Aqua Rhapsody doesn't feature any rhapsody at all, let alone an AQUA rhapsody.
The Elder Scrolls series very rarely include the eponymous Elder Scrolls, if at all.
And when they do (in Oblivion), the Elder Scroll in question is just an insignificant MacGuffin.
In Skyrim, however, it's a vital part of the main plot.
While the scrolls themselves aren't usually seen in-game, the events of the main quests in each game are events foretold by the scrolls, and the plots of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th games are kicked off by the Emperor taking action because of what the scrolls revealed to him.
Also from Skyrim, Grelod the Kind is anything but.
Metal Gear is an example, since it doesn't look remotely like any kind of metal gear.
This is explained in Snake Eater by Granin as its intended purpose as the previously "missing link" between infantry and artillery (like a gear in an engine).
"Gear" is another word for "mecha." Hence the name of the roleplaying game Heavy Gear, the video game Xenogears, and so forth.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater does not have a Metal Gear in it, or at least not a true Metal Gear. The mecha of that game is the developmental ancestor of the Metal Gears.
Fry: Wait a second, I know that monkey, his name is Donkey! Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Monkeys aren't donkeys, quit messing with my head!
Shigeru Miyamoto came up with the name Donkey Kong when trying to find a name to mean "Stubborn Ape." (Donkeys are stubborn, King Kong is an ape). A case of Foreign Sounding Gibberish.
More specifically, he was looking up "stubborn" in a Japanese->English dictionary, and the sample sentence was "stubborn as a donkey". He thought "donkey" was a fun word and decided to forget about the actual meaning.
One level in Donkey Kong Country Returns is called "Peaceful Pier." Other than three very small wooden platforms floating in the sea, there is no pier, and the level consists of piloting a rocket-powered barrel over an ocean while being perpetually bombarded by fire from a pirate ship.
Similarly, Continental Circus is a race game. ("Circus" was a mistranslation and should have been "circuits"; this was later corrected.)
Also a Nonindicative Name is the title — this and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask are the only Zelda games that don't feature a Zelda. Although she's mentioned early on, and Marin's her Expy, it leaves you wondering why Link's awakening, (that is, dream) has anything to do with Zelda's legend.
Technically, Zelda does appear in Majora's Mask, but only in a flashback, and apart from re-teaching Link the Song of Time, her role in the game is otherwise irrelevant.
In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the Forest Temple is actually a ruined old mansion and the Shadow Temple is actually a series of torture chambers - no reference is made to either being used for worship.
In itself, the series proper is a misnomer. Certainly, the eponymous character plays a prominent role in most of the games, but I'm pretty sure the Hero of Legend is the boy in the green hat.
Later games in the series, that are set earlier in the timeline, reveal that Zelda has chosen the boy in green to be the hero. Even if she doesn't appear in the game, all of his adventures are part of her legend.
The Bombers' Secret Society of Justice, a children's street gang in Majora's Mask, never bombs anything; they just play hide-and-seek and dedicate themselves to doing good deeds.
Although this could refer to the fact that they wear matching Bomber jackets. After all, they never talk about bombing either.
Time travel is a reoccuring element of the Zelda series, starting with Ocarina of Time, as indicated by the title. A Link to the Past before that also indicates time travel, but absolutely no time travel is present. Note that the original Japanese name is "Triforce of the Gods".
ReDeads have not died again. They're zombies, plain and simple. It's actually very annoying to find Rope, it doesn't help in anyway, for Rope is a snake monster. Dark Nut is not a corrupted plant monster, it is a Dark Knight, and probably a mistranslation.
And there are Bubbles (flying skulls that are usually seen covered with flames), Hardhat Beetles (jellyfish enemies), and Wart (huge eyeball monster, sometimes depicted as jellyfish-like).
In Final Fantasy Tactics, the blaze gun shoots ice and the glacier gun shoots fire. This is one result of the "Blind Idiot" Translation that plagues the game. The guns were "Anti-Blaze Gun" and "Anti-Glacier Gun" respectively in the original Japanese. The PSP remake fixes this by simply swapping the names.
