What’s in a name? Well, if it’s the name of a game for a Nintendo console, there’s a strong chance that part of the system’s name will make an appearance. Popular examples of this practice include the game title Super Metroid for the Super NES and Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64. I call this phenomenon “system-naming,” for lack of a better term.

System-naming is largely isolated to games produced for Nintendo systems due to the company’s penchant for adding “upgrade” prefixes (the “Super” in “Super NES”) or suffixes (the “64” in “Nintendo 64”) to their system titles. We’ll take a look at some instances of non-Nintendo system-naming near the end of the article.

So what does “system-naming” matter? The answer, quite simply, is nothing. Really — nothing at all. This is an exercise in pure console nerdlyness. Information for the sake of information. So if you’re easily scared away by the academic study of trivial minutia, turn away now!

Still there? Ok. Let’s take a look at each Nintendo system, tally up their system-named games, and see which system ultimately wins the battle of the names. All percentages have been rounded up to the next whole number. Sources for the data presented are listed at the end of each section.

Super NES: A Trend is Born

System-naming in game titles can trace its origin back to one console: the Super Nintendo (or Super NES, also known as the Super Famicom in Japan). By simply adding a “Super” to the name of their previous console (the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES), Nintendo created a new system name that philosophically exists relative to their previous generation of products. Since the NES single-handedly resurrected an industry and defined a whole generation of video games with its astronomical success, every Nintendo product from then on would have to measure up in some fashion to that 800-pound gorilla looming nearby, casting its long, deep shadow upon history.

Logically, games that were upgraded with better graphics and sound for the new “Super” NES could carry the same prefix as the system to denote the upgrade. As a result, we saw a lot of games like Super Bomberman, Super Adventure Island, Super Metroid, or Super Castlevania IV.

Below is a list of all of the “Super” games, with some obvious ones removed that included “Super” phrases that existed independent of the system itself, like Super Mario World, Super Street Fighter II, WCW: Super Brawl Wrestling, and Kirby Super Star, although the last example could possibly be a play on the system name, as it was the first Kirby game for the SNES.

60 out of 715 games, or 8% of the entire licensed U.S. SNES catalog has a name that is derived from “Super Nintendo.”

Krusty’s Super Fun House
Super Adventure Island
Super Adventure Island II
Super Aquatic Games Starring The Aquabats, The
Super Baseball 2020
Super Baseball Simulator 1.000
Super Bases Loaded
Super Bases Loaded 2
Super Bases Loaded 3: License to Steal
Super Batter Up
Super Battleship
Super Battletank 2: War in the Gulf
Super Battletank: War in the Gulf
Super Black Bass
Super Bomberman
Super Bomberman 2
Super Bonk
Super Bowling
Super Buster Bros.
Super Caesars Palace
Super Castlevania IV
Super Chase HQ
Super Conflict: The Mideast
Super Double Dragon
Super E.D.F.: Earth Defense Force
Super Empire Strikes Back
Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts
Super Goal! Two
Super Godzilla
Super High Impact
Super James Pond
Super Metroid
Super Ninja Boy
Super Off Road
Super Off Road: The Baja
Super Pinball: Behind the Mask
Super Play Action Football
Super Punch-Out!!
Super Putty
Super RBI Baseball
Super Return of the Jedi
Super R-Type
Super Slam Dunk
Super Slap Shot
Super Smash T.V.
Super Soccer
Super Soccer Champ
Super Solitaire
Super Star Wars
Super Strike Eagle
Super Tennis
Super Troll Islands
Super Turrican
Super Turrican 2
Super Valis IV
Super Widget
Tecmo Super Baseball
Tecmo Super NBA Basketball
TKO Super Championship Boxing
WWF Super Wrestlemania

Source: Nintendo’s Official SNES Game List PDF (http://www.nintendo.com/gamelist?category=classic)

Nintendo 64: The King of System-Naming

The next Nintendo system to have a swath of system-named games was the Nintendo 64, Nintendo’s next-gen successor to the SNES. I’m not sure if it was Nintendo-mandated policy to name your games “Something 64,” but there sure were a lot of them.

47 out of 291 games, or 16% of the entire licensed U.S. N64 catalog has a name that is derived from “Nintendo 64.”

