Sugar Wiki / Better Than Canon

"The Apollo Justice you played was a depressing alternate universe. Here's how it really gets started."

— Job Hunting, an Ace Attorney fanfic

Most fans just aren't content to accept absolutely everything the canon offers. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a fan that doesn't have any complaints about a work, no matter how minor. But what happens when the amount of complaints being thrown at the work start to outweigh the compliments? Well, you might find yourself with fans starting to throw out ideas about how it can improve, or things it should have done in order to maintain quality. These fans may then run to their word processors and start writing out exactly how their ideas would play out. And they may soon discover that others in the community not only like their creative re-interpretation of the original work, but are anxiously awaiting for more... because they think it's actually better than the source material.

Better Than Canon refers to fanworks that are viewed as better than the source material as a result of it ignoring and/or rewriting the disliked aspects of a fictional canon in order to "improve" upon it. Of course, this isn't limited to works that are intentionally meant to be some level of Take That! to the canon. Sometimes the writer has no qualms with the source material, but still find themselves thinking What If? as a simple creative exercise. In either case, results may vary.

The following tropes are likely to contribute to being seen as Better Than Canon:

• Adaptation Distillation: It removes or minimizes unpopular characters, plotlines, Filler and Padding, and other contentious aspects leaving just what makes the series popular. See The Abridged Series.
• Adaptation Expansion: It adds content that improves the depth and quality of the setting, such as greater Worldbuilding, turning minor/underdeveloped characters or mentions into something fully fleshed out, and giving underutilized characters and plots due focus.
• Crossover/Fusion Fic/Patchwork Fic: The work combines separate series and Alternate Continuity, or aspects of them, to produce a story that would be difficult or impossible in official works due to the legal complications.
• Darker and Edgier/Dark Fic: It includes more mature content and subject matter than the source material would allow.
• Deconstruction Fic: It Deconstructs the source material pointing out its problematic or illogical aspects either to criticize it and/or make a better story out of it.
• Fix Fic: It focuses on fixing disliked aspects of canon, such as fixing contentious characters and storylines or outright replacing them with something better.

Periphery Demographic is a common contributor to the creation of and reception as Better Than Canon fanworks due to having tastes and interests different than what canon can reliably provide. If you meet people who seem to label a lot of fan works as this, you may be dealing with Fanwork-Only Fans.

When some fans get the chance to force this on the official work, it's Running the Asylum and Armed with Canon. If the creator decides it's a good idea as well, it may become Ascended Fanon.

See Fanon Discontinuity, Fan-Disliked Explanation, Audience-Alienating Ending, Fan-Preferred Couple, and Death of the Author for attitudes to the source material that can cause fanworks to be seen as better. Also see Fanfic Fuel and Fanfic Magnet common sources of such fics.

Compare Improved Second Attempt for official/licensed works that improve upon the original material and Salvaged Story for in-continuity fixes, and Popular Game Variant and Come for the Game, Stay for the Mods for gameplay as opposed to narrative that's seen as superior to the official. Contrast Canon Defilement.

Some of the works on the Fan Fic Recommendations pages might be this.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The anime adaptation of Angelic Layer is widely regarded as being better than the original manga due to the Adaptation Expansion giving the story more time for better Character Development and relationship development.
• Dagashi Kashi: Many readers treat Pochi's explicit doujin manga (where Hotaru and Kokonotsu end up cohabiting, having sex, and he proposes to her with a Ring Pop) as the true ending to the series. The opinion only got more vocal when the final chapters of the manga have Hotaru proposing to Kokonotsu, but ending the series at the moment of their reunion after a year, before Kokonotsu can accept (or not). Arguably it's hinted that he would have accepted, since he's holding Hotaru's "winning" popsicle stick from earlier which he was supposed to give back once he decided. But many readers would have preferred a more explicit conclusion. Since the doujin is pretty comedic, this is also Harsher in Hindsight.
• Lady!!: Fans who were introduced to the anime first were disappointed when they read the manga and found out that George ended up marrying Madeleine and Lynn actually returned to Japan, as well as the fact that George actually dies later on. They preferred Toei Animation's changes where The Power of Love prevents all those things from happening and keeps the Russell family together.
  • In fact, the changes Toei Animation made were so well received (particularly Season 2's Lady Crest subplot) that in the sequel manga, Yōko Hanabusa incorporated some major elements from it (mainly Lynn competing in the Olympics) and gave a homage to some of the anime's Canon Foreigners (such as naming Mary's friend after Vivian Spencer).
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: There exist torrents that fix some of the complaints people had with the Netflix release. These include restoring "Fly Me to the Moon" as the credits song, giving the subtitle track for translating on-screen text a better and more natural-looking typesetting^note Netflix itself simply uses the same typesetting it does for its captions, which also can't be turned off, and having the ADV dub readily available. The 2021 Blu-Ray fares a bit better, including both the Netflix and ADV dubs as well as their respective subtitle tracks, but it still lacks "Fly Me to the Moon", and said subtitle tracks are understandably lackluster by comparison.
• Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: For some viewers, its pretty satisfying to see the Evil Exes reform, learn some humility and overall learn to be... not so evil after most of them reconcile with Ramona.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V: After the duel with the series' big bad and Final Boss, Zarc, an Invincible Villain who had defeated several opponents at once but was defeated in an unsatisfying way, was criticized for being one of the biggest Anti-Climax Bosses in the franchise, a good number of people seem to have chosen a fan-scripted duel where the other protagonists faced off against him as an alternative. Partly for the obvious reason, and partly for featuring clever plays, back-and-forth pacing, and a climactic finish that the original was believed to be lacking. While the original video lost its copyrighted music and was played out using the YGOPro simulator, a fanmade manga adaptation by Thrim25 was made three years later using that same duel as a basis, complete with a video version that restored the music, making it the closest to the duel being animated.

