Image via Complex Original
Ed.
That's assuming, of course, that our makeovers all went well. We actually dig Lightning’s makeover for Final Fantasy XIII-2, even though a lot of people seem to hate the armor—but we can't say the same for some of these other characters. Don't worry, guys; we don't blame you. We blame the AD.
10. Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)
Huge improvement here—or, rather, reduction.You know, because her bust became smaller. Point is, she actually looks like a woman now. Remember how funky her character model appeared in early games? Even we would have rejected a blocky PS1-era Lara Croft blow-up doll, mostly because the sharp edges would have jacked up our lips and toes.
...yes, toes. DON'T JUDGE US.
9. The Prince (Prince of Persia)
The whole “post-9/11” thing became EVERYONE’S rationale for making everything extra-brooding, from a hyperviolent comic book hero to a dark, edgy peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The world had changed, and Ubisoft thought that the Prince had to morph into that dickhead who cuts everybody off in traffic with his Mustang while Tool blasts on the radio. Stupid Prince.
8. Yuna (Final Fantasy X-2)
On the opposite side of the post-9/11 spectrum from PoP, we have Yuna and her merry band of Rainbow Wenches. Terrorists obviously didn’t attack on the world of Spira, and it shows...colorfully. FFX-2 was emblematic of the Japanese idea of female empowerment: "let’s dress ’em up in hot pants and Moogle suits, and give ’em guns, while making the game so Skittle-kid that entire new color spectrums are invented every time you performed a job change in a battle!" Square Enix oversexed the previously conservative Yuna to the point where we couldn’t take her seriously—hell, we couldn’t even see her after five minutes of gameplay because our eyes couldn’t process that many colors.
7. Chris Redfield (Resident Evil)
Chris: Jill! Run for that buildi—oooh, a bush with stuff hidden behind it!
*Goes over to bush*
Will you take the First Aid Spray and 1562 Dianabol Syringes and 348 Tubs of Creatine and Gamma Rays?
>Yes No
*selects Yes*
Chris: CHRIS REDFIELD SMAAAAAASH
6. Solid Snake (Metal Gear Solid)
Let’s just examine the change in Metal Gear Solid between 2/3 and 4 (yeah, we know MGS3 starred Big Boss, but they’re DNA clones of each other anyway). By this time, Snake had already grown a mullet and scruff, but all that paled in comparison to the broom mustache that happened in MGS4. We don’t even care that he got really old really fast. DAT MUSTACHE.
Did Snake just not care anymore? Was the Art Director at Konami (we’re assuming it was Yoji Shinkawa) unaware that only Western pedophiles rock that kind of ’stache nowadays? That shouldn’t be an excuse. Living in Japan, Shinkawa has probably seen enough of those suspect “English Teachers” from the US and UK to know that anybody with that facial hair pattern is a panty-sniffer.
5. Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)
See, in The Matrix 4, Neo becomes a blond lesbian and fights against a new white-haired Agent Smi—
Sorry, what’s that?
Oh. Our mistake.
4. Crash (Crash Bandicoot)
They weren’t even trying with this one. Tribal tattoos? Seriously? Who is you, Poochie the Dog?
3. Commander Shepard (Mass Effect)
In Mass Effect, The Commander was likely either A) Jack from LOST or B) a cute redhead from like, Paramore. We miss those days.
of course, in Mass Effect 2, you only have yourselves to blame for these things—well, yourselves and the character-creation tool. We get it, it's hilarious when PlatypuShepard is having a serious conversation about the end of the universe with The Illusive Man, but no one would really let this thing save the galaxy. Remember that whole argument about how Lincoln might not have won the election if the media had been as pervasive back then as it is now? Similarly, there never would have been a Shepard to save the galaxy, since some platypus-hating bigot would have assassinated one of these creations long before he/she ever set foot on Ilos.
2. Simon Belmont (Castlevania)
It took a long time, but we were finally gifted with a game starring a polysexual goth dominatrix. The gaming industry is indeed a progressive one. We're not sure what happened to the old Schwarzenegger-style Belmont, but with the paradigm shift in the transmedia dialectic of popular culture—you know, the one dictating we all turn into a bunch of pussies—we're just glad to see that Konami has adjusted accordingly.
1. Dante (Devil May Cry)
Apparently the goal here was to make Dante look tougher. Well done, Ninja Theory! The guy's gotta be tough, considering he was apparently smoking meth for two years behind a 7-Eleven before he headed off to kill demons. What makes him even more hardcore is that he clearly has the entire discography of Joy Division and The Cure on his 4 GB 1st-generation iPod. And that he dyed his hair black because that’s what The Crow looked like. He's a generic goth/emo burrito rolled up with refried beans of destruction that give us horrible hate-filled gas.
