Resident Evil Infinite Darkness

[Cid]

I think you're missing the point...it's not about his age. It's about the inconsistency in the story telling. REmake 2 his voice is high pitched (by comparison), RE4 his voice is much deeper, then you have this show, and it's back to being high pitched...We're complaining about the emmersion breaking aspect of it.

What if they were to remake RE4 with Nick Apostolides as Leon?

As it stands it already doesn't make much sense anyway. Leon is 21 in RE2 and 27 in RE4. His voice shouldn't have really changed at all. I'm 27 - I sound exactly the same as I did six years ago.

At the end of the day, if they cast someone with a deeper voice for Infinite Darkness and then remade RE4 with Nick, that would be an inconsistency in itself. I'm fairly sure an RE4 remake is around the corner - whether it needs a remake is irrelevant. The question is; will it make money? The answer is almost certainly, so why wouldn't they?

 

[Mr.R]

I think the problem with Apostolides isn't exactly his voice. Is the dub direction. The way Apostolides portray Leon isn't the way he talks normally, which is a shame, because his normal talking voice is a little more deeper than what he used to make Leon in 2 and ID and it could be used this way in 4. You don't need to change him, just make him changes his portrayal a bit.

 

[KennedyKiller]

What if they were to remake RE4 with Nick Apostolides as Leon?

As it stands it already doesn't make much sense anyway. Leon is 21 in RE2 and 27 in RE4. His voice shouldn't have really changed at all. I'm 27 - I sound exactly the same as I did six years ago.

At the end of the day, if they cast someone with a deeper voice for Infinite Darkness and then remade RE4 with Nick, that would be an inconsistency in itself. I'm fairly sure an RE4 remake is around the corner - whether it needs a remake is irrelevant. The question is; will it make money? The answer is almost certainly, so why wouldn't they?

But they shouldn't remake RE4 to begin with. I know they're gonna. But that's dumb. It's literally one of the greatest games of all time, and there's a reason it's been ported to every console since it's original release. It continues to hold up.

 

[Turo602]

But they shouldn't remake RE4 to begin with. I know they're gonna. But that's dumb. It's literally one of the greatest games of all time, and there's a reason it's been ported to every console since it's original release. It continues to hold up.

Being "one of the greatest games of all time" doesn't prevent it from showing its age. Resident Evil 4 may hold up to gamers of that era, but it definitely has some rough edges now and doesn't look all that great today. I definitely wouldn't mind playing the game again in the RE Engine with refined RE2 style gameplay and beautiful visuals that benefit from HD/4K TVs with enhanced audio and some proper achievements this time. If anything, the fact that it's such an iconic game is exactly why it deserves such an extensive touch up that ensures it remains up there with the best modern experiences.

 

[KennedyKiller]

Being "one of the greatest games of all time" doesn't prevent it from showing its age. Resident Evil 4 may hold up to gamers of that era, but it definitely has some rough edges now and doesn't look all that great today. I definitely wouldn't mind playing the game again in the RE Engine with refined RE2 style gameplay and beautiful visuals that benefit from HD/4K TVs with enhanced audio and some proper achievements this time. If anything, the fact that it's such an iconic game is exactly why it deserves such an extensive touch up that ensures it remains up there with the best modern experiences.

And while I'd normally agree...Capcom is gonna f*ck it up. So leave it untouched.

 

[Turo602]

And while I'd normally agree...Capcom is gonna f*ck it up. So leave it untouched.

Meh, they haven't done anything to these latest remakes that I wouldn't mind for RE4. Would honestly be an improvement considering how bloated and monotonous RE4 already is.

 

[Cid]

But they shouldn't remake RE4 to begin with. I know they're gonna. But that's dumb. It's literally one of the greatest games of all time, and there's a reason it's been ported to every console since it's original release. It continues to hold up.

Well, RE2 is still one of my favourite games of all time and I thought its Remake was fantastic, so the fact RE4 still holds up doesn't really put me off the idea of one.

But the question still remains, would the voice acting in Infinite Darkness be okay with you if they changed Leon's voice in RE4 to Nick Apostolides?

