Expository Hairstyle Change / Video Games

Expository Hairstyle Changes in Video Games.

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• Baldur's Gate III: When she first appears, Shadowheart has jet-black hair. This can change midway through the game, however, if you convince her to break free of Shar's control and spare the Nightsong. Some time afterwards, she will bleach her hair to stark white, illustrating her growing belief in Shar's good counterpart Selune — not dissimilar to Selunite cleric Isobel Thorm. Her hair is also slightly shaggier, compared to the immaculate styling when she was still loyal to Shar.
• In Blaze Union, the True Route has Garlot start wearing his hair down after his childhood friend dies and he changes his name to Gulcasa. It makes him look older and more serious, and goes well with that Heroic BSoD he's stuck in after that point.
• By Backyard Hockey, Tony's hairstyle has changed from a huge patch of brown hair near his forehead to more laid back black hair, giving him more of a gangster attitude.
• Cyberpunk 2077:
  • Kerry goes through three haircuts: in 2013, his hair is short and messy. In 2023, he's sporting a mullet, signifying that he's grown into his rocker persona. In 2077, his hair is kept in a modern cut, but it's completely grey, showing that, despite his age, he's still young at heart, for better or worse.
  • Rogue used to have a blue mullet in 2023. In 2077, her hair is still long, but it looks more like a classical cut, and is grey, to show that she's matured into the "Queen Of The Fixers".
• A number of characters in the mobile game Ensemble Stars! are shown with different hairstyles in the previous school year, some changes being more significant to characterization than others. The main two:
  • Rei loses the slicked-back look he had as a delinquent, instead opting for a more relaxed look that better suits his current "tired old man" persona.
  • Tsumugi grows out his hair and puts an electric blue streak in it, apparently as part of some kind of agreement with Natsume. He states a couple of times that he finds it annoying and wants to cut it, but Natsume won't let him. It's possibly part of an attempt to make up with Natsume following the things he did the previous year.
• When we meet Sam, from Death Stranding, for the first time, his hair is loose. After he agrees to connect the nation to the Chiral Network and travel the US from east coast all the way to the west, he ties up his hair into a small ponytail. After he finishes his quest and leaves BRIDGES, he lets it loose again.
• In the last scene of Final Fantasy IX, Garnet's hair, which she had cut to chin length midway through the game, has grown back down to its original waist-length, indicating the amount of time that has passed.
• Final Fantasy Tactics: Sometime after Fort Zeakden, Ramza lost the ponytail marking him as a cadet, also symbolic of how, at the same time, he opened his eyes to what a Crapsack World Ivalice is if you're not at the top of the heap. (His cowlick remained, though, because he refused to be anything but a determined optimist and hero.)
• Final Fantasy VII and related:
  • In Final Fantasy VII flashbacks, Vincent Valentine is shown as a Turk — with short, more military-esque hair. After sleeping for a few decades, (during which the rest of his body isn't aged in the least), he's now a gun-wielding, shape-shifting good guy — with long hair to the middle of his back.
  • Midway through Crisis Core, Zack changes his hairstyle after having to kill his mentor.
  • The only time in the original game or Compilation when Cloud is shown without his trademark spiky hairstyle is at the end of Crisis Core, at the moment when he snaps and loses his identity.
• Yuna, the demure and timid Summoner from Final Fantasy X, wore her hair down to her shoulders during her pilgrimage. In Final Fantasy X-2, set after the defeat of Sin, she has become a gun-wielding Sphere Hunter, and her hair is cropped much shorter except for a long, rope-like braid that falls down to ankle-height. It's also styled to look exactly like Tidus's hairstyle (long braid aside). A cute (and completely understandable) homage to her gone-forever boyfriend, but potentially embarrassing after he gets better.
• Final Fantasy XIV
  • The poster boy (representative of the Player Character) in various trailers has his gear change based on a different battle class, which happens with every new expansion announced. By Stormblood, the character's hair goes from short to a mop head look mixed with bangs, signifying their wearied and more experienced look. By Shadowbringers, the character has grown a Perma-Stubble. Because the poster boy (and by extension, the player) has gone through several emotionally traumatizing events throughout the story, the longer hair and stubble reflects their changing attitude.
