Chuck Cunningham Syndrome/Video Games

An example of this

Examples of this trope in video games and visual novels.

By Franchise

Jak and Dexter

• This phenomenon is also seen in Jak and Daxter. Gol and Maia are the duo's first major baddies, and after their defeat in the first game a return is hinted at by the Green Sage. However, the series decided to go Darker and Edgier and thus the rogue Sages were "chucked" out. Although considering at the start of Jak II features the Metal Heads being released into the past it's possible they massacred everyone in the past off-screen including the two siblings or since Jak II features a time travel plot and there's been a massive year gap between the events of the first game and Haven City being built Gol and Maia are very likely simply dead from old age as nothing implies Dark Eco makes people live longer or immortal.
  • The second game introduced us to Brutter, the leader of the local Lurkers who befriends Jak and Daxter. At the end of the game, he seems to be working for Ashelin as captain of the New Krimzon Guard, but he is nowhere to be seen in Jak 3. Admittedly, Brutter does make a short appearance in the Daxter spin-off, but since that game is set before Jak II it doesn't explain what happened to him between Jak II and 3.
  • The second game also had the Crocadog, a Mix and Match Critter that Jak seemingly adopts as his pet in the end. He is never seen or referenced after Jak II.
  • Jak's uncle in the first game. While Jak was born in the future and thus he can't be his real uncle it feels a bit weird how after delivering the orbs to him he is never mentioned again. You'd think that he'd care a bit more about Jak's adventuring since he probably raised him.
  • Jak 3 ends with Count Vegar getting turned into an ottsel and getting taken by Kliever and being forced to be his sidekick. Kliever returns in Jak X but Vegar is nowhere in sight and Kliever doesn't even mention or what happened to him. Although a popular theory is that Kliever got annoyed with him and killed him.

Megaman

• Dynamo in Mega Man X 5 and X6. The only antagonist in the series to remain alive and intact (that is, not coming Back From the Dead), he worked for Sigma in X5, returned in an arbitrary cameo in X6, and vanished off the face of the earth.
  • Similarly, Douglas only appears in X5 and X6, then disappears after that. Lifesaver only appears in X5 (granted, he wasn't very popular due to his Nice Job Breaking It, Hero action). Dr Cain was last seen in X3, last mentioned in X4, and gone after that.
  • In the Mega Man Star Force series, Pat Sprigs is a major character in the first game, cameos in the second, and vanish in the third. What's frustrating is that the game itself acknowledges that it still has plot points to wrap up regarding him. Pat also disappears from the anime as well, only to make a very minor cameo at the end of the final episode.

Mario

• Poochy had an entire level designed around him in Yoshis Island, but has been absent since Yoshis Story. (He remained in the remake of Yoshi's Island, but was absent from the new levels.).
• Super Mario Land: Tatanga seems to have ceased to exist. He kidnapped Princess Daisy in Super Mario Land, appeared as a boss in Super Mario Land 2, and was never heard from again.
  • Wart similarly disappeared.
    • This one actually makes sense. Wart was nothing but mario's dream...except...so were several enemies who made appearances in later games.........
• Plum, Charlie, Sonny, Harry, and Maple, human characters who are playable in Mario Golf for the Nintendo 64. They have not made a single appearance in any game since, unless you count Plum's cameos in Super Smash Bros Melee and Brawl as a trophy and sticker respectively. Not to mention that that's five out of fourteen playable characters.
• Donkey Kong Junior hasn't appeared since Game and Watch Gallery Advance.
  • Though, this depends on which continuity you subscribe to. According to Rare, the Donkey Kong seen from Donkey Kong Country on forth IS DK Jr., while Cranky Kong is the previous DK. Donkey Kong Country Returns retcons it, however, to current DK being Cranky's grandson, meaning that DK Jr. really has been MIA ever since.
• It has not gone unnoticed by Mario fans that Diddy Kong has not appeared in any new releases since the downfall of Sean "Diddy" Combs.
• Most characters in the Wario Land series just vanished without a trace after the original games they were in. Captain Syrup returned in Shake Dimension, after a ten odd year gap between appearances, but God knows what happened to Rudy the Clown after he returned in Dr. Mario 64...

