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Worst "He was there all along" Retcons
- Thread starter Shadow_Lord
- Start date
AgentLampshade
Member
He was always there. We just called him "PS2 hardware limitations."
Azure Phoenix
Member
Maybe not in the traditional sense, but they reconned basically everything from 999 and VLR to squeeze complex motives in.
On the other hand, Naminé literally retconning herself into Sora's memories is pretty nifty.
Basileus777
Member
Ocelot's entire character is just a series of retcons.
Skullface is barely a "I was there all along" retcon tbh,he was just behind the scene in one game and it was all about "i helped you a little without you realizing it".
It's not like if you play mgs3 some scenes will make sense now,it doesn't change anything so it's not a retcon.
It's not like if you play mgs3 some scenes will make sense now,it doesn't change anything so it's not a retcon.
He actually said something like "it was me all along!",so fucking stupid.
MudoSkills
Volcano High Alumnus (Cum Laude)
Probably true, strictly speaking. What does count as a retcon, and an awful sin, is
turning the entire of VLR into the consequence of one of the game's bad endings.
Jawmuncher
Member
The entirety of MGS4s Epilouge is basically a shitty "I've been here all along". God it still pisses me off.
jackissocool
Member
I don't see how that fits, he wasn't retconned into any previous games or stories. Just more background.
MGS went totally up its own anus following MGS3. It's almost as if Kojima was trolling with 4, PW and 5. Painfully stupid plots without a shred of irony.
This so much, such an overated game.
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch was a expanded remake of the DS game Ni no Kuni: Dominion of the Dark Djinn. On top of upgraded visuals and a new battle system to compensate for scrapping the entire hook of the game, it also expands the story by adding a new antagonist. Level 5's brilliant idea to integrate the titular White Witch was to cut to the League Of Villains between all significant events in the game, and do roughly the same scene again and again and again:
'The boy is coming closer and our previous plan failed, but it matters not, arrangements have been made to stop him in this tracks. This new henchman will surely dispose of him.'
Just a lot of that. It feels entirely pointless and forced in, and only sets up their new villain in the lamest, most incompetent way. Like the OPs title said, 'she was there all along, I promise!" Ni no Kuni's remake suffers from poorly integrated content in general, so it's impressive that these new scenes still manage to stand out. I guess it's easy to spot since there's so much repetitiveness in the cutscenes.
Zap Rowsdower
Banned
In Shadow Hearts: Covenant retconning Anne Hyuga into actually being
. It just makes it super creepy because
was such an obsessed stalker to Yuri that she became his mom.
The only thing I actually hate about an otherwise fantastic game.
a time displaced Karin
Karin
The only thing I actually hate about an otherwise fantastic game.
This scene gets even funnier when you realize that Genesis walks in in the middle of the Nibelhelm shit, just completely randomly, and then fucking leaves and Sephiroth acts like nothing ever happened and the shit plays out like normal.
SoulUnison
Banned
tkscz
Member
:O
Posted one after the other. Hmmm...
But as others have said, Genesis was shoe horned so hard into the story.
Theslammer
Member
For a minute, I thought I missed those pictures when I played the game, LOL.
SomedayTheFire
Member
I would argue Crisis Core's existence.
Harothewanderer
Member
Yeah, the reception of ZTD here on GAF was pretty lukewarm. Wich I wholeheartly agree with. The hype and the story of the game's development was so immense, but the final game was so mediocre compared to the previous entries. I wasnt even angry. Just completely disillusioned.
Zero Time Dilemma...
Does not belong on this thread.
Like 99% of the game is bad, but this is literally one of the few things that they actually did pretty well.
Like don't misunderstand, the game is complete garbage, but it managed to pull this off relatively well to where when you go back, you can actually see how this twist was completely fair (you can actually outright kill the character in one ending if you type out their name for your decision).
Does not belong on this thread.
Like 99% of the game is bad, but this is literally one of the few things that they actually did pretty well.
The existence of the character was foreshadowed throughout the game, they actually OVERTLY talk about him several times, the key of the twist is thinking that one of the characters (a robot named Sean) is actually named Q (the actual offscreen character).
I mean pretty much all the characters were there all along since the game isn't canon to the universe. The only one who might not fit this is Orisa.
It was kind of dumb for sure, but Delta was another play on hiding the perspective the player sees the game through, similar to both 999 and VLR. It's not as bad as how everything is wrapped up or the deus ex aliens to patch over some massive plot holes.
Life is simply unfair.
Huh?
This isn't even a retcon at all. As far as Nate was concerned, he died well before the events of Uncharted 1 and had no reason to think he was alive until Uncharted 4. They made zero change to any part of the story to accommodate Sam's existence.