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Thanks to the characterization the Titans receive, the Character Development undergone by Viv and San throughout the story, better-realized human characters, and well-executed action sequences (among other things), there are some readers who consider Abraxas to be superior to Godzilla vs. Kong as a follow-up to Godzilla: King of the Monsters, to the point that some wish Abraxas was canon to the MonsterVerse itself.
• Advice and Trust: The main Evangelion thread on the Sufficient Velocity forums describes the original series as "Anno's depressing acasual AU of A&T".
• Aftermath: The DB Chronicles: While it doesn't change any results, it finds ways to justify the results and even points out some of Death Battle's flaws, and the heroes living with each other and being friendly (usually) helps any heroes who were portrayed less positively on the show than their official works (Yang and Toph for example).
• Akane no Guilty Crown: In general, this story is one of the main factors with its writing improves over the canon anime’s writing. It does its best in fixing the characters’ personalities to better relate to audiences.
• Amazing Fantasy: The Training Montage in Chapter 5 has been much better received by readers than Izuku's training with All Might, which focused primarily on the exercise he put in rather than his growing closeness to All Might.
• Ambition of the Red Princess: Compared to the canon show, this fanfic managed to flesh out the worldbuilding even further and most of all, turned a badly made and underwhelming villain into an actual person while tackling the ignored subject of the canon's slavery.
• Ashes of the Past: Ash and co. are essentially redoing canon. Another reason is because Saph is consistent with his characterization and strong on continuity, unlike the writers of the anime who tend to zig-zag on it. Many also welcome that Ash is allowed to grow up here unlike the games.
• Avengers: Endgame (Dragonis Prime):
  • The story's treatment of the Black Order and Carol Danvers received praise from commenters who felt they were underutilized in the movie.
  • One commenter reacted that Steve's retirement was far more believable than the film's take on it.
• Avengers of the Ring:
  • If you didn't like the way Thor ended up becoming a depressed, fat, alcoholic shut-in in the time skip between Infinity War and Endgame, seeing him go into a Convenient Coma thanks to inheriting the Odinforce after a particularly intense battle and reawakening a year later is a much more awe-inspiring scene.
  • Tony and Natasha survive the final battle and Wanda is given actual support, both with her magic and her mental state, after everything she went through.
• The Beast of Beacon: Many reviewers find Adam and the topic of racism of Faunus are better presented here than canon.
• Beautiful Monster: Most readers consider this fanfic to be vastly superior to the original theory. While the theory seems like it's nothing but Deus Angst Machina (even for a Creepypasta theory), the fanfic at least takes the time to flesh out the story and characters so the deaths don't seem like they're just there for shock value.
• Black Crayons: Reviewers of A Child's Innocence (a rewrite of Transformers: Dark of the Moon) have commented that the story is much better than the movie the fanfic was based on.
• Blank Canvas: The number of realistic outcomes make many reviewers consider the fic better than the source material in many ways, such as Bakugo's Karma Houdini Warranty, which makes his eventual redemption arc more deserved. There's also the matter of All Might being called out by his reckless attitude regarding his meeting with Izuku and his poor teaching skills.
• The Bridge:
  • Multiple readers have expressed the opinion that the versions of many kaiju showcased in The Bridge are their favorite versions of the character. Monster X in particular gets this treatment, thanks to sympathetic backstory and ongoing subplot as opposed to his Diabolus ex Nihilo status in the movie.
  • While Windy Whistle was never disliked by the readerbase, quite a few preferred the G3 inspired Rainbow "Radiance" Dash Sr. as Rainbow Dash's mother, voicing fears she'd be hit with a Retcon removal until Tarbtano assured he wouldn't.
  • In canon, Celestia and Luna are rather flat characters who rarely ever get prominent roles beyond providing exposition to the Mane Six, and when they try to help against major threats, they tend to suffer The Worf Effect and get defeated easily. "The Bridge" features them as main members of the cast with plenty of focus and development, such as Luna forming a relationship with Godzilla Junior and Celestia joining the heroes in the human world for the "Winter War" arc, and their power is greatly respected with several scenes showcasing that they can keep up alongside or against the various Kaiju and other villains.
  • The reveal of the show version of Starswirl the Bearded as a jaded and crabby old man in need of a reality check left some readers remarking they preferred the comic and book based, grandfatherly Parental Substitute to Princess Celestia and Luna his Bridge incarnation is.
  • The more dynamic battles and character development for Haruo Sakaki featured in the 2018 Halloween Special (which is set in the Anime Godzilla Universe) had some remarking they liked it more than the anime movies.
  • The overall quality of the fights, action, and characters make some feel the fanfic as a whole does a better job of feeling like a Godzilla anime than the actual anime movies.
  • Frostbite Sparkle is considered to be a more horrific, brutal, tragic, and terrifying being than Midnight Sparkle.
• The Bridge: Humanity's Stand: The jointly made story for this universe's original Gabara has been greatly praised by the readers as a straight upgrade from the movie version, turning arguably the least liked kaiju of the Showa era into a competent and terrifying villain, who was then succeeded by a likable Anti-Hero with a unique backstory.
• Candy for Your Thoughts?: Plenty of fans have declared this fic to have handled the infamous Love Triangle between Courtney, Duncan and Gwen better than World Tour did.
• Cast Swap:
  • The reviewers state that the fic is extremely better and well-written than the canon seasons, as the stories are executed well and the characters are in check, especially with the All-Stars season and the original contestants participating in it.
  • Many reviewers have also praised the fic for better handling many second-generation and third-generation characters compared to the canon series, such as removing Topher's Satellite Character status to Chris, making Sugar a better villain, improving Sammy's Character Development, keeping Dave in-character during his failed romance with Sky, giving Dakota better treatment and having her contribute to the game more, and handling Mike's mental disorder better.
• Cat-Ra: For some fans, the fic is better than the canon show, though mainly in regards to:
  • Catra and Adora's character arcs. Catra's journey from a selfish Broken Ace Anti-Hero to someone who tries her hardest to become someone selfless and more open with her feelings in spite of a huge chip in her shoulder is seen by many as more compelling than Canon!Adora's relatively straightforward Hero's Journey. Meanwhile, Adora starting out as a genuinely compassionate and moral Anti-Villain bordering on Token Good Teammate only to slowly succumb to dark magic, hatred, and madness is seen as even more tragic than Canon!Catra's character arc, particularly when we see her genuine friendships with Scorpia and Entrapta begin to disintegrate.
  • Expanding the chapters to give characters like Huntara that are underused in the main show more screentime and opportunities to shine.
  • Replacing the Lightspinner flashbacks with bittersweet flashbacks to a young Adora being raised by Shadow Weaver, putting the spotlight on their relationship and making it more crucial to the plot than in the canon show, where the relationship between Adora and Shadow Weaver is underdeveloped compared to that between Catra and Shadow Weaver.
• Chronicles of the Siren War:
  • Given the huge positive reception it has received, almost every reader/reviewer agrees that Chronicles of the Siren War is a better adaptation of Azur Lane compared to the anime.
  • Many fans react positively towards Siren War's Ark Royal for being a genuine maternal figure rather than be like her Comedic Lolicon counterpart in the game.
• Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron:
  • More than a few people were happy with how Naruwitch expanded on the Robeast's numbers by adding in a Mao Robeast, seeing how said group was relatively underused in Voltron: Legendary Defender.
  • The handling of the SAZ Massacre, namely having it be a deliberate act done by the Galra and Charles' loyalists, was much better received, both due to better foreshadowing and sparing Euphemia.
  • One of the issues some people had with Legendary Defender was that Keith becoming a member of the Blade of Marmora detracted from his time with the Paladins, along with the fact he was Put on a Bus and this we weren't allowed to see his training. Here, it's Nunnally who joins the Blades, meaning that the core Paladin lineup is preserved while also giving another character we much needed focus.
• Code Prime:
  • Virtually all reviews for this story indicate that they prefer this story's version of the SAZ Massacre over its canon counterpart, for various reasons: better foreshadowing, sparing Euphie, and the massacre being planned instead of a Diabolus ex Machina.
  • Cliffjumper's death has a bit more weight to it here, as we get to spend much more time with him and he goes out like a badass instead of his cartoon death, which only served to set up an Anyone Can Die atmosphere that really only affected the bad guys.
• The Conversion Bureau: Not Just Ponies: Several reviewers have said they consider this iteration of TCB better than the original fanfic and many of the response fics.
• Cross Ange The Knight Of Hilda: A lot of readers have praised the changes made to canon, especially regarding the presence of a group of Mana-users who are sympathetic to the Norma.
• Danny Phantom: Stranded: Star is a relatively popular Ensemble Dark Horse in the series who has no character development. She's given far more characterization and development in these stories that make her a more well-rounded character.
• Daughter of Fire and Steel: To the eyes of fans who want to see Supergirl being properly introduced in the DC Extended Universe, and who aren't happy with the route followed by the franchise after Man of Steel.
• Death Note Equestria: A character-specific example. Many readers found Pinkie Pie to be better-written and more likable in this story than in the show, as she's very entertaining, lightens the mood effectively, and her more annoying traits are not present here. This is a major contributor in her Ensemble Dark Horse status.
• Dein Weg Ist Mein Weg:
  • Many readers like Maho as the story's protagonist, how this fanfiction humanizes her and gives her depth.
  • Many readers also like Miho Nishizumi's role as the Evil Counterpart of the protagonist who actually poses a major threat, a position not even Katyusha, Erika, or Manga!Anchovy can properly fill in the canon storyline.
• Dirty Sympathy: Many reviewers enjoy the fanfic for making the plot of Apollo Justice more complex.
• Dragon Ball Z: Dynasty: The story has been praised for giving the human fighters more focus and giving the women more prominence as fighters.
• Fairy May Cry:
  • Fans like how the story handles Lisanna, who despite all the buildup for her return, did almost nothing of note afterwards in canon. Here she joins the main cast and notably Took a Level in Badass.
  • The Key of the Starry Sky arc has the battles between Fairy Tail and the Legion Corps more evenly matched rather than the embarrassing defeats the former suffered in canon. The latter repeatedly need backup to gain the upper hand and tend to lose whenever they underestimate the guild wizards, properly representing the protagonists' competence. It's only when the Neo Oracion Seis show up that the protagonists start getting clobbered, and even then, it's displayed as the villains being powerful rather than the heroes failing, managing to turn the tables once they're given time to prepare in their rematches.
  • The Grand Magic Games Arc has been better received for a multitude of reasons. For starters, the Fairy Tail members actually train for three months instead of wasting time in the Celestial Spirit World. This, combined with actual logic being applied instead of a number of Deus ex Machina and The Power of Friendship, along with proper explanations besides one side simply being stronger than the other, many of Fairy Tail's victories in the tournament are seen as legitimate and well-earned.
    • In particular, the final fight in the battle royale between Sting and Juvia has been praised due to the Games actually ending with a fight instead of Sting simply giving up, as well as Juvia getting a well-needed big fight and time in the spotlight.
• Fiondil: Many of Fiondil's fans have adopted aspects of his interpretation of canon as their worldview on Tolkien. Fiondil has been often compared to, or said to surpass, Tolkien himself.
• Fuzzyboy Total Pokemon Series: A notable number of fans claim this series is far superior to the main series in a variety of ways, one of the most well-known reasons being that this series never suffered from any kind of Early-Installment Weirdness.
• Game Theory (Lyrical Nanoha): The world building is very, very good, and it's a lot more internally consistent than the canon material. Fight scenes are also nicely planned and well-described, and the characters make proper use of tactics. The removal of numerous Idiot Balls also makes for a much smoother narrative.
• Gundam Seed Destiny Altered: Essentially the purpose of this Fix Fic is to create a version of the original story that is better than the series, while hewing as closely as possible to the broad strokes of the original narrative.
• Hajnarus: Jotaro is much better likeable than the anime/manga version to a lot of readers due to actually emoting, showing vulnerability, and openly caring about his family and the Crusaders. And obviously, everyone's happy about the dead characters getting their happy ending.
• Halkegenia Online: The author has gone to great lengths to flesh out elements of both ZnT and SAO that were glossed over in the source material.
• The works of Hand Of Thrawn 45 have been reviewed positively by reviewers with them saying that their stories are on par with the Legends continuity.
• Here Be Dragons Series: The SpotPass characters are a Broken Base in and of themselves, and their very availability is of questionable canonicity, but pretty much everyone agrees that having Gangrel join the Shepherds early into the Valm campaign is infinitely better than the game's bringing him out right before the final chapter.
• Hero Chat: Several readers have claimed that they prefer this version to the canon show, due to things such as better Character Development, Chloé's redemption arc actually sticking, the Love Square being handled far better, and the four heroes from "Pentalteam" having actual stories to themselves.
• Hogwarts Houses Divided: Quite a few fans found this fic to be a far more preferable sequel than "The Cursed Child". Ironically finding The Cursed Child to be less original and more Fan Fic-like than the ACTUAL Fan Fic. Pointing out the fact that Hogwarts Houses Divided decided to tell its own story with its own conflict rather than relying on plot points that had already been done before.
• Horde Champion: Anevay goes out of her way to ensure that Alleria reunites with Sylvanas on favorable terms, and it ultimately works. The two have a tentative relationship, compared to abandoning her out of the blue in Three Sisters.
• I Dreamt Of You: Many readers have felt this way about the fic, due to the characters being fleshed out more, and of course, Jake and Tsu'tey's relationship being portrayed realistically, without all the cliches presented by Yaoi Fangirls.
• I'd Trade My Life For Yours:
  • Downplayed with Korekiyo. In the second class trial, some readers prefer how their character was handled compared to the game, particularly if they weren't fans of the reveals regarding them in the game's third class trial. On the one hand they were given more dignity and honor to their actions and were a bit more sympathetic here, but in exchange Kiyo's romance with his sister, more horrifying elements like planning to murder Kaede after their second Free Time Event, and his general history as a Serial Killer are left as mere implications which can leave a sense of wasted potential or feel like an over-reliance on the readers knowing their "story" from the game.
  • The same can be said for Miu Iruma. The fans have admitted to liking her more as her insecurities over her self worth along with her fears of being killed are given more attention and care in the narrative along with her friendships with Kaede and Kiibo making her a more dynamic character. Especially considering how the canon mistreated her where her insecurities were Played for Laughs and everyone agreed that there was nothing to like about her even after her death.
• Intercom: It builds on the premise of the movie, continues to explore different directions to take the many characters, introduces new characters that aren't carbon copies of previous characters, shows the consequences of the previous film, and the new premise isn't just a rehash of the original. Sounds like all the basic building blocks to a sequel just as good if not better than the original.
• It's not the Raptor DNA: There are multiple readers who consider this fanfic to be superior to the 2015 blockbuster it was based on, in part due to its depth and the substantial character development that Elise undergoes.
• Kamen Rider Zero-One: Edge of Dawn: Or rather fanon in this case. While a majority of readers were skeptical and cautious of the story since it featured Original Characters instead of the canon Kamen Riders, the story has been met with praise so far for avoiding the typical trap falls and failings of other Kamen Rider crossover stories. In particular, some praise has been given to this fanfic's characterization of KR Duelist's OC Kurogasa Kururugi, who became something of a Memetic Mutation among the fanbase for his constant Angst in some of KR Duelist's stories prior to him deleting all of his fanfics.
• The King Nobody Wanted: The story and characters can often feel better than the original canon due to stuff like the dynamics of Stannis being the recognized post-Rebellion king and great world-building around things readers don’t want future books to potentially make non-canon, like the mercantile system, the War of the Ninepenny Kings, and the Blackfyre family tree. It helps that the writing quality and style can feel almost indistinguishable from the original books.
• Kingdom Hearts: The Antipode:
  • As it gives Kairi time to shine alongside Riku and Sora, integrates the Disney worlds seamlessly into the overall narrative and embraces its potential as a Massive Multiplayer Crossover without going overboard, many fans consider Antipode as such.
  • This is the general consensus on Xemnas' characterization. While Dream Drop Distance flattened his character in favour of advancing Xehanort's plot, Antipode explores several unresolved plot points that were established in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix and Birth By Sleep, making for a far more interesting antagonist.
  • In response to the incredibly restrictive, beat-by-beat adaptation of Frozen in Kingdom Hearts III, the Frozen world in All That's Left thoroughly involves the main characters in the plot of the movie, integrates the world of Arendelle seamlessly into the Kingdom Hearts setting and even incorporates elements of the original fairy tale into the story.
  • Hans' portrayal is considered a step up from not only his appearance in Kingdom Hearts III, but also his portrayal in the original film. Both his charming facade and his more sinister machinations are explored in detail and he comes off as a more engaging antagonist as a result. His status as a Nobody puts his Lack of Empathy in a new context without undermining his villainy.
• The Kirita Chronicles: Between more extensive backstories for the characters along with more thorough character development and an impressive amount of interesting original characters, several traits of this fic have been regarded as better than the official story upon which it is based. For example, the One-Scene Wonder character of Argo from the canon series has become an Ascended Extra with far more influence on the plot and quickly rose to Ensemble Dark Horse and Breakout Character status.
• Lightning Only Strikes Once: General consensus of the fic as it undoes not only Lexa's death but focuses on Clarke and Lexa trying to avoid and fix all the problems created in the events of The 100 thanks to a Cosmic Retcon and Reset Button. Not only do they Set Right What Once Went Wrong for the first three seasons but prevent the problems and conflict of seasons four and five. For many who placed the series into Fanon Discontinuity for season 3, this fic is commonly accepted as an alternative to canon.
• The Lion King Adventures: Fans agree that TLKA is much better than the movie sequels.
• Memories of Infinite's Past: Many readers have praised Infinite's backstory and considered it better than the one shown in Sonic Forces, especially at cleaning up and providing reason for Infinite's character.
• Mischief (MHA):
  • The introduction of Marvel characters arguably made arcs far more enjoyable to readers.
  • Gorr in this story is based upon his MCU counterpart, whose character many viewers felt was wasted due to the film's (and by extension, the MCU's) brand of childish humor clashing with the danger he posed. Here, he's instead treated as a genuine threat that is taken seriously by all those around him, something readers considered a great improvement over the source material.
  • The Final Exams arc, which is one of the least favorite arcs amongst the fandom, became a favorite amongst, with the surprise appearance of Hawks, Izuku's Xanatos Speed Chess strategy to beat the teachers and finally, Thor and All Might's fight being considered the highlights of the arc.
• Mobile Fighter Evangelion: Some readers love this version of the Evangelion story, thanks to being less dark, or rather, having a much more happy tone.
• My Deepest, Darkest Secret: Those who read the story consider the story superior compared to the canon materials (up to readers wanting the author to be hired to handle the canon), probably because 1) it actually focused on one of the vampires, 2) the main couple's overall chemistry, development and relationship was written to be more believeable and romantic, 3) the drama for stuff unexplored in canon (ex: Solon's identity crisis over his heritage and fear of his brothers discovering it) has been considered to be engaging and well-written, and 4) not-so beloved character Sooha was barely mentioned.
• Nack and Psycho: One thing fans agree on is that the adaptation of The Legends of Treasure Island handles its characters and plot points a bit better by filling in the gaps and giving both Long John and Pew the needed Character Development.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide: To some readers it's more tightly plotted and better written than the original series.
• The Night Unfurls, a Crossover between Bloodborne and Kuroinu: Kedakaki Seijo wa Hakudaku ni Somaru, is praised for being superior to the other half of the source material that is Kuroinu canon, which is an H-series with an Excuse Plot. Specifically, fans enjoy it for the following factors: the unusual premise of a celibate, Horrifying Hero who hunts beasts and strikes fear into the hearts of many interacting with half-naked women and slaughtering perverted mercs; how the story heavily tones down the fanservice of Kuroinu-original female characters; changing the fates of said characters in Kuroinu canon ^note The main cast of Kuroinu are all experienced female warriors/mages who never actually get a chance to fight back or demonstrate any of their skills and are easily brainwashed into being sex slaves.; and how it expands on their characterisations and the world they live in to form a rich, working, and legitimate Dark Fantasy world. To top it off, a good number of fans in the review section wholeheartedly believe that this crossover is the best Kuroinu fanfic ever.
• MLP: FML: Some readers think the chapters of Griffon the Brush Off are better than the actual episode by giving Gilda a backstory.
• Never Say Never: Many readers have considered this story to be better made than the official Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc IF due to better character development and a better fleshed out story.
• Phylactery: Head to the comments and you'll see many fans declaring that they personally consider Phylactery to be canon to the manga.
• Pokémon Reset Bloodlines: There are many who consider these stories to be outright superior to the anime, due to keeping the anime's strengths (such as its creative battles and humor) while improving on it in some ways (more dynamic and three-dimensional characters, stronger continuity, etc.) and making some of its characters more likeable.
• Pony POV Series:
  • The fic gives this treatment to the entire G3 world. G3 is hated by a vast majority of fans, Gen 3.5 even more so. This fic successfully makes them into complex characters the audience can feel for. While the Alas, Poor Scrappy moment would be sad in its own right, the fact this was done first makes it downright devastating.
  • Many fans consider this series to be better than FIM in its entirety. The lack of Status Quo Is God and the fact that the events of one "episode"/chapter will have consequences on the next means that the Character Development is MUCH stronger. The world-building is more detailed, the Emotional Torque is off the charts. The morals are far more mature and are actually woven into the narrative, not just tacked on as an Aesop. The battle scenes regularly outclass even the best of what Friendship is Magic has to offer and the Villains and their arcs get the time they need to allow satisfying conclusions. Add to this the fact that The POV series has done stories from later seasons (The plot of Reharmonised Ponies about the Mane Six coming to better understand their element is remarkably similar to season four's plot. Despite Reharmonised being written during Season two, but better.
• Queen of Hearts:
  • Makoto being involved in the plot from the beginning caught many readers attention in light of her popularity from canon.
  • The handling of Haru has been met with praise by reviewers due to her character appearing in the first story arc to establish her existence early on rather than how she wasn't properly introduced in the original video game after it was more than half over. The fact Haru became a Phantom Thief early has been widely praised.
  • Shiho's greater role in the story as the Sun Arcana has been widely praised considering the fact she was simply a Small Role, Big Impact character in character.
• Queens of Mewni:
  • Due to how Seasons 3 and 4 turned out, many fans clamor to this series as a better alternative.
  • This version of Crescenta is more well-liked than her canon counterpart.
  • Star actually being punished for her unilateral choice at destroying magic across the multiverse, along with it ultimately failing and returning was well received.
• Razor's Edge: Thanks to its improved Character Development, expanded backstories, greater narrative coherence and lack of Plot Holes compared to the original, Razor's Edge has swiftly gained praise amongst its readers.
• Resonance Days: Some readers like Taker Foxx's interpretation of "Humanoid" Charlotte better than Nagisa Momoe from the canon storyline, possibly because the former is more assertive and significantly older than the latter, making Charlotte better pair for Mami.
• The Rigel Black Chronicles: Blood prejudice, with witches and wizards from long magical ancestries believing themselves to be superior to those with non-magical parents and grandparents, plays a major role in canon, but it's treated as an arbitrary false belief, and its origins are never explained. The Rigel Black Chronicles gives answers, from fresh magic being more chaotic and harder to control (which purebloods consider alarming and dangerous), to babies having an aura sense that makes them instinctively more comfortable around mages (developing habits of thought that can persist in later years), to the fact that gifts such as metamorphism are passed down through pureblood lines.
• Rise of the Minisukas: More than one Evangelion fan has added Rise of the Minisukas to their Fanfics I Wish Were Canon lists.
• The Road to be a Pokemon Master: The Johto Arc in particular stands out, since the Johto anime season is often considered one of the anime's worst, due overabundance of filler, inconsistent pacing, Misty and Brock being little more than moving background and Ash's Johto mons being overshadowed by his Kanto ones, among other things. The fic's adaptation of Johto fixes all those problems, and then some, with an amazing story arc about Team Rocket involving Giovanni's return, the GS Ball and Celebi, continuing Ash and Serena's character arcs and exploring their past and potential future, Misty and Brock getting more Character Development and in Misty's case, being given a proper farewell, involving the Johto Legendaries in the plot (including Ash meeting and talking with Ho-Oh, who explains that no, Ash and Serena seeing him at the beginning of their journey in Kanto wasn't a coincidence), and finishing with both Serena winning the Master Class Showcase becoming the very first Johto Queen, and Ash winning the Silver Conference.
• Robb Returns: Several readers have commented that they prefer Robb Returns to canon, with some admitting that, when reading other ASOIAF works, they sometimes think that certain characters wouldn't act like that... only to remember that they are thinking of what the Robb Returns versions would or wouldn't do, rather than the canon versions.
• Saga (Metroid): Many who have read Saga feel that its take on Samus' early childhood and its portrayal of a cheerful but troubled, fierce but sweet, awkward but confident, and easily outraged by brave young Samus is much better than the Manga's more generic shounen protagonist esque Samus. Its take on Sylux is also almost universally agreed among the fans of Saga to be likely more interesting than anything Nintendo will come out with.
• Season 8 Redo: This fic is universally agreed to be above-and-beyond superior to the original show for how it handles the eighth season, due to Retconning Eric Forman and Michael Kelso leaving Point Place, ensuring Steven Hyde and Jackie Burkhart don't split up, bringing back characters for multiple reappearances (with some ascending to the main cast), and writing out the most hated individual from the show. Readers have often suggested that its writer, tanith75, may have been a screenwriter for the show.
• The Second Try: In The "Chronicles" series, the Advice and Trust cast read TST after watching the original series. Asuka considers the "book" definitely better than the Laserdisc series.
  Asuka had a smirk on her. "Well so far, they're doing a better job than Anno. At least in terms of keeping us sane and giving us a somewhat happy life."
• The Secret Return of Alex Mack is a massively multi-crossover, and many of the settings it pulls in are B-movies such as Blood Beach, which was thoroughly panned by reviewers. By weaving them into a larger narrative about Alex's growth and building her team to face a global threat, the fanfic breathes new life into what was otherwise described as "a completely straight, plodding detective story" and "a talky and incoherent script that is short on action, suspense and even the gore that the title promises." It also gives actual reasons how and why a giant tarantula or indestructible silicate monsters might be created, and makes its heroes follow up on the aftermath of them.
• The Shinji Ikari Raising Project: Although the quest strictly adheres to much of the lore and themes of the show as well as being faithful in representation of the characters, the more optimistic tone, character development, and an open-ended but hopeful Bitter Sweet Ending make a strong case for a more enjoyable experience than the original show or Rebuild.
• The Sith Resurgence:
  • On a meta level, many of the twists and turns of the Sequel Trilogy are completely gutted to make room for Rey and Aliana's relationship. New twists, such as Luke killing a woman in front of her child and the subsequent revelation that Kylo Ren was always rotten to the core take far less time to get moving.
  • The Force Dyad is still present in the story, but Rey rejects it whole-heartedly and the joining of her soul with Kylo Ren's is what causes her to lose faith in the Force. The Force itself is also treated like a manipulative god that is trying to orchestrate events to its liking and is being constantly undermined by the gang.
  • The trilogy's focus on bloodlines and Force legacy is dismissed in two major ways. First being that Rey is from nowhere (her connection to Palpatine seems to have been abandoned completely) and is absurdly strong in the Force. Meanwhile, Aliana is actually very weak in the Force and yet has proven to have a mastery over it that rivals most of the "birthright" characters. Aliana even scoffs at the idea that a bloodline actually matters. This dismissal becomes all-encompassing when Aliana learns that she was sterilized by her injuries on the Supremacy and is unbothered by it. She dismisses Leia's questions about her bloodline by saying that if she wanted kids she'd just adopt.
  • The Legacy Characters have their roles in the story massively downplayed or altered. Han is an advice-giving dad to Aliana and Finn before his death. Luke has a quasi-redemption story regarding what he'd done to Aliana. Leia is considerably more antagonistic and her character arc is about unpacking her hostility toward the Sith and the way she takes that out on Aliana and Rey.
  • Much of The Last Jedis mess of themes and messages are condensed down considerably. The Canto Bight scene is reduced to Aliana giving Poe a lecture about pragmatism, and the themes of privilege, social hierarchies and the blindness inherent to them are moved onto Leia instead.
  • Most notoriously, Aliana supplants Kylo Ren in terms of focus and Rey's relationship to Kylo Ren from the Sequel Trilogy is completely gutted in favor of Rey and Aliana forming a romantic relationship. This was the single biggest, most advertised selling point of the story and readers predominately enjoy the healthier, more mutually supportive relationship Rey and Aliana have over the abusive relationship from the film.
• Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton: A Lighter and Softer Evangelion? Asuka having Superman powers, kicking butts and learning to overcome or at least dealing with her insecurities and neuroses? Her relationship with Shinji going to somewhere? Yes, please!
• The Stalking Zuko Series: For those who ship Zuko/Katara, dislike Bryke's creative choices regarding the characters, and/or agree with the author's criticisms of Katara/Aang and the comics in general, the Stalking Zuko series is often expressed to be an improvement over the original in reviews, as the series takes a lot of time to examine various characters dynamics that didn't get as much focus, arguably rerails characters from the mischaracterization of the comics, gives payoff to the Aborted Arc that was introduced in Season 2 regarding Aang's canon feelings towards Katara actually being unhealthy and to Katara's and Aang's multiple unresolved moments of conflict in the latter half of Season Three, and deconstructs the consequences of Aang disappearing without warning right before Sozin's Comet and the Deus Ex Machinas giving Aang an out from having to kill Ozai. It's worth noting that, as a Fix Fic, the story being this was explicitly the author's goal. Unsurprisingly, given how divided the Avatar fanbase itself is and continues to be on these criticisms, some readers believe the Stalking series succeeds in being better than canon while other readers disagree with the author's perspective on canon intensely.
• State of the Meta: This story received plenty of positive reviews for having a better storyline, teen drama between the characters, and averting many of the Broken Aesops the original canon series is known for.
• Super RWBY Sisters: Several reviewers have praised the author for changes in the series which either address or fix problems fans had with the RWBY Canon, and the other series as well.
  • SPBRR: Fusion in particular is praised for improving a diverse game into a scarier horror story and making SA-X more dangerous.
  • RWBY and the Seven Sirens was praised for expanding on the lore and characters, particularly the Seven Sirens themselves, in addition to having Bolo, Sky, Rottytops, and the other Half-Genies actively helping Shantae rather than just remaining on the sidelines, allowing them to get plenty of characterization and development that wasn't present in the original game.
• Syngenesophobia:
  • Apart from the aspect of Lincoln having to be sent to the hospital and developing a strong fear of his own sisters, a lot of readers consider the story to be an improvement over the show since it helps portray the characters more positively (or explain certain behaviors and Fridge Logic) and have them receive consequences for their actions. In detail:
  • The fanfic's take on "Brawl In The Family" gives a valid explanation about why Lincoln doesn't know about the "Sister Fight Protocol" and why the aforementioned protocol wasn't in effect in previous episodes during which there was a dispute between the sisters (such as "Space Invader"). According to the story, the protocol was a very recent creation that the sisters came up with with their parents, but without informing Lincoln (a flaw that Lisa realizes afterwards, and Dr. Lopez also points out). And it's clearly stated in chapter 10 that the events of "Brawl In The Family" were the first and only time that the protocol was ever put into action.
  • The Author justifies some of Lisa’s more questionable experiments. Her poop studies for example are done because she wants to keep track of her siblings’ eating habits to ensure they stay healthy. Because of them, she once discovered Lori was suffering from gastrointestinal blockade and could help her before she had to be hospitalized. Dr. Lopez also points out that Lisa’s curiosity is quite normal for a child her age, genius or no genius. While she is a prodigy as far as science is concerned, she also has the mindset of a 4-years-old who hasn't completely learned to differentiate right from wrong yet.
  • For readers who disliked Luan for her cruel April Fool's Day pranks, this is mitigated in chapter 15 when Luan told Dr. Lopez that none of the family members ever told her how harsh her pranks are. It's stated that the reason why she's like this every April Fool's day is because of bullies who harassed her in elementary school. But the way she takes it out on her family results in Dr. Lopez calling Luan out for it.
  • Lynn is portrayed in a considerably more positive light here. Not only does she clearly miss the closeness she had with Lincoln as small kids, but when Lynn found out about Ronnie bullying Lincoln, not only was she pissed but called the girl out for mistreating the object of her affection (and started quietly seething when she realized that it was indirectly Lori's fault since she did the same thing to Bobby before they paired up, making him think that such behavior was the way things worked) and was so furiously protective that Ronnie apparently thought Lynn would murder her for punching Lincoln in the eye after kissing her (which itself is portrayed not as her being malicious but being panicked by being kissed by her crush, making the apology steak more genuine).
  • For Lola, it is explained that her pageantry made her into the manipulative brat she is in the show, since pretty much all contestants in those pageants are like that and the only way to succeed in the business is to become one as well. She also let her victories, as well as the cash and the prizes she earned, go to her head, explaining her Spoiled Brat tendencies. And she knows how her reputation prevents her from having friends or getting close to her siblings.
  • Lola's (probably) expensive dresses, cosmetics and toy car are mentioned to be for the most part prizes she won during her pageants, explaining why she could afford them while the family is supposed to be on a budget.
  • Ronnie-Anne punching Lincoln after the latter kisses the former was explained that she was caught off guard by Lincoln's sudden kiss. Her bullying of Lincoln was because she was copying what Lori did to Bobby when they were younger.
• The Teacher of All Things: Many fans of Adventure think this fic improves on the original. Reasons include removing the humans' Plot Armor which allows the stakes to feel real, having the humans contribute after the initial Digivolution rather than acting as glorified cheerleaders and even having the humans and Digimon actually fight as one when Biomerged, Character Development for the Digimon and the aversion of Protagonist Power-Up Privileges and Out of Focus for the secondary cast outside of one or two instances. Also Leomon doesn't die in this one.
• Three Can Keep a Secret: For those that agree with the story's criticisms of Mabel, its take on attempting to sympathize and humanize her can be seen as an improvement over the original. The story not only offers several implicit explanations for Mabel's Jerkass behavior and refusal to follow the lessons she's learned—ranging from a toxic shared homelife with Dipper that encouraged co-dependancy to clear mental health issues and the ambiguous signs of an actual personality disorder—but also doesn't treat these tentative explanations as excuses and thus challenges Mabel with and enables Mabel to show the reader her genuine struggle to become a better person. She may be misguided, she may be self-centered, and she may be astonishingly callous at times, but the fact that she continues to be willing to struggle and change to regain her bond with her brother, even if she has no idea how to do so, really humanizes a character that, in canon, ended on an extremely controversial note.
• Tiberium Wars: The author RetCons the defense of the Pentagon to after the battle at Langley AFB. Also, certain units from Kane's Wrath see use during the main game's plot, like Spectres, Reckoners, Slingshots, and Shatter tanks (which the author refuses to call "Shatterers").
• Total Drama All-Stars: Remake: The reviewers say that this fic is more superior than canon, since canon All-Stars was extremely despised by the fanbase.
• Total Drama All-Stars Rewrite: Many have praised this story for fixing a vast amount of the problems that plagued the canon All-Stars, as well as for expanding more on relationships between the characters.
• Total Switched Island: Reviewers have praised the story for giving more depth to the characters, having characters' plot armor be less obvious, writing fairer eliminations, removing the canonical Ass Pulls entirely, and expanding on the relationships between the characters more fluently.
• Two Snakes One Bullet: Some of the readers consider this story to be better than the movie, mainly due to Rango being less of a Dirty Coward and Jake having more screen time.
• The Victors Project: Some reviewers claimed that they view the world of this story as their preferred canon over Suzanne Collins' prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
• YU-GI-OH GX: Sleeping Beauty: One reviewer’s opinion of the fic claims “the story expands where the original fairytale or the Disney movie did not”.

