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[Dunan]

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.

...

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.

With FF13 I think SE's hubris got in the way: they assumed that players would all have been on their hype train for several years, watching the trailers, playing the demo, reading all the pre-release materials and "light novels" and all their other little money-grabs.

(I had actually done this -- the pre-release stuff made it look like the game was going to be amazing -- so I had no problem understanding things. But someone new to the series or to the game would be totally at sea with all the concepts, let alone the vocabulary.)

 

[Shin-Ra]

The character and place names cheesed me out in Zone of the Enders 1 & 2 (not helped by the VO in general) but I like it when the boy shouts EAT DICK in The Last Guardian even though I don't quite know what it means.

 

[DerekOfTheDykes]

With FF13 I think SE's hubris got in the way: they assumed that players would all have been on their hype train for several years, watching the trailers, playing the demo, reading all the pre-release materials and "light novels" and all their other little money-grabs.

(I had actually done this -- the pre-release stuff made it look like the game was going to be amazing -- so I had no problem understanding things. But someone new to the series or to the game would be totally at sea with all the concepts, let alone the vocabulary.)

There may be truth to that. Of course, it ended up really souring me on the game, as someone who prefers to go into my most hyped games as blind as possible.

 

[Stoop Man]

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.

I think that's another big issue with XIII. Star Wars deals with pretty familiar themes. Nobody has to explain to you what a jedi is. They look like monks, act like monks, have cool laser swords and magic powers. We, as an audience, have seen similar things before. Monk + wizard + swordsman = Obi Wan Kenobi. You can then, infer, even without them telling you, that Vader is a bad version of a jedi. You could probably watch A New Hope on mute and still get what's going on.

FFXIII on the other hand, tries to go out of it's way to muddle familiar themes in an effort to be unique and complex. The fal'Cie don't look or act like any kind of gods we're familiar with, and their motivations and the nature of their existence are convoluted. The l'cie are cursed. They are compelled to do a task or else the curse will fuck them up, much like the Geas spell from D&D, just again, far more convoluted. And then by the end of the game the rules they established for the game world to drive the plot forward are subverted out of plot convenience.

 

[Wedzi]

Only if it gets in the way. Looking at you FFXIII with all your Fal'Cie, L'Cie, Cie'th, etc.

 

[mindsale]

Dragon Quest and Persona - I hate how the spell names aren't derivative of what they do so I never remember what's what in terms of element.

 

[Lesath]

The names in FF14 are so unnecessarily complicated it legitimately makes me angry. They just insert more letters into normal names.

Then theres shit like MERLWYB and half the cast having a name starting with the letter y. Its frustrating

What? There's a discrete naming convention per race. For the Roes, the Hellsguard subrace go with modern English <discriptor><nature-y noun> like Hoary Boulder or Midnight Dew. Merlwyb is "Sea Woman" and Moenbryda is "Moon Bride". It gives the subrace character, and makes sense as opposed to how all the races of, say, WoW mysteriously use human Common for their naming conventions.

Anyway, I'm inclined to agree with the OP. It's been a long-ass time since I played FF13, but they whine and namedrop those things before I really got a sense for what they are and what they meant. Show, don't tell, otherwise you're putting the burden on the player to be interested.

 

[Lynx_7]

It depends. When used sparingly and the script eases you into it, it's fine. It adds flavor to world building.

Then there's Tales of the Abyss relentlessly throwing made-up jargon for months and days names, concepts and plot points and I just gave up trying to follow it and tuned it all out after an hour or so. I've completely forgotten what a fonon frequency or whatever is supposed to be. I can't imagine how people who feel overwhelmed by FF XIII would react to that one.

 

[ReyVGM]

Kingdoms of Amulur: Reckoning used a ton of made up words as well, but it didn't turn me off from the game like FFXIII did. Does using a lot of made up words bother you?

Example of terrible use of fantasy names: Kingdom of Amalaur(even stupid title is unpronounceable)

You've done messed up A-aron. It's Amalur. AMALUR. That ain't hard.

 

[Human Trashcan]

Proper Noun word soup is only bad when it's done just to obfuscate or the words are just dumb or whatever. Like there's no reason why they couldn't just call Fal'cie "Fate" or whatever, or L'Cie "Chosen", something like that. There's perfectly good words or phrases to describe those concepts. It just comes off as pretentious nonsense. And you don't wanna overdo it because then the audience just tunes out. It shouldn't feel like you're taking a foreign language lesson.

I think a reasonable rule of thumb is if you can't intuit the meaning of the word from context, it's bad. So fal'cie, l'cie, whatever: Bad.

 

[Brannon]

The names in FF14 are so unnecessarily complicated it legitimately makes me angry. They just insert more letters into normal names.

Then theres shit like MERLWYB and half the cast having a name starting with the letter y. Its frustrating

Hey, now. Papalymo at least had a small part in shrinking that list... *teach him to throw me on a ship *grumble grumble*

 

[meerak]

All words deserve the same amount of respect.

