Talk:Power Combo

The inconsistent names of Power Combos

It feels like documenting Copy Abilities properly in English is harder than I thought it would be, oh well.

Ok so, the thing is, right now most separate Power Combo pages of the wiki don't source where their names are from. This isn't to say they are conjectural, but I wasn't even sure if they came from Japanese or English.

Turns out that the Kirby 64 Prima guide named them all in English. Whether or not you like the Prima guide, per the naming policy these names take priority over Japanese names. They name all combos however with a + rather than a -, so it's things like "Cutter+Cutter" and "Ice+Needle". However, "Needle-Cutter" was named exactly that in the game's manual, which, per the naming policy, take priority over the Prima guide. And to complicate things even further, in the booklet from Dream Collection they name some Power Combos, this time with &, "Ice & Spark", "Stone & Cutter". And to make it even more complicated, they later call one Power Combo "Stone + Cutter", with a space. And to complicate even more because they can do it, in Dream Buffet they simply named one "Burning Stone".

Point is, there is literally no consistency on how to format these names in English, the only consistent thing is that they have the names of the two abilities being combined. If we went and separately applied the naming policy to each of those, we would have super inconsistent names between them. I think that needs to be addressed in the naming policy however, because cases like this I feel we should instead try to apply the name policy for a group of pages. I am just unsure how, since if we group them all, then we have the Dream Buffet name formatting taking priority, but it's only one name, and the one with the most names given (the Prima guide) is the last one in priority out of these.

What do you all think about this situation? - Gigi (talk • edits) 12:51, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

To help aid, here is a list of the names we have on the wiki (left), and official names (bolded are names that the wiki will likely have to change order):

• Burn-Burn - Burn+Burn
• Burn-Stone - Burn+Stone - Burning Stone
• Burn-Ice - Burn+Ice
• Burn-Needle - Burn+Needle
• Burn-Bomb - Burn+Bomb
• Burn-Spark - Burn+Spark
• Burn-Cutter - Burn+Cutter
• Stone-Stone - Stone+Stone
• Stone-Ice - Ice+Stone
• Stone-Needle - Needle+Stone
• Stone-Bomb - Stone+Bomb
• Stone-Spark - Stone+Spark
• Stone-Cutter - Stone+Cutter - Stone & Cutter - Stone + Cutter
• Ice-Ice - Ice+Ice
• Ice-Needle - Ice+Needle
• Ice-Bomb - Ice+Bomb
• Ice-Spark - Ice+Spark - Ice & Spark
• Ice-Cutter - Ice+Cutter
• Needle-Needle - Needle+Needle
• Needle-Bomb - Needle+Bomb
• Needle-Spark - Needle+Spark
• Needle-Cutter - Needle+Cutter - Needle-Cutter
• Bomb-Bomb - Bomb+Bomb
• Bomb-Spark - Bomb+Spark
• Bomb-Cutter - Bomb+Cutter
• Spark-Spark - Spark+Spark
• Spark-Cutter - Spark+Cutter
• Cutter-Cutter - Cutter+Cutter

Only two would change order based on the official English names. - Gigi (talk • edits) 00:22, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

If it weren't for how the naming policy is currently set up, I feel like going by the Prima names would probably end up being best since that's consistent. That being said, technically all other sources brought up take precedence over the Prima guide, which would just result in a mess. I feel like the best solution would be to add something to the naming policy where groups of similar things have titles formatted similarly for consistency and then just use either the current system based on Needle-Cutter in the manual or the Prima names since those are consistent. ---PinkYoshiFan 03:30, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I am thinking we need a proposal to deal with edge cases like this. Likely in line with conjectural names based on other similar official names (like Neo Star: Stage Select being conjectural but based on Ripple Star: Stage Select which is official). I can't think of many other cases however. And, in this case specifically of Power Combos, I would argue we could use the argument that they are consistent in Japanese, so we should try to be consistent if the English translations cannot be consistent. I will think of a proposal. - Gigi (talk • edits) 16:19, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Bump. - Gigi (talk • edits) 18:38, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

I do prefer consistency over "slightly more official". Definitely worth having a broader discussion, but to be fair this is quite an edge case. ShadowKirby (t/c) a.k.a. your new overlord ShadowMagolor 23:53, 21 February 2024 (UTC)