Asteroids Hyper 64
Bomberman 64
Bomberman 64: The Second Attack
Carmageddon 64
Clay Fighter 63 1/3
Daikatana 64
Destruction Derby 64
Donkey Kong 64
Doom 64
Dr. Mario 64
Duke Nukem 64
Excitebike 64
F1 Pole Position 64
FIFA Soccer 64
Fighting Force 64
Forsaken 64
GEX 64: Enter the Gecko
Golden Nugget 64
GT 64: Championship Edition
Harvest Moon 64
In Fisherman Bass Hunter 64
International Superstar Soccer 64
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Madden 64
Mario Kart 64
Mega Man 64
Mia Hamm Soccer 64
Micro Machines 64 Turbo
Monster Truck Madness 64
Namco Museum 64
Nuclear Strike 64
Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber
PilotWings 64
Quake 64
Quest 64
Ridge Racer 64
Road Rash 64
Robotron 64
Shadowgate 64: Trials of the Four Towers
Star Fox 64
StarCraft 64
Stunt Racer 64
Super Mario 64
Virtual Chess 64
Virtual Pool 64
Wave Race 64 Kawasaki Jet Ski
Wipeout 64

Source: Nintendo’s Official N64 Game List PDF (http://www.nintendo.com/gamelist?category=classic)

Game Boy Advance: Revenge of the Suffix

I don’t know if anyone realizes this, but the Game Boy Advance has had more licensed titles released for it in North America than any other Nintendo system to date. The official number is currently 975 games, which is an absolutely certifiable butt-load of games. With so many games, it’s no surprise that some have taken on the family name. A few games have chosen the suffix “EX” over “Advance,” but that doesn’t count.

55 out of 975 games, or 6% of the entire licensed U.S. Game Boy Advance catalog (as of 02/08/2007) has a name that is derived from “Game Boy Advance.”

Ace Combat Advance
Advance Guardian Heroes
Advance Wars
Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising
Army Men Advance
Atari Anniversary Advance
Baseball Advance
Bomberman Max 2: Blue Advance
Bomberman Max 2: Red Advance
Contra Advance: The Alien Wars EX
Desert Strike Advance
Disney’s Donald Duck Advance
Double Dragon Advance
Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure
Driver 2 Advance
Duke Nukem Advance
Dynasty Warriors Advance
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Final Fantasy V Advance
Final Fantasy VI Advance
Gekido Advance: Kintaro’s Revenge
Grand Theft Auto Advance
GT Advance 2: Rally Racing
GT Advance 3: Pro Concept Racing
GT Advance Championship Racing
Guilty Gear X: Advance Edition
Inspector Gadget: Advance Mission
Konami Collector’s Series: Arcade Advanced
Mario Golf: Advance Tour
Mario Party Advance
Max Payne Advance
Metal Slug Advance
Monster Rancher Advance
Monster Rancher Advance 2
Mortal Kombat Advance
Moto Racer Advance
Motocross Maniacs Advance
Pac-Man Pinball Advance
Polarium Advance
Puyo Pop Advance
Racing Gears Advance
Rayman Advance
Robot Wars: Advanced Destruction
Serious Sam Advance
Sonic Advance
Sonic Advance 2
Sonic Advance 3
Super Dodge Ball Advance
Super Mario Advance
Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2
Tekken Advance
Tokyo Xtreme Racer Advance
Whiffle Ball Advance
Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3

Source: Nintendo’s Online Game Database (http://www.nintendo.com/gamelist?category=all)

Nintendo DS: A New Twist on an Old Tradition

With the arrival of the DS, game developers have apparently tired of taking an obvious and boring route of just adding a plain “DS” to the end of their games’ titles. Instead, developers go to great lengths to construct contrived reverse meanings for the “DS” acronym and tag them on to the end of their game names.

Without a doubt, some of the dumbest “DS” reverse acronyms are Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy, Guilty Gear Dust Strikers, Dig Dug Digging Strike, and Resident Evil: Deadly Silence. Since the Nintendo DS has plenty of life left in it, expect this trend to continue well into the future.

Just for trivia’s sake, the DS is the home of the only game with two system suffixes in its title, Super Mario 64 DS. It would be three if the “Super” in “Super Mario” counted.

31 out of 294 games, or 11% of the entire licensed U.S. Nintendo DS catalog (as of 02/08/2007) has a name that is derived from “Nintendo DS.”

Advance Wars: Dual Strike
Bust-a-Move DS
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Diddy Kong Racing DS
Dig Dug Digging Strike
Digimon World DS
DK King of Swing DS
DS Air
Dynasty Warriors DS
Fullmetal Alchemist: Dual Sympathy
Guilty Gear Dust Strikers
Harlem Globetrotters World Tour DS
Harvest Moon DS
Lunar: Dragon Song
Mage Knight: Destiny’s Soldier
Mario Kart DS
Mr. DRILLER: Drill Spirits
Panzer Tactics DS
Rayman DS
Resident Evil: Deadly Silence
Ridge Racer DS
SBK: Snowboard Kids DS
Spider-Man 2 DS
Super Mario 64 DS
Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop DS
Tao’s Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal
Tenchu: Dark Secret
Tetris DS
World Championship Poker: Deluxe Series
Yoshi’s Island DS
Zoo Tycoon DS

Source: Nintendo’s Official Game List (http://www.nintendo.com/gamelist)

Everything Else: Nintendo Systems with Negligible System-Naming

The NES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Virtual Boy systems all have either a couple or no games named after the system. So what happened?

