Even worse is that it is a trademark. There was a kickstarter for a game "prey for the gods" which could have gotten a trademark dispute over the usage of the name "prey" from bethesda.
So they changed the name to "praey for the gods" to not have to deal with yearlong legal battle and burn the Kickstarter funds.
The names aren't terrible by themselves but it really sucks that the critically acclaimed narrative space puzzler "outerwilds" released the same month as the open world space rpg "outerworlds".
A lot of JRPG's with weird punctuation and seemingly neverending titles or made-up words.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Re:Chain of Memories and Dream Drop Distance and χ Back Cover and 0.2 Birth by Sleep and Re Mind and -HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX- and HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue
Legend of Fantasy: Monstrum Refantazio
Death end re;Quest
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3 V Generation
UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH Exe:Late and II Sys:Celes
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army
.hack//G.U. Last Recode
void* tRrLM2(); //Void Terrarium 2
Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy and the Polar Night Liberator and lots of other Atelier games
Divine Divinity
Infinite Undiscovery
Various Daylife
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
Mon-Yu: Defeat Monsters And Gain Strong Weapons And Armor. You May Be Defeated, But Don’t Give Up. Become Stronger. I Believe There Will Be A Day When The Heroes Defeat The Devil King.
The MegaTen games have some weird ones, yeah. Like Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, then the sequel to that came out and it was just Soul Hackers 2. Same with how Persona 1 was Megami Ibunroku Persona and then became Shin Megami Tensei: Persona.
Oh and how theres two Persona 2s, Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. Great games but man, really should have been like Persona 2 Part 1 and Part 2.
Not to defend the game itself but Neptunia is at least on some level a parody of other JRPGs, so the title is meant invoke that cringe. The first one was still called Hyperdimension Neptunia and the "resemicolonbirth" line was a remake which has its own remake now as well with a star in the title...
NFS: Hot Pursuit. HP2 was a perfect game in the arcade racer genre. HP remake doesn't even have bots in multiplayer, meaning you and your buddies won't be chased by cops because no one plays that game and the cops have to be played by humans.
Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars. Not much changed between this and Rocket League, the name was probably the main thing holding them back.
I think all the games that do this are annoying. We're not stupid, we can come up with an acronym for your name. It's silly, I know, but it made me not want to play FTL: faster than light for a long time.
I loved that game and i love the TTRPG. I'd always have to tell people it's not really a good Shadowrun game, it's just Counter-Strike with a couple mods. On console. With bots.
Which was, like, the best thing ever to me at the time. I ate that shit UP
I mean I get that it's about this whole concept of people having their own beach when they die or being able to travel to other people's beaches or something weird like that. But they're really pushing it with that title.
And also the fact that Death end with 'th' followed by a word starting with 's' makes it really difficult to pronounce.
Why is the game called X4: Foundations?
Owen: I think some people get confused because of the two different uses of the word foundations. I think some people maybe think foundation like a corporation or a charity, while we're more thinking of the building foundation. Something we build off and what the races in the universe are building off. They're still recovering from all the gates shut down and they're finally getting on their feet.
Bernd: It's funny, how we choose names. It was not not long before the presentation actually that we had a long list of possible names and some people like some, but there was no name that everybody liked. Once that we found this name, everybody seemed to like it. Partially for different reasons. But what I like about the names for X-games is always that they leave some things to interpretation just like the X itself. If the game stands for anything, then it stands for the freedom and that the game can be different things for different people.
I hate SuperGiant's naming scheme. Bastion? Transistor? Pyre(i couldn't even remember this one)?? Hades??? Cmon man, your company isn't called Giant but SuperGiant, make it stand out as your company's name!
Also VVVVVV. No one will notice this game if it come out today. Prey(2017) is the prime example of this.
The name Unity just needs to be avoided. I get the well intentioned meaning behind the word, but it has been the name of three major controversial/disastrous products in semi-recent history - Ubuntu Unity Desktop, Assassin's Creed: Unity, and the Unity Engine.
Kind of an odd one there in that as far as I understand, they were reusing one of their IP's, Red Dead Revolver.
Ironically, I played Red Dead Revolver as a kid, never played RDR2. That said, it's not like it's a cohesive universe between the two by any means, so your point still stands.
There's Red Dead Revolver, Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2. Revolver is thematically similar but beyond that isn't related to the other two. RDR and RDR2 are continuing the same story but the events of RDR2 take place before RDR.
Sequel: a published, broadcast, or recorded work that continues the story or develops the theme of an earlier one.
Just because it tells the story from before the first piece of work does not mean it is not a sequel. Prequel sequels are everywhere and basically always have been
I can't think of another example where a title with a 2 in it had a story that took place before the first one. The closest I can think of is The Godfather 2 (assuming I'm even remembering right) and that had the prequel parts as flashbacks within a story that took place after the first one.
