History TheArtifact / VideoGames

*** The title sequence shows Raccoon Mario shrink when hit with a Koopa shell despite being no longer on par within the actual gameplay for most releases. For the original Japanese release, as with the first two games, players shrunk down to Mini Mario upon damage regardless of their power-ups. The international NES release introduced a more lenient mechanic where damage in any form above Super only brings the player one step down to Super Mario before shrinking with the next hit. The remakes (both international and Japanese) have retained the more lenient game mechanic, but the demo title sequence has remained unchanged with every game release ever since.

** Many vehicles that were initially part of the technological tree of a nation, but were later discontinued for several reasons. In most cases, this happened when these vehicles were representatives of a different country that later got its own tree, but there are also some instances of vehicles from the same nation. Players who unlocked them back in the day could keep them and even today they can appear in battle. Some examples:

*** The title sequence shows Raccoon Mario shrink when hit with a Koopa shell despite being no longer on par within the actual gameplay with most releases. For the original Japanese release, as with the first two games, players shrunk down to Mini Mario upon damage regardless of their power-ups. The international NES release introduced a more lenient mechanic where damage in any form above Super only brings the player one step down to Super Mario before shrinking with the next hit. The remakes (both international and Japanese) have retained the more lenient game mechanic, but the demo title sequence has remained unchanged with every game release ever since.

*** The title sequence shows Raccoon Mario shrink when hit with a Koopa shell, despite no longer being on par within actual gameplay. For the original Japanese release, as with the first two games, players always shrink down to Mini Mario upon damage regardless of their power-ups. The international NES release introduced a more lenient mechanic where damage while in any form above Super only brought the player one step down to Super Mario before shrinking for the next hit. The remakes (both international and Japanese) have retained the more lenient game mechanic, but the demo title sequence has remained unchanged with every release of the game ever since.

** You get points for doing things in the original ''Super Mario Bros.'' These have absolutely no impact on gameplay (even players in the 80s noticed this), but it was a VideoGame, and [[ScoringPoints video games have points]]! ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' and the ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'' series still have points, despite the fact the game doesn't keep track and the way it's designed, the ''worse'' you do, the ''higher'' your score will be. The 3D games up to and including ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DLand'' merge them with Coins so you'll be [[Every10000Points rewarded with a 1-Up if you do well enough]] and most of them also add high scores, adding incentive, but later games, including the sequel ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld'' restore them while still keeping the high scores for incentive. Points were finally abolished after so many years in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosWonder'', where they were replaced with short compliment texts like "Good" and "Great" when you beat enemies.

** You get points for doing things in the original ''Super Mario Bros.'' These have absolutely no impact on gameplay (even players in the 80s noticed this), but it was a VideoGame, and [[ScoringPoints video games have points]]!
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' and the ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros'' series still have points, despite the fact the game doesn't keep track and the way it's designed, the ''worse'' you do, the ''higher'' your score will be. The 3D games up to and including ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DLand'' merge them with Coins so you'll be [[Every10000Points rewarded with a 1-Up if you do well enough]] and most of them also add high scores, adding incentive, but later games, including the sequel ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld'' restore them while still keeping the high scores for incentive.

** Talking of the anime, one of the running gags of the series is taken straight from there. The Poké Ball item can release a Goldeen as a [[JokeItem dud pick]], where the Goldeen does nothing but flop around helplessly using Splash. In [[Anime/PokemonTheSeries the anime]], this was a joke introduced in the second episode of the series where Misty's Goldeen, being a fish, was completely ineffective out of water. However, given that limitation, Goldeen was never a prominent Pokémon in the anime, appearing in only a handful of episodes and vanishing when Misty did. Within the games, meanwhile, Goldeen has been similarly lacking in presence since its debut, and it's possibly one of ''the'' least remembered Kanto Pokémon - at best, it's remembered as the Pokémon that evolves into Seaking, which has since become memetic [[MemeticBadass just for being Seaking]]. What's more, the games ''also'' have a fish Pokémon that's iconic in the fanbase for [[JokeCharacter being useless and using Splash]] -- Magikarp -- and neither of those traits are associated with Goldeen, which is fairly ordinary statistically and can't learn Splash. Because of this, many fans who don't remember or never saw the early episodes of the anime are very confused why Goldeen in ''Smash'' seems to be stealing Magikarp's schtick.