Well, the NES started it all, so it’s what all other Nintendo systems are compared to. The closest you can get to system-naming on the NES are the games NES Open Tournament Golf, NES Play Action Football, and Nintendo World Cup Soccer. The NES was the home of the original games — like Metroid, Zelda, Castlevania, and even Tennis — that were typically upgraded with affixes later.

The original Game Boy had its own unique name that wasn’t a play on either “Nintendo” or “NES” (i.e. it’s not the “Nintendo Boy” or “Mini NES”) . But, in turn, it would be “name upgraded” like the NES was with the “Game Boy Advance” later on. Also, the suffix “Boy” isn’t generic enough to add to every game out there. Imagine “Metroid Boy,” “Super Mario Boy,” “WWF Wrestlemania Boy,” or “Barbie Fashion Boy” and you’ll get the idea. There was one “Boy”-derived game title — Blaster Master Boy — and one “Game Boy” title, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Game Boy Adventure, but that’s it. Once the smaller Game Boy Pocket was released, a few titles played off of either that or just the portability of the Game Boy in general, like Pokémon (a contraction of the term “Pocket Monsters”), Pocket Bowling, and Pocket Bomberman.

The Game Boy Color had its own pseudo system-naming suffix in the form of “DX,” which appeared in titles such as Tetris DX, Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX, R-Type DX, and to some extent, Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. Two games included the system term “Color:” Ms. Pac-Man Special Color Edition and Pac-Man Special Color Edition. Other than that, the GBC library is conspicuously lacking more “Color” games.

Did you know that 7% of the entire Virtual Boy game catalog released in the US begins with “Virtual?” Well, sure…it’s 7%, but 7% of fourteen games ever released in North America. So only one game, Virtual League Baseball carries that distinction. However, I have no doubt that if the Virtual Boy had stayed around long enough, there would have been many more game titles christened with the “Virtual” prefix.

Source: Nintendo’s Official PDF Game Lists (http://www.nintendo.com/gamelist?category=classic)

The World Beyond Nintendo

Notice how this article only focuses on Nintendo-released game systems? Other companies just don’t seem to “get it” when it comes to system-naming. What’s up, Sega? Why the “Genesis?” Why not the “Super Sega Master System?” And why give a console a dumb name like the “Saturn” when it could have been the “Genesis Plus?”

No other game hardware company seems to be into upgrade affixes like Nintendo. The closest any organization has ever come was Atari with their Atari 400 / 600/ 800 / 1200XL / 130XE (etc…) 8-bit computer line and their Atari 2600 / 5200 / 7800 game consoles. Still, I can’t think of any games with “7800” or “5200” in the title, can you?

There are no games for the Sega Genesis that carry the system title. However, there are two games that carry the Japanese title of the system, which is “Mega Drive.” Those games are Mega Bomberman and Mega Turrican, but those were the only “Mega” games released in the US, so I’m not sure how many there were in Japan.

And sure, the Sega CD, Sega 32X, and the Xbox 360 use upgrade affixes, but there aren’t many games for those systems that used system-derived titles. I haven’t made a study of it, but I know there’s at least one Sega CD title, Sonic CD, that carries the system name. There were no games for the 32X that included “32X” in the title (according to Wikipedia, anyway). And the Xbox 360? You got me on that one. I doubt there are any “360”-titled games, but feel free to let me know about in the comments section!

Playstation? Playstation 2? Playstation 3? Not much luck there either.

The Future of System-Related Game Names

So, aside from absolutely nothing, what have we learned about the practice of system-naming? Mostly that publishers who produce titles for Nintendo like to do it a lot, and that they’ll probably continue to do so as long as Nintendo keeps using upgrade affixes in their system titles. The current generation of Nintendo systems is split in the system-naming department. There’s the Nintendo DS, which is the new standard-bearer of system-naming, but then there’s the Wii. With Nintendo’s release of a console that only goes by “Wii” and not “Nintendo Wii,” the future of non-portable system-naming looks bleak. That is, of course, until Nintendo releases the “Super Wii” or the “Wii 256,” which will start the cycle all over again.

Yeah, there have been a few games like Wii Sports and Wii Play that include the Wii system name so far, but I don’t think that trend will be very popular. If anything, expect more titles that play on the pun of “Wii” = “we.” Regardless, I can’t wait until the Wii version of the sequel to iNeed (aka iNeed 2 Wii) is released next December.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 at 3:57 pm and is filed under Collecting, Gaming History, Humor, NES / Famicom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.