Examples of Adaptation Displacement where an existing work has been adapted into some form of video game. In many cases these are examples of previous video games being used as the basis for new games.
A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope. Examples shouldn't be added until six months after the adaptation is released, to avoid any knee-jerk reactions.
- The vast majority of arcade games had console versions and even sequels that eclipsed the original versions in popularity. This is rather understandable given the pay-per-play model of arcade business and the fickle nature of video game players means that an operator must constantly rotate and replace its games once certain titles stop being profitable, since you can only have so many arcade cabinets in a limited amount of space. This made less-popular games inaccessible if they failed to attract a playerbase the first time around. Meanwhile, a console game can be enjoyed as many times as possible as long as you had access to the physical media in some form. The emergence of emulation projects such as MAME, as well as official re-releases on compilations and digital downloads (such as Hamster's Arcade Archives series), has alleviated this issue somewhat.
- The original Donkey Kong arcade game was a popular cabinet back in its day, but rights issues with Ikegami Tsushinki, who co-developed the game with Nintendo, have prevented it from being digitally re-released until the Arcade Archives version for the Nintendo Switch. Up to that point, Nintendo has only re-released the NES version they developed in-house, which was exempt from any legal issues, throughout the various incarnations of their Virtual Console service. As a result, many younger players only experienced the NES version throughout one of its various releases, unaware that it was missing a level (the pie factory screen).
- Contra and its sequel, Super C, were originally arcade games that were adapted to the NES. The NES versions were more successful than the coin-op versions, most probably due to being Polished Ports that fixed the arcade versions' problems, and all the subsequent sequels from Contra III: The Alien Wars and onward were released specifically for home consoles.
- The Gradius arcade games were extremely popular in Japan, but not so much in North America. The original Gradius arcade game was released as Nemesis and failed to make the same impact it did in Japan, which meant that none of the arcade sequels were brought over (through the second game had a limited European release as Vulcan Venture, and the third had an even more obscure "World" arcade edition). As a result, most Americans only known the series from the first NES game (which kept the Gradius name) and the Super NES version of Gradius III, which was a launch title for the console. Konami would later released direct ports of the arcade games with Gradius III & IV on the PS2 and the Gradius Collection for the PSP, which also included the previously unreleased in North America Gradius II and Gradius Gaiden.
- Likewise, the NES version of the spin-off Life Force, known as Salamander outside North America, is much better known than the arcade original, which received an Updated Re-release and sequel that remain exclusive to Japan.
- Punch-Out!! started as an arcade game which even had an arcade sequel titled Super Punch Out!! The arcade version had the gimmick where players had two controllers that acted as the fighter's fists, and was from a first-person viewpoint. Most players are more familiar with the console versions, Punch Out!! for the NES and Super Punch Out!! for the SNES, both which were completely different games from their arcade counterparts. Even the official site
for Punch Out!! for Wii doesn't acknowledge the arcade games. Which is bizarre because these games not only introduced many of the opponents, but the entire Title Defense level, which is nothing more than a souped-up version of the "Top Ranked" matches you had after winning the championship. Also, the original NES release featured Mike Tyson heavily, as he was not only the final boss but his name was part of the title, so many people seem to think that the entire series is about him. Due to their contract ending and Tyson losing the title, the 1990 NES re-release and subsequent Virtual Console releases had him replaced with the Suspiciously Similar Substitute Mr. Dream. - The NES version of Super Dodge Ball is a cult classic, with most people not even aware that it was based on an arcade game of the same name.
- Most people who know both the NES Beat 'em Up Kung Fu and The Legend of Kage have no idea they were both originally arcade releases.
- As little as it's remembered today, Legendary Wings is much more known for its NES port (who made quite a few changes to scenery and gameplay) than its arcade original.
- Kickle Cubicle was based on an arcade game which had identical gameplay but a completely different plot.
- The NES version of Bionic Commando (1988) displaced the arcade version, which had a rather bizarre aesthetic and no sign of Those Wacky Nazis.
- Duck Hunt predated the NES, appearing in a double unit with another light gun game, Hogan's Alley. Duck Hunt further overshadows its status as a sequel to a series of battery-operated projection based shooting toys that Nintendo made during the 1960's and 70's.
- Mighty Bomb Jack started life as an arcade game before being ported to the NES. In turn, it got a recursive arcade port as Vs. Mighty Bomb Jack.
