I think my favorite retcon is: Hal Jordan didn't became evil and killed every Green Lantern ever, including his friends like Kilowog. What really happened is that Hal was inffected by Parallax, the fear entity. I think that is a really good retcon because 1.-making him evil was really against character, 2.-it allowed Hal to come back as a hero and 3.-it open the door to a whole new possibilities for DC stories and expand the GL lore.
Even better, most of the Lanterns he killed were revealed to be alive and prisoners of the Manhunter robots. One rescue mission later, they're back to being members of the Corp.
@@HB-fq9nn Everything began with Reign of the Supermen (part of the Death and Return of Superman storyline). The story when Hal goes nuts is "Emeral Twilight". Then it goes to "Zero Hour". Hal came back in "Green Lantern: Rebirth" (teh 2004-2005 mini-series). And the rest is "Sinestro Corp War", "Blackest Night" and a long etc. xD
It really said something that a plotline was so dumb and out of character, that something "he was actually possessed by a entity we now just showing" is seen a fix.
@@claytonrios1 Trust me, I'm aware of Avengers 200. My Sins Past comment was also a suggestion for "This terrible story also got retconed out of existence.".
I always loved how Sonic handled the Robotnik name change. Instead of just sweeping localization changes under the rug, they decided to adopt the westernized "Robotnik" as Eggman's actual family name in Adventure 2. Meanwhile in the English version of Adventure 1 Sonic would call just him "Eggman" as an insult, before he just accepted that as his super villain moniker for the rest of the series.
My theory for why he became known just as Doctor Eggman onwards is because of him learning the truth of Gerald Robotnik's actions in Adventure 2 and maybe out of respect for Maria as well. He's still Robotnik but Eggman is a name that has no roots.
I'm actually a bit surprised to not see Raven Beak on this list... Raven Beak shattered a lot of preexisting ideas of how the Chozo were, and yet was a good villain, one of the best Final Bosses in any Metroid game, and a very convenient way to tie up the plot arc of Samus's relationship with the Metroids. It's almost hard to believe that character was created by the MercurySteam staff themselves and not a pre-conceived concept from Nintendo's vaults or a canon immigrant from a manga spinoff.
To be fair, I don't think any of Raven Beak's plot elements were technically a "retcon"? His existence was outright foreshadowed in the in-game art you could unlock in the Samus Returns 3DS remake.
@@pikespeakaudio8898 That's literally a remake of a game which did not originally have any new Chozo lore. Made by MercurySteam, at that. And notably, before that lore dump, the idea that the Chozo were wiped out in a cival war, by a member of the race who turned to be a warmongerer obsessed with making an army of super soldiers, was a shocking revelation that didn't line up with what we were led to believe the Chozo were like at all. Several other retcons also added to making Raven Beak a great antagonist, most notably accepting the fandom's idea that Samus being infused with Metroid DNA would have her "becoming a Metroid", retconning the ending (and official word of it's interpretation) of Fusion which showed her as returning to pre-Fusion Samus.
Technically, that wasn't a retcon, since nothing in the original Dragon Ball confirmed or denied that Goku was of earthly origins, and he was always seen as unusual among even the more outlandish characters of the series simply because of his monkey tail. So him being revealed to be an alien was more of a revision, though it did come with the glaringly obvious parallels to Kal-El/Clark Kent from Superman, primarily how both were sent to earth as infants. That said, Dragon Ball Z (and GT and Super) does have loads of retcons, like several things established in the Saiyan saga being outright lies or "misunderstandings" in the subsequent Freeza saga, and many know of the almost hilarious changes Toriyama had to make during the Android saga because his editor wasn't happy with the villain designs.
Funny thing is that at the end of the first arc Oolong asks Goku of he's an alien after he transforms into his oozaru form on screen for the first time it was most likely not planned but is funny that it technically did got some early forshadowing
@@Yoxiv Nothing in the original Dragon Ball overtly suggested he wasn't from earth either. There are plenty of non humans on earth in Dragon Ball. There's the various furries, for instance. On top of that, Goku was heavily inspired by the Monkey King. With a lot of Asian aesthetic in the manga, he could have easily just been a lot like the Monkey King, just some absurdly strong boy who loves fighting, training, eating, adventuring and relaxing when he's not doing any of those. To my knowledge, prior to the saiyan saga, nothing overtly suggested he was an alien.
The funny thing about the Precursor reveal is that Seem, and presumably the other monks, knew. They knew and didn't tell Veger. Multiple times Seem directs some kind of mention of resembling 'our creators' toward Daxter, the last one being a statement of gratitute for granting her the chance 'to see the face of my creators'. I believe that's right after Jak gains the ability to sprout wings in his Light Eco-empowered form.
I really like the way Star Wars dealt with Boba Fett's original backstory. Before Attack of the Clones came out, his real name was revealed to be Jaster Mereel, and was given a backstory. Instead of just throwing it away, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter established that Jaster was Jango Fett's master, and also that both Boba and Jango have used Jaster's name as a fake identity. This is still the case now, as the backstory given in The Mandalorian for Jango matches up with it. A lot of other stories were just thrown out of continuity entirely, so it was nice that some of it was kept, simply altered a bit.
yeah, it does feel nice they kept Jango's and Boba's roots with the Mandalorians. And in turn definitely showing that Almec's claim that "Jango wasn't a true Mandalorian" was just complete bullcrap and just him not acknowledging Jango as such cuz of his belief of Mandalorians being only those born on Mandalore
People often don't pay much attention to good retcons Cuz usually a good retcon is one you don't realize is a retcon When you do, it usually means it was done poorly
One of my favorite retcons in recent memory HAS to be the revelations about the ancients in Sonic Frontiers and how it completely changes the game on not only what Chao are but also explains what chaos is and why he looks the way he is.
I would explain why I heavily disagree, but I think JebZone’s video on Frontiers’ story on why this doesn’t make a lick of sense explains it better than I ever could.
Does it really count as a retcon if the Chao never really had a clear or even implied origin before? They just kinda exited. Chaos' original backstory is even kept completely, it just has more context now. Or as a certain Yugay Motoe put it: "That wouldn't _rewrite_ history; that would just mean there'll be *even more* history!"
it is dissapointing how we never learned what is samurai jack's real name. (jack is not his real name, it is a nickname that some kids gave to him when he first went to the future and he decided to adopt it).
For a non-videogame retcon that became a character-defining moment, there's the fact that Captain America was frozen around the end of WWII and then found in the modern day (at the time it happened this was the 60's, but now it's relative to whenever 'modern' is). This became such an iconic part of Captain America's identity it's hard to imagine a version of him where this wasn't the case. Not only that, but it also eventually caused two other highly-regarded retcons: making the commie-smasher Cap from the 50's into his own character as a copycat that later became an antagonist, and Bucky's turn into the Winter Soldier. For a videogame one, there's one in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (aka FE7, the first one released to the west), prequel to the Binding Blade (aka FE6, the one with Roy) did that I think worked really well. Near the end of Hector Mode, he gains the legendary axe Armads, but is told by the ghost of its previous wielder, Durban, that if he uses it, he will not die peacefully, instead perishing on the battlefield, something Hector accepts in order to help his friends. And surprise surprise, guess what happens early into Binding Blade? Really, everything about Hector established in FE7 makes his character from FE6 much more memorable, whereas previously he was just 'Lilina's dad who dies early in the story'
The 2 aren't mutually exclusive. The Id is pure chaos, running only on instinct. What instinct would you have as THE WORLD PEOPLE LIVE ON? Basically, Zanza became a god in his own mind and the humans are fleas. If he killed a few it didn't matter because they're so insignificant. As for the architect, I'd say he's closer to the superego (the pure morality. The little nagging voice whenever you do anything even slightly "wrong" but can't actually stop you from doing it) and not the ego (the person's will which decides how far they want to be on one side or the other).
I actually cried for Berkut in the Shadows Over Valentia Remake (didn't even know it was a remake until now) the man still had so much room for growth in the final hour of the game but he was seduced by Duma's powerful temptation, sacrificing his own fiancée in exchange for power and a chilling battle in which Rinea becomes a spectral flame ghost to fight alongside him, and finishing him off actually pained me.
The only retcon I can think of comes from the Carmen Sandiego games. Originally, Carmen's backstory is described as being a double-, triple-, even quadruple-agent for so many countries, even she has forgotten who she's truly loyal to. It's a simple, if absurd, backstory overall and not really something you think about as you're playing. However, in "Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?", the ending shows Carmen attempting to steal a file about her, which was her big goal all along. After her arrest, the Chief reveals the contents to the player: Carmen Sandiego was once an agent for ACME, the same detective agency the player had been working for. In fact, she used to their best agent. Unfortunately, being the best meant there was no challenge in catching crooks, so she decided that outsmarting ACME itself was more worth her time, leading her to become the villainess we know today. It's a change that makes Carmen seem like more than just a petty thief; she's more like a rival. It turns her regular taunting from typical bad guy bluster into goading you into continuing her game, both the actual computer game and her in-universe "game." And on the narrative side, future games like "Treasures of Knowledge" would call into question just how much of a "bad guy" Carmen truly is.
If I'm not mistaken, Carmen being from ACME was also in the "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?" cartoon, and elements of her more "antihero" nature were applied to updated releases of the original "Where in the world" PC game. It's kind of like a less extreme version of Lupin III, who began as a pretty monstrous character in the original manga series, with the numerous anime and films softening the character to be a lot more likeable.
@@YoxivThen the animated reboot series gave her a different origin and basically turned her into a human rule 63 Sly Cooper, being a thief that steals from other thieves and criminals
The funniest thing about K9999 is that there was a prevailing theory that they were actually sued by the makers of Akira to get rid of him, but once Krohnen came into the picture, the devs confirmed there was never a lawsuit and they had to keep up the facade all this time. Gotta respect the dedication
Actually, my favourite gaming retcon is Blizzard's doing - yeah, oxymoron now. But the recontextualization of the Horde between Warcraft 2 and 3, from generic doomsday villains to a developed if simple culture decieved into becoming puppets of demons and the resulting split between seeking atonement and new path or embracing the bloody legacy of Burning Legion. There is a reason why spiritual, close-to-nature portrayal of orcs is called "Blizzard-like" nowadays.
Well, that one was made by the old, passionate Blizzard, not the current punching bag Blizzard. So I think it IS possible. But even without the controversies, Blizzard often made changes (or bad retcons) to ruin those good retcons. Which I think of the real reason why I stepped away from overly being invested to Warcraft lore.
Retcons are an interesting species of Story Structure, there have been a lot of cases where retconning Is bad, so retconning a story and turning out good is a rare thing to happen.
That's my thought, as well. Sometimes you just want to be able to go back and fix what didn't work. Retcons are a great literary tool for doing just that. It's a delicate tightrope walk, though. :/
It's really not that rare though. Some of the biggest and most important franchises in history have examples of "good" retcons. Star Wars and Dragon Ball immediately come to mind (Darth Vader was not originally Luke's father, and Goku was not originally part of an alien species).
Devil's advocate here, but for number 4- I think the creators had THIS line in mind for when Jack and Ashi went through all that: "If you want to break someone-mentally, physically, emotionally-wait until they're happy. Let them live and love and thrive. Once they recognize the value of a life well lived... THAT'S when you move in for the kill. Because you can't take anything from someone who has nothing to lose." -Tarn, Transformers. TL;DR for Robo-Deathstroke over here- fate basically decided to pull an Othello, or something like that XP
@@dakotadoyle7573 Hot take maybe but I hated how in No Way Home they took the good things that Spider Man had going for him and trashed it in the end. Now his GF and BF don't know who he is anymore, Happy doesn't either and none of the Avengers do now either. Like do we need to consistently retread the old Spider Man story of no one knowing who he is?
