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The "bad ending" needs to die
- Thread starter LizardKing
- Start date
Meccanical
Member
Are you one of those people think that
Nanako should have stayed dead?
Because if so I agree wholeheartedly. Major conflicts lose tension when there are no casualties, complications, or consequences
I don't mind if there are multiple endings as long as it is isn't too much of a burden. to get the "best" ending. Of course it should also feel like an accomplishment, though. It's a difficult balance to strike.
I will use Batman: AK as a bad example of how to handle it. In order to get the best ending you have to 100% the game including getting all of the riddler trophies which, imo, is pretty ridiculous.
I also don't mind if it's just a matter of choices you make resulting in different outcomes, like The Witcher 3. It adds some replayability. Although I always have a hard time making different decisions since I always make the decisions that I most identify with, but that's a personal problem.
I will use Batman: AK as a bad example of how to handle it. In order to get the best ending you have to 100% the game including getting all of the riddler trophies which, imo, is pretty ridiculous.
I also don't mind if it's just a matter of choices you make resulting in different outcomes, like The Witcher 3. It adds some replayability. Although I always have a hard time making different decisions since I always make the decisions that I most identify with, but that's a personal problem.
Pastor Steven Anderson
Banned
Thought this was going to be a thread about how "Bad Endings should be removed and only cliche good endings should exist," but it's something even worse.
SilverArrow20XX
Walks in the Light of the Crystal
You know all your percentage progress carries over to New Game + right? On additional playthroughs, you can just do stuff you missed before to get the 100% ending. You can earn some extra percentage points by choosing the other path at that Youth League, New Yevon split too.
It's only really bad if you do it all in one playthrough.
I did it in one playthrough. Fuck replaying a game that long.
MassiveNights
Banned
Given that game completion trophy percentages are tiny anyway, I refuse to believe that "replay value" is relevant at all with most gamers.
Make your endings wrap up the story you intend to tell on the first play through. In The Witcher 3 for example there are multiple endings but none of them are "bad", they are just the story you chose and all of them seem satisfying.
Make your endings wrap up the story you intend to tell on the first play through. In The Witcher 3 for example there are multiple endings but none of them are "bad", they are just the story you chose and all of them seem satisfying.
They're fine in some games: if the conditions are clear, the game saves before big decisions, the "bad" ending(s) is more of an easter egg etc. But in general I agree with the OP -- I don't like replaying games unless I haven't played it in years, so making me play something again to get the "true" ending (anything more than a few hours) is extremely unappealing to me and feels like a waste of time. Watching it on YouTube is not a good solution.
Risk Breaker
Member
No OP, get out of here with that "Press A to Awesome" mentality.
999's bad endings are awesome, and so are Shadow of Memories' or SH1. VLR was better from a gameplay perspective though, but those weren't really bad endings.
999's bad endings are awesome, and so are Shadow of Memories' or SH1. VLR was better from a gameplay perspective though, but those weren't really bad endings.
striferser
Huge Nickleback Fan
I personally like doing bad ending run, especially for NIS games they know how to make entertaining bad ending.
I'm not playing what is most like a 100plus hour long game multiple times to get a true ending. It's not a fair system at all. To get the most of it you absolutely must 100% it the first play through with a guide, or else be forced to replay immediately.
Fuck.
That.
DarknessTear
Banned
Insert Lavos' theme song here.
WaterAstro
Member
I actually like bad ends when it comes to certain games............. =3
I got Rolo to the Rescue as present from my mum on my 13th birthday.
I played it all day.
This was the ending I got. :|
Wow that's really... good!
It makes you feel bad and tells you why you got that ending implying there's a better ending.
mcz117chief
Member
I much prefer good endings. Good endings make you feel good and I like to feel good. I only like bad endings when there is an obvious continuation of the story like in Final Fantasy XIII-2. So a bad ending is there to motivate me and make me care about the rest of the story, so having a bad ending in a middle of a trilogy is ok as long as I can get a happy ending at the very end.