- SNK's Iron Tank: The Invasion of Normandy for the NES, known as Great Tank in Japan, is a Reformulated Adaptation Expansion of their little-known 1985 arcade game TNK III.
- Garfield's Fun Fest: Almost nobody remembers the movie it's based on (and some didn't even know there was a movie to begin with, as it was released as direct-to-video), while the game is still remembered somewhat.
- ICOM's adventure games Déjà Vu, Uninvited and Shadowgate are most widely known in their NES forms, though they were all originally for the Macintosh.
- Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet was based of a series of network bumps for Nickelodeon that were aired during the Halloween season.
- Whenever somebody mentions playing Warcraft, most people would automatically assume this being World of Warcraft MMO, not one of several RTS games preceding it that, you know, actually were called simply Warcraft.
- Lampshaded by Blizzard during one of their April Fool's jokes. They proudly announced the creation of the new RTS game Warcraft: Heroes of Azeroth and proceeded to list details and show screenshots of Warcraft III. Needless to say, not everyone got it.
- Even the MMO game doesn't escape this fate in concern with the popularity and characterization of a few of its characters. Jaina Proudmore will be remembered (or referred to be so by a majority of fans) as a peace-loving mage instead of the massive cynic warlord in the current game thanks to Heroes of the Storm while Valeera Sanguinar, Dr. Boom and Jaraxxus will have more fan works focus on their portrayal in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft rather than their (admittedly minor) role in the game or the expanded universenote . Likewise with Heroes of the Storm, Thrall will be more remembered as the Warchief of the Horde instead of the World Shaman, while Kael'thas Sunstrider is remembered as the Prince of Blood Elves instead of... that Kil'Jaeden-loving schemer in his final moments at Burning Crusade.
- Many have played the Sam & Max: Freelance Police games without ever knowing they were based on a comic series. Others are only aware of the cartoon series. With the more recent games, many players might not even be aware of the older adventure game adaptation Sam & Max Hit the Road (it also helps that Hit the Road has never gotten another re-release in America aside from the CD-ROM re-release in 1995 until 2014 when the game was re-released on GOG).
- In one conversation in Poker Night 2, it seems that Sam himself doesn't remember being in comics, making this an in-universe example.
- Seemingly very few on the Internet know that there was an original Rainbow Six novel.
- Many people in America know Geese Howard as a DLC guest character in Tekken 7, but aren't aware of his original appearance in the Fatal Fury series.
- Ragnarok Online, popular MMORPG. Not many people are aware that it was based off of the manhwa Ragnarok (1997).
- The Heroes of Might and Magic turn-based strategy series are far more well-known than Might and Magic, the RPG series they were spun off from.
- And how many people have heard of King's Bounty, the original TBS that wasn't set in the Might And Magic universe?!
- After Kings Bounty got a remake by 1C/Katauri, many players of the new games were surprised to learn they were based on such an ancient DOS game.
- Few Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune players are aware that it is based on the still-running manga series Wangan Midnight, especially outside of Asia where the manga and its anime adaptation have yet to be exported. The fifth game being called just Maximum Tune 5 in North America may be an indication of this.
- Even less players have heard of the original Wangan Midnight arcade game, released in 2001 and published by the same publishers of Maximum Tune, as well as its update Wangan Midnight R. These two games, however, bear little resemblance to the Maximum Tune series; they play more like the Tokyo Xtreme Racer/Shutokou Battle series, in that you and your opponent have life meters, an unusual feature in a racing game.
- The cult Game Boy RPG Magi-Nation was made to advertise a card game made during the TCG fad. The game is more fondly remembered then the cards.
- While quite a few fans of the Persona video game series know that it is a spin-off of the Shin Megami Tensei series, some of them do not know that Shin Megami Tensei is itself a Continuity Reboot of another RPG series (Megami Tensei) that was in turn based off the Digital Devil Story novel series. In fact, the Megaten games that were released before Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne and Persona 3 have struggled to find mainstream popularity outside of Japan, and all Megaten releases prior to Shin Megami Tensei I (including the original Digital Devil Story novels) are so obscure that they will likely never receive an official English release, leaving it to fan translators to make the works accessible to Western audiences. The fan translations themselves have gone with mixed results, with some projects being complete, and others more or less orphaned.