@@Altoryu I thought it was really well handled, primarily because it was a selfless desire. He didn't care about people knowing he was Spider-Man, he cared that it was hurting his friends. He had to sacrifice everything to right his wrong and help his friends. And now he can start from square one and try again, with the experience he's had. If nothing else, it's way better than giving up your marriage and baby to save a woman who was probably already one foot in the grave.
Actually Devil May Cry 3 sold 2.3 million units in the launch period, Devil May Cry 4 sold 3 million units in the launch period, & the reboot took 5 years to sell 3 million units
A little extra tippet for the Xenoblade Chronicles Retcon: During Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Klaus explains how there was a third aegis along side Pneuma and Logos (Pyra/Mythra and Malos) called "Ontos" that went to the other world. The third aegis is Alvis, A character at the end on Xenoblade Chronicles 1 describes himself as a computer program, which is exactly what the trinity processer was. To add even more they slightly tweaked his design in the remake. in the original he wore a key necklace. They changed it in the Definitive Edition to be the red aegis crystal to reflect how he's the third aegis Klaus was referring too. The DLC of xenoblade chronicles 3 "Future Redeemed" explores this further and outright confirms Alivs is Ontos
Ah, nice. Haven’t gotten to the Future Redeemed stuff in DE, still just playing through the game again, but when Alvis first showed up I noticed that immediately. Even in the context of just XC1 I like that too. The original key necklace was always an incredibly random detail; the aegis crystal, even if you don’t realize that’s what it is, hints at his true place in XC1’s story from the resemblance. Not just to the other aegis crystals, but Xeno fans who’ve been with the series since at least Saga know their shape as that of the Zohar. You don’t just go around wearing something like that without Xeno god connections.
Major love to Josh for the Xenoblade 2 entry. That retcon turned Xenoblades lore from a mere story of a corrupt powermad god being struck down by his own creations, into a huge tale of of hubris, regret, and both learning to not fear the future while also learning from and taking value from the past to avoid repeating mistakes.
@@Hachiko96 No, it's still a Retcon. Xenoblade 1 was not originally going to be a Xeno game. It simply carried a few similar themes and motifs and was given a Xeno retitle from "Monado: Beginning of the World" as a tribute to Takahashi's work in Xenogears and Xenosaga. The Perfect Works structure was only implemented with the development of Xenoblade 2, which is when the the series went full Xeno and the retcon was made to maintain the Xenoblade 1's original story while making it a single part of a larger whole.
@@Hachiko96 Oh course it feels intentional. Xenoblade 1 was intentionally made to be LIKE a Xeno game, but it didn’t truly become one until Xenoblade 2 retconned and recontextualized its place in the multiverse.
@@jasperjavillo686 Still don't see how that makes it a retcon. It doesn't contradict anything, just reveals and expands on the world of Xenoblade. The odd logic you're using makes it sound like Xenoblade 2 existing in its entirety is a retcon, when that's not how story writing works.
@@frankblazer6377 I live in the state of California, which is a state that is host to all sorts of records, country-wide, continent-wide, worldwide, you name it. Two of these records are that it is home to both the highest and lowest point in the contiguous 48 states, in the forms of Mount Whitney and Death Valley. Over the course of one summer I was able to visit both locales, namely spending an entire day hiking up the mountain. The mountaintop was glorious, but Death Valley was inhospitable and sweltering. Amusingly, even after traversing the highest highs and the lowest lows, I still could not find who the fuck asked.
Blaster master is one i now think about. What was once a story about a kid losing his frog and just randomly finding a tank to fight off a mutant overlord, spun itself as the main status quo until BM: Blasting again and Overdrive. Ever since Blaster Master Zero, they took this weird localisation story, rebooted and retconned the initial status quo of the original NES and made it a sequel to the original Japanese Famicom game MetaFight and an entire trilogy of zero games capping off not only the adventures of Jason Frudnick but also the conclusion of Kane Gardner, culminating into a final chapter where they both clash in Blaster Master Zero 3.
...man. krauser was such a genuinely good retcon. Simply by giving a proper connection to leon outside of being a teammate suddenly in one spinoff that nobody played, to being his tutor makes his death _mean something_ to leon and in turn the player. That is an Huge improvement over a power hungry soldier after learning they denied the cure from jill she tried to give before bombing raccoon city
Another thing about Giovanni is that he does ressurect Team Rocket as Team Rainbow Rocket in Ultra Sun/Moon with him as the leader and every team head as his underlings. It's a really cool story where you get to see all the team heads that you have defeated throughout the Pokemon universe all in one place and actually give you a run for your money if you aren't prepared.
It's kinda crazy to think how Shadow wasn't supposed to appear after Adventure 2... And then became the 2nd most favorite character in the entire franchise. Looking forward to seeing his backstory, yet again, in Sonic 3 this December!
don't think it counts specifically because nothing happens to contradict it but in Mortal Kombat, Noob Saibot being the original Sub Zero is such a good addition that wasn't established until the 3D games
12:12 Fun fact, Seem actually knew that Daxter was a Precursor. Granted, it’s only hinted at throughout the game at least twice, but yeah, they figured it out and were perfectly fine with it. 😂 But yeah, that reveal was hilarious
8:24 the manga takes things to another level when it comes to the relationship between the two making them both more complex then generic gang boss and douchy kid.
My honorable mention: Crash’s New Timeline (Crash Bandicoot 4 It’s About Time) Wrath Of Cortex didn’t do as well as they hoped, so they just pretended it never happened.
The elementals did appear as Easter eggs in Crash 4, and the mask controls time did say there are evil mask that will bring the end to the universe. So my best bet is that the elementals gain new powers and gank the universe or she is talking about a new set of evil masks. In the words of Murphy, SEE YOU IN CRASH BANDICOOT 5!
Reversing the twist reveal in Heroes in Crisis is one of my favorites in recent memory. The plot is so convoluted and contrived just to make a certain character a killer in that mess of a so-called "mystery" that any and all attempts to retcon that is welcome in my eyes.
The Yakuza/Like A Dragon series has some good retcons. Majima not actually being insane and just wearing that as a mask to protect his emotions from the path he's chosen in life. And then there's Nishiki's development in 0 and Kiwami.
Majima having more depth to his character isn't a retcon lmfao what. The games just never really gave him much focus until 4. Nishiki's development is actually a good retcon since he was so flat in 1.
I would've put Venom Snake from Phantom Pain in here, too. Like DMC, it fixed the entire series by actually addressing "Oh yeah, THAT Big Boss was Big Boss' doppelganger", like how Ocelot was Liquid's, and how his death was a hell of a lot more plausible than the same Big Boss surviving... you know... exploding.
Some of my favorite retcons happens in some of the Super Robot Taisen games. Originally in the anime and/or manga a character dies but in the game they're either alive after their respective final battle or you were able to save them by fulfilling certain requirements such as getting a high kill count with certain character/characters, deploying certain characters while also keeping them alive, use the convince command with certain characters, killing an enemy with certain characters or character, lowering the health of an enemy, and/or just not killing an enemy.
I would personally put Xenoblade's over DMC. DMC 5's "retcon" was more a recognition of a misstep, while XC2 feels a lot more planned out. I've got a recent retcon that I would've put on the list. Although it is rather tame in comparison to some of these, the retconning in Sonic Frontiers threw me through a loop. Sure, the Chaos Emerald retcon is... weird, to say the least, but the decision to make the Ancients resemble the destruction god Chaos and imply that they evolved into the Chao race to avoid detection by The End is mind-boggling.
My favorite retcon is a pretty well-known one from The Hobbit. In the first edition, Gollum willingly bets the Ring in the riddle match, and when he loses the match and can't find the Ring, he shows Bilbo the way out of the cave instead. Tolkien later realized this didn't fit with what he wanted to do in the sequel, so he went back and rewrote the riddle contest scene to the one we know today. What makes this retcon good is how both versions are incorporated into the overarching story. The prologue to The Lord of the Rings explains that the original version of the story was what Bilbo told the dwarves and wrote in his diary, while the revised version was what actually happened. This change plays into the Ring's corrupting influence, which is shown much more prominently later in the story.
Retcons are... weird. They aren't exactly bad if they're done well, all they have to do is fit properly. Don't massively shift something from one thing to the next, just cleverly shift things in a way that doesn't distrupt what comes before and allows for what comes after. Klaus from XC2 is probably a gold star example from Xenoblade 2's insane collection of excellent retcons (namely the reframing of events from XC1, Alvis' identity and the experiment itself). It's actually really smartly done, and plays well into Xenoblade 3 and Xenoblade Future Redeemed. In my opinion, an all-time great retcon is Borderlands 2's reframing of the events of the first game. Making Jack manipulate the cast of BL1 into finding the vault and reaping the rewards before revealing his tricking nature with the BL2 cast is so excellent. He's such an enjoyable villain and makes BL2 instantly better as a result.
For the Samurai Jack ending I agree that Ashi should've vanished shortly after Jack finished off Aku, after his tower blew up and they were alone. She's collapse saying the line: "Without Aku, I would have never existed", she'd fade away after. Then the scene would cut to awhile later where a victory feast being held in Jack's honour, attended by Jack's friends, family, and mentors from that time. Though Jack leaves early still sad over Ashi's death, then we get that scene of him underneath that tree with the ladybug. Though I do love the game retconning the end with the extra effort you do in the game. While Jack's target was always the past Aku which he spent his youth training to one day defeat, he(and us viewers) spent more time dealing with the future Aku which made facing off against him one last time so great, plus using his temporal meddling to somehow save Ashi helped Jack(and us) get one of the best endings we could ask for Jack's story.
@@LanceCorporalHawk30 The idea to make Precursors ottsels came from creative director Dan Arey, and received strong support among animators. A developer stated, "I'd kind of like to be in the living rooms ... of America watching when a lot of people who've played the series before see the Precursors for the first time, because I imagine we're gonna get just as many people who like the idea, as just as many people who think it's the dumbest thing they've ever seen."
@@orangeslash1667 Yeah, I agree that the reveal could either be seen as "the stupidest thing ever" or "the most hilarious thing ever" without really having any kind of middle ground...
The FNAF franchise got weird when they wrote that the animatronics gif made into literal killing machines, with different parts that made them scarier They were already bots that were haunted by ghost kids. Making them be built to kill and/or abduct makes me think they’re evil cuz of programming, not ghosts I feel like FNAF is gonna become Terminator
I've seen enough Game Theory (Godspeed, MatPat) to know that the rabbit hole is even weirder than you think. There are clues in books, easter eggs, merch, the movie, a book of the movie, and yet, Game Theory proposed a timeline of events in the franchise that can put our minds to rest.
Well, they're also made by the same guy who made those dead kids dead, so it wouldn't be insane for him to make other, actually evil animatronics. Plus, he often corrupts his partner's creations, so it's not just ones he's made with evil programming or vengeful spirits.
I'll give Leage of Legends credit with their retcons. When they hit something right, it's a grand slam. For the longest time, Warwicks rework was my favorite in the game. I still absolutely loved it, but there was one that won me over and, in my own mind, it was like if two superpowers were fighting in a bloody king of the hill style war. Warwick. I love your rework so much.... but Fiddlesticks.... Oh. My. Lord. The WEEK after I saw the teaser for the monsters rework for the first time, I legit had a nightmare about him. What Riot did with Fiddlesticks was absolutely astonishing. Old Fiddlesticks was fun, but he wasn't scary other than his ult and backstory. New and reworked fiddlesticks, though.... Not only is the spirit of the old still there (*cough* Aatrox *cough*), but they made him TERRIFYING! Giving him a backstory concept of a grim dark folktale that is not only real but much, MUCH worse.... ....And his dialogue.... mimicking the dead's final words as bait for his victims... How... HOW did Riot make me scared of something that was once a normal scarecrow that referenced Wizard of Oz in his dance and T-posed to steal heal?!
@Diablo_Himself if you played it on the PSP then you likely played one of the last 2 games in the series. They have their own separate stories, but there is one whole overarching narrative.
