Characterization Marches On/Video Games

Examples of Characterization Marches On in Video Games include:

• Luigi of Super Mario Bros. was originally a just a palette swap of his older brother, Mario. The early Mario Bros. anime and other promotional art depicted him as taller and thinner than Mario early on, but this depiction would take until Super Mario Bros 2 USA to show up in the actual games. He also gained divergent gameplay traits in both the US and Japanese SMB 2 games, jumping higher and, in the Japanese game, having less traction while stopping.
  • Additionally, the Cowardly Lion traits and fear of ghosts first displayed in Luigis Mansion also stuck through later games, going a long way to distinguish his personality along with his physical characteristics. Later games (especially the Mario & Luigi series) would have quite a bit of fun with this.
  • Many of Luigi's distinctive character traits came from Western sources like the Super Mario Bros Super Show and were eventually introduced into the games, in a rare example of Mario canon embracing rather than contradicting fanon. Even the character's voice has gradually come to sound more like his cartoon counterpart.
    • Actually the Atari Mario Bros. promo showed Luigi as being quite similar to his cowardly self. ("Mario, where are you?!?")
  • Minor note, but this can be fairly inconsistent. It's interesting to listen to the openings to battles in the Mario and Luigi games-- it's always "Here we go" and "Okie-dokie", but the tone of the latter (Luigi's line) changes over the three games, and goes from fairly-reluctant to... well, pretty confident. The scene where Luigi joins the party in Super Paper Mario is also worth mentioning.

• Yoshi gained a host of abilities in Yoshi's Island (swallowing enemies to make and shoot eggs, the Ground Pound, shooting his tongue up, the variation on the Double Jump), that became an inherent part of his character in his later appearances. As such, it's a bit of a shock when one plays the severely limited Yoshi in Super Mario World, especially since said game was set chronologically after Yoshi's Island.
  • Maybe he's just too old to do those things anymore?
    • Or maybe it's too difficult to do this stuff with a fully grown Mario on his back.
    • Alternatively, Super Mario World Yoshis could be a different type of Yoshi, or too young, since he just hatched.
      • He wasn't actually hatching. Bowser trapped him in an egg.

• Princess Peach was also a more generic monarch figure in earlier games but was changed to a girlier, ditzier character with a high voice and a sweet tooth in modern games because she's arguably more fun that way.

• Wario, anyone? Compare the greedy Anti-Hero of Wario Land and Wario Ware to his first appearance in Super Mario Land 2. "Obey Wario, DESTROY MARIO!"

• In Mega Man X this is not applied to only one character, but the concept as whole for the series. In the begining X was said to be special, not only for being the origin to all Reploids but for being to most humane out of the bunch, his emotions and potential for growth can be compared to that of any human; in turn other reploids, and even Zero the other Super Prototype himself, commented on how they couldn't (or considered a waste to) feel and express themselves like X did. A few games later, this concept seems to be all but abandoned, pretty much all other Reploids and Zero are Ridiculously-Human Robots, they express themselves and have distinctive personalities like any other human; X now is more of a outspoken pacifist, as opposed to someone who worries because he was the only one who could.

• Captain Falcon of the F-Zero games never had much development character-wise that differed from his lawful bounty hunter racing driver look. Then Super Smash Bros. gave him the FALCOOOON PAUUUUNCH and other such moves, to the point that he even uses it in the official anime of the series.

• Aran Ryan (don't think too hard about his name) was just a generic opponent, more or less, in the SNES incarnation of Super Punch-Out!!. Then Next Level Games decided to play up the "hot-tempered Irishman" stereotype for the Wii game and made him a complete lunatic.
  • In the Wii game, Kid Quick was probably going to be this... but his new characterization got so out of hand that the developers just called him a new character, Disco Kid.

• In his debut on Sonic 3 and Knuckles, Knuckles was constantly laughing at you whenever he activated one of his traps, hindering your way. In the following games and other adaptations, Knuckles is portrayed as a deadly serious guy who never laughs or even smiles (when is not a sarcastic smile).

"Unlike Sonic I don't chuckle, I'd rather flex my muscles!"

—Unknown from M.E., Theme of Knuckles

• • This characterization itself has become desposed of as Knuckles has became more comical and jovial once again in later games. All the games usually have him smug about getting one over Sonic. Since the majority of his role in Sonic 3 revolved around him torturing and hindering Sonic this attitude seems more consistant.

• In the first Kirby game, Kirby lacks the power absorbing ability which would later become his most well-known characteristic.

• While some vestiges of her original personality remain, the Touhou character Marisa Kirisame was significantly different in the first five (PC-98) games. She was originally fairly bland, distinctly feminine, and moderately evil. Following the the shift to Windows, she became the tomboyish Loveable Rogue we know and love. To some extent, Reimu had it worse, as she didn't really have a defined personality in those games at all.

• The first Mortal Kombat features a very different Raiden from the rest of the series. In every other game, he's the protector of Earthrealm, the Obi Wan to Liu Kang and the other Earthrealm warriors, and one of the most powerful forces for good. In the first one? He's a Chaotic Stupid Jerkass who enters the tournament simply to show he's not afraid of Shang Tsung, thinks nothing of the mortals he's fighting, and in his ending bans anyone but gods from entering the tournament and blows up the Earth as a result. Whenever a work references the events of the original, they just pretend the second characterization is what happened.

• Occurred often in the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors franchise as they added new playable characters, even if they had previously been generic NPCs in the games in look and voice -- for example, Cao Pi (son of Cao Cao) was Zhen Ji's generic NPC husband in 3 and 4, only to later acquire a unique look, weapon, and personality in 5 when he was promoted to both a major playable character. (Amusingly, one hentai doujinshi author put out a Zhen Ji-centric doujin based on DW3 with Cao Pi looking like one of the game's generic NPC general templates, only to later release another doujin based on DW5, now with their DW5 versions.)
  • Likewise, Sima Zhao (second son of Sima Yi) is somewhat "Sima Yi Lite" in his mannerisms and speech in Dynasty Warriors 4: Xtreme Legends (in Meng Huo's Legend Mode stage), 5 (Battles of Jieting and Chencang) and 6 (in Sima Yi's ending cutscene), only to get a complete revamp in personality befitting his central role in the Jin storyline of 7.

• The Medic from Team Fortress 2. What his in-game lines and a laconic bio provided by Valve revealed was not much more than "swaggering Mad Doctor with fairly Camp Gay mannerisms". The "Meet the Medic" video released 4 years after the game not only deepened his character, but also nearly completely changed what he was originally perceived as - he turned out to not be cold and grumpy, but much, much more outspoken and affable than first thought. He isn't even an ounce less insane than before, though.

• To show his dedication to the Kinnikuman manga, Matayan has made a few nods to how characters acted previously in Kinnikuman: Muscle Fight.
  • Stecasse King's Terryman tape has a few moves based on his characterization from the Kaiju Extermination arc. In this mode, Stecasse King can use a revolver^[1] and has a super where he kicks the foe repeatedly and money drops out of them^[2].
  • Ramenman has a version of himself focusing on his characterization from the 20th Choujin Olympics arc, complete with moves and voice samples based on certain scenes.

1. ↑ Terryman used a revolver as his primary weapon in the Kaiju Extermination arc
2. ↑ There's a scene in the Kaiju Extermination arc where Terryman kicked a kid for not having enough money.