Pokemon

• Leaf, the female protagonist of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. She was supposed to appear in Red and Green, the first Pokémon games, as a female protagonist, but due to a lack of space, she was taken out. She was then redesigned for FireRed and LeafGreen years later. She was going to be a model for Pokémon Battle Revolution, and has appeared in at least five official artworks, but since has long been forgotten by Game Freak.
  • She also has only had counterparts in two of the many manga, and has not even been referenced in the anime.
  • She finally made an appearance in Generation VII in the post-game of Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee. The player meets her after capturing Mewtwo, and she can be battled once a day.
  • There's also Lorelei and Agatha, who disappear without a trace in Gold/Silver/Crystal/HeartGold/SoulSilver. This wouldn't be a problem, since you would think that Lorelei is at her home in the Sevii Islands now, and Agatha could have retired, but the games don't make any further reference to them past Red and Blue/FireRed and LeafGreen.

Sonic the Hedgehog

• Many Sonic characters like Ray the Flying Squirrel, Mighty the Armadillo, Bean the Dynamite, Bark the Polar Bear, Nack the Weasel (a.k.a. Fang the Sniper), Tails Doll, G-Mel and Metal Knuckles, have been subject to this.
  • Several of these characters are getting cameos on Wanted and Missing posters in Sonic Generations. Mighty and Ray are listed as "Missing since 1993" (even through Mighty was last seen in 1995's Knuckles Chaotix).
  • Mighty and Ray finally return in Sonic Mania Plus as fully playable characters. Nack, Bark and Bean also appear in both versions of Sonic Mania however they are just fake illusions used during the Heavy Magician's boss battle and not the actual real deals.