 

[KennedyKiller]

Well, RE2 is still one of my favourite games of all time and I thought its Remake was fantastic, so the fact RE4 still holds up doesn't really put me off the idea of one.

But the question still remains, would the voice acting in Infinite Darkness be okay with you if they changed Leon's voice in RE4 to Nick Apostolides?

Technically yes, but they'd also have to do the same for every iteration of Leon. Consistency is the point. Making the character feel like he is the same throughout all of his iterations. Getting a different voice actor isn't the issue. Leon has 3 different voice actors between RE2-RE6. But they at least all still sound like the same character. Well, RE2 maybe not. But that's PSone. Voice acting wasn't exactly an art yet in video games. And even if the voice acting in Infinite Darkness was fixed, it doesn't alter the fact that the series itself is trash. In fact more often than not starting with RE5 the series hasn't been that good. There are some MOMENTS that have been good in 5, 6, 7, and even 8. REmake 2 is...fine...not good. But fine. REmake3 is flaming garbage. Leon's voice is just one aspect of everything wrong with the series in the last 15 or so years.

 

[Cid]

Technically yes, but they'd also have to do the same for every iteration of Leon. Consistency is the point.

If you want consistency you are asking it of the wrong series of games! Pretty much every aspect of it has been inconsistent since day one, not just voices!

I think a point comes where you have to just take changes with a pinch of salt. If they had asked Matt Mercer to reprise Leon for the RE2 remake, the complaint would have been that he sounds too old. Sometimes there isn't much you can do.

 

[KennedyKiller]

If you want consistency you are asking it of the wrong series of games! Pretty much every aspect of it has been inconsistent since day one, not just voices!

I think a point comes where you have to just take changes with a pinch of salt. If they had asked Matt Mercer to reprise Leon for the RE2 remake, the complaint would have been that he sounds too old. Sometimes there isn't much you can do.

I...literally said it wasn't just the voices. And no, the games had consistency for a long time. And even when they broke the consistency to move on to do RE4, they stayed consistent with the story elements all the way up through RE5. But at the end of the day bad is bad. Something can be inconsistent and be good. Recent Resident Evil just isn't one of them. And while I'm a fan of the series overall I'm not gonna let blind love for it keep me from being honest about it. Especially when they put out three piles of absolute garbage in a row like R3make, RE8, and Infinite Darkness.

 

[Cid]

I...literally said it wasn't just the voices. And no, the games had consistency for a long time. And even when they broke the consistency to move on to do RE4, they stayed consistent with the story elements all the way up through RE5. But at the end of the day bad is bad. Something can be inconsistent and be good. Recent Resident Evil just isn't one of them. And while I'm a fan of the series overall I'm not gonna let blind love for it keep me from being honest about it. Especially when they put out three piles of absolute garbage in a row like R3make, RE8, and Infinite Darkness.

I'm very confused - we were having a discussion about voice acting. I was not trying to advocate that the recent stuff is good or that I disagree with you there so I'm not sure where that's coming from.

I would say RE didn't become inconsistent at RE4 though. Just a few examples off the top of my head; RE1 doesn't have a canon plot as neither scenario involves 4 STARS members escaping the mansion, and RE3 retroactively added a plot detail that Raccoon City was under Martial Law, without worrying about the fact that that means it no longer makes sense that Leon and Claire were able to just drive straight in. You find Marvin in RE3 'fatally wounded' and laying down in a room packed to the brim with zombies and yet he somehow survives into the following day.

But what I'm saying is I don't think that matters, we've always just kinda taken inconsistencies in stride and accepted the series as the adorable clumsy mess that it is sometimes, and the point I'm making is that I'm happy to just accept the fact that they've awkwardly had to change the voice actor for Leon even if it doesn't make total sense in context.

I still think Infinite Darkness is terrible though.

 

[KennedyKiller]

I'm very confused - we were having a discussion about voice acting. I was not trying to advocate that the recent stuff is good or that I disagree with you there so I'm not sure where that's coming from.

