Knew this would be about FF13 by just seeing the name. I've never seen the problem with l'Cie, fal'Cie, etc. To me it's literally no different than Jedi, Sith, Dwemer, etc. You learn about it as you learn about the world/universe. Also, they explain what they are in the first four pages of the manual that came with your game.
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Do Nonsense Words in Games Bother You?
- Thread starter Archtreyz
- Start date
The 'Worst birthday ever'.
The difference between the use of Sith and Jedi, and the l'Cie stuff, is that Sith and Jedi are cleary defined and you don't need to read through 4 pages of a manual to figure out what it means.
moondoggerr
Banned
I love Halo, but the NON- nonsense words the grunts say always bug me. Seems like its from another, more whimsical game.
its only annoying when its not properly explained and they expect you to know what they are talking about like in FFXIII. Like they barely explain the I'Cie and Fal'Cie stuff and just expect to know what the hell they are talking. You have to go into the menu and read about it to figure out what the hell all that stuff is.
Joe Spangle
Member
I would like to offer the OP my most enthusiastic contrafribblarities.
I'm anus-peptic, phrasmotic, even compunctious that this issue has caused you such pericombobulation.
I'm anus-peptic, phrasmotic, even compunctious that this issue has caused you such pericombobulation.
At least with your post, there is proper context to figure out what you're saying.
At the extreme end, it can be bad. But on the other hand its annoying when the whole world lacks any real names and everything is called "The Whatever" to avoid making up words.
So ultimately its just a question of good writing, knowing how to introduce new words well rather than just dumping them on the player. Also keeping the spelling simple helps.
So ultimately its just a question of good writing, knowing how to introduce new words well rather than just dumping them on the player. Also keeping the spelling simple helps.
To answer the OP, it's not nonsense words for singular spells/elves/whatever that bother me, it's when a games entire mythology is built upon them. Thus creating a house of cards that slowly increases in its ridiculousness over the next 50+ hours as characters continue to introduce and describe new concepts in ever-more-complex variations based on the original nonsense. While the original stuff might be simple, by the time the end-game nonsense concepts roll around, they might as well be talking Martian. This has the result of the biggest moments in the game revolving around ideas where the cast think it's vitally important and discuss variations while brainstorming as if it's basic science, but the player has just heard nonsense term #38, #39 and #40 in a row, all of which are now in play for the grand finale.
I suppose it's like watching Star Trek and hearing someone out of nowhere say 'we can win if we reverse the polarity through the Wiggins tubes and increase the Marge factor by 73%!'. Just leaves the audience nodding along, going 'that's good, right?'. It sounds cool but if the series hasn't given the audience the info to reach that conclusion on their own, it can feel like a constant series of bullshit solutions you didn't even know were available.
I suppose it's like watching Star Trek and hearing someone out of nowhere say 'we can win if we reverse the polarity through the Wiggins tubes and increase the Marge factor by 73%!'. Just leaves the audience nodding along, going 'that's good, right?'. It sounds cool but if the series hasn't given the audience the info to reach that conclusion on their own, it can feel like a constant series of bullshit solutions you didn't even know were available.
BiGBoSSMk23
A company being excited for their new game is a huge slap in the face to all the fans that liked their old games.
Whatchumeen Lalilulelo is nonsense?
Teletraan1
Banned
I knew this thread's OP was going to contain Final Fantasy XIII.
Every media has a lot of made up names and terms but I think this game made the mistake of making the two opposing sides Fal'Cie and L'Cie. Those two words mean nothing to me, are too similar and I still couldn't tell you which is which and I played the damn game 2x. Part of this stems from the fact that I didn't really care which is which because the story is garbage but the samey names really didn't help.
Every media has a lot of made up names and terms but I think this game made the mistake of making the two opposing sides Fal'Cie and L'Cie. Those two words mean nothing to me, are too similar and I still couldn't tell you which is which and I played the damn game 2x. Part of this stems from the fact that I didn't really care which is which because the story is garbage but the samey names really didn't help.
I guess it's not really the use of fictional words, but the overuse and lack of context of them. Using a made up word is fine, but it has to be simple enough to figure out what it means and it should have some importance.
