Character Perception Evolution / Video Games

• Advance Wars:
  • Olaf, Drake and Hawke in a gameplay sense. All three were formerly considered Low-Tier Letdowns for having CO Powers that deal 2 HP of damage to all enemy units (that can't kill) instead of raising their own firepower. As the competitive metagame evolved in the years after the original games, expert players found global damage a Game-Breaker, viewing it as essentially wiping out 20% of the enemy army in one strike. All three are now high-tier characters, even Drake in spite of his focus on naval combat.
  • Colin underwent a different evolution: he was always seen as a Game-Breaker, the difference was why. Early on, fans focused on his Power of Money Super Power and the hilarious firepower bonuses it could grant. Later in the game's life, Power of Money was found to be Awesome, but Impractical, as if you had enough money to make full use of it you've probably already won the game multiple times over. It was his normal power that was found to be broken. What does it do? It multiplies his current funds by 1.5. At only 2 stars, it's just as spammable as the CO who's whole gimmick is spamming his Normal Power (Adder), and the extra money allows Colin to pump out expensive units long before his opponents can, or just Zerg Rush the opponent.
  • Lash used to be viewed as one of the strongest COs in Black Hole Rising, as her day-to-day powers of getting a 10% boost to her offense for each terrain star her unit has, for no drawback, makes her look very powerful on paper. Her super CO power, Prime Tactics, also looks intimidating, as it doubles her terrain stars, and thus doubling both her attack and defense boosts. The devs apparently agreed with this view, with Lash being one of the few COs directly nerfed in Dual Strike (with her terrain bonuses being reduced to 5% per star). Later on it was found that, in practice, her D2D isn't that strong, as much of the time you're fighting on plains or terrain with no boosts, and saavy opponents can position their units in a way to deny her more potent terrain in meaningful engagements, while her air units are disadvantaged as they can never benefit from her powers. Additionally, Prime Tactics is rather weak for a Super CO Power, as her units need to be on properties or mountains to actually get a comparable power boost to other SCOPs, made worse by its cost of 7 stars making it one of the more expensive SCOPs (and then her normal CO power, Terrain Tactics, is nigh-worthless). This results in her now being considered a mediocre CO that heavily relies on maps full of strong terrain, being ranked tier 3 in all Advance Wars By Web formats, and even then she is barely used by competitive players in tier 3 matches.
  • Nell was historically held up as an Infinity +1 Sword just a step below Hachi, with her day-to-day skill giving her a random chance to deal up to +20% damage with every attack (as opposed to the usual +10%) with no downsides being seen as overpowered. Given time, players have generally recognised that she is kept in check by the limits of her abilities: They're dependent on luck, don't provide a huge boost over innate game mechanics until you reach her CO Powers, and terrain defensive bonuses do a lot to mitigate luck-based damage. She is now generally seen as an upper-mid tier character, and one who isn't representative of the extreme time and skill commitment required to unlock her in the original games.
  • Jake in Dual Strike was formerly loved, with his Totally Radical and Jive Turkey dialogue considered hilarious and a great example of a Woolseyism. With growing distaste towards the earlier games' War Has Never Been So Much Fun tone, Jake is now widely hated for the exact same reasons, and the Big Bad mocking him is considered a case of Villain Has a Point.
• Animal Crossing:
  • For years, Tom Nook held a reputation as a Memetic Psychopath thanks to him appearing to single-handedly control the town's economy and due to much of his behavior towards the player (e.g. forcing them to work for him and pay off a large debt, only to force them into an even bigger one by upgrading their house automatically) coming off as creepy and coercive. This was reflected in the many parodies of the game that made him out to be something akin to a loan shark or a mob boss. However, the series' popularity grew concurrently with the Great Recession and the COVID-19 Pandemic, which did much to expose how idealistic Nook's portrayal is compared to the actual job and housing markets (among other things, he never sets deadlines for mortgages or charges interest). Furthermore, Animal Crossing: New Leaf would ramp up his kinder traits while doing away with his more coercive habits, removing the work-based tutorial and making housing upgrades optional. As a result, Nook is nowadays seen as a fatherly Benevolent Boss, a far cry from his initial "mafia don" image among fans. Sure enough, many became disappointed when Isabelle started to take his place as the mascot of the series after New Leaf, and many rejoiced when Animal Crossing: New Horizons went back into giving him the spotlight once again.
  • Isabelle's introduction on Animal Crossing: New Leaf quickly turned her into one of the series' most popular characters, if not the most, thanks to being an adorable Precious Puppy and having a close relationship to the player due to being their secretary. This led to her quickly becoming the new mascot of the series, and even one of the new faces of Nintendo, as she started to be featured everywhere from Mario Kart to Super Smash Bros.. But this in turn led to a lot of people to start getting tired of her, finding her overrated and not deserving of taking the spotlight over other characters in the franchise such as Tom Nook. Sure enough, when Animal Crossing: New Horizons went back to giving Tom Nook the spotlight again while relegating Isabelle to a comparatively smaller role, there were plenty that didn't shed a tear.
• Assassin's Creed:
  • Desmond Miles in general. When his games were being released he was often seen as the weak-link of the series, particularly the Ezio trilogy, and seen as a bland main character. In the years since 3 and his death, while Desmond remains controversial, opinions have softened over the years, particularly as soon after Desmond's death, the Modern Day plot went fully into Arc Fatigue and the closest thing he's had to a successor, Layla Hassan, has been even more controversial than Desmond. Nolan North revealing what the plan for Desmond would have been had the series not been extended past the character also had some fans wistful about seeing Desmond get to headline a modern game.
  • Connor Kenway from Assassin's Creed III was initially unpopular, being seen as a whiny scrappy. As the years passed, reception grew more positive, with people admitting that he had a strong character arc and that a lot of the initial bad reception was due to certain parts of his story being cut for time and being the immediate successor of the well-liked Ezio Auditore.
• When The Battle Cats first added gacha units, Hip Hop Cat was seen as fairly unremarkable and wasn't used much by players — due to knowledge about the stats and abilities of units being harder to come by at the time, fans didn't know about Dancing Flasher Cat's good stats for its price and saw it as redundant next to bulkier melee attackers like Island and Crazed Whale. Later on, Hip Hop's true form, Can Can Cat, was added, and it quickly proved to be a Game-Breaker with its enormous stats and, later, excellent talents. However, with Can Can seeing heavy use at all stages of the game and knowledge about cat stats becoming more common due to datamining, fans realized that Dancing Flasher still had good stats for an evolved-form unit, and could fill the same role as Can Can early in the game without needing to use Catfruit and XP that could be spent on cats that needed it to be useful. In the end, Dancing Flasher Cat went from a rarely-used, redundant unit to a widely-used early-game melee attacker, without any changes being made to its stats or abilities.
• Bayonetta: The Big Bad for the game, Father Balder, while considered to have a great boss fight, was also seen as relatively benign for an antagonist, coming off as a bit of a regular Archnemesis Dad. When Bayonetta 2 came along, his past self's appearance as the Masked Lumen and the fleshing out his backstory to show him as a noble yet vengeful Lumen Sage who ended up being possessed by Loptr instead turned him into one of the series' most popular characters, now being viewed as a Tragic Hero who genuinely loved his family, yet was condemned to a depressing fate. And after Bayonetta 3 resulted in a massive Broken Base for how it handled its story and characters, it's not uncommon to see people considering the character to be the best-written one in the series.
• Catherine: When the game first released in 2011, Erica was considered to be a rare positive portrayal of a transgender woman in a video game, especially given the rigid heteronormativity of Japanese society. However, in the intervening eight years between the game's original release and that of the Full Body edition, the trans rights movement saw a major spike in mainstream visibility in the West, leading to a rise in trans representation in media. In the wake of this, Erica came under increasing amounts of fire for how much her depiction revolved around Unsettling Gender-Reveal jokes^note In particular, the reveal that she was transgender happens after she has sex with Toby Nebbin, whose disgust is Played for Laughs despite similar attitudes contributing to assaults and even killings of trans people in real life. In addition, a new ending in Full Body sparked controversy by depicting Erica pre-transition, enraging many fans with the implication that a Cosmic Retcon erased her trans identity. Consequently, she's now viewed as barely even Fair for Its Day.
• Chrono Trigger: During the second half of the 1990s and the majority of the 2000s, Dalton had a cult following in the playerbase who appreciated him for being a Laughably Evil ham who upgrades the Epoch with the ability to fly after stealing it from the party. However, after the 2009 DS re-release added additional content that aimed to bridge Trigger with its divisive 1999 sequel—which canonized Dalton being responsible for militarising Porre, the Fall of Guardia and the deaths of Crono, Lucca and Marle between the events of Trigger and Cross—general fan opinion of Dalton started to significantly sour. Even when ignoring the DS additional content, Dalton has been criticized for being an incompetent nuisance who gets away with far more than he should among a cast of more interesting, entertaining, and/or challenging antagonists, and for being the catalyst for one of the game's worst dungeons in the form of the Blackbird (which follows the widely-acclaimed Ocean Palace). While Trigger is still generally agreed to be a masterpiece, Dalton is now seen as one of its worst elements.
• Around the time Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls came out, the creators intended for Monaca Towa to be viewed as a Hate Sink lacking in Monokuma's charisma for her crimes towards both her enemies and allies, and the fandom mostly agreed in turn, to the point that many cheered when she was unceremoniously written out in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School. Then years later, in wake of the backlash surrounding other masterminds, Monaca became more appreciated for her rather daring, yet effective scheme, a few who pointed out that her Freudian Excuse (being emotionally, physically, and faint implications of being sexually abused by her brother, father and role model) had far more weight to stand on than what the game claimed, especially considering her age, and that in retrospect Danganronpa 3 failed to fully utilize her potential, helped by Cristina Valenzuela's performance being regarded as a highlight. Nowadays, while Monaca is still hated, it is more in a Love to Hate manner instead of pure derision.
• Dark Souls: Gwyn was originally seen by the fanbase as a genuinely pitiful Anti-Villain who condemned himself to a Fate Worse than Death for the greater good, with the Final Boss fight against him at the end of Dark Souls 1 viewed as a somber, yet fitting end to him. However, over time, more attention began being paid to Gwyn's negative traits, such as his mistreatment of his children, his hunger for and unwillingness to give up power, and especially Dark Souls 3's revelation that he placed the Darksign on the Pygmies, thus leading to the Undead Curse and all of its ills. Gwyn is now mostly seen as a Jerkass God whose crimes overshadow his accomplishments, and who brought his own misfortune upon himself.