My favorite retcon was in Adventure time. In the Season 5 premiere, the alternate ("Farmworld") Finn takes Ice King's crown from his body, but it later reappears on Ice King's head when the bomb goes off. Standard animation error, right? But later on, in Season 7's episode "Crossover", Prismo the Wish Master uses his powers to purposefully put it there so it'd be destroyed in the explosion (the action is literally presented as him going into the editing software to place the crown into the scene). They didn't need to do that, and yet, it's such a great retcon!
I know BATIM chapters 4 and 5 are honorable mentions, but my favorite retcon is in the sequel. Spoilers for Bendy and the Dark Revival: In the Dark Revival, it's revealed that the entire previous game is a pocket dimension inside the Ink Machine itself on a time loop called The Cycle. This explains so much. Joey's apartment, Henry's line deliveries, Sammy recognizing Henry, Henry rarely interacting with the characters, Henry's refusal to die from things like falling ten stories or being smashed through a brick wall, some of the hallucinations in chapters 4 and 5 as well as the hallucination easter eggs added to previous chapters, and much more.
I always wanted the studio to actually be the real one, but it makes far more sense for it to simply be the pocket dimension we already predicted at the end of the first game.
One of my favourite parts about the Klaus retcon is how each game handles it, as Josh mentioned. But we also have what is brought up in Xenoblade 3's Story DLC, Future Redeemed (Spoilers from here) So, we do get to see the old world that Klaus lived in during the ending of the game and hear a radio broadcast from around that time, going on about human rights issues, people colonising space, and then the real kicker... Dimtri Yuriev, one of the antagonists of the Xenosaga series, gets explicitly namedropped, and you come to realise that if Klaus hadn't done what he'd done when he did then its likely the Savorites, who Yuriev is the leader of, would have gotten their hands on the Conduit, or as its referred to in Xenosaga The Zohar, they would have done so much worse than Klaus. Its a lesser of two evils. Klaus may have destroyed humanity on Earth, but in return, he allowed 2 new worlds to thrive while the rest of humanity in the colonies learned from the past and grew. And one of the things about the radio scene is that nobody in the cast ever mentions it due to being unable to decipher the language, but we can understand it, and its mainly background noise as Na'el is explaining her plan to lead humanity into a new world just like Klaus's What I'm saying is that Xenoblade really handled the retcons of Klaus insanely well, and it's one of my favourite franchises for a reason.
I disagree with HG/SS's entry here. My major problem with it being that that it was locked content that anybody that doesn't live in USA, UK, Europe or Japan didn't have access to. It should have been part of the Main Game. Yeah, I also think that it ruins the Main Game by taking away a climatic final battle against Giovanni, but that is secondary.
One of the few that actually is video game related that I can think of is CQC (close quarters combat) in the Metal Gear series. The fighting style was introduced in the prequel game snake eater as being created by the main antagonist and Big Boss, Big Boss apparently taught Solid Snake CQC but he never once used it in the games preceding this. shoving this in could be sloppy but the reasons given make some sense on a character level. after Big Boss betrayed him he never liked using the style again and only when documents on Big Boss were declassified and soldiers were implementing CQC on a mass scale (mgs4) did snake use it. without spoiling one of the series many great final boss fights, its CQC focused and narratively it adds to it more than the retcon may harm in my oppinion.EDIT: I forgot to note that the mass implementation of CQC was a flawed and nowhere near as refined version of what snake could use it became a experience Advantage he couldn't turn down.
Thought the FFXIV Ascians being turned form moustache-twirling villains into extremely complex and well-developed characters with tragic motivations woulda been here, but c'est la vie.
On the Klaus one, it should also be noted that the Xenoblade 2 version of events had his space station under heavy fire at the time. Enough that the rest of the staff were ready to deploy Aion, the world ender mech that Malus pilots to become the final boss. In XC2 at least, it was either Klaus resetting the world or there being no world.
Legacy Of Kain: Defiance retconing the future visions Raziel has before his second showdown with Kain in the chronoplast chamber at the end of Soul Reaver.
I could be wrong and all but I think there are very little retcons in the entire franchise, which is amazing for a series based on time travel. Admittedly yeah there's plenty of times where they introduced things and had no real plan of where to take it from there, or how it got there, etc. But at the end of the day Amy Hennig was such a badass writer she made everything make sense when you stopped and took it all in.
A retcon that everybody seems to love and even forget is a retcon is the addition of Feedback in the Ben 10 series. Its mainly because if how fucking cool Feedback is.
It does help that Feedback was unlocked when Ben was 11, meaning he unlocked the alien sometime after the original series rather than just having him during the original and "conveniently" never using him.
@@Yoxiv the explanation to why he was never mentioned is interesting azimuth said he locked that transformation just incase traces of malware were in it as he was thought to be destroyed. Also Ben's disinterest of the whole event never wanting to talk about it.
I thought that the retcon of Shadow the Hedgehog would have made an honorable mention. It made it more understandable why G.U.N. raided the ARK and killed everyone but Gerald, how they were able to make a huge leap from the Biolizard who needed life support to survive straight to Shadow who was the perfect result, why he has perfect control over the powers of Chaos when the Biolizard struggled to do even a single one, to even why Gerald made the Eclipse Cannon to begin with. As crazy as it was it worked well into the story, built upon Adventure 2 and didn’t disregard anything from the original continuity. It came from a frustrating game, but I think it did well enough to deserve an honorable mention. Either way, the mention of Shadow coming back into the series works well too. After all, HE’S SO GODDAMN COOL!
Hopefully the third Sonic movie and/or Sonic x Shadow Generations can do the story from Shadow the Hedgehog straight from the beginning so that people won't have to play that increasingly old, very controversial and unlikely to get remastered otherwise game...
I can think of good retcons, and most of the ones I'm thinking of are from Symphogear, mostly because they dont replace preexisting information and lore, but add to it instead
Spider-Man 2 retconned what happened to Sandman from Spider-Man 1. In the first game you find a vial full of sand that contains Sandman's mind which left people feeling a little horrified that Spider-Man just left him in a backpack on top of the Avengers tower. But thanks to the writers of Spider-Man 2 forgetting that (no really that's what happened) we get an epic boss fight for the first level of the game and a side quest that let's us help out one of Spider-Man's villains.
@@nikoladedic6623 That's the one, apparently one of the writers confirmed that they had forgotten that Spider-Man had trapped the grain of sand that contains his mind in a vial and left it webbed to the top of Avengers tower. It's not a retcon I'm complaining about since it results in a pretty memorable opening level.
Another thing about Giovanni's retcon. After the battle, when he leaves, you hear a water splash sound. It's implied that Giovanni, out of shame, jumped the waterfall outside, taking his own life.
@@mythicalthings1796 With what Pokémon though? Giovanni only had the team of four on him and none of them (Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Honchkrow, and Kangaskhan) can learn the Waterfall HM.
I'll be honest, in terms of a retcon i remember, I hated the opening to mortal kombat 9 souly because when i was a kid, i was lead to believe that Taven was the one to defeat blaze, while shao Khan was taken away by Onaga. But apparently, Shao khan killed Onaga, and then killed Blaze. Considering the previous canon endings in deadly alliance and deception, I figured Armageddon would be the same, but nope! All that effort, all those realms crossed, dying over and over again on instant death traps, and it meant nothing in the end.
Netherrealm retcons Mortal Kombat about as much as Riot Games does with League of Legends. Although their retcons can be much more hit-or-miss, mostly miss. For MK 9, they should've allowed the original timeline to carry on by itself and just have the new timeline be completely separate. But that'd mean NRS would have to rewrite the plot and it'd change the whole direction of the series.
To this day, the best retcon for me is Daredevil's mother, Maggie. For those who don't know, when Daredevil was originally created, his mother was dead, and his dad was the only one taking care of him. It is then revealed in Born Again that his mother is actually alive and abandoned Matt and his father to become a Nun. We didn't know why until Original Sin by Jason Aaron. When the Watcher's eyes reveal all of the secrets he has recorded, Matt gets an image of his Dad hitting his mom. He immediately goes to her and asks why she never mentioned that his father was abusive towards her, and she said he wasn't. He was protecting you. Turns out, she was suffering from severe post partem depression and tried to kill Matt as a baby and that his dad fought her off. I personally love that because it gave her much more of character and made her motive for leaving Matt much more clearer
honestly I liked Ragna killing NOL soldiers, he was young in a bad place mentally so I think it made sense that this would happen and make him feared for good reason, he didnt get the highest bounty for nothing and was effectively a terrorist. I think it makes his development even more appreciable in the grand scheme of things, also how likely was it that he was able to kill 0 soldiers every time he went off to destroy a cauldron. But hey I appreciate the Blazblue exposure it's one of my favourite fighting game it's always nice to someone talk about it
On the topic of Yoshi's Island, I always figured the Mario Bris. And their parent flewed yhe Mushroom Kingdom and moved to Brooklyn sometime after the events of the game (and a few other subsequent games). After all, if evil monsters were out to kill your babies, would you stick around?
The best example I can think of are some of the changes made from the JP version of FE10 to the English version, namely the reasoning for why Ike beat the Black Knight in FE9.
One of my favorite retcons is in Curse of Monkey Island, where they did away with the whole dumb "Lechuck is your brother and the whole pirate gig was just a dream" in the previous game by having Guybrush say it was an illusion of the carnival. Glad to see them correct their mistake so that we can see more hijinks in the insult riddled world of Monkey Island.
When mentioning of retcons, I can't help but think about MGS4 and 5 (stay with me here.) *spoilers foe those who haven't played yet to this day* Throughout the Solid series, big boss was to said to be dead. It wasn't until the end of Guns of the Patriots when he was alive and said that he was under a chemically induced coma by the Patriots, give the backstory for how everythint got to where it was in the story, only for Foxdie to take him out minutes later. Fast forward (or backward depending on how you wanna describe the timeline) to The Phantom Pain, and you can find out in one of the audio tapes you can listen to for more back story and information, you find out that Zero actually came to see Big Boss when he was in the coma from the XOF attack, and learn that he was dying to the parasites and that he'd hope to discuss everything and settle the problems they had. But due to how things played out, Zero only felt safe with leaving the future in the hands of Artificial Intelligence. To think for a second, that if Big Boss could have been able to come out of his coma earlier to talk with Zero and how everything (chronologically speaking) played out, that is heartbreaking. And it added a good touch to the MGS storyline
One of the best retcons I can remember was one in SF2, particularly Cammy’s ending. In her original ending in SF2, Bison reveals that she is his lover, which is… bizarre to say the least. Thank god Capcom nuked that out of canon existence.
21:14 FINALLY!! Why does no one ever talk about how the final season of Samurai Jack is a almost 1 for 1 copy of Gurren Laggan when it comes to Jack and Ashi???
How did I know EXACTLY where you were going with the #2 entry, and yet still thought you were gonna talk about...you-know-who? Bruh...are you in my head? Eh, either way, it's definitely an interesting retcon for sure...and then 3 happened...and there was much rejoicing...again. XD "If you knew we Precursors were a bunch of little fuzzy rats, would you still worship us?" In the words of Shoulder-Angel Kronk, "No no, he's got a point." Like, it's friggin' funny, don't get me wrong, but their leader does bring up a valid point. A lot of the fun in discovery is the mystery; take away the mystery and what have you left? Disappointment, probably. Well...Count Vulgar certainly seemed to be, anyway. Gods that is such a satisfying moment after everything that dastard has put us through. XD
Onechanbara Origins has several good retcons including changing it to where Aya and Saki were actually birth sisters separated at birth in a attempt to break the cycle of siblings in the Baneful Clan fighting each other to the death, and the Xctsy Forms they unlock isn't the actual Xtcsy Form but a pre-Xtcsy Form. A infamous example of a bad retcon is Wife-Arm from Bionic Commando 2009.