I would say RE didn't become inconsistent at RE4 though. Just a few examples off the top of my head; RE1 doesn't have a canon plot as neither scenario involves 4 STARS members escaping the mansion, and RE3 retroactively added a plot detail that Raccoon City was under Martial Law, without worrying about the fact that that means it no longer makes sense that Leon and Claire were able to just drive straight in. You find Marvin in RE3 'fatally wounded' and laying down in a room packed to the brim with zombies and yet he somehow survives into the following day.

But what I'm saying is I don't think that matters, we've always just kinda taken inconsistencies in stride and accepted the series as the adorable clumsy mess that it is sometimes, and the point I'm making is that I'm happy to just accept the fact that they've awkwardly had to change the voice actor for Leon even if it doesn't make total sense in context.

I still think Infinite Darkness is terrible though.

I would still argue it was more consistent than inconsistent. The gamemplay was consistent. The setting and type of horror was consistent. The themes were consistent. The music was consistent. The overall story and direction was consistent. The Sci-Fi writing was consistent. The idea of two playable main heroes, always one Male and one Female was consistent.

But yeas, I get what you're saying. You're not arguing that the new stuff is good or bad. But I look at Resident Evil like I look at Star Wars. Did Star Wars have little problems here and there due to flying by the seat of the pants writing? Sure. But it was ultimately harmless and was still so incredible and adventurous that so many things could be forgiven. Even occasional missteps *cough* Attack of the Clones *Cough*...But also like Star Wars, as it has continued to go on and on, little issues have turned into large issues resulting in a product that's a shadow of it's former self and it's sad as a fan.

So ultimately, does the inconsistency in Leon's voice bother me? Yes. A LOT. But it's compounded by the fact that this is something so easy to have not been an issue, but it's one anyway, on an ever growing list of issues with what I STILL for some inexplicable reason call my favorite video game series of all time. Would using the same VA in an RE4 remake retcon the issue. Technically yes. But it was never about that to begin with. It's just an example of a much larger overall...infection.

 

[Turo602]

I don't like Apostolides as Leon either. He got a pass in REmake 2 for me because he was playing the role of young rookie, and the actual portrayal itself was very in line with Leon as a character. With Infinite Darkness however, I would have definitely liked him to play Leon much more mature sounding as the way I always interpreted his character by RE4 was that of a hardened veteran with a much colder attitude. I don't think Nick pulled that off too well because he still has a very youthful sound and it's pretty much guaranteed he'll play him the same way in the RE4 remake.

His characterization and writing was definitely on point though in REmake 2, so I'd love to see what they do with him in REmake 4 since it will be the first time we get a Leon voice actor for 2 games in a row with what will hopefully be a much more consistent vision of his character going from 2 to 4. They tried adding more depth to Jill in RE3's intro so I'm definitely interested to see if they do anything similar with Leon and address more of his past in game and change how he interacts with Ada so that it feels like a continuation of RE2.

Whether they'll do that or not, I don't know. I personally wouldn't mind them making such changes to the game but after hearing they scrapped the game to be more in line with the original after RE3's backlash, I'm worried about what kind of changes they were making because they could have either been great changes the game desperately needs or incredibly stupid ones like making it first person or something. Regardless, if the outcome is just a 1 to 1 remake of the original, that would be extremely disappointing because they could have done so much to retroactively make it feel more consistent with the series.

 

[Hardware]

I think you're missing the point...it's not about his age. It's about the inconsistency in the story telling. REmake 2 his voice is high pitched (by comparison), RE4 his voice is much deeper, then you have this show, and it's back to being high pitched...We're complaining about the emmersion breaking aspect of it.

No, I got the point perfectly. The voice actor in RE2make and ID was the same (Apostolides) and he's the right amount of young. In RE4, Leon was voiced by someone who was 40something.

 

[KennedyKiller]

No, I got the point perfectly. The voice actor in RE2make and ID was the same (Apostolides) and he's the right amount of young. In RE4, Leon was voiced by someone who was 40something.

You didn't get the point, because we aren't talking about the actor's age. We're talking about the inconsistency of the portrayal of the character. Age of the actor themselves has nothing to do with it.