  • Many of the Scions' hairstyles also change over the course of the game's story. After returning from the Lifestream, Thancred's hair grew out to represent how he had gone from being the happy-go-lucky young man we first meet to a more weary and experienced man (though he cuts it back again circa Shadowbringers). Y'shtola also loses her hair decorations after she returns from the Lifestream as she matures as a sorceress. Yda discards her mask and bandana and lets her hair down in a loose ponytail when she reveals her true identity as the late Yda's younger sister, Lyse. Urianger, similarly, discards his goggles and headwear in Shadowbringers, letting his long hair down as he also begins to open up more to his fellow Scions. After joining the Scions, Estinien pulls the opposite and ties his hair back into a ponytail, helping to signify how, after life as Ishgard's Azure Dragoon and setting aside his desire for vengeance, he has begun to care more about how he presents himself.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses does this with a few characters to show changes after the timeskip.
  • Dimitri's hair grows longer and becomes a mess, reflecting his broken mental state and how he spent the last five years as a vagrant on every route except Crimson Flower.
  • Ferdinand's hair grows halfway down his back and becomes tangled and unkempt in the back. This is because he's too preoccupied with the war to remember to cut it, and if recruited on any route besides Crimson Flower, because he spends the next five years as a fugitive.
  • Bernadetta's hair is much neater, better showcasing her more confident personality, including always being out of her room on Crimson Flower.
  • While Sylvain's hair is still spiky, it's also neater than it was pre-timeskip, reflecting his more serious personality during the war phase.
  • Ingrid cuts her hair to barely chin-length. This shows that she's fully dedicated to fighting, and on any route besides Azure Moon, cutting her ties to House Galatea to fight for her own beliefs.
  • Annette loses her Girlish Pigtails and Ashe's hair is both neater and slightly longer, showing that they are now full-grown.
  • Marianne cuts her bangs and her updo is noticeably neater, signifying her better mental health.
• Of the facial-hair variety in God of War (PS4): Kratos has grown a full, thick beard in contrast to his clean-shaven younger self to demonstrate just how Older and Wiser he has become.
• In the Second Vision titles of The Idolmaster, a few of the idols change up their hairstyles. Ritsuko switches her girly braids for a professional bun, Azusa cuts her hair short (which she also does in the anime when Ryugu Komachi is formed), and Mami grows out her side ponytail to distance herself from her identical twin Ami.
• In Jak II: Renegade, you know Jak is going to be all badass now when you see that he's grown a soul patch. Likewise, you can tell he's matured and mellowed out a bit (a bit) at the start of Jak 3: Wastelander when he trades it in for a goatee.
• The King of Fighters: In The King of Fighters 2001, K9999 had a rather short hairstyle, one of the many traits he took from AKIRA's Tetsuo Shima. Naturally, upon his return as Krohnen in The King of Fighters XV, life as a nomad in the desert evading NESTS, his former employers, has caused it to grow into Barbarian Long Hair.
• When Riku reappears in Kingdom Hearts II his hair is grown down past his shoulders, reflecting both his increased maturity struggle he's been having. In Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], he's resolved most of his issues and has cut it shorter than it was at the start of the series, implying an off-screen Important Haircut.
• The Last of Us Part II has Joel sporting longer hair than in the first game. This is likely due to him grieving the loss of his relationship with Ellie, who cut ties with him after finding out he stopped the Fireflies from using her to create the Cordyceps vaccine, since the flashbacks that took place prior to the reveal show him with the same hairstyle he sported in the first game.
• Like a Dragon:
  • In the first game, Kazuma Kiryu's Big Bad Friend Akira "Nishiki" Nishikiyama has his hair slicked back to give him a smug, evil look, while in the prequel and the prologue of the first game, which takes place when he was still Kiryu's loyal blood brother, his hair is neatly parted down the middle. The HD remake of the first game, Yakuza Kiwami, has a special series of cutscenes chronicling Nishiki's Start of Darkness, with the exact moment he switches hairstyles coinciding with his official Face–Heel Turn. Making this more impactful is that it happens right after the first time he ever killed a man; after a brief These Hands Have Killed moment, he uses the blood to slick his hair back.
  • Throughout most of the series, Goro Majima sports a medium-cut hairstyle, while in Yakuza 0, Majima grew his hair out and wore a ponytail during his time in exile in Sotenbori - which could symbolize the Omi Alliance having him "tied up". By the end of the game, after he settles his accounts with the Omi, he cuts his hair again.
  • Taiga Saejima originally had his hair in a long shaggy mane when he was first introduced in Yakuza 4. By the time of Yakuza 5, he's shaved his head and has kept it shaved in games he's appeared in afterwards.
  • In Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Ichiban Kasuga's hairstyle prior to prison was a punch perm typical of Yakuza thugs. After getting out, his hair grew out to a short ponytail and upon trying to get his old hairstyle back he instead ended up with Anime Hair thanks to an inexperienced hairstylist who has no idea what a punch perm is.