I might be in the minority but I'm a big fan of this kind of thing. A well-crafted substratum language really helps an invented world come alive. I'm looking forward to playing Skyrim for just this reason.
I think the Roegadyn names are meant to be based on Proto-Germanic (as opposed to the elf-like Ishgardians, which are French, and the potatoes, which are nonsense repeated syllables). So you can actually puzzle them out sometimes. Merlwyb is related to modern German Meer (the sea) and Weib (wife), so her name means "wife of the sea". The frequently-walked-past Ahldskyf's name just means "old ship".
The "Cie"-related names in FF13 suffer because Japanese readers emphasize the first syllables (l'Cie is "RU-shi" and fal-Cie is "FARU-shi") so they sound different enough; speakers of European languages never emphasize those prefixes so it's the "Cie" part that we hear over and over. The translators probably should have overruled Toriyama and made some new names.
(Also, this is just a pet theory of mine, but I think the name "Pulse" for the world is a mistranslation. In Latin, "Pars" (these two words go into Japanese the same way: パルス
means (among many other things) "region" or "area", and so "Gran Pulse" would just mean "the big region". The world in FFXIII-3 is even called "Novus Partus" in the Japanese original. So we shouldn't have had to learn such an unfamiliar word that time.)
I think the Roegadyn names are meant to be based on Proto-Germanic (as opposed to the elf-like Ishgardians, which are French, and the potatoes, which are nonsense repeated syllables). So you can actually puzzle them out sometimes. Merlwyb is related to modern German Meer (the sea) and Weib (wife), so her name means "wife of the sea". The frequently-walked-past Ahldskyf's name just means "old ship".
The "Cie"-related names in FF13 suffer because Japanese readers emphasize the first syllables (l'Cie is "RU-shi" and fal-Cie is "FARU-shi") so they sound different enough; speakers of European languages never emphasize those prefixes so it's the "Cie" part that we hear over and over. The translators probably should have overruled Toriyama and made some new names.
(Also, this is just a pet theory of mine, but I think the name "Pulse" for the world is a mistranslation. In Latin, "Pars" (these two words go into Japanese the same way: パルス
means (among many other things) "region" or "area", and so "Gran Pulse" would just mean "the big region". The world in FFXIII-3 is even called "Novus Partus" in the Japanese original. So we shouldn't have had to learn such an unfamiliar word that time.)It was a nice idea, and it did serve the purpose of making things sound initially overwhelming and incomprehensible to the player following Luke's viewpoint, but it didn't really amount to much when it was still just the same magic in gameplay and the same set dressing and plot devices outside of gameplay that any other RPG would use. It ended up getting a little silly with characters throwing around phrases like "perfect isofon" and "second-order hyperresonance". Honestly it was probably all put there because they thought it sounded cool, like all the terms in the religion and its military being musical and uniforms having staff patterns despite the only thing about them being musical being one of the main characters using magical hymns, or how half the names of locations were random references to the Kaballah.
I just found it odd that humans kept using 'L'cie' when 'pawn' or 'slave' or 'puppet' or 'servant' are clearer in concept as a negative and to pronounce. Just because some bag of ancient tossers wants to call you a made-up word doesn't mean most people would use it, especially if they aren't that keen on their new status.
I quite liked it in Supernatural where Dean doesn't like the idea of being an Angelic vassel, despite higher powers calling it an honour, he calls it 'walking around as an angel condom'.
I don't really think they're clearly defined at first glance. As the franchise is over 30 years old, of course they're commonplace now. But when you first see the Star Wars movies, you learn what a Jedi is over the course of the movie. What is a Jedi? A space knight? Why not just call them that? What is a Padawan? An apprentice? Why not just call them that? What is a Sith? An evil Jedi? Why not just call them that? etc. These are nonsense words that mean nothing unless you explore the universe.
My point is that I don't find FF13's handling of it to be that different. Also it's not four pages, it's page 4. You see art, health warnings, table of contents, and then the prologue. Literally the first game related thing. I find it oddly interesting that people raise issue over FF13's handling of it, yet give a free pass to many other nonsense words and themes in media. I imagine peoples feelings and distaste over the game (and it's ridiculously extended universe) color their acceptance of two words that stand out as strange.