Any game with the designer's name in it is dumb to me. The worst example is American McGee's Alice, mainly because the guy has a confusing name that makes the title sound especially dumb.
It's originally used by the game company to denote "this is one of those weird things HE's making, not our usual games" as a sort of sign of distrust from the marketing department
Meyer was just so good at what he did that it quite quickly turned into a badge of quality instead and the convention stuck
I guess I'm wrong then. I've only ever seen it referenced as Civ 6. I'm pretty sure that's the title on PS5 and Switch, but I've been mistaken before (once or twice).
2017's Prey
Even worse is that it is a trademark. There was a kickstarter for a game "prey for the gods" which could have gotten a trademark dispute over the usage of the name "prey" from bethesda.
So they changed the name to "praey for the gods" to not have to deal with yearlong legal battle and burn the Kickstarter funds.
Bethesda sucks. Damn.
And even worse, prey 2017 is actually a good game that should have totally been named Neuroshock or something
The names aren't terrible by themselves but it really sucks that the critically acclaimed narrative space puzzler "outerwilds" released the same month as the open world space rpg "outerworlds".
Supposedly their offices were near eachother and they'd joke about that.
Braid. Sounds like a dress up game but it's a puzzle platformers about time travel. I always have to explain it every time I talk about it
A lot of JRPG's with weird punctuation and seemingly neverending titles or made-up words.
Agree with most of these but
Revengeance is perfect
The MegaTen games have some weird ones, yeah. Like Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, then the sequel to that came out and it was just Soul Hackers 2. Same with how Persona 1 was Megami Ibunroku Persona and then became Shin Megami Tensei: Persona. Oh and how theres two Persona 2s, Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. Great games but man, really should have been like Persona 2 Part 1 and Part 2.
BlazBlue: Chronophantasma Extend
I don't believe any of these titles are real.
Not to defend the game itself but Neptunia is at least on some level a parody of other JRPGs, so the title is meant invoke that cringe. The first one was still called Hyperdimension Neptunia and the "resemicolonbirth" line was a remake which has its own remake now as well with a star in the title...
So, like I said, not defending it.
Drag is personally offended that you don't like Revengeance. Drag is a big fan of musical theatre and also of turning fascists into confetti.
Divine Divinity (sorry Larian, but it's true)
All the names in that series are horrible.
All games and movies that reuse the same name as the very first title in the franchise to make a "fresh start" while spitting on the original.
Any examples off the top of your head?
NFS: Hot Pursuit. HP2 was a perfect game in the arcade racer genre. HP remake doesn't even have bots in multiplayer, meaning you and your buddies won't be chased by cops because no one plays that game and the cops have to be played by humans.
Thanks
Tomb Raider, Doom, Mortal Kombat for example
Not bad games at all but I just don’t like that it’s claiming the name of something, basically saying it wasn’t good enough.
Thanks
Hahaha a few come to mind from the NES and SNES era.
"Hey punk! Are you TUFF-E-NUFF?" comes to mind.
Edit: was missing the first part of the title. Thanks for pointing it out! 👍
My favorite that I unironically love is Totally Rad. Short, sweet, to the point, and PERFECTLY encapsulation 80s radditude.
Hey Punk!
Oops! Forgot that park
This post is about bad names, not brilliance!
Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars. Not much changed between this and Rocket League, the name was probably the main thing holding them back.
that's just begging to be referred to solely as "SARPBC" pronounced as a word
FiST: Forged in Shadow Torch
Such a stupid and contrived name.
I think all the games that do this are annoying. We're not stupid, we can come up with an acronym for your name. It's silly, I know, but it made me not want to play FTL: faster than light for a long time.
The gameplay is as clumsy as the title. So it FiTS.
Ha ha... Take my updoot 👏
The protagonist fight with a big mecha fist though, I don't think it is that bad of a name?
Fist inside Someone's Tush
Yes, but the breakdown of the FiST acronym was very clumsily thrown together based around that concept.
Triangle Strategy
I genuinely thought that name was a joke about Fire Emblem for so long.
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactics_Ogre
Bang-On Balls: Chronicles
It sounds like either a throwaway mobile gacha game or an epic CBT adventure porno, but it's actually a pretty good 3D platformer.
Sounds like a porn box set
there's already a game called C.B.T. actually
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOIp7S_TTsw
Shadowrun (the arena shooter) probably would've been better received if it were named basically anything else.
I loved that game and i love the TTRPG. I'd always have to tell people it's not really a good Shadowrun game, it's just Counter-Strike with a couple mods. On console. With bots.
