What characters have been RUINED by sequels? SPOILERS

[DrunkenElfMage]

Sometimes a game comes out that has a character that you can't wait to see in the sequel. ANd then you see them in the sequel and... its clear the developers had no idea about to do with the character and effectivelly destroyed their appeal.


THe character that prompted me to start this thread is Ellie from the Deadspace series.

Full disclosure, I didn't actually play either of these games, I just watched them in Let's Plays. But the problems I have with Ellie have to do with her place in the plot, something that can be easily deduced from the video's.

Spoiler

In Deadspace 2, Ellie is a badass. There is no other way to put it. She manages to survive all on her own in a space station full of Necromorphs. She has depth because she clearly has survivors guilt, and she is constantly butting heads with Isaac for perfectly valid reasons.

Ontop of that, the game actually does something brilliant by subverting the Damsel in distress trope with her. For a good portion of the game, she is in charge of baby sitting an increasingly unstable and violent survivor. You keep on waiting for the shoe to drop, for the survivor to do something to fuck you and her over. The game is trying to get you to think that she is going to be damseled. And for a few minutes she is.

You hear over the radio that the survivor has become to crazy to handle and you glimpse him attacking her with a screw driver. You rush to rescue her and see the man in front of a gated area, screaming at you with an eye impaled on the screwdriver. Its heavily implied that she is dead. Then she steps over from the side and bashes the guy in the head with a pipe, turns to Isaac and says "You owe me a FUCKING EYE."

Add, that they weren't showing signs of any romantic interest (something you see far little of in games) and you had a genuinely refreshing game character.

IN DEADSPACE 3, she is damseled THREE FUCKING TIMES. Her entire character is changed to make her the motivation for Isaac. In the last game, she showed no interest in destorying the SPires and Isaac was obsessed with it. In deadspace 3 its completely switched around, just so Isaac would chase after her in the plot. She needs to be rescued SO MANY DAMN TIMES you wonder how the fuck the badass from the second game became so incompetent at surviving.

In Deadspace 2, Isaac's character arc was finished. Ellie should have been the protagonist in the 3rd game.

Phew, glad that's out of my system. What character changes between sequels drove you absolutely bonkers? Or did the exact opposite happen and a character you hated suddenly became interesting?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Not that I'm a big fan but if you compare the original Chris Redfield to the freak from Resident Evil 5 & 6 you'll see a blatant makeover for the worse. It's like they rebooted the character but not the series, especially by RE6.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

I'd go with The Illusive Man going from well intentioned extremist in Mass Effect 2 to moustache twirling villain in Mass Effect 3.

Or all of the returning characters in The 3rd Birthday who resembled their previous incarnations in appearance only.

 

[Slitzkin]

Yuna. Religious pilgrim to pop-star princess. It did not feel very natural at all.

 

[scorptatious]

Keira transitioning from Jak 2 to Jak 3. She turned from a pretty important character to a side character with barely half a dozen lines. And to make matters worse, she was downgraded from her previous role as Jak's love interest in favor of Ashelin for no goddamned reason.

The later two games apparently fixed this, but one was a racing game and the other was... The Lost Frontier. :/ Yeah....

 

[TheGamerElite33]

Agent 47 from cold blooded anti hero in all hitman games to wanna be hero in absolution.

 

[DefunctTheory]

There's a bunch, of course. But it's pretty late, so here's one OP reminded me of.

The Marker (Dead Space) - The first two markers (The Red Marker, Dead Space, and the Black Marker, Dead Space: Martyr) are fairly interesting 'characters' - giant obelisks that on one hand create unspeakable mockeries of life, and on the other attempt to contain the deadly affects they inspire by communing with surrounding species. It makes you want to find out more and to unlock the mysteries of the Markers. Changed in Dead Space 2 into some sort of Horror Beyond the Stars that only communicates with people to fool them into spreading the sickness in one way or another.

 

[spartandude]

Anders in Dragon Age. The first game he was this really funny charismatic Han Solo/ Malcolm Renalds like character. In Dragon Age 2 was whinny, never shut up about being oppressed by the templars (in the first he loved making fools of the Templars), and i usally never call characters whinny as i find its often over used to describe any male character who shows emotion other than rage but dear god did I have Anders in Dragon Age 2.

 

[small]

Mass effect... emily wong, the investigative reporter in the first game and by the third shes killed off on twitter by bioware same with other characters killed off by email

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Most characters from Bioware games. Whatever made them interesting concepts in their original form gets diluted down into base characteristics for the second game. I feel like they usually drop what made them unique in favor of using boring archetypes.

Anders goes from happy go lucky Mage anarchist to mopey Mage anarchist.

 

[Evonisia]

I don't want to say ruined necessarily, but I am incredibly bothered by Katey Greene's change from Dead Rising 2 to Dead Rising 3. In DR2 she's a sweet, innocent little girl who is infected and has been infected for like three years now. She doesn't seem phased by it beyond concern for her Dad who has to get her medicine for her (and this usually results in him doing dangerous, shallow game shows to get megabucks fast).