While Je'Daii and Jedi are the same thing in different times, the above would imply that l'Cie and fal'Cie are the same thing when they are not. One is a slave of the other. The words could have been been different, naturally, to help alleviate confusion. Also there is not pul'Cie, it's Pulse.
Regardless, I approach them the same way. Unless the information is literally not available anywhere, if I'm curious I'll look into it. While I do think 'non-sense' words to add a bit of flavor to a world, they can be overdone of course.
I never find JRPGs hard to understand with their nomenclature. Take FFXIII for example:
Fal Cie =gods / divine beings, L'Cie = enhanced soldiers, Cieth = mutated soldiers, and Focus = their mission.
Same with VI:
MAGI = gods/ diving beings, Espers = enhanced magical creatures, Magitek = super technology.
Just get the concepts straight and it should be easy to move through the storyline.
Fal Cie =gods / divine beings, L'Cie = enhanced soldiers, Cieth = mutated soldiers, and Focus = their mission.
Same with VI:
MAGI = gods/ diving beings, Espers = enhanced magical creatures, Magitek = super technology.
Just get the concepts straight and it should be easy to move through the storyline.
Yeah, I think that's about the point I stopped paying attention and just assumed all further references meant 'and then we do a special move'
AgentLampshade
Member
Not if they are properly established in-game. Honestly I think FFXIII gets a little too much flak for this. While terms aren't explicitly spelled out (as far as I remember anyway), it's easy to understand contextual clues what each mean. Granted I think they should have used different names entirely than variations of "cie".
I also laugh at a "Focus" being an extremely vague image.
I also laugh at a "Focus" being an extremely vague image.
I don't think FFXIII is anywhere near as bad as Tales of the Abyss. It's the difference between a handful of nonsense terms for key elements that are a little too similar but can be explained in one paragraph, and several dozen terms of increasing complexity all based on trying to describe magic as a field of both musical science and major military significance while expanding out from nonsense as the base term. One is a simple annoyance, the other over-indulgent writing running all the way through the key mythology.
It would be like trying to read Harry Potter if the base term for Magic was 'ludic', followed by everything of significance magically using increasingly bizarre variations of it. Here's your ludical broomstick, Harry. Don't forget your ludic wand and to run from the ludicrous beast while heading for the ludical dissonance portal. And we're not wizards, we're ludicasters.
But you do know what a Jedi is. It's pretty clear from the first moment it's introduced. Without looking at the manual, it's hard to figure out what Lightning and the gang are talking about. Heck even with a manual, it still doesn't make sense.
Green Mamba
Member
FFXIII also gets flak because its terminology is really just dumb sounding.
I didn't like it that much in XIII at all. It just sounds kind of dumb if the story keeps forcing the made-up words like XIII did.
I got to say though, the biggest offender for this has got to be Tales of the Abyss. While there weren't too many straight-up made up words besides Fonon and Hyperresonance, they even went out of their way to explain the fake science behind it too. While one could argue that it adds lore or whatever, it didn't ever feel like it had too much of a connection to the main plot. Total snoozefest learning about a fake science.
I got to say though, the biggest offender for this has got to be Tales of the Abyss. While there weren't too many straight-up made up words besides Fonon and Hyperresonance, they even went out of their way to explain the fake science behind it too. While one could argue that it adds lore or whatever, it didn't ever feel like it had too much of a connection to the main plot. Total snoozefest learning about a fake science.
Jibbajabbawockky
Member
Pillars of Eternity was annoying to me in this regard just overall. I know its a fantasy setting so there are naturally going to be plenty of made up words but probably because of how overly verbose the game was overall, the deluge of fantasy proper nouns was a bit much for me.
It just felt like every other thing had some made up name for it just for the sake of having a different name.
That is a real word
It doesn't really bother me, unless the game bombards you with a bunch of bullshit right at the beginning. If I still don't have a reason to care about anything in your world, I sure as hell won't be putting too much effort into memorizing 15 different terms. I want to be hooked before I start exploring all of the intricacies of a new universe, I don't want my first contact with a story to be a lecture.
DeathbyCheerios
Member
I do not mind "nonsense" words if they are explained decently. I also like when they give different names to Elves and Dwarf like beings. It's their universe they can call shit whatever they want as long as it's straight forward.
