In case you don’t know what I mean:
‘Flanderization’ is a trope used to describe a character who has very clear and complex personality when they’re introduced, with their obvious good and bad traits that makes people like and relate to them.
However, as the series goes on, said character is simplified into being very one dimensional, and kind of unlikeable. Usually by making their more negative traits more prominent and exaggerated.
(The word was named after ‘Simpsons’ character Ned Flanders. Who went from a friendly, well-manned Christian dad, to just… and overly obsessed, negative Christian stereotype.)
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In my opinion, Shadow The Hedgehog might be the most infamous example in term of video game flanderization.
Starting off as the edgy, more cutthroat version of Sonic, only to show that he’s just a severely damaged individual who lost everything he cared about, and with the help of the other characters, is able to move past him trauma and become one of the heroes.
Only for the later games to portray him as just some edgelord douche who just wants to prove he’s better than Sonic.
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In original Star Wars KOTOR HK-47 was calmer, revealing his sociopathic side mainly during specific situations. In the sequel, he transformed into a more aggressive killer robot, a desire to slaughter all meatbags consistently.
Shadow has always seemed like a cliché character to me. But yes, it was in his own game when they transformed the character into a kind of Wattpad fanfic written by Zach Snyder.
For a recent example
Phillip Graves in the Modern Warfare reboots. In Modern Warfare 2 he is a likeable, charismatic, but ultimately competent and shrewd leader. In Modern Warfare 3 he is reduced to a bumbling background player whose every line contains some form of an attempt at a joke and who becomes inexplicably a moron.
Starting off as the edgy, more cutthroat version of Sonic, only to show that he’s just a severely damaged individual who lost everything he cared about, and with the help of the other characters, is able to move past his trauma and become one of the heroes.
I think your example is the opposite :p In order to be flanderized, Shadow would have needed to be a traumatized edgy individual and then becoming edgier after that ;)
Knuckles, in the other hand, started as a strong guardian who was easily deceived… to being dumb, because he was previously deceived ^^;
The master chief
Id say its not exactly flanderization but the portrayal of Kratos past in the enw GoW games is a flanderization of his character in the old games.
People legitimately think he wasnt a complex and tragic character in the old games and they finally fixed him and made him interesting. Like did we play the same games
Sans
TIL people actually take Sonic the Hedgehog seriously
For me it’s Johnny gat, saints row originally he is someone you would want to hang out with and then by “gat out of hell” he is just someone you would want to hang