** The 2023 ''Ludicrous Edition'' remaster retains the original game's "Engine-Killing Gibs" cheat code. At the time of it's 1994 release, the game's signature LudicrousGibs could already push [=CPUs=] of the age to the limit, and said cheat made every enemy death animation use the bloody explosions complete with gib effects. As the name suggests, this could very easily lag the hell out of the game or even crash it out right. Years after it's release though, stronger processors have come about and PC hardware has evolved considerably, and a basic 2010s rig can likely run ten instances of the original game all at once with the cheat turned on. The remaster runs on a new, much stronger engine that renders the "Engine-Killing" part of the cheat's name a complete misnomer, but it keeps the cheat for nostalgia purposes.

* Fighting games do use this trope every now and then. ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters'' is one of the bigger offenders -- any character from series such as ''VideoGame/FatalFury'' and ''VideoGame/ArtOfFighting'' that weren't DemotedToExtra got this. Terry Bogard, despite his iconic reputation in ''SNK'', has been accused of being "just there" lately over the years just to appease older fans (and some think that's the real reason why the ShipTease with him and Blue Mary isn't done so much anymore). There is also Mai Shiranui, who remains one of the most popular characters of the series, but nowadays only even has an excuse to show up because of her eternally-unrequited love for Andy Bogard.

** In the first game, Altair's hooded white outfit [[LostInACrowd helped him to blend in with the local scholars]], who wore similar garb. After that point, it became the IconicOutfit of the series, leading many assassins in something similar, despite it [[HighlyVisibleNinja no longer making sense as something used to blend in.]] After ''II'', the ability to hide in a crowd became something you could do anywhere with any group of civilians, creating the question of why the pursuing guards can't pick out the only guy wearing a bright white CoatCape with [[InTheHood the hood drawn up]].

* The game was [[DivorcedInstallment supposed to be an installment]] of the ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein}}'' series, specifically a sequel to ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D''. The original plot was that [[{{Ghostapo}} the Triad was an ancient evil cult that had been involved with the Nazis]], and after World War II, they built a hideout in the Channel Islands with the intend of destroying American cities, forcing the United Nations to send a team called HUNT, led by B.J. Blazcowitz, to stop them. After it was turned into its own game, all the parts of the plot referencing ''Wolfenstein'' and the Nazis were removed: B.J. became Taradino Cassatt, and the Triad became simply an ancient evil cult with no Nazi connections. However, this happened too late to make any real changes to the enemies, and so they retained all the signs that clearly suggest they were meant to be Nazis--they wear military uniforms (claimed to be surplus ''Korean'' uniforms), [[PuttingOnTheReich about half of them are in coal-scuttle helmets and the other half are wearing black dress caps]], and their most common weapon drop is an [=MP40=], a submachine gun associated heavily with the regime.
** The 2023 ''Ludicrous Edition'' remaster retains the original game's "Engine-Killing Gibs" cheat code. At the time of it's 1994 release, the game's signature LudicrousGibs could already push CPUs of the age to the limit, and said cheat made every enemy death animation use the bloody explosions complete with gib effects. As the name suggests, this could very easily lag the hell out of the game or even crash it out right. Years after it's release though, modern processors have come about and PC hardware has evolved considerably. The remaster runs on a new engine that renders the "Engine-Killing" part of the cheat's name a complete misnomer, but it keeps the cheat for nostalgia purposes.

* ''VideoGame/RiseOfTheTriad'' was [[DivorcedInstallment supposed to be an installment]] of the ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein}}'' series, specifically a sequel to ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D''. The original plot was that [[{{Ghostapo}} the Triad was an ancient evil cult that had been involved with the Nazis]], and after World War II, they built a hideout in the Channel Islands with the intend of destroying American cities, forcing the United Nations to send a team called HUNT, led by B.J. Blazcowitz, to stop them. After it was turned into its own game, all the parts of the plot referencing ''Wolfenstein'' and the Nazis were removed: B.J. became Taradino Cassatt, and the Triad became simply an ancient evil cult with no Nazi connections. However, this happened too late to make any real changes to the enemies, and so they retained all the signs that clearly suggest they were meant to be Nazis--they wear military uniforms (claimed to be surplus ''Korean'' uniforms), [[PuttingOnTheReich about half of them are in coal-scuttle helmets and the other half are wearing black dress caps]], and their most common weapon drop is an [=MP40=], a submachine gun associated heavily with the regime.

