that Ashley belonging to said environment and her innocence in all this are two different things that he never confuses, for the exact same reason, because his mindset is constantly clear and fair, he can never pretend that the first undeniable fact is non-existent. Although he of course cannot demand accountability of Ashley, as she is not the one to blame for anything, her being part of the system that controls him is a given, and one that cannot simply get brushed off. 

From this perspective, the mind control that Saddler has on his victims is not much different from the control that Leon's superiors have over his life. From the safety of her office, Hunnigan keeps ordering Leon to not let anything happen to Ashley, and her worry about his own well-being is strictly connected to how effective he can be in rescuing the President's daughter. Leon is well aware of all that, but this doesn't mean that he accepts everything without having his own moral dilemmas. On several instances throughout the story, he mentions how he cannot forget things that scarred him in the past. And this is something that Ashley would never be able to fully comprehend, in spite of her obvious kind heart and good will, because she is coming from a world that is so different from Leon's. This becomes even more evident in the final scene, where Ashley, in a rather awkward flirting attempt, asks Leon if he is interested to become her personal bodyguard, essentially demanding exclusivity, something that sounds completely opposed to Leon's sense of serving the common good and society as a whole, which is why he diplomatically rejects her offer. In the remake of Resident Evil 2, in the scene where he and Ada come across Kendo and his infected daughter, Leon tells Ada that the reason why he joined the force was to help everyday people like the gunshop owner. Leon was never interested in offering his services to the elite; when he accepted to work for the government, it was a result of that infamous blackmail. Doing this, was a considerable personal sacrifice from his part, given moreover how cruel the subsequent training had been; in his own words, the punishing missions he had to go through nearly killed him. 


From that point and on, he did his duty the best way possible, as from his position as a government agent, he indirectly served the common good, which was some kind of moral and emotional compensation for him. But becoming the personal bodyguard of someone with such a high status as Ashley was, would practically mean excluding himself from society in order to serve strictly one person, something that would contradict his moral standing and betray his ethical conscience. It is worth noting how lightheartedly Ashley passes from "I will become an agent like you" (which would mean stepping down to become equal with Leon) at the peak of the adventure, to "why don't you become my bodyguard to keep me safe" (therefore she would be maintaining her status and social supremacy) as soon as she is out of danger. This hints that she never really understood the gravity of the situation, and she comprehended it only to the degree that it affected her personally. So for the time during which she was infected and was afraid of what would happen to her, she was well aware of the danger, but as soon as the danger passed for her and she was no longer a victim, her heroic aspirations had no reason to exist anymore and she went back to the expected attitude stemming directly from her bourgeois environment. Because when she was depending on Leon to save her, he was her hero; but on the way back to normal life, she regained her status and the instant when she asked Leon to become her bodyguard, she literally viewed him as a potential employee, therefore her inferior. If social class wasn't an issue for her, she could have said something along the lines of "let's keep in touch after all this is over". This comes to an interesting contrast with the original Ashley's "overtime" proposal, which might have sounded more daring at the time, but it showed a far more friendly approach from her part, hinting also at how possibly she ended up not caring about social status and class, while at the start she was rather bratty: remember how she introduced herself to Luis as "the President's daughter", as if her father was the only president in the world and everybody should know her; but at the end of the adventure she seems to have changed quite a bit. While the revamped Ashley may look and sound more down to earth even from the start, but then it turns out that her elite upbringing is deeply rooted in her conscience and her attitude.

 
Although the game is definitely not political overall, such nuances are inevitable, given the realism of the characters, the differences in their status and the depth of the revamped story. Leon clearly comes from an average working class, but although he ended up raising his social status, he essentially never left his roots as far as his mindset and view of the world were concerned. Jack Krauser probably has a similar background more or less. Ashley comes from a bourgeois social circle of high society obviously, since her father is the President of the United States. Luis Serra apparently spent his childhood in the poor Spanish village where Leon's mission takes place. Having lost both his parents, Luis grew up with his grandfather who had very little to offer to him. In spite of this, and because he was an intelligent boy, Luis managed to escape his predetermined miserable life at the village, and even managed to be hired by Umbrella's dream team of scientists. So we could say that Ashley and Luis stand opposite each other from a sociopolitical aspect, since they share common elements but also extreme differences: they were born and raised in completely different environments, both socially and financially, but later in their lives, coming from different paths obviously, they entered the academic world. Ashley is probably studying something related to engineering (since she knows how to handle the wrecking ball truck), and Luis studied Biology. From what we can deduce, Ashley is an averagely clever person, while Luis was a child prodigy. It is a safe guess that Ashley, thanks to her social standing, had plenty of opportunities before her and was able to choose her field of studies among a vast array of possibilities, while Luis did not have much choice in his hands, although he clearly was far more gifted. Regardless, he managed to distinguish himself among his peers at a very young age, which is why he eventually drew the attention of Umbrella. Although he resigned from the company after realizing their real intents, upon returning to his village he accepted to work for Osmund Saddler and Los Illuminados; and judging by his last words, he must have been forced to do several compromises that did not go exactly by a moral code, something that he regretted later on, but unfortunately it was too late. Had he grown up in a more privileged environment, an environment like Ashley's for example, both his path in life and his fate would have probably been much different.