I quite like this about FFX, it gets to the point and describes a concept that you can then get an idea of the whole society through as it means something to everyone that lives there. When someone dies, a summoner sends their spirit to the farplane. That's basically it. Unsent are effectively undead, and seen as abominations. Summoners don't just send the dead, they can summon aeons in battle. The theme of water runs throughout as Sin looks like a whale, the ritual takes place in water and the farplane is watery. The coastal settlements are on the edge of corporeal existence and the farplane, the edge of land and water, the edge of life and death, with the main villain as unstoppable and inevitable as a natural disaster, giving a sombre tone throughout and reinforcing the fragility of the settlements. The story doesn't waste time going into nonsense lectures about the logical principles of how sending works- it's not important, it just shows you a priestess performing a ritual dance that obviously sends some dancing lights somewhere. It shows rather than tells while maintaining a coherent theme throughout, and leaves the rest to your imagination to fill in the gaps about Spira, rather than burying you in nonsense detail and new words for weapons and spells that just isn't as important as the broad brushstrokes required to sell a whole fantasy world to the player.
I probably read a hundred times more about the magic system underpinning the world in TotA, but, years after playing them, I can recall a lot more of what's important about the stronger core concepts of the world of FFX, including what was good and not so good about it.
Scrooge McDuck
Member
They actually constantly expound what "fal'Cie" and "l'Cie" are within the game's dialogue that the only way they could be more explicit is if the characters actually turn towards the camera and spell those out. They have much more definite explanation compared to what Star Wars has with what the heck "Sith" is, for sure. I can only assume that the "you have to read manual" people simply tuned out during cutscenes because they're put off by the game to begin with.
I don't mind nonsense words in small quantities, if it's supposed to be a very ditzy person or whatever.
But, they usually take it too far, repeating the same "funny" (or rather very un-funny) thing over and over and over. I played Tales of Berseria recently and I got so sick and tired of hearing "Bieeeen!" all the damn time. Ugh, hated that. Granted, it was a name and not nonsense, but still!
It's better when they make up words and actually give it a meaning, like n'wah. That word is perfect.
But, they usually take it too far, repeating the same "funny" (or rather very un-funny) thing over and over and over. I played Tales of Berseria recently and I got so sick and tired of hearing "Bieeeen!" all the damn time. Ugh, hated that. Granted, it was a name and not nonsense, but still!
It's better when they make up words and actually give it a meaning, like n'wah. That word is perfect.
fabricated backlash
Member
I don't mind artificial terms in games that are used for worldbuilding.
PR Buzzwords like Levolution can go fuck right off into a measels infected minefield.
PR Buzzwords like Levolution can go fuck right off into a measels infected minefield.
Shift!
Member
I like made up words. Transmorgify and other words that people never use bother me. I have no problem with chasing down Koopa's and Reploids but I can't stand playing a game where there is a bunch of vocabulary you'll never see again. That goes for Odin Sphere, Valkyrie Profile, Vagrant Story and any other game with an overly extensive vocabulary that fails to achieve the purpose of using the words. It doesn't make sense to read a book and establish words that have no use or practicality outside of the sentence, video games are the same way.
I Personaly have problems with this new trend of long full dialoge cutscenes because they are voiced in english. I can turn on the subtitles but then i have to read in one language and hear another one while they spew in gibberish once in a while. Not a fan of it, i like the "text - press x- more text" style.
When FFXIII came out i was surprised how many native english speakers where unhappy with it. If you live in America just imagine every voiced line to be in spanish. This is mostly a problem with Japanese games.
Sorta.
I agree with FF13 it sounded the same so I had no idea what was going on.
Fault Milestone One had something similar, it used made up words instead of saying things like Mana and magic iirc and kept using it and it just confused the fuck out of me.
I don't mind if games use made up words, if you do make sure they sound different and don't use then constantly. Trails franchise is a good example
I agree with FF13 it sounded the same so I had no idea what was going on.
Fault Milestone One had something similar, it used made up words instead of saying things like Mana and magic iirc and kept using it and it just confused the fuck out of me.
I don't mind if games use made up words, if you do make sure they sound different and don't use then constantly. Trails franchise is a good example
Depends on how it's handled; It's fine in moderation but if they're constantly making up different words for perfectly normal concepts, it can come off a little tryhard.