• Devil May Cry:
  • Lucia debuted in the much-maligned Devil May Cry 2, which very much colored fans' reaction to her back then and still does to an extent. In addition to feeling she took Trish's place as Dante's partner^note While Trish is playable in the game, she doesn't appear in the game's story, many disliked her for her inscrutable accent and subpar voice acting. As time passed, opinion towards Lucia began to soften, with many praising her story arc, design, fighting style and even her gameplay. A lot of fans have come to see Lucia as having a personality that would work quite well as a foil to the more boisterous and extroverted characters of the Devil May Cry series and see her as a decent character who had the bad luck of being in a poorly made game. It's not unheard for fans to express hope for her to return in a future game or even a Devil May Cry 2 remake that fixes the flaws of the original.
  • Nero's debut in Devil May Cry 4 as that game's main protagonist saw him facing an uphill battle with fans who preferred the original protagonist, Dante, who now filled the role of deuteragonist. While Nero's gameplay gained him some fans, it was the controversial reboot that caused most fans to feel the hatred towards Nero was ill-placed, accepting that he was at least an original character rather than Dante in the reboot, whose appearance and personality were very different — and considered much less likable — from the original Dante.
• Dragon Age II:
  • Anders himself. While widely considered The Scrappy for many on release, he's since become a far more divisive companion, with many fans praising how complex and developed he is as well as the interesting themes and dynamics into which his story arc is tied to the main theme. This is especially in the wake of the third game's dull and generic main antagonist. Inquisition also helped by providing background information that put Anders's actions into greater context, and Hawke can potentially say that the camp that paint him as an irredeemable monster and the camp that paints him as beyond reproach are both oversimplifying him.
  • Cullen. For years, Cullen was seen as a dark-horse character in terms of popularity, gathering a fanbase who saw him as the ideal of what a Templar should represent and a conventional pretty boy who was a popular request by fans to be made a romance option thanks to some flirtatious dialogue between himself and a female Mage Warden until the wish was granted in Inquisition. In the years since Inquisition, however, Cullen's reputation has taken a hit due to more people criticizing his writing^note Cullen in Origins is written as a borderline stalker of a Female Mage Warden, with any romance between them having an uneven power dynamic by nature. Even Cullen's writer never understood the appeal of the character, as their idea of what happened to him after Origins was that he became a frenzied serial killer, feeling his role in general post-Origins was included to pander to fans.
  • Merrill. When the game first launched, she was almost universally derided as a naïve idiot for thinking she could safely work with a demon, blood magic, or eluvian. However, some revelations in Dragon Age: Inquisition, such as Solas and Cole revealing that spirits and demons are separate, some spirits can be safe to work with if they're not corrupted into a demon by the negative emotions or expectations of mortals, and Merrill's Eluvian (if not shattered) being seen in the Fade along with dozens of other Eluvians, including Morrigan's successfully restored one have left her vindicated in the eyes of many players, with some even hoping that her Eluvian knowledge can come in handy against Fen'Harel and his own Eluvian network in future games.
  • Carver was criticized for being an annoying little brother who has a chip on his shoulder with Hawke and his mage family members, standing poorly in comparisson to Bethany being easier to get along with. With the release of the DLCs and with time allowing fans to understand his character development, fans realize how he definitely had a raw deal throughout his life, made a lot of good points about his family's situation and actions, and eventually growing past his sibling rivalry with Hawke even as a rival, made him be seen by more fans as one of the most relatable characters in the game. Some mage fans even see his actions if he becomes a Templar as something many other Templars should aspire to.
  • While Aveline has remained something of a Base-Breaking Character since the game's original launch in 2011, the reason for putting her in that category have widely changed since then. Originally seen as something of a straightforward normal person in Hawke's very disparate group with some scrutiny towards her more biting interactions with Isabella that still left Aveline with a good number of fans, as The New '20s rolled on with increasing scrutiny towards police misconduct, Aveline is now seen as being a shining example of how even "good" people allow corruption in the police to linger (such as giving Hawke missions that she doesn't want the Kirkwall Guard to handle, when that would be their very job, or refusing Carver entry in the Guard for what feels like arbitrary reasons).
• EarthBound (1994):
  • For years after the game's release, Tony was mainly remembered as a decent, but mostly unremarkable one-off character whose purpose was mainly just to act as a vehicle for getting Jeff to join the main party. However, after fans uncovered a 2003 interview where director Shigesato Itoi stated that he wrote Tony as gay, the kid rapidly gained a major following among the game's LGBT Fanbase, thanks to his status as not only one of Nintendo's first explicitly queer characters, but also a positively-portrayed queer character from an era when that was hard to come by (among other things, his affinity for Jeff — re-contextualized as a crush by Itoi's comments — is never mocked or demeaned). Nowadays, he's one of the game's premier Ensemble Darkhorses, with fans commonly expanding his role in fanworks and shipping him with Jeff.
  • While Aloysius and Lardna Minch were never really popular, they were mostly met with apathy, their relationship with their children Porky and Picky was seen by many as dysfunctional at worst, especially since the English translation heavily played up Porky's rudeness and other negative qualities while toning down any apparent violence. However, increased attention towards child abuse in The New '10s alongside greater knowledge of the original Japanese script made their actions look much worse in hindsight, Aloysius in particular. In the original script, Aloysius spanks Porky after he and Ness bring Picky home from the meteorite, an action that, while once seen as a perfectly acceptable punishment for children, is now widely considered a form of physical abuse,^note the English translation changed it to Porky being grounded, though the changed sound effect could be easily misinterpreted as him getting hit then leaves his family behind except for Porky when the latter nabs him a job in Fourside. As a result, they are now hated by much of the fanbase, viewed as abusive jerks whose poor parenting helped turn Porky into the villain he was in both the game and its sequel.
• Fallout: New Vegas: Caesar's Legion, while presented as both behind most of the game's atrocities and the least sympathetic of the three factions vying for control over the Mojave, was originally seen by a vocal chunk of players as a morally grey faction with legitimate points against the New California Republic. This is due to the implications given by some NPCs that Legion territory was relatively safe and orderly and the NCR's more negative aspects being shown in-game. There was a common theory that the Legion being presented as more overtly evil than other factions was due to time constraints preventing the greyer aspects of the faction from being showcased. In recent years, with multiple developers dispelling many of the rumors that the Legion had cut content presenting them as morally grey and that the cut content was stuff that just was meant to give things for the player to do relating to them, a more critical look at many of the Legion's more negative aspects, and the growing perception spurred by leftist gamers that Fallout fans would rather support fascist and ultranationalist factions for being "cool" than consume satirical criticism of these factions properly (which also contributed to scrutiny directed against Enclave fans as well), many fans started aligning with the intended perception of the developers that the Legion was meant to be villainous. The Legion still has fans, but they tend to either like them as antagonists, or people who blindly state the Legion "is right", and are usually mocked for doing so.
• Final Fantasy:
  • When Final Fantasy V was first released and for a decade or two after, the Big Bad Exdeath was derided by the fandom as a cartoonishly one-dimensional Tin Tyrant and the worst villain in the series. Indeed, the immense popularity of his successors, like Kefka and Sephiroth, occurred in large part because of how much they contrasted with Exdeath, with them being seen as much more original. However, his reappearances in the Dissidia Final Fantasy series and the new script of the Game Boy Advance port more overtly put his hamminess on display, making it easier to see that he was meant to be a parody of cartoonishly one-dimensional villains. Nowadays, he's considered one of the series' best antagonists, with fans praising him for adeptly balancing self-aware camp and genuine menace.
  • Final Fantasy VII:
    • While initially viewed as a badass, Cloud's perception tanked hard during The 2000s, with his appearances in Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, and Dissidia Final Fantasy causing many to view his as being a wangsty and emo wimp whose biggest accomplishment was setting the mold for other JRPG protagonists to copy him in a negative way. The New '10s would end up changing this perception entirely from 2015 onwards, due to the announcement of Final Fantasy VII Remake, Cloud's appearances in Super Smash Bros., and the rerelease of the original Final Fantasy VII onto modern platforms resulting in many people going back to check out the original game as well as for first-time players trying it out for the first time, and what many people ended up discovering about Cloud was that he was an impressively complex protagonist for his time, harboring all sorts of mental trauma and identity confusion that made him a much more engaging protagonist than what people initially assumed him to be. It also helps that this coincided during a time when more awareness was being made on mental health and trauma, all of which has caused Cloud's reputation to go from "crybaby emo boy who keeps whining over and over again" to "messed up in the head and a bit of an asshole, but also endearing and has a satisfying character arc".
    • Cid Highwind was initially well-received by players for Sir Swears-a-Lot tendencies being amusing, his epic theme, and taking up the leader role during Cloud's coma. However, in the years since the game's release, his relationship with Shera has been accused of being abusive, with him often verbally belittling her, and Shera just took it because she blamed herself for his mission to space getting upended, and the fact that they got married by the time Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children took place didn't help. This may have been why Final Fantasy VII Rebirth toned down Cid's worst qualities.
  • Final Fantasy X:
    • Tidus was initially a Scrappy-leaning Base-Breaking Character due to his tendency to complain, particularly about his abusive father, Jecht, and James Arnold Taylor's performance in the English dub didn't do him any favors. This was in a time when a character showing any sort of childhood trauma that wasn't physical or sexual abuse was brushed off as "daddy issues". Much like with Shinji Ikari above, with mental health and emotional abuse being taken more seriously, players are more lenient with Tidus's trauma, and in retrospect, he doesn't complain nearly as often as reviewers like Spoony would have you believe. His voice acting was been similarly re-evaluated once knee-jerk reactions faded and his scenes were looked at more critically in-context, with the infamous "laughing scene" in particular now understood to be intentionally bad for tragic in-universe reasons. It also helps that James Arnold Taylor went onto become a well-beloved voice actor thanks to his roles as Ratchet in Ratchet & Clank and especially as Obi-Wan Kenobi in various Star Wars games and animated shows, which makes it easier to appreciate his performance as Tidus which predated the aforementioned two.
    • On the flip side, Jecht was a huge Draco in Leather Pants for embodying manliness and his tragic story. Tidus's detractors would often justify Jecht's treatment of him as a case of Misery Builds Character and that he was just being wangsty. However, with toxic masculinity being looked at in a more negative light, his tendency to belittle his seven-year-old son for not living up to his ridiculously high standards and reacting how any child would to being bullied by a parent has made him harder to defend in recent years, leading to his parenting skills to be viewed with more criticism than before - though he still occupies the Anti-Villain role at best, due to his own attempts to change in-game during his time in Spira and being forced to become Sin after dying for one of his best friends.