Which was, like, the best thing ever to me at the time. I ate that shit UP
I also found Death Stranding to be weird.
It's like... Death coming ashore?
I mean I get that it's about this whole concept of people having their own beach when they die or being able to travel to other people's beaches or something weird like that. But they're really pushing it with that title.
And also the fact that Death end with 'th' followed by a word starting with 's' makes it really difficult to pronounce.
Halo Infinite. Numbers are for mainline games. Subtitles are for spinoffs.
Infinite is a great name if the game is good enough to be something like Team Fortress or Counter Strike. A game that'll be played for decades.
Here's the online game, and here are the solo games. That would have been great... if the studio could make good games.
Pure genius though. Gets the first spot of any game list it's featured in, when sorting alphabetically.
X4 Foundations. I have probably 500 hours in it and still don't know what it really means. But it's a unique and interesting game.
It's the fourth game in the X series. Originally named after the player's ship in the first game, the X-Shuttle. X being short for experimental.
Regarding "Foundations", from the Release Q&A
D
Z
Just Cause. I actually like the series as a kind of brain-off game, but I always read the name as "just cuz".
I felt like that was the joke
"Why are you smashing a town with two helicopters chained together?"
Yeah this one is actually a great title with the double meaning
I’d spend so much time doing stupid shit like that. That game was great for just fucking around in with the Rocket Boosters and shit
That's the pun. It's intentional
anno.
If you know a little of spanish is just sounds awful
because it's in Latin (or Italian)...
I hate SuperGiant's naming scheme. Bastion? Transistor? Pyre(i couldn't even remember this one)?? Hades??? Cmon man, your company isn't called Giant but SuperGiant, make it stand out as your company's name!
Also VVVVVV. No one will notice this game if it come out today. Prey(2017) is the prime example of this.
All 6 of those names are fine to me. VVVVVV is borderline but not nearly as bad as some of the stuff here.
All of them that are so generic I gotta add "the videogame" to when I'm googling.
The Sexy Brutale
Such a good game and such a weird name for it. I highly recommend it.
I really hate the Xbox system names.
Ordered the Peri Peri Chicken Club at a cafe today as it reminded me of a strangely named game.
Ubuntu have had some weird-ass names for their titles (Warty Warthog, Edgy Eft, urgh) and the games themselves have been pretty lacklustre.
There was this one level where you had to rearrange icons to the left and it just looked stupid. Unity or something.
The name Unity just needs to be avoided. I get the well intentioned meaning behind the word, but it has been the name of three major controversial/disastrous products in semi-recent history - Ubuntu Unity Desktop, Assassin's Creed: Unity, and the Unity Engine.
Red Dead Redemption 2. It's not a sequel. Love the game though.
Kind of an odd one there in that as far as I understand, they were reusing one of their IP's, Red Dead Revolver. Ironically, I played Red Dead Revolver as a kid, never played RDR2. That said, it's not like it's a cohesive universe between the two by any means, so your point still stands.
There's Red Dead Revolver, Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2. Revolver is thematically similar but beyond that isn't related to the other two. RDR and RDR2 are continuing the same story but the events of RDR2 take place before RDR.
Sequel: a published, broadcast, or recorded work that continues the story or develops the theme of an earlier one.
Just because it tells the story from before the first piece of work does not mean it is not a sequel. Prequel sequels are everywhere and basically always have been
I can't think of another example where a title with a 2 in it had a story that took place before the first one. The closest I can think of is The Godfather 2 (assuming I'm even remembering right) and that had the prequel parts as flashbacks within a story that took place after the first one.
The immediate one that comes to mind because it was a big deal back then is FNAF2
Okay, that's 2.5 examples between us then. I'd hardly consider that to be "everywhere".
Civ
That's not the name of the game.
Sid Meier's Civilization is a weird name.
Any game with the designer's name in it is dumb to me. The worst example is American McGee's Alice, mainly because the guy has a confusing name that makes the title sound especially dumb.
It's originally used by the game company to denote "this is one of those weird things HE's making, not our usual games" as a sort of sign of distrust from the marketing department
Meyer was just so good at what he did that it quite quickly turned into a badge of quality instead and the convention stuck
Its the same idea as Stephen King's IT
Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story
Sid Meyer's Civ 6, is the name of one game. If you're unfamiliar with the franchise then you might not have any clue what the game is about.
No it isn't. It's straight up called Civilization VI everywhere. What are you smoking ?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/289070/Sid_Meiers_Civilization_VI/?curator_clanid=32844624
It doesn't say "Civ" anywhere in the promotional text.
I guess I'm wrong then. I've only ever seen it referenced as Civ 6. I'm pretty sure that's the title on PS5 and Switch, but I've been mistaken before (once or twice).