- Some gamers may suspect that the Xbox version of the Ninja Gaiden series is having this effect upon the original NES series, especially in terms of their Nintendo Hard reputations. Whether or not this is true, both have certainly displaced the original, almost completely unrelated Beat 'em Up arcade game from everyone's mind.
- The arcade and NES versions of Ninja Gaiden were made simultaneously, but they don't really have much in common other than the main character in both games being a ninja.
- A large chunk of songs featured in DanceDanceRevolution is actually borrowed from other titles in the BEMANI line of rhythm games, which DDR is a part of. However, because DDR is the only Bemani series that Konami puts any serious effort to market in the West, the borrowed songs end up being mistaken to be DDR originals by Western fans. On another note, in early years, DDR also had a deal with Toshiba-EMI company (now a defunct label of Universal Music Japan), through which it was allowed to freely license songs from its vast Dancemania album series. Most of these are dance covers or obscure songs by continental European pop artists, so many fans are unaware that they are actually not produced in-house.
- Many have no idea about the Gauntlet series prior to Gauntlet Legends, which may have affected the reception of the 2014 remake, which was heavily based on the original, leaving many Legends fans disappointed.
- Ditto Xenon 2 Megablast. It consigned the original to a reasonable obscurity.
- Parasite Eve was a 1995 novel by Hideake Sena, then a 1997 movie adapted from the book, then a 1998 Squaresoft Action RPG that follows the events of the book (not the movie). It helps that this wasn't released outside of Japan for awhile - the novel didn't get an English translation until 2007.
- Marth of the Fire Emblem series was far better known in the West for appearing in Super Smash Bros. than for being the star of his own game subseries, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light and Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem. As such, outside of Japan, he is more associated with Roy and Ike, who aren't in the same universe as him, rather than characters from his own games such as Jagen, Caeda, Merric and Ogma. It also doesn't help that crossovers like Fire Emblem Warriors have Marth Out of Focus. Fire Emblem Heroes has helped a bit though, by featuring several Archanea characters instead of just Marth.
- Most people in the United States primarily know Terry Bogard as one of the DLC characters from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but don't know much about the franchise that he came from, Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters. SNK do have quite a bit of fan following but are mostly not mainstream in the US. Samurai Shodown was once popular in the American gaming community, being frequently featured in gaming magazines, but has since died out in popularity.
- Morrigan Aensland is far better known for appearing in crossovers like Marvel vs. Capcom than Darkstalkers. The fact that there hasn't been a Darkstalkers since 1997's Vampire Savior probably contributes to this.
- Captain Falcon from F-Zero is better known in Super Smash Bros. than his own series, thanks to the Falcon Punch. Aside from the fact that F-Zero hasn't had a new game since 2004, not many people know about what Falcon himself is like in that series itself. In fact, people want the Falcon Punch to appear in an F-Zero game.
- In a similar vein, Ness and Lucas are better known for their Super Smash Bros. appearances than their roles in their own series, on account of not having had new games since 2006, and even then Mother 3 was Japan-only. The only reason Lucas is in the franchise to begin with was because Masahiro Sakurai was under the assumption until late in Brawl's development that Mother 3 would get released internationally.
- Easily the most popular Puyo Puyo game outside of Japan is Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, even with the release of Puyo Puyo Tetris. Just visit any of the major Puyo Puyo videos on YouTube and see how many comments point out the similarities between the game in question and how it compares to Mean Bean Machine, or even Tetris itself. In comparison, Kirby's Avalanche is much less known (though still popular in its own right), while the English arcade Puyo Puyo is so obscure that MAME initially only had bootleg-derived ROMs available, which caused some people to believe it was a fake until the official ROMs and an eventual port by SEGA turned up ages later.
- The games also counts for the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon.
- Zero Wing. Many forget that the Sega Genesis version was actually adapted from an arcade game (which didn't feature the infamous "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" intro... but had its own screwed up ending), and very few are even aware of the PC Engine port (as it was only released in Japan). Interestingly, this also ends up doubling as a Translation Train Wreck displacement, as while both the arcade's ending and the Sega Genesis intro are horribly translated, it is the latter that is widely remembered as a meme.
