Hi! I know this seems like a pretty bad idea for a first post, but believe it or not answering this thread is why I joined the forum.
These games have good names, but are I find them hard to pronounce.
ESP Ra. De.
Gynoug
Jung Rythm
Gotzendiener
Yggdra Union
Gaiares
VVVVVV
ESP Ra.De.'s an interesting one. It looks like a three-word phrase of some sort, but it's really a strangely-written single-word abbreviation. It is pronounced and sometimes written as one word: "Esprade" ("esp-raid"). "ESP" refers to all the things it does, while "Ra.De." is short for "Raging Deicide"; this was apparently the composer's idea (it's also the name of the boss theme), and he was apparently a fan of the band Deicide. Also note that it's sometimes misprinted "Decide". Espgaluda, its spiritual successor, is similar. "Galuda" just refers to
these things though. (It should be noted that "galuda" and "garuda" are both correct and are pronounced the exact same as far as Japanese goes; I don't know about the original Sanskrit)
Gynoug sounds like it'd just be "guy-noog", and I thought so myself. Apparently it's actually "ji-nohg", which still makes sense.
Jung Rhythm appears to be just "jungle rhythm" without the -le part, which matches up with the kana.
Götzendiener is pretty strange. I don't know the German side of things at all (it's a real word at least), but going by the katakana it seems to be something like "get-sen-dee-ner".
I am not familiar with the pronunciation of Yggdrasil, but I guess you could pronounce the Yggdra part "yig-dra" like most people do, or "yug-dra" like the katakana uses.
Gaiares is surprisingly straight-forward, it's just "guy-a-res". I think it's actually supposed to be a contraction of "Gaia" and "Ares".
VVVVVV is exactly as annoying as it looks: vee vee vee vee vee vee.
I'd like to open this other line of discussion with the perennial and obvious: the lead character of Final Fantasy V used to be named "Butz", and we must never, ever let them forget it.
Is this actually true? I've wondered about this for ages... is there some old source that doesn't just use the katakana all the time? (I really don't have a lot of love for old terrible localizations)
Irritating Stick, at least, is indeed pretty apt. It's not even a mistranslation, though I guess you could translate "dengeki" differently. Maybe there needs to be an article about the Dengeki Iraira Bou games and the similar Kururin series...
I've always wondered if this wasn't meant to be a giant middle finger to something... it's just so
blatant.
Ninja Warriors Again
...What? Not again!
I always liked "The Ninja Warriors Again" simply because it's so much more unique than slapping on a "2" or "Super" (God in heaven) or whatever other cliche you want. If it matters, Again is more or less a remake of the original game.
I don't see an issue with the FFT title... it's not weird at all. If it's about the "A2" thing, it's a spiritual sequel to Advance, and since A2 isn't a Game Boy Advance game...
Anyway, Ninja Master's was almost pretty clever. The thing is that many people miss the five-kanji phrase right after it (覇王忍法帳), though said phrase is also written as a subtitle for some idiotic reason. Had it not been, basically the entire title would be referring to a specific thing, albeit lacking a nice "The" at the beginning (which everyone would ignore anyway). At the same time, the meaning of the phrase suggests that "Ninja Master's" is a broken form of a translation for it, though honestly I'm not sure if 覇王 is ever used to refer to ninja leaders.
I remembered another bad game name, by the way. Street Fighter Zero Three Double Upper. Some of those sequel/prequel names get ridiculously long.
More like update/update, heh; it's a minor update to Upper, which is a fairly big Naomi/DC update to the original game. Japan would prefer to use actual arrows when they need to print the names of those two, outside of kana).
Technically, even
Zero 2 is a update, and Zero 3 is the only real sequel in that series. Capcom also did that with Vampire (Vampire Hunter is an update) Street Fighter III (2nd Impact is an update), and I almost thought they did it with Street Fighter IV but they did it in reverse (Super is a sequel but Ultra is an update). And don't forget Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha, oh man.
Tech Romancer sounds like a fetish porn movie.
I don't know, it's a cute pun that I'd expect from a native English speaker! Might be why it's a localized title, never mind how silly Capcom localizations were then. There's probably some in-game G Gundam-tier relationship that makes it two words?
The original title, Choukou Senki Kikaioh, fits into the whole "four kanji description + katakana name" that Japan loves so much.
It's a really beloved series, but Final Fantasy is a terrible name for a series with so many sequels and spinoffs.
I'm sure everyone ever knows the legend, but it'd be rude not to counter this. The whole point was that the original Final Fantasy was going to be Square's last and biggest game; it'd be wrong of them to just change it like that when the series ended up being their only real success for a LONG time.
I second Square-Enix's convoluted titling. Kingdom Hearts is really guilty of this, and many Final Fantasy titles tend to go bananas with awkward titles, too. Being pretentious doesn't earn you cool points. XD
There's "pretentious", but there's also "trying not to be so boring"... I think I'd take the latter at the supposed risk of the former every time.
Going by the Japanese pronunciation, Gynoug is actually "Jee-Nohg".
On that note, Esp Ra. De. is "Esp-ride".
It sounds more like "jih", and I find that to be a better pronunciation of the "gy-" part. Obviously "jai" is superior, but "jih" is about on part with "guy" I guess.
Esprade is definitely "raid". Somehow I feel like it was really was originally called "Espraid" and got the Ra.De. part when the composer piped up.
How about stupid Japanese to Western Name changes like Gunbird and Shikigami no Shiro becoming Mobile Light force and Shienryu bcoming Gekioh Shooting King (Which isn't any easier to pronouce)
I think MLF goes well beyond a "name change"... I'd call it
fraud, but hey.
