I appreciate the long-form writing you’ve done on this game as a fan of the original and someone who enjoyed their time a lot with the remake, it’s made me hungry for other perspectives.
I think my biggest disagreements with you are on this article. In short, I really liked what they did with Eddie, and I was somewhat disappointed by Anglea in the remake.
In the original, the actor’s performance for Eddie is all over the place, wildly oscillating between emotions. Along with the dialogue he was given, and the kind of wild-eyed animation they did with him in the pre-renders, I find the result to be that the character doesn’t really have a psychological point of view. It’s very fuzzy to me who he is and what is driving him.
In the remake, I feel like this is very much clarified. Rather than turning on a hairpin after James calls him “nuts” (like an idiot), Eddie begins resenting James from the first cutscene, when he feels rejected that James won’t team up with him to leave the town, and that continues through the following meetings, when the “you got your appetite back” line triggers him, and into the prison scene with him.
I think the prison scene is really fantastic in the remake, especially compared to the sort of rambly, awkward original. James interrogating Eddie as a straight man instead of a nag, and dragging out the sequence with more and more excuses makes Eddie’s turn at the end (“I’m just messing with you”) a much more impactful payoff, and then we get his really great smile when then he gets to rejects James and go off on his own. Having killed his ghost father, and gained the “I can kill anyone” confidence, is implied but very clear compared to the original.
Then later when we meet Eddie again its revealed that now Eddie’s confidence has been undermined by the fact that he’s had to keep killing his father over and over again (who is laughing at him). The intro has great staging, where we think Eddie is talking to James (“You just had to follow me”) but it’s actually to the father-ghost he just killed. The rest of the scene plays out very impactfully, with Eddie throwing the abuse he has received at James unprompted, clearly transfering onto him, and basically making it clear that he’s going to take his frustration out on him for every perceived slight no matter what you say. Overall, much more effective to me.
And just to underline it, the vocal performance of Eddie is way, way, way, way better than the original.
For Angela, I didn’t like the acting performance in the first and final scene with her, but I liked her otherwise, so it really just added up to a kind of inconsistency that I don’t think was present in the original. Overall I think they made a lot of the right choices with how they went with her, but I feel like they should have updated the script in those rougher scenes to match what the actor was doing. In the original, while her official age is young, she is effectively an older woman, and it’s played as someone I would say more mentally ill than in the remake. The way the original actress changes voices and emotionality through scenes I found incredibly effective, and the fire scene is my absolute favorite cutscene in the original. But I think it was written with a kind of mature voice in a way that doesn’t feel right with a younger actor. It just feels like what someone would say if they’ve spent a bit longer in hell to me. I think in both that and the first scene, the actor was sort of struggling to make the lines work in their own voice, and it just doesn’t come across really believable.
Anyway thanks again for the writeups, hope you continue the substack, always enjoy long form content from experienced designers.
"It’s very fuzzy to me who he is and what is driving him. In the remake, I feel like this is very much clarified."
I agree -- but that is precisely the issue for me. From the very first second, something feels off about Remake Eddie. We know he's not a regular dude. His physicality is strange -- bordering on cartoonish with his swollen balloon head -- and his behavior is immediately suspicious. We expect him to be bad, he turns out to be bad, the end, roll the credits.
Imagine a long walk towards a house shrouded in mist. At first, you see nothing. Then a shape emerges. As you approach, you notice trees around it. Coming closer, you spot a guest house too. Each step reveals more detail. Now imagine the same walk without the mist. You just have a long trek towards a clearly visible house surrounded by trees, with the guest house nearby. Which walk is more intriguing?
This is OG Eddie versus Remake Eddie to me. The reveal of Eddie's darkness is much more impactful precisely because he seems bland and harmless at first. With Remake Eddie, I was on edge, expecting him to explode at any moment.
I acknowledge that the production values are superior in the remake, and some scenes with Eddie are fantastic in isolation.
As for Angela, I liked her a lot, but I'll keep your comment in mind when the inevitable replay happens. The fire stairs scene made less of an impact on me than in the original, but I thought it was because I had just finished the original SH2 a day or two before playing the remake. Now that I think about it more, maybe that's not the only reason indeed.
