Board 8 > What series outside Fire Emblem where fans commonly use unofficial numberings?

(+) Yeah! (+)

For example, in Fire Emblem, the Sacred Stones is commonly referred to as FE8, even though that's not an official title. Rather, FE8 is a fan given name because the game's perceived as the 8th game in the series (although ironically, the fan numbering is different from the "official" ordering). But if you start talking about Zelda6, nobody knows what you are talking about, even though by the same metric it should be Majora's Mask.

What other game series with at least multiple unnumbered entries have these sort of commonly accepted unofficial fan numberings? Star Ocean is the first that comes to mind, although it is officially numbered in the Japanese version.

Referring to pokemon games by their gen instead of their titles

Ace Attorney

Mortal Kombat, although its weird because 8 is MKvDC, and they eventually went back to numbers.

Also, in the case of God of War, people refer to both Ascension and God of War 2018 as 4 which is hilarious.

Shout-out to Metroid for being the opposite of this, where it has an official numbering that absolutely no one uses.

Mario Kart is a weird case where they didn't use numbers until 7.

tbh yeah it's surprisingly rare to see, largely because series without any numbers are rare in the first place (and many of those that do also have spinoffs which makes it more awkward). stuff like ace attorney doesn't even really count thanks to the japanese titles...

so i guess my answer is probably nights maybe

The Tales of series could benefit from fan numbering. If only because I forget a bunch of the games in the series actually exist.

Nobody's said Touhou?

UF8 posted...

tbh yeah it's surprisingly rare to see, largely because series without any numbers are rare in the first place (and many of those that do also have spinoffs which makes it more awkward). stuff like ace attorney doesn't even really count thanks to the japanese titles...

so i guess my answer is probably nights maybe

Yeah Ace Attorney, Star Ocean, Breath of Fire (for 5) and Yakuza (for 7+) definitely belong in the official Japanese numbering category.

I've never played Trails but I felt like if any other JRPG would use unofficial fan numbering, that would be it, but apparently even Trails doesn't use it.

Trails is weird because they're technically part of the Legend of Heroes series (with the first game, Trails in the Sky, being The Legend of Heroes 6 in Japan), but then they kinda just dropped the numbering as the series went on

ninkendo posted...

Trails is weird because they're technically part of the Legend of Heroes series (with the first game, Trails in the Sky, being The Legend of Heroes 6 in Japan), but then they kinda just dropped the numbering as the series went on

It gets better- all Trails games are The Legend of Heroes VI, and all The Legend of Heroes games are Dragon Slayer VI, which puts them in the same metafranchise as the Xanadu series (which started as Dragon Slayer II)

this is the type of question that I feel should be compiled into a tvtropes page for people like me

ninkendo posted...

Referring to pokemon games by their gen instead of their titles

"Generation I" is an official term... sort of. (At least according to Bulbapedia - but I'm the one who added that, so...)

ninkendo posted...

Referring to pokemon games by their gen instead of their titles

Both the term "generation" and the numbering system for the generations are official. And a generation refers to a collection of games, not a single game.

squexa posted...

For example, in Fire Emblem, the Sacred Stones is commonly referred to as FE8, even though that's not an official title. Rather, FE8 is a fan given name because the game's perceived as the 8th game in the series (although ironically, the fan numbering is different from the "official" ordering).

I feel like "perceived" isn't really the word you're looking for here (or you're misunderstanding... something)? When I see numbers attached to fire emblem it's usually meant as their release order, not the order they occur. It's not like most of them are direct sequels, or even necessarily meant to take place in the same world.

NewerShadow posted...

I feel like "perceived" isn't really the word you're looking for here (or you're misunderstanding... something)? When I see numbers attached to fire emblem it's usually meant as their release order, not the order they occur. It's not like most of them are direct sequels, or even necessarily meant to take place in the same world.

I meant perceived release order, not perceived chronological order, and I used "perceived" because it's not official and often controversial. Whether the remakes count, whether BS Fire Emblem should conunt, etc can give you a different numbering scheme but eg FE8 is understood to be Sacred Stones by nothing more than sheer fan tradition.

BlackMageJawa posted...

It gets better- all Trails games are The Legend of Heroes VI, and all The Legend of Heroes games are Dragon Slayer VI, which puts them in the same metafranchise as the Xanadu series (which started as Dragon Slayer II)

There's official documentation that states Crossbell is TLoH VII and Cold Steel is TLoH VIII

I will say, when FE12 (I think, might have been Awakening) was being released, its official website used the same series numbering that the fans use.

It's different now though because IIRC the official numbering now counts BSFE and Heroes as numbered games while fans don't. But nobody really uses the numbers for any game after FE12 anyway so it doesn't matter much.

Awakening was FE13 (fans), FE14 (some internal files; they counted BSFE), FE12 or FE13 (other official crap.) it was confusing.

You're right that fans basically dropped the numbers after then; it's probably because of Fates technically being two/three games (as well as everything from that point on getting official localized titles.)

https://serenesforest.net/2018/04/20/feature-analysing-fire-emblems-numbering-system/

Numbering FE games started off okay but fell apart over time. I don't think anyone refers to Three Houses by number. You'll even see people refer to older games by subtitle pretty often as well these days.