 
This sociopolitical dimension is highlighted also by how Ramรณn Salazar and his story have evolved. Unlike his depiction in the original game, where he was blatantly proud of his ancestry and marginally entertaining at times, in the remake he is a terrifying, grotesque figure who had even disgraced his family line and now he is trying to distance himself from it - "call me Ramรณn", he says while introducing himself to Leon, leaving out his - apparently historical - surname. Salazar is no more a spoiled boy with delusions of grandeur. Now he is a demonic force in the form of a midget; a ruthless, horrifying creature, that can raise havoc within seconds. Long before his appalling mutation, he is a miniature walking terror, controlling his huge castle with a ruthlessness that is contrasting his diminutive figure in a shocking way. By observing his dressing style and the decoration of his castle, it is easy to deduce that he still lives in the glory of the past, although at the same time he despises his deceased family, being the sole successor of the Salazar generation thanks to the infection from the Plagas. Ramรณn is a decadent aristocrat, holding on to a past that is long gone, falsely believing that the power provided by his infection is enough to keep him in this state forever. Having been fatally ill, he was "saved" by the Plagas, and this resulted in him having aspirations of immortality that eventually led him to believe that he was omnipotent.

The big twist of the remake's plot that has Krauser killing Luis instead of Saddler is the highest point of the revamped story, and where the real focus actually goes, backed up more by another big twist that has Luis saving Leon's life from Krauser instead of Ada. Krauser and Luis turn out to be an integral part of Leon's life, personality and evolution, and in the climax where all three of them are present, it feels as if the mission to find and save the President's daughter was simply the triggering event that brought Leon face to face with a dark period of his past, that which involved Major Krauser, while at the same time bringing him together with someone who was, indirectly, involved in the Raccoon City nightmare and who now becomes his guardian angel and the only one able to save him, and that is Luis Serra. This twist that expands the roles of Luis and Krauser brings the story closer to Leon and establishes him as the real and essential driving force of the plot. In its turn, the sub-plot that involves Luis and Krauser has way greater dynamic than the main story. It can be seen as a separate "arc" within the leading plot, and it fills the null space between the three characters (Leon, Luis and Jack) who are inter-connected in more than one ways: Krauser used to be Leon's mentor and is now on the hunt of the Amber sample which was developed by Luis. Luis used to work for Umbrella which was responsible for the Raccoon City incident which led to the series of events that led Leon to become a government agent, subsequently meeting Jack Krauser.

Krauser's evolution as a character is also very interesting, as now his story is much more related to Leon and his past. While in the original games he was a mercenary, randomly picked thanks to his abilities to accompany Leon in his mission in South America, in the remake he used to be a Major, Leon's trainer in the elite military group that he was forced to join after surviving the Raccoon City incident. As we can tell from the brief scene in the prologue, Major Krauser had been a particularly tough and relentless trainer, showing traits of a sadistic character that eventually burst to the surface after the incident that caused the death of his men in South America. As it turned out, he and Leon were the sole survivors, but while Leon managed to put all this behind him, at least to the degree where it would not affect his subsequent life, for Krauser it was something that proved impossible to get over. 

Because Leon continued to work for the government after this, Krauser interpreted his reaction as treason, without taking into account the fact that Leon was under constant threat and blackmail and there was little that he could do to get out of a situation that might have seemed glamorous and desirable by many, but in fact was extremely stressing. When the opportunity arrived with Saddler tasking him with kidnapping Ashley, Krauser found his golden chance to take his revenge in the most effective way: the President's daughter might have been an innocent civilian, but she was still part of the system that let his men die in the jungle, so harming her would cause a direct blow to those people who were responsible for the tragedy he had lived. It is notable that Krauser's state in the remake is pretty similar to Chris Redfield's after the dramatic events in Edonia in Resident Evil 6, although Chris managed to maintain his sanity, and the post-traumatic syndrome caused him "only" a short-term amnesia and emotional resignation, while in Krauser's case the aftereffects were much more severe and irreversible.

