I always loved how Sonic handled the Robotnik name change. Instead of just sweeping localization changes under the rug, they decided to adopt the westernized "Robotnik" as Eggman's actual family name in Adventure 2. Meanwhile in the English version of Adventure 1 Sonic would call just him "Eggman" as an insult, before he just accepted that as his super villain moniker for the rest of the series.

People often don't pay much attention to good retcons Cuz usually a good retcon is one you don't realize is a retcon When you do, it usually means it was done poorly

I think my favorite retcon is: Hal Jordan didn't became evil and killed every Green Lantern ever, including his friends like Kilowog. What really happened is that Hal was inffected by Parallax, the fear entity. I think that is a really good retcon because 1.-making him evil was really against character, 2.-it allowed Hal to come back as a hero and 3.-it open the door to a whole new possibilities for DC stories and expand the GL lore.

A good retcon is usually one that retcons something that was hated from the start. Like how Avengers 200 was eventually retconned by Marvel Comics.

Goku being an alien is so ingrained to dragon ball at this point you forget that it was a retcon.

I'm actually a bit surprised to not see Raven Beak on this list... Raven Beak shattered a lot of preexisting ideas of how the Chozo were, and yet was a good villain, one of the best Final Bosses in any Metroid game, and a very convenient way to tie up the plot arc of Samus's relationship with the Metroids. It's almost hard to believe that character was created by the MercurySteam staff themselves and not a pre-conceived concept from Nintendo's vaults or a canon immigrant from a manga spinoff.

I really like the way Star Wars dealt with Boba Fett's original backstory. Before Attack of the Clones came out, his real name was revealed to be Jaster Mereel, and was given a backstory. Instead of just throwing it away, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter established that Jaster was Jango Fett's master, and also that both Boba and Jango have used Jaster's name as a fake identity. This is still the case now, as the backstory given in The Mandalorian for Jango matches up with it. A lot of other stories were just thrown out of continuity entirely, so it was nice that some of it was kept, simply altered a bit.

The funny thing about the Precursor reveal is that Seem, and presumably the other monks, knew. They knew and didn't tell Veger. Multiple times Seem directs some kind of mention of resembling 'our creators' toward Daxter, the last one being a statement of gratitute for granting her the chance 'to see the face of my creators'. I believe that's right after Jak gains the ability to sprout wings in his Light Eco-empowered form.

it is dissapointing how we never learned what is samurai jack's real name. (jack is not his real name, it is a nickname that some kids gave to him when he first went to the future and he decided to adopt it).

Bayonetta 2 retroactively makes Bayonetta 1's story way more interesting. I'm surprised it didn't get an honorable mention here.

One of my favorite retcons in recent memory HAS to be the revelations about the ancients in Sonic Frontiers and how it completely changes the game on not only what Chao are but also explains what chaos is and why he looks the way he is.

I thought, for a while, that Zanza and The Architect were meant to represent Klaus’ Ego and Id, respectively.

For a non-videogame retcon that became a character-defining moment, there's the fact that Captain America was frozen around the end of WWII and then found in the modern day (at the time it happened this was the 60's, but now it's relative to whenever 'modern' is). This became such an iconic part of Captain America's identity it's hard to imagine a version of him where this wasn't the case. Not only that, but it also eventually caused two other highly-regarded retcons: making the commie-smasher Cap from the 50's into his own character as a copycat that later became an antagonist, and Bucky's turn into the Winter Soldier. For a videogame one, there's one in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (aka FE7, the first one released to the west), prequel to the Binding Blade (aka FE6, the one with Roy) did that I think worked really well. Near the end of Hector Mode, he gains the legendary axe Armads, but is told by the ghost of its previous wielder, Durban, that if he uses it, he will not die peacefully, instead perishing on the battlefield, something Hector accepts in order to help his friends. And surprise surprise, guess what happens early into Binding Blade? Really, everything about Hector established in FE7 makes his character from FE6 much more memorable, whereas previously he was just 'Lilina's dad who dies early in the story'

At this point, I believe that a countdown of bad retcons is... inevitable.

Retcons are an interesting species of Story Structure, there have been a lot of cases where retconning Is bad, so retconning a story and turning out good is a rare thing to happen.

