The Design Evolution of Your Favorite Game Characters

We've grown up with video games, but the truth is our favorite characters have grown up along with us.

As kids we used to be grotesque, lanky idiots, and these characters started out as polygonal, pixelated blobs on a screen. No wonder we've got such an emotional investment.

But these blobs took on meaning for us, and like us, they evolved over the years into something resembling real people.

Some changed a lot—you wouldn't even recognize Link anymore if not for the outfit, and Samus dyed her hair and doesn't even wear her armor half the time anymore. Others have stayed largely the same.

How have your favorite game characters evolved over the years? Click through the slideshow to see.

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Snake has changed immensely in the almost 30 years since his debut in the original Metal Gear. And his evolution has almost always been for the better.

Early on he had the appearance of popular actors, as creator Hideo Kojima was a big fan of Western action movies. Snake was a mish-mash of action heroes at the time.

Starting in Metal Gear Solid, he began to take on his own identity, despite how blurry his face looked back then. But it's up for debate whether the latest evolution, to match the change of voice actor from David Hayter to Kiefer Sutherland, is for the better or worse.

Lara Croft went for decades without changing much. Her bodacious curves sold enough games to keep the sexist image alive all the way until last year.

Her curves got curvier, of course, as her body gained more and more pixels. But up until 2013 she was still bouncing around far too much, whether in a tank top or a wetsuit. And her physical image overshadowed the rest of her personality.

Luckily in 2013 Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics made an effort to make Lara a more realistic and relatable character. Now that's an evolution.

For a non-Mega Man initiate, trying to figure out exactly how many different iterations of this character there have been is something of a headache.

The irony is that despite how many, many iterations of Mega Man there have been over the years, the dude hasn't actually changed in appearance all that much. Especially in the classic series, which culminated with Mega Man 10 in 2010—a game for modern systems that kept old school 8-bit NES graphics alive.

Chun-Li wasn't even in the original Street Fighter, but now she's one of the most iconic characters of the entire series. When many people think of Street Fighter, they think of Chun-Li—that's a testament to her character, considering she wasn't even part of the original roster.

Her dimensions have changed over the years, though her legs remain out-of-this-world enormous. How else could her kicks compete with the rest of the Street Fighter characters?

As amazing as the graphics in FF7 seemed all those years ago, it turns out they really weren't. We can say that in retrospect. This game just hasn't aged all that well—visually, at least.

But despite Final Fantasy VII never really getting a full-on sequel, there have been plenty of opportunities for Cloud to evolve. Just look at his awesome portrayal in the film Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, or even the PSP game Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core.

He still may be a whiny nut, but physically his changes are definitely for the better.

You might not think that a character who barely ever speaks and whose face is literally never seen could evolve that much, but the Chief's has look changed a lot since his debut with the original Xbox.

Even between Halo and Halo 2, which were both for Xbox, the Chief's armor and look changed a lot. He's battle-scarred by the time we catch up with up again in Halo 4, and throughout that game you can tell his experiences have had a toll on him mentally as well.

Wonder what's next for the super soldier?

Sonic has actually changed a lot in the 23 years since his debut. He's still the fastest hedgehog alive, of course, but he's gotten taller and lankier, not to mention a bigger smartass.

A lot of players feel nostalgia for his early portrayals as a 2D, pixelated blur, but the 3D version keeps the same spirit alive.

Link has probably gone through the most drastic changes of any character on this list, especially if you look not just at his appearances in the Zelda games, but at the accompanying manuals and box art too. Not to mention that awful cartoon.

Link went from a brown-haired waif to a blonde-haired hero over the course of every Zelda game. He also went from 2D to 3D—he's even 3D in the 2D games these days. He's been a forest dweller, a villager, and an island rapscallion—but through it all a hero.

Lara Croft may have gotten less objectified in her latest game, but the opposite happened to Samus in Metroid: Other M.

And that's especially a shame considering how great she started out in the original Metroid. She defied stereotypes so gracefully that most players thought she was a typical action dude—until the secret ending where her long hair and bikini-clad body were revealed. It was quite a reversal.

But despite the steps backward in Other M, Samus remains an interesting character who's changed a lot over the years.

Mario is one of the most recognizable faces in the world, despite how much he's changed over the years. He went from a squat, ridiculous collage of pixels to a squat, slightly-less-ridiculous 3D plumber.

Did anyone ever buy this guy as a plumber by the way?

Anyway, through all his iterations Mario has remained more or less the same, excepting the physical changes. And we're not expecting him to change all that much in the future.