10 Video Game Sequels That Turned Wimps Into Total Badasses

2. Raiden - Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots

Raiden never really stood a chance getting over with fans in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, being introduced as a bait-and-switch protagonist who took the spot everyone understandably expected Solid Snake to fill.

It didn't help that Raiden was a lanky, effeminate goofball ("Did you say nerd?"), and for the entirety of the game, fans were just left pining for Snake (who, to rub salt in the wound, re-appears later on as an NPC sidekick).

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater even went on to mock Raiden with the inclusion of his gay Russian doppelganger Raikov, though with the release of the fourth game, Guns of the Patriots, Hideo Kojima finally found a way to fully redeem him.

Raiden is re-introduced as an extremely cool cyborg ninja who gets an astoundingly impressive fight scene with Vamp, and in his finest moment, damn-near kills himself saving Old Snake's life by literally holding back Liquid Ocelot's gigantic submarine Outer Haven with his bare might.

Raiden proved such a surprising highlight of MGS4 that he was granted his own spin-off, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

Given how his inclusion in MGS2 is still a sore point for many fans almost 20 years (!) later, it's basically miraculous that he was redeemed so decisively here.