If you think Bravely Default is a bizarre game title, get a load of these
What’s In A Name?
Yesterday, Samantha Nelson shared her thoughts on Bravely Default, the latest RPG from Final Fantasy overlords Square Enix. Landstander did not default and bravely asked the question on everyone’s mind: Why does the title have to be so weird? stepped_pyramids courageously reflected on of Square Enix’s track record of strange titles:
This is the company that thought a cool name for the fighting game version of their popular Final Fantasy series was Ehrgeiz: God Bless The Ring. Years later, they took another shot at it and called it Dissidia Final Fantasy, which at least had the name of the series in it. But the sequel to that game was called Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, because that makes sense. And that one had a spinoff called Dissidia Duodecim Prologus Final Fantasy, apparently.
caspiancomic valiantly added one more absurd title for good measure:
See also: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. You can stare at that title for as long as you like, but you will never, ever naturally deduce that it’s supposed to be pronounced “three five eight days over two.” On top of that, the intended pronunciation makes no more sense than the written title.
And as emisan daringly noted, let’s not forget about Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. And here’s one from me: Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.
Just Be Cool
Ryan Smith brought us a story about a top North American StarCraft 2 player, a Canadian competitor who goes by Scarlett. Scarlett also happens to be a transgender woman, and part of Ryan’s story dealt with the reaction that fact has caused with some members of the games community. Responding to a commenter who was surprised to hear the gaming community, which is largely thought of as a bunch of marginalized people itself, would not be more accepting, Mr. Martini brought up a social science theory about this phenomenon:
Commenter Lemon Of Troy tipped me off to an interesting field of social science called Horizontal Hostility. It examines hostile attitudes between individuals in similarly oppressed minority groups.