Sakurai is my source for FE numbering

It's not as common for games Awakening and later, in part because the large influx of new fans, but I still sometimes see it used when discussing or comparing the series as a whole. On FE forums of course. Not many people on general gaming/Switch site would even know any of the numberings.

I see FE7 referred to with a number far more than any other FE game.

FE7 is particularly common since the English release was only retroactively given a subtitle. I do see some people refer to by Blazing Blade instead of FE7, though.

azuarc posted...

Nobody's said Touhou?

touhou has numbers officially though and that's not even like slightly a secret, have you even played a touhou game before?

I have not. But also, my understanding was that Touhou games were only referred to officially by subtitles and that the numbering was purely a fan convention.

The subtitles get more emphasis but the numbers are there

Lightning Strikes posted...

Mortal Kombat, although its weird because 8 is MKvDC, and they eventually went back to numbers.

Also, in the case of God of War, people refer to both Ascension and God of War 2018 as 4 which is hilarious.

Ascension really got the short end of every stick. It's got all the strengths of the old games and is possibly the best at some of those strengths, but GoWIII is early gen and it's late gen, opinion of the series was down, and the story is sort of wedged into canon without any clear purpose. The box says "before Kratos was a god" but he's not any less superhuman during Ascension than during God of War 1. That aside multiplayer was a great time when I used to play it.

It just always seemed more convenient to refer to FEx rather than full titles or acronyms - it didn't help that the preferred translations for the latter sometimes changed over time (Sword of Seals vs. Binding Blade, Blazing Sword/Blade, lol Descent of Jihad) so sticking with numbers was frankly more clear. People basically weren't ever confused by the numbering until Fates either - nobody really cared about the BS FEs and they clearly were not "real," full-scale games so therefore didn't count. And as mentioned, FE7 not having a subtitle made some kind of naming scheme besides the official localization a necessity.

Paratroopa1 posted...

Ace Attorney

I'm sort of only just realizing right now that the games don't actually have numbers. I never noticed. Huh.

Dels posted...

I'm sort of only just realizing right now that the games don't actually have numbers. I never noticed. Huh.

I mean I'm kinda wrong because I forgot that the games DO have numbers in Japanese, but I guess they were too worried about trying to get people to play a numbered series in the west or something?

They should start numbering the Zeldas

The next one is 20!

On a related note, Mario Kart 7 was hilarious at first.

Dels posted...

I'm sort of only just realizing right now that the games don't actually have numbers. I never noticed. Huh.

But only in English. They're all numbered in Japanese.

Oh. That is true.

Touhou

Paratroopa1 posted...

I mean I'm kinda wrong because I forgot that the games DO have numbers in Japanese, but I guess they were too worried about trying to get people to play a numbered series in the west or something?

They probably honestly never expected they'd ever bring over more than the first one.

Leonhart4 posted...

They probably honestly never expected they'd ever bring over more than the first one.

And yet they didn't name the second game "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney 2"

I think that they went with the naming conventions they did because they didn't want to turn people off from buying the sequel, even though that's not normally a problem in gaming

Yeah, I guess that's true. I also think it reads kind of weird to have it be 2 and 3 with the lengthy title. Maybe if they had just named it "Phoenix Wright" or "Ace Attorney."

Also now that I think about it, Ratchet & Clank is an unusual case like this, too. Going Commando and Up Your Arsenal are just R&C 2 and 3 in Europe because they didn't want to publish them under their innuendo-laden titles.

Not too many I can think of outside of FE.

I do call Path of Radiance FE9 at times.

Although, numbering all of the Sonic games would get a bit confusing.

Sonic & Knuckles would then actually be Sonic 4 in that case, or did Sonic CD release before or after Sonic 3 even? I can't quite remember.

Dark Silvergun posted...

Sonic & Knuckles would then actually be Sonic 4 in that case, or did Sonic CD release before or after Sonic 3 even? I can't quite remember.

Sonic CD was between 2 and 3.

But there is a Sonic 4! Two episodes of it, in fact.

Thanks LeonhartFour!

FL81 posted...

Touhou

liek omg 2hu has numbers officially and thats not even liek slightly a secret hav u even played a 2hu game be4?

Here's an archive of the Nintendo page that refers to the Fire Emblem games up to Awakening with the fan numbers:
https://web.archive.org/web/20121010051320/https://www.nintendo.co.jp/fe/few_series.html

After that, I think IS considered BSFE a numbered entry for awhile, and then rescinded that but they now consider Heroes a main series title, and there's also Fates potentially throwing a monkey wrench into things too. But I'd still consider FE1-13 to be semi-official.

azuarc posted...

liek omg 2hu has numbers officially and thats not even liek slightly a secret hav u even played a 2hu game be4?

Look i was disappointed you'd give an example for a series you've never even played, i was more snarky than i needed to be but you're still not in the right. Yes, they're (mostly) not actually in the titles but when they're generally presented like, say, this, can you blame me?
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/0/6/AARWb-AADXBC.jpg
sure do wonder what kind of number those crazy fans have made up for this one smh

even the ones that didn't follow this practice early on still categorised them in the game files as like TH02, TH03, TH06 etc. About the only fan intervention that happens with it is it being classified as a series when ZUN's insisted on describing it as a project instead lol