Nice list: Some interesting retcons I can think of are Tekken 7 or 8 (origin of the devil gene and the fact that they made Heihachi a more sympathetic character, but also something else in Tekken 8 involving spoilers). Metal Gear (Raiden), Megaman Battle Network (making Wily a more sympathetic character), Professor Layton (a certain twist from Azran Legacy, or other twists from the series) Ace Attorney 6 (giving Apollo more backstory) 2: One interesting twist and it does not ruin the first game. 3: I liked those two characters and what they added to the story 5: I have not played the first Blazblue game, but I liked Ragnas personality in the second game. 8: One of the funniest moments in gaming. 9: Interesting backstory
Honestly, I think the attempts to whitewash Heihachi as "sympathetic" is straight up moronic considering all of the sinister and horrible things Heihachi has done, not just to Kazuya, but to the other characters like Jin, Michelle Chang, and Steve Fox in particular whom he tried to have assassinated just to cover his ass on the Mishima Zaibatsu's "Super Soldier" project
I would call retconning Heihachi to be "sympathetic" more moronic than "Interesting" personally, given that it flies in the face of every horrible, deplorable thing we have seen him do or has been implied to do
My favorite retcon is probably Reaper’s backstory in Overwatch, because they did originally made him just a person in a suit, not the brutally disfigured fallen hero who’s close to death but can’t die, it added a new level of sympathy to him, especially when we learned what Moria and Doomfist did to him.
Another thing to consider about the Precursors being Ottsels is that they are godlike beings with incredible power, able to reshape people into their own image, which could very well mean that they aren't bound to the form of Ottsels, it's just what they either feel most comfortable with or like. It is a shame we never saw what the Dark Makers were like, at least the ones in charge. Speaking of Jak 3, I do wish whoever wrote Ashelin to be Jak's love interest got slapped silly, that was such an idiotic change, made all the more bizarre with how it never comes up again in Jak X. As for series with interesting uses of retcons, Legacy of Kain is a rather unique example, since the idea is that while events in the timeline are retconed/removed, the timeline isn't doing the usual splitting like what is seen in other time travel works like Back to the Future. Instead, like the metaphorical river that Kain describes the timeline in Soul Reaver 2, when massive changes are made, the "river" simply finds a way to flow around these changes, making the necessary changes, a prime example being the events of Blood Omen 2 occurring because of what Kain did at the end of SR2 and what Raziel did in Defiance. It's definitely one of the reasons fans of the series like myself wish the series hadn't been canned, since there was so much intrigue around what the "true timeline" would have looked like once Kain had been able to cut all of the strings controlling Nosgoth's history.
At least Gurren Lagann told the audience and characters what would happen. Samurai Jack trying to pull a bait and switch was needlessly cruel to the characters and the audience
Honestly Ragna was always likeable, he's often called an edgelord but he's a pretty chill guy when you get to know him. There are many moments he shows his soft side in the story.
Favorite retcon... For me what comes to mind is OneShot. The way the game was originally designed, you were only meant to have one shot. There is only two endings a player could get. Returning the sun, forcing Niko to stay. Or destroying the sun, dooming the world and letting Niko go home. But then, in the form of an update patch, and later on the World Machine Edition, we see it... Solstice. If we follow the proper steps in the Barrens, we lock ourselves in on this path. Essentially retconing whatever ending the player picked and at the end of it all, we get the best of both. Saving the world and Niko gets to go home. For me, the reason I love this one, is that originally it was just one shot. But the update made the game retcon itself. Now if someone told me this isn't exactly a retcon in the same sense, I can see that. I just can't help but see it as one.
Definitely one of my favorite retcons was how Imulsion was just some super-fuel in Gears of War, to a parasitic lifeform capable of mutating just about ANYTHING. That, and the COG being the ones to accidentally create the Locust Horde in an effort to cure rust lung.
Interesting take on DMC5, I also like that Capcom even found time to put in an easter egg that references the Devil May Cry anime series. It’s through a phone call Dante gets from the anime deuteragonist, Patty Lowell about her turning 18 and trying invite Dante to her birthday party. Dante of course hangs up on her.
the Heart Gold/Soul Sliver Celibi stuff that was in the original G/S/C but it was locked behind an inperson event that would give the player a special Celibi that would let them experience these moments HG/SS just added them to the game proper.
Okay I was TODAY YEARS OLD when I learned about the secret Samurai Jack ending, and I am SO freaking happy! Like yes, I know that having a bittersweet ending is more realistic, but you know what? I like a happy ending, and both Jack and Ashi deserve to be happy after all they went through!
I hope that none of the retcons seen in Mortal Kombat 11 make appearances. That game retconned so many things, like making Kabal and Sindel evil, changing the looks and personalities of so many characters, and how it just spat in the faces of everyone by saying it was Kronika who was responsible for everything that had transpired, all because of her design to create a perfect world seems incredibly patronizing. Thank God. Now I want to see a Top 10 Worst Video Game Retcons.
@timemonkey Even though it was established that Kronika merged the time period just before Shao Kahn was about to kill Kung Lao with the present day. Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure Kabal should be a cop at that point in his career. And on top of that, why would that version of Kabal the powers of Superspeed? In MK9, it was established that Kabal got his speed after he got burned by Kintaro. By utilizing a special breathing apparatus, Quan Chi's magic and Outworld's influence, Kabal acquired superspeed. And again, all this happened after he became a cop and during the Outworld Invasion.
@@OmnicidalClown1992 His vs intros suggest he's from further back than the rest. The speed thing is definitely a retcon, but then again MK9 attributing his speed to Shang Tsung's magic was also a retcon.
@timemonkey The problem with this Vs. Intros is the lack of continuity. The same game had several intros that contradict each other. For example, they retconned King Jarrod's death by changing his killer from Shao Kahn to D'Vorah, only to retcon that by saying it was Sindel who murdered her husband to impress Shao Kahn. Speaking of Sindel, in another Intro, Geras told Kitana that Sindel loved her daughter, only for that to be retconned by making Sindel a cruel, abusive and evil mother and queen.
I’d argue that the Alvis retcon should have been included along with Klaus as it only enhanced the original game as well as more closely tying everything together
While I like the later games, especially FR, I still never felt that the original was ever enhanced in the slightest by it. If anything, it feels slightly irritating every time when Alvis throws inaccurate info at our heads even tho he canonically does have access to the accurate version, as even outright proven by Alpha projecting it in Origin.
I would've picked Persona 5 Royal. The additional story stuff, which changes aspects of the original story and therefor is a retcon, allows for Akechi to become an actually good character. In general Royal is a genuine upgrade over the original, and since it changes aspects of the story I'd say it counts as a retcon.
I'm hoping that for the celebration of Devil May Cry as a whole Capcom will do a remaster of the other for Devil May Cry game in an awesome collection. Also, my other recon that properly hates is thermal clips in Mass Effect 2. In my opinion they should have stick with guns, cooling down and upgrades to make your gun cool down quicker.
Although disputed due to lack of clarity between Yoshi's Island and the Super Mario series as a whole back then, many people perceived Yoshi as the same one between the two series, but then it was clarified in Yoshi's Island DS that the present day Yoshi is actually an offspring of one of the Yoshi Clan members, presumably Green Yoshi. This offspring is also one of the 7 Star Children alongside the other babies in Yoshi's Island DS. This is backed up by the fact that Yoshi didn't recognize Mario when he was saved in Super Mario World. Is it a retcon? You decide.
Number 2 on this list made me think of a comment Josh made about live-action versions of animated Disney movies: the villains are given sympathetic aspects by passing the buck to another character who gets no depth beyond causing misery (in the case of this list's spot, all of humanity).
I think my favorite retcon is:
Hal Jordan didn't became evil and killed every Green Lantern ever, including his friends like Kilowog. What really happened is that Hal was inffected by Parallax, the fear entity.
I think that is a really good retcon because 1.-making him evil was really against character, 2.-it allowed Hal to come back as a hero and 3.-it open the door to a whole new possibilities for DC stories and expand the GL lore.
When did this happen?
Geoff run on GL.
Even better, most of the Lanterns he killed were revealed to be alive and prisoners of the Manhunter robots. One rescue mission later, they're back to being members of the Corp.
@@HB-fq9nn Everything began with Reign of the Supermen (part of the Death and Return of Superman storyline). The story when Hal goes nuts is "Emeral Twilight". Then it goes to "Zero Hour". Hal came back in "Green Lantern: Rebirth" (teh 2004-2005 mini-series). And the rest is "Sinestro Corp War", "Blackest Night" and a long etc. xD
It really said something that a plotline was so dumb and out of character, that something "he was actually possessed by a entity we now just showing" is seen a fix.
A good retcon is usually one that retcons something that was hated from the start. Like how Avengers 200 was eventually retconned by Marvel Comics.
Sins Past would also like to join Avengers 200.
@@OleanderRainbow If people hate Carol Danvers now, I wonder how they'll feel once they see what happened to her in that landmark issue.
@@claytonrios1
Trust me, I'm aware of Avengers 200. My Sins Past comment was also a suggestion for "This terrible story also got retconed out of existence.".
@@OleanderRainbow DC also does this a lot with their Crisis events.
@@claytonrios1
This is also true. For the record, Lex Luthor stealing 40 cakes is always canon to me.
I always loved how Sonic handled the Robotnik name change. Instead of just sweeping localization changes under the rug, they decided to adopt the westernized "Robotnik" as Eggman's actual family name in Adventure 2. Meanwhile in the English version of Adventure 1 Sonic would call just him "Eggman" as an insult, before he just accepted that as his super villain moniker for the rest of the series.
My theory for why he became known just as Doctor Eggman onwards is because of him learning the truth of Gerald Robotnik's actions in Adventure 2 and maybe out of respect for Maria as well. He's still Robotnik but Eggman is a name that has no roots.
According to tails tube (it’s SEGA’s took to clean up canon) Eggman started calling himself Eggman to rob Sonic of his new favourite insult
@@kainthedragoon8081 That's honestly what I had assumed the case was. "It's not an insult if I own it!"
@@rayvenkman2087That and maybe he does so to maybe commit some fraud on the side.
And then Sonic started calling him Baldy McNoseHair instead. Lol.
I'm actually a bit surprised to not see Raven Beak on this list... Raven Beak shattered a lot of preexisting ideas of how the Chozo were, and yet was a good villain, one of the best Final Bosses in any Metroid game, and a very convenient way to tie up the plot arc of Samus's relationship with the Metroids. It's almost hard to believe that character was created by the MercurySteam staff themselves and not a pre-conceived concept from Nintendo's vaults or a canon immigrant from a manga spinoff.
To be fair, I don't think any of Raven Beak's plot elements were technically a "retcon"? His existence was outright foreshadowed in the in-game art you could unlock in the Samus Returns 3DS remake.
@@pikespeakaudio8898 That's literally a remake of a game which did not originally have any new Chozo lore. Made by MercurySteam, at that. And notably, before that lore dump, the idea that the Chozo were wiped out in a cival war, by a member of the race who turned to be a warmongerer obsessed with making an army of super soldiers, was a shocking revelation that didn't line up with what we were led to believe the Chozo were like at all.
Several other retcons also added to making Raven Beak a great antagonist, most notably accepting the fandom's idea that Samus being infused with Metroid DNA would have her "becoming a Metroid", retconning the ending (and official word of it's interpretation) of Fusion which showed her as returning to pre-Fusion Samus.
Goku being an alien is so ingrained to dragon ball at this point you forget that it was a retcon.
Technically, that wasn't a retcon, since nothing in the original Dragon Ball confirmed or denied that Goku was of earthly origins, and he was always seen as unusual among even the more outlandish characters of the series simply because of his monkey tail. So him being revealed to be an alien was more of a revision, though it did come with the glaringly obvious parallels to Kal-El/Clark Kent from Superman, primarily how both were sent to earth as infants. That said, Dragon Ball Z (and GT and Super) does have loads of retcons, like several things established in the Saiyan saga being outright lies or "misunderstandings" in the subsequent Freeza saga, and many know of the almost hilarious changes Toriyama had to make during the Android saga because his editor wasn't happy with the villain designs.
