According to series co-creator Ed Boon in a video/interview on Mortal Kombat's YouTube channel on May 19, 2023, Mortal Kombat 1's name was chosen because the developers consider it the beginning of a new universe and not a continuation of the Mortal Kombat 11 story. The characters have completely different roles in this new timeline, and the title is meant to emphasize that.
The Lion King 1 1/2 for Game Boy Advance was released in European territories not as as the movie's European title The Lion King 3, but rather simply The Lion King, with a large image of cub Simba added to the box art, despite not being playable in-game. The blurb does specify that the game is based on The Lion King 3 and alludes towards only Timon and Pumbaa being playable however.
The original US box art could also be considered misleading to a much lesser degree. While being open about what movie it is an adaptation of and having a giant Timon and Pumbaa ripping through the paper at the top, it uses a modified version of the first film's promo art, featuring Mufasa's spirit head, with cub Simba also present in silhouette (albeit significantly smaller relative to Timon and Pumbaa than on the European box art). This imagery that was not used to market The Lion King 1 1/2 anywhere else. Both boxes' blurbs also feature a screenshot where Simba, as an NPC, is in the center.
In the first level of Ninja Gaiden Black, if the player dies 3 times, the game will ask if they wish to "abandon the way of the Ninja?" After double verifying "Yes", a scene of Ayane coming to Ryu's collapsed body will play, unlocking Ninja Dog Mode, an easier difficulty setting. From then on she will provide additional messages throughout the game that won't be seen in a regular playthrough, with healing items and artifacts that make the game easier. Once per chapter, if the player (or an allied NPC) dies in this mode, the game will provide additional healing items. In addition, all Results scores will say "Ninja Dog", and the title screen will feature an image of Ayane instead of Ryu.
When a US release for Drill Dozer was first announced, it was titled Screw Breaker, a shortened version of its Japanese title Screw Breaker: Goushin Dorirurero.
The game was originally meant to be renamed to Darkstalkers: Jedah's Damnation for the international release, as seen in an official English-language strategy guide. However, the game retained it's Japanese name of Vampire Savior for the arcade release for reasons unknown. Eventually the game would be renamed Darkstalkers 3 for the console ports. The original name and logo can still be found within the game's files.
In the early Korean gaming scene, importers would create original titles for imported games. Humorously, New Rally-X would gain the title of Banggucha, or in English, Fart Car, owing to a literal interpretation of the smoke attack in the game. This title is also a reference to a juvenile Korean slang term for mosquito repellant trucks in the 1970s, which children and some adults would dangerously chase due to their visual and audible resemblance to farting, as well as false assumptions of the mosquito repellant cleaning germs in humans, in a game Americans called "chasing the mosquito man" but Koreans would call "fart car".
The US versions of Gyromite and Stack-Up did not have their title screens localized, so they retain the games' Japanese titles of Robot Gyro and Robot Block respectively.
US Stack-Up in action. Note that the ROB being used here is somewhat yellowed from sun exposure, so some may mistake him for a yellow JP Robot - observe the sticker on his base and you will see that he is NTSC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da0_OgCCLJA
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When Software Creations' SNES Batman pitch first leaked, its ROM header was modified to read "Real Shitty Batman!"
The subtitle of Star Fox: Assault was suggested by Nintendo of America. Initially, there were legal concerns as Namco had already trademarked the name "Assault" for their 1988 arcade game of the same name. Fortunately for Nintendo, the trademark was only valid within Japan, and Namco, who were already the developers for Star Fox: Assault, had granted them permission to use the title.
The Nintendo Entertainment System versions of Defender II, Joust, and Millipede were all conceived as part of a failed deal between Nintendo and Atari to distribute the Famicom internationally. Development was outsourced to HAL Laboratory, who decided to publish the games themselves in 1987 after Nintendo took international distribution of the console into their own hands two years prior. One additional title was put together as part of the Atari deal, but it was never released, with none of the parties involved revealing what it was.
Because of the circumstances behind their conception, the Japanese versions of these three games all feature title screens reminiscent of Famicom launch titles, with the copyright information uniformly reading "COPYRIGHT 1983 ATARI". When Nintendo of America exported the games to North America in 1988, the title screens were made more elaborate and the copyright info was updated. The ways of accessing the game's modes are also changed in the North American release; instead of having them all available on the title screen, the player must press Start in Defender II and Millipede to bring up a menu (itself displaying additional copyright information). In Joust, pressing Start skips the menu and automatically begins Game A; the player must press Select in order to access the menu.
The development of Joust as a launch title for an Atari-distributed system would have a prominent knock-on effect on HAL and Nintendo's future. The game was one of the first titles to be programmed by Satoru Iwata, who would go on to become a vital asset to HAL thanks to his coding skills before becoming Nintendo's president in 2002, and his experiences developing Joust would help him program Balloon Fight.
Pokémon Puzzle Challenge has an unused title screen reading Pokémon Puzzle League, implying that it once shared a name with its Nintendo 64 counterpart.
The credits for Spot Goes to Hollywood call the game Cool Spot 3, but it is unknown what game is supposed to be Cool Spot 2. It could either be counting Spot: The Cool Adventure (which was released in Europe as McDonaldland, despite the credits for Hollywood not changing in that region) as Cool Spot 2, or it could be counting the original Cool Spot as Cool Spot 2 while treating the Reversi game Spot: The Video Game as Cool Spot 1.