MoonsaultSlayer
Member
What bugs me is Marlowe would have brought it up in 3 when going over his past. And Nate being in Cartagena without Sam and seemingly dumped there by pops yet he wasn't in the picture before then is bizarre.
Man, the more time away from it and the more I think about them, 3 and 4 bum me out for taking a pulpy action adventure series and making it less fun. The drama's fine, but not at the expense of fun and sense. They didn't NEED to add a literal brother or touch on mama Drake.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
As someone who really fucking hated 999 and thought it had abysmal writing, this makes me laugh so hard. I guess people will finally realize Zero Escape games have shite writing... maybe?
zelhawks37
Member
Gotta say Zero Time Dilemma. The game got much worse from there.
Barrel Cannon
Member
Ocelot the thread
Tavernacle12
Member
Would the Layton series count?
EDIT: Wouldn't count since they're in the same game, not retcons.
Everyone you talked to was a hallucination because of a gas leak.
You were underground the whole time in a fake London filled with actors.
A giant seal did it.
EDIT: Wouldn't count since they're in the same game, not retcons.
If this fits the criteria then it is unquestionably the worst retcon
It's a good thing Goku found that spare ship before Planet Namek exploded!
Genesis is literally the Poochie of VII.
Kojima doesn't give a shit. He just makes up nonsense as he goes along.
purseowner
Member
Well I sure ain't 'Allying' with you.
If this fits the criteria then it is unquestionably the worst retcon
Eh, it's not really the same kind of retcon. Yes it's retconning Zero's death at the end of X5, but it's not saying that Zero was secretly in a bunch of games even though you didn't know and couldn't know.
It's terrible, but for different reasons.
Marlowe has a combined, like 15 lines of dialog in Uncharted 3. Why would she reference a brother everyone thought died like 15 years ago whom she never met?
Nate never went into any detail on why he was there. They only discussed Francis Drake and his meaning to Nate. You may have assumed he was dumped there, but if anything Uncharted 4 fills in that blank: He ran away from the Orphanage with Sam.
Greatest Ever
Member
999 and VLR never had a sequel though.
He highjacks the plot a little bit afterwards because it seems like most of the major original characters start suffering due to adverse effects of the Project Genesis-Cells! (It's totally way more powerful than Sephiroth's cells in every way and Genesis is really the post powerful person, way better than Sephiroth)
Halo Reach Retconned quite a bit.
Halsey didn't realize she was meeting Spartan III's or something? I mean they are either a class of spartans in strange armor she is unfamiliar with or....? She never calls it out.
The PoA being docked on the ground and cortana being delivered to it was the big one.
------
Bungie also allegedly wanted forerunners to be ancient humans.
343 interpreted that as, forerunners were there own ancient race. And they had a galactic war against space faring ancient humans.
Halsey didn't realize she was meeting Spartan III's or something? I mean they are either a class of spartans in strange armor she is unfamiliar with or....? She never calls it out.
The PoA being docked on the ground and cortana being delivered to it was the big one.
------
Bungie also allegedly wanted forerunners to be ancient humans.
343 interpreted that as, forerunners were there own ancient race. And they had a galactic war against space faring ancient humans.
Ordinaryundone
Member
Volgin and The Boss would be the obvious ones. Maybe Granin and Sokolov as well, in addition to any dead. soldiers. Maybe even what was left of the Shaghod. And of course things like Snake's wrecked entry jet and any discarded gear. The idea being of course to create a strong case for plausible deniability if necessary. Of course, the game's original plot had already accounted for this by having The Boss literally nuke Grozny Grad with the Davy Crockett to destroy all the evidence but hey, who needs consistency.
Good one. Textbook example of a game never designed to have a sequel getting one.
Barry Burton
Member
MGS games are the kings of this, but that's all already been covered so...
I'll go with all of the Resident Evil stuff involving Wesker. There's the first revelation in Code Veronica that he was not dead, and was manipulating all of this stuff behind the scenes during RE2 and RE3 (where he was basically a non-presence). Then all of that got re-retconned in RE5, where Wesker's entire life and association with Umbrella was completely re-contextualized. And then he became a daddy at some point.
I'll go with all of the Resident Evil stuff involving Wesker. There's the first revelation in Code Veronica that he was not dead, and was manipulating all of this stuff behind the scenes during RE2 and RE3 (where he was basically a non-presence). Then all of that got re-retconned in RE5, where Wesker's entire life and association with Umbrella was completely re-contextualized. And then he became a daddy at some point.
Vital Tundra
Member
Genesis being retconned into key moments of Final Fantasy VII.
Im fine with most of the stuff they added to 7 through Crises Core, but this and the ending can go fuck themselves. All the subtlety of Zachs death gone because of CC.
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