Worst titles for individual entries in long-running franchises?

[Quinton]

If a franchise is around long enough, there's a decent chance it will either quit with conventional numerically-based sequel titles or - at a minimum - offer more unique names for spin-off entries. Final Fantasy Adventure, Super Mario World, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, God of War: Chains of Olympus. That stuff. And of course, there are plenty of franchises that never incorporated numerical titles in the first place - Super Smash Bros Brawl, Pokemon X & Y, so on and so forth.

What, in your mind, are some of the absolute clunkers in long-running franchise titles? The usual suspects, like Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, are often said to fit the bill here. I've seen folks laugh at Xenoblade Chronicles X as well. Or EA's pseudo-rebranding of Star Wars Battlefront; don't confuse Star Wars Battlefront and Star Wars Battlefront II with Star Wars Battlefront (2015) and Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)! Unofficial titles, of course, but it's how the fandom differentiates them because there's... no simpler way to do so.

My (potential) dark-horse candidate is Monster Hunter: World. "World" is just such a weak, singular, word to utilize as a sub-title, and even though I try to enunciate the full title with the same neutral inflection ("Monster Hunter World") my brain always wants me to pause and say "Monster Hunter - World" and as stupid as this probably reads, it just hurts!

 

[Deleted member 81119]

I like it when game series forego the usual Hero Warrior 3 / 4 / 5 etc. in favour of something more imaginative. I certainly prefer something unusual to Hero Warrior: Origins.

And yeah, one such example is Xenoblade Chronicles X. Why not use a letter instead of a number? Final Fantasy Tactics A2 is the same. What's wrong with that? It's more imaginative than Final Fantasy Tactics III.

 

[CHC]

You either die an "Origins," or you live long enough to see yourself become the "Revelations"

 

[Señor Sepia]

You either die an "Origins," or you live long enough to see yourself become the "Revelations"

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How about valhala and ragnarok?

 

[RXM027]

Metroid Other M.

GET IT, THE INITIALS SPELL MOM
IF YOU PUT M IN FRONT OF OTHER YOU GET MOTHER
SYMBOLISM

 

[CloseTalker]

I mean, it's Devil May Cry 2. Rarely does a long running and well-regarded franchise have such an obvious misstep

edit ohhhh, you mean literal titles. lol i dunno, the entire way Nintendo names Mario games I guess

 

[Stowaway Silfer]

Sword and Shield, tho at this point I imagine it's not easy to find a good name

 

[BasilZero]

DmC: Devil May Cry

Devil May Cry Devil May Cry

I mean, it's Devil May Cry 2. Rarely does a long running and well-regarded franchise have such an obvious misstep

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Lmao , I was about to post this but OP is talking about sub titles of the names of games.

 

[Glio]

People don't even read the OP.

 

[JaseMath]

It's Other M and it's not close IMO

 

[Manu]

Anything Kingdom Hearts

 

[HylianSeven]

I know it doesn't technically fit since it's a franchise of only two games, but the first game has been around a while.

The Prey franchise has two games: Prey and Prey

Oh you can't tell the difference?

 

[Lobster Roll]

I honestly thought Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker, and Breath of the Wild were all dumb titles, but then they grew on me. Probably because of the fact that they represent legendary experiences.

 

[Daggoth]

Any love for Resident Evil Revelaitons? A misspelled title that says "we'll reveal stuff" and it's just another game in the series

 

[gogojira]

Edit: I missed the point of this thread.

 

[Man Called Aerodynamics]

I really dislike how Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag decided to go with both the sequel number and the subtitle. It looks awkward and breaks with the conventions of all the other titles in the series.

 

[FallenGrace]

Anything Kingdom Hearts

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This. It's all nonsense.

My vote for worst name game though (not part of a series) is Infinite Undiscovery (forever finding nothing?) Just awful.

 

[BassForever]

All DS games that tried to be cute

Resident Evil Deadly Silence
Advance Wars Dual Strike
Bleach Dark Souls
Dig Dug Digging Strike
Lunar Dragon Song

 

[Dad]

Super Smash Bros. for 3DS/Wii is such a defeated shrug of a title. I also dislike how Legacy of Kain flipflops back and forth on its titles and subtitles

 

[Deleted member 34949]

Anything Kingdom Hearts

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Chain of Memories is a passable title. Everything past that is word salad though, yeah.