Films — Live-Action

• Gamera 2: Advent of Legion: Though the Gag Dub was intended to be a joke (it basically took a select few scenes and gave the characters redneck accents), some fans have joking said they thought it had better direction and emotional range than the actual dub.
• Godzilla MMD:
  • The film is considered better than the anime trilogy by many. Reasons being giving Godzilla Earth a personality that is unique, providing battles fans wanted from the anime trilogy, being extremely creative with the kaiju's powers and abilities, and being filled to the brim with well done Mythology Gags.
  • In canon, the Godzilla vs King Ghidorah fight considered a massive disappointment, largely consisting of Ghidorah statically grappling with Godzilla. In this version, Godzilla being far more expressive helps sell the grapples that do happen as much more painful, and Ghidorah gets to show off a lot more of his Eldritch Abomination nature and power set. The finale and King Ghidorah's demise is also noted as being far more satisfying that the rather anti-climatic way he was beaten in the actual anime.
  • Haruo's death is noted as being an improvement, despite the character never appearing once in person, as many feel the scene just being able to play out quietly and somberly rather than Haruo screaming at the top of his lungs improves it considerably.
• Harry Potter And The Deathly Weapons: Some fans prefer this to the original film due to how hilarious the edits are.
• Never Hike Alone: Many fans regard it as even better than some of the movies in the series.
• Passengers (2016):
  • Quite a few reviewers seem to have had the idea that if Jim were to die during the finale, Aurora would've been forced into the very same situation he was in at the beginning (wake up another passenger or spend the rest of her life alone), which would've been all kinds of sad, deep, and/or interesting. This actually went to the point where fans were able to re-edit the film using existing footage to take Aurora's point of view, beginning with her waking up, meeting Jim, beginning a relationship with him, then discovering the truth, and then flashing back to Jim's time alone (the original beginning), then having Jim die and Aurora now being faced with the same choice he did. You can see a whole video essay on the subject here.This alternate ending fanvid by one iBrews is regarded as a superior ending to the actual ending, judging from the comments and so on.
  • One idea viewers came up with is that Aurora could have been awoken by the ship on accident, just like Jim was. That one change might have taken the bad taste out of many viewers' mouths. Hell, this was the ACCIDENTAL impression that most people got from the trailers, until the truth got out and people refused to see it.
  • One camp of viewers was okay with most of the movie but would change the ending by removing Aurora's choice of going back to sleep and not taking Jim back right after the danger was over. It would have brought the movie closer to an actual exploration of loneliness by showing how she would've dealt with the situation with a clear head.
• The Revenge of the Old Queen: Fans usually consider it a better sequel than Shock Treatment.