Risk Breaker
Member
Bad ending possibilities aren't necessarily bad, but Revelations 2 is definitely one of the worst in terms of execution. The story itself is fine, it's how it's handled that's heinous.
1. The one 20-second sequence which determines whether your entire 5-act game is "good" or "bad" is ambiguous - it's easy to do the "bad" thing because the action seems completely logical and fits everything that came before in gameplay (IIRC it's like pick up a gun and defend yourself).
2. There's no indication that your actions impact the ending, let alone the story at all, anywhere in the game. You can do this whole scene without knowing it's a branching moment. They don't state it anywhere. I finished the game with my GF and we just thought "well that was depressing" and it wasn't until a week later i found out we got the bad ending - that i found out there even IS a good ending!
This is like the opposite of Telltale and Dontnod games where little things pop up all the time saying "Jimmy will remember that" or "This action has a consequence" etc.
1. The one 20-second sequence which determines whether your entire 5-act game is "good" or "bad" is ambiguous - it's easy to do the "bad" thing because the action seems completely logical and fits everything that came before in gameplay (IIRC it's like pick up a gun and defend yourself).
2. There's no indication that your actions impact the ending, let alone the story at all, anywhere in the game. You can do this whole scene without knowing it's a branching moment. They don't state it anywhere. I finished the game with my GF and we just thought "well that was depressing" and it wasn't until a week later i found out we got the bad ending - that i found out there even IS a good ending!
This is like the opposite of Telltale and Dontnod games where little things pop up all the time saying "Jimmy will remember that" or "This action has a consequence" etc.
Canonical bad endings can be good. I liked those. I thought FFXIII-2's was awesome and it ended badly for everyone involved.
Hell, the protagonist dies at the last cutscene.
The "this bad ending isn't real, you messed up somewhere, do over for the real one" tone is what stings, especially when the choices you had to make don't make much sense.
The Hermit
Member
My favorite games have bad endings.
Sorry OP,but yeah, I can't agree at all.
Sorry OP,but yeah, I can't agree at all.
Karnov!!!
Experimenter
Member
Isn't this the exact reason why people hated ME3 ending so much?
You don't think
giving you the option to pick up a gun to save your friend with a character who's got a crippling fear of guns
Play Final Fantasy X-2 to see examples of actual random shit affecting the ending.
jim-jam bongs
Member
This is an accurate description of the OP tbh. "Badly designed interactive story which needlessly complicates the process of determining the optimal way of progressing the story is evidence that having a non-optimal outcome to said story is bad".
Starlightmuse
Member
But the bad ending in Witcher 3 was the most emotive one
And sad as hell 
I don't know if they changed it on the PSP, but the original Persona (Revelations: Persona) "bad" ending happened if you didn't respond to a particular set of questions in a specific way.
It's been a long time, but I seem to remember that if you "missed" the questions, you would get the ending and miss out on a really large portion of the game. (I don't remember the scenario, but for some reason it's stuck in my head you had to answer "I don't know" at one point, or you get the bad ending.)
While it was kind of cool, Castlevania SOTN was another one where you could literally miss out on half the game.
It's been a long time, but I seem to remember that if you "missed" the questions, you would get the ending and miss out on a really large portion of the game. (I don't remember the scenario, but for some reason it's stuck in my head you had to answer "I don't know" at one point, or you get the bad ending.)
While it was kind of cool, Castlevania SOTN was another one where you could literally miss out on half the game.
PrivateRyan
Member
I know most people hated it but I actually really liked the 'bad' ending for Prince of Persia reboot, more so given that was the only ending until they released that Epilogue DLC. Thought it was quite a brave thing to do and it's definitely stuck out in my mind (which is more than I can say for the rest of the game, can't remember a thing)
sems4arsenal
Member
I got the bad ending in TW3, It seriously dampened my mood after playing such a wonderful game, and the decisions weren't even that clear which is good and which is not. Left a bad taste in my mouth.
NHarmonic.