While we're at it, the NPC ability "Steal Bracelet"? Instantly kills the target. Later releases renamed it "Steal Breath".
"Breath" was constantly rendered as "bracelet" in the original PS1 release, which is why dragons had "Fire Bracelet" as an ability.
Continuing this fashion in Final Fantasy Tactics A 2 are what happens when you have mages named after colors — some fans think that they're named after clothing and sprite colors, but actually the names are perfectly indicative of what magic type they use. White mage uses white magic, black mage uses black magic, etc. Still leads to cases of Green Mages wearing purple clothing, though, when the player mages tend to have color-matching clothing.
Final Fantasy itself lives this trope with a whopping 13 sequels (including 2 MMOs but NOT including the spinoffs). It is an Artifact Title due to the developers believing the original Final Fantasy being a one off title. Considering there is no continuity between main series games, referring to each game as "Final Fantasy" still makes sense for most of the series, since most of the game worlds only are used in one game.
In Dissidia: Final Fantasy and its Updated RereleaseDissidia 012, there is a gameplay mechanic called "Wall Rush" where you can send your opponent crashing into indestructible surfaces with specific attacks. Needless to say, this trope is only in play when it happens with ceilings, floors, and structures other than walls.
In darkSector, the main character gains access to a biomechanical weapon called a glaďve. It's the same sort of weird thing as in Krull, not an actual glaďve. Again.
This seems to be a theme, as a spinning bladed weapon referred to as a glaďve appears in both Starcraft (the Mutalisk's Glaďve Wurm) and Warcraft III (the Night Elf Glaďve Thrower)
Rayman doesn't shoot rays of any kind, nor is he a flatfish.
The character was created with ray tracing techniques.
In Kingdom Hearts, if your heart is removed, you become a Heartless, and sometimes a Nobody. However, the creatures called "The Heartless" are not made from the person-minus-the-heart, but rather the heart itself. The creatures made of the body and soul, that is, everything but the heart, are called "The Nobodies".
Played with in Tsukihime. Specifically, with the character Souka Tsukihime, who, despite the coincidence, is a very minor character.
The Warthog, a military jeep, in Halo, as lampshaded in Red vs. Blue.
Sarge: Gentlemen, presenting the M-12 L.R.V. I like to call it the "Warthog". Simmons: Why Warthog, sir? Sarge: Because M-12 L.R.V. is too hard to say in conversations, son.
This is simply indicative of the standard UNSC (human-forces) naming convention for their vehicles: nearly all of them (Warthog, Hornet, Mongoose, Pelican, Elephant, Mammoth) are named after animals. And actually, the Warthog gets its name because it literally has tusks, as seen here◊.
The Covenant Hunters seem to be this, being giant colonies of worms in suits of armor with giant plasma cannons and giant shields/blunt weapons that tend to blast or barrel through opposition. They haven't ever been seen doing anything remotely like hunting, or even stalking. On the other hand, they're apparently supposed to be more commonly used as anti-vehicle units, in which case their name becomes Fridge Brilliance, considering the UNSC naming scheme for their vehicles.
A more straight example would the Rookie from Halo 3 ODST; he's the last person to join the squad, but he's actually a veteran who's both higher-ranked and more experienced than the squad's demolitions expert.
In all five generations of Pokemon game there has been an area you go through before you can reach the Elite Four called Victory Road (though in the first two it was the same place), and in all six cases (Generation V has two; during the two years between Pokemon Black And White and Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 the original collapsed and a new one was constructed, with the original blocked off on both sides due to safety concerns) it isn't a road, it's a tunnel (not even one with a road going through it as traversing requires going through narrow paths, bridges, ladders, and even water and/or mountainous outdoor areas in some versions, with Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 adding ruins as well).