  • Final Fantasy XIII's Hope Estheim was seen as a whiny kid in 2010 who could never seem to get over his animosity towards Snow and thought of as just wasting time. Ten years later, he may not be seen as the best character, but people are more forgiving considering that he's only fourteen years old. People became more aware that the events of the average RPG (no matter where they're from) would rightfully leave people traumatised, and teenagers aren't the most rational. Many also realized their reasons for hating Hope suffered from Fourth Wall Myopia: while the player is clearly shown that Snow wasn't responsible for his mother's death, Hope had no way of knowing until far later in the story.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance's Marche was seen as a Villain Protagonist and Unintentionally Unsympathetic in the Turn of the Millennium, due to insisting that his friends and little brother go home despite the fact that their lives are seemingly better in the dream world of Ivalice. However, in The New '10s and The New '20s, he's seen much more sympathetically since an older crowd can more relate to his issues- for example, he suffers from an absent father and a mother who pays more attention to his younger brother, neither of which will get better if he goes home- and look past the game's story themes at face value.
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Upon his introduction in Five Nights at Freddy's 2, William Afton (then known only as Purple Guy) was widely praised as an effective, intimidating, and enigmatic antagonist for his role as the games' Greater-Scope Villain, being a ruthless Serial Killer whose murders of several children set the series' events in motion, and the mystery surrounding him only made him that much scarier. However, his reputation would grow increasingly divisive as the franchise trucked on, with later installments both expanding upon his previously enigmatic character by giving him a name and revealing him to be one of Fazbear Entertainment's co-founders, while granting him Joker Immunity by having his ghost repeatedly return to torment the protagonists. Nowadays, Afton maintains a position as the franchise's biggest Base-Breaking Character, with fans being split on whether or not his numerous reappearances undermined his initial appeal as a villain.
• Fire Emblem
  • In general:
    • This affected the majority of Crutch Character units, like Jagen, Marcus, and Titania, and Magikarp Power units, like Est, Nino, and Amelia. For a rather long time, fans tended to judge units based on their endgame stats, which favored characters with high growths, and disdained "Jagen" units and prepromotes in general as "EXP thieves" or outright beginner's traps where using them was a fallback option that only made things harder later on. This was perhaps aided by Sacred Stones, one of the first games released internationally, having an unusually extensive postgame for the series, meaning initial judging criteria based itself largely on character performance there. The only exceptions were units like Seth, who had actual good growths, but even then, most fans recommended holding them back as much as possible until other units had promoted. However, as time went on, the pendulum shifted towards more practical play throughout the game, methods of rapidly level grinding became far more frowned upon when judging units (as any unit can become good when lots of effort is thrown into them), and it became far more widely viewed that a unit that starts good is better than a unit that becomes good, and a unit's stats in relation to others matters far less than their stats in relation to enemies. Due to this, many started saying the opposite; that "Jagen" units were some of the best units in their games due to starting great with no effort in the middle of Early Game Hell and then staying at least usable for most of the game (if not outright maintaining their great performance). Meanwhile, "Est" units took a major tumble due to usually showing up late in the game, requiring a lot of grinding to be effective, and frequently being overkill (or worse, not much better than their allies, making the work All for Nothing) upon finally getting trained, causing them to be seen as making the game more tedious for yourself for little practical gain.
    • The Camus archetype were originally seen as well-executed examples of the Tragic Villain trope: good men who happen to be on the wrong side of a war. As later examples became more divisive, fans began to see those of the archetype as Lawful Stupid idiots whose continued loyalty to their country (and typically its Tin Tyrant ruler) despite its atrocities is no better than complicity. This in turn led to earlier examples of the archetype being viewed more positively for feeling like deconstructions in retrospect: the original Camus survived and had a proper Heel–Face Turn in Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, Eldigan's blind loyalty to an Obviously Evil king gets him killed, and Reinhardt's actions are treated with ambiguous degrees of sympathy in-universe.
  • Leif in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 was once seen as a prime Memetic Loser, since he seems almost designed to be underwhelming. His stats and growths are some of the worst of any Lord in the franchise's history, and even his promotion doesn't give him much, which stung particularly hard when his Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War incarnation was a defining example of Magikarp Power. However, as people started to increasingly master Thracia, they found that low growths don't particularly matter, due to both low stat caps and items that increase growth rates, and began placing more value on a unit's personal utilities. As it turned out, Leif offered surprisingly more than he seemed, due to him starting out with a magic sword that gives him constant ranged access and consistent damage, him granting support bonuses to more characters than anyone else in the game, his immunity to the game's fatigue system making him the only unit with perfect availability, and his promotion's hidden increased XP gain giving his combat a major kick in the late game, all of which aided him in the role of a supporting attacker and party-buffer. People also evaluated Leif's somewhat mediocre stats as an expression in gameplay of his main character traits, that being his insecurity and youthful impetuousness. Nowadays, Leif holds a fairly good position on most Character Tiers, and he's often cited as an example of how to design a Lord well.
  • Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade:
    • Gwendolyn was a fan-favorite unit among early adopters of the game, due to being a Magikarp Power Armor Knight who had a decent Speed growth, letting her double often for a Mighty Glacier class. These days her horrible starting stats, joining right before an axe-heavy mid-game, and the poor movement of her class make her one of the single biggest Memetic Loser units in the entire franchise. Her reputation arguably only got worse in Heroes as her lackluster stats, being a Year 1 unit that got hit pretty hard by the Power Creep, being part of the 3-4 star pool, and having one of the most disliked art in-game has not helped her case.
    • Similar to Gwendolyn, Raigh used to have a bigger backing from fans, as his backstory and relationship with Lugh and Chad made him a standout character. His mother Nino becoming popular in her own right after Blazing Blade was released only increased his own popularity. Gameplay-wise, he was also held in high regard due to being seen as the best user of dark magic, as Sophia was (and remains) a Low-Tier Letdown and Niime was a prepromote with terrible growths and therefore reviled. However, many began sympathizing with Nino after they learned of her tragic fate, which made him come across as a whiny brat who didn't know how much his mother suffered. Meanwhile, on the gameplay front, people increasingly abandoned the idea that you had to use one of every class, and therefore judged Raigh on his own merits and found him to be mediocre at best. His reputation similarly took a huge hit in Heroes, as while initially a good unit due to how powerful cavalier units can be and his ability to counter them, when the powercreep kicked in he got shafted hard in terms of usability. Combined with off-putting art and a smug attitude along with being a common summon in the 3-4* pool, he's become many's symbol for how bad the common pool can be, and quite possibly has the closest thing to X-Pac Heat due to how much people just don't want to see him in general.
    • Fellow dark magic-user Niime was very unpopular for a while. Gameplay-wise, she was a late-joining prepromote, and worse, a very high-level prepromote with the worst growth rates in the game, giving her no room to improve, along with having very low HP that made her an icon of Overrated and Underleveled. Character-wise, she was a wrinkled old crone rather than the good-looking and youthful characters who populated the cast, and had a somewhat jerkish personality, which gave her an uphill battle to be liked. However, Niime went through the Crutch Character reevaluation harder than most: players discovered that despite her bad growths, her starting statline barring HP was up to par for an endgame unit (and what weak points she had were easily patched with statboosters, even on Hard), and moreover, her high weapon and staff ranks that gave her utility that even a heavily-raised character would struggle to match. This catapulted her up the tier rankings, and she's now often regarded as one of the game's strongest characters for as long as she's available. Her personality also received more attention, with fans browsing her supports and finding her to be one of the game's most complex characters, being at times dry and snarky, brooding and troubled, morally ambiguous, and grappling with a sad history. Even her design became praised for being incredibly unique by the standards of Fire Emblem, with her decrepit look being otherwise unheard of in the series, especially among female characters. Nowadays, she's a character you'll rarely hear a bad word about.
  • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade:
    • Lyn was formerly only mildly popular, but as fans who started with her game grew older she became the face of Nostalgia Filter and even received a sizable "waifu" fandom. This in turn led to growing Hype Backlash, especially after her Wolverine Publicity in Heroes as a response to these trends. This was also around the time more "hardcore" players began to re-evaluate her as nearly worthless in combat (a Fragile Speedster is overkill in a game where enemies are very weak and slow), further contributing to the backlash. In short, she went from a benign character to a highly base-breaking one.
    • Eliwood was previously disliked for having a generic heroic personality and being a Jack of All Stats. He's now one of the more popular Lords in gameplay simply because his promotion gives him a horse, as well as being seen by a few as a Memetic Badass for surviving the events of The Binding Blade, defying the stereotype of the Lord's parent being killed off. Players also vindicated his heroic personality after learning that maintaining your virtues in war is hard. Not losing sight of oneself is just as important as developing new ones.
    • Hector was previously viewed as a manly badass. While he's still a popular character, it's for different reasons: fans have re-evaluated his personality to be far deeper than his original reputation, and more of a Deconstruction of toxic masculinity than anything (Hector suppresses his emotions to appear "strong" and suffers badly as a result, with many of his support partners encouraging him to be more open with his feelings).
    • Ninian used to be one of the biggest Die for Our Ship targets in the franchise and received heavy Real Women Never Wear Dresses backlash. A combination of the shippers largely moving on to later games, a re-evaluation of her supports, and Fire Emblem Heroes letting her fight as a dragon, has led to her becoming better-received, and while Hector and Lyn's choice of romantic partners is still hotly debated, it's now very rare to see Eliwood and Ninian shipped with anyone but each other.
  • Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones:
    • When the game first came out, Eirika was largely disliked by players, especially in the West, for coming across as an idiot who paled in comparison to her "cooler" twin brother Ephraim, to the point that she was regularly mocked across the fandom, and her supporters being more of a minority. As the series became more popular and players either played Sacred Stones or replayed it, Eirika's reception began to improve as players re-evaluated her characterization and the story around her, finding that many early biases were due to lacking some of the understanding of her position and reasons for her seeming naïve outlook, such as her starting off closer to an Action Survivor than a battle-hardened warrior, and her trust in Lyon being more justified than people gave it credit for. This was aided by people realizing Ephraim was more flawed than initially thought, making it clearer that both had strengths and weaknesses the other lacked. This lead to Eirika getting a much larger fanbase over time, with some of her previous detractors now enjoying her more as a character, and she would win one of Fire Emblem Heroes Chose Your Legends events despite newer games coming out.
    • Gheb, a one-off chapter boss with a unique Gonk, Fat Bastard design and I Have You Now, My Pretty implications towards Tana and Amelia, was originally the face of Memetic Mutation in the Fire Emblem fandom, and got an entire romhack dedicated to him being a Memetic Molester. All the rape jokes are very widely regarded to have aged horribly, and he's now a Discredited Meme at best.
    • Knoll was a rare example of a character hated by both the "endgame stats" and "starting stats" sides of the fanbase for his poor base stats (including a Luck Stat of 0) and mediocre growth rates. Much later on, the Summoner class was discovered to be an incredible A.I. Breaker (it creates controllable phantoms that the AI preferentially targets as they're a One-Hit-Point Wonder) and Knoll was re-evaluated as a valuable Support Party Member whose stats don't matter when he can become a staff-using Summoner immediately.
  • Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
    • Ike has always been seen as one of the best-written Lords in the series, but gameplay-wise, he's seen some major changes. For some time, Ike was seen as a Game-Breaker; the best unit in the game by a wide margin, thanks to his above-average growth rates, useful support affinity, and access to the mighty blade Ragnell and Aether skill, which allowed him to clear entire trial maps solo. Then people began pointing out that Ike only has access to Ragnell extremely late in the game and Aether not long before that, and while he may have good growths, his base stats are mediocre at best and his growths aren't so high as to guarantee safety, leaving a large part of the game where his combat prowess is decidedly unimpressive. Additionally, more flaws in Ike's kit became apparent—he uses the weakest weapon type in a game where raw hitting power is valued, he has no ranged access outside of Ragnell and the rare Sonic Sword, which makes him a sitting duck against the common ranged enemies, and he is never mounted in a game where mounts are at one of their highest points. These flaws became particularly glaring when fans focused on the Japan-exclusive Maniac Mode, and found that the mode, boasting swarms of bulky enemies with ranged weapons, did not play to Ike's strengths. While Ike isn't considered terrible by any means, calling him a Game Breaker these days is a good way to get laughed at.
    • Ilyana was formerly extremely popular for being a Moe mage specializing in hard-hitting Thunder magic, with many lamenting her severe downgrade in viability in Radiant Dawn. Her character came under much more scrutiny in later years for mostly revolving her being a Big Eater, as characters built around one joke had become a huge criticism of entries from Awakening onwards.
  • Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn: Micaiah was originally seen a Replacement Scrappy for Ike, and many disliked her for being what they saw as a hypocrite who stole the spotlight from other characters, with some going so far as to compare her to a fanfiction character. After the releases of Fire Emblem: Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates and the inclusion of the Avatar feature, Micaiah became much more positively received by many people who played Radiant Dawn, as many found her to be one of the most unique protagonists in the series, and enjoyed the difference in views she brought to the story. Opinions began to reverse and many saw Micaiah as relatively wasted in the story thanks to Ike, who had since become more of a divisive character. Fire Emblem Heroes helped, as she was added relatively early in its lifespan and stood out for her strength as a unit for the time of her release, helping her go from one of the least liked Lords, to one of the most popular. In Choose Your Legends 1, Micaiah, who was not even in the game yet, was in the top ten, then went up a rank for the second year, and jumped all the way to number one for the third year, beating more recently popular characters like Azura, Tharja, Camilla, and Female Robin.
  • Fire Emblem Heroes: Veronica was easily the most popular Original Character during the first year of the game, due to her compelling writing, character development, and relationship with Bruno. It led to her being the second place winner of the first Choose Your Legends event. Seemingly in response, the writers began making Veronica an important part of each Books story in some way while giving her more alts compared to the Askr trio, causing Veronica to gradually become more polarizing as she began to become a Spotlight-Stealing Squad compared to the Askr trio. This eventually reached its peak during Book VI, where Veronica became the main focus of the story, and overshadowed all of the other characters in terms of focus, to the point where she was chosen as the Heroes rep for Fire Emblem Engage, and it being based around her appearance in said chapter. After Book VI ended, Veronica now is significantly more polarizing compared to before, going from a Breakout Villain in the eyes of fans, to being something of a Creator's Pet by the writers at the expense of the rest of the cast, with some players disliking her now because of how much focus she gets compared to other characters.
• Halo 2:
  • When the game was released, the Arbiter was a contentious part of the game. Many saw his storyline as an unwanted distraction from beloved protagonist Master Chief and the epic war on Earth the marketing had built up (not helped by his presence being kept completely under wraps), and his levels were perceived as boring slogs. Likely as a response to the controversy, the character's role was heavily downplayed in Halo 3. However, as the controversy faded, fans and outlet writing on Halo 2's legacy have had a warmer response to the character, praising his complex and dramatic plotline and that his portion added some much-welcomed depth to the setting by giving players a look at Covenant society. Indeed, his return in Halo 5: Guardians was one of the few things from that game to receive unanimous approval from the fanbase.
  • Like the Arbiter, the Gravemind was a character that sparked no end of controversy when he debuted in Halo 2. Some fans and critics criticized his appearance, likening it to a Venus Flytrap and drawing unflattering comparisons to Little Shop of Horrors. Others felt he was introduced out of nowhere and reduced the concept of the Flood to generic "space zombies." Despite the initial backlash, the criticisms towards the Gravemind have subsided since Halo 2's debut. Over time, fans have grown to appreciate his sinister and eloquent demeanor, as well as his many memorable lines. The upgraded cutscenes by Blur Studio in Halo 2: Anniversary also played a role in making the Gravemind more terrifying, resembling Bungie's original vision for the character.
• Kingdom Hearts: Xion was initially disliked upon the release of 358/2 Days, due to her being the never before mentioned 14th member of Organization XIII, for taking up a lot of the spotlight, and for some people, getting in the way of Roxas and Axel's relationship. While she still has her detractors, the fandom has eased up on her over the years due to how she was actually a deconstruction of Remember the New Guy?, her tragic story, and the ship between Roxas and Axel having been largely abandoned thanks to greater knowledge that teenagers lack the maturity to consent to relationships with adults.
• The King of Fighters:
  • When he debuted in '99 as the new protagonist of the NESTS Chronicles, K' was a majorly Base-Breaking Character for the simple fact that he was an Anti-Hero Substitute for the sidelined Kyo Kusanagi, leading to accusations that K' was stealing Kyo's thunder. Over time, however, he became more popular for his in-depth Character Development that saw him tone down his abrasiveness, plus the introduction of the below-mentioned Ash Crimson making him look better in comparison. As a result, K' is well-regarded by the fandom nowadays, with quite a few complaining about his decreased role in the overarching story.
  • Kula Diamond was initially one of the more popular newcomers of the NESTS Chronicles, with many fans seeing her Defusing the Tyke-Bomb storyline as genuinely heartfelt and her Character Development as she, after much hardship, was finally allowed to live the childhood she never got, as well-earned. Starting from XIV however, she began to obtain detractors criticizing her growing immaturity; which reached a zenith in XV, when the flanderization took hold to the point that she essentially throws a temper tantrum and ditches her family over not being allowed to go to an amusement park, and them capitulating to her demands is treated as a good outcome despite all the trouble she caused them. While she still has many fans that appreciate her earlier characterization, the general perception of Kula is now that of a Base-Breaking Character.
  • May Lee Jinju got a lot of vitriol during her first two appearances in 2001 and 2002 (especially amongst Japanese fans) for filling in for two well-known and liked characters: Jhun Hoon in the former, and more notoriously King in the latter. This led to both Jhun and King being brought back in the sequels and May Lee getting shafted to the extent that cameos by her were few and far between... at the time fans began to see her on her own merits and grew to love her endearingly over-the-top personality and Difficult, but Awesome gameplay. She is now one of the premier Ensemble Dark Horses of the franchise, with a sizable portion of fans clamoring for her to become playable again.
  • Both K9999 and Nameless went through this. The former was initially despised in his introduction in 2001, both by fans and by SNK themselves, for being both extremely unlikable and, more importantly, such a blatantly obvious attempt to ape AKIRA's Tetsuo Shima that Katsuhiro Otomo could have easily sued. In 2009, the latter was introduced as K9999's Suspiciously Similar Substitute in 2002: Unlimited Match, and became popular for his more original character design, alongside his tragic backstory. Then people, particularly fans of AKIRA, looked back on K9999 and reinterpreted his design as a well-intentioned Shout-Out and his personality as entertainingly evil, with SNK's attempts to suppress all traces of his existence only drawing in more fans via the Streisand Effect, and others realized that Nameless was a rather Flat Character, not helped by his sole appearance being in a Dream Match Game and thus having little, if any opportunity to grow as a character, which K9999 got in his surprise reappearance as Krohnen in XV. Both of them are now Base-Breaking Characters, with people still arguing over who should be better-regarded.
  • When he was introduced in 2003, almost nobody liked new Villain Protagonist Ash Crimson. His attitude towards others, flamboyant appearance, status as a replacement for both Kyo and K', and wiping the floor with both Iori and Chizuru, making him come across as an Invincible Villain, led to a lot of disdain. So in XIII he was revealed to be Good All Along - and more importantly, got a heartbreaking sendoff in which he erases himself from history to save the day. This led to a lot of former detractors beginning to see him in a far more positive light, both for being a refreshing breath of fresh air in the wake of the fighting game genre's oversaturation of cookie-cutter heroes and his effective schemes, and although he still remains one of the franchise's most base-breaking characters, the fact that many celebrated his return in XV has shown that Ash is far less hated than he used to be.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: For more than a decade after the game's release, Link's Fairy Companion Navi was seen as an annoying interference to the gameplay thanks to her periodic "Hey!" notifications that pop up rather than allowing the player to press a button to hear advice at any time. But over time, many newer players found that Navi was nowhere near as bad as the consensus stated, as her actual interruptions to the gameplay were minimal (mostly just limited to rooms with Wallmasters, whose telegraphs would be hard to spot otherwise), and many player also appreciated that she gave names and information on each enemy while later companions like the King of Red Lions or Midna did not. This particularly set in after the release of Skyward Sword which among other things was divisive for having its own Exposition Fairy, Fi, have even more notifications and alarms than Navi ever did alongside frequently interrupting the gameplay.^note Much of this was toned down for the Switch HD remaster Navi is still fairly divisive for her aforementioned flaws, but the vitriol towards her has greatly cooled down now.
  • When he was first introduced in Majora's Mask, Tingle, while not exactly a fan favorite, was fairly well-received. His quirky personality and somewhat creepy demeanor fit in very well with the game's atmosphere of Surreal Horror, and the maps he sold were reasonably-priced and optional for completing the game. When he (or rather, a different version of him) was reintroduced in Wind Waker, however, opinion of him took a nosedive (at least in America) because him being weird and unsettling clashed badly with the game's tone, as well as because his maps were now needed to complete the game even though he now charged exorbitant prices for them. This also negatively affected his Majora's Mask incarnation, who these days tends to get lumped in with other versions of him as annoying and skeevy. Now he's seen as a cautionary tale of how reintroducing a character divorced from their original context can go horribly, horribly wrong.