Funny thing is that at the end of the first arc Oolong asks Goku of he's an alien after he transforms into his oozaru form on screen for the first time it was most likely not planned but is funny that it technically did got some early forshadowing
@@Yoxiv Nothing in the original Dragon Ball overtly suggested he wasn't from earth either. There are plenty of non humans on earth in Dragon Ball. There's the various furries, for instance. On top of that, Goku was heavily inspired by the Monkey King. With a lot of Asian aesthetic in the manga, he could have easily just been a lot like the Monkey King, just some absurdly strong boy who loves fighting, training, eating, adventuring and relaxing when he's not doing any of those. To my knowledge, prior to the saiyan saga, nothing overtly suggested he was an alien.
@@nicholasmorgan7609 it was literally up in the air lol. Nothing suggesting he wasn't nothing suggesting he was
Toriyama: "Damn. This is going to be tough...ALIEN! Damn, I'm good..."
R.I.P. to the GOAT.
The funny thing about the Precursor reveal is that Seem, and presumably the other monks, knew. They knew and didn't tell Veger. Multiple times Seem directs some kind of mention of resembling 'our creators' toward Daxter, the last one being a statement of gratitute for granting her the chance 'to see the face of my creators'. I believe that's right after Jak gains the ability to sprout wings in his Light Eco-empowered form.
I really like the way Star Wars dealt with Boba Fett's original backstory. Before Attack of the Clones came out, his real name was revealed to be Jaster Mereel, and was given a backstory. Instead of just throwing it away, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter established that Jaster was Jango Fett's master, and also that both Boba and Jango have used Jaster's name as a fake identity. This is still the case now, as the backstory given in The Mandalorian for Jango matches up with it. A lot of other stories were just thrown out of continuity entirely, so it was nice that some of it was kept, simply altered a bit.
yeah, it does feel nice they kept Jango's and Boba's roots with the Mandalorians. And in turn definitely showing that Almec's claim that "Jango wasn't a true Mandalorian" was just complete bullcrap and just him not acknowledging Jango as such cuz of his belief of Mandalorians being only those born on Mandalore
People often don't pay much attention to good retcons
Cuz usually a good retcon is one you don't realize is a retcon
When you do, it usually means it was done poorly
Why isn't Venom Snake on the list?
Magneto being holocaust survivor was the most out of nowhere retcon yet over the years it become integral to the character.
I think people will actually riot if Disney doesn't keep that part of his character@@mikhaelgribkov4117
@@mikhaelgribkov4117 Was that a retcon, or just part of his story that we didn't yet know...?
Like...Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's dad.
Bayonetta 2 retroactively makes Bayonetta 1's story way more interesting. I'm surprised it didn't get an honorable mention here.
Oh yeah it also made Father Balder a more complex character.
More sympathetic too. Poor guy.
@@Shantae1188 at least he got to be with Rosa again. Meaning the whole family is together again...in Inferno.
@@deathbykonami5487 Yeah. I wonder what there reactions would to finding out about Luka? Balder would probably say something like he had a feeling
@@deathbykonami5487 Lumen Sages become angels when they die. So sadly there is no reunion.
One of my favorite retcons in recent memory HAS to be the revelations about the ancients in Sonic Frontiers and how it completely changes the game on not only what Chao are but also explains what chaos is and why he looks the way he is.
I would explain why I heavily disagree, but I think JebZone’s video on Frontiers’ story on why this doesn’t make a lick of sense explains it better than I ever could.
Does it really count as a retcon if the Chao never really had a clear or even implied origin before? They just kinda exited. Chaos' original backstory is even kept completely, it just has more context now.
Or as a certain Yugay Motoe put it: "That wouldn't _rewrite_ history; that would just mean there'll be *even more* history!"
@@Rediscool9 I mean it’s not unheard of for things to devolve but ok :/
I have to agree, Its a Great retcon Or lore expansion, It really added alot and put chaos's character in a new light as Well as the emeralds
Honesty not a retcon. But an explanation to something that needed it
it is dissapointing how we never learned what is samurai jack's real name.
(jack is not his real name, it is a nickname that some kids gave to him when he first went to the future and he decided to adopt it).
I headcanon the name as Mako, in honor of Aku's original voice actor.
Someone on Tumblr a long time ago said his name was
Oshi or Ishiro (I don't know which...)
@@stephanniemorin From now on Samurai Jack's real name shall be "Mako Ishiro"
For a non-videogame retcon that became a character-defining moment, there's the fact that Captain America was frozen around the end of WWII and then found in the modern day (at the time it happened this was the 60's, but now it's relative to whenever 'modern' is). This became such an iconic part of Captain America's identity it's hard to imagine a version of him where this wasn't the case. Not only that, but it also eventually caused two other highly-regarded retcons: making the commie-smasher Cap from the 50's into his own character as a copycat that later became an antagonist, and Bucky's turn into the Winter Soldier.
For a videogame one, there's one in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (aka FE7, the first one released to the west), prequel to the Binding Blade (aka FE6, the one with Roy) did that I think worked really well. Near the end of Hector Mode, he gains the legendary axe Armads, but is told by the ghost of its previous wielder, Durban, that if he uses it, he will not die peacefully, instead perishing on the battlefield, something Hector accepts in order to help his friends. And surprise surprise, guess what happens early into Binding Blade? Really, everything about Hector established in FE7 makes his character from FE6 much more memorable, whereas previously he was just 'Lilina's dad who dies early in the story'
I thought, for a while, that Zanza and The Architect were meant to represent Klaus’ Ego and Id, respectively.
Oh yeah definitely, the Xeno series as a whole plays with Ego and Id a lot. Klaus is the Ego, Zanza is the Id.
The 2 aren't mutually exclusive. The Id is pure chaos, running only on instinct. What instinct would you have as THE WORLD PEOPLE LIVE ON? Basically, Zanza became a god in his own mind and the humans are fleas. If he killed a few it didn't matter because they're so insignificant.
As for the architect, I'd say he's closer to the superego (the pure morality. The little nagging voice whenever you do anything even slightly "wrong" but can't actually stop you from doing it) and not the ego (the person's will which decides how far they want to be on one side or the other).
@@thestormwizard6447and Z is the Super Ego?
I actually cried for Berkut in the Shadows Over Valentia Remake (didn't even know it was a remake until now) the man still had so much room for growth in the final hour of the game but he was seduced by Duma's powerful temptation, sacrificing his own fiancée in exchange for power and a chilling battle in which Rinea becomes a spectral flame ghost to fight alongside him, and finishing him off actually pained me.
The only retcon I can think of comes from the Carmen Sandiego games. Originally, Carmen's backstory is described as being a double-, triple-, even quadruple-agent for so many countries, even she has forgotten who she's truly loyal to. It's a simple, if absurd, backstory overall and not really something you think about as you're playing.
However, in "Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?", the ending shows Carmen attempting to steal a file about her, which was her big goal all along. After her arrest, the Chief reveals the contents to the player: Carmen Sandiego was once an agent for ACME, the same detective agency the player had been working for. In fact, she used to their best agent. Unfortunately, being the best meant there was no challenge in catching crooks, so she decided that outsmarting ACME itself was more worth her time, leading her to become the villainess we know today.
It's a change that makes Carmen seem like more than just a petty thief; she's more like a rival. It turns her regular taunting from typical bad guy bluster into goading you into continuing her game, both the actual computer game and her in-universe "game." And on the narrative side, future games like "Treasures of Knowledge" would call into question just how much of a "bad guy" Carmen truly is.
If I'm not mistaken, Carmen being from ACME was also in the "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?" cartoon, and elements of her more "antihero" nature were applied to updated releases of the original "Where in the world" PC game. It's kind of like a less extreme version of Lupin III, who began as a pretty monstrous character in the original manga series, with the numerous anime and films softening the character to be a lot more likeable.
@@YoxivThen the animated reboot series gave her a different origin and basically turned her into a human rule 63 Sly Cooper, being a thief that steals from other thieves and criminals
@@erichfiedler1481
Heh, more like rule 63 Lupin III since that character predates Carmen like she predates Sly, lol
But I get the point just the same
@@Yoxiv I mean outside of Part 5, Lupin never had a hacker on his team
@@erichfiedler1481
True, but that's going into other characters, and Carmen is usually solo or has minions depending on the show format
The funniest thing about K9999 is that there was a prevailing theory that they were actually sued by the makers of Akira to get rid of him, but once Krohnen came into the picture, the devs confirmed there was never a lawsuit and they had to keep up the facade all this time. Gotta respect the dedication
Actually, my favourite gaming retcon is Blizzard's doing - yeah, oxymoron now. But the recontextualization of the Horde between Warcraft 2 and 3, from generic doomsday villains to a developed if simple culture decieved into becoming puppets of demons and the resulting split between seeking atonement and new path or embracing the bloody legacy of Burning Legion. There is a reason why spiritual, close-to-nature portrayal of orcs is called "Blizzard-like" nowadays.
It also cemented them as being better than the Humans.
Well, that one was made by the old, passionate Blizzard, not the current punching bag Blizzard. So I think it IS possible.
But even without the controversies, Blizzard often made changes (or bad retcons) to ruin those good retcons. Which I think of the real reason why I stepped away from overly being invested to Warcraft lore.
Retcons are an interesting species of Story Structure, there have been a lot of cases where retconning Is bad, so retconning a story and turning out good is a rare thing to happen.
That's my thought, as well. Sometimes you just want to be able to go back and fix what didn't work. Retcons are a great literary tool for doing just that. It's a delicate tightrope walk, though. :/
It's really not that rare though. Some of the biggest and most important franchises in history have examples of "good" retcons. Star Wars and Dragon Ball immediately come to mind (Darth Vader was not originally Luke's father, and Goku was not originally part of an alien species).
Devil's advocate here, but for number 4- I think the creators had THIS line in mind for when Jack and Ashi went through all that:
"If you want to break someone-mentally, physically, emotionally-wait until they're happy. Let them live and love and thrive. Once they recognize the value of a life well lived... THAT'S when you move in for the kill. Because you can't take anything from someone who has nothing to lose." -Tarn, Transformers.
TL;DR for Robo-Deathstroke over here- fate basically decided to pull an Othello, or something like that XP
Fate seems to really hate some characters for no good reason. Spiderman and Samurai Jack are the first 2 examples that come to mind...
@@bradleyadams5252no it's not Fate that hates Spider-Man... It's the Marvel higher ups
Still hate it...
@@dakotadoyle7573 Hot take maybe but I hated how in No Way Home they took the good things that Spider Man had going for him and trashed it in the end. Now his GF and BF don't know who he is anymore, Happy doesn't either and none of the Avengers do now either. Like do we need to consistently retread the old Spider Man story of no one knowing who he is?
@@Altoryu I thought it was really well handled, primarily because it was a selfless desire. He didn't care about people knowing he was Spider-Man, he cared that it was hurting his friends. He had to sacrifice everything to right his wrong and help his friends. And now he can start from square one and try again, with the experience he's had.
If nothing else, it's way better than giving up your marriage and baby to save a woman who was probably already one foot in the grave.
At this point, I believe that a countdown of bad retcons is... inevitable.
You know what they say, you can’t have a coin with only one side.
Indeed... but it's also going to be like the Top 10 2023 Fails List - SO MANY BAD RETCONS that it'll be hard to keep it at just a top 10
I never played it but I heard that Bomberman Zero was one of the worst notable retcons
@@Altoryu Seems more like an alternate universe reboot deal, like DmC: Devil May Cry or Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.
I'm not so sure.
You see, there was never a Top 10 Good retcons list.