 

[Mr.R]

I also agree the age got nothing to do with it. I bet Matt Mercer could portray a 20's Leon as good as he did with RE6 Leon. Like I said, Apostolidis normal voice is more or less okay for RE4. He isn't the problem. The direction is. Maybe even something he doesn't have control over it. Do I prefer Mercer? Yes, but I can recognize the fact that RE isn't investing in the blockbuster voice actors lately (they did score some good with Panisello and Tompkins though, at least on my opinion)

 

[Jonipoon]

I posted this in the film forums before realized that there's a way more active thread about it here.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Jesus, man... This was one of the worst shows I've ever seen. Weak and rushed plot, terrible dialogue, mediocre and stiff animation, illogical time jumps, not to mention that the decision to make a 4-episode series where each episode is 25 minutes each isn't justifiable. This could've easily been a 1.30 hour long movie without all the reused flashbacks. It would've still been a horrible film, but at least it would've been a bit more coherent.

The trailers made the show look way more interesting and badass than it really is. What ****es me off the most is how rushed and badly written the plot is. It's as if the writers just wrote down some pieces of dialogue interactions between some characters without deciding where those interactions takes place, and then they just threw in some pointless and rushed action in-between since they needed these characters go from point A to point B - yet they didn't know why and how. The submarine part is easily the worst of them all and it just comes off as filler action for the sake of action without moving the plot forward - you're introduced to a new type of monster, the mutated rats that grow out of zombie's stomachs, yet they're never seen again.They also have some other interesting ideas that are brought up and then immidiately ditched, such as keeping an infected person alive through medication after 5 years in an hospital bed only to kill him off in the same scene. Yikes.

I've never seen Leon being more bored than he is shown in this series. He's basically yawning his way through every scene as if he's somehow meta-consciously tired of Capcom shoehorning him into every RE film project. Claire is probably the only decent part of this show, but she is under-utilized and, for better or worse, somehow makes it into the final showdown even though there was no reason at all for her to be brought there other than "well she's a main character from the games so she must be there so she and Leon can have a cutsy awkward scene together".

Also, if I took a shot for everytime the villian Jason talks about "fear" in this series I'd be in serious need of gastric pumping.

This show gets a 1/10 from me. Not really sure what they were thinking when making this. It feels like a bad, unfinished leftover script from 2006 that never got greenlighted because it was weak even to Capcom's standard. Until RE2 remake was released and Capcom realized they could bank on Leon+Claire again. It's ironic given how little screentime Leon and Claire actually share together in this show.

Do. Not. Recommend.

 

[PinkHerb]

Ok so I have seen the show and it was...lackluster to say the least. Its the kind of thing you only see once and never again

 

[KennedyKiller]

I posted this in the film forums before realized that there's a way more active thread about it here.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Jesus, man... This was one of the worst shows I've ever seen. Weak and rushed plot, terrible dialogue, mediocre and stiff animation, illogical time jumps, not to mention that the decision to make a 4-episode series where each episode is 25 minutes each isn't justifiable. This could've easily been a 1.30 hour long movie without all the reused flashbacks. It would've still been a horrible film, but at least it would've been a bit more coherent.

The trailers made the show look way more interesting and badass than it really is. What ****es me off the most is how rushed and badly written the plot is. It's as if the writers just wrote down some pieces of dialogue interactions between some characters without deciding where those interactions takes place, and then they just threw in some pointless and rushed action in-between since they needed these characters go from point A to point B - yet they didn't know why and how. The submarine part is easily the worst of them all and it just comes off as filler action for the sake of action without moving the plot forward - you're introduced to a new type of monster, the mutated rats that grow out of zombie's stomachs, yet they're never seen again.They also have some other interesting ideas that are brought up and then immidiately ditched, such as keeping an infected person alive through medication after 5 years in an hospital bed only to kill him off in the same scene. Yikes.