I appreciate the long-form writing you’ve done on this game as a fan of the original and someone who enjoyed their time a lot with the remake, it’s made me hungry for other perspectives.
I think my biggest disagreements with you are on this article. In short, I really liked what they did with Eddie, and I was somewhat disappointed by Anglea in the remake.
In the original, the actor’s performance for Eddie is all over the place, wildly oscillating between emotions. Along with the dialogue he was given, and the kind of wild-eyed animation they did with him in the pre-renders, I find the result to be that the character doesn’t really have a psychological point of view. It’s very fuzzy to me who he is and what is driving him.
In the remake, I feel like this is very much clarified. Rather than turning on a hairpin after James calls him “nuts” (like an idiot), Eddie begins resenting James from the first cutscene, when he feels rejected that James won’t team up with him to leave the town, and that continues through the following meetings, when the “you got your appetite back” line triggers him, and into the prison scene with him.
I think the prison scene is really fantastic in the remake, especially compared to the sort of rambly, awkward original. James interrogating Eddie as a straight man instead of a nag, and dragging out the sequence with more and more excuses makes Eddie’s turn at the end (“I’m just messing with you”) a much more impactful payoff, and then we get his really great smile when then he gets to rejects James and go off on his own. Having killed his ghost father, and gained the “I can kill anyone” confidence, is implied but very clear compared to the original.
Then later when we meet Eddie again its revealed that now Eddie’s confidence has been undermined by the fact that he’s had to keep killing his father over and over again (who is laughing at him). The intro has great staging, where we think Eddie is talking to James (“You just had to follow me”) but it’s actually to the father-ghost he just killed. The rest of the scene plays out very impactfully, with Eddie throwing the abuse he has received at James unprompted, clearly transfering onto him, and basically making it clear that he’s going to take his frustration out on him for every perceived slight no matter what you say. Overall, much more effective to me.
And just to underline it, the vocal performance of Eddie is way, way, way, way better than the original.
For Angela, I didn’t like the acting performance in the first and final scene with her, but I liked her otherwise, so it really just added up to a kind of inconsistency that I don’t think was present in the original. Overall I think they made a lot of the right choices with how they went with her, but I feel like they should have updated the script in those rougher scenes to match what the actor was doing. In the original, while her official age is young, she is effectively an older woman, and it’s played as someone I would say more mentally ill than in the remake. The way the original actress changes voices and emotionality through scenes I found incredibly effective, and the fire scene is my absolute favorite cutscene in the original. But I think it was written with a kind of mature voice in a way that doesn’t feel right with a younger actor. It just feels like what someone would say if they’ve spent a bit longer in hell to me. I think in both that and the first scene, the actor was sort of struggling to make the lines work in their own voice, and it just doesn’t come across really believable.
Anyway thanks again for the writeups, hope you continue the substack, always enjoy long form content from experienced designers.
"It’s very fuzzy to me who he is and what is driving him. In the remake, I feel like this is very much clarified."
I agree -- but that is precisely the issue for me. From the very first second, something feels off about Remake Eddie. We know he's not a regular dude. His physicality is strange -- bordering on cartoonish with his swollen balloon head -- and his behavior is immediately suspicious. We expect him to be bad, he turns out to be bad, the end, roll the credits.
Imagine a long walk towards a house shrouded in mist. At first, you see nothing. Then a shape emerges. As you approach, you notice trees around it. Coming closer, you spot a guest house too. Each step reveals more detail. Now imagine the same walk without the mist. You just have a long trek towards a clearly visible house surrounded by trees, with the guest house nearby. Which walk is more intriguing?
This is OG Eddie versus Remake Eddie to me. The reveal of Eddie's darkness is much more impactful precisely because he seems bland and harmless at first. With Remake Eddie, I was on edge, expecting him to explode at any moment.
I acknowledge that the production values are superior in the remake, and some scenes with Eddie are fantastic in isolation.
As for Angela, I liked her a lot, but I'll keep your comment in mind when the inevitable replay happens. The fire stairs scene made less of an impact on me than in the original, but I thought it was because I had just finished the original SH2 a day or two before playing the remake. Now that I think about it more, maybe that's not the only reason indeed.
Thanks, that helps me understand your point a bit more, I'll have to give that some thought as well.