10 Awesome Video Game Characters REPLACED In Sequels

Imagine you are a video game designer. Through blood, sweat, tears and amphetamine-fuelled crunch sessions you've created a smash hit, filled to the brim with iconic characters that have struck a chord with the gaming public. What do you do next?

Well, if you're these developers you throw those babies out with the bathwater and replace them with their ugly younger siblings.

It's an unfortunate truth that the history of videogames is littered with characters who were callously cast aside by their creators. For whatever reason - the desire to innovate, refusal to rest on their laurels, massive head trauma - game developers have a notorious habit of wiping beloved characters from the board and replacing them with inferior counterparts.

Thankfully, in most cases the discarded characters were later picked up, dusted off and apologetically reinstated when their replacements turned out to be as popular as placenta-flavoured jellybeans.

After all, innovation may be the lifeblood of any creative medium, but as this list will show there are times when shaking things up doesn't lead to an exciting new development - it just leaves a jumbled mess that needs to be cleared up further down the line.

Back in 1999, Tekken 3 made the bold choice to replace a number of its predecessor's cast. This was done to offer a clean slate and entice new fans into the fold. Given that the game sold over 8 million copies, making it the higest selling one-on-one fighter in history, it's safe to say that the strategy worked.

However, while many of Tekken 3's newcomers would become staples of the franchise, the same could not be said of Forest Law, Tekken's forgotten son.

Forest replaced his father Marshall in Tekken 3, and was such a smash hit that... he was immediately replaced by his dad in all subsequent installments of the franchise.

Unfortunately for poor Forest, his father completely overshadowed him as a personality. As his dad-joke name suggests, Marshall Law is Tekken's comedic backbone. Whereas other fighters' storylines feature revenge killings, patricide and global domination, Marshall's contain such emotionally weighty topics as an unexpectedly high MOT bill and laxative-laced pizza.

Tekken 3's writers failed to give Forest the kind of personality that could compete with his father's, and the end result is that he's spent the past twenty-odd years sitting on the sidelines.