Victory Road is, in a way, The Very Definitely Final Dungeon of the game, though it's not the conclusion. The first generation of games had a long route leading up to the dungeon proper, along the course of which the player would have to use nearly every single Hidden Machine move (each of which has its own effect on the environment) acquired in the game thus far. Dungeons in Pokémon games have always been good about making the player use these abilities to get through them, but Victory Road and a few other dungeons take this to the next level. The naming convention could potentially be interpreted as inspiring (the game is nearly over) or as sarcastic (this dungeon will test all of one's skills as a Pokémon trainer, though thankfully there are plenty of opportunities to heal freely after exiting).
Also, in the fourth generation, the Amplifier Artifacts for the main trio of legendaries are all called orbs, even though only one barely resembles an orb.
Quite a few Pokémon have names that barely resemble what they're supposed to represent: Sandshrew looks more like a armadillo or pangolin then an actual shrew.
The animation for the move Submission suggests some sort of spinning grapple attack rather than a submission hold.
It should be noted that Submisson's Japanese name is Hell Wheel. Which explains it all.
Wario Master Of Disguise has as one of its treasures the Superfantastical Money Tree...a boring potted plant that does absolutely nothing.
Sure, it sounds fancy. But it's just a plant. A boring old potted plant. Slap anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.
There is an ornamental plant popular in Japan and Taiwan called a money tree.
Apartment names are worse. The Hamster Tenement is not small and cute like a hamster, but a big ugly building. Most of the Condos are not very fancy either.
Team Star Fox is only composed of two actual foxes (Fox and Krystal) that are mercenaries. The other guys are a bird, frog, and rabbit, as well as a robot.
The teams are named after their leaders. There is even a Star Falco team in one of the alternate endings to Command. However, as far as the games go, Star Fox Adventures certainly fits the bill, as the rest of the team bascially does nothing and there isn't a lot of action in space like Star would imply.
In Brütal Legend, the Kill Master's job does indeed have to do with death...namely, preventing it. He uses the Power of Rock to heal anything up to but not quite including death. He only takes the name to frighten away intruders, and protect his flock... of giant spiders.
Not only does Kill Master have an Informed Ability to take your head clean off at will, he's an obvious Expy of Lemmy Kilmister, legendary bassist and singer. Lita and Lars are supposed to remind you of other heavy metal legends, but only Kill Master is a straight up expy of the person they are named after. Lemmy Kilmister voiced Kill Master to boot. Quite an illustrative name.
"Usagi" is Japanese for "rabbit". Usagi from Nezumi Man, however, is no more of a rabbit than Jessica Rabbit. Usagi is a kangaroo.
If anyone who played Team Fortress 2 actually cared about scouting, the Scout would not be a very good class for it as they're incredibly noticeable, and the Sniper's zoom vision and Spy's invisibility make them better at it.
A fairly funny example is the map "Gorge", whose eponymous land feature according to a blog post is not a gorge but "a large-ish hole not big enough to meet the U.S. Geological Survey’s standards for a gorge, disguised as a by-the-book, nothing-to-see-here gorge." A much later blog post state in development the gorge was originally a good deal larger and deeper.
The unlockable Heavy secondary "The Buffalo Steak Sandvich" is not a "sandvich", just a steak ("Who needs bread?")
What the team names are acronyms for, "Reliable Excavation & Demolition" and "Builder's League Union", are rather the opposite of what the teams tend to when both sides don't have the same goal: RED is defense and thus tend to have Engineers making a lot of Sentry Guns to stop the other team while BLU is offense and thus need to demolish a lot of those Sentry Guns to advance (often relying heavily on Demomen).
Particularly noticeable in payload maps, where the Builders' League Union is trying to push a cart with a huge bomb on it to blow up Reliable Excavation and Demolition's base and weapons stockpile. Regardless, neither has anything to do with construction. The names are really just a Paper-Thin Disguise for the two teams of mercenaries.
Using unlockable weapons, it's possible to be a Demoman that doesn't have any explosive-based attacks.
There is an arena in a few Mortal Kombat games called Jade's Desert. No reason has ever been given as to why it is named after Jade. (In fact, it first appears in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and seeing as the plot of that game takes place in Earthrealm, it's doubtful that this arena is even part of the Outworld, making it odd that it would be named after an Outworld native.)