Member
I agree with this. They are usually dumb and just delve into comic territory stupidity.
I don't mind there being a bad ending so long as there's a good ending as well, but at the same time I think that there should be quicker/simpler options for getting the other ending in some cases.
Stuff like Revelations 2, the way to get the different endings should probably be somewhere towards the end since it's literally a single thing that makes the difference.
Something like 999/Virtues Last Reward though, I can totally get behind having to replay the entire game to get the alternate endings, because the actual game plays out entirely differently.
Stuff like Revelations 2, the way to get the different endings should probably be somewhere towards the end since it's literally a single thing that makes the difference.
Something like 999/Virtues Last Reward though, I can totally get behind having to replay the entire game to get the alternate endings, because the actual game plays out entirely differently.
Nope. In any other game where this happens it would be a moment of character development - easily imaginible in an earlier RE game, or just like the first time Ellie uses a gun in TLoU.
If you're not aware the story can even branch in a game, then you have no reason to think this moment CAN impact anything.
I played the whole thing co-op with my partner and the vibe we got was that she was picking up a gun for the first time to save someone important. That seemed like the story. It made sense and fit the slightly trite storytelling RE has always had. So we did it without a second thought.
On top of the meaningful aspect of the decision, there's the mechanical one. Videogames train you in their mechancs. Theoughout Rev 2 you're trained (at least partially) to take guns, hold them, and shoot enemies. So when the game presents you with a story moment when your only visuble option is to take a gun and shoot something, and there's no indication of choice otherwise, you'll do it.
I'm sure your FF example is bad too but that doesn't excuse a big signposting mistake in Rev 2. (For the record i fucking love Rev 2 and it is one of my favourite co-op experiences. This ending thing doesn't even bother me - it's just objectively flawed design.)
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Hell no. In fact it made Shadow Hearts 2 more fun!
While BioShock is one of the best games I've ever played, I disagree. I mean, the endings themselves are good, but the way they come to be isn't in my opinion. It's very binary, and harvesting the first little sister and then rescuing all the other 20 still nets you a bad ending. In a way even ironic and hypocrite, since Tenenbaum keeps on yapping about sorrow and redemption, but apparently that doesn't count for you and then the game "punishes" you for it.
It would have been much better if it was done gradually.
While I agree with you more or less, the bolded is actually a good thing if done well. To have choices without telling people they have choices and executing it well is fantastic and 100 times better than "do these obscure things throughout the games to get the good ending". Or Telltale's "Person X will remember that" for dialogues that have effects later while everything else is inconsequential. Because of this you can have dialogues where the other person "should" remember the conversation due to it being the natural thing, but they don't because that's not what the game wanted.
Black Ops 2 did it and it was amazing because it made a fool of me for doing what I was accustomed to doing i.e. shoot the guy when the npc says so because that's what you are accustomed to, but you can choose to not do so and change the story. Then there's a mission where you are chasing a guy with a hostage which can either end up in you catching up to him or end up in him leaving which means you have to follow it up with a rescue mission that you wouldn't have needed to do had you caught up to him. But here's the best part about it, eventhough I didn't catch up to him it felt completely natural and I assumed that's how the story was suppose to progress.
You're completely right. The bad ending is Persona 4's best ending. While I liked the feel good "real" ending, the hollow feeling you get from the bad ending is not something that games ever do. It actually makes you question everything you've done, and whether lashing out is the best option.
You're right.
My argument only really holds water when in the light of 'Revelations 2 executed the whole idea badly".
Gotdatmoney
Member
People tahm bout bad ending good endings? Play Cave Story then come back here and tell me that shit isnt awful. The shit you gotta do to get the "good" ending is fucking ridiculous. The game makes a bunch of mentions throughout the game (pretty clever ones) but to put it all together in 1 playthrough. I doubt it.
I don't know about fast considering you need to play entirety Claire and Moira part of Episode 3 and entirety of Episode 4. Also that doesn't change the fact that the execution is bad.