Current Events > Why do video games have such a hard time with titles?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Look, I don't care if you want your fifth game to be subtitled instead of numbered. In fact, it's a good move if you don't want people to figure out that you're milking.

But if you're gonna number the game, actually make it the right number. If it's the eighth game in the series, please don't number it 3.

And what's more, putting the title in all caps isn't sufficient to distinguish it from another game that otherwise has the same title. Come on, people!

I just wish we'd stop accepting games with titles that weren't localized. I played Seiken Densetsu 2 on my SNES, but back then developers had the decency to rename their products for the market and I knew it as Secret of Mana. We shouldn't accept Ni No Kuni or Shin Megami Tensei. Localize that shit.

You can't exclude numbers. If your first and second games are Devsman and Devsman 2, and the third game is Devsman: The Return, your fourth game is Devsman 3.

If you name it Devsman 4, people will forever be like "Where is 3?!"

MisterPengy posted...

You can't exclude numbers. If your first and second games are Devsman and Devsman 2, and the third game is Devsman: The Return, your fourth game is Devsman 3.

If you name it Devsman 4, people will forever be like "Where is 3?!"

Then you have cases where they skipped 3 and also had a bunch of unnumbered subtitled entries. So clearly one of the unnumbered ones was supposed to be THE 3, but hell if anyone knows which.

lol I knew this was about Kingdom Hearts based on the topic title alone

rexcrk posted...

lol I knew this was about Kingdom Hearts based on the topic title alone

It's about everything, really.

New Super Mario Bros
New Super Mario Bros Wii
New Super Mario Bros 2

Ass Creed
Ass Creed II
Ass Creed Bro
Ass Creed Rev
Ass Creed III

And my personal favorite:

Shinobi
Shadow Dancer
The Revenge of Shinobi
Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi
The Cyber Shinobi
The GG Shinobi
The GG Shinobi II: The Silent Fury
Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master

Then there are at least 3 Mega Man 2's, and yet they just skipped II completely in the DOS series that just has a Mega Man and a Mega Man III.

I think 3 is actually the tenth KH game. But it has more problems than just numbers. Like that II.5 business, or the 0.2 tomfoolery, or the "Days over Two" nonsense, or the fact that I have played BbS an irresponsible number of hours and done literally everything that there is to do in the game, and I still have not the slightest clue what the subtitle means or has to do with the story, even after they straight-up dropped the title in a cutscene, and even after another game in the series blatantly explaining that "sleep" is the name of the black metaphorical place people keep going to for no reason.

pjnelson posted...

I just wish we'd stop accepting games with titles that weren't localized. I played Seiken Densetsu 2 on my SNES, but back then developers had the decency to rename their products for the market and I knew it as Secret of Mana. We shouldn't accept Ni No Kuni or Shin Megami Tensei. Localize that shit.

Nah Shin Megami Tensei sounds great.

Seaman_Prime posted...

Nah Shin Megami Tensei sounds great.

I was gonna say that when I saw that post. "Shin Megami Tensei" is an awesome name.

pjnelson posted...

I just wish we'd stop accepting games with titles that weren't localized. I played Seiken Densetsu 2 on my SNES, but back then developers had the decency to rename their products for the market and I knew it as Secret of Mana. We shouldn't accept Ni No Kuni or Shin Megami Tensei. Localize that shit.

I like how they did the opposite with Yakuza.

The Japanese title translates literally as "Like a Dragon," but then they localized it as this Japanese word that roughly means "gangster" but doesn't translate especially well.

And then later they decided to just localize them as "Like a Dragon" anyway.

Also, if you're not numbering your games, make sure they're all alphabetical within the same console generation. Nothing worse than KillGun: Gun Kill You Drop, which is KillGun 3, coming after KillGun: Killionaire, which is KillGun 2.

The thing I hate the most is when game series just use a previously used title.

No, God of War (2018). You're God of War IV, even though you're not really the 4th game of the series.

While not games, I think the worst offender is the Fast & Furious series:

The Fast and the Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Fast & Furious
Fast Five
Fast & Furious 6
Furious 7
The Fate of the Furious
F9
Fast X

Rambo is also funny:

First Blood
Rambo: First Blood Part II
Rambo III
Rambo
Rambo: Last Blood

ninja gaiden is extremely cursed for this. even setting aside all the ones that don't have numbers and instead have some sort of subtitle, it has -

ninja gaiden
ninja gaiden II
ninja gaiden III (these 3 are NES games)

and also
ninja gaiden
ninja gaiden II
ninja gaiden 3 (these 3 are xbox games that play totally differently. also why'd they lose the roman numerals on the last one?)

Numbered "6" but actually it's the 16th game

Chiming in to say I also like the Shin Megami Tensei name. >_> I think if the Japanese name is easy enough, don't localize it.

I hate it when the jump around with the numbers. I,II,Nine,III

It's as stupid as naming your 3rd console iteration the One.

Glad nobody would do that.

bsp77 posted...

While not games, I think the worst offender is the Fast & Furious series:

The Fast and the Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Fast & Furious
Fast Five
Fast & Furious 6
Furious 7
The Fate of the Furious
F9
Fast X

As someone who's never seen any of those movies... That's a weird list to keep track off lol

random_man9119 posted...

That's a weird list to keep track off lol

almost all of them have the number in them somewhere

Really though we need to have a fucking talk about people who come up with titles for movies / TV shows.

Her
You
Us
Nope
Men

Literally what the fuck

Mortal Kombat has had a rough time titling its entries.