The only retcon I can think of comes from the Carmen Sandiego games. Originally, Carmen's backstory is described as being a double-, triple-, even quadruple-agent for so many countries, even she has forgotten who she's truly loyal to. It's a simple, if absurd, backstory overall and not really something you think about as you're playing. However, in "Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?", the ending shows Carmen attempting to steal a file about her, which was her big goal all along. After her arrest, the Chief reveals the contents to the player: Carmen Sandiego was once an agent for ACME, the same detective agency the player had been working for. In fact, she used to their best agent. Unfortunately, being the best meant there was no challenge in catching crooks, so she decided that outsmarting ACME itself was more worth her time, leading her to become the villainess we know today. It's a change that makes Carmen seem like more than just a petty thief; she's more like a rival. It turns her regular taunting from typical bad guy bluster into goading you into continuing her game, both the actual computer game and her in-universe "game." And on the narrative side, future games like "Treasures of Knowledge" would call into question just how much of a "bad guy" Carmen truly is.

Actually, my favourite gaming retcon is Blizzard's doing - yeah, oxymoron now. But the recontextualization of the Horde between Warcraft 2 and 3, from generic doomsday villains to a developed if simple culture decieved into becoming puppets of demons and the resulting split between seeking atonement and new path or embracing the bloody legacy of Burning Legion. There is a reason why spiritual, close-to-nature portrayal of orcs is called "Blizzard-like" nowadays.

10:40 Getting Count Villain’s name wrong will *never* get old.

I actually cried for Berkut in the Shadows Over Valentia Remake (didn't even know it was a remake until now) the man still had so much room for growth in the final hour of the game but he was seduced by Duma's powerful temptation, sacrificing his own fiancée in exchange for power and a chilling battle in which Rinea becomes a spectral flame ghost to fight alongside him, and finishing him off actually pained me.

A little extra tippet for the Xenoblade Chronicles Retcon: During Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Klaus explains how there was a third aegis along side Pneuma and Logos (Pyra/Mythra and Malos) called "Ontos" that went to the other world. The third aegis is Alvis, A character at the end on Xenoblade Chronicles 1 describes himself as a computer program, which is exactly what the trinity processer was. To add even more they slightly tweaked his design in the remake. in the original he wore a key necklace. They changed it in the Definitive Edition to be the red aegis crystal to reflect how he's the third aegis Klaus was referring too. The DLC of xenoblade chronicles 3 "Future Redeemed" explores this further and outright confirms Alivs is Ontos

Devil's advocate here, but for number 4- I think the creators had THIS line in mind for when Jack and Ashi went through all that: "If you want to break someone-mentally, physically, emotionally-wait until they're happy. Let them live and love and thrive. Once they recognize the value of a life well lived... THAT'S when you move in for the kill. Because you can't take anything from someone who has nothing to lose." -Tarn, Transformers. TL;DR for Robo-Deathstroke over here- fate basically decided to pull an Othello, or something like that XP

Actually Devil May Cry 3 sold 2.3 million units in the launch period, Devil May Cry 4 sold 3 million units in the launch period, & the reboot took 5 years to sell 3 million units

Major love to Josh for the Xenoblade 2 entry. That retcon turned Xenoblades lore from a mere story of a corrupt powermad god being struck down by his own creations, into a huge tale of of hubris, regret, and both learning to not fear the future while also learning from and taking value from the past to avoid repeating mistakes.

12:12 Fun fact, Seem actually knew that Daxter was a Precursor. Granted, it’s only hinted at throughout the game at least twice, but yeah, they figured it out and were perfectly fine with it. 😂 But yeah, that reveal was hilarious

Really, when you look at it, Xenoblade Chronicles as a whole is one big retcon because when you look back at games like Xenogears when it came to Perfect Works and Xenosaga when it came to the Perfect Guide, Xenoblade Chronicles is essentially the full story that Takahashi wanted to tell, just told quite differently than what he wanted to do with Xenogears then tried a second time differently with Xenosaga.

Man… the K49 situation was VERY wild when I herd about it when I was getting into KOF. The Nests Saga had some fun characters come into play

don't think it counts specifically because nothing happens to contradict it but in Mortal Kombat, Noob Saibot being the original Sub Zero is such a good addition that wasn't established until the 3D games

Another thing about Giovanni is that he does ressurect Team Rocket as Team Rainbow Rocket in Ultra Sun/Moon with him as the leader and every team head as his underlings. It's a really cool story where you get to see all the team heads that you have defeated throughout the Pokemon universe all in one place and actually give you a run for your money if you aren't prepared.