Literature

• Due to it being written by D.C. Fontana, the Star Trek novel Vulcan's Glory, which covers Spock's first days on the Enterprise under the command of Captain Pike, has been considered better than ''Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which covers a similar time period.

Live-Action TV

• Boohbah: The Flash game, "Boohbah Zone", is seen by some as even better than the TV show. The Flash game receives some solid reviews for being a genuinely fun Minigame Game and for being addicting. Heck, even people who hated the show loved the game.
• The Masked Singer: Some fans consider the covers done by the performers to be superior to their original versions.
• Power Rangers Megaforce:
  • Fanfiction novelizations have gotten better reception than the actual seasons—in particular, the works of Darian Fawkes and Lily Hanson have been seen as far superior to the show.
  • The self-proclaimed Fix Fic, dubbed Power Rangers: Pirate Crew, by Scsigs for Super has had some pretty positive feedback for maintaining what worked with Gokaiger while also adapting the episodes to fit within the context of Power Rangers.

Music

• Atheist: The fan remasters of Jupiter are considered an improvement over masters affected by the Loudness War.
• The Beach Boys: Though Sunflower was never considered for release as a double album (though the sessions produced enough material for it), this hasn't stopped people from coming up with their own 2-LP versions of it.
• Ariana Grande:
  • Many fans consider the mashup of "Greedy" with Bruno Mars' "Treasure" to be superior to the original Ariana song and some even consider it better than both songs individually!
  • The mashup of "motive" and "Promiscuous" by Nelly Furtado is considered better than the original.
• Jethro Tull:
  • The version of Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die! that was recorded for the TV special is generally regarded as being better than the original album, especially after Steven Wilson remixed it.
  • Modern versions of Broadsword and the Beast include a number of tracks that were cut from the original album. Some fans (and Dave Pegg) think the cut tracks were stronger than the follow up album Under Wraps.
• Lullaby for a Princess:
  • In the comments section to the video, it's not uncommon to see commenters mention that they find the animation's interpretation of Celestia vs Nightmare Moon more appealing than the canonical version. The fight is more action-packed than the one presented in "Princess Twilight Sparkle - Part 2".
  • The show often justifies Celestia banishing Luna, with her (and sometimes, other characters) saying she had to do it. The issue is the show never dived into the matter beyond that, so the audience is supposed to assume Celestia is 100% innocent. But Lullaby For A Princess has Celestia blaming herself for it all and not once ever trying to justify her actions, despite we are shown she tried to help and was rejected. In other words, Celestia really is more sympathetic here than in the show because we actually see she tried to do something.
• Miracle of Sound: For a lot of people, the consistent quality of Gavin's work often means that his songs are considered to be better than the actual game they're homaging. In particular, "Only Us", a song about Jaime and Cersei's relationship, is considered more enjoyable than the series' controversial ending.
  YouTube comment: Did you just turn two unsatisfying characters' arcs' endings into a damn good song? That's some Midas touch, right there.
• Nanowar of Steel: Online comments about "Pasadena 1994", a Sabaton parody, have included words to the effect of it being a better Sabaton song than some actual Sabaton songs.

Tabletop Games

• Neuroshima: The fan expansion Ołów ("Lead") is highly regarded for its gritty, no-nonsense approach to both the mechanics and the setting of the game. In particular regarding the latter, it just gets rid of many of the sillier parts which fans often found grating. (On mechanical side, the opinions on "Lead" are more mixed, as its very exhaustive and deadly rules are not to everyone's taste, and in the eyes of almost the entire fandom, any house rules are better than canon anyway.)

Theatre

• The Solve-It Squad Returns!: Fans of this show often greatly prefer it even to other Deconstructive Parody works based on Scooby-Doo, because the seeming Ass Pull of where the characters ended up is so much more creative than the usual take that Velma becomes a successful tech genius and Shaggy becomes an aging stoner — and because having Cluebert be a Posthumous Character is at once a much more shocking and yet more fitting way to do a Darker and Edgier show with a talking dog in it than most parodies manage.

Toys

• Transformers Studio Series:
  • Ironhide and Ratchet have two well-known fan mods that vastly improve their figure with practically little effort needed from even fans new to modding. Ironhide's bumper has been modified to fold in so that it doesn't jut out as it comes in package, whereas Ratchet's hood grill is cut with an exacto-knife to let his backpack fold in to look cleaner and less cluttered.
  • While Devastator was well-received, many fans were disappointed that his combined mode is bipedal when on-screen he was quadrupedal thanks to being so top-heavy he was physically unable to stand upright. Upon the release of all eight Constructicons, fans have been able to jury-rig the gestalt into achieving a quadrupedal stance - albeit many have observed that it puts a lot of strain on his limbs that generally discourages prolonged time spent in the quadrupedal stance.