Heh. I read a lot of generic Tolkien knockoff fantasy books back in the day and they all did that too,
Heh. I read a lot of generic Tolkien knockoff fantasy books back in the day and they all did that too,
I wouldnt hate her name as much if it wasnt for the last name being unintelligible gibberish. It might mean something but its just bad to... read. And to say.I might be in the minority but I'm a big fan of this kind of thing. A well-crafted substratum language really helps an invented world come alive. I'm looking forward to playing Skyrim for just this reason.
I think the Roegadyn names are meant to be based on Proto-Germanic (as opposed to the elf-like Ishgardians, which are French, and the potatoes, which are nonsense repeated syllables). So you can actually puzzle them out sometimes. Merlwyb is related to modern German Meer (the sea) and Weib (wife), so her name means "wife of the sea". The frequently-walked-past Ahldskyf's name just means "old ship".
The "Cie"-related names in FF13 suffer because Japanese readers emphasize the first syllables (l'Cie is "RU-shi" and fal-Cie is "FARU-shi") so they sound different enough; speakers of European languages never emphasize those prefixes so it's the "Cie" part that we hear over and over. The translators probably should have overruled Toriyama and made some new names.
(Also, this is just a pet theory of mine, but I think the name "Pulse" for the world is a mistranslation. In Latin, "Pars" (these two words go into Japanese the same way: パルス
pillowtalk
Member
I agree with everything here.
DerekOfTheDykes
Member
I feel like "the problem" isn't so much whether or not made up words are used, or even necessarily the frequency at which they are used. It's more to do with HOW those made up words are taught to the player, or even if they are at all.
A good story teaches the reader/player what these words mean. Sometimes the meaning of a word can be quickly figured out on its own (usually proper nouns in this case), sometimes characters or narrators need to explain terms, and sometimes words aren't extremely plot relevant so the audience figures it out over time via context. And sometimes you don't explain a thing to keep it a mystery. It's also important not to just replace words for the sake of having your own word for a thing, when there's a perfectly acceptable one you can expect your audience to know.
By comparison, a bad story (let's call this hypothetical bad story Final Fantasy 13) introduces new concepts at a breakneck pace early in the story, rapid-firing made up words at an audience who has zero information about the world. Suddenly you're ten hours into the game with still a fuzzy idea of what the fuck a fal'cie or l'cie is or how a focus works or where Cocoon and Pulse even are or how the world is built or damn near anything that isn't the names of the characters in front of you (unless, of course, you sit down and read the painfully bland mountains of in-game encyclopedia entries).
The more "out there" your world is, the longer you need to take establishing it. The more new concepts you want to teach your audience, the more carefully you need to pace the teaching process so that they actually learn what you're teaching. Final Fantasy 13 dumps you into the world, expects you to hit the ground running into an action sequence, throws a sackfull of fuzzy terminology at you, and then later on decides that if you want to enjoy the story you need to read War and Peace for a while.
A good story teaches the reader/player what these words mean. Sometimes the meaning of a word can be quickly figured out on its own (usually proper nouns in this case), sometimes characters or narrators need to explain terms, and sometimes words aren't extremely plot relevant so the audience figures it out over time via context. And sometimes you don't explain a thing to keep it a mystery. It's also important not to just replace words for the sake of having your own word for a thing, when there's a perfectly acceptable one you can expect your audience to know.
By comparison, a bad story (let's call this hypothetical bad story Final Fantasy 13) introduces new concepts at a breakneck pace early in the story, rapid-firing made up words at an audience who has zero information about the world. Suddenly you're ten hours into the game with still a fuzzy idea of what the fuck a fal'cie or l'cie is or how a focus works or where Cocoon and Pulse even are or how the world is built or damn near anything that isn't the names of the characters in front of you (unless, of course, you sit down and read the painfully bland mountains of in-game encyclopedia entries).
The more "out there" your world is, the longer you need to take establishing it. The more new concepts you want to teach your audience, the more carefully you need to pace the teaching process so that they actually learn what you're teaching. Final Fantasy 13 dumps you into the world, expects you to hit the ground running into an action sequence, throws a sackfull of fuzzy terminology at you, and then later on decides that if you want to enjoy the story you need to read War and Peace for a while.
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