Played some more of RE4make, and I just had a strange realization I have to get out of my head because I can't sleep otherwise. And this is probably going to sound very weird, but this game's lack of sex is kind of jarring.
Now hear me out.
This is one aspect where I think the remake turning things down and playing it more straight creates some unexpected oddness. The original RE4 was like an over the top 80s action movie, or a puerile preteen boy playing with action figures: save the princess plot, zombies, guns, castles etc., but perhaps most vitally for this particular topic, a pretty unserious, tongue in cheek tone. Sure you could look up Ashley's skirt and there's Luis commenting on her "ballistics", but the game gets no naughtier than that. Leon's a cool dude who's too cool to care about icky girls, ew. And in that context that kind of slightly pervy stuff fits, or at least doesn't feel out of place. It was also a product of its era when even hinted sexual relations in games were still a rarity, and also had the slightly blocky PS2 graphics where trying to be sexy would have felt awkward at best.
The remake in turn has none of that. The tone is decidedly more serious, the graphics are cutting edge, and the sex appeal of the main characters is turned up to eleven. Every one of the main characters is ridiculously hot. But when it comes to anything relating to actual sexual acts, the game might as well be rated G. And in a post-Cyberpunk, post Baldur's Gate 3 world it just feels odd how characters who are stressed close to their breaking point don't even hint at anything relating to their loins when they have a moment of reprieve. Not that I'd need some Cyberpunk style scenes, but even a tiny acknowledgement of that element would IMO go a long way in making the more serious tone feel consistent. As it is it almost feels like an omission: unspeakable body horror and gory violence is a-okay, but anything below the belt is a strict no-go.
Am I being crazy here? Did anyone else think of this?
P.S. The performance of the actress voicing Ada is some hot garbage. What better way to sell a femme fatale character than to sound like you're reading the phone book.