- Strider Hiryu is a subversion, since it was actually a three-way collaboration between Capcom and manga studio Moto Kikaku. Moto Kikaku artist Tatsumi Wada drew the manga version, which was published first in 1988, while Capcom produced two separate video games for the project: an NES version which more or less followed the manga (but oddly enough never came out in Japan), and an arcade version which deviated from the other projects completely in terms of story. A common misconception is that the manga was made first without any intention of turning it into a game, but this really wasn't the case at all. But in the case of the Marvel vs. Capcom series, this is played straight. Several people from the Fighting Game community (mainly true for North America) are only familiar with Hiryu from said series and have never heard of his games or manga and exclusively call him "Strider", almost never referring to him as "Hiryu". This also applies for Captain Commando, Jin Saotome, and all other Capcom characters whose games didn't gain mainstream success.
- Not even the Marvel characters are safe in the Marvel vs. Capcom series. This goes straight into Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros." territory for the Japanese audience, as many western comic books (Marvel or otherwise) weren't published in Japan. In that case, several Marvel characters are best remembered as video game characters for many in the aforementioned country.
- And in the west, some of the lesser known characters like Marrow, Dormammu, and Taskmaster will be remembered for their inclusion in the MvC series than their comic appearances. The same goes for Rocket Raccoon and you better believe several people have seen him in Guardians of the Galaxy and said something like "There's that raccoon from Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3!"
- Do you remember Shuma-Gorath? Do you remember him in a medium that doesn't involve Shoryukens? He was originally an enemy of Doctor Strange, and in fact hadn't been seen in six years before Marvel Super Heroes.
- Shuma-Gorath's a strange example, he was originally from a short story for the 'Kull' series, but the short story was unpublished. When they published it after the author's death, it was adapted into the Dr. Strange series.
- Area 88 is a Displacement Food Chain; it started off as a manga, which got adapted into a somewhat more well-known anime, which got adapted into the kinda-more-well-known arcade game (the international title, U.N. Squadron, only made the connection between the games and the manga/anime even more obscure), which got adapted into a well-known SNES port.
- Turok, Son of Stone was a comic book in the 1950s, alongside such other well-known Gold Key titles as Doctor Solar: Man of the Atom and The Occult Files of Dr. Spektor. Valiant Comics got hold of a load of Gold Key Comics properties in the 1990s, and relaunched Turok as Turok, Dinosaur Hunter. In 1997, a video game was released based on this incarnation. The Turok series of games is now much better known than either comic book version.
- The Legend of Tian-ding is based off a 2004 Flash Game with the exact same name, that nobody remembers.
- Little Nemo isn't one of the most well-known animated films, but the game Little Nemo: The Dream Master resided in many an NES of people who'd never even seen the cartoon. It's likely that few fans of the cartoon (which was a Japanese/American co-production) know that it was originally a comic strip in the first decade of the 20th century. The situation became more confusing when the video game was released in America before the movie was released (even though the movie was released first in Japan and is what the video game is based on).
- Metro 2033 is an interesting (North America only) case. It's not so much that the book is less well known, but that it was never released in the U.S. until 2013.
- Most people didn't really notice that the obscure SNES platformer Dino City is based on the Made-for-TV Movie Adventures in Dinosaur City.
- Deliberately fictional example with Sonic the Hedgehog. According to the "Sonic the Hedgehog Technical Files", Sonic's Japanese Universe Bible, Sonic the Hedgehog is told to be based on Mary Garnet's stories, told during the The '40s and World War II. Oh, and the emblem seen on the title screen of Sonic the Hedgehog is also said to be the same one on her husband's jacket.
- The Darkness; depending on the circles you orbit in, you may encounter people who are either unaware the comic exists besides the unlockables in the game, or unaware it came first.
- Sonic.exe started life as a Creepypasta made during the height of the subgenre, and was in its time very popular—to the point that the events of the story, focused on what was said to be a possessed Sonic computer file, were adapted into a fangame that closely recreated the events the story described. However, the original story would go on to be Condemned by History due to people becoming increasingly critical of it and the author's response to those critics, and so is rarely discussed except to mock it. The fangame, meanwhile, went viral and spawned a fairly large following of people who had never read the original and did not care to do so (something helped by the fact that the adaptation cut down a lot of the more criticized elements).
- The original Neverwinter Nights was a MMORPG on America Online that was operational from 1991 to 1997, and used SSI's "Gold Box" engine. The 2002 game by BioWare is much better known now.
- Notable especially is that the original was the first modern MMO, predating Ultima Online by several years. Previous games in similar veins were typically text-based, with few or no graphics and little depth in comparison to console and computer RPGs of the same timeframe.