The funniest thing about K9999 is that there was a prevailing theory that they were actually sued by the makers of Akira to get rid of him, but once Krohnen came into the picture, the devs confirmed there was never a lawsuit and they had to keep up the facade all this time. Gotta respect the dedication

The Yakuza/Like A Dragon series has some good retcons. Majima not actually being insane and just wearing that as a mask to protect his emotions from the path he's chosen in life. And then there's Nishiki's development in 0 and Kiwami.

Blaster master is one i now think about. What was once a story about a kid losing his frog and just randomly finding a tank to fight off a mutant overlord, spun itself as the main status quo until BM: Blasting again and Overdrive. Ever since Blaster Master Zero, they took this weird localisation story, rebooted and retconned the initial status quo of the original NES and made it a sequel to the original Japanese Famicom game MetaFight and an entire trilogy of zero games capping off not only the adventures of Jason Frudnick but also the conclusion of Kane Gardner, culminating into a final chapter where they both clash in Blaster Master Zero 3.

Retcons are... weird. They aren't exactly bad if they're done well, all they have to do is fit properly. Don't massively shift something from one thing to the next, just cleverly shift things in a way that doesn't distrupt what comes before and allows for what comes after. Klaus from XC2 is probably a gold star example from Xenoblade 2's insane collection of excellent retcons (namely the reframing of events from XC1, Alvis' identity and the experiment itself). It's actually really smartly done, and plays well into Xenoblade 3 and Xenoblade Future Redeemed. In my opinion, an all-time great retcon is Borderlands 2's reframing of the events of the first game. Making Jack manipulate the cast of BL1 into finding the vault and reaping the rewards before revealing his tricking nature with the BL2 cast is so excellent. He's such an enjoyable villain and makes BL2 instantly better as a result.

...man. krauser was such a genuinely good retcon. Simply by giving a proper connection to leon outside of being a teammate suddenly in one spinoff that nobody played, to being his tutor makes his death _mean something_ to leon and in turn the player. That is an Huge improvement over a power hungry soldier after learning they denied the cure from jill she tried to give before bombing raccoon city

Never thought I'd see Josh mention Twisted Metal, now all I need is for him to mention MediEvil and Syphon Filter.

Okay Josh,now we need the Top Ten BAD Retcons.

My honorable mention: Crash’s New Timeline (Crash Bandicoot 4 It’s About Time) Wrath Of Cortex didn’t do as well as they hoped, so they just pretended it never happened.

My favorite retcon was in Adventure time. In the Season 5 premiere, the alternate ("Farmworld") Finn takes Ice King's crown from his body, but it later reappears on Ice King's head when the bomb goes off. Standard animation error, right? But later on, in Season 7's episode "Crossover", Prismo the Wish Master uses his powers to purposefully put it there so it'd be destroyed in the explosion (the action is literally presented as him going into the editing software to place the crown into the scene). They didn't need to do that, and yet, it's such a great retcon!

I would personally put Xenoblade's over DMC. DMC 5's "retcon" was more a recognition of a misstep, while XC2 feels a lot more planned out. I've got a recent retcon that I would've put on the list. Although it is rather tame in comparison to some of these, the retconning in Sonic Frontiers threw me through a loop. Sure, the Chaos Emerald retcon is... weird, to say the least, but the decision to make the Ancients resemble the destruction god Chaos and imply that they evolved into the Chao race to avoid detection by The End is mind-boggling.

I know BATIM chapters 4 and 5 are honorable mentions, but my favorite retcon is in the sequel. Spoilers for Bendy and the Dark Revival: In the Dark Revival, it's revealed that the entire previous game is a pocket dimension inside the Ink Machine itself on a time loop called The Cycle. This explains so much. Joey's apartment, Henry's line deliveries, Sammy recognizing Henry, Henry rarely interacting with the characters, Henry's refusal to die from things like falling ten stories or being smashed through a brick wall, some of the hallucinations in chapters 4 and 5 as well as the hallucination easter eggs added to previous chapters, and much more.

14:21 To make it even more obvious with the reference, he’s even voiced by the same actor of the same character in Akira.