• Life Is Strange
  • In the first game, while Chloe Price had her detractors upon release, they were a minority in the fandom. Fans initially liked her for her tragic background, her snarky attitude, and for her chemistry with Max. However, over time, she became more of a Base-Breaking Character as many players got older and started to notice Chloe's more toxic traits. These include her tendency to use Max's powers for personal gain, her clinginess towards her, often acting like an Entitled Bastard to her whenever the player chooses to disagree with her, and the fact that the player is expected to enable her if they want Max and her to get together^{Explanation(Ending Spoilers)}If the player has chosen to side with Chloe in the majority of a certain number of key decisions, then has Max sacrifice Chloe to save Arcadia Bay, Max and Chloe will kiss before Max goes back in time. Unfortunately, the decisions that Chloe approves of include stealing from a fund for the disabled and refusing to take a phone call from Max's suicidal friend Kate while Max is with Chloe.
  • Cassidy in Life Is Strange 2 was well-liked for her friendly demeanor in her introduction and being the more moral option between her and Finn. Over time however, the possible relationship between her and Sean has raised a lot of eyebrows due to the possible age discrepancy and how she gets upset if Sean refuses to sleep with her. There is also how many people dislike how easy it is to romance her compared to Finn who, while not the most popular character, at least didn't have his flaws glossed over by the narrative. Nowadays, while she still has her fans, there are more people who label her as a Base-Breaking Character and wish that Finn was given equal attention and/or would rather have Lyla as the female love interest.
  • Daniel has gone towards the opposite direction of his reception. When the game was initially released, many people saw him as an ungrateful brat who didn't listen to Sean and caused some issues during their journey to Mexico. Over time, more fans, especially those with siblings of their own, came to realize that his behavior was very realistic and despite his behavior at times, he really does care about Sean; they now give him a good deal more slack due to viewing him as a kid who is confused about the situation he is in. Tellingly, the fans have gone from seeing him as annoying to considering him a very sympathetic kid whose interactions with Sean are seen as one of the best parts of the game.
• Mass Effect
  • When Mass Effect was first released, Kaidan was widely written off as a Low-Tier Letdown due to having fewer biotic talents than Liara and fewer tech talents than Tali. The fact he was voiced by the same actor as the equally base-breaking Carth did not help. As the game aged and 3 gave players reason to like him, the playerbase realized that his array of support powers was more potent than it first seemed, and he is now considered a top-tier character due to the overall power of biotics.
  • Originally, a sizeable-portion of players sided with the geth over the quarians (37% geth, 27% quarians, 36% both) due to the latter race spending the trilogy refusing to consider that their initial hostility to the geth caused them to fight back, their continually endangering themselves over it, and 3 proving the quarians omitted the wrongs they committed in the conflict from their history. By the time of the Legendary Edition a decade later, players siding with the geth were far fewer (11% geth%, 9% quarians, 80% both) due to the reveal in 3 no longer being fresh and many feeling in hindsight the games were whitewashing the geth's actions which Fridge Horror has since suggested were far worse than could be deemed pure self-defense. ^note Similar space-faring races have populations of tens of billions but the quarians were reduced to around 17 million. This implies that the geth killed around 99% of them, far more than can be realistically assumed were willing or able to threaten the geth (the cultural conformity causing nearly all modern quarians to do so only emerging afterward) There's also the fact that the geth chose to remain explicitly isolated for nearly three centuries, not trying to make any form of contact with any of the space-faring races, which has damaged their reputation in the long run.
  • Likewise, the Quarians have been reevaluated more positively in recent years. Initially, many players hated them by 3 because their actions are what led to the geth rebelling and forcing them to abandon their homeworld. While most players do still think the quarians hold at least some responsibility for their actions, the passage of time from the last game's release made many of them reconsider what happened to them after the rebellion. The quarians, according to the codex, lost 99% of their population to the geth rebellion, which is seen as far too much in many players' eyes to be justified as retribution. Likewise, the surviving quarians are now forced to live in poverty in a crowded flotilla,^note  (which, mind you, is a dangerous predicament as Tali points out, since their current homes are just a hull-breach away from causing a major disaster and killing everyone on a ship) and face heavy discrimination from the rest of the galaxy, who bar them from employment and largely treat them like dirt even though they are also victims of what happened. Another thing that helped change the perception of the Quarians was the Covid-19 Pandemic. With the widespread risk of infection, face-mask enforcement, sanitation concerns, and perpetual lockdowns that came about during the pandemic in the early 2020s, a lot of of gamers note how the plight of the quarians greatly mirrors what happened in the real world. Nowadays, many players feel sorry for the quarians for what they constantly have to go through, and fully understand why they are so determined to try and fix their mistakes (even if they feel it's too extreme in several regards). On a more humorous side, during & after the pandemic, players have joked that of course the quarians would be catty and paranoid about everything.
• Mega Man Star Force: Pegasus, Leo, and Dragon: Geo's characterization from the first game was initially received negatively in comparison to his predecessor Lan Hikari, being dismissed as whiny and lacking initiative. However as the years went by and people became more understanding of loneliness and depression, Geo's characterization and by extension the entire game is considered to be a believable portrayal of depression from losing a loved one, and that his budding friendship with Omega-Xis makes for a interesting story where Geo grows into the role of a hero and learns that he isn't alone in terms of human suffering.
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty:
  • For years, the game was panned for not living up to the massive hype created by both its demo and its status as a sequel to its highly successful predecessor, and much of that ire was directed at the game's protagonist, Raiden, who surprised players by becoming the playable character after spending the prologue as Solid Snake. Raiden was the complete opposite of what players expected from Snake: instead of being a gruff and manly veteran, Raiden was a naïve and emotional pretty boy who frequently argued with his girlfriend, which clashed harshly with Western expectations of masculinity. The backlash against Raiden got bad enough for Hideo Kojima to include some Self-Deprecation about him in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater before revamping his characterization in later games to much acclaim. However, as MGS2's reputation improved, so too did Raiden's portrayal in it, with fans coming to both recognize his more sympathetic traits as a traumatized Child Soldier and appreciate his role in deconstructing the series' relationship with its fans.
  • The Patriots were initially seen as an out-of-left-field antagonist who were incredibly confusing with their nature of being an artificial intelligence lead Ancient Conspiracy, not helped by how the game goes completely apeshit the moment they really begin to show themselves. However, opinion towards them rapidly shifted during The New '10s thanks to online misinformation and digital surveillance becoming hot topics. Consequently, the Patriots went from being seen as overly bizarre even by the franchise's standards to being considered one of the most effective villains of Metal Gear, with their talk of controlling public narratives via the internet now being seen as eerily predictive of the future. Many people noted how Kojima was ahead of his time in terms in predicting how the internet and technological advancement would actually be used to affect politics and geopolitics, his critiques of the techno-utopianism of contemporary hacker culture and Silicon Valley having gone from radical at the time of the game's release to mainstream twenty years later.
• Metroid: Adam Malkovich. The inclusion of his AI form in Metroid Fusion was contentious at the time, with some feeling like the inclusion of a second character who regularly talks with Samus ruins the lonely atmosphere of the series. Then Metroid: Other M, a prequel to Fusion featuring the original Adam, came along, and the original Adam became so universally loathed not only for his incompetence, but for his mere presence completely derailing Samus' entire character by making her submissively obedient to him to a fault, that nearly everyone agreed that AI Adam isn't that bad after all. There's even a line from AI Adam ("Did this Adam care for you? Would he sit in a safe Command Room and order you to die?") that, had the order of release for the two games been reversed, could easily be taken as a Take That! to the infamous moment from Other M where Adam forced Samus to go through a lava filled area and take ambient heat damage without authorizing the use of her Varia Suit. The AI Adam returned in Metroid Dread to near-unanimous fan praise, lacking any of his negative traits from Other M in what little time he spends not being impersonated by Raven Beak.
• Mortal Kombat: Sindel was never particularly popular, being largely ignored in the Midway continuity (though her Mama Bear portrayal in Deception was generally well-liked). However, Netherrealm's portrayal of her was even less liked: when she appeared in 9 and initiated a brutal Curb-Stomp Battle against most of the heroes while under Shao Kahn's control, fans derided her as a dull plot device and an Invincible Villain. Fans then started to regard the original continuity's version of Sindel far more fondly for her Dark Is Not Evil qualities and fairly complex story for a game that otherwise ran rather light on character lore. Especially in light of a widely-panned incarnation of the character in Mortal Kombat 11's DLC — where Sindel was further retconned into being an Evil All Along power-hungry manipulator — many fans came back to wanting to see her as proper Dark Is Not Evil character, paving the way to her widely-praised depiction in Mortal Kombat 1, properly capitalizing on her potential by presenting her as a realistically flawed, but benevolent and largely reasonable empress who kicks just as much ass as before.
• Neptunia:
  • Vert was one of the more popular characters during the franchise's early years, due to her elegant and kind-hearted demeanor being clashed with her lazy and perverted Gamer Chick personality, and whose recurring gags — a desire of wanting a sister of her own and her habit of showing off her well-endowed figure towards others — were seen as one of her more memorable moments. But as time went on, she received criticism from a portion of the fandom for her overbearing clinginess towards the Candidates (especially Nepgear), her outwardly inappropriate behavior as well as the obvious lack of consent of the other characters, her condescending attitude towards the high-strung Blanc whenever she mocks her flat chest, to the point that some had interpreted the latter suffering through body image issues if her dream in VII was anything to go by, and the way she would deliberately skip her goddess duties so she can play her MMOs. All of these factors, combined with later installments focusing more on said traits (namely her sister obsession and Big-Breast Pride) rather than her more likable qualities, a fact not helped by Vert receiving less screentime compared to the other characters and thus is given far less room to develop, had consequently turned her into a Base-Breaking Character, particularly in the West. Even her fans were disappointed by the direction that the writers took with her character, believing that she would've been tolerable if her personality wasn't focused on 1 or 2 traits or wished that said traits were explored more (such as her sister obsession being interpreted as her being lonely, if her dream in VII is anything to go by) and mostly preferred her characterization in the original game ^note Who was much more responsible about her CPU duties and was depicted heavily prioritizing them over games to the point of overworking herself to keep her citizens safe rather than the inverse. and in Re;Birth 1 ^note Which is widely considered her best portrayal to date due to the game not only focusing more on her responsible, generous side, but also exploring some aspects of her character (like how she dislikes being seen as a Ms. Fanservice) that other games' didn't, and even teased a relationship between her an IF (whose Japanese VA was an Xbox fan), which was sadly ditched in later games.; it's not uncommon to see Vert fans wishing that the writers would amend or re-rail her character or even doing it on their own.