Video Games

• Aladdin (Capcom): There's a bootleg port of this game to the NES courtesy of Hummer Team, and it's considered superior to the official NES game.
• Another Metroid 2 Remake: A good number of Metroid fans have dubbed this fangame one of their favorite Metroid games ever, and AM2R is regularly listed and discussed in online conversations about the series in general alongside the official games. Some even view it as being superior to Nintendo's own Metroid II remake, Samus Returns.
• BallisticNG is a fangame of the PlayStation-era Wip Eout games, aiming to recapture the aesthetic and gameplay style while also adding many modernizing features like online leaderboards and multiplayer, and even official mod support for custom ships, courses, and the like.
• The Battle for Middle-earth: A number of mods have been made that many fans feel completely blow the vanilla versions out of the water. The Age of the Ring mod for Rise of the Witch-King in particular has been praised for updating the hero's character models, including new factions, being able to play the entirety of the good and bad campaigns as skirmish maps meaning you can actually select levels for once and most impressive of all, an entire campaign that recreates the events of the movies.
• beatmania: Be-Music Source is a file format for beatmania and beatmania IIDX simulators, with two of the most popular ones being Lunatic Rave 2 and Beatoraja. While many players will use this structure to simply play copyrighted beatmania songs for free, there's also many musicians who produce songs specifically for these simulators, LR2 in particular. In addition, LR2 and Beatoraja feature many quality-of-life features not included in the official games. This ended up spawning an entire genre of music known as BMS music, produced typically for free as part of annual song contests with songs, charts, and even videos with production values rivaling that of corporate-budget music videos, as well as providing a low-cost, but no less excellent, source of licensed music for other rhythm games. In fact, a lot of modern-day musicians who produce specifically for music games got their start making music for BMS contests. If not for LR2 and the BMS community, modern rhythm games as many know them would probably not exist.
• Beyond Skyrim: Based on the Bruma pre-release, some fans are already claiming the game is better than the original, pointing to stuff like more branching quest lines, generally more reactive and fleshed out NPCs and more frequent use of skill checks in dialogue as giving a greater sense of depth to the characters, quests, and stories than there was in the original Skyrim.
• Book of Mario: Thousands of Doors: 64's story of Mario being Dead All Along and possessed by the Treacherous Advisor, Browser trying to save the kingdom by ruling it, and the start of the War from Thousands of Doors is often commented on to be more high-stakes and epic than Paper Mario 64's original story, which is already well-regarded.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops III': One Girls' Frontline character model replacement mod managed to make a Mind Screwdriver out of the story due to it being makes sense in context of the latter's story events.
• Castlevania:
  • Castlevania: Judgment is a rather controversial spin-off fighting game in the Castlevania franchise that many fans of the series would like to pretend never existed. One fan went on to create Castlevania Fighter, a freeware fangame made on M.U.G.E.N, and one that many Castlevania fans has considered to be a better fighting game than Judgment.
  • Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin: While the games are generally well-received, many hardcore Castlevania fans despise the art direction change for Dawn of Sorrow, going from the realistic and gothic artstyle by Ayami Kojima in the previous game to an anime artstyle which also carried over for Portrait of Ruin's art direction. A couple of modders worked together to create Castlevania: Choir of Redemption, a pair of ROM hacks called Dawn of Dignity and Portrait of Elegance that replaces the anime-styled character portraits with redrawn ones in the style of Ayami Kojima's art for their respective games. A majority of the games' fans consider these ROM hacks a vast improvement over the default anime-styled portraits.
• Cave Story: Many die-hard fans of the game have sworn off the later re-releases of the game by NiCALiS due to the controversaries surrounding the publisher, abandoning support for the PC and Mac versions of the game while rubbing salt on the wound by later releasing an enhanced Switch port, scrutiny towards the official localization versus the beloved Aeon Genesis fan translation, and the publisher taking down fan-made ports of the game such as CSE2 with DMCA strikes. Despite the takedown of CSE2, fans have created other ports of the game such as NXEngine-evo, which offer many modern enhancements such as widescreen support, visual enhancements, and updated controller support among other features. There is also AGTP+, a modpack that not only refines the Aeon Genesis fan translation, it also offers an optional "Classic+" tileset that replaces the HD remastered graphics with slightly touched up versions of the original graphics and compatibility with the 4th Ending mod.
• Corpse Party: The characterization of Ayumi in Corpse Party D2: Depths of Despair is seen as a much better portrayal than in canon. Corpse Party D2: Fatal Operation is also very liked due to giving an explanation for the disappearance of Seiko's mother, Sayaka. Kizami can also undergo a Heel–Face Turn that still feels true to his character, and Naomi and Seiko can potentially end up together.
• Daikatana: The unofficial 1.3 patch fixed so much of the issues of the original game that it makes Daikatana an all new experience that is a massive improvement over the original release.
• Dave and Bambi: Golden Apple Edition: For being Recursive Fanfiction of an already-rather-divisive mod, this mod is praised even by many of those who dislike Vs. Dave and Bambi thanks to its high effort, likable characters, and great music. Even MoldyGH, the director and main composer of the original mod, is a fan.
• Devil May Cry 5:
  • During the backlash against "Subhuman", fans were desperate to find a song to replace it in-game while still fitting Dante. While some suggested giving him "Devil Trigger" and others suggested just giving him an old song as they did with "Lock and Load" in Devil May Cry 4, the song "Armageddon (Entropy Zero Remix)" by Blue Stahli was put forth as a possible replacement, and the fanbase unanimously adored the song, finding it more fitting for Dante's character and even coincidentally matching up with some of the ideas presented in the game, along with being a faster song that fitted the previous style of the series' music. It got to the point that the fanbase was essentially pleading for the song to replace "Subhuman" on Reddit and on any YouTube video with the song. Even when "Subhuman" remained as Dante's theme, the song was one of the first songs to be modded into the game for those that really wanted it. The top comment on a video demonstrating how the song would work in-game is none other than the remix's composer showing enthusiasm for the idea.
    I Am Maks SF: Unholy hell! One more awesome usage of my remix! Thanks for support \m/
  • Fans who disliked the original version of "Subhuman" prefer LittleVMills' cover of the song, which has much more Devil May Cry-esque gravelly vocals while retaining the general melody. He also redid the chorus, making it more melodic and fast-paced to fit Dante's insane gameplay. There are countless fans of this cover and videos of it edited over DMC5 gameplay.
• Doom³:
  • Due to the absurdity of the UAC not issuing flashlight attachments for their weapons, the Duct Tape mod (which puts a flashlight onto your bigger guns, one that doesn't fully eclipse the regular flashlight though) is considered an essential mod for many. Becomes Ascended Fanon in the BFG Edition, which attaches a flashlight to your armor, as it should be a century in the future.
  • For those who didn't like the gameplay and aesthetic changes of BFG Edition, there are some mods for the original Doom 3 that have been promoted as better revamps of the game.
    • Doom 3: Redux mod has been promoted as a proper (albeit fanmade) remaster of the game as it improves on many aspects of the game and enhances the visuals making the audio logs for the game similar to ones from the System Shock series without altering the original gameplay. It also has a patch that makes it compatible with Resurrection of Evil.
    • One of the big selling points of the BFG Edition is the new The Lost Mission expansion, containing a collection of unused levels from the original Doom³ that has been repurposed into a new campaign. Around 2019, fans has since backported the entire The Lost Mission expansion into the original game, giving those the option to enjoy this campaign in the more mod-friendly Doom³ engine and its source ports.
    • Doom 3: Enhanced Edition is another mod that aims to enhance the core experience of the original game with bugfixes, quality-of-life improvements, and rebalancing the game's weapons and enemy AI, and it is also compatible with Doom 3 Redux and the Doom³ port of The Lost Mission. It also takes the infamous Cyberdemon boss battle of the base game and turns it into brutal and chaotic gauntlet with the inclusion of Cacodemons, Revenants, and Archviles fighting alongside it.
    • The D3HDP - DooM 3 Essential HD Pack is a graphics overhaul that faithfully enhances the game's graphics compared to BFG Edition. It features AI upscaled textures while compiling other fan-favorite texture packs such as the Monoxead and Wulfen ones, modernized effects from Sikkmod, updated models for the characters, monsters, and weapons, environmental fixes, and it is also compatible with the above mods and others.
    • Perfected Doom 3 adds a host of new weapon and gameplay modifications that makes Doomguy feel more like the One-Man Army that he was in the classic Doom games.
    • Overthinked Doom 3 amps up the game's Survival Horror elements. You can still build an absurd collection of weapons, but the amount of ammo you can hold for them has been cut down to a more realistic amount, and the machine gun and plasma gun both have their magazine capacity reduced to 30 rounds, and One Bullet Clips is no longer in effect — if you reload before your magazine is empty, you lose whatever ammo is in the discarded magazine. Enemies are smarter and tougher, making combat a more tactical affair. On the flipside, some of the weapons get buffed compared to the vanilla game — the shotgun has a much tighter spread, for example, making it much more versatile than its vanilla counterpart.
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 has a strong modding community, and aside from creating character models for characters who haven't appeared in the game, are exclusive to the manga, or are just introduced during Super or Heroes, one user managed to create a mod for the characters to freely transform into their ultimate forms, meaning Frieza, Goku Black, Super! Goku and Vegeta, and others, can transform without the need of changing characters. Many fans found this miles better than what the game offers. It also gave Slug and Piccolo the power to transform into a giant Namekian, and Fused Zamasu to transform into his half-corrupted form, all with an original movement taking the cutscenes' animations.
• Equestria at War: How some of the actual bronies that play this feel about the mod. The Darker and Edgier tone is actually done quite well and can expand on some of the implications raised in the original show, as well as making Equestria itself militarily capable of defending itself.
• Final Fantasy VII New Threat Mod: The mod aims to be a Polished Port of the vanilla game. Therefore, it restores unused content, adds a few new scenes and cutscenes, improves the translation to clarify the plot, rebalances the stats, makes enemies and bosses more challenging without being unfairly hard, adds a couple of new boss and optional boss fights, adds Anti-Frustration Features, adds an alternate scenario inspired by the events of the Remake, and proposes an alternate version of the second half of the game in which Aerith lives.
• Friday Night Funk: Some fans actually think that Girlfriend looks better with pants and Daddy Dearest looks better with a shirt.
• Frog Fractions: There are those who actually liked Glittermitten Grove over the actual Frog Fractions sequel and wonder if it would be a good standalone game.
• Half-Life: Source was a straight port of the original Half-Life into the Source engine used for Half-Life 2. Unsatisfied with this, a group of fan modders created Black Mesa, an Updated Re-release on Source that follows the plot of the original but with up-to-date graphics and several significant reworks (notably the release of the Xen levels was delayed for several years while the devs redid the original Disappointing Last Level). Even Valve Software themselves thought it was a better game, giving the project their blessing on condition they got first crack at playing the finished version.
• Honkai Impact 3rd: Hanser, the voice actress of Bronya, did a cover of "Dual Ego", which was preferred by some fans over the original version.
• The Joy of Creation: Reborn: Gameplay-wise at least, the fangame is often admitted to be really well done, with a ton of various different gameplay styles in both the Endless mode and Story mode. The mechanics are sometimes praised of being better than the ones in the official series.
• Just Dance: Redoo's fanmade routine for "Shape of You" has garnered near universal praise from fans, who deemed it to be superior to Just Dance 2018's take on the song.
• Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg: It's not uncommon to find people claiming the only reason they play Hearts of Iron is to experience the alternate history of Kaiserreich. The fact that the IV version of the mod has more focus trees and events than the base game also helps.
• Kingdom Hearts III: After the reveal of the official soundtrack's track list, a number of fans, attached to the Fan Nicknames they had coined and been using for nearly two years, felt underwhelmed by some of the official names of some tracks, and intend to ignore the official names. In particular, “Forza Finale”, the track for the penultimate boss fight, has had a mixed reception after being widely known by Fan Nickname "Oscurita di Xehanort".
• King's Quest I: Quest For The Crown: The AGDI Fan Remake is regarded by some to be the best version of the game.
• King's Quest II: Romancing the Stones: This game is widely considered to be vastly superior to the game it is based on. It even impressed the King's Quest creators so much it has now replaced the original in terms of the series' timeline.
• LISA: The Pointless - Scholar of the Wilbur Sin: The game is arguably better than the original, due to adding a mountain of new content to the game and giving players a stronger reason than ever to explore the world of Olathe as Alex, due to featuring many new areas, enemies, and side content, even in the Endless Wastes, which was a relatively bare-bones area in the original, gets a huge amount of content in the form of a cave system that leads to multiple new areas, such as a the Twilight Plaza, the home of the Marauders who appeared in the first screen of Downtown Olathe, among other things.
• Marathon Expanded Universe: A common opinion of the "Second Quest" net map collection, which contains remixes of the Infinity net maps (plus a few others). They have a lot more ammo than the originals and are generally better looking as well.
• Mario Mix:
  • The common consensus around "MIRROR MODE" is that it's vastly superior to "Confronting Yourself" due to how it expands on the original song's concept, such as including adding in verses for PS135's victims, rather than just transcribing another song into a vocal cover.
  • Many people consider "HEAR ITS CRY" as far better than the creepypasta it was based on, which is very poor in quality if not an outright trollpasta.
  • As the original song is lost media, "Shell Slam" is regarded as the closest thing to an official full version of "Her World" we're ever going to get.
  • While his song "Denounced" is divisive for not really changing much from "Malediction", Framed is widely more accepted as a character than Curse's original incarnation, who is rather controversial at best.
• Mass Effect: Andromeda: There are various mods that help alleviate peoples' issues with the game, or generally enhance it, such as a better customization mod, texture mods that improve character models, and, for the latter, a "Hypermobility" mod which, by cutting down unneeded animations, and other changes, makes the gameplay more fast paced and dynamic.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man 3: The Mega Man 3 Improvement and Revamped rom hacks fix a lot of the game's issues and even provide an original intro cutscene, leading fans to consider them the definitive version. Improvement mostly just smooths out the rough edges, while Revamped changes a lot of the stages, including the previously-underwhelming fortress stages, to be more fun, and also rebalances some of the bosses and weapons.
  • Mega Man X3: The Zero Project ROM hack for the SNES has been considered a huge improvement over the original game. On top of fixing Zero's role as a playable character and improving his abilities, it also adds many quality-of-life tweaks such as the cross-over charge shot for X's buster upgrade being easier to use, interchangeable Chip upgrades, Heart Tanks are shared between both characters, the password system being replaced with a contemporary save system, and a New Game Plus feature.
  • Mega Man X5: The X5 Improvement Project Addendum mod features many quality-of-life improvements for X5, such adding the option to turn off the reviled interruptions by Alia, restores the missing Japanese voice clips, altered title screen art, and original Maverick names into the Western release, implements many gameplay tweaks and rebalancing (e.g. X and Zero can keep their respective character bonuses, both characters share Life and Weapon Ups, parts can be earned at any point in the game), allow X to use incomplete Armor Parts similarly to the X6 Tweaks project, tweaked some of the RNG mechanics for the game's endings, and features a retranslated English script.
  • Mega Man X6: The X6 Tweaks project has been viewed by many players as a vast improvement over the original version of the game, mitigating a lot of the game's infamous difficulty, restoring some of the leftover but unused features, addressing the game's many errors, and giving players a proper localization of the game. And for those who the feel like the changes to the gameplay make X6 too easy, they can customize the patch however they like, and a workbook is available to help educate them on how the modifications work.
  • Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge: After so many years, a Chip Control patch removes the pure randomization of what chips you get from the equation, allowing you to get a random hand and then pick what the AI can use from it instead more akin to the other games in the series.
  • Mega Man: The Sequel Wars is a homebrew for the Sega Genesis as a homage and fan sequel to the rather contested Mega Man: The Wily Wars. Intent on remaking 4, 5, and 6, it expands on the formula that Wily Wars left behind but with oodles of more authenticity to the original NES releases, more features and quality-of-life, playable Proto Man and Roll with their unique features (like Proto Man's shield, or Roll's broom), two soundtracks between an intentionally Wily Wars-styled set and a wholly rearranged Genesis hardware set, and countless visual touch-ups, flourishes and details — most of which you can opt to toggle off if, again, you want it more like Wily Wars. And all of this on top of a Weapon Master mode that lets you use weapons of all 3 games freely regardless of the title, or intended EX Mode levels in later updates to totally redo levels from the ground-up with more challenges and new combat twists, or even the intended Co-Op Multiplayer. With Episode Red's release showcasing all of Mega Man 4, the three playable characters and the Weapon Master mode, it's set to be one of the definitive ways to play some of the more contested entries in the Classic series.
• Mental Omega: The mod is widely considered to be better than the already highly popular vanilla Yuri's Revenge, thanks to completely rebalancing the game while keeping all the fun intact, with boatloads of new content as well as streamlining the game itself, such as replacing the countries compromising the Allies & Soviets whose only difference were that they had an exclusive unit (or, in the case of America and France, a unique support power and base defense) into three different sub-factions, each with their own playstyle and unique units, structures, and support powers, as well as finally balancing out the once-monstrously overpowered abomination of a faction that was Yuri's army in the vanilla edition into something more suitable for competitive gameplay, all while retaining the fun stemming from its quirky units. There's also the fact that it has a MASSIVE interconnected campaign where every faction gets their time to shine, rather than the Allies and Soviets having their own campaigns that are mutually exclusive.
• The New Order: Last Days of Europe: Many people in the fanbase consider TNO to be far superior to the vanilla version of Hearts of Iron IV, in no small part due to its sheer depth and quality of storytelling. This is certainly helped by the fact that many individual country paths have more events and focuses than entire countries in the base game.
• Old World Blues: A definitive stance some Fallout fans can take on the mod, especially due to how it handles some generally underwritten and/or underdeveloped aspects of Fallout lore (namely, highlighting what has been going on between the East and West Coasts in the North American Wasteland over the intervening centuries).
• osu!: The game is far more popular and better-received than the games it simulates.
• Papa Louie Arcade: It's much easier to find a random fanfic made by the fans of this series and accept it as canon rather than simply waiting for a new flipdeck to explain a customer's origins. Some fanfics are considered better than Flipline making the lore.
• PMEX Remix: With most of the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster present along with the beloved Project M mechanics and extremely intricate and faithful movesets for both veterans and newcomers, some feel that PMEX REMIX is to Smash mods and fangames what Ultimate is to the official games.
• Pokémon Black and White: Because most of the Unova Pokémon are controversial, some fans feel that Game Mods that expand the games' Pokédex in a similar manner to Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, most famously Pokémon Blaze Black and Pokémon Volt White, help make the games more enjoyable and draw attention away from the Pokédex to emphasize the games' strengths.
• Pokémon FireRed: Rocket Edition: This game takes a lot of fan theories and runs with them. The story also connects a lot of the important minor characters and gives them a bigger part to play both during the war and during the game, much to the delight of those character's fans. To name a few things that many fans liked in particular, there was a war between Johto and Kanto, Blue's parents are dead, Agatha is Professor Oak's ex-wife, Silver's mother is Ariana, and Blue's Raticate died on the S.S. Anne. Other theories are played with, hinted at, or mocked. For instance, Professor Oak being a terrible grandfather, prostitution being a common practice, the police and security guards being corrupt, Mew being in the truck out the S.S. Anne, that sex with Pokémon is a thing while also being illegal, etc.
• Portal Reloaded: Although the mod is completely fanmade, plenty of fans think it might as well be considered part of Portal canon anyway. The mod does a good job at following the rules set by the series, and can easily be placed some time after the events of Portal 2 without much contradiction.
• Project M:
  • Some dedicated tournament players consider it better than any of the Smash games officially released by Nintendo due to its higher level of balance towards high-level play (when it's usually balanced at low-to-mid-level play), greater mechanical depth and greater speed and precision required to play.
  • As the game grew more complete, it began to be more universally accepted as its own installment in canon rather than just a modification of Brawl.
• Quake:
  • 1998's Abyss of Pandemonium, which was unofficial but commercially released, is often placed on equal footing with the two official expansions, as it's of unusually high quality for an unlicensed release: it features multiple new enemies and weapons, a completely original soundtrack, many fresh textures that add variety to the environments, and it's even given a story which explicitly places it chronologically after Dissolution of Eternity.
  • Arcane Dimensions, a collaborative mod that began development in 2015 and continued updating for years afterwards, is a spellbinding piece of work that vastly expands the scope of the game, adding in dozens of new enemies in addition to crafting enormous, incredibly detailed levels that are filled with dozens of secrets and can take upwards of 30 minutes to complete. Not for nothing, 2021's official Dimension of the Machine expansion takes quite a bit of inspiration from the mod.
  • Dwell, although still a work in progress (as of February 2023, two of four planned episodes have been released so far), is one of the best campaigns out there, featuring sprawling, extensively detailed maps featuring custom textures and music that improve upon the Lovecraftian atmosphere of the original, as well as new enemies, weapons and powerups. It also includes the popular Copper mod, which adds improvements upon the vanilla Quake gameplay.
• Rakenzarn Frontier Story: While Makoto Naegi is seen as the Messianic Archetype, an Iron Woobie, and the Hope Bringer, the other main characters such as Hajime Hinata and even his own sister are more interesting and compelling. This particular version is more three-dimensional combined his positive aspects with the aforementioned characters' aspects. His backstory and ultimately his personal goal only make him more endearing.
• Rayman Redemption: A majority of fans agree the game blows the original out of the water with its vastly better level design and extra content. The fact players finally fight Mr. Dark, which only happened in the obscure Game Boy Color version, is alone enough to convince most fans it trumps the original game.
• Resident Evil 4: The game's Ultimate HD Edition re-release on Steam, while leagues better than its 2007 PC port, some fans felt that the game's "enhanced" graphics and HD texture pack that Capcom provided did not do the game's justice. A pair of devoted fans and modders went above and beyond to create Resident Evil 4 HD Project over the course of 8 years to faithfully overhaul the game's graphics by tracking down the original real-life sources of various architecture and art across Spain and Wales while improving the game's models and lighting, fix environmental errors with game, and includes another fan-created plugin that fixes many smaller issues with the Steam port of the game to provide a remaster worthy of the "Ultimate HD" moniker and then some. Even Capcom themselves has essentially endorsed the mod by pinning the forum thread for the HD Project on Steam during its development.
• Rise of the Reds: Some tend to consider this mod as being better than Zero Hour, especially its attempts to rationalize its crazy plot.
• The Room: The Game: A lot of people consider this fan game superior to the film, as it is much funnier and actually explains some more things and has an ending that makes sense given how weird Johnny is.
• Shanghai.EXE: Genso Network: There's a consensus that this fangame's mechanics, level design, enemy design and story are on par with the most popular Mega Man Battle Network installments and that it's well worth a play even if one is not familiar with either Battle Network or Touhou. It's no wonder that once Capcom forced its cancellation it was leaked by a fan and then picked up by another developer to at least make it playable to the end.
• Silent Hill 2: With the controversies surrounding the HD Collection and the many issues it is plagued with, a community of modders took it upon themselves to fix the ailing 2002 PC port of the game with the Enhanced Edition project, which many Silent Hill fans has considered to be a superior alternative to the HD Collection's version of Silent Hill 2 as it not only remains faithful to Team Silent's original vision, but also restores many of the missing effects and features from the PlayStation 2 back into the PC version while adding various quality-of-life improvements (e.g. 60 FPS gameplay, support for HD and widescreen resolutions, refinements to controls on controllers as well as keyboard and mouse) that brings the PC version into Polished Port territory.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic Robo Blast 2: Some fans regard the fan game as better than most of the actual 3D Sonic games.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2006): Fan mods already could improve the game's loading times, mechanics and overall stability of the game thanks to it being coded in Lua script, but the Fan Remake of Sonic P-06 effectively renders the original game a museum piece. Using the Unity Engine, the creators rebuilt the entire game from the ground-up, being faithful yet simultaneously revamping nearly everything; from character animations and in-game scenes to have just a bit more polish and spirit, to individual character mechanics and refinement^note Since there are so many of these improvements, more details of those can be found on the game's own trope page above, and even adding extra options to make the game more like the Adventure titles in feel. That's not even getting to restoring a lot of previously-cut content and adding in brand-new unlockables; like a playable Super Sonic or original attainable upgrades for the main hedgehog trio. With all of the Trial Stages finished (and the remaining things well on the way), many consider it the perfect showcase of what Sonic '06 could have been.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog Megamix: A completely recoded ROM hack of the very first Sonic game, which features saves, four new characters besides just Sonic, a new soundtrack, new level art as well as secret fourth acts for each level, new moves and abilities, super forms, new bosses, and a load of other features such as a heavily expanded Sound Test, more options, and Time Attack modes (including a Boss Rush Mode). It's so good that people have likened it to a fifth 2D Sonic game, and or even a truer, better Sonic 4 than the official one. Became Hilarious in Hindsight after the announcement of the official Sonic Mania (which Stealth was also involved with), as that game went on to achieve the same goal.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble is considered one of the best titles of the Game Gear, but Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit is considered to be even better, as its appearance and gameplay make it closer to a Sega Genesis title, and some additions like Act 1 bosses and racing Special Stages make it a prolongation of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, or a Sonic 3.5. This last comparison can be put in parallel with Sonic CD which is considered as a Sonic 1.5 by players and by Sega for its gameplay that is a missing link between the first and second games.
• Star Trek Online used to have an in-game Level Editor called the Foundry. While a significant chunk of missions were completely plot-free XP, loot, or achievement grinders, high-end Foundry missions were frequently considered even better than official storyline missions, even sometimes impressing the developers. Unfortunately, persistent game breaking bugs and a lack of funding led to Cryptic Studios sunsetting the service on 11 April 2019.
• Stardew Valley:
  • Stardew Valley Expanded: Most players who have installed this mod generally agree that it greatly expands upon the world of Stardew Valley in such a way that it makes them feel as if they're experiencing it for the first time again. Also many players who preferred to side with Joja but lamented that it didn't have any significant impact in the story greatly praise this mod's expansion of the Joja route.
  • Ridgeside Village: One of the most common praises this mod gets is how the new romanceables keep a detailed schedule even after getting married, which makes them much more immersive than the ones from the base game. Another common praise is that because of the sheer new content it has, it could be even considered a sequel to the base game.
• Street Fighter:
  • Street Fighter II had a number of home console ports between the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis, but the Street Fighter II Remastered hack by Pyron for the Genesis Special Champion Edition effectively gives the game much more color variety, more detail and animations frames here and there, extra background details and so forth. While there a few non-authentic tweaks, like Guile's blinking animations for his idle stance, it's generally a better way to play the game than the vanilla release.
  • Street Fighter Alpha got a rather infamous if not ambitious Porting Disaster for Alpha 2 to the Super Nintendo, between audio problems and a tinny soundtrack, stiff controls and the infamous Loads and Loads of Loading in every match. Turns out that this was due to a coding error for that last part, and with an MSU-1 music patch you can not only fix the loading issues entirely, but also replace the soundtrack altogether with arranged or arcade music in full. While it doesn't fix some of the other issues with the port, it does help highlight that it's extraordinarily authentic and content-complete to an absurd degree for a fairly underpowered system by comparison to the CPS-2 arcade hardware.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario Land: Super Mario Land DX gives the game a much-needed update, giving it color, new graphics, and adding Luigi, making it a much preferred game over the original.
  • Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins: The enhancements made in the DX ROM hack have made it a considerable improvement in every way over the (already solid) Game Boy original.
• Sweet Half-Life: Some find this even better than the vanilla game, let alone the expansion packs.