There exists a myth that claims that the giggling scent hound from Duck Hunt's real name is "Mr. Peepers", also the name of a 1950s sitcom. This name is not mentioned in any official Nintendo material, but has been brought up as the dog's name on the internet as far back as at least 2006, and would be cited by many legitimate sources as the dog's name up until the release of Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, which named the character simply "Duck Hunt" or "Dog". To this day, it remains unknown where the idea of the dog being named "Mr. Peepers" originated and how it spread to be such a popular title for the character.
The game's title is not known to be a parody of an existing title: while many assume it's a parody of the 2014 adventure game D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die, this has not been confirmed by the devs, who stated on the game's Steam Community page that "There might [be] quite a list of interpretation[s,] but for us it is just a matching title for a new Larry adventure ;-)". Series creator Al Lowe (who was not involved in the title) stated prior to release that he was unimpressed by the title.
The fly species in Yars' Revenge, the yar, and their home planet, Razak, are reversals of then-Atari CEO Ray Kassar's name. Creator Howard Scott Warshaw told a marketing executive this was the name's origin, but did not inform them that Kassar was unaware of the name's origins, leading them to believe the name was coined by Kassar and preventing them from informing him and getting the name changed.
Atari Video Cube was originally an unlicensed adaptation of the Rubik's Cube toy - it would eventually be released as an official Rubik's Cube product.
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All of the songs in Animorphs for the Game Boy Color have an internal title. While most of these are descriptive of either the song or its context, some are vulgar in nature and one even includes a slur - those being SHATURATOR, SHITSACK, and FAGGAGS.
Additionally, WORLD1 refers to the jingle at the start of a mission instead of a world 1 theme, and INTROA is one of the battle songs instead of an intro theme.
In 2019, a meme image was posted by Twitter user Vecchitto showing a fake page from the Tetris manual giving the Tetrominos their own names:
• J is "Orange Ricky" • L is "Blue Ricky" • Z is "Cleveland Z" • S is "Rhode Island Z" • I is "Hero" • T is "Teewee" • O is "Smashboy"
Later in the same year, these fake names would appear on an episode of Jeopardy!, mistaken for official Tetris names - despite being incorrect, the player given the question still answered correctly.
Print adverts for Zoop give the pieces in the game their own names:
• The olive-shaped green piece is called "Ganggreenus" • The martini-glass-shaped purple piece is called "Martinicocki" • The boomerang-shaped blue piece is called "Infectococci" • The baby's-dummy-shaped orange piece is called "Lockjawbacilli" • The yellow splat-shaped piece, used as a power-up in the game, is called "Fungusamungus" • A spiral-shaped piece, not present in the game but resembling the spring power-ups, is called "Mosquitick"
It should be noted that the splat and spring pieces are given different names in the game's manual: "Color Bomb" and "Bonus Spring" respectively.
The patterned square pieces from the Game Boy version of the game do not have names.
Name This Game was a gimmick release with a self-explanatory title. Originally conceived as a Jaws game for Parker Brothers, it was rethemed with an octopus for Quaker Oats' U.S. Games branch after the license fell through - while U.S. Games originally intended to release it under the name Guardians of Treasure (a combination of creator Ron Dubren's suggestions of Guardians of the Deep and Treasure of the Deep), it was decided to make the game's name the subject of a contest where players could win $10,000 for providing a title for the game. U.S. Games was dissolved by Quaker Oats before the name could be chosen, leaving the game without an official title.
The Lion King 1 1/2 for Game Boy Advance was released in European territories not as as the movie's European title The Lion King 3, but rather simply The Lion King, with a large image of cub Simba added to the box art, despite not being playable in-game. The blurb does specify that the game is based on The Lion King 3 and alludes towards only Timon and Pumbaa being playable however.
The game was originally meant to be renamed to Darkstalkers: Jedah's Damnation for the international release, as seen in an official English-language strategy guide. However, the game retained it's Japanese name of Vampire Savior for the arcade release for reasons unknown. Eventually the game would be renamed Darkstalkers 3 for the console ports. The original name and logo can still be found within the game's files.
In the early Korean gaming scene, importers would create original titles for imported games. Humorously, New Rally-X would gain the title of Banggucha, or in English, Fart Car, owing to a literal interpretation of the smoke attack in the game. This title is also a reference to a juvenile Korean slang term for mosquito repellant trucks in the 1970s, which children and some adults would dangerously chase due to their visual and audible resemblance to farting, as well as false assumptions of the mosquito repellant cleaning germs in humans, in a game Americans called "chasing the mosquito man" but Koreans would call "fart car".
The US versions of Gyromite and Stack-Up did not have their title screens localized, so they retain the games' Japanese titles of Robot Gyro and Robot Block respectively.
The Nintendo Entertainment System versions of Defender II, Joust, and Millipede were all conceived as part of a failed deal between Nintendo and Atari to distribute the Famicom internationally. Development was outsourced to HAL Laboratory, who decided to publish the games themselves in 1987 after Nintendo took international distribution of the console into their own hands two years prior. One additional title was put together as part of the Atari deal, but it was never released, with none of the parties involved revealing what it was.
Pokémon Puzzle Challenge has an unused title screen reading Pokémon Puzzle League, implying that it once shared a name with its Nintendo 64 counterpart.
In 2019, a meme image was posted by Twitter user Vecchitto showing a fake page from the Tetris manual giving the Tetrominos their own names:
Print adverts for Zoop give the pieces in the game their own names: