Year of Buff

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About

Year of Buff refers to the trend of video game characters receiving muscular redesigns in 2014. The name is a parody of 2013's Year of Luigi.

Origins

The Year of Buff started on February 6th 2014 when Sega revealed the character designs for the 2014 video game and cartoon series, Sonic Boom. The designs as a whole were criticized for their use of scarves and bandages to make the characters look more edgy. However it was the design of Knuckles the Echidna that really grabbed people's attention.

People were taken aback by just how different Knuckles was shaped in comparison to his original design. Many thought that his giant muscles were far too over-the-top which led to many images exaggerating his muscle size, say he got ripped in two weeks, or commenting on how he apparently skipped leg day.

On May 23rd 2014, Ike from Fire Emblem was confirmed as a character for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS. The character's announcement came as a shock to fans for two reasons:
1) Many thought that he would be replaced by a more current Fire Emblem character such as Chrom from Fire Emblem Awakening
2) His design was based off of his appearance in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn as opposed to his appearance in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, like it was in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

While many thought that the re-design made sense given that Ike played like a heavy-weight character in Brawl, Japanese fans believed that he was too muscular, comparing him to a "big hairy gorilla".

Fans were quick to realize that both Knuckles and Ike had gotten muscular re-designs in 2014, leading to many images like this.

Finally on June 7th 2014 images from CoroCoro magazine leaked onto Serebii.net, revealing Mega Evolutions for Swampert, Sceptile, and Diancie in Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Of particular note was Swampert's Mega Form which was far more muscular than any fan-made Mega Swampert designs existent at that point.