#pesanta

Every actress who portrayed Ada before has their place in Resi history and I'm grateful for the work they did in the franchise, but I think Lily Gao did such a perfect, snappy, subtly multi-layered version of the mysterious mercenary I was familiar with.

I always loved Ada, so I say this with love and appreciation:

She's taken Ada from femme fatale spy stereotype to a fleshed-out individual, from an archetype to a complex woman who has her own ideals, feelings and struggles, and has to juggle them with the decisions that got her where she is now. Obviously the writing was great too, which played a huge part in setting up Lily Gao's acting to absolutely sing (at least to me).

She's a different Ada, for sure. Was I caught off-guard by her voice at first? You bet. She doesn't have the airy, playful, motherly (sometimes kind of condescending?) tone about her anymore - she's got things to do. She's as sharp and cunning as she is quietly compassionate. She's willing to cut off Albert Wesker mid-sentence, but she's just as willing to call Leon and tell him where to find Ashley. She feels like a merc who's had it rough and made her way by sheer hard work, not a model who gets out of bad spots by blowing kisses and tossing a perfectly timed grenade.

Now, I love over the top badassery, and I love how that was rehashed and still fit back into Ada's character. But she felt like a human first, and like those "glorious moments of awesome" came out of painstakingly honed skill, not absurdly sturdy plot armor.

What I stated here applies to a lot of things about the Resi remakes, of course - not just Ada. So much has been tweaked, amped, remixed, and so on. Ada is just maybe one of the most prominent parts of the remakes that made me really pause and go "oh my God, I can't believe how much I love this!"

I don't have a problem with the originals - I loved them (camp and all), grew up with them, etc. As a whole package, the series is just my jam and it would be hard to lose me as a fan. I even got used to first-person play so I could enjoy 7 and Village - they were awesome. (Bless you who already love first-person games. I... don't, haha.)