 

[Rhete]

I know it doesn't technically fit since it's a franchise of only two games, but the first game has been around a while.

The Prey franchise has two games: Prey and Prey

Oh you can't tell the difference?

Click to shrink...

My favorite is the Strider games. This is how Wikipedia lists them.

Strider (arcade)
Strider (NES)
Strider II (1990)
Strider 2 (1999)
Strider (2014)

 

[Ayirek]

Stranger of Paradise is such a bizarre title. Final Fantasy Origin is also ill-fitting since that was the name of the PS1 re-release of FFI and FFII.

 

[BasilZero]

Chain of Memories is a passable title. Everything past that is word salad though, yeah.

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I thought Birth By Sleep was cool.

Coded was okay too but the game was garbage.

 

[RXM027]

Also, Shift 2 Unleashed. They had to drop the Need for Speed part of the title, because the "Unleashed" subtitle was too important apparently.

 

[myth]

RE Revelation games, like wtf is the title supposed to signal to?

 

[Jimnymebob]

I know it doesn't technically fit since it's a franchise of only two games, but the first game has been around a while.

The Prey franchise has two games: Prey and Prey

Oh you can't tell the difference?

Click to shrink...

Yeah, Prey is good, and Prey isn't.

 

[Nano-Nandy]

Dissidia 012 [duodecim] Final Fantasy
Sequel to Dissidia Final Fantasy
Followed by Dissidia Final Fantasy NT

 

[RoboPlato]

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War

They had to give the subtitle a subtitle

 

[KillstealWolf]

Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below may not be the worst title, but it's up there in the running for the longest.

Does this count?

Under Night In-Birth Exe :Late [cl-r]

...Yeah there is a reason why it's been abbreviated to UNIEL in the fanbase. Guess the debate is if it's a series though...

 

[The Unsent]

Metroid: Other M

For context, I read the title is wordplay for 'Mother'.

The jokes write themselves, there are good Metroid games and there is the other one.

 

[HylianSeven]

My favorite is the Strider games. This is how Wikipedia lists them.

Strider (arcade)
Strider (NES)
Strider II (1990)
Strider 2 (1999)
Strider (2014)

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Jeez I had no idea about that one.

I've never liked the trend of reboots or sequels where they name it the same as the first one or a previous one, unless it's a remake of course. Sometimes if the reboot sucks, people just forget about it and don't really acknowledge it. You have cases like Doom, where both games are well loved. Doom and Doom, but of course people call the latter Doom 2016 even though that's not it's official title. I'm just glad they called the sequel Doom Eternal instead of Doom 2. Mortal Kombat had a similar thing, where the reboot was just "Mortal Kombat" but most people call it Mortal Kombat 9. The MK11 logo looks like "Mortal Kombat II", but is definitely 11.

 

[Stowaway Silfer]

All DS games that tried to be cute

Resident Evil Deadly Silence
Advance Wars Dual Strike
Bleach Dark Souls
Dig Dug Digging Strike
Lunar Dragon Song

Click to shrink...

I unironically like this lol

 

[Deleted member 34949]

Shinobi has at least two games after the original game simply titled "Shinobi"

- One was a 3D soft reboot of sorts for PS2. Good game, too.
- The other is a 3DS launch window 2.5D title that serves as a prequel to the events of the Arcade/Genesis/Game Gear games. Also a good, if difficult game.

In all fairness, I believe the Japanese release of the latter is called Shinobi 3D, but yeah.

 

[Mentok]

Anything Kingdom Hearts

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My pick as well. Every time I read a KH title, I think of that South Park joke about manatees pushing random word balls.

 

[Sumio Mondo]

Here in Europe they called the following games simply 'Castlevania':

Castlevania (GBA)
Castlevania (N64)

The series was already known by then. I honestly thought they were ports/remakes of the original NES game until later.

I also still disagree with them getting rid of the numbering for the Yakuza series. Like a Dragon is 7 to me and always will be. Are they going to call Yakuza 8 - Like a Dragon 2 over here?

The whole Final Fantasy 2 (IV) and Final Fantasy 3 (VI) naming also confused me for years.