  • On the opposite spectrum, there is Nepgear. In her initial appearance, she was seen by most fans as a Replacement Scrappy for Neptune (the main character of the previous game) and spent the majority of the game being self-conscious and useless. The infamous Conquest Ending didn't do any favors either, as it ended up permanently defining her character even to this day. It was only the following game that made fans to sympathize with her due to being constantly mistreated by everyone around her (including her own sister, who Took a Level in Jerkass in that game) and the game after that making her the robot loving Bungling Inventor helped alleviate her by the eyes of the fans. Nowadays, she is regarded as one of, if not the, most popular characters in the entire series.
• Persona:
  • Yukari and Ken from Persona 3 were easily the most divisive party members in the game's original releases. However, modern fans, with a better understanding of emotional issues and trauma, have a better understanding of what drives their divisive actions. Besides that, the lack of tension between party members in future games (besides Morgana's conflict with Ryuji, which has been viewed as extremely petty and his least sympathetic trait), the more justified tension in this game's been more appreciated.
  • Kanji Tatsumi from Persona 4 was always a popular character, but the reasons why shifted as the game aged. During its initial release in 2008, LGBTQI+ representation in Western media, especially videogames, was rare and often problematically-portrayed in the few instances it did exist. As such, Kanji was lauded by both fans and Western media outlets as a positive portrayal of a gay man who struggles with but ultimately accepts himself. The 2010s, however, saw a major increase in LGBTQI+ representation in Western media, and this combined with growing awareness of LGBT issues, more LGBT creators speaking out, and knowledge that Persona 2 contained an actual Gay Option, led to the sexuality-related elements of Kanji's arc being brought under much more scrutiny. These included the Queer People Are Funny nature of his Shadow, the infamous camping scene where Yosuke worries if he'll be "safe" alone with Kanji, and Kanji's relief when his supposed Closet Key Naoto turns out to have been a girl all along. Kanji is still liked for his personality and how his arc tackles gender roles and "toxic masculinity", but how the game handles his ambiguous sexuality is now seen as one of the weaker parts of his writing.
  • Ryuji Sakamoto from Persona 5 was originally more divisive for his lack of an inside voice often resulting in the Phantom Thieves having their identities exposed to outsiders and his tactlessness. However, fans have come around to him for being a Nice Guy with Undying Loyalty, the fact that the other Phantom Thieves were just as guilty of risking their identities as Ryuji at times, and for coming off as Unintentionally Sympathetic for his Designated Monkey treatment.
• Ratchet & Clank: Ratchet in the first game was heavily disliked for his arrogance, prioritizing goofing off and revenge against Quark for betraying him over saving the galaxy, and for being a Jerkass to Clank. After Tools of Destruction revealed Ratchet was orphaned and abandoned as a baby and made the story more serialized, players started to appreciate his characterization in the first game as his immaturity had sympathetic reason and overcome as part of a character arc that stuck since then. It became more apparent when the movie and its tie-in game gave Ratchet the opposite problem in terms of his characterization and made him too much of a generic hero who was largely defined by his desire to be a Galactic Ranger, eliminating his character arc.
• In the first Red Dead Redemption, the protagonist John Marston's son Jack was initially considered The Scrappy — or at least Unintentionally Unsympathetic — due to a combination of being absent for 90% of the story, his dumbass decisions and constant whining once he's met, and for suddenly replacing John as the playable character in the Playable Epilogue. This hatred towards him has since severely died down with people feeling that the problem lies less with Jack himself, and more in the writing; he simply lacks the screentime to make his character work like intended, and the time spent on him isn't exactly spent well — his depression is only implied, his issues with Parental Neglect stem from past events the player hasn't witnessed, and even when he does get the spotlight, he not only lacks a lot of his dad's charisma, but his dialogue in sidequests (save for "Remember My Family") is usually the exact same as his dad's, only now delivered with the voice of a 16-year old coming from a 19-year old who looks he's about to hit 30. In essence, nowadays it's not uncommon to find people who feel They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character with a bit of Critical Dissonance, instead of the outright negative reception from early 2010s. The prequel also helped, as it retroactively fixed some issues with Jack, by making his mental issues (and their causes) more obvious.
• In Rune Factory 4, Arthur was not initially one of the more popular Love Interest characters in the game. Many people found his design unappealing, having a frumpy pageboy haircut and being quite skinny under his voluminous coats, they did not enjoy his more formal and seemingly detached speech patterns, or they got annoyed with trying to buy wood and stone from his shop. After the game's Nintendo Switch rerelease exposed the game to a wider audience, however, many more people started taking note of his Covert Pervert tendencies, especially in how, in a game lacking a true Gay Option, he still behaves in a rather flirtatious way towards the male PC. As a result, his overall fandom perception shifted from "fashion-victim nerd" to "Chivalrous Pervert nerd who's in love with the PC regardless of gender," and he's become more popular as a result.
• Saints Row: In the first game, Johnny Gat was one of the most popular of the Saints, due to a combination of his extreme competence, entertainingly psychotic personality, and devotion to his girlfriend Aisha. This led to him having a larger role in Saints Row 2 as the Boss' second-in-command, and his apparent death in The Third seemingly cemented his popularity forever. However, his return in IV proved very controversial. Most of the traits that rounded out his character in previous games would be downplayed, making him come off as a far shallower character than before. He was also treated as a legendary figure by the story and characters, to the point where the villains saw him as a bigger threat than the Boss. Last but not least, Johnny became the go-to character to represent the franchise, with him being the main character in Gat out of Hell and a Guest Fighter in Divekick and Agents of Mayhem. Taken all together, many fans of the series became sick of the series promoting him at the expense of the other characters. Nowadays, Johnny is widely seen as a cautionary tale of how a Breakout Character can become a Base-Breaking Character if not handled correctly.
• Shin Megami Tensei IV: Walter and Jonathan were originally disliked, as giving the main character well-developed human companions was seen as unfitting for a mainline entry and an attempt to pander to Persona fans. As the alignment representatives of later entries, and earlier ones via re-evaluation, begun to be viewed as flat, unlikable or both, the two were respected for being Law and Chaos reps the game makes an effort to develop and build the player's attachment to before the inevitable descent, making fighting them a far more effective Player Punch.
• Silent Hill 4: Henry Townshend was once the least popular Player Character in the series by far. This hatred was due to his lack of a substantial backstory, him not being connected to the story in any way besides happening to live in Room 302, his unemotional responses to the horrors surrounding him, and him not having much in the way of personality. However, as reception to the game warmed over the years and its controversial post-Team Silent sequels continuously copied the "emotionally tortured protagonist with a dark secret" formula to diminishing returns, many fans started re-evaluating him for the better. Quite a few began to appreciate how different Henry was from most of the franchise's protagonists before and since, while his lack of development was viewed as more justified (or at least tolerable) due to the story really being about the game's villain, Serial Killer Walter Sullivan. The latter point was underscored by the fact that the game's various monsters are reflective of Walter's psyche, not Henry's. Nowadays, there are many people who consider Henry a good Supporting Protagonist and opponent to Walter, and his simple motivation of just wanting to get out of his apartment suddenly seems downright refreshing. While he's still hardly a fan favorite and retains a sizeable number of detractors, you'll still see a lot more people defending him today than you would have for the first few years after the game came out.
• Splatoon 2's Pearl started off a Base-Breaking Character with many fans, who found her beetle brow awkward-looking and her childish, bratty demeanor off-putting.^note There's some elements of Americans Hate Tingle at play here — Pearl's dynamic with Marina was subject to questionable localization at first, resulting in their interactions coming off as far less warm and more standoffish, closer to Vitriolic Best Buds. But then her Hidden Depths started coming to light in later updates, and the Octo Expansion revealed her true maturity and how sweet and faithful she could be. (It's telling that the popular Pearlina ship didn't start to take off until after the Octo Expansion released.) By the time of Splatoon 3's release, she'd become almost as popular as Marina, she was missed just as much as her when the two were Put on a Bus, and her appearance as Eight's drone sidekick in the Side Order DLC was met with near-unanimous approval. At this point, it's safe to say "the gremlin" is a fully affectionate nickname.
• Carth Onasi in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was seen as quite a dork when the game was released, because he talked about his emotions and even acted upon them in a time when people preferred the manlier characters like Canderous Ordo. The fact that Carth was somewhat overshadowed by the other characters also didn't help things at all. However, he was seen more positively in The New '10s, when people started to respect that Carth actually talks about his emotions, challenging the stereotype that negatively affected men at the time (and still does to this day). He also ends up coming off as rather well adjusted, whereas Canderous comes off more as a Blood Knight who was justifiably dark-sided, but isn't at least irredeemable and is fairly honorable.
• Most of the newcomers in Street Fighter III have this reputation. When the game first came out, they were very much hated, both for being the replacements for the iconic cast of II and for their much less conventional designs and attitudes. As III became increasingly Vindicated by History, though, more and more of the cast became increasingly popular, including Alex, Q, Dudley, Hugo, Makoto, Ibuki, Elena, Yun, Yang, and Oro, aided further by their appearances in other games. The more experimental designs became seen as a positive, aided in part by the game's wonderfully-aged sprite work.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • The Koopalings were seen for a long time as a forgotten highlight of the franchise's early days, with their presence adding more to the games' lore and their boss fights in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World being considered fun and memorable. Their one-off return in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga was widely praised, as was their role as the main villains in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. However, as the Koopalings continued to appear as recurring characters, their perception became increasingly tepid, being associated more with Nintendo's divisive attempts at concretely branding the Mario franchise in the 2010s and 2020s, which many fans saw as stagnant and un-innovative. Them taking 7 slots in the roster of Mario Kart 8 didn't help. Nowadays, the Koopalings are Base-Breaking Characters among fans, with their absence from Super Mario 3D World and Super Mario Odyssey being regarded as helping those games stand out for the better.
  • Partially overlapping with the above case is the fandom's shift of opinion towards Bowser Jr. When he first appeared in Super Mario Sunshine he was disliked for being a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for the Koopalings with a design identical to that of Baby Bowser. As time went on, he gained fans after later games fleshed out his character and made him more distinct from the Koopalings. With the Koopalings' return and their subsequent increase in divisiveness, Bowser Jr's initial appearances were re-evaluated in a more positive light, given how he filled the Overlord Jr. role to Bowser (which was a major part of the Koopalings' initial rise to fame) in the games without completely dominating the boss roster on account of being an individual as opposed to a group of seven. And when he was used frequently in Super Mario Sunshine and New Super Mario Bros., there was at least an Early-Installment Weirdness novelty to it. While Bowser Jr. is by no means universally beloved, it's still a far cry from the initial disdain towards him.
