< Verbal Tic

Verbal Tic/Video Games

Examples of Verbal Tic in Video Games include:

  • All townspeople (or rather, town animals) in Animal Crossing. They can also allow you to change what they say, which is just asking for trouble.
    • NPCs that appear in every town (i.e. in the shops, town hall, etc.) would probably also count. Brewster (the pigeon who runs The Roost, a coffee shop) tends to say "coo" frequently when he talks, and owl siblings Blathers and Celeste often say "hoo" and "hootie-toot," respectively. Tom Nook also has a habit of saying "yes, yes" and "hm?", though unlike the other examples, that's unrelated to the kind of animal he is. Unlike the normal, apparently unemployed villagers, these phrases cannot be changed.
  • In the Final Fantasy series, the Moogles - wherever they appear and whatever they may look like - always stick "-kupo" in at the end of every sentence, if they can say any other words at all. Some incarnations, in the Japanese versions, use "mogu" in place of a personal pronoun like "watashi" or "boku".
    • Cyan in the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VI speaks in a samurai manner ending sentences with "de gozaru." The English translation made him speak Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe by using "ye" and "thou". This caused Gau to call Sabin "Mr. Thou" he first meets the two of them.
    • Final Fantasy VII with Reno's 'zotto'. Much more apparent in the Compilation. Sometimes translated as ending every sentence with 'yo'.
    • In Final Fantasy VIII, underlings Raijin and Fujin have verbal tics. Raijin ends every sentence with "ya know?", while Fujin almost always speaks in monosyllabic sentences, and IN ALL CAPS. Raijin's "ya know?" was carried over into Kingdom Hearts II, revealing that this is much more annoying in spoken form. There's also Watts who refers to nearly everyone as "sir" in every sentence to show his politeness.
    • In Final Fantasy IX, Regent Cid was transformed into an insect-like creature called an oglop, and while he can still speak English, he still makes a "gwok" sound every few words or so. Then he tries to get cured, and turns into a frog, and the gwok is replaced with a ribbit. When he finally returns to being human, he's so used to the verbal tics that he still gwoks and ribbits on occasion.
    • In Final Fantasy X, Wakka would end whatever he says with "ya?"
      • Rikku had one too, you know?
    • In Final Fantasy XI, most Tarutaru NPCs have some sort of verbal tic, though it varies widely from person to person. The most common variant is adding extensions to random words to make them rhyme (for example, "timey-wimey") and ending words that would normally end in "t" with "taru." e.g. "Didn'taru you know? The homepoint is over that way"
    • Elvaan NPCs have a habit of screaming "foreigner!". ...On a more serious note, a voice which is heavily implied to be Absolute Virtue typically addsss extra sss to everything, probably to indicate hisssing or sssomething.
    • A special mention goes to Dissidia Final Fantasy when several characters are given such with Warrior of Light's love for his namesake, with Cecil right behind him with a little darkness here and there. And ExDeath's infatuation for the Void and nothingness.
    • In Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Ring of Fates, the Yuke mage Alhanalem ends his sentences in "-al" for all matters conversational. Lilty warrior-alchemist Meeth, as befitting of her "cutesy" personality, ends all of hers with "-ie" sounds.
  • Every character in Just Cause 2 has this, serdadu.
  • In the English dub of the Disgaea games, Prinnies tend to insert the word "dood" somewhere into one of their sentences whenever they speak. In Japanese, they slur at the ends of sentences ("ssu" is the most common way).
    • In Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten, it's shown that the number one rule of being a Prinny is that you must end your sentences with "dood"/"ssu".
    • In addition, Yukimaru from Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories adds the word "zam" to all her sentences ("de gozaru" in the Japanese version).
    • Mr. Champloo of Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice needs emphasis, boom! This Verbal Tic was actually added to the English dub -- the Japanese version's main speech pattern quirk is that he speaks like an overly excited Samurai.
    • Desco of Disgaea 4 likes the word "desu" a lot. She uses it in a grammatically correct fashion, as opposed to simply saying it at the end of sentences, though. It's also written in the way that can be romanized as "death" in her dialogue. Pretty much certain to be Lost in Translation.
