For better or for worse, video game fans can get pretty locked into video game lore. These games and their stories mean something to us. Sometimes, I suspect they mean more to us than they do to the people who are actually developing certain games. That may seem harsh, but betweeninconsistencies and sloppy retcons, it really feels that way sometimes.
From incoherent plot twists to inconsistent characterizations to laughable retcons, I’ve collected some of the most egregious examples of games just spitting in the eye of their own canon. It is dirty work, but someone has to do it, andsomeoneneeds to hold these offenders accountable, dammit.
Given this is a list all about games that tread on their own lore, I would hope this would go without saying, but just in case…This piece contains several significant spoilers.So, before you read an entry, make sure you are okay having the game it is associated with spoiled for you.
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Aya Brea is an iconic character. She never became Lara Croft-popular or anything like that, but coming out of the PS1 era, she had afairlylarge fanbase who greatly appreciated this heroine. However, Square did nothing with the Parasite Eve IP for quite some time, causing it to lose relevance. When they did bring it back, they made The 3rd Birthday, which, it turns out, is so much worse than a quiet death by way of irrelevance.
Aya is a very, very different character in The 3rd Birthday. She’s meek, filled with insecurity, and has a bad case of amnesia. That’s a rough start, but it actually manages to get worse. Once you reach the end of the game, it turns out you haven’t been playing Aya this entire time. You’ve been playing an amnesiac Eve (her adopted daughter and clone) who had taken over Aya’s body in an attempt to save her. The game then ends with the real Aya returning for a brief moment before sacrificing herself and being wiped from the timeline. Never before has a bait and switch felt this bad.
Final Fantasy 8
Final Fantasy 8 was first launched in 1999 for the original PlayStation. It follows Squall Leonhart as he bands together with a party of characters to defeat a time-travelling sorceress intent on compressing time itself.
You know a writerreallynailed a script when, thirty years later, any mention of the associated game immediately becomes dunk session on itsverystupid twist. What’s so bad about the twist? Well, you see, you play Squall, a very 90s hero who really loves to sulk and be belligerent. During his quest, he picks up a rag-tag group of allies. Some of them are assigned to his squad, others he just bumps into during his adventure. So far, so good, right?
Well, you see, they aren’t just strangers. They all grew up together in an orphanage. And they just, like, totally forgot about that. Using summons makes you forget stuff, you see. One NPC mentioned that early on, so that explainseverything. Well, not how they all just randomly ended up grouping together, but you know, I guess it was fate? Or something? All I know is that the grumpy boy is no longer grumpy, and his sword is also a gun, which isverycool.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
The fourth mainline entry in the Metal Gear Solid series, Guns of the Patriots puts players in the shoes of an ageing Snake and takes place in an alternate timeline in which the Cold War continued into the 1990s. The game introduced several new camera perspectives, including an optional first person mode while aiming weapons.
Somehow, during the 2000s, it was commonly accepted that Hideo Kojima was a brilliant writer. Not a fun writer, not an eccentric writer, quite a few people were convinced that he was some form of prodigy. Thankfully,that fever dream has broken. However, at the height of this hysteria, Kojima produced Metal Gear Solid 4, which is easily the most convoluted fanfiction ever created. The highlight has to be Liquid’s hand.
Liquids hand, you say? That’s right, in Metal Gear Solid 2, Revolver Ocelot had Liquid Snake’s, Solid Snakes dead clone brother, hand grafted onto his stump (because a cyborg ninja had chopped his real hand off). But, uh oh, at the end of Metal Gear Solid 2, we see that the hand had possessed Revolver Ocelot. Oh, no! Gasp!
Then, in Metal Gear Solid 4, after defeating the possessed Liquid Ocelot (as he now liked to call himself), it is revealed that while Revolver Ocelothadbeen possessed, Ocelot had managed to remove the arm and regain control of his mind. Hethenhypnotized himself in order to convince himself that he was still possessed by Liquid. That way he could convince The Patriots (the backroom baddies) that he was working for them, as they didn’t see Liquid as a threat. A totally normal way to handle that plot point. Great stuff, Mr. Kojima. I can’t believe anyone ever doubted you.