Mega Man is a robot boy. At least his Japanese name Rockman is a reference to his civilian name Rock.
He does not use Rock elemental powers unless he beat a rock elemental boss, and though his name goes with his sister's name, Roll, he has absolutely nothing to do with music.
The main character in Twin Blades uses a single blade. There's not a player two to be the twin, either. Maybe the scythe is double-sided?
In Nox a prominent NPC is named Lord Horrendous. He's a bit of a Knight Templar, but essentially a decent guy.
In World of Warcraft Lady Deathwhisper actually yells a lot and does not in fact ever whisper. This would have been a better name for Herald Voljasz, or one of those animal bosses in Zul'Gurub that whisper random players with death threats.
The Fist of Subtlety, an insignificant quest reward, is a giant spiky "fist weapon" that covers most of your arm, and is used for punching people. The description even has the annotation "Not at all".
The Combat Rogue's Mastery skill is called "Main Gauche," and it gives the rogue a certain probability of landing an extra attack with the weapon in his right hand. "Main Gauche" means left hand in French.
It's possible to get a Dwarven Fishing Rod and Goblin Fishing Rod. The latter is several sticks of dynamite, the former is a shotgun.
"Dwarves are not known for their subtlety."
The flash game Crazy Flasher does not involve a deranged pervert exposing themself.
Armored Core 5 has a weapon called a Mass Blade. It's not a sword but rather a Big Stick with spikes and rockets boosters coming out of it while on fire.
Starcraft has nothing to do with stars, and the not much to do with crafting, unless you consider commanding an army a craft. Nor does it involve too many space-ships since a lot of the battles take place entirely between ground units.
The "star" part supposedly have to do with the main plot, with outer space races apart from humans (terrans). But the mystery on "craft" still remains.
Clearly, the name "Starcraft" is a play on "Warcraft," the original Real-Time Strategy game from Blizzard Entertainment; it is Warcraft ...but in space!
You DO get materials, so you can "craft" buildings to make your units?
The FourGuardians in Mega Man Zero are always called that even after one of them dies in the first game. This is even lampshaded on the spine card of one of the soundtracks.
The World Ends With You is not nearly as depressing and apocalyptic as the title makes it sound. This is largely due to copyright issue - the game's Japanese name is It's A Wonderful World, which makes the game sound rather more upbeat than it is.
It's revealed partway through to be very indicative of the game's theme, just not in the way you'd expect. It's a philosophical statement, and a reason why you should "expand your horizons".
Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon never features the actual Procyon. In fact, the player never even leaves the borders of The Empire. You do fight the Procyons, but this still doesn't explain the "at" preposition.
Lampshaded by an end credit that says, "No battle actually takes place at Procyon".
An example of a Non-Indicative Subtitle: Ufouria - The Saga is not a saga at all, since the other games in the Hebereke series have nothing to do with that one and no sequels were ever made.
Resident Evil's Raccoon City is neither well-known for raccoons or particularly populated with them. Even when the city's population of humans and animals are zombified, there aren't any zombie-raccoons in sight.
There is also a lack of raccoons in Raccoon Forest.
Due to copyright issues, the game's name was translated as Resident Evil due to the mansion it takes place in. It becomes an Artifact Title when the games take place in a Police Department, City, Third-World Country, Africa...
The Dawn of War game is not about the first war in history between ancient civilizations - it's a Real Time Strategy adaption of Warhammer 40000, a futuristic setting with a Forever War, and the game certainly isn't set at the a very early time within the setting. The name get even more illogical for its sequel numbered 2, with a third set to happen. It does sound cool, though.
Many of the track names on Medal of Honors OST don't correspond to the levels the songs are used in, as they were originally composed for levels that were Dummied Out. One, "Approaching Colditz Castle", didn't even appear in the game, although it was later used in the Behind Enemy Lines mission in Allied Assault. Same for Frontline's OST": "Border Town" and "Shipyards of Lorient" are switched around in-game, and "The Halftrack Chase" should have been titled "The Truck Chase".