  • In the Art of Fighting games (And The King of Fighters series that followed it), Yuri Sakazaki frequently appends "-cchi" to her speech, a bit of nonsense that doesn't mean anything.
  • Speaking of The King of Fighters, don't forget Choi Bounge, yansu! It's been weakly translated as "Yeeessss..." or "Buddy-boy" in different sources, since the fact that he says it is central to his character.
  • Nergal from Sailor Moon: Another Story has a tendency to say "Ma..." in the middle of her sentences.
  • Nekonin (Or Katz) of the Tales (series) end each sentence with "nya" or distort the last syllable into "~ya" (The English version has "Meow" instead, natch). They're not really catgirls, but a species that looks like humans in cat costumes, though exactly what they are is unclear.
    • In Tales of Innocence, Coda, a frightening little mascot-thing traveling with one of the characters, will end many of his sentences with "shikashi" (or, per the Fan Translation, "you know"). Hermana, the ten-year-old fistfighter, will draw out the final syllable of her attack names and sentences into a "ya~" or "yan."
    • Cerberus ends its sentences with "~wan".
  • The Oresoren from Tales of Legendia, ors!
  • In the Japanese version of Tales of the Abyss, the Team Pet fuzzy mascot character Mieu ended every sentence with "desuno." This was removed completely in the English version, though he is prone to punctuating his dialog with "Miieeeuuuuu..." or "Mieu mieu!"
    • Without the aid of the Sorcerer's Ring, all cheagles can say is "mieu."
  • The "Jack" class of demons/persona (Jack Frost, Pyro Jack, Black Frost, King Frost, etc) in the Shin Megami Tensei series tend to add "hee-ho!" to every sentence they speak. Various other demons speak IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS or iN ToRGo sPEeCh.
    • Jacks don't just add it: some words get-hee hodified heecause they can't stop ho.
    • Digital Devil Saga made fun of this: there is a boss fight with a Jack Frost and a Pyro Jack. Their human forms are hip-hop artists who use the hees and hos in normal speech.
  • Don't forget Teddie's un-bear-able bear puns.........-kuma.
  • Aigis from Persona 3 ends most of her sentences with "de arimasu." Lost in Translation unfortunately.
  • From Star Ocean: The Last Hope, Lymle speaks like this, kay?
  • Western example: T-Bone from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas ends each and every sentence with "ese"; however, as described below, he does it to sound more cholo. César Villalpando also does this, though less often, and also ends his phrases with "holmes" and "vato".
  • A fan-translation of Chrono Trigger reveals that the character Mayonay (known as Flea in the SNES release) would end her(?) sentences with "yo nay", which was meant to sound like her name and be sickeningly cute at the same time..
    • Chrono Cross practically revolves around this-- the number of characters you could invite to your party was so vast that the lines given to your party members during story scenes were the same for most party members, but modified by that character's 'accent'-- many times this meant adding a Verbal Tic of some sort.
    • This is explained by a "developer" in the secret ending, who will allow you to channel any character in the game with a short passage he uses to see how their accent modifies it. The real reasoning for this approach was to reduce the amount of text in the game to a more manageable level for the developers (they only had to write each part once, then have any character say it with the code that modifies it to suit them). It's especially interesting for some of the stranger accents.
    • For example, Pierre, who uses a "french" accent, but he's inconsistent- using his accent on the passage again and again reveals he slips up and speaks without his french accent quite frequently.
  • In Ghost Trick Inspector Cabanela likes to draaaaw out his voooowels, baaaaby.
  • Count Bleck in Super Paper Mario tends to punctuate sentences with his own name ("My victory will soon be complete, Bleck.") or maniacal laughter, also in the form of his own name ("O'Chunks! Get him! Bleh-heh-he-heck!"). Or, more rarely, with simply "...mused Count Bleck."
    • Certain theories explain that use of the third person as Bleck quoting his dialogue directly from the Dark Prognosticus.
    • Nerdy chameleon Francis likes saying "nerr."
    • Don't forget Nastasia, 'kay?
    • WATCH IT! Or Mayor Watchitt of Yold Town will put grit in your grunders.
    • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has even more of them, many of them villains with a distinctive (and annoying) Evil Laugh.
    • Emperor Grodus's "Gaaaack aaaack aaaack aaaack aaaack!"
    • Lord Crump's "Buh huh huh huh huh!", along with other punctuations of "Buh!" within his speech.
    • Beldam's "Mwee hee hee hee hee"
    • Also Doopliss's habit of calling everyone "Slick".
    • Most of the fighters at the Glitz Pit also have a Verbal Tic, some as mild as an interesting manner of speaking (like the Hulk Speaking Hyper Bald Cleft or the Totally Radical King K), some as egregious as putting BOMB! in the middle of their sentences randomly, BOMB!
    • The Bob-omb example was lampshaded as "some speech issues" by King K.
    • The Bob-bombs at Fahr Outpost occasionally do this too, but not nearly as bad as the one at the Glitz Pit.
    • Then there's Rawk Hawk, who lets out a loud RAAAAAAAAAAAWK!!!!!!! This could be just him crowing/squawking though, since he is a giant chicken or something like that.
    • Enemies and NPCs outside of the RPGs do this as well. Jibberjays (birds you race against) in Super Mario Galaxy 2 repeat words after saying them like 'Listen up! Listen up!', while star bunnies from both Galaxy games add "boiyoing" to the end of their sentences.
  • mR. sAtURn hAVe VeRbAl tIc tOO, bOInG!
  • Axel Almer, during his stitch as the amnesiac hero in Super Robot Wars Advance, often ends his sentence with 'korenara' or 'koitsuna' (which means 'that is'). He drops it completely if he's the Rival or his OG 2 version. But in Original Generations, he occasionally (not very often) slips up.
  • In Drawn to Life, the Raposa are an entire species that exhibits the same verbal tic. They refer to themselves as "Rapos" (ie "that young Rapo," "you stubborn Rapo," etc.), which isn't that unusual-but their money is "Rapo Tokens", and occasionally the townsfolk will, without provocation, scatter "Rapo" into their sentences. Also, when you talk to NPC children not important to the plot, the voice clip the little girls will spout is a joyous "Wapo!" and the little boys a rather bewildered "Wapo...?" Once in a while, you also get the curious "opa," which seems a little out of the pattern.
    • "opa" could be a corruption of the "osa" part of "Raposa", although it still doesn't fit "Rapo".
    • Could it be "Opar"? As in, "Rapo" spelled bakwards.
  • And Xenogears has the infamous Chu Chu, who replaces many ordinary words by "chu" and has a shrill voice clip. It later turns out that there's a whole race of little chus who insert "chu" everywhere, have shrill voice clips and let's say it's a bit chu much.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles's resident race of Chu Chu expies, the Nopon, end all of their sentences with "mo" in the Japanese dub. In the English dub, they frequently tack "pon" onto the ends of words they say.
  • The Gorons from The Legend of Zelda series tend to do this, goro. In Ocarina of Time, this wasn't translated, but in Majora's Mask, one Goron uses it (it's a plot point. He shares a name with you, so you get his room at the inn without having to pay. You don't know why at first, but if you're at the lobby at the right point, you can see a Goron trying to check in, but since there is no "Link-goro" listed...) In Twilight Princess, they use "brother" instead, brother.
    • My God, now we know what an entire race of Hulk Hogans would look and sound like...
    • This is kept in the manga, goro. Likewise, some of the Zoras ended their sentences with "Zora". You catch my drift, zora?
    • Also in Twilight Princess there's Ashei, the female warrior from the Resistance group, yeah? It's never really explained why, but she ends about a third of her sentences that way. Even if what she's saying isn't actually a question, she still sometimes does it, yeah?
    • And, in Skyward Sword there's the Kikwis, tiny woodland creatures that, kwee, often put "Kwee" at random spots in their sentences, kwee!
    • In the Japanese version of Oracle of Ages, the Tokay peppered their speech with "toka". This was removed in translations, since other audiences generally found that sort of thing annoying.
  • Don't forget Spat from Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak, pfpth!