Actually Devil May Cry 3 sold 2.3 million units in the launch period, Devil May Cry 4 sold 3 million units in the launch period, & the reboot took 5 years to sell 3 million units
A little extra tippet for the Xenoblade Chronicles Retcon:
During Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Klaus explains how there was a third aegis along side Pneuma and Logos (Pyra/Mythra and Malos) called "Ontos" that went to the other world. The third aegis is Alvis, A character at the end on Xenoblade Chronicles 1 describes himself as a computer program, which is exactly what the trinity processer was. To add even more they slightly tweaked his design in the remake. in the original he wore a key necklace. They changed it in the Definitive Edition to be the red aegis crystal to reflect how he's the third aegis Klaus was referring too.
The DLC of xenoblade chronicles 3 "Future Redeemed" explores this further and outright confirms Alivs is Ontos
Didn't Future Redeemed also kind of hint that Xenoblade and Xenosaga are in the same universe?
Yes. Probably Xenogears as well
Ah, nice. Haven’t gotten to the Future Redeemed stuff in DE, still just playing through the game again, but when Alvis first showed up I noticed that immediately.
Even in the context of just XC1 I like that too. The original key necklace was always an incredibly random detail; the aegis crystal, even if you don’t realize that’s what it is, hints at his true place in XC1’s story from the resemblance. Not just to the other aegis crystals, but Xeno fans who’ve been with the series since at least Saga know their shape as that of the Zohar. You don’t just go around wearing something like that without Xeno god connections.
Xenoblade was intended.It wasn't a retcon go read perfect works
Major love to Josh for the Xenoblade 2 entry.
That retcon turned Xenoblades lore from a mere story of a corrupt powermad god being struck down by his own creations, into a huge tale of of hubris, regret, and both learning to not fear the future while also learning from and taking value from the past to avoid repeating mistakes.
It's not a retcon it's originally intended.
Go read perfect works
@@Hachiko96 No, it's still a Retcon. Xenoblade 1 was not originally going to be a Xeno game. It simply carried a few similar themes and motifs and was given a Xeno retitle from "Monado: Beginning of the World" as a tribute to Takahashi's work in Xenogears and Xenosaga. The Perfect Works structure was only implemented with the development of Xenoblade 2, which is when the the series went full Xeno and the retcon was made to maintain the Xenoblade 1's original story while making it a single part of a larger whole.
@@jasperjavillo686 It feels intentional with the first one
@@Hachiko96 Oh course it feels intentional. Xenoblade 1 was intentionally made to be LIKE a Xeno game, but it didn’t truly become one until Xenoblade 2 retconned and recontextualized its place in the multiverse.
@@jasperjavillo686 Still don't see how that makes it a retcon. It doesn't contradict anything, just reveals and expands on the world of Xenoblade. The odd logic you're using makes it sound like Xenoblade 2 existing in its entirety is a retcon, when that's not how story writing works.
10:40 Getting Count Villain’s name wrong will *never* get old.
IT'S VEGAR!
@@frankblazer6377 I live in the state of California, which is a state that is host to all sorts of records, country-wide, continent-wide, worldwide, you name it. Two of these records are that it is home to both the highest and lowest point in the contiguous 48 states, in the forms of Mount Whitney and Death Valley.
Over the course of one summer I was able to visit both locales, namely spending an entire day hiking up the mountain. The mountaintop was glorious, but Death Valley was inhospitable and sweltering.
Amusingly, even after traversing the highest highs and the lowest lows, I still could not find who the fuck asked.
Actually it's Vount Cillain XD
Blaster master is one i now think about. What was once a story about a kid losing his frog and just randomly finding a tank to fight off a mutant overlord, spun itself as the main status quo until BM: Blasting again and Overdrive. Ever since Blaster Master Zero, they took this weird localisation story, rebooted and retconned the initial status quo of the original NES and made it a sequel to the original Japanese Famicom game MetaFight and an entire trilogy of zero games capping off not only the adventures of Jason Frudnick but also the conclusion of Kane Gardner, culminating into a final chapter where they both clash in Blaster Master Zero 3.
Man… the K49 situation was VERY wild when I herd about it when I was getting into KOF. The Nests Saga had some fun characters come into play
...man. krauser was such a genuinely good retcon.
Simply by giving a proper connection to leon outside of being a teammate suddenly in one spinoff that nobody played, to being his tutor makes his death _mean something_ to leon and in turn the player.
That is an Huge improvement over a power hungry soldier after learning they denied the cure from jill she tried to give before bombing raccoon city
Another thing about Giovanni is that he does ressurect Team Rocket as Team Rainbow Rocket in Ultra Sun/Moon with him as the leader and every team head as his underlings. It's a really cool story where you get to see all the team heads that you have defeated throughout the Pokemon universe all in one place and actually give you a run for your money if you aren't prepared.
That is a alt universe Giovanni who beat Red
You got completely wrong, team rainbow rocket is an alternative universe giovanni that defeated their version of the pokemon trainer.
It's kinda crazy to think how Shadow wasn't supposed to appear after Adventure 2... And then became the 2nd most favorite character in the entire franchise.
Looking forward to seeing his backstory, yet again, in Sonic 3 this December!
don't think it counts specifically because nothing happens to contradict it but in Mortal Kombat, Noob Saibot being the original Sub Zero is such a good addition that wasn't established until the 3D games
12:12
Fun fact, Seem actually knew that Daxter was a Precursor.
Granted, it’s only hinted at throughout the game at least twice, but yeah, they figured it out and were perfectly fine with it. 😂
But yeah, that reveal was hilarious
8:24 the manga takes things to another level when it comes to the relationship between the two making them both more complex then generic gang boss and douchy kid.
14:21 To make it even more obvious with the reference, he’s even voiced by the same actor of the same character in Akira.
My honorable mention:
Crash’s New Timeline (Crash Bandicoot 4 It’s About Time)
Wrath Of Cortex didn’t do as well as they hoped, so they just pretended it never happened.
The elementals did appear as Easter eggs in Crash 4, and the mask controls time did say there are evil mask that will bring the end to the universe. So my best bet is that the elementals gain new powers and gank the universe or she is talking about a new set of evil masks. In the words of Murphy, SEE YOU IN CRASH BANDICOOT 5!
Reversing the twist reveal in Heroes in Crisis is one of my favorites in recent memory. The plot is so convoluted and contrived just to make a certain character a killer in that mess of a so-called "mystery" that any and all attempts to retcon that is welcome in my eyes.
I hope Dan DiDio never comes back to DC.
The Yakuza/Like A Dragon series has some good retcons.
Majima not actually being insane and just wearing that as a mask to protect his emotions from the path he's chosen in life. And then there's Nishiki's development in 0 and Kiwami.
Hearing Majima sing “as long as you’re happy” makes my heart melt so much - I feel for him fr
Majima having more depth to his character isn't a retcon lmfao what. The games just never really gave him much focus until 4. Nishiki's development is actually a good retcon since he was so flat in 1.
I would've put Venom Snake from Phantom Pain in here, too. Like DMC, it fixed the entire series by actually addressing "Oh yeah, THAT Big Boss was Big Boss' doppelganger", like how Ocelot was Liquid's, and how his death was a hell of a lot more plausible than the same Big Boss surviving... you know... exploding.
Some of my favorite retcons happens in some of the Super Robot Taisen games. Originally in the anime and/or manga a character dies but in the game they're either alive after their respective final battle or you were able to save them by fulfilling certain requirements such as getting a high kill count with certain character/characters, deploying certain characters while also keeping them alive, use the convince command with certain characters, killing an enemy with certain characters or character, lowering the health of an enemy, and/or just not killing an enemy.
Is that a retcon though or just adaptation change?
I would personally put Xenoblade's over DMC. DMC 5's "retcon" was more a recognition of a misstep, while XC2 feels a lot more planned out.
I've got a recent retcon that I would've put on the list. Although it is rather tame in comparison to some of these, the retconning in Sonic Frontiers threw me through a loop. Sure, the Chaos Emerald retcon is... weird, to say the least, but the decision to make the Ancients resemble the destruction god Chaos and imply that they evolved into the Chao race to avoid detection by The End is mind-boggling.
My favorite retcon is a pretty well-known one from The Hobbit. In the first edition, Gollum willingly bets the Ring in the riddle match, and when he loses the match and can't find the Ring, he shows Bilbo the way out of the cave instead. Tolkien later realized this didn't fit with what he wanted to do in the sequel, so he went back and rewrote the riddle contest scene to the one we know today.
What makes this retcon good is how both versions are incorporated into the overarching story. The prologue to The Lord of the Rings explains that the original version of the story was what Bilbo told the dwarves and wrote in his diary, while the revised version was what actually happened. This change plays into the Ring's corrupting influence, which is shown much more prominently later in the story.
Retcons are... weird. They aren't exactly bad if they're done well, all they have to do is fit properly. Don't massively shift something from one thing to the next, just cleverly shift things in a way that doesn't distrupt what comes before and allows for what comes after. Klaus from XC2 is probably a gold star example from Xenoblade 2's insane collection of excellent retcons (namely the reframing of events from XC1, Alvis' identity and the experiment itself). It's actually really smartly done, and plays well into Xenoblade 3 and Xenoblade Future Redeemed.
In my opinion, an all-time great retcon is Borderlands 2's reframing of the events of the first game. Making Jack manipulate the cast of BL1 into finding the vault and reaping the rewards before revealing his tricking nature with the BL2 cast is so excellent. He's such an enjoyable villain and makes BL2 instantly better as a result.
Retcons themselves are always BAD. The REASON can be good though, as can the outcome.
For the Samurai Jack ending I agree that Ashi should've vanished shortly after Jack finished off Aku, after his tower blew up and they were alone. She's collapse saying the line: "Without Aku, I would have never existed", she'd fade away after. Then the scene would cut to awhile later where a victory feast being held in Jack's honour, attended by Jack's friends, family, and mentors from that time. Though Jack leaves early still sad over Ashi's death, then we get that scene of him underneath that tree with the ladybug. Though I do love the game retconning the end with the extra effort you do in the game. While Jack's target was always the past Aku which he spent his youth training to one day defeat, he(and us viewers) spent more time dealing with the future Aku which made facing off against him one last time so great, plus using his temporal meddling to somehow save Ashi helped Jack(and us) get one of the best endings we could ask for Jack's story.
Thanks for including the Precursors in Jak 3. Literally one of my favorite moments from my favorite game. I laughed so hard when that was revealed XD
Fun Fact: Banjo Kazooie was a big inspiration Jak 1.
@@orangeslash1667 Really?! I was unaware of that!
@@LanceCorporalHawk30 The idea to make Precursors ottsels came from creative director Dan Arey, and received strong support among animators. A developer stated, "I'd kind of like to be in the living rooms ... of America watching when a lot of people who've played the series before see the Precursors for the first time, because I imagine we're gonna get just as many people who like the idea, as just as many people who think it's the dumbest thing they've ever seen."
@@orangeslash1667 Yeah, I agree that the reveal could either be seen as "the stupidest thing ever" or "the most hilarious thing ever" without really having any kind of middle ground...
@@gordontaylor2815 indeed.
The FNAF franchise got weird when they wrote that the animatronics gif made into literal killing machines, with different parts that made them scarier
They were already bots that were haunted by ghost kids. Making them be built to kill and/or abduct makes me think they’re evil cuz of programming, not ghosts
I feel like FNAF is gonna become Terminator
I've seen enough Game Theory (Godspeed, MatPat) to know that the rabbit hole is even weirder than you think. There are clues in books, easter eggs, merch, the movie, a book of the movie, and yet, Game Theory proposed a timeline of events in the franchise that can put our minds to rest.
Oh my god I knew you guys were gonna give such praise about the terminator movies
Well it’s the best robot movie franchise
Well, they're also made by the same guy who made those dead kids dead, so it wouldn't be insane for him to make other, actually evil animatronics.
Plus, he often corrupts his partner's creations, so it's not just ones he's made with evil programming or vengeful spirits.
I'll give Leage of Legends credit with their retcons. When they hit something right, it's a grand slam. For the longest time, Warwicks rework was my favorite in the game. I still absolutely loved it, but there was one that won me over and, in my own mind, it was like if two superpowers were fighting in a bloody king of the hill style war.