Antlions from Half-Life 2 don't resemble real life antlions. They are quadripedal quasi-crustacean creatures while real antlions resemble dragonflies.
The Half-Life games themselves have nothing to do with radioactive decay; the player character, though a PhD-holding scientist, works in theoretical physics and ballistics, not radiology.
It's perfectly indicative. Angels as depicted in the Bible were often horrifying, unearthly creatures, such as burning wheels within wheels, five-winged creatures that keep themselves perpetually covered in their wings to stop their radiances from killing anyone who looked upon them and all kinds of crazy stuff. Bayonetta's probbably the most accurate depiction (visually) of a lot of the angels from the Old Testament.
In Devil May Cry, the recurring boss "Phantom" is not a ghost or a person who walks through walls: he's a giant flaming spider made out of magma. The name might refer to his ability to tunnel into the earth to appear and disappear at will, but that's a stretch.
The "orbs" the player collects aren't really spherical, they're pear-shaped.
In Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse, the Devil's Toybox is not, in fact, in any way associated with The Devil. He actually shows up in the final episode, during the Eldritch Abomination rampage, to dispel the rumors that he is involved with Junior's actions. The titular Devil's Playhouse is also a metaphor that gets explained in the final moments of the game and not an actual playhouse relevant to Satan. "If idle hands are the devil's playthings, an idle mind is the devil's playhouse."
Most of the Riddle School games indeed take place in schools, but RS5 and Riddle Transfer take place on a spaceship and in Area 51, respectively.
If a spell, weapon or attack is named "Flare", it's probably either extremely powerful (Final Fantasy) or extremely weak (Descent, Guild Wars), depending on whether the name refers to solar flares or flare guns.
Two of the three games contained in the Three Wonders arcade anthology are about a quest to find and use something called the "Chariot". This "Chariot" is, for all intents and purposes, a sort of fancy hang-glider.
The Lion King names several levels after songs from the movie it was based on. However, the level "Be Prepared" has nothing to do with the song "Be Prepared," which is instead used as background music to the "Elephant Graveyard" level.
It does, however, have the face of a clown and fits more inside it than it should, like an actual Clown Car.
Just Dance for the Wii, PS3, and The Xbox 360 doesn't have the Lady Gaga song of the same name.
Psycho Waluigi has the Home Hardware Kingdom, which is really a hardware store with the word "kingdom" in it (as Psycho Iris points out). Granted, there is a king to dethrone at the end of the level, but he's probably about as much of a king as the Burger King is.
The Ninja Gaiden games (gaiden meaning side story) are not a side story to anything, except for the Sega versions which were the first to use the Ninja Gaiden title outside the U.S.
In Final Fight, Andore Jr. is Andore's younger brother, not his son.
Quartet 2 is not a sequel to the SegaArcade GameQuartet (there isn't any), it's just an alternate version of the game made for 2-player cabinets (the original was sold on a deluxe 4-player cabinet).
Hang-On II is not a sequel to Hang-On, it's just an SG-1000 port of the original game. (The MSX port of Hang-On is identical in all but the title screen.) The number was only added to distinguish it from the Master System port of Hang-On released prior to it. (The actual sequel was Super Hang-On.)
After Burner II was a conversion kit to the original After Burner, not an actual sequel. The actual sequel, After Burner Climax, was released almost two decades later.
Anything in a fighting game called "killing techniques" or "mortal techniques" are perfectly ordinary specials which, in many cases, are the fighter's LEAST damaging attacks. Some fighting games do have attacks that kill the opponents...except that these are called "fatalities", a term that's supposed to indicate the result of these attacks, not the attacks themselves.
While Chocobo Racing is a racing game, nobody does so on a chocobo. There are two playable chocobos, though that's a minority of the ten characters you can choose.
In Assassins Creed Revelations, the Templar faction in Istanbul are called the Byzantines and are trying to restore the Byzantine Empire to its former glory. While the characters refer to them as the Byzantines, in real life they were never called that. Instead, the Byzantines actually called themselves "Romans" because they were part of the East Roman Empire. Additionally, they never were called the Byzantine Empire either as that was a name thought up by a historian years after its destruction.
