this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
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In your opinion, what video games have terrible names?

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Bethesda sucks. Damn.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

And even worse, prey 2017 is actually a good game that should have totally been named Neuroshock or something

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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".

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Supposedly their offices were near eachother and they'd joke about that.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Divine Divinity (sorry Larian, but it's true)

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago

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

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

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.
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Agree with most of these but

Revengeance is perfect

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Any examples off the top of your head?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

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! 👍

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

My favorite that I unironically love is Totally Rad. Short, sweet, to the point, and PERFECTLY encapsulation 80s radditude.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars. Not much changed between this and Rocket League, the name was probably the main thing holding them back.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

It’s got a beautiful flow when you say it out loud, though.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (7 children)

FiST: Forged in Shadow Torch

Such a stupid and contrived name.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The gameplay is as clumsy as the title. So it FiTS.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (9 children)

Anything with a subtitle that isn’t a sequel or licensed game.

  • Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
  • Blood Omen: The Legacy of Kain
  • Condemned: Criminal Origins
  • Immortals: Fenyx Rising

That sort of thing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Kingdome Come: Deliverance.

So the sequel gonna be different subtitle right? Right? Not just adding a 2 at the back right?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I genuinely thought that name was a joke about Fire Emblem for so long.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (10 children)

Octopath Traveler
Octopath Traveler II
Triangle Strategy

Bravely Default is pretty bad too

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Shadowrun (the arena shooter) probably would've been better received if it were named basically anything else.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Halo Infinite. Numbers are for mainline games. Subtitles are for spinoffs.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

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

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)
  • Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi (PSX, 1997)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Technically, one Star Wars game should be called Star Wars: Dark Forces IV: Jedi Knight III: Jedi Outcast II: Jedi Academy

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