  • Birdo didn't have much of a reputation to speak of, being a character from Doki Doki Panic who got carried over to Super Mario Bros. 2 and scarcely appeared outside of the occasional spinoff spot (frequently as a partner for Yoshi) or cameo. However, as the internet made it easier for fans to congregate and access information about the Mario games, people rediscovered a portion of the Super Mario Bros. 2 manual that stated that "he thinks he is a girl [and would] prefer to be called Birdetta." As the LGBT fanbases surrounding Nintendo and its properties grew in prominence, Birdo became increasingly adopted as a trans icon, with many reclaiming and repurposing her transphobic manual description by spinning it in a more positive direction (if only because of people wanting to find LGBT representation in Nintendo games).
  • Waluigi was originally seen as The Scrappy of the spin-off games for a long time, having been introduced in the first Mario Tennis game solely to give Wario a doubles partner. His lack of any prior established presence in the franchise and his gimmick of simply being a Wario-themed equivalent of Luigi led fans to see him as unnecessary and present at the expense of other preexisting Wario characters. However, the fan webcomic Brawl in the Family did much to change Waluigi's public image, depicting him as a manic cloudcuckoolander aware of his own lack of relevance compared to other Nintendo figures. This in turn led to fans having a greater appreciation for Waluigi's bizarre and mischievous characterization in the Mario spin-offs and embracing him as the unofficial "face" of the spin-offs on account of originating and being exclusive to them. Nowadays, many clamor for him to get A Day in the Limelight through a proper game and/or a playable appearance in Super Smash Bros..
  • Initially debuting in Super Mario Land and appearing in various spinoffs as a counterpart for Princess Peach, Princess Daisy's reputation was unremarkable for a long time. However, her image would crater during the 2000s thanks to a mix of her appearance in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (where her voice acting was considered grating and annoying) and her overshadowing by other fan-favorites. However, in the late 2010s, she would gain an increasingly strong cult following thanks to her characterization as a more assertive and tomboyish foil to Peach (who herself was caught up in broader discourse over female representation in gaming), her Memetic Loser image endearing her to fans as an underdog, and her playable spots in Super Mario Run and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Nowadays, while Daisy's reputation is still divisive, even her detractors express a desire for her to get fleshed out more in a mainline Mario title. Tellingly, Daisy's reveal as one of several new playable characters in Super Mario Bros. Wonder drew the loudest cheers from viewers in some places.
  • Madame Flurrie from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door was widely hated at first. Not only was her design very unusual for the Mario series, being a humanlike cloud spirit with giant boobs and Gag Lips, but she was also derided as weak compared to the game's other partners. Her two attack skills, Body Slam and Lip Lock, were both single-target, and Gale Force was seen as a Useless Useful Spell that many players assumed would instantly KO enemies at the cost of not receiving experience, since that's how One-Hit KO skills worked in the first game. However, as the years went on, it became better known that not only does Gale Force award experience for each enemy KO'd with it, making it more worth using, it has a high success rate against aerial enemies—including some of the most challenging foes in the Bonus Dungeon. In addition, her defense-piercing, self-healing Lip Lock skill is more recognized for its ability to help her tank powerful blows. Now she's more of a Base-Breaking Character: some fans still hate her design or find her moves too gimmicky for their taste, but her ability to easily defeat difficult foes in a single attack and stand on her own against tough bosses is more recognized.
  • Rosalina from Super Mario Galaxy was loved for having an established backstory, which is something not often found in Mario games. But in the mid-2010s, she has been appearing in a number of games thanks to her Ensemble Dark Horse status. However, this caused fans, especially fans of Princess Daisy to be upset of how much attention Rosalina has been getting. This is very apparent when Rosalina became playable in Super Mario 3D World and the fourth Super Smash Bros. title, in which many fans think Daisy deserves a spot. One example of the upset over Rosalina was during the release of Mario Strikers: Battle League, when she was present in the base roster while Daisy wouldn't joined later until the game's first post-launch update. It should be noted, however, that this mostly refers to Rosalina's appearances in spinoffs—her original appearance is still held in high regard, and a major part of the criticism comes from accusations that Nintendo ignored a lot of what made the character interesting in favor of turning her into "just another princess."
  • Super Mario RPG:
    • Thanks to his fanbase and as-of-yet exclusivity to Super Mario RPG, Geno has undergone this. For more than two decades after the game's release, Geno would be lionized as a forgotten yet standout relic of the game, with an increasingly vocal fanbase adoring his unique design, powerful and flashy combat abilities, bigger stake in the game's ultimate goal than Mario himself, and association with nostalgia for Mario RPG. However, due to increasing demands for Geno to appear in other games, particularly the vaunted Super Smash Bros. series, he would come to attract a backlash of annoyed detractors towards the middle and end of The New '10s, with many pointing out that he didn't have much presence in the game's story other than being Mr. Exposition and feeling that he didn't deserve to be so acclaimed for how he is a One-Shot Character in a spin-off. This would lead to Geno going from one of the premier darkhorses of the Mario franchise to being a highly divisive character. Geno's popularity would see an uptick again following the remake's release, ironically in response to newer fans seeing the dorkier side of him beneath the badass qualities older fans always praised him for, although he still has yet to see the monsterous popularity he once had again.
    • Mallow wasn't a particularly popular character when the original game was released, not least of which because he was massively overshadowed by Geno. His defining characteristics were being a childish crybaby, he constantly failed to accomplish basic tasks, and, considering that Super Mario RPG was meant to serve as a Gateway Series to role-playing games, many young players didn't quite grasp his role as a Squishy Wizard well, and saw his poor physical stats as an indicator that he was a weak character. Even experienced gamers decades later (like Two Best Friends Play) saw him as nothing more but an annoying and useless character. But when the remake brought in new players to experience the game for the first time, and had people who had played it previously re-evaluate it now that they were older, he's been recognized as a stronger character in hindsight. Him overcoming his crybabyness is seen as an essential part of his Character Development (in fact, he's one of the few characters in the game to HAVE any character development), his ineptitude being Played for Laughs adds to overall comedy of the game well, and with the remake's ability to find out enemy elemental weaknesses easier, his ability to strike multiple targets at once for effective damage makes him one of the more powerful offensive characters in the game. This has caused people who've played the game for the first time to genuinely wonder why Mallow wasn't the Ensemble Dark Horse instead.
• Tales Series:
  • Tales of Symphonia: Colette was once seen as an egregious case of Damsel Scrappy, bringing the plot to a screeching halt every time she needed rescuing throughout the story despite possessing godly powers and very rarely using those powers to try to help herself or her friends out of their binds. Fans decried her as a frustrating character that would have been better off left behind. However, as time progressed, more fans became willing to forgive Colette due to her manipulative upbringing by the Church of Martel and her young age making her extremely self-effacing and thus very passive. While she remains a Base-Breaking Character, there are many more fans willing to go to bat for Colette than there were at the game's release.
  • Tales of Vesperia:
    • Alexei was seen as somewhat of a weak villain because the game's disjointed writing makes it seem as if he suddenly turns evil for no apparent reason with little to no foreshadowing. The fact he was a "Commandant" even caused some people to call him a poor-man's Van. He's more forgiven in recent years, since it turns out a lot of his motivations and backstory were detailed in outside material that never left Japan.
    • Rita Mordio was one of the most popular characters in the game, due to her Game-Breaker potential, Les Yay with Estelle, and her abuse of Karol, who was considered The Scrappy at the time. She's far more contentious to modern players, many of whom see her as embodying the worst Tsundere stereotypes of the 2000s, especially her frequently unprovoked Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male.
    • Karol was originally despised as a Bratty Half-Pint whose abuse by Rita was cathartic. Modern players tend to find these moments less funny, and appreciate him for his extensive Character Development and for being a rare preteen in an Eastern RPG who actually acts their age.
• Tekken:
  • Although she's had her fans during the franchise's earlier years, Anna Williams was considered by many to be an inferior version of her sister whose character was solely defined by her Sibling Rivalry with Nina. This wasn't helped by how her moveset started out extremely similar to Nina's, essentially making her a waste of a character slot that could be reserved for other fighters. As time went on, however, Anna started garnering a larger and more vocal fandom, with many citing that her charisma and Femme Fatale vibes made her a more entertaining character than her cold-blooded sister. Not only that, but both Anna's and Nina's endings often show the former as a frequent target of some misfortune at the hands of the latter, which only made Anna less of a nuisance and more of a sympathetic underdog who is simply fighting back against her sister's bullying. Once Anna was added in 7, this perception continued to changed greatly, as they are now rooting for her even more to win against Nina in their duel when it turns out the person Nina murdered was Anna's fiance.
  • In the past, Lee Chaolan received a lot of dislike from Western players, as so many people perceived him as Camp Straight or even Mistaken for Gay because of his very feminine manners and bright costumes. Such an attitude arose because of the fact that in Japan their view of men's beauty and a Chick Magnet is a rather feminine man with a gentle appearance, while the Western ideal is considered rather rude. Thanks due partially to society marching forward and partially to Lee himself becoming Denser and Wackier, however, these views have died down considerably. He's much more well-liked because of his arrogance, style and ability to attract women, and because he's not as screwed up as the rest of his family with the exception of Lars.
• Undertale:
  • Sans quickly became the game's main Ensemble Dark Horse as a result of his Hidden Depths in the Genocide Route as someone whose mostly-ambiguous Dark and Troubled Past results in him being deeply apathetic behind his goofy exterior, and for being an insanely strong Superboss who breaks the rules of the game in creative ways. He became a popular subject for fanworks, especially alternate universe fics that emphasized his depression. However, his popularity grew so rapidly that it led to a widespread backlash both in and out of the Undertale fandom, causing his and the game's presence in pop culture to collapse in on itself in 2017. By the time he became a Mii Fighter costume in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate two years later, Sans became better-known as a subject for ironic memes that played off his past overexposure, with his fandom being seen as a cautionary tale about what happens when an Ensemble Dark Horse gets too popular too quickly. In fact, a good portion of jokes about fellow Superboss Spamton in Deltarune, who garnered a similar reputation, revolve around being next in line to effectively be the next Sans.
  • For a good while after the game's release, fans near-unanimously saw Chara Dreemurr as the game's Greater-Scope Villain, setting the plot in motion by manipulating their adoptive family and especially Asriel and acting as the overarching malevolent force in the Genocide Route. However, as time went on, a large subset of fans started pointing out in-game material that seemed to refute this interpretation, leading to a number of other theories gaining substantial traction, ranging from Chara simply being benevolent but misguided to Chara being the narrator or even the player themself. Nowadays, their role is hotly debated among fans as a result of the large amount of ambiguity surrounding them.
• Valkyria Chronicles: While Selvaria Bles was always popular for her cool factor and Ms. Fanservice design, her self-destructive, one-sided devotion to Maximillian was once heavily disliked and viewed as extremely stupid. As time went on and awareness of abuse became more mainstream, players realized that Maximillian was intentionally emotionally-abusing her; taking advantage of her feelings to keep her obedient. Fans are now more likely to find this aspect of her tragic and sympathetic.