In Dead Rising 3 (OMG SPOILERS!!!1!) she's an angsty teenager who has ran away from her Dad and went as far as to become an illegal. Illegals in Dead Rising 3 are characters who have refused to accept the Zombrex chip and continue to find or create Zombrex through their own means to survive. She even sets up an alternate identity so they can reveal this later.

You've spent over half your life being dependant on Zombrex, and when a chip comes along to help you, you refuse because of the moral reasons and you later run away from your Dad. What is the logic behind that? Not taking the chip will just cause him distress because he still has to get Zombrex (it is later revealed that he did this through getting into the gang life), and then you run away anyway causing him more distress.

Still, I guess it allowed for the rather kick ass point in Dead Rising 3 where you and Chuck slaughter some Zombies (and Chuck even uses the baseball bat with the nails in it for extra fan service).

Dead Rising as a series doesn't have the best writing story-wise, but I always thought it was competent with the characters (Dead Rising 3 included).

 

[-Ezio-]

I'd go with The Illusive Man going from well intentioned extremist in Mass Effect 2 to moustache twirling villain in Mass Effect 3.

that's what indoctrination does to you though. and i dont think he was ever that well intentioned.

in a weird way Artyom from metro. in 2033 i finished it as a good guy spared the dark ones. but then in last light he was a mass murderer regardless.

 

[TheArcaneThinker]

Garret , a great character that turned into the BATMAN ! -thief series.

 

[DaWaffledude]

I'd go with The Illusive Man going from well intentioned extremist in Mass Effect 2 to moustache twirling villain in Mass Effect 3.

He was the head of an organisation that committed immoral research in the name of space-racism. Please, explain to me how he was well-intentioned.

OT: Garrus Vakarian. In the first game, he thinks all the world's problems can be solved by shooting bad people. Paragon Shepard corrects him. In ME2, he's space-punisher and nobody objects.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

As I type this I am watching Immortals on FX, so the first one that came to mind was Kratos from the God of War series.

He begins as a classic tragic hero out of Greek literature. Sure, he's a violent conqueror with a serious mean streak, but so are most of the Greek heroes. What makes him interesting is his soul-crushing guilt, and the way fate has bound him to suffer. He tries like hell to overcome it, and does succeed in his impossible task of killing a god, but even this triumph over fate is not complete, and his suffering never ends.

If he had died at the end of the first game that would have been the perfect arc of his character. But sequels are the way of the world, and his proper fate was superceded by the almighty dollar. In the last 2 main-series games he went from despicable but still sympathetic anti-hero to a somehow less-interesting villain protagonist. And make no mistake, he is a villain. He has no excuse for the violence he unleashes on the world and the chaos he creates by killing the gods. He is just an angry child with too much power. The games are fun, no doubt, but Kratos as a character was ruined.

 

[nima55]

Homura From Madoka Magica. She went from indomitable badass, fighting for the girl she loves, to literally The devil. She chooses to turn evil for no reason instead of going to heaven. The people in charge couldn't make it clearer that they just didn't want the money train to stop.

 

[Poetic Nova]

I'd go with The Illusive Man going from well intentioned extremist in Mass Effect 2 to moustache twirling villain in Mass Effect 3.

that's what indoctrination does to you though. and i dont think he was ever that well intentioned.

in a weird way Artyom from metro. in 2033 i finished it as a good guy spared the dark ones. but then in last light he was a mass murderer regardless.

I'll be using spoilers just in case:

Spoiler

The devs continued the story from the perspective of the bad ending (not getting enough moral points) since they thought that most people didn't see the good ending where Artyom spares the dark ones. Shame really but justified if you've read the book.

 

[-Ezio-]

I'd go with The Illusive Man going from well intentioned extremist in Mass Effect 2 to moustache twirling villain in Mass Effect 3.

that's what indoctrination does to you though. and i dont think he was ever that well intentioned.

in a weird way Artyom from metro. in 2033 i finished it as a good guy spared the dark ones. but then in last light he was a mass murderer regardless.

I'll be using spoilers just in case:

Spoiler

The devs continued the story from the perspective of the bad ending (not getting enough moral points) since they thought that most people didn't see the good ending where Artyom spares the dark ones. Shame really but justified if you've read the book.

i guess. was still a little disspointing that all my good deeds meant nothing.

 

[debtcollector]

Homura From Madoka Magica. She went from indomitable badass, fighting for the girl she loves, to literally The devil. She chooses to turn evil for no reason instead of going to heaven. The people in charge couldn't make it clearer that they just didn't want the money train to stop.

Fact. Goddamn that was one of the worst plot twists I've ever seen, if only because it showed that the writers didn't give enough shits to understand their own characters.

OT: Somebody already mentioned Yuna, so....Lightning, from FFXIII? I mean, she was a fairly standard Stoic Badass Action Girl in her first game, and then in her unnecessary sequels, she becomes some sort of Valkyrie/Goddess/Messiah, and any explanation as to why is just handwaved with "The gods made her do it."