It is hinted in the game that, because of the long hours of private training, Leon and Krauser had developed a special bond, and Leon respected his mentor in spite of his relentlessness. That bond of mentor-mentee or teacher-student was apparently strengthened more during the mission in South America, only to be abruptly broken after the mission's tragic conclusion. This was one more heavy emotional burden that Leon would carry from that point in his life and on, one that was very hard - if possible at all - to put to bed. On first look, this new connection between Leon and Krauser might feel like it somehow weakens their original dynamic, as in the classic game they were equals and Krauser openly and clearly respected Leon as a rival while in the remake Krauser had been Leon's superior and he still insists on treating him as a "rookie" although he is not one anymore. This change, however, leaves room for slowly building an emotional climax between them during their encounters, culminating in the dramatic denouement where Krauser comes to his senses, realizes that he had not been himself all this time and finally calls Leon by his name instead of "rookie", revealing that in fact he did respect him and accept him as a worthy rival, but the arrogance resulting from his infection's superior power did not let him show it before.

The teacher-student dynamic is not limited only to Leon's relationship with Krauser. While accompanying Leon in an important part of his journey, Luis saw himself as a modern Don Quixote, having been a fan of the eponymous literary hero since he was a little boy, and would call Leon "Sancho", who was Don Quixote's faithful attendant. This dipole did not yet represent a teacher-student relationship, but a a bit later Luis differentiated his peculiar "roleplay" by giving Leon the role of a squire - a nobleman who attends to a knight before reaching an equal status himself. It is interesting how both Krauser and Luis saw Leon as their apprentice, while in reality Leon was almost as intelligent as Luis (according to Ada's notes in the original game, he is a genious), and nearly as strong as Krauser himself. Quite ironic as well, since Leon managed to survive them both.

Contrary to the roles of Krauser and Luis that have been expanded and developed, Ada's role is now very limited, but this should not be viewed as a downgrade. As I had mentioned in past articles, Ada's mysterious figure had almost always been omnipresent in Leon's adventures although in practice she never really helped to push the stories forward. There had also been a considerably important oversight concerning her persona, the fact that someone who was supposed to be a spy made her presence so loudly obvious in critical situations. Now all this seems to have been fixed, as Ada moves mostly in the shadows, watching the events from a distance, and she appears as a force of balance, almost a motherly one, at times reassuring even, in spite of Leon's justified cynicism and aggressiveness towards her.

 
The remake of Resident Evil 4 has brought a legendary game into the modern world, with all the additional features and changes that should come along anyway. Although the original is one of those games that are insuperable, the remake has managed, by differentiating itself on crucial plot points and character traits, to gain its own place in the Resident Evil universe. As a side note, I would love to see a DLC with Luis as the protagonist, so that we have the chance to accompany him in his race against time to find both the Amber sample for Ada and the medicine for Leon and Ashley. I am guessing that at some point between the Courtyard and the Depths, he would have to face Major Krauser, which would guarantee a thrilling hide and seek chase and, why not, a most dramatic fight between them.

Rosemary's Dad

Monday, 14 November 2022


Shadows of Rose was released recently, as a complementary content for Resident Evil: Village, which, upon ending, informed us that "the father's story is now done", presumably opening the path for the daughter, Rosemary, although whether she will indeed become the lead of one or more games in the future is quite unclear, just as unclear is her role and presence in her own DLC story. Rosemary Winters was introduced to us abruptly as a baby at the start of Village, and we also had the chance to see her as a teenager in the game's ending cutscene. In Shadows of Rose, we get to play as her in third person, while following her in an attempt to get rid of the powers that she had inherited from Ethan. To do so, she needs to mentally travel to another realm where she will have to face monsters of various kinds and finally come face to face with Miranda herself. 


Rosemary, as Lord Heisenberg informed Ethan in the main game, is supposed to be an extremely powerful kid, but what her powers are and what exactly they can do, is as vague as her father's in-game face. When, early in the DCL story, she realizes that she can actually freeze enemies, she gets shocked, which means that up to that point she was unable to do such a thing, which in turn inevitably makes you wonder where exactly her infamous powers did lie until then. In reality, they seem to be literally asleep for most part of the game, and as she is struggling to survive in the most hostile environments, she moreover needs about half a dozen amplifiers, plus the final boost from Ethan, to help her powers reach their full level. This basically means that, in her normal life, her so-called powers must have been rather limited and if she had never traveled to that realm, she would have never been able to develop them and no one, not even her, would have been able to know what she was capable of, something that almost cancels Heisenberg's earlier comment about her. To add insult to injury, she cannot run to save her life (literally). You would expect a slender and swift girl in her mid-teens to be running as fast as the wind but no, why would she? There are sequences where she is hunted by face-eating monsters or evil mannequins or hammer-yielding giants and she can do no more than drag her feet so painfully slowly that you may find yourself desperately looking for a fast-forward button on your controller or keyboard.