The FNAF franchise got weird when they wrote that the animatronics gif made into literal killing machines, with different parts that made them scarier They were already bots that were haunted by ghost kids. Making them be built to kill and/or abduct makes me think they’re evil cuz of programming, not ghosts I feel like FNAF is gonna become Terminator

Another thing about Giovanni's retcon. After the battle, when he leaves, you hear a water splash sound. It's implied that Giovanni, out of shame, jumped the waterfall outside, taking his own life.

I would've put Venom Snake from Phantom Pain in here, too. Like DMC, it fixed the entire series by actually addressing "Oh yeah, THAT Big Boss was Big Boss' doppelganger", like how Ocelot was Liquid's, and how his death was a hell of a lot more plausible than the same Big Boss surviving... you know... exploding.

It's kinda crazy to think how Shadow wasn't supposed to appear after Adventure 2... And then became the 2nd most favorite character in the entire franchise. Looking forward to seeing his backstory, yet again, in Sonic 3 this December!

8:24 the manga takes things to another level when it comes to the relationship between the two making them both more complex then generic gang boss and douchy kid.

Thanks for including the Precursors in Jak 3. Literally one of my favorite moments from my favorite game. I laughed so hard when that was revealed XD

I didn't mind the retcons in the Metal Gear Solid series. Misinformation is a common element shown in the series and is established in MGS2.

i Love the precursor twist in Jak 3. I was laughing my ass of when it was revealed.

I can think of good retcons, and most of the ones I'm thinking of are from Symphogear, mostly because they dont replace preexisting information and lore, but add to it instead

honestly I liked Ragna killing NOL soldiers, he was young in a bad place mentally so I think it made sense that this would happen and make him feared for good reason, he didnt get the highest bounty for nothing and was effectively a terrorist. I think it makes his development even more appreciable in the grand scheme of things, also how likely was it that he was able to kill 0 soldiers every time he went off to destroy a cauldron. But hey I appreciate the Blazblue exposure it's one of my favourite fighting game it's always nice to someone talk about it

Legacy Of Kain: Defiance retconing the future visions Raziel has before his second showdown with Kain in the chronoplast chamber at the end of Soul Reaver.

For the Samurai Jack ending I agree that Ashi should've vanished shortly after Jack finished off Aku, after his tower blew up and they were alone. She's collapse saying the line: "Without Aku, I would have never existed", she'd fade away after. Then the scene would cut to awhile later where a victory feast being held in Jack's honour, attended by Jack's friends, family, and mentors from that time. Though Jack leaves early still sad over Ashi's death, then we get that scene of him underneath that tree with the ladybug. Though I do love the game retconning the end with the extra effort you do in the game. While Jack's target was always the past Aku which he spent his youth training to one day defeat, he(and us viewers) spent more time dealing with the future Aku which made facing off against him one last time so great, plus using his temporal meddling to somehow save Ashi helped Jack(and us) get one of the best endings we could ask for Jack's story.

I'll give Leage of Legends credit with their retcons. When they hit something right, it's a grand slam. For the longest time, Warwicks rework was my favorite in the game. I still absolutely loved it, but there was one that won me over and, in my own mind, it was like if two superpowers were fighting in a bloody king of the hill style war. Warwick. I love your rework so much.... but Fiddlesticks.... Oh. My. Lord. The WEEK after I saw the teaser for the monsters rework for the first time, I legit had a nightmare about him. What Riot did with Fiddlesticks was absolutely astonishing. Old Fiddlesticks was fun, but he wasn't scary other than his ult and backstory. New and reworked fiddlesticks, though.... Not only is the spirit of the old still there (*cough* Aatrox *cough*), but they made him TERRIFYING! Giving him a backstory concept of a grim dark folktale that is not only real but much, MUCH worse.... ....And his dialogue.... mimicking the dead's final words as bait for his victims... How... HOW did Riot make me scared of something that was once a normal scarecrow that referenced Wizard of Oz in his dance and T-posed to steal heal?!

I'll be honest, in terms of a retcon i remember, I hated the opening to mortal kombat 9 souly because when i was a kid, i was lead to believe that Taven was the one to defeat blaze, while shao Khan was taken away by Onaga. But apparently, Shao khan killed Onaga, and then killed Blaze. Considering the previous canon endings in deadly alliance and deception, I figured Armageddon would be the same, but nope! All that effort, all those realms crossed, dying over and over again on instant death traps, and it meant nothing in the end.