Visual Novels

• Everlasting Summer:
  • 7 Days of Summer is one of the most popular mods, roughly based on early scripts for the novel. In terms of volume, it has not only long surpassed the original, but is one of the most text-heavy visual novels written in an Eastern European language — and is still largely incomplete. It offers a number of new quirks such as Multiple-Choice Past of the protagonist and route variations (for each girl, there is a brand new romantic route, as well as so-called "classic" and "original" routes), in addition to greatly expanding the lore of Everlasting Summer.
  • A well-regarded mod features a fictionalized version of Samantha Smith coming over to "Sovyonok". It is notable mostly for its writing, including a memorable event during which the entire camp Rhymes on a Dime, and on-point characterizations. Samantha herself went on to become an Ensemble Dark Horse of sorts — despite her being a fan-made character, she gets a good amount of Fan Art dedicated to her.
• Katawa Shoujo: There is an entire category of fanfiction devoted to building upon Shizune's route in order to make the very subtle emotional element of their relationship more apparent to readers. Shizune's Epilogue and Weekend at Hisao's are the best known examples and are considered by many to be some of the best Katawa Shoujo fanfics out there.
• Love Is Strange: A lot of players who criticized the original game for being too dark or turning out to be yet another "tragic lesbian love story" praise Love is Strange for being Lighter and Softer and having not one but four lesbian romance options, all of which can have happy endings.
• Steins;Gate 0: There is a faction among the fandom that considers the pre-release theory that Kagari is Kurisu's mother in a time loop to have been a better explanation for her and her time travel shenanigans than what we got.

Web Animation

• A Fox in Space: Many fans of the series appreciate the expanded backstories and characterization compared to the games, as well as more serious tone.
• Another Time, Another Story: Thinking the series is better than canon is the common reaction of people who saw the two-part series in which The Killer Critic describes how can Kingdom Hearts III be fixed. And they have good reasons to: the series gives Kairi time to shine (mostly by portraying her and Sora as a Battle Couple), it removes any Sequel Hook that convolutes the series further than Young Xehanort's time-travelling already did (such as Subject X, Yozora and the black box), and ends the Dark Seeker Saga with a clear Happily Ever After. The series also integrates the Disney worlds better than the game did.
• Emesis Blue: This film very quickly became lauded by fans upon its release, due to its surprisingly Darker and Edgier interpretation of the TF2 universe, and for being a far more serious story than most machinimas regarding the game. Some even not only consider it better than other fan-made projects, but even the base game itself.
• Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged:
  • This series does wonders for Reeve as a character. He's greatly fleshed out compared to his game counterpart, giving him several sympathetic moments and playing up his earnest attempts at trying to do good, even if most of them end in failure. This also applies to Cait Sith as he acts much more like an extension of Reeve's personality, as apposed to the disjointed robot reveal.
  • Cid being into BDSM with Shera as his Dominatrix manages to be one for their horribly one-sided and uncomfortable relationship in the original game, as it allows Cid to vent his otherwise legit frustrations with Shera without being the domestic abuser the original was. And when you factor in how BDSM is actually supposed to work, consent and communication-wise, it actually makes their relationship far healthier and more equal as a result, and arguably will make their reconciliation and later marriage more palpable for those who didn't like the idea of a domestic abused woman marrying her abuser, even if he stopped with the abuse.
  • For many, the Sissy Fight between Tifa and Scarlet in the original is a source of mockery, on top of being an annoyingly hard minigame with the only reward being the satisfaction of beating Scarlet's arrogant face to a pulp and nothing else, as well as the fact that Tifa doesn't need to simply resort to slapping Scarlet when she could just punch the arrogant bitch like the super-strong martial artist that she is. Here, though, she does just that when Scarlet demeans and slaps her one too many times, and off the cannon, no less.
  • Even if using the Huge Materia to blow up Meteor would have failed, shown by the failure to retrieve the piece in the rocket, there's very little justification for the party in the game to interfere with an idea that seemed like a pretty good at the time. Here, the idea is portrayed as the equivalent to detonating a nuke in the atmosphere, with all the horrific aftereffects implied to come with it, justifying the argument to take the materia before they can be used as magical nukes.
  • Some people think Yuffie was too much of a Karma Houdini for her actions during the Wutai sidequest and it was implied that she would have stolen the Materia again if she had the chance. While Yuffie doesn't get punished here, Tifa has a pep talk with her that actually sticks and Yuffie makes a genuine effort to make amends.
  • While The Turks are general really popular with the fandom, it has stuck out like a sore thumb that they, particularly Reno and Rude, end up being massive Karma Houdinis after their literal war crime of dropping a plate on Sector 7. At worst, the only punishment the Turks are forced to face is if the player pushes for an option boss fight with them in their final appearances, but even then the entire fight gets Played for Laughs. In the Big Damn Movie here, Reno and Rude are both remourseful for their past actions, even going through the proces of getting everyone's Ultimate Weapons off screen except for Cloud's. Even after all of that, Tifa particularly tells them they still aren't forgiven and they'll have to do more work to make up for all the lives they took.
  • As seen in Crisis Core, Sephiroth's Start of Darkness began when he realized mid-explanation that he too was infused with the same Mako energy that creates monsters and wonders if he was one himself. Given how smart Sephiroth was, he would have figured it out long before making the connection. Machinabridged's approach to this was having Sephiroth longing for his mother, who was named Jenova, and then Cloud (or rather, Zack) points out the name of Jenova at the reactor and that is the cause of his Sanity Slippage.
• Half Life: Side Story: Gaiden: HUNT DOWN FREE MAN: Many people have described the story as a massive improvement over Hunt Down the Freeman, due to its nature as a parody that overtly criticizes a lot of the writing choices of the game, while also oddly managing to improve on the story (primarily through skipping most of the parts that drag on, which results in a tighter experience, filling in plot holes, and elaborating upon elements of the story and characterization that the source material only briefly touched).
• Hunt Down the Freeman: Several feel that Half Life: Side Story: Gaiden: HUNT DOWN FREE MAN, a Troll Fic that showcases the story's events In the Style of Half-Life: Full Life Consequences, is a better execution of the game's narrative than the game itself.
• How It Should Have Ended:
  • Their parody of the Terminator/Back to the Future crossover is generally considered much better than the later Terminator films, and especially than Terminator Genisys, which had a very similar premise.
  • The HISHE Review of Justice League has a brief sequence, complete with pre-rendering, storyboards about how they believed Justice League would have turned out based on the Foreshadowing in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and many of the comments believe that their take i.e. a Superman Came Back Wrong being used by Steppenwolf and fighting the League before Lois brings him back, was a more interesting film than what actually got made, even if the producers make it clear that they weren't too keen on that direction, since it relied on "Evil Superman". Snyder's comments in a 2019 Q&A also confirmed that his original idea for the film was quite close to how HISHE saw it, making this cartoon the nearest facsimile — until the HBO Max version — to how Snyder's vision could have panned out.
  • There's a crowd that feel that the HISHE's rendition of The Last Jedi is better than the actual film, especially since Admiral Ackbar plays a greater role in some major plot points rather than be anticlimactically killed off when the bridge explodes and being replaced by Admiral Holdo, going so far as to perform her iconic Heroic Sacrifice instead and using his memetic line in the process and addressing idiot plot moments, notably Rose and Finn land the ship in the tall grass rather than on the beach so they don't get arrested for illegal parking. Lastly, the final battle has Luke and Rey actually battling and curb-stomping the AT-ATs by having Luke stopping their blasts and striking them back instead of Luke simply distracting Kylo Ren and the First Order by sending a force projection.
  • Several fans much preferred the adaptation of The Rise of Skywalker in which the Jedi past actually show up as physical Force ghosts to help fight Palpatine, including animated-originals Ahsoka Tano and Kanan Jarrus. They also got a real kick out of the Star Destroyers tipping over and knocking all of the space horses off the ship.
  • How Wonder Woman 1984 Should Have Ended had one of the endings remove the biggest controversy coming out of the film as Diana and Steve decide not to have sex with each other out of concern for a lack of consent from the Handsome Man's part. Many fans prefer if that were to happen within the actual film.
• If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device: Thanks to a combination of this series' interpretations of the universe's characters, plenty of catharsis to be derived from the hilarious dressing down of the ridiculously relentless torrent of grimdarkness that is the Warhammer 40K lore, the plentiful humor contrasting the normally grim tone of the home series, the extensive Character Development of both the original 40K veterans and TTS newbies, its interesting plot and more, many 40K fans have semi-seriously joked that they consider this series better than the source material.
• Jack Duripper:
  • In one Alternate Timeline from "Starduck Crusaders 2", Joseph is the one to beat DIO by using his Stand, Hermit Purple, to suddenly stop time. While DIO is frozen, Joseph imbues Hermit Purple with Hamon and fatally breaks him in half. Compared to him being curb-stomped by DIO in the original source material, and you'll understand why people preferred this ending.
  • An armless Muhammad Avdol's return in the "Golden Cringe" series as a supporting character was loved by viewers for his subdued comedy and surprising victories in battle. This is compared to his portrayal in Stardust Crusaders, where he did not have much to do in combat and was the first casualty near the end.
• Red vs. Blue: Many fans consider the increasingly dark and intricate plots to be better than those of Halo.
• Secret Histories (Mashed): Contains the Mega Man episode, which gives Dr. Wily a much more tragic backstory that many consider to be better than his official one^note Having built the Double Gear System to create robot superheroes, but turning evil after Dr. Light shut down his research.. His backstory being that Rock (his son in this version) had died and was revived by Dr. Light as a weaponized cyborg that Dr. Wily disowns and vows to distroy. Not only does this grayen the Black-and-White Morality of the games, but it also gives Dr. Wily more depth as a character.
• Sonic Villains: Depends on who you ask, but some of the characters who were more divisive in their source materials have been considered less so here:
  • Breakout Villain or not, there are fans out there who have expressed a strong dislike of Scourge the Hedgehog, such as arguing that he came off as too obnoxious, petty or power-hungry (and even implicitly abusive towards his romantic partners) to be considered a proper Shadow Archetype of the more easygoing Sonic, arguing that a lot of of his accomplishments in-universe came more as a result of luck or The Worf Effect than his own skills and effort, or finding his supposed Freudian Excuse of not getting enough attention from his father as too corny to properly humanize him compared to how his Sonic lost his family, friends and home to war from as young as the age of five. While this work doesn't change his canon personality that much, his more hateful or aggressive traits are toned down to mere Deadpan Snarker levels, he generally isn't taken seriously by the film or even the other villains in the cast (even Cubot finds him whiny), and his arrogant actions and attempts to be taken seriously more often than not result in self-inflicted misery. His portrayal here can arguably be compared to that of Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z Abridged: a Jerkass whose petty attitude and inferiority complex defines him as The Chew Toy of the cast.
  • Likewise, Rosy the Rascal didn't have much depth or development in the source material and was merely just a psychotic version of Amy obsessed with "smashing" everything in sight. Here, her character gets more time to be fleshed out besides her Yandere obsession with Scourge (and she's now able to hold a full conversation with him, anyways), it's implied that there's a budding Odd Friendship of sorts between her and characters like Naugus and Dark Oak, and she gains a full-on Villainous Friendship with the equally kooky Brainwashed!Sara.
  • In a Character Rerailment sense, the more unhinged and unrestrained traits Naugus had in both Archie continuities have been toned down, and acts more in line with his original portrayal from Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) as a playfully maniacal yet composed schemer. His Butt-Monkey elements from the post-reboot Archie continuity have also been toned down to about the same level as the rest of the cast.
  • MiiToons has expressed a desire to intentionally do this with Elise from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), through redesigning her with a more cartoony look, making her relationship with Sonic more of a friendship as opposed to an Interspecies Romance, and (through the help of her voice actress) giving her some additional energetic Genki Girl traits to emphasize her stronger will and desire to help out.
• The Spartan Legacy: The general consensus regarding The Spartan Legacy is that Chronicler177 should have written the story for Halo 5: Guardians, because "he would have done it right".
• Squimpus McGrimpus:
  • There's plenty of comments that praise the VHS videos as being more effective horror than the recent FNAF games, thanks to the intense atmosphere and ghastly imagery. Some even joke about Squimp's content being too frightening for the main series's younger Periphery Demographic to handle, due to being more used to the comparatively tame horror of FNAF.
  • Many fans call the VHS' portrayal of William Afton better (and scarier) than the canonical William Afton. In the games, Afton is more of a Immortality Seeker, who is sometimes depicted as a full-on Mad Scientist, with an Evil Brit accent. Here, however, Afton is a much more mundane and realistic Serial Killer who murders children because he can't murder his son Michael in revenge of his favorite son Joseph.
• Tolarian Community College: After Wizards debuted the trailer for their big 2019 set War of the Spark, the culmination of Magic's storyline for the past 10 years, the internet was... less than impressed by the wordless, soundless 60-second image piece focused on a candelabra. WOTC actually sent the trailer to the Professor and other YouTubers early to record and post reactions to it as a way to help promote the set. The prof used his time to actually storyboard a better trailer using the game's cards as visuals, acting them all out for the viewer. The corniness, meta jokes, and level of effort put into it made the Prof's trailer a hit among many online Magic communities.