Shin Megami Tensei with all spinoffs...

random_man9119 posted...

As someone who's never seen any of those movies... That's a weird list to keep track off lol

Not keeping track of it, I just have seen them and knew the titles were crazy. Wikipedia copy paste.

Also, my brain kinda remembers and categorizes all types of media.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Really though we need to have a fucking talk about people who come up with titles for movies / TV shows.

Her
You
Us
Nope
Men

Literally what the fuck

lol

They should name series by release year like Madden. Imagine playing Assassin's Creed 25 next year instead of AC: Caveman's Unga Bunga

it's even worse with consoles

Xbox
Xbox 360
Xbox 1

Foppe posted...

Shin Megami Tensei with all spinoffs...

SMT titles are exacerbated by the fact that the English localizations have always been doing weird things to them.

• Some of the games have the prefix Shin Megami Tensei in Japanese, but dropped it in English. I guess to make it less Japanese-y.
• Some of the games didn't have the prefix Shin Megami Tensei in Japanese, but added it in English. I guess to make it clear that it's associated with other SMT games.
• A few have another prefix like "Megami Ibunroku" in Japanese, to say that that this game is kind of a Megami Tensei-ish spinoff but not really Shin Megami Tensei. And this is either dropped in English, or replaced with Shin Megami Tensei, or translated as Revelations for some reason.
• A few have their names changed because of censorship (Devil Children -> Demikids) or because the Japanese title just straight-up does not sound very cool in English (SMTIV Final -> SMTIV Apocalypse)
• Some games are nebulously not exactly a spinoff but also not numbered, without any clear pattern. Like SMT Strange Journey could just be SMTIV, but it's just not. Despite some of the Atlus leads like Kaneko saying they were fine with it callingit SMTIV. SMT If... could have been SMTIII too if they wanted to. So then fans debate what it means to be a "real" Shin Megami Tensei and come up with arbitrary distinctions like "real SMT has to take place in Tokyo (most of the time) and it has to be apocalyptic (most of the time). Also spinoffs can be one or both of these things too."

That last one isn't unique to SMT though I guess. Like GTA Vice City and San Andreas could be GTA 4 and GTA 5 for all anyone cares and it wouldn't really change anything. Or millions of other examples.

The Punch-Out series. Each of these is a different game:

• Punch-Out!! (Arcade)
• Punch-Out!! (Game & Watch game originally titled Boxing as it was originally unrelated)
• Super Punch-Out!! (Arcade)
• Arm Wrestling (Arcade)
• Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (NES)(later rereleased as Punch-Out!!)
• Super Punch-Out!! (SNES)
• Punch-Out!! (Wii)
• Do Louis's Punch-Out!! (WiiWare)

So, we have 4 separate games just called Punch-Out!!, but two of them only sometimes, depending on the version. And 2 separate games called Super Punch-Out!!

bsp77 posted...

Not keeping track of it, I just have seen them and knew the titles were crazy. Wikipedia copy paste.

Also, my brain kinda remembers and categorizes all types of media.

Oh, I think I was unclear on my post... I meant more like it'd be crazy to jump into the Fast & The Furious blind when the names are like that lol... I meant more it's be crazy to keep track off if you were new to it

random_man9119 posted...

Oh, I think I was unclear on my post... I meant more like it'd be crazy to jump into the Fast & The Furious blind when the names are like that lol... I meant more it's be crazy to keep track off if you were new to it

Oh, gotcha. Definitely

Better off just not watching most of them anyway

ROBANN_88 posted...

it's even worse with consoles

Xbox
Xbox 360
Xbox 1

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8451fa52.jpg

kirbymuncher posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8451fa52.jpg

CE
ME
NT

Foppe posted...

CE
ME
NT

You forgot RT

Reminds me of how the Spirou albums are being handled by Cinebook.
Spirou is one of the classic Franco-Belgian comics that have been running since 1938. It first started as short gag stories and slowly turned into longer multipart stories that started to get collected in albums in 1950. They are still being released, and album number 57 was released earlier this year.
Cinebook started to release English translations in 2009, releasing pretty much one or two albums each year. The problem is that they release them out of order...

34. Spirou & Fantasio: Adventure Down Under
39. Spirou & Fantasio in New York
40. Spirou & Fantasio: Running Scared
41. Spirou & Fantasio: Valley of the Exiles
05. The Marsupilami Thieves
42. Spirou & Fantasio in Moscow
06. The Rhinoceros' Horn
43. Tough Luck Vito
07. The Dictator and the Mushroom
33. Virus
08. The Wrong Head
35. Who Will Stop Cyanide?
15. Z is for Zorglub
36. The Clockmaker and the Comet
16. Shadow of the Z
37. The Z Rises Again
12. The Marsupilamis' Nest
51. Attack of the Zordolts
13. The Visitor from the Mesozoic
52. The Dark Side of the Z
14. The Prisoner of the Buddha

This causes some problems because some times you are introduced to some characters in the wrong order, and some albums are direct sequels to the previous one. 42 is part two to 41, which works fine here, but 16 is part two to 15, and 37 is part two to 36, so going 15, 36, 16, 37 is strange, especially since they all involve the character Zorglub.

here's a 15 year old blog post on adventure island

https://8bitcity.blogspot.com/2009/05/history-of-adventure-island.html

kirbymuncher posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8451fa52.jpg

where does Windows XP fit into that?

Then I'm afraid, my dear, you ain't Windows.