To this day, the best retcon for me is Daredevil's mother, Maggie. For those who don't know, when Daredevil was originally created, his mother was dead, and his dad was the only one taking care of him. It is then revealed in Born Again that his mother is actually alive and abandoned Matt and his father to become a Nun. We didn't know why until Original Sin by Jason Aaron. When the Watcher's eyes reveal all of the secrets he has recorded, Matt gets an image of his Dad hitting his mom. He immediately goes to her and asks why she never mentioned that his father was abusive towards her, and she said he wasn't. He was protecting you. Turns out, she was suffering from severe post partem depression and tried to kill Matt as a baby and that his dad fought her off. I personally love that because it gave her much more of character and made her motive for leaving Matt much more clearer

Reversing the twist reveal in Heroes in Crisis is one of my favorites in recent memory. The plot is so convoluted and contrived just to make a certain character a killer in that mess of a so-called "mystery" that any and all attempts to retcon that is welcome in my eyes.

How did I know EXACTLY where you were going with the #2 entry, and yet still thought you were gonna talk about...you-know-who? Bruh...are you in my head? Eh, either way, it's definitely an interesting retcon for sure...and then 3 happened...and there was much rejoicing...again. XD "If you knew we Precursors were a bunch of little fuzzy rats, would you still worship us?" In the words of Shoulder-Angel Kronk, "No no, he's got a point." Like, it's friggin' funny, don't get me wrong, but their leader does bring up a valid point. A lot of the fun in discovery is the mystery; take away the mystery and what have you left? Disappointment, probably. Well...Count Vulgar certainly seemed to be, anyway. Gods that is such a satisfying moment after everything that dastard has put us through. XD

I disagree with HG/SS's entry here. My major problem with it being that that it was locked content that anybody that doesn't live in USA, UK, Europe or Japan didn't have access to. It should have been part of the Main Game. Yeah, I also think that it ruins the Main Game by taking away a climatic final battle against Giovanni, but that is secondary.

One of my favourite parts about the Klaus retcon is how each game handles it, as Josh mentioned. But we also have what is brought up in Xenoblade 3's Story DLC, Future Redeemed (Spoilers from here) So, we do get to see the old world that Klaus lived in during the ending of the game and hear a radio broadcast from around that time, going on about human rights issues, people colonising space, and then the real kicker... Dimtri Yuriev, one of the antagonists of the Xenosaga series, gets explicitly namedropped, and you come to realise that if Klaus hadn't done what he'd done when he did then its likely the Savorites, who Yuriev is the leader of, would have gotten their hands on the Conduit, or as its referred to in Xenosaga The Zohar, they would have done so much worse than Klaus. Its a lesser of two evils. Klaus may have destroyed humanity on Earth, but in return, he allowed 2 new worlds to thrive while the rest of humanity in the colonies learned from the past and grew. And one of the things about the radio scene is that nobody in the cast ever mentions it due to being unable to decipher the language, but we can understand it, and its mainly background noise as Na'el is explaining her plan to lead humanity into a new world just like Klaus's What I'm saying is that Xenoblade really handled the retcons of Klaus insanely well, and it's one of my favourite franchises for a reason.

A retcon that everybody seems to love and even forget is a retcon is the addition of Feedback in the Ben 10 series. Its mainly because if how fucking cool Feedback is.

Some of my favorite retcons happens in some of the Super Robot Taisen games. Originally in the anime and/or manga a character dies but in the game they're either alive after their respective final battle or you were able to save them by fulfilling certain requirements such as getting a high kill count with certain character/characters, deploying certain characters while also keeping them alive, use the convince command with certain characters, killing an enemy with certain characters or character, lowering the health of an enemy, and/or just not killing an enemy.

21:16 Spiral Energy is one hell of a drug

My favorite retcon is a pretty well-known one from The Hobbit. In the first edition, Gollum willingly bets the Ring in the riddle match, and when he loses the match and can't find the Ring, he shows Bilbo the way out of the cave instead. Tolkien later realized this didn't fit with what he wanted to do in the sequel, so he went back and rewrote the riddle contest scene to the one we know today. What makes this retcon good is how both versions are incorporated into the overarching story. The prologue to The Lord of the Rings explains that the original version of the story was what Bilbo told the dwarves and wrote in his diary, while the revised version was what actually happened. This change plays into the Ring's corrupting influence, which is shown much more prominently later in the story.