Speedy Eggbert; the main character is neither particularly speedy, nor is he called Eggbert. (The name is Blupi in case you're wondering)
Partially averted with the original version, which was called Speedy Blupi.
Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight. The only connection between this and Street Fighter is that the main character is Ken, and even that doesn't apply to the Japanese version.
Of course, the game has nothing to do with Final Fight either.
In Marvel Super Heroes and Marvel Super Heroes Vs Street Fighter, Blackheart has a special move called "Inferno", which is a fire-elemental move (obviously)... not only that, it can also be ice and lightning-elemental, making it a Fire, Ice, Lightning move (the element that comes out depends on which one of the 3 punch buttons was used in its input command). It gets stranger in Marvel Vs Capcom 2, where the fire and lightning Infernos are removed, leaving Blackheart with the ice variation. That being said, at least lightning has a high temperature and can cause bushfires, but how can ice ever represent an inferno?
Wesker's counter Hyper in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is called Rhino Charge. It does not involve him charging forward like a Rhino, he simply catches the opponent's attack and does a counter jab.
X-Factor in the game? The mutant team? No, a coincidentally named gameplay mechanic that has nothing to do with mutations that gives any character increased speed, strength and healing powers, with no explanation.
Hulk's moves have nothing to do with Gamma Radiation, not even Gamma Wave. They mostly involve giant rocks, which makes sense for Gamma Crush and Gamma Quake, but not Gamma Wave or Gamma Tsunami. Gamma charge does not charge you with Gamma radiation, it just involves Hulk charging forward. The Professor, the persona used for Hulk until the third installment might have named these attacks as such since he was able to use it in his Gamma Radiation induced transformation, but there's no reason Savage Hulk would say anything other than "SMASH" when using these attacks.
The Black Tyranno in Chrono Trigger isn't black, at all. It has more of a grayish teal color.
Apart from being a fighting game, the World Heroes 2 bootleg for the Famicom has nothing to do with the real World Heroes games.
Because Somari is a bootleg port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, the hacked rereleases Sonic & Knuckles 5 and Sonic 3D Blast 6 are this.
As the title suggests, Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors is a game in which nine people have nine hours to find their way through nine doors. However while they start out with nine people, the ninth member of the party is killed off before the opening cutscene is even over, meaning that the game only has eight participants. There are also more than nine doors, with the reveal that the "9" door found is not the true one, and the second one is the one that really leads to the exit. Finally, the True Ending actually lasts longer than the allotted nine hours, with the final puzzle happening as the group tries to escape the apparent sinking. The reveal that there was never any danger of drowning proves that there was actually no time limit at all.
In the Castlevania games, relics that give you powers usually have handwavy names, such as "Lizard's Tail" for the slide item. Order of Ecclesia sends this up by calling the Double Jump item the Ordinary Rock!
Action 52 has a game called Jigsaw, which is actually a platformer.
The Mega Drive version is this to an extent, given the 52nd game is really just the last levels of the other games.
The computer game Elvira: The Arcade Game and the canceled Sega Genesis game Jim Power: The Arcade Game were never in arcades.
Silent Hill 1 has a nightmarish Final Boss theme called "My Heaven". The meaning of the title is open to interpretation, but the implications are anything but heavenly. The "song" is supposed to be the main character's monster-detecting radio reacting to the presence of the final boss.
Putzi, the titular character of a German freeware game (or at least its demo and its remake's demo), is a mage whose face is completely in shadow aside from the shiny eyes. The word "putzig" means "cute" or "twee".
Lure Of The Temptress contains no noticeable luring or tempting. The villainess is indeed described as young and beautiful, but this doesn't seem to have any impact on anything. Her power is founded on magic and mooks, not any attempt to make people enamoured of her.
It is extremely difficult to find a Mahjong game by a web search; nearly all the results returned will actually be Shanghai. This is probablyy the ultimate Video Game Non-Indicative Name.
