Adaptation Relationship Overhaul / Video Games

Adaptation Relationship Overhauls in Video Games.

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• In the Licensed Game Avatar: The Last Airbender – Into the Inferno, Azula repeatedly refers to her older brother Zuko as her younger brother. She might be condescending, however it's also possible that the writers got that mixed up.
• Season 2 of Batman: The Telltale Series famously gave a role reversal to the Joker and Harley Quinn. Mr. J (here an unstable mental patient who's not yet a criminal mastermind) is the fawning, eager, lovesick minion while Harley is impassive, exploits Joker's feelings for her, and Harley is the one in charge (although she hints she has some feelings for him, but sees him as childish and wasting his potential). Two different versions of the finale take this in still other directions:
  • In the "Vigilante" version, Joker will actually be willing to turn her in to the authorities for her own good, even knowing she'll hate him for it.
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  • In the "Villain" version, Joker becomes more assertive and earns Harley's admiration, with them becoming more equal parters and a borderline Outlaw Couple though you soon learn that Joker is willing to work behind her back to mess with Batman, and when the chips are down he even flees the scene, leaving her behind with a half-abashed smile.
• Cyberpunk 2077: The game potrays Johnny's and Alt's relationship as a The Masochism Tango on-and-off friends with benefits/casual dating relationship, while in Cyberpunk they were a firmly established couple.
• Dante's Inferno changes the relationship between Dante and Beatrice from the Inferno from the one-sided Courtly Love of Dante to a full-on marriage. This makes it easier to explain their dynamic without relying on the Vita Nuova and to reduce her to a Damsel in Distress for Dante to rescue.
• In Dragon Ball Online, the villainous duo Towa and Mira are married; in Dragon Ball Xenoverse their relationship is strictly creator and creation; they even turn on each other in Xenoverse 2, since Mira starts disobeying Towa's orders out of desire for a good fight and eventually absorbs her to become more powerful.
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  • A side-effect of this is completely changing the character of Fu. In Online he's Towa and Mira's biological son and only appeared in a guidebook as a baby, with Towa planning to make him ruler of the Demon Realm when he grows up. In Xenoverse 2 he's an Artificial Lifeform made with Towa and Mira's DNA, which allows him to appear as a young adult and actually participate in the plot. He also turns out to be the White Sheep of the family, refusing to go along with their plans and simply wanting to study history and time travel.
• In Dynasty Warriors 5, there's a lot of Ship Tease between Guan Ping and Xingcai who is a Composite Character of Zhang Fei's two daughters who are also Liu Shan's two wives. The seventh game onwards downplayed the relationship, making them Platonic Life-Partners instead after Liu Shan became a playable character. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the historical records which the game and the novel is based from, no such relationship exist between them.
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• In Game of Thrones, Tyrion Lannister and Margaery Tyrell have virtually no relationship with each other, and seem somewhat indifferent about each other, with the most overall connection being that Tyrion seems to have some amount of respect for Margaery, and Margaery seems mostly to just accept him. In Game of Thrones (Telltale) however Margaery dislikes Tyrion, to the point where she almost fires Mia Forrester for merely talking to him. Part of this is Justified as Mira is from North, which makes her suspicious to some and Margaery knows this.
• In God of War (PS4), instead of being the son of Laufey and Fárbauti like in the original Norse mythos, Loki is the son of Laufey and Kratos. As for where in the game they show up, they're actually two major characters that have been the driving force of everything that happens: Faye, who pulled her new name from "Laufey," and Atreus, who Faye originally wanted to name "Loki."
• Harvest Moon: Back to Nature was an outsourced retool of Harvest Moon 64 where a large portion of the characterization was changed. Many characters relationships were revamped:
