Final Fantasy VII Remake just launched, and I've been working on the quest pages, though there's a problem I've had related to the in-game capitalization. The capitalization rules for this game seem to be that titles are uppercase in menus, while names are lowercase in all other contexts. This applies to enemies, materia, items, weapons, everything. So while they will use "Phoenix Down" in the menu, the on-screen text will be "A tuft of phoenix down". Same applies to enemies in lore contexts. "A tuft of phoenix down" is proper English, and makes more sense to use in articles. Since this is the text that displays after obtaining an item, we can't say the lowercase name is only used in non-gameplay contexts. If we used article titles that were not uppercase, however, that would technically be inconsistent with the game. One recommendation I have is to use "Phoenix Down" in tables and page titles, but "phoenix down" in all other contexts. My only reservation for this is that it would make linking difficult; for instance, Security Officers should be "security officer", but [[Security Officer|security officer]] is a pain to type and will likely get missed throughout the wiki anyway. Thus, my other recommendation would be to ignore title case and simply use sentence case for all FFVII-R names and titles. This is slightly less accurate to the game, but easier on the wiki. Any thoughts? | |||
If we're going by the game's capitalization rules, then I agree with the former, as it is absolutely applicable in this case. I propose that we create sentence-case titled redirects, though I am a bit on the fence with that one as it seemingly sounds impractical ~ COƧMO THE CHOCOBO | TALK? | at 20:51, Apr 11, 2020 (UTC)
I don't think it's much of a problem to use the Title Case names in all contexts when referring to the gameplay thing. It's just added flavour for battle messages. Going as far to say "use tufts of phoenix down to revive allies" over "use Phoenix Downs[...]" feels overcomplicated if they're still using Title Case in menus. They use the "tufts of"etc. in FFXII at asll, which is something I felt we should probably mention on the items/list of items article but don't think it should change how we talk about gameplay.
But I can live with doing the former. JBed (talk) 21:18, April 11, 2020 (UTC)
We wouldn't use "tufts of phoenix down", we'd just use "phoenix down". Saying "use a phoenix down" is technically correct English, where "use a Phoenix Down" isn't, and isn't even what the game is. "Select Phoenix Down" is correct, but we'd never naturally say that when writing prose.
The game just seems to follow proper English rules in everything except the menu text: if the enemy name isn't the name of a person or robot model etc., it's lowercase; if the materia name is something like "fire materia" where the name describes what it is, it's lowercase, unless it's for a specific ability, in which case it's "Magic Up materia". Even for weapons, it's "picked up a pair of sonic strikers", not "picked up the Sonic Strikers". So again, outside the page title, the tables, and maybe the bolded first text, it's more correct to use sentence case in all other contexts. This seems to be the consensus.
The only problem with sentence case redirects is just that it could lead to double redirects building quickly. Other than that, I've nothing against it.--
Technobliterator TC 10:15, April 12, 2020 (UTC)
- It's not about "correct English" when we're talking about gameplay. "Use a Phoenix Down" makes perfect sense when we're talking about gameplay and the thing we are talking about is "Phoenix Down".
- Your argument about following on-screen messages is understandable. I simply disagree, and don't think it's important that the game distorts lore and gameplay for a more in-world writing style in its messaging. From a lore perspective, Cloud did indeed pick up a pair of sonic strikers (as we would write in a lore section), but from a gameplay perspective, the player picked up the Sonic Strikers. We know that in the gameplay only context of the Items menu that they refer to it as "Sonic Strikers", it's the gameplay name that makes most sense to use in gameplay sections. JBed (talk) 19:08, April 12, 2020 (UTC)
- Indeed, it's about what the games use, and in this case, that's correct English.
- For weapons, on the weapons page I'd use "Tifa can equip Sonic Strikers" in most contexts, but under the Obtained section, it'd be "the party finds the sonic strikers during "Sentenced to Death" from ..".--
Technobliterator TC 19:57, April 12, 2020 (UTC)