  • Bowyer[1] in Super Mario RPG (at least in Ted Woolsey's translation) likes to go around shouting "Nya!" Object-Subject-Verb sentence form he also uses, much like Yoda.
  • Toadbert in Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, by boogity.
    • Does Dr. Toadley phrase each of his sentences in the form of a question and answer? He does.
    • The Emoglobins have two verbal-ish globins. And they're all Large-ish Globins.
  • In the Japanese version of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Fawful (Gerakobits in the original) ends his sentences with "rururu". The English translation pulled an epic Woolseyism on this, translating it as him speaking in hilariously mangled English reminiscent of poorly-translated old video games.
  • In the Touhou series, Cute Witch Marisa Kirisame's brash, tomboyish attitude is emphasized by her use of the masculine "ze".
    • In some English-language fanon, Cirno, instead of using "I" as a first-person pronoun, uses "eye", resulting in "Eye'm the strongest" instead of "I'm the strongest", as a mirror to her tic in Japanase: using atai as a contraction of atashi, a Japanese first-person pronoun.
    • Tewi Inaba, the leader of the Earth rabbits of Eientei, is sometimes shown to end her sentences with "-usa".
  • SHODAN's stutter, combined with the Creepy Monotone, makes for one of the most Badass tics in history.

"L-l-look at you, hacker. A p-p-pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you r-run through my corridors-s. H-h-how can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?"

  • Salsa in Eternal Sonata tends to end a lot of her sentences with "tabe" in the Japanese dialogue.
  • "As part of a required test protocol, we will stop enhancing the truth in three, two, bzzt.."
  • One of the characters in Bahamut Lagoon routinely ends sentences with "De Arimasu" in the Japanese. This was left out of the fan translation; but, oddly, this was cited as being because the translator couldn't think of a way to translate it -- it actually translates fairly well as someone using "Sir" or "Yes sir" as a sentence ender; although this isn't even close to a literal translation, it has the same militaristic and over-regimented connotations.
  • Solid Snake's growling increases ten-fold in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots... Not that this is a bad thing.
  • In Baroque, the Coffin Man punctuates all of his speech with "Goddamn" and "Goddammit" placed in completely inappropriate places, regardless of his actual feelings or tone. It's kind of creepy... but less so than the Bagged One who speaks entirely in quotes from other people, prefacing everything with a statement of its original source.
  • Knights of the Old Republic. Exclamation: How DARE you meatbags neglect to mention me!
    • Justification: Less a verbal tic and more a very, um, convincing characterization that somehow manages to be more badass than annoying. Conjecture: perhaps the writers felt that it would dehumanize him. Conclusion: It seems to have had the opposite effect.
    • Suggestion: They may have simply thought it would be funny. Addendum: And they were right.
  • In Dune 2000, House Ordos' Mentat often feels the need to clarify a sentence by stating its nature immediately afterwards. That is an example. It's quite distinctive. That is an opinion.
  • In Deus Ex, the AI Helios has a habit of adding a confirming "yes" to his sentences, occasionally drawling it out unnaturally. His first word upon being 'born', in fact, is "Y-e-e-e-e-s-s-s..."
  • The Mutant Master from Fallout has the awesome tic of switching between his two voice actors mid-sentence - a sarcastic intellectual for most of his speech, a raving lunatic whenever anything violent is mentioned and a woman whenever anything "pleasant" comes up. Since his voice is generated by a synthesiser in-game, it also sometimes "fuzzes out" into a more electronic-sounding tone.

"The Unity will bring about the master race. Master! MASTER! One able to survive, or even thrive in the wasteland. As long as there are differences, we will TEAR OURSELVES APART! fighting each other. We need one race! Race! RACE! One goal! GOAL! Goal! One people . . . to move forward to our destiny. Destiny."

  • Rise and. Shine Missster Freee. Man. Riseand. Shine.
  • Pommy in Bomberman 64 The Second Attack would throw "myu" randomly in most of his sentences.