Honestly, the title for this entry could work for Yakuza 5 as well, but while that one hasan unearned antagonist that comes out of nowhere, it isn’t surprising when a Yakuza game falls to pieces at the end of the game. These games tell chaotic stories that are balancing a dozen threads, and sometimes they fall to pieces a little at the end. That’s part of the fun. However, the series spent three games trying to build Daigo Dojima up, so making him the surprise antagonist at the end of Yakuza 4 felt like the writers throwing their hands up into the air and screaming, ‘We don’t know what to do with this character.’
Worse yet, they did an about-faceafterYakuza 4 and basically pretended his heel turn never happened. Probably because it was a dumb idea. To this day, it still feels like they never fully found their footing with Daigo’s character, but they haven’t managed to slip and stumble quite as badly as they did with the end of Yakuza 4. Which isn’t to say that there haven’t been other tumbles and stumbles along the way. I’m still not super-happy with the Majima retcon that happens at the end of 0. It sullies an otherwise excellent game for me.
Metroid: Other M
Finally, we get the Metroid game we always wanted: one that sticks Samus in a skintight suit so that we can all ogle at her, and makes her subservient to a big, strong man. I know that’s what I play Metroid games for! Millions of words have been written about Other M at this point, so I want to belabor the point too much, but this was a character assassination on an untold scale. Everything we’d ever seen of Samus had depicted her as a stoic character.
She may have had little in the way of dialog, but shewasan expressive character in the Prime games, and you did get a sense of who she was. Needless to say, her sudden obsession with motherhood in Other M came as a shock to all of us. While you can celebrate the attempt to give her some depth,the end result was a terribly flawed, juvenile depiction of Samus that makes her a passenger in her own game. Thank god Nintendo moved on from this depiction.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion
A remake of the PSP action role-playing game, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion is a remastered prequel to the events of Final Fantasy 7. Zack Fair, a young recruit to SOLDIER, must investigate the disappearance of his mentor, Angeal — only to become swept up in a much bigger battle.
Every game added to the Final Fantasy 7 compilation series brought something stupid to the table. They just couldn’t help themselves;every inch of that world had to be a little dumber with every new title.However, one of the most inexcusable changes was with the depiction of the death of Zack. This was more or less shown in the original game. Zack and Cloud are on the run, but they are slowed down by Cloud being in a vegetative state. The Shinra Security Forces catch up to them, and Zack is gunned down in cold blood.
It is a brutal ending to a heroic man. A character who exists in the margins of the story, who we only see brief glimpses of, but whose impact is felt throughout the entirety of the game. Well, until Crisis Core, that is. Now, instead of an exhausted Zack being shot dead by a handful of Shinra troopers, we see that heactuallyfoughthundredsof them. No, I am not exaggerating; In Crisis Core, Zack’s iconic death is retconned to have been at the hands of a small army of Shinra troopers. One that Zack nearly wipes out, by the way.
Truly just spitting on the original for the sake of anime nonsense. What happened to the writing staff of Final Fantasy 7 anyway? Oh, Kitase, the lead writer, stepped away from writing? And he left Nojima, the guy responsible for Final Fantasy 8’s script, solely in charge? Yeah… That checks out.
The Street Fighter franchise has always been a bit of an odd duck when it comes to its story. On one hand,certain individual characters have had some legitimately excellent story arcs. I particularly like Sagat’s story, and how it intertwines with Dan’s. I also enjoyed Cody’s fall from grace and eventual redemption, an arc that was spread across three games. However, when you pull out a little, it doesn’t take long for things to get messy. Especially when you factor in the deaths.
What deaths, you ask? What about Charlie? He was killed by M. Bison. He then came back as a Frankenstein. Then he died again. What about Gouken? Akuma killed him. But actually, he wasn’t dead, he was just sleeping. Or Gen! Akuma killed him… and then he showed up again. I guess he was just sleeping too? And then there is M. Bison. Akuma killed him. Until, that is, he showed up in the next game. Don’t worry, it totally makes sense. He has, like, clone bodies all over the place, and his spirit goes into them or something. But Ryu killed him for good at the end of Street Fighter 5. They made a big deal out of it and everything. Wait, no, he’s back again in Street Fighter 6. But now he’s got a psycho-power-infused horse!
I wish Street Fighter had taken a page from SNK’s book in this regard. you’re able to have dead characters on the roster, just have them be ‘nightmare’ versions. Or make their stories a ‘What if’ scenario. It is true that the story isn’t what we play these games for, but surely a coherent story would be preferred, right? As is, the way the series has handled death has greatly undermined the canon and made it a real mess.
