History AuthorsSavingThrow / VideoGames

** Going beyond just the ''Kingdom Hearts'' series, the portrayal of the main trio of Disney characters--WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck, WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} and WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse--could be considered a response to some of the most common complaints about those characters over the last few decades. For many animated fans, the trio were basically glorified corporate mascots with little personality, which wasn't helped by the fact that they never really had definitive [[MysteriousPast backstories]] or [[WhyDoYouKeepChangingJobs occupations]]. The [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI original]] ''Kingdom Hearts'' made sure to rectify that, portraying Mickey as a [[TheGoodKing monarch]], Donald as his CourtMage, and Goofy as his Captain of the Guard. And while their backstories still aren't terribly detailed, ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' still makes an effort to give Mickey an actual character arc by showing the beginnings of his feud with WesternAnimation/{{Pete}} and introducing us to his childhood mentor, [[Disney/{{Fantasia}} Yen Sid]].

* In ''VideoGame/PaperMarioStickerStar'', [[BigBad the villainous Bowser]] has no dialogue. This wasn't a well-received change by fans; they felt his dialogue was a huge amount of what makes Bowser appealing in other Mario RPG games, so in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPaperJam'' and ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'', he talks again.

** The work of the developers under Sean Murray cannot be understated here. After the disastrous initial release, they essentially worked around the clock to get each update and patch working in the game, facing immense backlash and even death threats all the while. [[https://youtu.be/O5BJVO3PDeQ This video]] by the Internet Historian explains it best.

** ''Birth by Sleep'' and ''Dream Drop Distance'' were notorious for having poorly designed [[BonusBoss secret bosses]] that had AIRoulette and forced players to spam invincibility frames and cheap tactics to win. ''0.2'''s secret boss hinted at a return to reactive boss design that ''Kingdom Hearts I'' and ''II'' had.

*** Unfortunately for some players, ''VideoGame/Persona5ScrambleThePhantomStrikers'', brings back this trope when the boys realize they're in the hot springs (the ''same'' one in Persona 3) at the time the girls wanted to use them. Without even giving the player the chance to escape like in Persona 3 or explain themselves (Makoto refuses to listen), the players are forced to see the males get beaten up over a misunderstanging.

** BiTheWay and GayOption are handled with even more tact. There are multiple characters a Byleth of either gender can romance, and several more have romantic paired endings with the same sex despite ''not'' being interested in a Byleth of their gender.

* The [[UpdatedRerelease HD Remake]] of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' addressed two of the biggest complaints lobbied at the original game; the Triforce quest and sailing. For the former, the fetch quest was reduced to finding three shards in the ocean instead of the original eight while with the latter, a new sail was created the increased the speed of Link's boat without having to constantly change the wind direction.

** After derided for the mediocre specs of the console, the Xbox One X was announced, which is 4 times as powerful as the normal Xbox One, making it even more poerful than the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 Pro, and capable of native 4K gaming. Even select backwards compatible games (both Xbox and Xbox 360) can be made to render in 4K.

** Kairi has been DemotedToExtra as of ''Days''. She gets called in to help in the secret ending of ''3D''. [[spoiler:However, considering [[StuffedIntoTheFridge how she ultimately fared]] in ''III'', some can't help but wonder if it was worth it.]]

* In addition to all its new content, the UpdatedRerelease for ''VideoGame/FairyFencerF'', ''Advent Dark Force'', also makes many adjustments to its existing story routes, considerably smoothing several characters arcs and making the plot flow better. Where it truly falls into this trope is with [[spoiler:Sherman]]. Intended as a WellIntentionedExtremist, most fans found him to be a self-aggrandizing TautologicalTemplar and the party's sympathy for his motives (if not actions) to be [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic thoroughly misplaced]]. ''ADF'' [[AscendedFanon embraces this]], re-casting the character as a KnightTemplar blinded by his ideals. Not only does this give [[TheProtagonist Fang]] some credibility for not trusting him from the start[[note]]Fang, by design, starts off rather unlikeable until his HiddenDepths and CharacterDevelopment kick in[[/note]], it also allows [[spoiler:Sherman]] to take over a plot-critical action that was originally a ''tremendously'' OutOfCharacterMoment for an otherwise sympathetic character. It's almost universally agreed this one character rewrite makes the main route much stronger all on its own.

** Last but not least, one of the complaints often leveled at ''Fallout 3'' was how much [[DarkerAndEdgier darker and more depressing it was]] than its predecessors, lacking most of the series' [[BlackComedy dark humor]]. Ironically, while ''New Vegas'' was [[DenserAndWackier significantly cheerier]] (in part because of the [[SillinessSwitch Wild Wasteland perk]]), [[UnpleasableFanbase some complained that the game was]] ''too'' optimistic and breezed too much over the many serious situations in the game. ''Fallout 4'' reaches a [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism happy balance]] between the two, more or less. While the game still has a fairly grim and serious main story (with many a gut-punch and tragic moment to be found), it's overall far LighterAndSofter then both ''3'' and ''New Vegas,'' cranking up the Black Comedy while being more optimistic and generally having sillier side-quests/random encounters.

* ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' was an infamous disappointment for Creator/{{Capcom}}, with one of the most frequently-cited reasons for its failure being that it ditched the majority of the fan favorite characters from ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'' in favor of an almost entirely new cast. Capcom subsequently released a new game in the ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha'' prequel series the following year, which featured most of the recognizable characters from ''Street Fighter II'', and later brought back Chun-Li and Akuma in ''Third Strike'', an UpdatedRerelease of ''III''. While a few of the better received characters from ''III'' have since reappeared in the newer games and the ''VideoGame/CapcomVsWhatever'' franchise (namely Ibuki, Dudley, Elena, Hugo, Makoto, Yun, Yang, Alex, Urien and Gill), the series has still largely maintained a focus on the characters everyone remembers from ''II''.

** After derided for the mediocre specs of the console, the Xbox One X was announced, which is 4 times as powerful as the normal Xbox One, making it even more poerful than the PlayStation 4 Pro, and capable of native 4K gaming. Even select backwards compatible games (both Xbox and Xbox 360) can be made to render in 4K.

** Likewise, for ''VideoGame/BlazblueCrossTagBattle'', after receiving massive backlash for an unclear and controversial [=DLC=] plan which most notably left half of the {{Unexpected Character}}s [[WebAnimation/{{RWBY}} Team RWBY]] as separate paid downloads, [=ArcSys=] soon released a very strong apology and announced that not only would the first [=DLC=] character pack be free for digital download preorders and for the first week of release but also that Blake and Yang would be free to download indefinitely. Wrong of them to try and break up a good team.

* ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII'' was an infamous disappointment for Creator/{{Capcom}}, with one of the most frequently-cited reasons for its failure being that it ditched the majority of the fan favorite characters from ''VideoGame/StreetFighterII'' in favor of an almost entirely new cast. Capcom subsequently released a new game in the ''VideoGame/StreetFighterAlpha'' prequel series the following year, which featured most of the recognizable characters from ''Street Fighter II'', and later brought back Chun-Li and Akuma in ''Third Strike'', an UpdatedRerelease of ''III''. While a few of the better received characters from ''III'' have since reappeared in the newer games and the ''VideoGame/CapcomVsWhatever'' franchise (namely Ibuki, Dudley, Elena, Hugo, Makoto, Yun, Alex and R. Mika), the series has still largely maintained a focus on the characters everyone remembers from ''II''.

** One of Microsoft's biggest titles for the Xbox One, ''[[CompilationRerelease Halo: The Master Chief Collection]]'', notoriously launched in a buggy state, with multiplayer, the series's biggest selling point, being unplayable due to glitchy matchmaking. Creator/ThreeFourThreeIndustries did their best to fix things afterwards with numerous patches, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't until the Xbox One X was announnced that the dev team decided to outright overhaul the matchmaking code alongside adding support for 4K resolutions. Combined with letting fans beta test this overhaul, Creator/ThreeFourThreeIndustries was lauded for sticking to fix the game when they could have just moved on to another project. Even better, they would add ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' to the collection, and bring the collection to [=PCs=] for the first time.

** One of Microsoft's biggest titles for the Xbox One, ''[[CompilationRerelease Halo: The Master Chief Collection]]'', notoriously launched in a buggy state, with multiplayer, the series's biggest selling point, being unplayable due to glitchy matchmaking. Creator/ThreeFourThreeIndustries did their best to fix things afterwards with numerous patches, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't until the Xbox One X was announnced that the dev team decided to outright overhaul the matchmaking code alongside adding support for 4K resolutions. Combined with letting fans beta test this overhaul, Creator/ThreeFourThreeIndustries was lauded for sticking to fix the game when they could have just moved on to another project. Even better, they would add ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' to the collection, and bring the collection to PCs for the first time.

** After derided for the mediocre specs of the console, the Xbox One X was announced, which is 4 times as powerful as the normal Xbox One and capable of native 4K gaming. Even select backwards compatible games (both Xbox and Xbox 360) can be made to render in 4K.
** One of the biggest remaining criticisms was how little exclusive content the Xbox brand had. While Sony kept churning out one Game of the Year competitor after another, Microsoft's exclusive announcements were sporadic, often plagued with delays, bad communication, even outright being ''cancelled'' more than once, and with the exception of the universally-lauded ''[[VideoGame/{{Forza}} Forza Horizon]]'' series, failed to live up to their competitors. The main culprit behind all of it was just how few first party studios they had. Before 2018, their only major gaming subsidiaries were Creator/ThreeFourThreeIndustries, Creator/TurnTenStudios, The Coalition, Mojang (who only do the already multiplatform ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'') and Creator/{{Rare}}. Then, at E3 2018, it was announced they were opening a new studio for story-driven games called The Initiative, and purchased four studios on top of that with Creator/PlaygroundGames, Creator/UndeadLabs, Creator/CompulsionGames and Creator/NinjaTheory, effectively ''doubling'' their first party. That was far from over, as later in November, Creator/InXileEntertainment and Creator/ObsidianEntertainment, two acclaimed WesternRPG studios were also purchased, and ''that'' isn't even the end. Furthermore, there's the promise that each studio will be allowed to make what it wants, and be fully unique, whereas in the past Microsoft got a bad rep for being notoriously hard to work with and very restricting, essentially having them adhere to a [[StrictlyFormula strict formula]], compared to Sony allowing their teams to experiment and try new things. Granted, the fruits of the buyouts won't be seen in full until the ninth-generation, but this was definitely a move to address the big criticism over a lack of content.