And yeah the naming for Prey and Prey and the Strider series is similarly confusing. Same with Shinobi on 3DS, which was a new entry also but was simply called 'Shinobi' and the PS2 entry. Both great games but yeah, they were maybe thought of as 'soft reboots', I guess? The PS2 Shinobi had a sequel just called Nightshade, which I didn't know got a sequel until many years later too.

 

[KtotheRoc]

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z. Both the worst title and the worst game in the franchise.

 

[TheChrisGlass]

Forza Horizon was weird because it goes 1 2 3 4 5 but Motorsport is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.

 

[Deleted member 13798]

Code Veronica X is probably one of the most important games in the modern RE plot due to the return and empowerment of Wesker alone, but still gets referred to as a side game because of it's title.

Ironically 4 had the least to do with the overall series story at the time it released despite it's name.

 

[OneThirtyEight]

4 Resident Evil

 

[MrWindUpBird]

I know it doesn't technically fit since it's a franchise of only two games, but the first game has been around a while.

The Prey franchise has two games: Prey and Prey

Oh you can't tell the difference?

Click to shrink...

This is about the loosest you could call a series a "franchise." The games have nothing to do with each other.

 

[AmirMoosavi]

Metroid Other M.

GET IT, THE INITIALS SPELL MOM
IF YOU PUT M IN FRONT OF OTHER YOU GET MOTHER
SYMBOLISM

Click to shrink...

...

I never realised this.

...

 

[Magister Xehanort]

Anything Kingdom Hearts

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I always think people exaggerate when they say bad things about Kingom Hearts

 

[Tyrant Rave]

Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below may not be the worst title, but it's up there in the running for the longest.

Does this count?

Under Night In-Birth Exe :Late [cl-r]

...Yeah there is a reason why it's been abbreviated to UNIEL in the fanbase. Guess the debate is if it's a series though...

Click to shrink...

well that one is UNICLR, it's the fourth one in the series:
Under Night In-birth - UNIB
Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late - UNIEL
Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late[st] - UNIST
Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late [cl-r] - UNICLR

I don't really think any of them stands out as the *worst* for me though. They're all pretty much the same with just minor subtitle changes.

 

[darkhunger]

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

The first game's name was cool because it was making a reference to two Queen songs ("Ogre Battle" and "March of the Black Queen"), but what the heck is a "Tactics Ogre"? Why not just "Ogre Battle Tactics" to keep the Queen reference? Plus the other half of the name (even if it's another Queen song) just sounds weird since it's not being contextualized well. Not to mention after Matsuno left Quest they stopped making reference to Queen songs in subsequent games so it just sounds like a strange and random name in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Angie]

Metroid Other M.

GET IT, THE INITIALS SPELL MOM
IF YOU PUT M IN FRONT OF OTHER YOU GET MOTHER
SYMBOLISM

Click to shrink...

Omg I never realized that lol

 

[delete12345]

What, in your mind, are some of the absolute clunkers in long-running franchise titles?

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Kunio-kun titles. They don't use numeric values in their titles, and almost all of the titles are long-winded.

Each game describes what the game is going to play like, so it's like a tradition to read their titles.

Then again, I personally don't think their titles are the worst, but I might be a minority.

 

[Desma]

STAR OCEAN™ - THE LAST HOPE -™ 4K & Full HD Remaster

Those are the only 2 resolutions you're legally allowed to play the game at

 

[Platy]

All DS games that tried to be cute

Resident Evil Deadly Silence
Advance Wars Dual Strike
Bleach Dark Souls
Dig Dug Digging Strike
Lunar Dragon Song

Click to shrink...

You are a monster
Names that play on the console's name are awesome, specially if they go the extra mile like "Triple Deluxe" and "Dream Drop Distance", both puns on 3Ds

 

[Jakenbakin]

The Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles got kind of ridiculous pretty fast. Supposedly Square had wanted it to be spun off into its own subseries and to drop the Final Fantasy moniker, but since that didn't happen you ended up with titles like

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers

And even though there's only one colon in use the logos are designed so Final Fantasy is usually a separate element from Crystal Chronicles and a separate element from the subtitle.

 

[Keiriks]

Here in Europe they called the following games simply 'Castlevania':

Castlevania (GBA)
Castlevania (N64)

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You're forgetting Castlevania (PS2)