On the topic of Yoshi's Island, I always figured the Mario Bris. And their parent flewed yhe Mushroom Kingdom and moved to Brooklyn sometime after the events of the game (and a few other subsequent games). After all, if evil monsters were out to kill your babies, would you stick around?

The best example I can think of are some of the changes made from the JP version of FE10 to the English version, namely the reasoning for why Ike beat the Black Knight in FE9.

One of the few that actually is video game related that I can think of is CQC (close quarters combat) in the Metal Gear series. The fighting style was introduced in the prequel game snake eater as being created by the main antagonist and Big Boss, Big Boss apparently taught Solid Snake CQC but he never once used it in the games preceding this. shoving this in could be sloppy but the reasons given make some sense on a character level. after Big Boss betrayed him he never liked using the style again and only when documents on Big Boss were declassified and soldiers were implementing CQC on a mass scale (mgs4) did snake use it. without spoiling one of the series many great final boss fights, its CQC focused and narratively it adds to it more than the retcon may harm in my oppinion.EDIT: I forgot to note that the mass implementation of CQC was a flawed and nowhere near as refined version of what snake could use it became a experience Advantage he couldn't turn down.

On the Klaus one, it should also be noted that the Xenoblade 2 version of events had his space station under heavy fire at the time. Enough that the rest of the staff were ready to deploy Aion, the world ender mech that Malus pilots to become the final boss. In XC2 at least, it was either Klaus resetting the world or there being no world.

Thought the FFXIV Ascians being turned form moustache-twirling villains into extremely complex and well-developed characters with tragic motivations woulda been here, but c'est la vie.

On #3 I think the more interesting retcon was giving Grima an origin.

Spider-Man 2 retconned what happened to Sandman from Spider-Man 1. In the first game you find a vial full of sand that contains Sandman's mind which left people feeling a little horrified that Spider-Man just left him in a backpack on top of the Avengers tower. But thanks to the writers of Spider-Man 2 forgetting that (no really that's what happened) we get an epic boss fight for the first level of the game and a side quest that let's us help out one of Spider-Man's villains.

I thought that the retcon of Shadow the Hedgehog would have made an honorable mention. It made it more understandable why G.U.N. raided the ARK and killed everyone but Gerald, how they were able to make a huge leap from the Biolizard who needed life support to survive straight to Shadow who was the perfect result, why he has perfect control over the powers of Chaos when the Biolizard struggled to do even a single one, to even why Gerald made the Eclipse Cannon to begin with. As crazy as it was it worked well into the story, built upon Adventure 2 and didn’t disregard anything from the original continuity. It came from a frustrating game, but I think it did well enough to deserve an honorable mention. Either way, the mention of Shadow coming back into the series works well too. After all, HE’S SO GODDAMN COOL!

You know, i want to make a joke lie make bets KH il be here , but i feel that be for the opposite top after this

Why does that Samurai Jack ending sound so familiar? [Gurren Lagann's finale looms over] oh yeah, that's why!

I’d argue that the Alvis retcon should have been included along with Klaus as it only enhanced the original game as well as more closely tying everything together

I love how you've really upped the style of your top tens.

Interesting take on DMC5, I also like that Capcom even found time to put in an easter egg that references the Devil May Cry anime series. It’s through a phone call Dante gets from the anime deuteragonist, Patty Lowell about her turning 18 and trying invite Dante to her birthday party. Dante of course hangs up on her.

As a Sonic fan, my favorite retcon wasn't even Shadow's comeback. It was '06 retconning itself OUT OF EXISTANCE AT THE END OF THE GAME

Onechanbara Origins has several good retcons including changing it to where Aya and Saki were actually birth sisters separated at birth in a attempt to break the cycle of siblings in the Baneful Clan fighting each other to the death, and the Xctsy Forms they unlock isn't the actual Xtcsy Form but a pre-Xtcsy Form. A infamous example of a bad retcon is Wife-Arm from Bionic Commando 2009.

Where would another DMC even go? The ending put the main characters into pretty much an inescapable situation!

I wish sega could retcon silver from having his debut game be sonic 06

Minor correction; DmC sold way worse than DMC 4. DMC 4 had sold 2.32m copies in the first year, whereas Capcom slashed shipped (not necessarily sales) expectations of DmC down from 2m to 1.2m in the first year. Sales were so dire it took DmC 9 years to sell 2.8m. Currently with all versions of DmC and DmC: Definitive Edition lifetime sales are about 4m, whereas with all versions of DMC 4 and DMC 4: Special Edition sales are sitting well over 5m.