- Tetris
- The very first Tetris game was released on an Elektronika60 in 1985, followed by a release on IBM computers (as well as every other Home Computer in existence). However, it wasn't until the Game Boy version, released in 1989, that most fans around the world got into Tetris. This also started the phenomenon of the melodies of Korobeiniki and Dance of The Sugar-Plum Fairy being "Tetris Themes"...
- The background music for Sega's arcade version is better known by American and European fans through the remix that appeared in Puyo Puyo Tetris, since the original game mostly flopped outside of Japan.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- A subversion: the Nintendo Entertainment System was a success in North America because of the popularity that the arcade version of Super Mario Bros. (Vs. Super Mario Bros.) enjoyed. Nowadays, not many people are aware that Super Mario Bros. had an arcade port. And if they're aware that Super Mario Bros. was itself a sequel, it's probably only because the original Mario Bros. is a frequent minigame/easter egg in other games.
- How many people realize that, before he got his own game series, Mario debuted in Donkey Kong?note Or that in this version, he was a carpenter rather than a plumber?
- The version of Bowser's battle theme found within Super Mario RPG is more well known than the version of the exact same song it's originally based upon (his battle theme from Super Mario Bros. 3).
- Doki Doki Panic is way more famous than the 1987 Fuji TV promotion on which it's based, and is turn displaced by its Mario-ified adaptation Super Mario Bros. 2.
- Thunder Force II was originally released on the Sharp X68000, then ported to the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. Many people think it's the other way around.
- One of the designers for the arcade Spy Hunter (1983) deliberately took the theme music from Peter Gunn, an old, obscure detective show, most likely to stave off any "ripoff" (or worse, copyright) issues. The game became so popular that the song is now far more closely associated with Spy Hunter than Peter Gunn.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was such a Killer App for the Nintendo Switch that many people forget it was developed as a Wii U game.
- Subverted by the original Metal Gear. The NES version was the only one available in North America for many years and the fact that it was a port of an MSX2 game wasn't even common knowledge prior to the release of Metal Gear Solid. Since then, Hideo Kojima has saw fit to release the ports of the MSX2 games in various formats (most notably as extra content in the Subsistence and HD Edition versions of Metal Gear Solid 3), whereas the NES Metal Gear (and its sequel Snake's Revenge) had never been properly reissued since their original releases,note not even on the Virtual Console, until Legacy Collection Vol. 1.
- Only the most avid of fans of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer are aware of the fact that the Bomberman franchise started on this computer in 1983 (actually, this version was concurrently released on various Japanese computers), with a rather different look from the iconic NES version. Not even most of them realise that in the same year, on the same platform, Hudson tried out the concept that was to become Pang (as Bubble Buster).
- Wolfenstein 3-D (1992) is widely known as "the first FPS" (it's not), but a lot fewer people are familiar with Castle Wolfenstein (1981), an Apple II game that might be considered the first stealth-based game.
- One of the biggest complaints about the Re-Shelled edition of Turtles in Time were the omission of numerous stages and bosses from the SNES version of the game. However, the Re-Shelled version was actually based on the original arcade game and the "missing" stages and bosses were simply extra stuff added to the SNES port.
- Chaos Legion is an obscure enough Hack-and-Slasher by itself, but is apparent based on an even more obscure series of light novels.
- The Valis series was originally released for various PC platforms, but the series did not gain its cult following until the second game was ported to the TurboGrafx-CD. Oddly, the No Export for You TGCD port of the first game wasn't made until after the fourth game, which (save for a watered-down SNES version) didn't make it overseas either.
- Below the Root is the best known of the Windham Classics games and a minor Cult Classic among platform gamers. The books it was based on (and is the canonical sequel to, making it possibly the first of its kind) are terribly obscure and were out of print for years.
- Monster in My Pocket was originally a line of toys, but nowadays, it's more well known as a classic NES game.
- Once upon a time, a webcomic called Prodly the Puffin was created as a parody of Pokey the Penguin. The webcomic is long since gone, but an Interactive Fiction adaptation of it has lasted better.
- The NES version of Nuts & Milk displaced the original version for the MSX, PC-88 and other Japanese computers, which plays quite differently and in Japan is largely ignored.