** After backlash from both it and the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 lacking backwards compatibility due to different arcitecture, an emulation-based solution was revealed at E3 2015, and previously purchased games, whether physical copies or digital, would be playable. (Albeit with a limited, if growing, compatibility list) In addition, compared to the UsefulNotes/Xbox360, which had a backwards compatibility feature often criticised for glitchy emulation and poor performance, the Xbox One's emulator is much more solid, with games often running better than on native hardware and games that do run poorly (such as ''VideoGame/HaloReach'') getting patches to improve performance. In addition, backwards compatibility for the original UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}} was also added.

** [[EnsembleDarkhorse/{{Pokemon}} Mewtwo]] was, for years, depicted as a [[OlympusMons god-like]] BloodKnight [[SingleSpecimenSpecies who is one of a kind]]. His depiction in ''[[Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie Mewtwo Strikes Back]]'' in particular ''made'' Mewtwo in the eyes of many. So when ''[[Anime/PokemonGenesectAndTheLegendAwakened Genesect and the Legend Awakened]]'' featured a brand new Mewtwo who was [[LighterAndSofter softer and more feminine]] than the original... [[ReplacementScrappy the fans didn't have a warm reception]]. In the wake of this, official materials (such as the fourth ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' game and the official Pokémon website) started to play up the BloodKnight persona used in the games and the first movie, while neglecting to reference the softer Mewtwo seen in ''Genesect''.

** BlackAndWhite morality is gone. Every faction in the game is [[GreyAndGrayMorality very, very grey]] and even the villains have detailed motivations. Further, [[spoiler:Fates' GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere problem is averted, so no sudden OutsideContextProblem invalidating the political plot.]]

* The reveal of ''VideoGame/{{DmC|DevilMayCry}}: VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' was accompanied by the creators putting it as a {{prequel}} to the existing series. [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks Backlash over changes to the character and backstory]] that were [[ContinuityReboot incompatible with pre-existing canon]] [[http://www.siliconera.com/2011/10/31/dmc-devil-may-cry-takes-place-in-a-parallel-world-with-a-different-dante/ caused the creators to]] {{retcon}} the game [[AlternateContinuity into a parallel world]]. This didn't stop the 2013 reboot from garnering a mixed-to-negative reception, so the ''real'' Author's Saving Throw came with the release of ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' in 2019, which ignores ''[=DmC=]'' in favor of the original continuity and brings back the original Dante and Nero from ''[=DMC4=]'' as well as [[spoiler:Vergil]].

* In addition to all its new content, the UpdatedRerelease for ''VideoGame/FairyFencerF'', ''Advent Dark Force'', also makes many adjustments to its existing story routes, considerably smoothing several characters arcs and making the plot flow better. Where it truly falls into this trope is with [[spoiler:Sherman]]. Intended as a WellIntentionedExtremist, most fans found him to be a self-aggrandizing TautologicalTemplar and the party's sympathy for his motives (if not actions) to be [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic thoroughly misplaced]]. ''ADF'' [[SureWhyNot embraces this]], re-casting the character as a KnightTemplar blinded by his ideals. Not only does this give [[TheProtagonist Fang]] some credibility for not trusting him from the start[[note]]Fang, by design, starts off rather unlikeable until his HiddenDepths and CharacterDevelopment kick in[[/note]], it also allows [[spoiler:Sherman]] to take over a plot-critical action that was originally a ''tremendously'' OutOfCharacterMoment for an otherwise sympathetic character. It's almost universally agreed this one character rewrite makes the main route much stronger all on its own.

** Several other complaints about the game's plot were addressed in distant prequel ''VideoGame/TalesOfBerseria'', successfully enough that ''Berseria'' is now considered required playing to get the most out of ''Zestiria''. Among other things, "Malevolence" was given a much less arcane explanation of its nature and effects without contradicting ''Zestiria'', and the view that [[FusionDance Armatization]] created blatant favortism of the human party members was [[spoiler:[[SureWhyNot embraced and explored to the fullest]] with the unstable, often-fatal early versions of the technique]], while also explaining how Rose was able to use it despite Armatization supposedly being restricted to the Shepherd.