21:30 I always compared the ending of Samurai Jack to PMD Explorers, so I’m glad I’m not the only one who caught that.

Don't forget one of the most famous retcons of all time: The New Testament.

Nice list: Some interesting retcons I can think of are Tekken 7 or 8 (origin of the devil gene and the fact that they made Heihachi a more sympathetic character, but also something else in Tekken 8 involving spoilers). Metal Gear (Raiden), Megaman Battle Network (making Wily a more sympathetic character), Professor Layton (a certain twist from Azran Legacy, or other twists from the series) Ace Attorney 6 (giving Apollo more backstory) 2: One interesting twist and it does not ruin the first game. 3: I liked those two characters and what they added to the story 5: I have not played the first Blazblue game, but I liked Ragnas personality in the second game. 8: One of the funniest moments in gaming. 9: Interesting backstory

One of the best retcons I can remember was one in SF2, particularly Cammy’s ending. In her original ending in SF2, Bison reveals that she is his lover, which is… bizarre to say the least. Thank god Capcom nuked that out of canon existence.

28:00 it's also the number 1 on the list on the first day of the month.

Another thing to consider about the Precursors being Ottsels is that they are godlike beings with incredible power, able to reshape people into their own image, which could very well mean that they aren't bound to the form of Ottsels, it's just what they either feel most comfortable with or like. It is a shame we never saw what the Dark Makers were like, at least the ones in charge. Speaking of Jak 3, I do wish whoever wrote Ashelin to be Jak's love interest got slapped silly, that was such an idiotic change, made all the more bizarre with how it never comes up again in Jak X. As for series with interesting uses of retcons, Legacy of Kain is a rather unique example, since the idea is that while events in the timeline are retconed/removed, the timeline isn't doing the usual splitting like what is seen in other time travel works like Back to the Future. Instead, like the metaphorical river that Kain describes the timeline in Soul Reaver 2, when massive changes are made, the "river" simply finds a way to flow around these changes, making the necessary changes, a prime example being the events of Blood Omen 2 occurring because of what Kain did at the end of SR2 and what Raziel did in Defiance. It's definitely one of the reasons fans of the series like myself wish the series hadn't been canned, since there was so much intrigue around what the "true timeline" would have looked like once Kain had been able to cut all of the strings controlling Nosgoth's history.

21:14 FINALLY!! Why does no one ever talk about how the final season of Samurai Jack is a almost 1 for 1 copy of Gurren Laggan when it comes to Jack and Ashi???

Are you going to make a "Top Ten Bad Retcons" &/or elaborate on the Zelda retcon part?

I'm hoping that for the celebration of Devil May Cry as a whole Capcom will do a remaster of the other for Devil May Cry game in an awesome collection. Also, my other recon that properly hates is thermal clips in Mass Effect 2. In my opinion they should have stick with guns, cooling down and upgrades to make your gun cool down quicker.

I can’t believe “nobodies having hearts the whole time and Xemnas was gaslighting the organization” wasn’t on the list

I hope that none of the retcons seen in Mortal Kombat 11 make appearances. That game retconned so many things, like making Kabal and Sindel evil, changing the looks and personalities of so many characters, and how it just spat in the faces of everyone by saying it was Kronika who was responsible for everything that had transpired, all because of her design to create a perfect world seems incredibly patronizing. Thank God. Now I want to see a Top 10 Worst Video Game Retcons.

People are talking about bad retcons, so I'm surprised nobody has brought up the Crisis on Infinite Earths arc from DC comics, cause that was effectively a gigantic timeline reset for the entirety of DC comics. the point was to get rid of the multiverse to try and help writers keep track of the plot that was getting incredibly complicated and avoid continuity mistakes, but the problem is that the multiverse had been used previously as a way to *justify* continuity mistakes by making each continuity mistake being a different universe's interpretation of events. by deleting the multiverse from DC comics, all that did was tell audiences 'if you cared about any part of this story before, nope, now we're resetting it! Also, the new universe isn't any of the old ones either, so you won't have anything to fall back on!' oh, and I'm not done! This arc ultimately ended up getting re-retconned, as the multiverse came back within just a few years after Crisis happened, since the multiverse was too convenient to just destroy in its entirety. And that's still not even the worst part! The worst part is that it set a precedent for DC comics in the future whenever they were dissatisfied with the direction a story was going: Blow it all up and start over! They've reset their continuity once a decade since Crisis on Infinite Earths happened, and it's been getting more frequent more recently. Yes, this counts the 2020s. I'd explain more, but this is quite literally paraphrasing OSP at this point, so go watch their podcast on 'the multiverse problem,' and they have a long segment explaining Crisis on Infinite Earths and why it was a bad idea.