** The premise of ''VideoGame/StreetFighter1'' involved Ryu or Ken travelling the world to fight a diverse cast of martial artists. In ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'', Ryu and Ken returned to take on a whole new set of fighters, with a new twist that the other characters were playable too (essentially inventing the FightingGame genre). After several years of {{Updated Rerelease}}s and the prequel series ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha'', 1997 saw the release of ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'', returning to the original premise of the series in which Ryu and Ken would take on a completely different set of new fighters. But by that point, the characters introduced in ''II'' had become iconic in their own right (Chun-Li, Guile, E. Honda, etc.), and their absence caused an outcry. It didn't help that ''II'' had ''vastly'' overshadowed ''1'' in popularity and most people didn't know that ''II'' itself had a different cast from the original, with only Ryu, Ken, and former FinalBoss Sagat returning. As a result, Creator/{{Capcom}} brought back some of the older characters for ''III's'' own updated rereleases, and future sequels would have a combination of new characters, franchise staples that appear in almost every game, and less iconic characters that are rotated in and out.

** Though Yoshi and Donkey Kong have received updates in the multiplayer/sports games to resemble their appearances in their home series, Wario still remains in his original outfit. The ''Super Smash Bros.'' series debuted him in his biker outfit from his home series, and while ''Smash 64'' was the first multiplayer game to change Yoshi's 2D sound effects to his VA from ''Yoshi's Story'', eventually that changed in the sports games, starting with ''Mario Tennis 64''. But Wario's outfit, despite changing for ''[=WarioWare=]'', is still the same as the original in the sports games.

** The premise of ''VideoGame/StreetFighter1'' involved Ryu or Ken travelling the world to fight a diverse cast of martial artists. In ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'', Ryu and Ken returned to take on a whole new set of fighters, with a new twist that the other characters were playable too (essentially inventing the FightingGame genre). After several years of {{Updated Rerelease}}s and the prequel series ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha'', 1997 saw the release of ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'', returning to the original premise of the series in which Ryu and Ken would take on a completely different set of new fighters. But by that point, the characters introduced in ''II'' had become iconic in their own right (Chun-Li, Guile, E. Honda, etc.), and their absence caused an outcry. It didn't help that ''II'' had ''vastly'' overshadowed ''1'' in popularity and most people didn't know that ''II'' itself had a different cast with only Ryu, Ken, and former FinalBoss Sagat returning. As a result, Creator/{{Capcom}} brought back some of the older characters for ''III's'' own updated rereleases, and future sequels would have a combination of new characters, franchise staples that appear in almost every game, and less iconic characters that are rotated in and out.

** The premise of ''VideoGame/StreetFighter1'' involved Ryu or Ken travelling the world to fight a diverse cast of martial artists. In ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'', Ryu and Ken returned to take on a whole new set of fighters, with a new twist that the other characters were playable too, essentially inventing the FightingGame genre. After several years of {{Updated Rerelease}}s and the prequel series ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha'', ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' came out in 1997, returning to the original premise of the series in which Ryu and Ken would take on a completely different set of new fighters. But by that point, the characters introduced in ''II'' had become iconic in their own right (Chun-Li, Guile, Dhalsim, etc.), and their absence caused an outcry. It didn't help that ''II'' had ''vastly'' overshadowed ''1'' in popularity and most people didn't know that ''II'' itself had a completely different cast from ''1'' with only Ryu, Ken, and former FinalBoss Sagat returning. As a result, Creator/{{Capcom}} brought back some of the older characters for ''III's'' own updated rereleases, and future sequels would have a combination of new characters, franchise staples that appear in almost every game, and less iconic characters that are rotated in and out.

** The premise of ''VideoGame/StreetFighter1'' involved Ryu or Ken travelling the world to fight a diverse cast of martial artists. In ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'', Ryu and Ken returned to take on a whole new set of fighters, with a new twist that the other characters were playable too, essentially inventing the FightingGame genre. After several years of {{Updated Rerelease}}s and the prequel series ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha'', ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' came out in 1997, returning to the original premise of the series in which Ryu and Ken would take on a completely different set of new fighters. But by that point, the characters introduced in ''II'' had become iconic in their own right (Chun-Li, Guile, Dhalsim, etc.), and their absence caused an outcry. It didn't help that ''II'' had ''vastly'' overshadowed ''1'' in popularity and most people didn't know that ''II'' itself had a completely different cast from ''1'' with only Ryu, Ken, and former FinalBoss Sagat returning. As a result, Creator/{{Capcom}} brought back some of the older characters for ''III'' own updated rereleases, and future sequels would have a combination of new characters, franchise staples that appear in almost every game, and less iconic characters that are rotated in and out.