I've never seen Leon being more bored than he is shown in this series. He's basically yawning his way through every scene as if he's somehow meta-consciously tired of Capcom shoehorning him into every RE film project. Claire is probably the only decent part of this show, but she is under-utilized and, for better or worse, somehow makes it into the final showdown even though there was no reason at all for her to be brought there other than "well she's a main character from the games so she must be there so she and Leon can have a cutsy awkward scene together".

Also, if I took a shot for everytime the villian Jason talks about "fear" in this series I'd be in serious need of gastric pumping.

This show gets a 1/10 from me. Not really sure what they were thinking when making this. It feels like a bad, unfinished leftover script from 2006 that never got greenlighted because it was weak even to Capcom's standard. Until RE2 remake was released and Capcom realized they could bank on Leon+Claire again. It's ironic given how little screentime Leon and Claire actually share together in this show.

Do. Not. Recommend.

God damn I love this review...

 

[Christorm747]

I posted this in the film forums before realized that there's a way more active thread about it here.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Jesus, man... This was one of the worst shows I've ever seen. Weak and rushed plot, terrible dialogue, mediocre and stiff animation, illogical time jumps, not to mention that the decision to make a 4-episode series where each episode is 25 minutes each isn't justifiable. This could've easily been a 1.30 hour long movie without all the reused flashbacks. It would've still been a horrible film, but at least it would've been a bit more coherent.

The trailers made the show look way more interesting and badass than it really is. What ****es me off the most is how rushed and badly written the plot is. It's as if the writers just wrote down some pieces of dialogue interactions between some characters without deciding where those interactions takes place, and then they just threw in some pointless and rushed action in-between since they needed these characters go from point A to point B - yet they didn't know why and how. The submarine part is easily the worst of them all and it just comes off as filler action for the sake of action without moving the plot forward - you're introduced to a new type of monster, the mutated rats that grow out of zombie's stomachs, yet they're never seen again.They also have some other interesting ideas that are brought up and then immidiately ditched, such as keeping an infected person alive through medication after 5 years in an hospital bed only to kill him off in the same scene. Yikes.

I've never seen Leon being more bored than he is shown in this series. He's basically yawning his way through every scene as if he's somehow meta-consciously tired of Capcom shoehorning him into every RE film project. Claire is probably the only decent part of this show, but she is under-utilized and, for better or worse, somehow makes it into the final showdown even though there was no reason at all for her to be brought there other than "well she's a main character from the games so she must be there so she and Leon can have a cutsy awkward scene together".

Also, if I took a shot for everytime the villian Jason talks about "fear" in this series I'd be in serious need of gastric pumping.

This show gets a 1/10 from me. Not really sure what they were thinking when making this. It feels like a bad, unfinished leftover script from 2006 that never got greenlighted because it was weak even to Capcom's standard. Until RE2 remake was released and Capcom realized they could bank on Leon+Claire again. It's ironic given how little screentime Leon and Claire actually share together in this show.

Do. Not. Recommend.

Yes, Exactly. If you took out all of Claire's scenes, it wouldn't do anything to the plot. She made no impact whatsoever, which is so frustrating to me. It doesn't make any sense that if she became a reporter, she wouldn't be armed. I mean, even after Raccoon city, I would think she would keep a weapon on her. But apparently not, and she had to use a lamp as a weapon against the U.S. agent.

I mean, you can't expect a good story line in only four episodes. There were so many holes in the plot. Especially when the scenes cut, you were asking yourself "how exactly did we get here from there" Even when Jason asked Leon why he was fighting him on this, I took a second and asked "right, why is he fighting this?" Leon didn't even answer him! We are left to assume that he is putting his position with the government over his fight to expose the cooperations.

What was also lacking was the boss fight. The main boss looked like a cheap rip off from Doomsday. I mean, it wasn't scary at all.

TBH I was excited that Leon and Claire were back as the two main protagonist. I was waiting patiently for good moments between them but was let down when #1 they literally had no scenes together, #2 Leon kept saving Claire and not the other way around, #3 they had one tiny moment together, and #4 it ultimately led to the end of their friendship. Which btw they gave no context clues that that was going to happen.

All in all, It was a super let down.