- Soulcalibur was only meant to be the sequel to Soul Edge (Soul Blade for home release) but ended up becoming a series. This meant that only a few people know about Soul Edge/Blade due to it not being a numbered entry in the series. Because all of the games after the original Soulcalibur had "Soulcalibur" in the title, most people think that it is the name of the franchise; it is actually the Soul series.
- Few people remember that a game called Starsiege was the foundation for the Tribes franchise. Fewer remember that Starsiege was a sequel to the EarthSiege games.
- Nowadays, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is one of the most popular anime series around, but in the West, this popularity only came as a result of the 2012 anime adaptation. For more than a decade before that, the series was more commonly associated with the Capcom fighting game, which was released for the Sega Dreamcast in America before the original manga or the OVA ever made it Stateside. Most people thought that: A) the OVA is based on the game, or B) only knew of the Dreamcast game.
- A lot of people, particularly western arcade-goers, were unaware that Initial D Arcade Stage is based on a manga and anime.
- The 1997 Macintosh RPG TaskMaker is an adaptation of an obscure 1993 black-and-white Mac RPG of the same name, which itself was adapted from a tabletop RPG. What little fans the obscure 1997 version has probably know it only by that version, and not its predecessors.
- The obscure Dreamcast/PC game Stupid Invaders was actually based on the also-obscurenote cartoon Space Goofs (or Home to Rent as it was known in the UK).
- The MechWarrior game series is part of the BattleTech franchise, which began as a tabletop wargame. When MechWarrior Tactics was announced as an online adaptation of the tabletop game, complete with hexmaps and turn-based gameplay, there were immediate complaints that the game was "not real MechWarrior."
- CROSS†CHANNEL was displaced by the Flash game NANACA†CRASH!! Why? Cross Channel was a Japanese-only H-Game/Visual Novel until its Fan Translation in 2009. Fans didn't need to read Japanese to play Nanaca Crash!
- Harvest Moon:
- It's exceedingly common to see fans to be unaware that Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town is essentially a port of Back to Nature with some new features, 2D graphics, and slight characterization changes—especially considering that Friends of Mineral Town got a remake while Back to Nature didn't.
- Many fans don't realize Back To Nature is based on Harvest Moon 64. The two games feature similar graphics and the same characters but are vastly different in terms of characterization. This caused a large number of fans to be confused about how Elli in Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility is a baker and not a nurse.
- Harvest Moon and Save the Homeland are both black sheep in the franchise, played by few fans compared to other titles, so it's common for people to miss all the Mythology Gags in Harvest Moon: Magical Melody or think the characters are original.
- The PlayStation game Air Combat is considerably better known than the original arcade version or its sequel Air Combat 22, to the point most online Ace Combat retrospective don't bother to mention the series' arcade origins.
- Diabolik Lovers is better known for its series of visual novels than the Drama CDs that spawned them.
- Few seem to remember that Prince of Stride was originally a series of Light Novels and Drama CDs before its PS Vita adaptation. In fact, some news sources implied the opposite, despite the fact that the franchise couldn't release all of its content within the short time span of the game's distribution.
- If you search "Impey Barbicane" on Google you'll get more results for the Code:Realize character very loosely based on him than the original literary character.
- Spectre from the SNES is quite well-known for being one of the only fully-3D games on the system, but not many know that it was a Macintosh port.
- The highly popular and successful Knights of the Old Republic games (including a sequel, comic series, and MMO) are loosely based on the Tales of the Jedi comic series from the mid-to-late-Nineties, and in fact borrow the name from one of its story arcs. Although it does reference events, characters, and locations from Tales, the game series has far outstripped it in recognition.
- The original release of Crimzon Clover, later given an Updated Re-release on the NESiCAxLive arcade content distribution platform and on Windows as Crimzon Clover WORLD IGNITION, is hardly played anymore. First, as a Japanese doujinshi product that was released in physical format, it's very hard to find copies of it nowadays; WORLD IGNITION is readily available on Steam and GOG in six additional languages (including English) for a comparatively reasonable price (i.e. not marked up by doujin game resellers) that's cut even further during Steam's iconic sales. Second, WORLD IGNITION is largely seen as a superior product anyway, due to the extra modes, ships, vertical orientation support, and 2-player support.
- In an odd case of this happening to a single character, King Harkinian first appeared in The Legend of Zelda (1989) cartoons and comic books. He became a sort of Canon Immigrant in The Legend of Zelda CD-i Games, appearing in a total of three short scenes... which, as a result of the colossal amount of YouTube Poop surrounding those scenes, has resulted in him becoming universally identified with them.
