The best game ever made is your computer's notepad. Because you can program anything into it, so it allows you to completely customize the experience to your liking.

Imagine if they made movies with this mindset.

Cinemas in 1986 would be like
Aliens (Standard Edition) - $3.80
Aliens (Big Boobies Edition) - $4.80
Aliens (Sigourney Weaver Is Naked Edition) - $5.99

People won't care if your character uses magic that breaks the laws of physics in a thousand different ways. It's when contrivances started to feel forced onto the story by the writer (say, because he's a horny mofo, or wants to appeal to one) that's where the problem resides.

Of course, though, different people will have different thresholds for what they're willing to accept in a fictional work...

Lara Croft, having played the games, runs around in very cold environments.  

Sorry, but nothing about her attire fits the environment.  It is just stupid.  

If we're talking about specific depictions of Joan of Arc in games, the ones I've played (Fate Extella, Bladestorm) have been mostly tasteful.

If we're talking about this specific depiction from Bladestorm Nightmare though:

Then that is story related, because it's Joan of Arc after being corrupted by an evil entity.  It doesn't feel like a "forced contrivance" to believe that such an entity would present its possession of Joan of Arc in such a way to demoralize her own spirit and that of her comrades.

Now, if we're just talking about fighting while scantily clad in general being "childish nonsense", that's also not historically accurate.  There were people, tribes, mercenaries, what have you, who fought wearing very little or even completely naked as a show of confidence to give them an additional mental edge over their opponents.  There are plenty of women living today who say that "sexy" attire makes them feel more confident and empowered.  It's not the black and white concept some of you are making out to be.

Strictly speaking not a remake but a remaster instead, but I think Assassin's Creed II didn't quite nail it:

I haven't played a lot of remakes though, so I'm not properly qualified to answer. Still, respecting the source material and keeping true to it is what I like to see, so anything that deviates too greatly from the (spirit of the) original is either bad or controversial to me. The same goes for sequels and such too (if you want drastically different designs in sequels, feel free to create new characters instead).

That must be a bug, right? xD

Gotta be. I think it was fixed, but I don't have any hands-on experience with the remaster either, so I'm not at all sure. So, uh, I suppose that kind of misses the point of this thread, but I still couldn't resist the temptation to bring it up.

As I said, I haven't played any of the Tomb Raider games.  I do agree that in your example, the environment and attire do not match.  While in this one, there is no conflict.

To my knowledge, her outfits got more varied from Tomb Raider II on.  It could well have been that they didn't have the time or resources to animate multiple attired character models when the franchise first started.  But, my knowledge of the games and development process is limited.  I did read that the first iteration was supposed to be a male character based off Indiana Jones, and then shifted to a female lead inspired by Tank Girl.

TR as a franchise has gotten better and demonstrates the ability to improve characters.  Reboot and Rise are excellent games with good characters.

The resident evil remakes are also really well done.