Oh no, Ragna has killed, no doubt about it, in Central Fiction, early having lost his memories due to being forcefully transformed into the Black Beast, there is a point were he was made to relive his worst acts, and it terrified him, his kill count isnt AS high as noted, but high still To explain his motives too, its cause it actually wouldnt have changed anything had he directly killed them or not, as we see in Calamity Trigger and Continium Shift, all living personel of the Librarium, the organization Ragna is going after to reach Terumi, their souls were sacrificed for the Murakumo Units, hence why it was an empty base Ragna allways attacked bases were these experiments were being done to destroy the Murakumo Unit and Cauldron, and it was allways a race against time, so to him, going straightforward, no matter who stood in his way was the fastest route, and as we see in some memories, he does spare the ones that run away cause it means less sacrifices for the experiments, as he said it, I dont have time to play so move out of the way or Ill open the path myself, also why he failed in the 13th city, cause there was 1 man standing in the way he could open a path through, Hakumen This does not take the sin away, yeah, he is a mass murderer, it has not changed, but it wasnt a simple mass murder cause of your job, they were in fact all already going to die either way, he just expeditet the process hoping it reduced the chance of the experiment working Also, his personality wasnt changed, that straight man personaly was there since Calamity Trigger, you could see it when he interacted with Rachel and Taokaka in it, the only thing that changed was the amout of interaction between him and other character was after, cause previously, it was allways them trying to kill him on sight, even in the next games, when he faces someone that starts with, Ive come for your head, he will act the same as in Calamity Trigger, tough the encounters are far less Something Blazblue did for its characters was having the MC knowing more critical iformation than the rest of the characters, not all, cause there were more intricate parts he learned later, but that was only until Chrono Phantasma, the first 2 games was most of the cast learning what he knew and deciding their placee in the greater narrative

the Heart Gold/Soul Sliver Celibi stuff that was in the original G/S/C but it was locked behind an inperson event that would give the player a special Celibi that would let them experience these moments HG/SS just added them to the game proper.

Not sure if this is a hot take or not, but I think Sonic Rivals 2 was a pretty good retcon for Silver since it still made him a time traveling hero in a game that wasn't abhorrently awful like 06. Plus we get to see Eggman Nega be downright diabolical (basically using Chao to summon Satan), and the Beautiful friendship between Silver and Espio, who's another character I don't think gets as much attention as I think he should.

Favorite retcon... For me what comes to mind is OneShot. The way the game was originally designed, you were only meant to have one shot. There is only two endings a player could get. Returning the sun, forcing Niko to stay. Or destroying the sun, dooming the world and letting Niko go home. But then, in the form of an update patch, and later on the World Machine Edition, we see it... Solstice. If we follow the proper steps in the Barrens, we lock ourselves in on this path. Essentially retconing whatever ending the player picked and at the end of it all, we get the best of both. Saving the world and Niko gets to go home. For me, the reason I love this one, is that originally it was just one shot. But the update made the game retcon itself. Now if someone told me this isn't exactly a retcon in the same sense, I can see that. I just can't help but see it as one.

Although disputed due to lack of clarity between Yoshi's Island and the Super Mario series as a whole back then, many people perceived Yoshi as the same one between the two series, but then it was clarified in Yoshi's Island DS that the present day Yoshi is actually an offspring of one of the Yoshi Clan members, presumably Green Yoshi. This offspring is also one of the 7 Star Children alongside the other babies in Yoshi's Island DS. This is backed up by the fact that Yoshi didn't recognize Mario when he was saved in Super Mario World. Is it a retcon? You decide.

First Joshscorcher video as a member I can't wait to watch this Deep dives are what I love most about your countdowns and your last 3 videos rocked!!!

Devil May Cry 5 is 5 years old? Jesus, I feel so damn old now. 😔