  • As of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Kiryu's hair has gone from its signature short and slicked-back style to a longer and more unkempt look, both as a means of disguising himself since he is legally deceased, and to signify how, now that he's taking a long-overdue vacation, he's starting to relax — to let his hair down, so to speak. His hair is also significantly greyer, signifying both his age and his struggle with cancer.
  • Also in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Chitose's hair goes from an updo to bangs after she leaves the party and confesses to spying on them for Eiji. She keeps the new hairstyle after rejoining the party.
• Lonely Wolf Treat:
  • Mochi is a cheerful Genki Girl who has short hair at the start of the series. After her first Break the Cutie moment, she becomes melancholy and her hair grows long and loose. When she gets her cheer back, her long hair is tied into twintails.
  • Danny starts out as an Apathetic Clerk with bangs. When they start figuring out their gender identity and opening up to others, their hair is tied back so their whole face is visible.
• In MapleStory, Illium initially sports eye-obscuring bangs to illustrate his crippling shyness and lack of confidence. After being empowered by the Elder Crystal, his hair is bleached white and shaved to a crew cut, revealing his striking red eyes and burning resolve to defend the Verdant Flora.
• Mass Effect:
  • In Mass Effect 3 Jack's Character Development over the six-month Time Skip, moving from Ax-Crazy to a Mama Bear, is marked by her growing her hair out from "recently shaved" to "a ponytail". She's pretty much the only teammate who changes hairstyle; everyone else either uses the exact same model, or has the exact same model minus the Cerberus insignia.
  • Ashley has literally let her hair down following Mass Effect.
• Metal Gear:
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty:
    • Solid Snake has grown out the cropped hair he wore in all of his appearances before that. He's also unshaven, when he had appeared clean-shaven in every game up until then. This serves to signify that he's no longer working with any organisation that particularly cares how long he wears his hair or if he bothers to shave, as well as to indicate the much more mellow and easy-going personality he developed as a result of the events of the previous game (the game document suggests the change indicates a man who now has higher priorities than his personal appearance).
    • Olga has a military buzz cut in the Tanker chapter and a short bob in the Plant chapter. This serves as an early indication that her loyalties do not lie with her unit anymore. Specifically, the unit is no longer her 'only family' as she announced in the Tanker chapter - in between her appearances, she's become a mother.
  • Big Boss's hair deserves some attention: In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Snake goes from styling his long hair in a side part to having it scraped off his face with a bandanna, making it resemble the hairstyle of his mentor The Boss (who switches her own hair to a ponytail). She even points it out after she meets up with him later, apparently finding it immature. At the end of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Snake discards the bandanna along with The Boss's ideals, and it's gone in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. In Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, he switches to an imitation of her ponytail style.
  • In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Raiden starts out with his Metal Gear Solid 2 hairstyle of long blond hair, which in his white armour body gives him a pure and noble, knightly sort of look. When he gets a black and red armour body, his hair has been coloured cold white, making him look much more inhuman and demonic.
  • When Sunny was first introduced in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, she had boyishly short hair like her mother. When we see her again a few years later in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Sunny has let her hair grow a little and decorated it with a hair clip adorned with a blue flower. In that time, she has grown happy and content after coming out of her shell.
  • Otacon's hairstyle stays a similar length and style in all of his appearances (the position of the parting moves about, but that's all), but the colour changes from grey, to light brown, to dark brown as he becomes more confident and sexier.
  • Come Paz's reappearance in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, her head of wavy blond hair has been buzzed off as just a tiny indicator of the unspeakable, hideous torture she's been subjected to.
  • A lot of fans were delighted to see Psycho Mantis, whose head was shaved in his previous appearances, appear with a mop of shoulder-length red hair in his appearance as a child in Metal Gear Solid V.
• The protagonist of NieR, specifically the Replicant version of the game, significantly changes his hair after a five year Time Skip, going from long hair that's neatly tied up and styled to long, unkempt hair. Especially poignant in that, according to supplemenary material, the protagonist kept his hair tidy and tied up because he had an intense phobia of others touching his hair brought upon by his time working as a prostitute to get enough money to get by. After his sister is kidnapped and he's spent the intervening years searching for her, it really goes to show that he cares about nothing more than completing his mission.
• Combined with a Significant Wardrobe Shift, Lillie in Pokémon Sun and Moon pulls her hair into a ponytail to signify her strengthening resolve after The Reveal.
• The Prince in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within grows a layer of Perma-Stubble in combination with his Darker and Edgier person gets much more grizzled, to the point that some wanted him to use the sword to shave the stuff off.