** The premise of ''VideoGame/StreetFighter1'' involved Ryu or Ken travelling the world to fight a diverse cast of martial artists. In ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'', Ryu and Ken returned to take on a whole new set of fighters, with a new twist that the other characters were playable too, essentially inventing the FightingGame genre. After several years of {{Updated Rerelease}}s and the prequel series ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha'', ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' came out in 1997, returning to the original premise of the series in which Ryu and Ken would take on a completely different set of new fighters. But by that point, the characters introduced in ''II'' had become iconic in their own right (Chun-Li, Guile, Dhalsim, etc.), and their absence caused an outcry. It didn't help that ''SF2'' had ''vastly'' overshadowed ''1'' in popularity and most people didn't know that ''2'' itself had a completely different cast from ''1'' with only Ryu, Ken, and former FinalBoss Sagat returning. As a result, Creator/{{Capcom}} brought back some of the older characters for ''SF3's'' own updated rereleases, and future sequels would have a combination of new characters, franchise staples that appear in almost every game, and less iconic characters that are rotated in and out.

** The premise of ''VideoGame/StreetFighter1'' involved Ryu and Ken travelling the world taking on a diverse cast of martial artists. In ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'', Ryu and Ken returned to fight a whole new set of fighters, with a new twist that the other characters were playable too, essentially inventing the FightingGame genre. After several years of {{Updated Rerelease}}s and the prequel series ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha'', ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' came out in 1997, returning to the original premise of the series in which Ryu and Ken would take on a completely different set of new fighters. But by that point, the characters introduced in ''II'' had become iconic in their own right (Chun-Li, Guile, Dhalsim, etc.), and their absence caused an outcry. It didn't help that ''SF2'' had ''vastly'' overshadowed ''1'' in popularity and most people didn't know that ''2'' itself had a completely different cast from ''1'' with only Ryu, Ken, and former FinalBoss Sagat returning. As a result, Creator/{{Capcom}} brought back some of the older characters for ''SF3's'' own updated rereleases, and future sequels would have a combination of new characters, franchise staples that appear in almost every game, and less iconic characters that are rotated in and out.

** The premise of the first ''VideoGame/StreetFighter1'' involved Ryu and Ken travelling the world taking on various street fighters. In ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'', Ryu and Ken returned to take on a whole new set of fighters, with a new twist that the other characters were playable too, essentially inventing the FightingGame genre. After several years of {{Updated Rerelease}}s and the prequel series ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha'', ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' came out in 1997, returning to the original premise of the series in which Ryu and Ken would take on a completely different set of new fighters. But by that point, the characters introduced in ''II'' had become iconic in their own right (Chun-Li, Guile, Dhalsim, etc.), and their absence caused an outcry. It didn't help that ''SF2'' had ''vastly'' overshadowed ''1'' in popularity and most people didn't know that ''2'' itself had a completely different cast from ''1'' with only Ryu, Ken, and former FinalBoss Sagat returning. As a result, Creator/{{Capcom}} brought back some of the older characters for ''SF3's'' own updated rereleases, and future sequels would have a combination of new characters, franchise staples that appear in almost every game, and less iconic characters that are rotated in and out.

** The premise of the first ''VideoGame/StreetFighter'' involved Ryu and Ken travelling the world taking on various street fighters. In ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'', Ryu and Ken returned to take on a whole new set of fighters, with a new twist that the other characters were playable too, essentially inventing the FightingGame genre. After several years of {{Updated Rerelease}}s and the prequel series ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha'', ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' came out in 1997, returning to the original premise of the series in which Ryu and Ken would take on a completely different set of new fighters. But by that point, the characters introduced in ''II'' had become iconic in their own right (Chun-Li, Guile, Dhalsim, etc.), and their absence caused an outcry. It didn't help that ''SF2'' had ''vastly'' overshadowed the original ''Street Fighter'' in popularity and most people didn't know that ''2'' itself had a completely different cast from ''1''. As a result, Creator/{{Capcom}} brought back some of the older characters for ''SF3's'' own updated rereleases, and future sequels would have a combination of new characters, franchise staples that appear in almost every game, and less iconic characters that are rotated in and out.
* In spin-off game ''Super Puzzle Fighter II'', there are various comedic cutscenes in the game. One of them involves Ken throwing a Shoryuken at Ryu, only to fall into a hole, to both their surprise. In the original game, Ken's stage was based on his back-alley stage from ''Street Fighter Alpha'', and the hole he stepped in was a manhole. However, the HD remake gives Ken a new stage set on a beach, but the cutscene is otherwise unchanged, meaning Ken falls into a circular hole in the middle of a beach for no evident reason.