Little!

Grrrr

 

[Azuran]

I never had any issue with the terminology in FFXIII. They literally explain what those words means so it's not the game's fault if players don't pay attention.

 

[ReyVGM]

Whoa, some people here are talking as if Star Wars (1977) bombarded you with terms like Jedi, Sith, and Padawan. Here's a history lesson: sith and padawan are NEVER mentioned in any of the original trilogy of movies.
I never read the expanded universe material (where those terms were used a lot), instead, I learned about them in Star Wars Episode 1. And even as bad as the movie was, even children understood what a sith was.

 

[hank_tree]

I never had any issue with the terminology in FFXIII. They literally explain what those words means so it's not the game's fault if players don't pay attention.

Considering so many people seem to have this issue, it's safe to say the game itself is somewhat responsible.

 

[Magnus]

Final Fantasy XII:

"Deifacted Nethicite"

Makes me cringe every time.

 

[RSLYG]

Cure cura curaja curagaja

Just give me cure 1 2 3 (FFVII)

 

[fvng]

Yes, FF is the worst offender in my opinion because they get so obnoxious with it. I see FF territory in this thread is being covered

 

[Taliban Stan]

Not really. A lot of fantastical fiction is like that, regardless of medium. To me, it's just how that type of fiction operates. It's super not real, often taking place in totally made up worlds. Like why would the mystical alien city be called Chicago or something super normal sounding? Giving some of this stuff a super normal name wouldn't fit the world a lot of times.

 

[InsaneFandom]

Not at all, they're usually explained and make sense in context.

I play a lot of RPGs and I can't think of a single example that bothered me. I guess sometimes peoples names can get a bit confusing but I'm crap at remembering them irl too

 

[Fahzgoolin]

I actually enjoy this kind of stuff. Helps create a sense of place.

 

[Servbot24]

FFXIII was my first thought upon seeing the thread title. Had no idea what was happening in that game.

 

[SuperStiltzkin]

The names in FF14 are so unnecessarily complicated it legitimately makes me angry. They just insert more letters into normal names.

Then theres shit like MERLWYB and half the cast having a name starting with the letter y. Its frustrating

Roegadyn names are dummmmmb.
They all look like someone mashed a keyboard or a gold seller.

 

[Ailike]

This doesn't typically bother me in most games, but you all made me realize I was seriously annoyed by it in FFXIII. It's not that I didn't get what it all was, because I was able to suss it out after time. It was just never explained -why- it was all important. There was no context for the 'gods', or cocoon or why it was all there, at least at a cursory glance. I got it, but I didn't get it. Why was Carbuncle making water? Is having a focus common or rare? The words just amplified this because I didn't know if I was purposely being left out of the loop, or if they were just bad at explaining the world to me, a 'first time visitor'.

FFXIII is like the SNL David Pumpkins skit to me. The game snarkily goes "Any questions?" And I'm left to shout "YES! Several!" with no edification.

 

[carlsojo]

Before opening the thread the first thing I thought of was FFXIII. Nonsense words bother me when they're poorly explained or introduced and FFXIII is the only example I can think of.

 

[disappeared]

I'm fluent in Simlish and Al Bhed.

 

[loli pantsu]

A lot of folks experienced FFXIII and its nonsense words while playing the English version. As for me, imagine how I felt when I played an imported copy, haha.

The first thought that came to my mind was that I had wasted 3 years of $$$ on Japanese language classes because I didn't understand half of what the characters were talking about.

 

[adj_noun]

Chongo-longo!

 

[Nocturnowl]

All about them Tales of titles and their constantly renamed versions of magic leading to a whole new dictionary of jargon every game.

 

[Zakkath]

I really don't mind it in most games, but FFXIII was just terrible. It probably didn't help that I didn't like the game's story and characters and didn't care to learn more about the lore.

 

[Conciliator]

You've done messed up A-aron. It's Amalur. AMALUR. That ain't hard.

i actually know how to pronounce it man, I played the whole game.

 

[daTRUballin]

Bafomdad!

Spoiler

From Star Fox Adventures, in case someone doesn't know. Awful, awful name for an item.

 

[Shaanyboi]

I'm fine with made up words, but when you are listening to dialogue in a JRPG and they're speaking constant nonsense to you about Phon Stones or whatever? Like to the point where every other word is some made up bullshit and it sounds like the ramblings of a crazy person? Yeah fuck that.

 

[Tagyhag]

Recently, I tried to go back to Final Fantasy XIII, wondering if being a few years removed from the game would improve my feelings towards it. However, after slogging through about 20 hours of the game, I've given up. The combat is fine, and even though half the characters are annoying, the thing that got to me the most was the made-up words for everything. L'cie. Fal'cie. Pul'cie. I don't know, but they kept using the same words a billion different ways and I just lost interest in caring about the game.
Earlier in the year, I played through Tales of Berseria, and while I found that game to be more enjoyable, it had the same problem of using make up words in weird ways that didn't seem consistent. Kingdoms of Amulur: Reckoning used a ton of made up words as well, but it didn't turn me off from the game like FFXIII did. Does using a lot of made up words bother you?