Warwick. I love your rework so much.... but Fiddlesticks.... Oh. My. Lord.
The WEEK after I saw the teaser for the monsters rework for the first time, I legit had a nightmare about him. What Riot did with Fiddlesticks was absolutely astonishing. Old Fiddlesticks was fun, but he wasn't scary other than his ult and backstory. New and reworked fiddlesticks, though.... Not only is the spirit of the old still there (*cough* Aatrox *cough*), but they made him TERRIFYING! Giving him a backstory concept of a grim dark folktale that is not only real but much, MUCH worse....
....And his dialogue.... mimicking the dead's final words as bait for his victims... How... HOW did Riot make me scared of something that was once a normal scarecrow that referenced Wizard of Oz in his dance and T-posed to steal heal?!
Never thought I'd see Josh mention Twisted Metal, now all I need is for him to mention MediEvil and Syphon Filter.
I played a Syphon Filter on PSP, I think. A bit like Splinter Cell...?
Couldn't really say much about the plot though, and this was years ago.
@Diablo_Himself if you played it on the PSP then you likely played one of the last 2 games in the series. They have their own separate stories, but there is one whole overarching narrative.
@@jj_colombia97 I think the subtitle was Dark Matter or something.
I liked it because of the Splinter Cell style to it.
My favorite retcon was in Adventure time. In the Season 5 premiere, the alternate ("Farmworld") Finn takes Ice King's crown from his body, but it later reappears on Ice King's head when the bomb goes off. Standard animation error, right?
But later on, in Season 7's episode "Crossover", Prismo the Wish Master uses his powers to purposefully put it there so it'd be destroyed in the explosion (the action is literally presented as him going into the editing software to place the crown into the scene). They didn't need to do that, and yet, it's such a great retcon!
I know BATIM chapters 4 and 5 are honorable mentions, but my favorite retcon is in the sequel.
Spoilers for Bendy and the Dark Revival:
In the Dark Revival, it's revealed that the entire previous game is a pocket dimension inside the Ink Machine itself on a time loop called The Cycle. This explains so much. Joey's apartment, Henry's line deliveries, Sammy recognizing Henry, Henry rarely interacting with the characters, Henry's refusal to die from things like falling ten stories or being smashed through a brick wall, some of the hallucinations in chapters 4 and 5 as well as the hallucination easter eggs added to previous chapters, and much more.
I always wanted the studio to actually be the real one, but it makes far more sense for it to simply be the pocket dimension we already predicted at the end of the first game.
@@purplepedantry Plus, I am glad it at least pretends to be a real studio even with its more ludicrous areas (unlike a certain kindergarten).
@@thegrandxbunny2073
If the Bendy ftanchise is the Dark Revival's Ink Demon, B*nB*n is a BATIM Searcher.
@@purplepedantry Lmao.
i Love the precursor twist in Jak 3. I was laughing my ass of when it was revealed.
21:30 I always compared the ending of Samurai Jack to PMD Explorers, so I’m glad I’m not the only one who caught that.
One of my favourite parts about the Klaus retcon is how each game handles it, as Josh mentioned. But we also have what is brought up in Xenoblade 3's Story DLC, Future Redeemed (Spoilers from here)
So, we do get to see the old world that Klaus lived in during the ending of the game and hear a radio broadcast from around that time, going on about human rights issues, people colonising space, and then the real kicker... Dimtri Yuriev, one of the antagonists of the Xenosaga series, gets explicitly namedropped, and you come to realise that if Klaus hadn't done what he'd done when he did then its likely the Savorites, who Yuriev is the leader of, would have gotten their hands on the Conduit, or as its referred to in Xenosaga The Zohar, they would have done so much worse than Klaus. Its a lesser of two evils. Klaus may have destroyed humanity on Earth, but in return, he allowed 2 new worlds to thrive while the rest of humanity in the colonies learned from the past and grew. And one of the things about the radio scene is that nobody in the cast ever mentions it due to being unable to decipher the language, but we can understand it, and its mainly background noise as Na'el is explaining her plan to lead humanity into a new world just like Klaus's
What I'm saying is that Xenoblade really handled the retcons of Klaus insanely well, and it's one of my favourite franchises for a reason.
I didn't mind the retcons in the Metal Gear Solid series.
Misinformation is a common element shown in the series and is established in MGS2.
I disagree with HG/SS's entry here. My major problem with it being that that it was locked content that anybody that doesn't live in USA, UK, Europe or Japan didn't have access to. It should have been part of the Main Game.
Yeah, I also think that it ruins the Main Game by taking away a climatic final battle against Giovanni, but that is secondary.
One of the few that actually is video game related that I can think of is CQC (close quarters combat) in the Metal Gear series. The fighting style was introduced in the prequel game snake eater as being created by the main antagonist and Big Boss, Big Boss apparently taught Solid Snake CQC but he never once used it in the games preceding this. shoving this in could be sloppy but the reasons given make some sense on a character level.
after Big Boss betrayed him he never liked using the style again and only when documents on Big Boss were declassified and soldiers were implementing CQC on a mass scale (mgs4) did snake use it. without spoiling one of the series many great final boss fights, its CQC focused and narratively it adds to it more than the retcon may harm in my oppinion.EDIT: I forgot to note that the mass implementation of CQC was a flawed and nowhere near as refined version of what snake could use it became a experience Advantage he couldn't turn down.
Thought the FFXIV Ascians being turned form moustache-twirling villains into extremely complex and well-developed characters with tragic motivations woulda been here, but c'est la vie.
On the Klaus one, it should also be noted that the Xenoblade 2 version of events had his space station under heavy fire at the time. Enough that the rest of the staff were ready to deploy Aion, the world ender mech that Malus pilots to become the final boss. In XC2 at least, it was either Klaus resetting the world or there being no world.
Earth was just one human world, granted it was the homeworld
Legacy Of Kain: Defiance retconing the future visions Raziel has before his second showdown with Kain in the chronoplast chamber at the end of Soul Reaver.
I could be wrong and all but I think there are very little retcons in the entire franchise, which is amazing for a series based on time travel. Admittedly yeah there's plenty of times where they introduced things and had no real plan of where to take it from there, or how it got there, etc. But at the end of the day Amy Hennig was such a badass writer she made everything make sense when you stopped and took it all in.
A retcon that everybody seems to love and even forget is a retcon is the addition of Feedback in the Ben 10 series. Its mainly because if how fucking cool Feedback is.
It does help that Feedback was unlocked when Ben was 11, meaning he unlocked the alien sometime after the original series rather than just having him during the original and "conveniently" never using him.
@@Yoxiv yup.
@@Yoxiv the explanation to why he was never mentioned is interesting azimuth said he locked that transformation just incase traces of malware were in it as he was thought to be destroyed. Also Ben's disinterest of the whole event never wanting to talk about it.
I thought that the retcon of Shadow the Hedgehog would have made an honorable mention. It made it more understandable why G.U.N. raided the ARK and killed everyone but Gerald, how they were able to make a huge leap from the Biolizard who needed life support to survive straight to Shadow who was the perfect result, why he has perfect control over the powers of Chaos when the Biolizard struggled to do even a single one, to even why Gerald made the Eclipse Cannon to begin with. As crazy as it was it worked well into the story, built upon Adventure 2 and didn’t disregard anything from the original continuity. It came from a frustrating game, but I think it did well enough to deserve an honorable mention. Either way, the mention of Shadow coming back into the series works well too. After all, HE’S SO GODDAMN COOL!
Hopefully the third Sonic movie and/or Sonic x Shadow Generations can do the story from Shadow the Hedgehog straight from the beginning so that people won't have to play that increasingly old, very controversial and unlikely to get remastered otherwise game...
I can think of good retcons, and most of the ones I'm thinking of are from Symphogear, mostly because they dont replace preexisting information and lore, but add to it instead
That would not be a retcon...?
That is simply an addition of previously unknown information.
Spider-Man 2 retconned what happened to Sandman from Spider-Man 1. In the first game you find a vial full of sand that contains Sandman's mind which left people feeling a little horrified that Spider-Man just left him in a backpack on top of the Avengers tower. But thanks to the writers of Spider-Man 2 forgetting that (no really that's what happened) we get an epic boss fight for the first level of the game and a side quest that let's us help out one of Spider-Man's villains.
Wait, what? You mean the backpack sidequest? And Sandman had been trapped there until retcon?
@@nikoladedic6623 That's the one, apparently one of the writers confirmed that they had forgotten that Spider-Man had trapped the grain of sand that contains his mind in a vial and left it webbed to the top of Avengers tower. It's not a retcon I'm complaining about since it results in a pretty memorable opening level.
Another thing about Giovanni's retcon.
After the battle, when he leaves, you hear a water splash sound.
It's implied that Giovanni, out of shame, jumped the waterfall outside, taking his own life.
How is he alive for the whole Rainbow Rocket thing though?
@@thedredayshow9246 Just like the other evil team leaders that appear In the DLC, this Is a Giovanni from an universe where he won.
I love how dark the original game was
Isn't that just the sound used when ya enter the waterfall? Ain't it more likely he just. Left?
@@mythicalthings1796 With what Pokémon though? Giovanni only had the team of four on him and none of them (Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Honchkrow, and Kangaskhan) can learn the Waterfall HM.
I'll be honest, in terms of a retcon i remember, I hated the opening to mortal kombat 9 souly because when i was a kid, i was lead to believe that Taven was the one to defeat blaze, while shao Khan was taken away by Onaga. But apparently, Shao khan killed Onaga, and then killed Blaze. Considering the previous canon endings in deadly alliance and deception, I figured Armageddon would be the same, but nope! All that effort, all those realms crossed, dying over and over again on instant death traps, and it meant nothing in the end.
Netherrealm retcons Mortal Kombat about as much as Riot Games does with League of Legends. Although their retcons can be much more hit-or-miss, mostly miss.
For MK 9, they should've allowed the original timeline to carry on by itself and just have the new timeline be completely separate. But that'd mean NRS would have to rewrite the plot and it'd change the whole direction of the series.
Now you have a Multiverse
So Titan Maven could be a thing
@@christiandauz3742 Do you mean Kronika or did you misspell Havik?
To this day, the best retcon for me is Daredevil's mother, Maggie. For those who don't know, when Daredevil was originally created, his mother was dead, and his dad was the only one taking care of him. It is then revealed in Born Again that his mother is actually alive and abandoned Matt and his father to become a Nun. We didn't know why until Original Sin by Jason Aaron. When the Watcher's eyes reveal all of the secrets he has recorded, Matt gets an image of his Dad hitting his mom. He immediately goes to her and asks why she never mentioned that his father was abusive towards her, and she said he wasn't. He was protecting you. Turns out, she was suffering from severe post partem depression and tried to kill Matt as a baby and that his dad fought her off. I personally love that because it gave her much more of character and made her motive for leaving Matt much more clearer
21:16
Spiral Energy is one hell of a drug
honestly I liked Ragna killing NOL soldiers, he was young in a bad place mentally so I think it made sense that this would happen and make him feared for good reason, he didnt get the highest bounty for nothing and was effectively a terrorist. I think it makes his development even more appreciable in the grand scheme of things, also how likely was it that he was able to kill 0 soldiers every time he went off to destroy a cauldron.
But hey I appreciate the Blazblue exposure it's one of my favourite fighting game it's always nice to someone talk about it
On the topic of Yoshi's Island, I always figured the Mario Bris. And their parent flewed yhe Mushroom Kingdom and moved to Brooklyn sometime after the events of the game (and a few other subsequent games). After all, if evil monsters were out to kill your babies, would you stick around?
The best example I can think of are some of the changes made from the JP version of FE10 to the English version, namely the reasoning for why Ike beat the Black Knight in FE9.