Webcomics

• The 10 Doctors: Some have proclaimed this story the best Doctor Who tale never made. It helps that it's Armed with Canon and fits right between the tenures of Eight and Nine to an extent — and even manages to not conflict with the later War Doctor Retcon too much, if you squint a bit.
• Darths & Droids: Some believe the comic is better than the original films, even going so far as to say it has better story logic. It helps that some of the weird elements and blunders from the films are explained away by common aspects of a tabletop RPG (fumbling important rolls, derailing the intended plot, making up silly explanations on the fly). Special note must be made of the explanation offered for how the Ewoks (or Ewocs) were able to defeat the Imperial troops. There were different sets of combat rules for "primitive" and "high tech" settings, which were never meant to be used together. Which is how we have Ewoks outrunning laser blasts and destroying walkers using logs.
• Dragon Ball Multiverse:
  • Multiverse was made specifically to be a better sequel to Dragon Ball Z than Dragon Ball GT was, and for many fans it succeeded in its goal. Some also consider it to be better than Dragon Ball Super to the point of forming a Fandom Rivalry since it's more hotly debated.
  • An in-series example is Minicomic #57; where instead of Vegito divorcing Chi-Chi and marrying Bulma, Bulma and Chi-Chi steal his earrings and fuse together to be his wife. Many readers thought this version was more heartwarming and prefer it.
  • Many fans prefer Multiverse's retellings of several Toei films, such as the first two Broly movies and the first Cooler film. Cooler's Revenge is particularly notable, since Cooler actually puts up a terrific fight against Super Saiyan Goku in the DBM version instead of only using his Supernova.
  • It is generally agreed that the comic's interpretation of Raichi as a tragic Anti-Villain is a vast improvement over the cookie-cutter mad scientist he is in his anime of origin.
  • Pan was redesigned from her counterpart and her U18 incarnation is given more similarity to child Goku.
  • Babidi was The Scrappy in canon for being a whiny Dirty Coward who only got as far as he could due to others idiocy. Here, U11 Babidi is shown to be a much more competent villain who for the most part avoids grabbing the Villain Ball.
  • Within the comic itself, Arcady Picardi's brief draft of the battle against Majin Bra has its fans due to the fighters attacking Majin Bra all at once instead of following Mook Chivalry.
  • Within the comic itself, Argelios' edits of pages 1827-1829 are◊ seen◊ as◊ better than the original. In the official version, the characters (Gotenks in particular) shift all the blame onto Vegito for U16 Bra's actions and make him out to be the bad guy. In Argelios' edit, everyone is rational in discussing it, and Bra declares she's at fault and will accept whatever punishment they want to give her... after the tournament, because she still needs to win and fulfill her promise to Universe 19. Salagir himself saw these pages and praised them for being well-written, but said they aren't the direction they want to go.
• Inverted Fate: It's got all the charm and heart of Undertale, but it's longer. Frisk is a fleshed-out character instead of a silent protagonist, the great Papyrus is the secondary protagonist, and in general, a lot more character interaction is able to be shown with the comic not necessarily being limited to one perspective. It isn't difficult to see how it's viewed like this by many, especially with the characters and story being the main draws of the original game for a lot of people, and it even has its own soundtrack, another beloved aspect of the game, helping it further.
• Of Mice and Mayhem:
  • Not exactly few readers have stated that Of Mice and Mayhem outshines Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers both in story and art style. Story-wise, one may say this isn't even that difficult as CDRR is bound to restrictions ranging from in-house rules on what is allowed and what isn't to how much can be done in a 20-minute episode; there are even Rangerphiles who have openly declared that they're fans of CDRR fanfic rather than the show itself. And the art style comes from having been drawn by a professional illustrator rather than a self-taught amateur, with no time constraints no less, and also matching the story.
  • After the release of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022), some fans have said Of Mice and Mayhem is a better adaptation of Rescue Rangers than the movie.
• Square Root of Minus Garfield: Considering how long this comic has run, there are a fair amount of people that think it's better than original comic. Some strips, such as Silent-Era Garfield, take the basic idea of an existing Garfield comic and modify elements of it with the intent of improving the humor.
• Twilight's First Day: The official comics "canon" take on Twilight origins as a student is only remembered for its widely criticized portrayal of Celestia. Twilight's First Day, which fans had found remarkably similar despite it being years older, avoids this and has a level of effort and quality put into it that a one-shot comic could never be expected to compete with.
• Unchained (CapNBlood):
  • Many readers have cited their preference of how Fritz Von Stroheim was utilized in Unchained than in Steel Ball Run, they've also expressed they liked Fritz much more as the first villain than they did Steel Ball Run's Boom Boom Family.
  • Fans have said that they enjoyed the Weird Science battle much more than Steel Ball Run's Tomb Of The Boom battle.
• War of the Biju: Fans have compared it favorably to the original mainly due to more focus on the Konoha 12, all of whom are much stronger than they are in canon (all of them are strong enough to be Hokage — Naruto just happens to be the strongest and most reputable, not to mention the only one who really wants the job).
• With Pearl and Ruby Glowing: Fans seem pleased with how Chicken Little remains estranged from his father Buck, instead of forgiving him for the Parental Neglect and abuse he inflicted as in the movie.

Web Original

• Ask King Sombra: Many viewers see the blog as an improvement over Siege of the Crystal Empire, handling the same plot (King Sombra survived his 'death' and plans to try and retake the Empire while having a Morality Pet that makes him question his actions) with many similar plot points (Sombra is involved and influenced by another great evil who he in some way releases to launch a new attack on the Crystal Empire and performs a Heroic Sacrifice involving the Crystal Heart to put back down while redeeming himself, after which he's resurrected as a normal unicorn to live peacefully with said Morality Pet), but handles them much better and the plot makes much more sense.
• BashBots: A lot of fans consider the series better than BattleBots due to its judging system allowing non-spinners a better chance to win, not to mention the arena becoming bigger in season 4 compared to Battlebots adding the shelf.