Gekioh is actually a rename of that entire port;
here's scans of the original Japanese release, and note the 紫炎龍 on the title screen, just under the rest of the logo. Not only that, but "Gekioh" might actually be a development name of Shienryu they wanted to honor, as this game is the sequel to a 1993 game called Daioh.
I wish XDR was a good game because I really like that title for some reason. Makes me think of things like Rayxanber (of course) and Bari-arm.
And I never played it but Blomby Car has to be the dumbest name for anything.
Ahh, good old Blomby Car; so popular it has a Flash conversion.
Silly bootleg of Gaelco's World Rally Championship. Just play that!
Sonic 3 and Knuckles is my absolute least favorite. Sonic and Knuckles 3 sounds wrong. Sonic 3 is hard to use around people who know there is a distinction. I talk about the game an awful lot too.
Eh, I don't get it. You have Sonic 3, and then Sonic & Knuckles, and then you literally put them together to get Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
-Mega Man Xtreme 1 and 2
-Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors has Xtreme Legends expansions
These two are actually kinda clever. The Mega Man Xtreme games are simply known as "Rockman X" and "Rockman X2" (both with subtitles) in Japan; the localizers thought it'd be cool to make a pun-like construct off of "X", so they went with everyone's favorite.
Same with Xtreme Legends; it's a nod to the XL size, being an expansion. For the record, the original name for the expansions is 猛将伝 (Moushouden), which from what I understand is used by Koei for a LOT of games.
I'm probably going to get bricks thrown at me for saying this but: Streets of Rage.
I know, right!? But these days I can't quite like that name so much anymore. I find Bare Knuckle to be a cooler-looking/sounding title than the US name for the series.
I'm fine with the Streets of Rage name, but I do like the name Bare Knuckle better; it's a "fun" name like Spinal Breakers, Night Slashers, etc.
It came out in 1996, and by then the Jaguar was suffering in sales.
pretty sure the jaguar was always suffering in sales hue
There was also Sega's Bio-Hazard Battle which, while it probably wasn't a huge deal, probably had to do with the namechange as well.
Speaking of which,
that game's Japanese title, "Crying", was pretty awful in of itself.
It is. I still don't exactly know
why it was chosen. Bio-Hazard Battle may sound kind of generic, but it's at least a thousand times better than Crying.
Nuh uh! I wish Sega kept the original "Crying" name; cool name and VERY cool logo/title screen/boxart for that game's theme (environmental pollution). Maybe that theme needed to be emphasized a bit more, but I think that might have shattered people's minds. Fucking weird and dark game does not need such a boring title, at any rate.
This most likely should be "Götzendiener", meaning "servant of a false idol" in German. As such, unless you just wanna pronounce it in a Japanese manner, it should actually be Gu-dsen-dee-nah.
Oh, it's not that far off then. Maybe I'm just reading the kana wrong anyway...
Castlevania Lords of Shadow Mirror of Fate.
Lady Stalker
Knights in the Nightmare
I've never minded colon spam, but I don't like how an entire reboot is getting cordoned off like that. I know they pretty much depend on the Castlevania name and all, but damn.
Lady Stalker is named because it's a spiritual sequel to Landstalker; see also Time Stalkers, though that game has a different original name (maybe Time Stalkers was the original name). Feel free to instead suggest Landstalker to begin with, though I like it for the game's context (traveling treasure hunter).
Knights in the Nightmare is just so darned cool of a title. It almost sounds
cliche but isn't at all, and is in no way out of place.
*
Not so much a awful name as it is a poorly translated one. The meaning of 'Trad' paired with the fact that the Japanese Release was called 'Raiden Densetsu' (The legend of Raiden) leads me to think that someone at Seibu, Electrobrain or Micronet just didn't check their handywork.I think your link kinda explains why they went with it. Apparently "densetsu" isn't so specific and has a bit of leeway with its meaning... specifically, "traditional". A rare meaning, maybe, but that probably has more to do with trying to use the same definitions for so many works than anything else.
Wolfish Gallop: Legacy of the Solomon
Tama: Adventurous Ball in Giddy Labyrinth
I can't get enough of crazy names like these. Can't even call them bad, they've got too much energy behind them to rag on.
How has Bravely Default: For the Sequel not been immediately entered as a stupid title?
The thing about crazy names these days is that they try to be really blatant about them. "defaulting" is the game's term for the typical defend command, but it's a
lot more important here than it would be in other games, so you very much want to bravely (and smartly) default when necessary. There are also Brave Points, which fuel your techniques I think, but I think those were named after the fact. And then "For the Sequel" was indeed accompanied with a "sales of this version gauge whether we make a sequel".
Ninja GaidenGenma OnimushaRenny BlasterCastlevania I don't know, I think "ninja gaiden" is as structurally sound as "ninja ryuukenden" is to begin with. Ninja Gaiden is actually kinda generic/vague as a name, if you think about it. The LD title is indeed pretty sweet, and I think it clarifies more than "Ninja Ryukenden" does! However, I dislike the use of "story", simply because it's always been that monogatari = story and den(setsu) = legend/tale. There's also a certain line that it gets close to crossing...
I think your explanation is kinda why they went with Genma Onimusha. It could also be a pun.
I think Renny Blaster is the character's name. It was probably meant to be Lenny, and as always would almost never be noticed.
Castlevania is
the Dracula-themed title of titles, and I find it really hard to hate on. Something would have taken that title up eventually, you know.
wow i can't believe i went through this entire year old topic
and didn't even have any names of my own. oh well