Normally I don't but FF13 was the sole culprit of it.

Like, they had no other reason to be that stupid naming them other than "Look how cool it all sounds".

What's wrong with having them be completely different sounding words?

 

[daninthemix]

Soon as I read the thread title, I knew this would be about FF13.

And yes, the nonsense words bothered me greatly in that game.

Gibberish != Fantasy, game developers.

That was the worst (and in fact only) example I can think of.

 

[Mobile Suit Gooch]

No, that's nonsense.

 

[WrenchNinja]

I knew this was going to be about FFXIII. And yes, it does bother me.

 

[HarryKS]

Recently, I tried to go back to Final Fantasy XIII, wondering if being a few years removed from the game would improve my feelings towards it. However, after slogging through about 20 hours of the game, I've given up. The combat is fine, and even though half the characters are annoying, the thing that got to me the most was the made-up words for everything. L'cie. Fal'cie. Pul'cie. I don't know, but they kept using the same words a billion different ways and I just lost interest in caring about the game.
Earlier in the year, I played through Tales of Berseria, and while I found that game to be more enjoyable, it had the same problem of using make up words in weird ways that didn't seem consistent. Kingdoms of Amulur: Reckoning used a ton of made up words as well, but it didn't turn me off from the game like FFXIII did. Does using a lot of made up words bother you?

FF 13 truly is a special case. You're not the only one it bothered.
Had no idea what they were talking about at some point.

 

[kingofthedead45]

Only when it's overdone/overused while expecting the player to comprehend these words as if we use them irl.

I hate hate this shit in movies too.

 

[Hazmat]

I was thinking about FF13 when I saw the thread title. The bullshit words in that were a problem, largely because they made almost no attempt to define them.

 

[Mediking]

I'm fluent in Simlish and Al Bhed.

Lol underrated post right here.

 

[GKSilKamina]

The Tales series can get super obnoxious with this. Practically every game is loaded with silly jargon/names such as eres, craymel, fon, blastia, spiria, exspheres, cruxis crystals, aer, malak, chromatus, inferian, celestian, merines, gajuma, swordian, empyrean, etc. For some reason Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Vesperia in particular really annoyed me.

FFXIII is really bad about it too, since the game starts with characters dropping weird terminology left and right without explaining a single thing.

 

[kaitain19]

So this thread is pretty much just another FFXIII bashing thread isn't it? And how does Merlwyb counts as a nonsense word? It's a character's name.

 

[Archtreyz]

So this thread is pretty much just another FFXIII bashing thread isn't it? And how does Merlwyb counts as a nonsense word? It's a character's name.

I actually quite liked a lot about XIII. Characters were dumb, but fine. Combat was fun. It was just the whole fal'Cie, L'Cie elements that completely pushed me away. I know it sounds silly, but I just couldn't care enough about the game to continue.

 

[SilverArrow20XX]

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.

It's roughly pronounced as
Maril (like Marilyn) Vib
Blue Fiss Vin

It's not any more unintelligible than any foreign names really. The pronunciations are based on old germanic.

oe = oo like blue
y = ih like it.
w = v
etc.

Learn the rules and the names are a lot easier to pronounce than those Frenchy Elezen names at least, where
oix = wah
eaux = oh
and all other kinds of weird stuff. I live in Louisiana where those kinds of spellings are everywhere and it's still a struggle with some of the more obscure ones.

 

[Jacobson]

Not really. Sav'aaq.

 

[Earthpainting]

I've been playing Wuppo over the past week, and it's absolutely dreadful in this regard.

 

[theofficefan99]

L'Cie, fal'Cie, Cie'th

It's REAAAALLLLLYYYYYYYYYY not hard at all. I can't help but roll my eyes every time people butcher the spelling on purpose.

And to the people that claim that these terms are never explained in-game: stop lying

 

[Stead Fast]

Not as much as the misappropriation of other words; FF being an offender again here. SOLDIER will forever be an immersion breaking name to me when describing a Special Forces unit separate from the armed troops you fight throughout VII.

I can imagine a lot of first time players for the remake will find this name a lot more baffling as we'll have spoken dialogue about it. Unless versed in the story, people can be forgiven about getting confused about what 'soldiers' are being referred to throughout the story: the super humans or the grunts.

Edit:

I'll add Turks to that too. It may be my ignorance if they were named something else in the original Japanese script, or if there is some more convoluted reason in lore as to why they're referred to by that name, but referring to 'the Turks' as being this pseudo-antagonist group of corporate lackeys to an energy company throughout that game isn't going to go over well with some people.

 

[Oyashrio-Sama]

The Pythons knew what was up!