One of my favorite retcons is in Curse of Monkey Island, where they did away with the whole dumb "Lechuck is your brother and the whole pirate gig was just a dream" in the previous game by having Guybrush say it was an illusion of the carnival. Glad to see them correct their mistake so that we can see more hijinks in the insult riddled world of Monkey Island.
When mentioning of retcons, I can't help but think about MGS4 and 5 (stay with me here.) *spoilers foe those who haven't played yet to this day*
Throughout the Solid series, big boss was to said to be dead. It wasn't until the end of Guns of the Patriots when he was alive and said that he was under a chemically induced coma by the Patriots, give the backstory for how everythint got to where it was in the story, only for Foxdie to take him out minutes later.
Fast forward (or backward depending on how you wanna describe the timeline) to The Phantom Pain, and you can find out in one of the audio tapes you can listen to for more back story and information, you find out that Zero actually came to see Big Boss when he was in the coma from the XOF attack, and learn that he was dying to the parasites and that he'd hope to discuss everything and settle the problems they had. But due to how things played out, Zero only felt safe with leaving the future in the hands of Artificial Intelligence.
To think for a second, that if Big Boss could have been able to come out of his coma earlier to talk with Zero and how everything (chronologically speaking) played out, that is heartbreaking. And it added a good touch to the MGS storyline
One of the best retcons I can remember was one in SF2, particularly Cammy’s ending. In her original ending in SF2, Bison reveals that she is his lover, which is… bizarre to say the least. Thank god Capcom nuked that out of canon existence.
As a Sonic fan, my favorite retcon wasn't even Shadow's comeback. It was '06 retconning itself OUT OF EXISTANCE AT THE END OF THE GAME
21:14 FINALLY!! Why does no one ever talk about how the final season of Samurai Jack is a almost 1 for 1 copy of Gurren Laggan when it comes to Jack and Ashi???
How did I know EXACTLY where you were going with the #2 entry, and yet still thought you were gonna talk about...you-know-who? Bruh...are you in my head? Eh, either way, it's definitely an interesting retcon for sure...and then 3 happened...and there was much rejoicing...again. XD
"If you knew we Precursors were a bunch of little fuzzy rats, would you still worship us?" In the words of Shoulder-Angel Kronk, "No no, he's got a point." Like, it's friggin' funny, don't get me wrong, but their leader does bring up a valid point. A lot of the fun in discovery is the mystery; take away the mystery and what have you left? Disappointment, probably. Well...Count Vulgar certainly seemed to be, anyway. Gods that is such a satisfying moment after everything that dastard has put us through. XD
I wish sega could retcon silver from having his debut game be sonic 06
Onechanbara Origins has several good retcons including changing it to where Aya and Saki were actually birth sisters separated at birth in a attempt to break the cycle of siblings in the Baneful Clan fighting each other to the death, and the Xctsy Forms they unlock isn't the actual Xtcsy Form but a pre-Xtcsy Form. A infamous example of a bad retcon is Wife-Arm from Bionic Commando 2009.
DMC2 was originally at the end of the timeline, but after DMC5 came out, it was retconned to take place between 1 and 4.
28:00 it's also the number 1 on the list on the first day of the month.
Nice list: Some interesting retcons I can think of are Tekken 7 or 8 (origin of the devil gene and the fact that they made Heihachi a more sympathetic character, but also something else in Tekken 8 involving spoilers). Metal Gear (Raiden), Megaman Battle Network (making Wily a more sympathetic character), Professor Layton (a certain twist from Azran Legacy, or other twists from the series) Ace Attorney 6 (giving Apollo more backstory)
2: One interesting twist and it does not ruin the first game.
3: I liked those two characters and what they added to the story
5: I have not played the first Blazblue game, but I liked Ragnas personality in the second game.
8: One of the funniest moments in gaming.
9: Interesting backstory
Another retcon would be Tekken 2 and onwards, in which the developers just straight out made Kazuya into a villain.
Or Tekken 4 in which it turns out that Kazuya is alive
Uhm... may want to tag spoilers on the Tekken 8 info on Jun.
Honestly, I think the attempts to whitewash Heihachi as "sympathetic" is straight up moronic considering all of the sinister and horrible things Heihachi has done, not just to Kazuya, but to the other characters like Jin, Michelle Chang, and Steve Fox in particular whom he tried to have assassinated just to cover his ass on the Mishima Zaibatsu's "Super Soldier" project
I would call retconning Heihachi to be "sympathetic" more moronic than "Interesting" personally, given that it flies in the face of every horrible, deplorable thing we have seen him do or has been implied to do
My favorite retcon is probably Reaper’s backstory in Overwatch, because they did originally made him just a person in a suit, not the brutally disfigured fallen hero who’s close to death but can’t die, it added a new level of sympathy to him, especially when we learned what Moria and Doomfist did to him.
Don't forget one of the most famous retcons of all time: The New Testament.
You know, i want to make a joke lie make bets KH il be here , but i feel that be for the opposite top after this
Where would another DMC even go? The ending put the main characters into pretty much an inescapable situation!
I mean... Didnt Dante end up in hell in DMC2? and he escaped that. I know DMC2 is... well. DMC2 but if he can do it once, he can do it again.
Another thing to consider about the Precursors being Ottsels is that they are godlike beings with incredible power, able to reshape people into their own image, which could very well mean that they aren't bound to the form of Ottsels, it's just what they either feel most comfortable with or like. It is a shame we never saw what the Dark Makers were like, at least the ones in charge. Speaking of Jak 3, I do wish whoever wrote Ashelin to be Jak's love interest got slapped silly, that was such an idiotic change, made all the more bizarre with how it never comes up again in Jak X.
As for series with interesting uses of retcons, Legacy of Kain is a rather unique example, since the idea is that while events in the timeline are retconed/removed, the timeline isn't doing the usual splitting like what is seen in other time travel works like Back to the Future. Instead, like the metaphorical river that Kain describes the timeline in Soul Reaver 2, when massive changes are made, the "river" simply finds a way to flow around these changes, making the necessary changes, a prime example being the events of Blood Omen 2 occurring because of what Kain did at the end of SR2 and what Raziel did in Defiance. It's definitely one of the reasons fans of the series like myself wish the series hadn't been canned, since there was so much intrigue around what the "true timeline" would have looked like once Kain had been able to cut all of the strings controlling Nosgoth's history.
Why does that Samurai Jack ending sound so familiar? [Gurren Lagann's finale looms over] oh yeah, that's why!
At least Gurren Lagann told the audience and characters what would happen. Samurai Jack trying to pull a bait and switch was needlessly cruel to the characters and the audience
On #3 I think the more interesting retcon was giving Grima an origin.
Honestly Ragna was always likeable, he's often called an edgelord but he's a pretty chill guy when you get to know him.
There are many moments he shows his soft side in the story.
Favorite retcon... For me what comes to mind is OneShot.
The way the game was originally designed, you were only meant to have one shot. There is only two endings a player could get. Returning the sun, forcing Niko to stay. Or destroying the sun, dooming the world and letting Niko go home.
But then, in the form of an update patch, and later on the World Machine Edition, we see it... Solstice.
If we follow the proper steps in the Barrens, we lock ourselves in on this path. Essentially retconing whatever ending the player picked and at the end of it all, we get the best of both. Saving the world and Niko gets to go home.
For me, the reason I love this one, is that originally it was just one shot. But the update made the game retcon itself.
Now if someone told me this isn't exactly a retcon in the same sense, I can see that. I just can't help but see it as one.
"They removed the point of the game, good change."
@@lpfan4491 It was for me, at least.
Okay Josh,now we need the Top Ten BAD Retcons.
Definitely one of my favorite retcons was how Imulsion was just some super-fuel in Gears of War, to a parasitic lifeform capable of mutating just about ANYTHING. That, and the COG being the ones to accidentally create the Locust Horde in an effort to cure rust lung.
Interesting take on DMC5, I also like that Capcom even found time to put in an easter egg that references the Devil May Cry anime series. It’s through a phone call Dante gets from the anime deuteragonist, Patty Lowell about her turning 18 and trying invite Dante to her birthday party. Dante of course hangs up on her.
the Heart Gold/Soul Sliver Celibi stuff that was in the original G/S/C but it was locked behind an inperson event that would give the player a special Celibi that would let them experience these moments HG/SS just added them to the game proper.
Okay I was TODAY YEARS OLD when I learned about the secret Samurai Jack ending, and I am SO freaking happy! Like yes, I know that having a bittersweet ending is more realistic, but you know what? I like a happy ending, and both Jack and Ashi deserve to be happy after all they went through!
I hope that none of the retcons seen in Mortal Kombat 11 make appearances. That game retconned so many things, like making Kabal and Sindel evil, changing the looks and personalities of so many characters, and how it just spat in the faces of everyone by saying it was Kronika who was responsible for everything that had transpired, all because of her design to create a perfect world seems incredibly patronizing.
Thank God. Now I want to see a Top 10 Worst Video Game Retcons.
Kabal was from before he left the Black Dragon so there was no retcon there.
@timemonkey Even though it was established that Kronika merged the time period just before Shao Kahn was about to kill Kung Lao with the present day. Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure Kabal should be a cop at that point in his career. And on top of that, why would that version of Kabal the powers of Superspeed? In MK9, it was established that Kabal got his speed after he got burned by Kintaro. By utilizing a special breathing apparatus, Quan Chi's magic and Outworld's influence, Kabal acquired superspeed. And again, all this happened after he became a cop and during the Outworld Invasion.
@@OmnicidalClown1992 His vs intros suggest he's from further back than the rest. The speed thing is definitely a retcon, but then again MK9 attributing his speed to Shang Tsung's magic was also a retcon.
@timemonkey The problem with this Vs. Intros is the lack of continuity. The same game had several intros that contradict each other.
For example, they retconned King Jarrod's death by changing his killer from Shao Kahn to D'Vorah, only to retcon that by saying it was Sindel who murdered her husband to impress Shao Kahn. Speaking of Sindel, in another Intro, Geras told Kitana that Sindel loved her daughter, only for that to be retconned by making Sindel a cruel, abusive and evil mother and queen.
I hope the Twindel retcon (evil Sindel) makes it to that list.
Are you going to make a "Top Ten Bad Retcons" &/or elaborate on the Zelda retcon part?
I can’t believe “nobodies having hearts the whole time and Xemnas was gaslighting the organization” wasn’t on the list
I’d argue that the Alvis retcon should have been included along with Klaus as it only enhanced the original game as well as more closely tying everything together
While I like the later games, especially FR, I still never felt that the original was ever enhanced in the slightest by it. If anything, it feels slightly irritating every time when Alvis throws inaccurate info at our heads even tho he canonically does have access to the accurate version, as even outright proven by Alpha projecting it in Origin.
I would've picked Persona 5 Royal. The additional story stuff, which changes aspects of the original story and therefor is a retcon, allows for Akechi to become an actually good character. In general Royal is a genuine upgrade over the original, and since it changes aspects of the story I'd say it counts as a retcon.
I'm hoping that for the celebration of Devil May Cry as a whole Capcom will do a remaster of the other for Devil May Cry game in an awesome collection. Also, my other recon that properly hates is thermal clips in Mass Effect 2. In my opinion they should have stick with guns, cooling down and upgrades to make your gun cool down quicker.
Although disputed due to lack of clarity between Yoshi's Island and the Super Mario series as a whole back then, many people perceived Yoshi as the same one between the two series, but then it was clarified in Yoshi's Island DS that the present day Yoshi is actually an offspring of one of the Yoshi Clan members, presumably Green Yoshi. This offspring is also one of the 7 Star Children alongside the other babies in Yoshi's Island DS.
This is backed up by the fact that Yoshi didn't recognize Mario when he was saved in Super Mario World.
Is it a retcon? You decide.
Number 2 on this list made me think of a comment Josh made about live-action versions of animated Disney movies: the villains are given sympathetic aspects by passing the buck to another character who gets no depth beyond causing misery (in the case of this list's spot, all of humanity).