Web Video

• Adult Wednesday Addams: Fans of the series tend to regard it as superior to some official entries in the Addams Family franchise, such as the Broadway musical (which featured a lovestruck Wednesday) and the 2019 animated film (which was criticized for taking a Lighter and Softer approach to the material).
• Arkham Patient Sessions: Most fans consider Black Mask’s portrayal better than most of Sionis’s portrayals in actual DC works.
• The Bible Reloaded: Their versions of Chick Tract storylines and characters are, unsurprisingly, better than the originals most of the time. Special mention goes to Harold Penisman from "The Last Generation."
• Brad Jones' Demo Reel: There have been comments on Snob's site and TGWTG forums that some fans feel this spoof is better than the actual Demo Reel.
• CellSpex: Her reenactments of The Emoji Movie and Strange Magic were widely praised as more entertaining than the actual thing.
• Dark Simpsons: Episodes of this series are widely considered by those who've watched them to be more interesting and creative than the post-Seasonal Rot Simpsons seasons. One of the better known examples is "Moe's Illegal Activities", which provides a different take on Homer's encounter with the panda.
• Dartigan: Says that the idea of Catherine being a figment of Vincent's imagination (which Charles had already postulated as a theory early on) would have been a better conclusion to the story than what the devs ended up going with.
• Death Note: The Abridged Series (kpts4tv): While some of the revelations are stupid-hilarious, like Raye being Gevanni or Soichiro actually being a Shinigami, making Light a Half-Human Hybrid or even that the entrance to the Shinigami World was Matsuda's sphincter, others do end up making for a more entertaining finale, with Near being a Shinigami himself and planning to take over the world, making Near a much more interesting character to some people.
• Digimon Adventure tri. Abridged: Many of the comments flat out state that the handling of Tai's PTSD and the constant Lampshade Hanging of certain critical issues^note i.e. the Forgotten Fallen Friend treatment that the ''02'' gang suffered from and the illogical Extra-Strength Masquerade on Digimon despite two global events happening on Earth made the overall plot more coherent than the original. And this is just from the first episode!
• Doctor Who Poop: Several viewers preferred the genuinely Happy Ending Amy and Rory got in this universe over their really bittersweet canon ending. It helps that it was one of the very few Doctor Who Poop videos which had nothing inappropriate in it and wasn't Played for Laughs.
• Dragon Ball DC: The series has been praised for its version of Goku's Character Development in comparison to his canon counterpart's Aesop Amnesia, giving him involvement in the arcs beyond showing up to defeat the villain at the end, while still giving more agency to the supporting characters. Raditz and Nappa getting more characterization and coming Back from the Dead was also praised as fans felt the two were wasted potential in canon.
• Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
  • Some fans have argued this due to the series' faster pacing (which was one of the main sources of Arc Fatigue), witty dialogue, Continuity Nod to the Expanded Universe (particularly towards the movies), voice acting that rivals and sometimes even surpasses the original dub, and the fact the series tends to make fun of certain glaring plot holes in the source material series and sometimes justifies a few of them in the abridged series. It should be noted, however, that TFS is adamantly (and occasionally vehemently) against the series being seen as this, as they have admitted multiple times that they do not think of DBZA as a replacement to the original nor do they want their fans to consider it as such.
  • In the Android arc, some scenes were either fleshed out more or just created to flow the story better. Notable examples includes Kami's final discussion with Piccolo before they merged, and Gero's last recorded message from his son, who in this series, was killed during Goku's assault on Red Ribbon HQ instead of a stray bullet. The Androids themselves are given an overarching theme of free-will, and Eighteen and Krillin are given more focus on their interest with one another, rather than it taking a side seat to everything else.
  • The fact that Nail and Kami both retain their consciousness as voices inside Piccolo's head after fusing with him, whereas in the original they simply vanished from the story to give him power boosts that ultimately didn't even amount to much, has been very well-received.
  • In the original series, Nappa only appeared in the Saiyan Saga and was mostly forgotten about, however TFS gave the character a MASSIVE boost in popularity due to his Adaptation Personality Change from a brutish oaf of a warrior into a completely idiotic Manchild whose lines are absolutely hilarious. He proved to be so popular that TFS even brought him back from the dead in this series!
  • Mr. Popo wasn't really disliked in the original series, but some considered him to be a rather Flat Character who didn't get a chance to do much and only existed to be a servant to Kami. Here however, he's given a great dose of Adaptational Villainy and is responsible for some of the scariest (and funniest) moments in the show, gaining him lots of fans.
  • Guru wasn't thought much of in the original series, but his Abridged counterpart is widely beloved due to his hilarious Adaptational Villainy and Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior! moments.
  • Quite a few fans find Recoome's pro-wrestler shtick to be much more entertaining and memorable than his canon counterpart, who was basically just a big, dumb brute with a Simpleton Voice.
  • Some found Android 19's voice to be much less annoying than it was in canon.
  • Chilled's characterization in canon is more or less Freeza who's just more eager to kill (which is saying something) and ultimately very forgettable. Therefore, his Cloudcuckoolander tendencies, amusingly high pitched voice and humorous dialogue made many enjoy him in the Abridged compared to the original negative response.
  • Although he was already somewhat popular before TFS got their hands on him, Dr. Wheelo's turn from a rather generic Mad Scientist into a giant Woobie and Adaptational Nice Guy was very well-liked.
• Fate Aprocrabridged: Several. In fact, the first three episodes have been consistently praised for expanding upon the source material.
  • The Hydra Venom being foreshadowed within the first few minutes of the first episode, eliminating the Ass Pull that the anime had for original.
  • Berserker/Frankenstein's Monster getting her own voice via telepathy and being able to articulate her feelings and thoughts directly, giving her more character development in the first few minutes of the second episode than the entire series.
  • Letecia is present in the series and she and Jeanne have an established rapport in their head ala Yu-Gi-Oh!, as well as a connection to Mr. Serge. This expands on her character, who originally appeared and voiced herself in the last few episodes of the anime.
  • Many fans reported disgust at how skimpy Jack's outfit was, especially on a young girl, and expressed relief towards BlueDrakmaVa editing her outfit to something more akin to a jumpsuit and far more befitting an assassin.
  • Celenike (Astolfo/Rider's Master) is actually referenced by name and her more disturbing scenes are altered, making her a bit more bearable than the anime while still getting her sadistic nature across.
  • Episode 4 used footage of Karna and Arjuna fighting (specifically from the PV for Fate/Grand Order’s fifth singularity), which was done to connect Apocryphabridged!Karna to Arjuna, a change that was praised for including a character pivotal to Karna’s backstory that was never so much as acknowledged in the original show.
• Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] Abridged: Fans have had positive reactions about this show's ability to draw more explicit parallels and plot continuations from Fate/Zero in ways the original UBW anime failed to do.
• Freshy Kanal: If trope-codifying Epic Rap Battles of History is taken as "canon", a few of Freshy's interpretations of characters ended up better received than ERB's, like Freddy Krueger or Bruce Banner.
• GoAnimate: Some could argue that the Caillou in the "Grounded" videos is a great deal more entertaining than the original show, thanks in part due to their So Bad, It's Good nature as well as Caillou's seemingly godlike powers until karma catches up to him. Compare that to the original Caillou, who's considered by many to be much more annoying and an immature Spoiled Brat (at least in the early seasons).
• The Joker Blogs: "Near-Death Experience", and most especially its dream-state psych ward scenes, is quite possibly the greatest portrayal ever done, be it novels or comics, never mind officially licensed films, of the emergence of Harley Quinn. That the material was produced for an indie YouTube channel is almost...jarring, to truly realize.
• Hellsing Ultimate Abridged:
  • There's a small but noticeable portion of the internet that feels that TFS and (in particular) Takahata's version of Alucard's character is far more entertaining than the canon Alucard or the official dub (which wasn't what you'd call half-assed either).
  • The Abridged Series' portrayal of the Catholic Church is surprisingly much more nuanced than in the source material, with Maxwell being given some minor redeeming qualities and a clarification that he was supported by fundamentalists rather than the real Papal Knights.
  • Alucard's "death" at Schrodinger's hands is explained differently than canon and some feel it makes more sense. In canon, Schrodinger could revive and teleport so long as he "recognized himself" and being consumed by Alucard made that impossible, causing them both to cease to exist. In abridged, Schrodinger's powers only work so long as "he is unobserved"^note Notably, Schrodinger only revives and/or disappears while offscreen, making Schrodinger a walking quantum superposition of both existing and not existing at the same time. Being consumed by Alucard resulted in Alucard truly observing him, forcing the Schrodinder's superposition to collapse into either existence or non-existence, taking Alucard with him. The Major acknowledges that this plan only had a 50/50 chance of causing Alucard to vanish.
  "I CALLED HEADS!"
  • Many people thought that Rip Van Winkle's death in her home series was uncomfortable, with it being portrayed with rape undertone ^note  She was pinned with multiple hands, unable to do anything and afraid for her life as he slowly and tauntingly took his time licking up her blood as it dripped out her body before finally biting her, which she blushes at. Here, he only taunts her long enough to deliver his Pre-Mortem One-Liner, then just impales her and is done with it.
• How To Fix Kingdom Hearts:
  • As it gives Kairi a major role, removes the convolution caused by Xehanort's time-traveling, and integrates the Disney characters in more major battles (the battle for Hollow Bastion in KH1, the Battle of 1000 Heartless in KH2), many fans consider this series an improvement over the original.
  • The series fixes the Dark Is Not Evil Aesop, which is extremely broken in the games. In the games, pretty much all problems were caused by darkness, examples of pure light (the Princesses of Heart, Ventus) are purely good and the closest examples of Light Is Not Good are Eraqus, whose Black-and-White Morality was justified multiple times, and the Master of Masters, who is so ambiguous no one can say where his allegiances lie. Here, light does cause problems, courtesy of Xemnas, who is a heart of pure light, and the games' examples of hearts of pure light now also have darkness in their hearts, to emphasize better that light and darkness are a balance that must be kept at all times, and evil is caused by upsetting the balance in favor of either light or darkness (Xemnas is a heart of pure light, and he's just as bad, if not worse than in the games). In fact, the problems caused by the Heartless can be pinned on the light, since the Heartless are merely trying to fight back against the tyranny of light that oppressed and tortured them.
  • Xehanort was also fixed a lot; a lot of Franchise Original Sin were tied to it.
    First, the reveal that his dark side, Ansem, is the first game's Big Bad is actually foreshadowed him, with him replacing Maleficent in some scenes, including the one introducing the Disney Villain Council.
    Second, in Crypto's series, there's no character really named "Ansem". Dark Seeker Ansem was a false identity made by Xehanort, and Ansem the Wise underwent Adaptation Name Change, now being named Gnosis.
    Third, he is unable to time travel in Crypto's series, and Young Xehanort was turned into a Living Memory.
    Finally, what outraged nearly everyone is that Xehanort was retconned in the last minute of his life into a Well-Intentioned Extremist and got no comeuppance to his atrocities, including killing Kairi right before the retcon. In Crypto's series, only Ansem and Xemnas needed comeuppance, which they get, and Xehanort himself is a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds Fallen Hero.
• Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: The Abridged Series: Many viewers, jokingly or otherwise, have expressed this opinion of Kamen Rider Ghost: The Dead Abridged Series in the comments compared to the largely fan-reviled source material, especially its take on Takeru.
• NoPixel: It's so far outside of the Grand Theft Auto V canon that there's elements and characters completely foreign to the source game, and if you watch NoPixel long enough you really come to miss them when returning to a vanilla GTA V. The Lost MC and Vagos are in GTA V, but you won't see the Bondi Boys, Chang Gang, Cleanbois, HOA, or Mandem there.
• The Overlord Abridged series made by the NUMBSKULLS team does such an impressive job of improving the original characterizations that a good deal of people have grown to like this variation of Overlord more than the vanilla variation, for various reasons such as making Ainz a better character than he is shown to be in the original for instance. Unfortunately, much like the Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged series before it, the Overlord Abridged series has been plagued by various strikes/episode takedowns, but they're still dedicated on continuing their series however they can and their work clearly shows solid dedication.
• Pea Tea 64: One fan said that PT should buy the Mega Man franchise in the future and make various Mega Man movies and games, but from the villains’ perspectives. Keep in mind, this was in 2011, one year after Keiji Inafune left Capcom, so the Mega Man series was believed to be doomed, and all the Mega Man fans could hope for was for someone who truly cared about the franchise to buy the rights.
• The Pop Arena: At the end of most of his Goosebumps reviews, he gives suggestions on how he would re-write the book if given the chance. A lot of the people agree that they tend to be improvements on the story.
• Reviving Bionicle: Despite it being a deconstruction of the Bionicle franchise and its fandom, meaning there's no connection to the main series continuity, there are plenty who find the series to be better written and more entertaining than the official Bionicle movies LEGO put out.
• Sonic Limited Edition: The Lost Cartridge: Most people agree that the series is much better than the original Sonic.exe Creepypasta.
• Sonic The Abridgehog: The handling of Chris' character in the series has been generally considered to be done much better than in the original Sonic X. This is due to changing his role from an unrelatable everyman to an Only Sane Man, as well as giving his personal life more clearly established problems.
• Super Mario 64: CLASSIFIED: Although the official explanation for the Eternal Star as it appears in the ending of "Promo show" is that the statue is made from Luigi himself, presumably through his singularity data and the Internal Castle Plexus, the alternative theory that the statue is instead a more traditional Shrine to the Fallen or tombstone, albeit one still erected by the AI is a more popular interpretation to the point where Greenio herself admits this to be a better version of events.
• Many people have found the changes in Sword Art Online Abridged to be a massive improvement over the original.
  • One of the big improvements is the characterization; in the original, protagonist Kirito is often critized for being "too bland" and is often described as an "Overpowered Gary Stu", while his abridged self undergoes a character arc about overcoming his Jerkassery and becoming a better, mentally stronger person, and the death of Sachi actually affects him beyond the story she appears in. For another example, Asuna also goes from "badass fighter who undergoes Chickification" to continuing to be feisty and unstable, and her relationship with Kirito feels more natural. Suguha has her Big Brother Attraction arc toward Kirito, generally seen as gross fetish fuel, replaced with a more gripping one about two siblings growing to hate each other because of their twisted home environment. And minor, one-note characters are given personalities to make them more memorable.
  • Another frequent criticism of the original is a lack of understanding as to how a game actually works and using it as more of a setting backdrop (the light novel author outright admitted to not being much of a gamer), resulting in the in-universe games containing baffling design decisions^note As explained by Mother's Basement that would make a real MMO far less fun than portrayed. This series makes the in-universe game more like an actual game and ties it to real gaming culture, using the design flaws to portray the games as horribly designed and buggy and satirizing practices like "crunch time", along with making the whole reason behind the "Players dying when their Avatars die" of the setting being the result of a Game-Breaking Bug that Kayaba in a fit of Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy accidentally created; and him trapping the gamers inside as both a case of I Meant to Do That and to use the playerbase as hostages against the cops until he could find a way out of this Snowball Lie he created.
  • The series fixes some of the Ass Pull moments; for example, Asuna somehow breaking out of admin paralysis through Heroic Willpower is far more believable when SAO is extensively established as a hopelessly broken mess.
  • The Fairy Dance arc is perhaps the prime example of this. In the original series, the arc is considered, even by fans, to be the low point of the series, with bland or annoying characters, the aforementioned Chickification of Asuna and Big Brother Attraction of Suguha, a nonsensical Player Versus Player faction war that gets treated like a real war despite presumably just being role-playing, some gratuitous fanservice scenes, and more. The abridged version gives the side characters more interesting and varied personalities, reworks the roles of Asuna and Suguha, gives the faction war a more believable reason for existing, and generally makes the arc one that fans want to see more of.
• The Templin Institute: Plenty of people have preferred their reimagined takes on the First Order, the New Republic and the war between them to those of the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
• The Ten Doctors: The series makes an excellent piece of complementary material to the show, as it manages to explain away some Plot Holes and answer some lingering questions present in Doctor Who. Many viewers also preferred this version of the (already awesome) "Saving Gallifrey" scene, as it explains how the Doctor's various incarnations came together to do this and gives the Classic Series-era incarnations a larger role.
• Ultra Fast Pony: A sizable number of fans seriously prefer this series to the actual show.
• Unicorn Of War Winx Club Rewrite Series: The rewrites have been very well received and many fans consider them superior than the canonical seasons.
• Vision of Escaflowne Abridged: A lot of YouTube comments say the Abridged ending is better than the series' actual ending.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V The Abridged Series: There are a lot of comments saying that they like the voice cast of this series compared to the English Dub. Some of the notable ones are Yuya's and Reiji's.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series:
  • How some feel all the hilarious dialogue and constant lampshading make the original look boring and nonsensical by comparison (even more so if you think the 4Kids dub was already bad). Some fans unofficially consider TAS the "definitive" version of the YGO anime, which may be one reason why Konami started officially exporting the uncensored Japanese version of the actual series (as a possible attempt to break its Animation Age Ghetto and "narmy bowdlerization" stigma), to the point that TAS and the official anime cross-promote each other.
  • The show is also praised for giving various characters more unique personalities (like Tristan and Dartz) and name changes (such as naming Yami Bakura "Florence" and calling Yami Marik "Melvin").
  • The show has been praised for Yami Yugi's character arc in season four. While both iterations of the character share the same Fatal Flaw of pride, in the original anime it was never truly treated as something he had to work on after season one. This made his Face–Heel Turn in his duel with Raphael come out of left field since there was nothing at stake at the time. This also made Raphael's claims that he could have been a wicked pharaoh odd since Yami had spent series as a kind, heroic character who had his moments of Good Is Not Nice at the worst of times. The abridged series always exaggerated his pride and made him much more of a Jerkass at best, Heroic Comedic Sociopath at worst. This ends up making Raphael's claims a little easier to swallow, and his Face–Heel Turn more in character. Later on, Dartz's breaking speech is so effective because he's absolutely right.

Western Animation

• Puppy in My Pocket: Adventures in Pocketville: Some people have argued that fan works such as Nihonverse Pocketville and Pocketville Lost Diamonds are leagues better than the canon show they're based on, considering them "rewrites" of the show.
• Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa: YouTube user The Slinky Kid managed to make a vastly improved version of the special. It's only in animatic form, but it succeeds in both looking better and trimming down a lot of the padding to give the special a more streamlined plot. Not to mention it makes Nicole's botched Character Development look considerably more believable.
• While Steven Universe: Future has its fans, there are many who find the idea of exploring Steven's poor mental health a little too depressing. Steven Universe: Alternate Future explores the same topic while also being acclaimed for exploring more of Steven's universe, expanding on characters who were given little screentime, introducing well-written new ones, and overall staying true to the spirit of the series while going to much darker places than it did.
  • The characterization of Mean Lapis and Nice Lapis have been warmly received for giving them more character than in their original debut episode.
  • One review says "Eye in the Sky" should've been an actual episode for its focus on Nephrite and the corrupted Gems.
  • "Cracks and Buds" has been praised by one review on Tumblr who found the concept of merging two episodes focusing on those affected by Pink Diamond very interesting.

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