  • In Dynasty Warriors, Yellow Turbans leader Zhang Jiao never stops talking about the HEAVENS, Ma Chao has an obsession for JUSTICE, Sima Yi's tendency to call everyone Imbeciles and more recently, we have Shu's BENEVOLENCE
    • Samurai Warriors has a few: Kanetsugu interlaces every sentence with honour, love, and friendship; Kotaro's every second word is chaos, chaos, chaos; Hanzo's obsession with shadows and darkness; Motochika's preoccupied with history and being remembered; Kanbei loves talking about fire and it's many variations, Kenshin consistently referring Shingen as his "Nemesis" and Masamune's own urge to call everyone Imbeciles.
  • In Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, the Harvest sprites say "budum" after pretty much every sentence.
  • The old and slightly loony Dr. Brackman in Supreme Commander has a habit of saying "oh yes" at various moments (often at the end of something as emphasis), which is kinda creepy with his weird accent/voice. To be fair, being nothing but a brain in a jar hooked up to supercomputers (and having been so for over a thousand years) probably isn't good for one's sanity - Dostya tells you to be patient; he may be a bit wonky upstairs, but he is a genius.
  • Sho Minamimoto of The World Ends With You uses liberal amounts of advanced mathematical terminology in his speech, such as calling the meddling protagonists 'Factoring hectopascals!'. He's especially fond of the term Zetta, using it as an exclamation, modifier, noun, frequently, sometimes repeatedly in the same sentence.
  • We are Ermac. In the Mortal Kombat series, we usually refer to ourselves as a group of beings rather than a singular individual, much like Venom does.
  • In Treasure of the Rudra, each of the Races except Danans and Humans have this, Mermaids would use Glub, Giants would emphasize their voice through Capitalizing parts of words in their sentences, and Reptiles emphasize the s sounds in their speech.
  • Phantasy Star IV's musk cats have a charming tendency to end or begin all of their sentences with 'meow' in the English version. "I can get the top off this bottle, meow."
  • The Gaws from Popful Mail are a race of diminutive dragons who often end their sentences with "gaw!"
  • Popple from Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga also has a tic, see? Fawful's infamous 'I have fury!' Prone to saying it whenever things weren't going exactly as planned.
  • Miki from iDOLM@STER has two of them nano! ...afu.
  • This one is impressed that you have not forgotten the Hanar from Mass Effect.
    • Delighted, nor have you forgotten the elcor.
    • Mordin. Salarian scientist. Short sentences. Lack of conjunctions. Talks fast. Never[2] uses pronouns. Long-winded, overly analytical. Thinks out loud. Likes to solve puzzles, chatter on about problems. *sharp inhale* Tends to annoy slow thinking aliens.

Shepard: For the love of God, take a breath!

    • Does Legion not count, Shepard-Commander?
  • The merchant-inclined Shugo in Aion sometimes add "ekekekekek" or especially "nyerk!" to dialogue. The US/EU beta forums actually started using that latter tic as part of the censor, one nyerk per letter, so that "fucking" for example became "nyerknyerknyerknyerking". Now the official and fansite forums have inherited it: "I killed a lot of nyerking worgs today. None of them dropped anything good, nyerk."
  • Know that Dak'kon from Planescape: Torment hails from a culture that puts special emphasis on what is known to them, to the point of emphasizing the concept in their speech.
    • Know that Zhjaeve from Neverwinter Nights 2 comes from the same culture, and know that she also talks like this.
  • The Vortigaunts in the Half-Life series, once they learn English, apparently drag a few rules of grammar with them. The first person plural is used, unless it's important that the speaker clarify that he is speaking of himself (in which case "this one" replaces "I"); proper names are usually preceded with "the" (The Alyx Vance, The Eli Vance, The Magnusson, The Freeman...).
  • The Soviets in Destroy All Humans! 2 are being having a unique way of being speaking, that is not being making any sense, along with being having heavy Russian accents.
  • Condescension: The wiki cannot withstand the superiority of the Daktaklakpak. Declaration: Many other, inferior races in the Star Control series also have Verbal Tics.
    • The Umgah end almost every statement with "Har-har-har!" The Talking Pet even imitates this when he mentally enslaves the Umgah.
    • The VUX tend to audibly express how *urp* repulsive they find humans whenever they converse with one.
