10 Disastrous Redesigns That Ruined Iconic Video Game Characters

Castlevania: Judgement – released exclusively on Wii – is a fighting game in which players compete one-on-one, chaining combos in order to incapacitate their opponents, dealing massive amounts of damage in the process. Upon release, the critical response to the game wasn’t great, and only continued to depreciate in assessment over time.

For one thing, it completely ignored established genre conventions: the camera was disorientating, the controls were imprecise – which can be accredited to the remote and nunchuck – and lacked customisation options, meaning nothing could be tweaked to resolve the issues. Besides that, the art direction, while interesting, was uncharacteristic – the characters in particular seemed incongruous, or unsuitable for the series.

Simon Belmont, in particular – long running protagonist of the series – is completely dissimilar, preserving nothing about the original character, besides his signature weapon. Ignoring the red hair, his armour is pretty horrendous, especially the chest-piece – which counterproductively reframes from protecting his chest – and the boots, and the gauntlets, and the strange shorts are about as stylish as they are practical – so, not at all.