That said, the DLC suffers from both technical and fiction-related flaws. From the technical aspect, apart from the extremely slow movement that Rosemary has throughout the whole story (she is even slower than Lara Croft in The Angel of Darkness, and honestly I never thought this was even possible but as it turns out, it is), she is rather clumsly with guns - which may be partly natural since she is a civilian, but growing up under the custody of Chris Redfield with several agents in the training constantly around her, you would expect her to have learned a thing or two. To make things even worse, because she reaches the full level of her powers just before the final boss fight, this is exactly where you get to learn her new moves. It is such a waste of good gameplay options, since you get to use said new moves against the final boss only, minutes before the story reaches its conclusion.

Fiction-wise, the story has several plot holes, and in fact Shadows of Rose was not exactly a necessary addition. The fact that Ethan was the one to offer Rosemary the strongest boost, basically means that he was super powerful himself. Mind you, Miranda had ripped his heart off and he got caught in the grand explosion that he caused himself in the village, yet he was still able to manifest in Miranda's domain, just like she did, therefore he was nearly as powerful as Miranda was. This combined with the regenerative powers that he already had from the mold, made him super-humanly strong, practically nullifying his demise in the main game. Although the DLC is titled after Rosemary, it is actually Ethan who carries the strongest part, both metaphorically and literally, while Rosemary is way too weak until the finale, where her powers may look impressive, but the whole sequence feels more like a quick time event and less like an actual interactive boss fight.

It would have been much more intriguing if, in the main game, we had Ethan, still unaware of his own powers at the start, interacting with those weird amplifiers and gradually becoming stronger, finally understanding that he is not an ordinary human being anymore; and then in that scene where Eveline reveals to him the shocking truth about his death, he would come to realize that he was actually superhuman, rising over all evil in the village and defeating Miranda in a most impressive way. If this was how the story unraveled, there would be practically no need for Rosemary's extra story, which feels nearly unnecessary anyway since she ends up with her powers not only intact but also boosted up, therefore we are back at point zero. The only essential part of the story is her meeting with Ethan, which could have easily been the most interesting plot point of the DLC and would have made our struggle worthwhile but sadly it is void of all emotion because, guess what: again we are unable to see Ethan's face or watch his reactions in what could have been one of the most touching, heartbreaking and memorable scenes of the whole saga. During the most crucial instances, his face is blocked by Rosemary's arm or his own arm, then we get to see his back while he is talking to his daughter, a scene that could have stayed with us forever but instead all we get is a bland-feeling dialogue because we can't even see a hint of Ethan's expressions as he is looking at and speaking to Rosemary.


Other than all that, the DLC feels a lot like a superficial copy of The Evil Within 2 at times, what with Rosemary traveling inside her gray matter via the mutamycete and the evil mastermind wanting to take advantage of the girl's powers. Also if you have read Mexican Gothic, the whole idea of the fungus that is "recording" people's memories will feel familiar to you. Even so, there are some really good sequences in the story, like the painting puzzle in the Castle and the whole House section which is very atmospheric and creepy, although the first half with the diorama puzzles is definitely its best part. The second section, which is basically an extended stealth hide-and-seek, feels and looks very interesting when it comes to avoiding the floating dolls (an intense sequence accompanied by a discreet, creepily beautiful music) but trying to escape the giant Mia mannequins is so exhausting due to Rosemary's slow-motion running, that it ends up more annoying than scary. And I really could have done without Eveline's hysterics. I also loved the Duke's new look, although it is unclear why he is so mean towards Rosemary, while he had been so helpful with Ethan.
 
 
Overall, Shadows of Rose does have its own merit, but it feels more like an unnecessary chore in relation with the main game. And I am not very sure if I will be interested in playing a possible future Resident Evil with Rosemary Winters as the main protagonist, because as much as I generally like her, she is too weak and indifferent as a character of fiction and lacks too much background to hold a story on her own. I would be more keen on playing a game with Jake Muller or Sherry Birkin as leads, for instance, who are not only strongly connected to the saga's core, but they still are literally and directly the new blood of the Resident Evil series.
 
ยป My playthrough of "Shadows of Rose":