  • Such a pity that the English translation of Dragon Quest VIII hasn't been mentioned! Anyone who has been possessed by the evil scepter can't help but feel pity, pity, pity, to the extent that random NPCs you find muttering about what a pity things are, are a major clue to finding the whereabouts of the Lord of Darkness, and when your own team member is possessed by Rhapthorne, you can tell because she keeps saying what a pity it is she has to kill you.
    • In many Dragon Quest games, the slimes have a tendency to pepper their speech with the word "goo".
  • Adult Fongoid Males in Ratchet and Clank Future A Crack In Time have one, believed to be a genetic misfunction from constant time travel, to which the scientists mention would be a laughable theory, according to the trivia text anyway.
  • In World of Warcraft, Arakkoa - rraa-ak! caa-ak - pepper their speech they do - hmmmm - their birdlike nature they have - mmmmm - as well - ra-ekkk! - their sentences, awkward - raa-aawk! - structured they are, yes? Along with - eckk! eckk! - ticks physical - kaa-aak - too, yes?
  • The Guild Grunties in .hack//G.U. has various verbal tics.
    • "I'm Grunty! You're Haseo! Oink!" -Death Grunty
    • "I think I smell Death Grunty on you. Mellow." -Melo Grunty
    • "Good and ill fortune are closely interwoven.' That's a proverb I learned from my master. Nero." -Wise Grunty
  • Carter Blake from Heavy Rain always seems to feel the need to address Norman Jayden as "NORMAN." Always the first name, always emphasized, always spat out like a playground insult.
  • Very minor NPC example: In Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, Rossetti Troupe member Gonnella the Clown likes to finish pretty much every other sentence with the word "eh." And no, he is not Canadian.
  • The Kingdom of Loathing has various equipment and effects that will cause these when you chat.
    • And then there's Bumpty-bump The Lighthouse Keeper Bumpty-bump
  • A few of the shopkeepers in La-Mulana have these.
  • My friends, Kugar from Alter AILA always begins and ends his sentences with "My friends"...my friends.
  • Zanber from Super Robot Wars NEO tacks on -pen after every sentence.
  • In the original Star FOX (1993, Super NES) and its comic series, Slippy would commonly stutter the beginnings of his words, and in the game he would also sometimes add "ribbit" to the end of his sentences. Since Star Fox 64 though, Slippy has lost all verbal tics and speaks (sort of) normally.
  • Axel from the Kingdom Hearts series. Got it memorized?
  • Why have you not mentioned Dr. Letz Shake question mark. Also, Thunder Ryu peppers his sentences with THAT!
  • This is Sergeant Foley from Modern Warfare. Don't forget me, hooah?
  • Omochao has one in the Japanese version, chao!
  • King Dedede ends his sentances with "-zoi" - just like he did in the Anime - in the Japanese version of Kirbys Epic Yarn.
  • City of Heroes has Dillo, an alien who has come to Earth to help fend off the same world-destroying threat that almost wiped out his race. His infectious enthusiasm, geeky love of all things human, almost-Moe vulnerabilities, and Blunt Metaphors Trauma have combined to make his Verbal Tic--"*hoorb!*"--downright memetic.
  • The catgirls in Slave Maker. Meow! The same rule also applies for the ponygirls. Neigh!
  • In the Japanese version of Mega Man 7, Rightot (AKA Auto) ends his sentences with "-dasu."
  • Blaze Union's Byff tends to punctuate his remarks with "nantsutte", a dialectual phrase that generally means something like "just kidding". Appropriate, as rarely does he open his mouth without shoehorning some kind of joke or pun into what he wants to say.
  • In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the various dragons such as Alduin, Paarthurnax, and Odahviing have a tendency to slip from mortal speech to their dragon tongue without thinking about it. Krosis. Paarthurnax, at least, is friendly enough that he bothers noticing and correcting himself.
  • In Mass Effect, Shepard has a habit of ending nearly every conversation with "I should go".
  1. ↑ [sic] no, that's not a typo; he's a separate character from Bowser. A giant bow, in fact
  2. ↑ What, never? Well, hardly ever.
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