* Of the cast of ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'', the one character who's never really broken out is E. Honda, the sumo wrestler. While he's by no means unpopular, he has essentially nothing to do with the series' overall metaplot, has never reached the status of BreakoutCharacter like the other fighters have, and his overall character and concept has fallen far into the background. But he can't really be dropped from the series, strictly because he's one of the original twelve fighters (and among the initial eight playable World Warriors) from the series' most iconic game, and fans don't find the roster complete without him.

* The ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom'' games have the Sentinel, who first appeared in ''VideoGame/XMenChildrenOfTheAtom'' as one of the playable villains. This made a lot of sense in an X-Men fighting game, and it made equal sense to add him to ''MVC'' when the games were already [[MissionPackSequel recycling so much]], especially with ''2'' being a DreamMatchGame featuring ''everyone'' from series history (thus also explaining the inclusion of Spiral, Silver Samurai, and Omega Red, other villains from ''COTA'' that are obscure outside the X-Men titles). It's a lot stranger in ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'', where the [[VideoGame3DLeap presentation upgrade]] meant that the Sentinel had to be recreated wholecloth. In the comics, Sentinels are MechaMooks designed to hunt mutants, meaning they have no relevance outside the X-Men titles and have nothing even resembling the star power to get a fighting game appearance on their own merits. Even an UnexpectedCharacter angle would fall flat by virtue of not really being a character at all. Even the one featured in-game is a design that [[CanonForeigner seems to have been created for the series]], rather than being based on a specific model used in the comics. It's also notable considering ''3'' greatly lessened the focus on ''X-Men'' after they were a SpotlightStealingCrossover beforehand, with only 7 reps in total including Sentinel, and there being many more popular characters that ''could'' have been carried over from ''2'' such as Cyclops, Iceman, Psylocke, Rogue, Gambit, Juggernaut, Colossus, or Sabretooth, but were passed in favor of him. The reason was simply that Sentinel was one of the more popular characters in ''2'', due to the iconic Magneto/Storm/Sentinel team that dominated the tournament scene, and therefore had enough of a history with the series that he warranted inclusion over other ''X-Men'' reps. Had ''3'' been the first game in the series, it's hard to imagine Capcom even considering Sentinel for it.

** ''Snake Eater'' itself suffered from another artifact. The game featured wide-open jungles, mountains and swamps as its playable areas, with long sightlines requiring the use of proper camouflage to hide yourself - and you still had a top-down view over everything which artificially restricted your ability to look over these wide-open areas and plan your movements, made worse by the fact that the game's 1964 setting meant the [[EnemyDetectingRadar Soliton radar]] wasn't available to compensate. The game tried to alleviate this by making the camera more dynamic, allowing you to move the camera around slightly to look further in another direction and viewing some areas from a different angle than the traditional slightly-tilted top-down, but it was still clear that any sort of fixed view over the action this time, barring a ''very'' small handful of areas, was nothing but a hindrance, and the ''Substance'' rerelease would add the option of a proper third-person camera that would go on to be the main manner of viewing the action for the rest of the series.

** Kitana in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat1''. Despite being one of the central heroines of the franchise, Kitana has virtually nothing to do in ''Mortal Kombat 1's'' new timeline. Mileena is now her biological twin rather than a twisted clone, and much of the story focuses on ''her'': being the older twin makes her the Crown Princess, she's secretly afflicted with the Tarkat disease, and she's having a forbidden affair with Tanya. Even Kitana's role as Liu Kang's girlfriend is filled by the ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat11 previous]]'' Kitana, who still exists in her own timeline where she was the one who defeated [[BigBad Kronika]]. As a result, the current Kitana has nothing special to do other than supporting her sister and fighting off flirtations from Kung Lao and Johnny Cage. [[spoiler: And her ending, where she becomes the new General of Outworld's army after Shao's defection, isn't as noteworthy as it should be, since Tanya and Li Mei ''also'' become leaders of government fighting factions]].

*** Class-specific vendors. The game no longer requires players to buy class-specific consumables like spell reagents, poisons, or the like, but most of the vendors are still there even though they sell nothing useful.