Other Examples

• In Xenogears, Billy's dad Jessiah disappears (much like most of the game) when Disc 2 starts. At least, from the storyline, technically he is still around as he is is the gun/bullet in one of Billy's gear's special moves. Oh, and Kaiser Sigmund too — despite the fact that an early Disc 2 plot point would probably have him heavily involved. Disc 2 has a much tighter story focus than the first disc, playing more like an interactive novel than a standard RPG, and the planned storylines for both characters may have gotten lost in the same budgetary constraints that are rumored to have caused the gameplay shift.
• Parodied in Banjo-Tooie, where the face of Tooty, Distressed Damsel of the first game and kid sister of Banjo, appears on a milk carton in Cloud Cuckooland, one of only two appearances of Tooty in the game (the picture of her in Banjo's house from the previous game is still there; in fact it's one of the few things in the house that is not significantly damaged or destroyed).
  • Brentilda completely vanished as well. Her only appearance is in a portrait in Pawno's Emporium in Jolly Roger's Lagoon.
• Every surviving character from Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 that didn't make the transition into Metal Gear Solid series was forgotten by default: Ellen Madnar, Diane, Jennifer, Holly White, Yozef Norden Johan Jacobsen, George Kasler.
  • Dr. Drago Pettrovich Madnar is a particularly strange aversion: he is killed in Metal Gear 2, and is naturally not mentioned in the Metal Gear Solid games... up until Guns of the Patriots, when he is inexplicably revealed to be the one who turned Raiden into a cyborg after Metal Gear Solid 2.
• Touhou's transition from PC-98 to Windows is either a Continuity Reboot or the single largest case of this ever. Only four characters ultimately survived the changeover, out of fourty or so, including fairly major characters like Mima and Genjii.
• In The Elder Scrolls, General Warhaft. Leader of the Imperial Legion, wrote two of the in-game books on armour and fighting, imprisoned along with the Emperor by Jagar Tharn... but he never is mentioned after Arena, except for in the aforementioned books. He goes unheard of in Daggerfall, Battlespire and Morrowind, and when the player visits the Legion headquarters in Oblivion, he's replaced by Commander Adamus Phillida, with no word on what happened to him or where he is now.
  • In a large-scale Chucking, the cities of Sutch, Artemon, and Mir Corrup were mentioned as being in Cyrodiil in several prior games. When Oblivion comes around, and we actually get to visit Cyrodiil, the entire cities are gone. The developers admitted they never had time to add them into the game (a semi-canonical explanation was made for Sutch, though — apparently, the city was ceded to Hammerfell as part of the peace settlement following the events of Redguard. Which only left the problem of why Sutch had been implied to have been a part of Cyrodiil after that point, of course).
• Almost half the kids in the Backyard Sports series. But the series never explains why anything happens anyway.
• After Resident Evil 3, what happened to the merc?
  • On that note, whatever happened to Rebecca Chambers after the first game?
  • WHERE'S THE MERCHANT?!
• Simon the Sorcerer 3D has a strange character called Jar Nin whom you accidentally kill at the beginning of the game. Towards the end of the game it turns out that you have to resurrect him because you need him on your team. But when you do, he does exactly nothing and even vanishes shortly after, never to be seen or mentioned again.
• Not characters per se, but every creature from the Xen borderworld in the first Half Life — apart from the standard headcrabs (and zombies), the barnacles, the Vortigaunts (now as an ally), an ichthyosaur as a cameo, and the leeches (who are now invincible barriers to the ocean) — somehow vanished from the cast list before the start of Half-Life 2.
  • Stranger still, Barney Calhoun seems to be suffering from this as of Episode 2.
  • For that matter, with the exclusion of Barney, pretty much every major character from the first game's expansions (Shephard from Opposing Force, Gina and Colette from Decay, and Rosenberg from Blue Shift) disappeared entirely between the first and second game. Considering the circumstances, this could be justified.
• More or less every single non-Swordian user from Tales of Destiny is completely absent from Tales of Destiny 2, except from a brief reference to Mary in one of the first few skits. This was, in retrospect, just a side-effect from what happened to them in the last third of the first game, though.
• Ys: Lilia, after being Demoted to Extra, disappears from the series after IV, as well as several other major characters from I and II. Subverted with Dogi, who is oddly absent from V, but returns in VI, as does old man Raba. Also, what happened to Terra between VI and Seven?
• A handful of the characters from the very first Street Fighter are nowhere to be found. At first Ryu, Ken, and Sagat were the only ones to return, then the Alpha series brought back Birdie, Gen, and Adon. Eagle made an appearance in Capcom vs. SNK 2 Mark of the Millennium. To this day, however, Geki, Retsu, Lee, Mike, and Joe are all but disowned from the series (well, maybe not Mike, who is widely hypothesized to be "Mike Bison"/Balrog).
  • The comics have had some fun with these. Lee reappears in the Sakura Ganbaru manga as an opponent for Sakura, and in UDON's comics, reappears to challenge Fei Long and is stated to be the uncle of Yun and Yang. Also in UDON's comics, Geki attempts to assassinate Gen, and in the Ibuki miniseries, "Geki" is retconned to be the name of a ninja clan, not an individual, which has a rivalry with Ibuki's clan.
  • Most of the Street Fighter III cast would qualify, too. The popular ones would go on to appear in other Street Fighter games (Yun, Ibuki, Makoto, Dudley) and crossovers (Alex, Yun, Urien, and Hugo—who is technically not from SF III, but still counts) but most of them were lucky to even appear as cameos or passing mentions in character storylines. Part of the problem, it should be said, is the long lull in Capcom fighting game releases prior to Street Fighter IV.