• Siegfried Schtauffen of the Soul Series originally had short hair, but with Soulcalibur and onward, he grows it past shoulder length before cutting it and slicking it back in Soulcalibur V.
• In Tales of Xillia 2, Elise sports a shorter haircut with twin tails which reflects the fact that she's overcome her former nature and become more outgoing.
• Used constantly throughout the Persona universe to represent a character's growth:
  • From Persona to Persona 2:
    • Maki Sonomura, who wore her hair shoulder-length while a shy and conflicted teen, comes to the sequel as a determined woman with short-cropped, boyish hair, set on making amends for her role in the previous game.
    • Eriko Kirishima, excitable fan of the occult, traded her waist-length ponytail for a short bowl-cut style in time for Persona 2. And, if you played the original North American release of Revelations: Persona, her hair also changed from blonde (originally dark brown) to solid black.
    • Yukino Mayuzumi styled herself as a sukeban, with extremely short and messily-cropped dyed hair and an ankle-length skirt, a holdover from her days as a delinquent boss. By the time of Persona 2, she's a professional photojournalist, and she's still just as much of a badass (if not more) but has grown her hair out to shoulder-length (revealing it to be very curly) and holds it down with a floppy gray hat.
    • Reiji Kido, the fearsome and antisocial misfit, let go of the enormous, unruly mane of his teen years for a more respectable (if still slightly messy) short style befitting his ordinary job as a salesman. His new look also hides the X-shaped scar on his forehead, which he used to display proudly as part of his badass image.
  • Within Persona 2:
    • Maya Amano, while still in junior-high, wore heir hair in a messy pageboy cut during those fateful days of the Masquerade. As an adult, she wears it long, slightly past her shoulders, and perfectly coiffed.
    • Eikichi Mishina's entire look was as ordinary as anyone could get as a kid, but when he fell in love with Miyabi, he decided someone as pretty as she was would never even notice someone as plain as he, so he developed a glam-rocker style which included spiky, dyed hair with a shocking white stripe down the middle.
  • Within Persona 3:
    • Mitsuru Kirijo is shown in The Answer to have worn her hair in twin ponytails, "princess curl"-style, as a child, when she first Awakened to her Persona. By ninth grade, well on her way to establish SEES, she still had the curls but wore her hair loose save for a headband. By the time of Persona 3 proper, her hair is waist-length and wavy, with only a slight curl in the ends.
  • From Persona 3 to Persona 4:
    • Yukiko Amagi shows up in Persona 3 Portable as a 9th-grader, with a short bowl-cut that barely reaches her neck. Two years later, in Persona 4, her long, straight hair reaches down the middle of her back, more fitting for her Yamato Nadeshiko image.
  • From Persona 3 and Persona 4 to Persona 4: Arena:
    • Mitsuru's hair reaches past her hips and is much fuller, completely lacking the "princess curl" of her childhood.
    • Likewise, the geeky and unstylish Fuuka Yamagishi's short and unkempt hair is now much longer and better-styled, pulled into a French braid that rests over her shoulder.
  • After Persona 4: Arena:
    • Yosuke Hanamura wears the same style, but shorter by half, especially in the back, symbolizing his growth into adulthood.
    • Chie Satonaka and Naoto Shirogane are growing their hair out to emphasize their burgeoning femininity.
    • Conversely, Yukiko has her hair done up in a professional-looking bun, to portray her maturity and independence.
    • Rise Kujikawa, who previously wore her hair in girlish ponytails to play up her role as Risette, has gone for a "movie star" look instead and lets it down in a flowing cascade to rival Mitsuru's.
    • Most dramatic of all, Kanji Tatsumi has stopped bleaching his hair and combing it back, wearing it instead as its natural black and with a slightly nerdy side-part. It is so unlike him that even the Protagonist is shocked the first time he sees it, and Yukiko (who has been present for the change and has had time to acclimate) still finds it hilarious.
    • The Protagonist's cousin Nanako, who developed a crush for her "Big Brother," apparently taking a cue from his many female friends, has grown her hair out a bit and stopped tying it in pigtails.
  • Persona x Detective Naoto:
    • Set two years after the events of Persona 4, Naoto now wears her hair all the way to her waist, having fully embraced her femininity.
• Twisted Wonderland: Lilia Vanrouge currently has short bobbed hair that makes him look cute and enhance his goofy personality. Centuries in the past, when he was an active military general with a serious, tough personality, he had Badass Longhair.
• Once the party decides to go save the world in Wild ARMs, Cecilia not only cuts her hair but changes her outfit too.

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