  • In 64 the bachelorettes are the grandchildren of the SNES bachelorettes — Ann is related to Ann, Maria is related to Maria, Elli is related to Ellen (who is still alive), Karen is related to Eve, and Popuri is related to Nina. Back To Nature holds no such implications and takes place in Mineral Town instead of Flowerbud Village. The protagonist is heavily implied to be the grandson of the first protagonist in 64 while in Back To Nature he gets his farm from an unrelated older man who he befriended as a child.
  • In 64 the rival couples were Ann/Cliff, Maria/Harris, Elli/Jeff, Karen/Kai, and Popuri/Gray. In Back To Nature, the rival couples are Ann/Cliff, Mary/Gray, Elli/Doctor, Karen/Rick, and Popuri/Kai.
  • In 64 Gotz owned the local winery, was married to Sasha, and Karen was his daughter. In Back To Nature Gotz is a widower living in the woods while Sasha is married to Jeff. In 64 Jeff was Ellen's father figure and love interest.
  • In 64 Rick is related to Ann and Gray, who are siblings. They all have red hair due to their grandmother, Ann from the first game. In Back To Nature Rick is Popuri's sibling. Gray isn't related to Ann or Rick, and neither is Ann related to either man.
  • In 64 Kai and Rick don't interact or show any dislike for each other. In Back To Nature Rick is an overprotective older brother while Kai Took a Level in Jerkass and frequently teases him.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • The series alters the dynamic between Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith. In which, Aerith is implied to be Cloud's love interest, while Tifa is portrayed as the manifestation of his inner light (it's left vague if she is even an actual person or not). When, in Final Fantasy VII's canon, Cloud and Tifa are the game's Official Couple and Aerith dies, only to be Together in Death with her boyfriend Zack.
  • In Final Fantasy VII and its related games, Zack is a Posthumous Character but was Aerith's love interest. In this canon Zack and Aerith haven't even met, and Zack is alive. Probably.
• Mega Man (Classic):
  • Mega Man, Roll and Proto Man are "sibling robots" made by the same creator, Dr. Light, as do the other DLN line of Robot Masters such as Elec Man or Bomb Man. In Mega Man Battle Network, all of them are unrelated; Roll, Guts Man and Proto Man are Mega Man's allies made by different people.
  • In Classic, Bass was created by Dr. Wily. In BN, he's created by Dr. Cossack instead.
  • Treble (aka Gospel) is Bass' robot wolf companion in Classic. In BN, it's a separate entity made out of internet bugs that threaten the Internet. Although later Bass do come in contact with this Gospel and take its power for himself.
  • Many BN versions of enemy Robot Masters end up becoming Mega Man's friends and allies, although some of them do start as Mega Man's foes.
• Nier: Since Nier was aged up in the western port to appeal to western audiences, Yonah is changed from his sister to his daughter.
• In One Piece, Crocodile and Mihawk don't have any real opinion of each other, and their only interaction was a brief confrontation at Marineford when Crocodile protected Daz Bones from Mihawk. In Crocodile's story in Grand Adventure, the two were friendly rivals.
• In The Powerpuff Girls (1998), Buttercup has an unrequited Precocious Crush on Ace. In FusionFall, she is given a Plot-Relevant Age-Up (though still not old-enough-looking to date Ace) and they're a couple.
• In Ratchet & Clank (2016) (the Ratchet & Clank movie based on the original game) and Ratchet & Clank (2016) (the game based on that movie), Ratchet and Clank are much more friendly towards each other, much like their characterization in most of the other games, in stark contrast to their characterizations in Ratchet & Clank (2002) where Ratchet is a Jerkass toward Clank for most of the game and Clank occasionally gets snappish back at him.
• In the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, Amy Rose debuted in the April 1992 issue of Shogaku Ninensei (Second Grade) as a brown hedgehog without a surname. The Shogakukan series depicted her and Sonic (or rather, his manga-exclusive Secret Identity) as an Official Couple. Sonic the Hedgehog CD and all later appearances changed her from a traditional supportive girlfriend to a Clingy Jealous Girl whose affections may or may not be reciprocated.
• Spider-Man (PS4):
  • This happened to both sides of the same character. In the comics, Mr. Negative and his alter ego "Martin Li" were a case of Split Personality, being aware of the other's existence, but not the other's actions. While there's hints of Negative being Li's Superpowered Evil Side, Li doesn't have a split personality and thus is consciously Mr. Negative.
  • Among the many changes to the Tinkerer in Spider-Man: Miles Morales is that the character is Rick Mason's younger sister, not Rick's elderly father as in the comics.

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