• In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, where did all of Phoenix's friends go in the past seven years? The only characters from the first three games that show up are Phoenix, Ema, Payne, and the Judge (and, in flashback, Gumshoe and Mike Meekins).
  • Maya is mentioned, as is Mia, just not by name. Phoenix at one point refers to a "kid" he knows who sends him Samurai series videos tapes and he again mentions a "Girl" he once know who Trucy reminds him of. Guy Eldoon, the noodle saleman, even refers to Maya at one point saying that Phoenix used to frequent his noodle stand with "That assisant girl" back when he was an attorney. Examining "Charley" in the office, prompts Apollo into talking about how Phoenix mentioned his "Chief" once.
• Mortal Kombat: All of the characters from Special Forces and Mythologies: Sub-Zero who haven't appeared in a Fighting Game before (Sareena had a playable appearance in a portable version of Deadly Alliance called Tournament Edition) didn't made the cut for Armageddon.
  • Except Sareena's two partners in Mythologies; they appear in Konquest Mode of Armageddon as minibosses.
• In World of Warcraft, Calia Menethil, Heir to the throne of Lordaeron, disappeared without trace shortly before Warcraft III. It is speculated that she has taken the name of Calia Hastings and is currently working for the Stormwind SI:7 spy agency, but this is based solely on the One Steve Limit.
  • In the RPG books, Brann Bronzebeard lampshades this, briefly mentioning that he's not sure where Calia is and that he'll have to look into it.
  • Also a large number of NPCs in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Overlaps with Never Found the Body in some cases.
  • The black dragon Sabellian, as the only one of his race who doesn't seem to have a problem with the player races, is conspicuously absent from all the events surrounding the return of his father Deathwing and the destruction of the rest of the black dragonflight as incurably corrupted. Possibly he decided he wanted no part of the whole thing and just stayed in Outland.
• Kaya Daidouji is a pretty important character in Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army. In the sequel, Raidou Kuzunoha VS King Abaddon, she isn't mentioned once.
  • Believed to have moved away from the family mansion in 'King Abaddon'. It is inhabited by ghosts as a side mission.
• Magma is the point-of-view character and saves the planet in X Men Legends but isn't even mentioned in its sequel.
• Happens to quite a few characters in Vanguard Bandits due to the branching paths in the game. A important ally in one path can disappear into the ether on the next.
• Crash Bandicoot: Crash's girlfriend Tawna is axed after the first game, replaced instead by hacker sister Coco. Yes, apparently, Crash has a little sister that he was never told about.
  • Though Tawna does reappear as a playable character in the DS game Crash Boom Bang!. The game manual states that she's dumped Crash for Pinstripe Potoroo. Zigzaged when Tawna reappeared as a major playable character in Crash Bandicoot 4: Its About Time, where it was a different Tawna from a different universe while Crash and Coco lost contact with the main one.
• Lego Island was hit with this hard. Let's see, we had Captain D. Rom, Enter & Return, the Funbergs, Polly Gone, Studs Linkin, all of the flying Legondos (excluding Jack O'Trades), and the two workers.
• Dynasty Warriors 6 was notorious for cutting some of the roster and relegating twenty-four of the remaining forty-one characters to "Free Mode only" (having no Musou Mode storyline and cutscenes, though its Play Station 2 re-release converted six of them to Musou Mode, for a total of twenty-three Musou Mode characters and eighteen Free Mode only), but in Dynasty Warriors 7 when all of them were brought back except Zuo Ci and Pang De. The former was an inconsequential Daoist mystic, but the latter a notable warrior who'd participated in several key battles and brought his own coffin to his final military campaign ("win or die," literally), only to not be mentioned at all in the game, which KOEI explained was due to "certain storyline constraints" (namely, that they didn't have room for him in the direction they were taking the story).
  • Samurai Warriors has an Egregious example with Goemon Ishikawa, who has never been seen again after the first game. And after the second game, Musashi Miyamoto and Kojiro Sasaki never appeared either. However, along with Zuo Ci, the three are still present in Warriors Orochi.
• The heroes of Might and Magic 3 disappeared without the games ever quite explaining how they went off-course, or even if they did. They just... didn't arrive on XEEN, and when they next showed up (in Might and Magic 7), all they said was that they'd been looking for the Ancients for some time. Of course, they did return, so it isn't a clear-cut example of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome.
• General Vladimir, who was an important supporting character in Command and Conquer Red Alert 2, is nowhere to be seen in Yuri's Revenge, the game's expansion pack.
• The Rayman series has it's fair share of characters that appear once only to never be seen again or disappear for long periods of time then appearing in much later games.
  • The Musician, Joe, and Tarayzan have not appeared since the original Rayman. Betilla disappeared for a good while until finally reappearing again in Rayman Origins (then vanishing again in Rayman Legends). Mr Dark despite being shown he was not killed was never given a full main appearance again until Rayman Mini.
  • Ugglete, Clark, Ssssam and Ly have not been seen since Rayman 2. Razorbeard despite showing to be alive in the credits after escaping has not been seen since in a main story game aside from spin offs such as Rayman M and Kart . Although Razorbeard, Ly and Ssssam do all make full appearances in the GBA version of Rayman 3 it is not fully clear if the events of that version the game are canon.

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