• World of Warcraft:
  • While well-regarded as a villain by those familiar with his earlier appearances in Warcraft II and in the Warcraft Expanded Universe, the Big Bad of Cataclysm, Deathwing, was initially criticized for being a one-dimensional villain who lacked personality compared to the massively popular Arthas before him, didn't accomplish much after his devastating emergence from Deepholm and had a massively disappointing final battle. Even those that liked his earlier appearances found his appearance in Cataclysm to be a massively underwhelming end for his character in contrast to his portrayal as a master manipulator in earlier works in the setting. However, some people have come to view him more favorably in recent years compared to N'Zoth, the Greater-Scope Villain from Cataclysm who served as the Final Boss of Battle For Azeroth, since despite being a major threat in the lore as the last remaining Old God (albeit supposedly the weakest), he's dealt with in a cutscene. Compare Deathwing, who'd defeated his fellow Aspect Alexstraza in Twilight Highlands, and who could only be vanquished by the rest of the Aspects combining and sacrificing their powers, thereby resulting in a Pyrrhic Victory.
  • Zul'jin becoming a raid boss was always divisive, with many upset that a character previously hyped as a hero of the modern Horde wound up being a raid boss. That said, there were also a large amount of vocal fans that felt Zul'jin always evil and that his warfare with the Highborne elves for settling in his people's ancestral land was inherently wrong. Over the years, the increased knowledge of the fandom with the harm of colonization and marginalization of native people by European superpowers, Zul'jin came to be almost universally viewed by the fandom as a Tragic Anti-Villain at worst.
  • While Arthas Menethil/The Lich King was always regarded as the franchise's best villain, at the time of Wrath of the Lich King, many disliked how the entire plot of the expansion, in which Arthas lets the heroes live in hopes of killing them to make them his new champions, was a contrived Xanatos Gambit. However, in the years that followed, this storyline was viewed much more positively in comparison to the overarching plans of Zovaal, the Big Bad of Shadowlands. Unlike Zovaal, whose motivations were seen to be extremely contrived, Arthas received praise for a consistent portrayal as a a hero who gradually became evil and remained a villain, but had a memorable and tragic death scene. At the time of Wrath of the Lich King, there was also a divide between those that saw him as a Tragic Villain vs. those that viewed him as driven purely by pride and ego over a genuine desire to avenge his people. Since then, opinions have shifted towards the former due the plague remaining incurable, which in turn made his actions in Stratholme appear more understandable. This shift was also in part due to the growing sentiments in the fanbase(particuarly Alliance players and Horde players agreeing with Thrall's more diplomatic approach) post-Cataclysm of Sylvanas from a tragic victim of Arthas to a even worse villain that the narrative fails to humanize or hold to account to in light of increasingly evil actions on her part. When Arthas' ultimate fate was revealed in the Shadowlands, many players, particularly those that hoped that he would receive a redemption arc or even reestablish himself as a major villain, were outraged.
  • Garrosh Hellscream, upon his introduction in The Burning Crusade, subsequent rise to prominence in Wrath of the Lich King, and ascension to power as Horde Warchief in Cataclysm, was hated by players for his Jerkass attitude, warmongering stances, and extreme anti-human and anti-Alliance attitudes that escalated to outright racism. Many players cheered at the opportunity to take him down when it was revealed that he would become the Big Bad in Mists of Pandaria. Over time however, Garrosh would be much less hated. This is in part due to the perception that he tried his best to overcome the responsibilities Thrall left him when he was appointed as Warchief, which was something he himself claimed (not without reason) to be doing in his final moments, along with the fact perception that his actions in Cataclysm were a justifiable reaction to the moves of the Night Elves against the Horde. The reevaluation of Mists Double Standard with Garrosh where he was vilified for what other characters like High Marshall Twinbraid^note whom wiped out an entire tribe of native people before the Horde/Alliance war out of sheer Fantastic Racism, but was still depicted sympathetically in Mists quests and Gallywix^note who sold his own race into mass slavery out of pure greed, yet was shown as having the moral high-ground over Garrosh did combined with Arc Fatigue against Battle for Azeroth's own faction war also spurred more sympathetic reevaluations of the character. As a result, many players have expressed the idea that "Garrosh did nothing wrong", or even believed Blizzard should have developed on Garrosh's more sympathetic traits in Cataclysm alluded to in a few quest lines^note albeit quest lines was allegedly done by a developer "supposedly" unaware of the plan for Garrosh to develop into a villain, despite the developers promising on the forums, Garrosh would not be evil. rather than throwing them away. While Garrosh was revealed in Shadowlands to remain unrepentantly villainous and unwilling to change, his appearance there was considered one of the better parts of a generally poorly-received expansion.
• Xenoblade Chronicles:
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 1: While not quite The Scrappy, Riki was initially viewed as a Ridiculously Cute Critter whose inherent silliness occasionally undermined the tone of the game without contributing much to the overall plot. However, after Nopon characters in later Xenoblade games proved to be either The Scrappy (Tatsu from Xenoblade Chronicles X) or a Base-Breaking Character (Tora from Xenoblade Chronicles 2), Riki's character underwent a fandom reappraisal. Many fans now note that while he has occasional moments of silliness, he's still a very competent and respectable character overall, and he offers a unique character dynamic to the party by being the oldest party member and the only one who's raising a family. Ultimately, most of the fandom views him as the standard to which other Nopon characters must measure up.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 2:
    • The protagonist Rex was originally a major Base-Breaking Character, perceived as a boring Stock Shōnen Hero with polarizing voice acting, alongside his infamous and memetic response to Nia's love confession. When Xenoblade Chronicles 3 shocked the fanbase by revealing he grew up to be a manly hunk who had children with Pyra, Mythra, and Nia, his reputation instantly flipped from Memetic Loser to Memetic Badass, which was only exaggerated when he was found to be absurdly broken in the DLC campaign, Future Redeemed. This shift in perception led to a re-evaluation of his character in Xenoblade 2, with some finding him a much better character than initial knee-jerk reactions believed, recognizing his genuine optimism and its positive effect on the jaded to outright broken rest of the party.
    • Mythra was initially considered a lesser character than her sister Pyra due to her Tsundere characterisation compared to Pyra's Nice Girl, not helped by her first scenes involving her berating Rex for making her unseal herself, making her abrasive personality unappealing to the fanbase. With the release of Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country, fans warmed up to her significantly by showing her development from a cold and bratty young woman into someone that was harsh but kind, as well as justifying her anger at being unsealed by showing first hand just how traumatizing the Aegis war was for her, making her more sympathetic in the eyes of the fans and allowing them to see her softer redeeming qualities in the main game.
• Yandere Simulator:
  • Taro Yamada, the game's Senpai, was popular in the game's early days, as his deliberate lack of characterization (to the point where even his name was stereotypically generic) was seen as fitting with the initial intent of the game as a parody of common anime tropes (with he himself as a parody of bland, underdeveloped main characters in harem anime), and there were not as many excessively developed side characters to highlight said thin personality. Once the development shifted to taking its story more seriously though, Taro became increasingly criticized for still being underdeveloped despite his integral role in the plot, alongside his willingness to date another girl only a week after the potential death(s) of his childhood friend and/or his younger sister. While he is not seen as outright beyond repair — many positively received fan projects use him as an O.C. Stand-in — Taro is now one of the more unpopular characters. Increasing accusations of controversy towards the game's developer also caused his reputation to plummet based on accusations of Taro being a self-insert for the developer to live out fantasies now seen as twisted and foreshadowing of his own undesirable behavior.
  • When she was introduced alongside all of the other rivals, although eyebrows were raised at the design and especially the actions of Mida Rana, the common consensus was that she did indeed serve as an effective parody of the "hot teacher" anime stereotype. However, the increased awareness of double standards regarding sexually violent behavior by women towards men, especially considering that said behavior was targeted towards vulnerable students, plus Word of God doubling down on Mida's obsession with seducing teenage boys to an uncomfortable degree (which became especially more discomforting after allegations of sexual misconduct were made against the developer), led to her popularity sinking like a rock. Mida is now more than often listed as one of the worst rivals, if not the worst, and it's not uncommon to find a fan that wants her to be completely reworked, if not Demoted to Extra or even outright removed from the game altogether.
  • Speaking of the rivals, Megami Saikou was initially met with approval for her demeanor, status as both The Dreaded and a Parody Sue, and hints as to her level of influence. Then, over the course of the game's notoriously long development, she and her family were subjected to vast Character Shilling that, for fans, rapidly stripped away both her mystique and whatever irony she would have had, on top of her behavior (e.g. threatening to have someone tossed off a boat) being Unintentionally Unsympathetic once people read between the lines. Nowadays, Megami is one of the more disliked rivals, decried as the exact Creator's Pet she was meant to mock and a realization that the developer was not creating a Parody Sue as opposed to a genuine one either with no self awareness which brought the rest of the dev's writing ability into question or to live out yet another fantasy that fans find tiring and controversial.
  • Similarly to Mida, Hanako Yamada raised eyebrows due to being both a rival and Taro's little sister when the rivals were officially revealed. That said, she was understood as a nod to the prevalence of little sister characters in anime, and was explicitly confirmed to not have any romantic or sexual interest in her big brother. It also helped that she was given Hidden Depths with the reveal that Nemesis from Mission Mode is an alternate universe version of her, which was legitimately shocking at the time. As the game's production became more troubled, it became more commonly known that Hanako originally was incestuous towards her brother, which the game's critics pointed out that she is still written as if she is a love interest (confessing under the cherry blossom tree, blushing in her official art, being referred to as "Incest Osana" in a video, etc.). Additionally, fans started to see her childish Clingy Jealous Girl personality as more creepy than endearing, especially since she's dictating who her brother dates for ultimately selfish reasons. While she's not hated to the same extent as Mida, Hanako is a popular target of rewrites for this reason.
  • On a more positive note, Midori Gurin was created as a dimwitted, irritating Hate Sink meant to represent annoying fans who were unnecessarily delaying development via constantly asking time-wasting questions, and for the first few years she was a Base-Breaking Character, audiences split on whether to find her ditziness charming or off-putting. Then, as the initial fans of the game grew up and it entered Development Hell, most realized that Midori's concerns about the game's development were completely founded, and her tendency to be abused, shut down, insulted, and even murdered was increasingly seen as a mean-spirited Take That, Audience! making her, despite the developer's insistence that she was created to be despised, Unintentionally Sympathetic. This caused Midori's popularity to rise, and many now wish for her to become an Ascended Extra even with the knowledge it's unlikely as she represents those criticizing the game that are now viewed as more in the right as opposed to the Dev wanting to push them aside.

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