- Moe Anthropomorphism games often adapt aspects of their inspirations to their characters in their personalities and backstories, often displacing the original in references when it comes to gaming circles. Try to google "Special Week" (the Japanese racehorse), "Shimakaze" (the Japanese destroyer from WWII), "Heshikiri Hasebe" (one of Oda Nobunaga's swords), or "Ayanami" (another Japanese destroyer from WWII) without seeing top results for Uma Musume, KanColle, Touken Ranbu, or Azur Lane, for example.
- It's hard to think of obscure historical figures and legendary heroes as anything other than their Fate incarnations, especially with the popularity of Fate/Grand Order bringing said obscure figures to the forefront. Notably, the Fate-verse even incorporates this into their summoning: they may be summoned with powers or appearances lifted from common interpretations of them rather than their actual legends.
- Spelunker is best known in Japan as a NES/Famicom game, and the game's most iconic music (not counting the "Mysterioso Pizzicato" Standard Snippet) was composed for this version. The arcade version (which plays a bit differently) was released around the same time, but the actual original version was developed for Atari 8-Bit Computers.
- Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa is more known today as a arcade shooter by Konami, rather than a Saturday Morning Cartoon series from the early 90's.
- Ever since Microsoft included a version of the popular Klondike variation with Windows 3.0 in 1990, vastly more people have played Solitaire on their computers rather than with physical cards.
- Plants vs. Zombies is better known to many as a mobile game rather than the PC game it started, with the mobile version being one of the many ports it got. It doesn't help that its sequels went straight to mobile devices and didn't got ports to other devices.
- The Witcher originally began as a series of Polish novels, but almost everywhere outside of Poland, the Czech Republic (and some other central European countries) is more familiar with CD Projekt RED's trilogy of video games. This happened again in Latin America (See displaced by all of the above)
- Sweet Home (1989) was actually an adaptation of the movie - the movie itself isn't known outside of Japan and is often treated as just another movie.
- Cyberpunk 2077, was, on its release, the most concurrently played video game in existence, with over 1 million individuals playing it on launch day. It is unknown, but highly unlikely, whether 1 million copies of the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk were sold in its entire history before that point. During the buzz around the video game's cartoon adaptation, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the tabletop game's company commented that no news outlets had bothered to interview them or mention that the cartoon was based on their game. On a related note, a lot of players of the video game have complained that the setting feels "too generic", when the tabletop RPG is the origin or codifier of a lot of the things that make up Cyberpunk sensibilities, and a lot of the things they consider "better cyberpunk" were ripping off the Cyberpunk TTRPG from the start.
- Electronic Arts' Skate or Die was originally produced for the Commodore 64, Apple IIgs, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, and MS-DOS PC's, but all of those versions, at least in North America, were overshadowed by Konami's NES port.
- Due to the game being Saved from Development Hell causing a Newbie Boom, not a lot of people are in the know that OMORI started off as Omoriboy, a Tumblr webcomic.
- Pico has a foothold on Newgrounds' history as one of the earliest creation of the website's creator, Tom Fulp, and a mascot character for the website, but in modern times he's far more recognized from his guest appearance in Friday Night Funkin', a game which caused a massive Newbie Boom for the website. Needless to say, he ended up causing some controversy when the new fans discovered his origins from an edgy and of-its-time flash game.
- In the West, the Mystery Dungeon franchise by Spike Chunsoft is more-or-less synonymous with the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon sub-series, often unaware that there are also entries based on other franchises like Final Fantasy and Etrian Odyssey, as well as an original entry called Shiren the Wanderer. In fact, the series started as a Torneko-centric spinoff of Dragon Quest IV. To drive the point home, the Mystery Dungeon subreddit's icon has Pikachu on it and consists mostly of Pokémon-related posts.
- The point-and-click adventure and strategy hybrid Dune (1992) received some attention in the late 2010s for getting an unexpected fan-made porn parody remake named Behind the Dune made initially in Adobe Flash. For obvious reasons, it received much more attention than the obscure game it is remaking.
- Chances are, if you know about AIR, Kanon, One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e, and/or MOON, it's because their characters are in Eternal Fighter Zero. Special mention goes to MOON, as it's so obscure and full of graphic violent and sexual content it doesn't have an anime or TV Tropes page.
