game endings you loved that everyone else hated

[JediMB]

Since ME3's ending is being discussed quite a bit here, I just want to chime in with a paragraph or two (or three).

The moment they abandoned the original (and actually foreshadowed) "humans are special to the Reapers" and "Dark Energy is doing nasty things" ending, it just wasn't possible for them to put together a coherent ending without contradicting their expensive marketing campaign. When the war was all about the Reapers turning humans, and humans alone, into new Reapers, it made sense to have a final confrontation on Earth.

They just couldn't abandon having the climax in London, because too much development time and marketing money had already gone into making that an integral part of the endgame. So in the end we got the Crucible arc, the Reapers moving the Citadel to Earth without explanation or justification, and an entirely new motivation for the Reapers themselves finally barfed out in the last few minutes of the game. (Also, a Citadel interior that looked nothing like the Citadel interior, and a Conduit that seemed to exist for the sole purpose of beaming people into a corridor with quick access to another set of master controls for the Citadel.)

And, of course, on top of that there's the complete disconnect between previous actions and the events that transpire in the endgame.

 

[Saladfork]

Well, I didn't 'love' or like or even not despise it by any means, but the original ME3 ending had a couple of things I liked about it.

1) It effectively destroyed any possibility of a sequel, which I like. It allowed the series a definite beginning and ending without becoming a bloated mess. Then the extended cut came along and ruined that.

2) I liked that there wasn't some happy-sunshine-and-rainbows-everybody-survived-and-we-used-the-lazerus-technology-to-bring-everyone-back-to-life-and-now-everythings-right-with-the-world ending. Even in the most beneficial ending, a lot of people are dead and dying, and will starve due to lack of resources and devasted infrastructure. I actually saw people complaining about the ME3 ending because it wasn't happy enough, which I felt was making the rest of us with legitimate thematical and plot-related grievances with the ending look like idiots by association. Anyway, the extended cut didn't ruin this, per se, but it definitely lessened it to a significant degree.

 

[Vault101]

I agree with you. People are always so hung up about the ending. What about the very sudden faction change in 2? The shit opening and ending of 2? What about the way Shepard deals with the reaper threat? He storms off in me1 to go fight the reapers, then he goes on unrelated space adventures and at the end everything is suddenly supposed to be hunky dory? Eh, we need to stop arguing. Why argue over a story made by shit writers?

2 was the mid game...we knew another one was coming, as originally intended, I dont see whats wrong with the opening

in between ME1 and ME2 shepard was off fighting geth via orders..I imagine had the inciden tat the start of ME2 happned shepard would have been campaigning for further investigation into the reaper thing

as for "sudden faction change" depending on how you play shepard makes it pretty clear he/she does not trust Cerberus and is only working with them out of nessecity

I'm not saying you can't come up with one. That's a trivial task. My statement was that Mass Effect did not earn a happy ending. The two points are entirely reconcilable.

in what way? they wrote themslevves into a corner (which seems to be the case since they ditched the original dark energy ending) or that "no we can't have anything remotly happy because its not arty enough"

 

[Vault101]

2) I liked that there wasn't some happy-sunshine-and-rainbows-everybody-survived-and-we-used-the-lazerus-technology-to-bring-everyone-back-to-life-and-now-everythings-right-with-the-world ending..

people seem to miss the point that THATS NOT WHAT WAS WRONG WITH IT,yes I found it too depressing but you CAN balance a sense of accomplishment/hope with that sense of loss and sadness..thats what a good ending does..thats what "earn your happy ening" means

 

[Eddie the head]

[
In all save two of your arguments, you point to details that are utterly unimportant or are easily answered with information available.

And we go back to details matter. Everything else in the universe in explained to a degree (spare the thorian, but I also hate that part). Yes it relies on things that don't exist, but they are not magic as you seam to think. It's Sci fi, not fantasy. Lets assume that there is an element that if you run a electricity can change mass is not the same as lets assume there there is a guy that can, with no prior explanation, functionally alter how a Cell works on a massive scale.

In both Star Trek and Mass Effect A leads to B witch leads to C. Not A leads to "whatever man it's magic." Yes they can bend the rules a bid but they never(should) brake them. The ending brakes them, we do not have any understanding on how any of this works. And what we do know contradicts what's happens. I'm fine with Element Zero, all the diffident races, space battles, and biotics(although that one is a bit odd) because they fit within the context of the universe. They explained it, they do not explain the ending in a basic fundamental how dose this work if you where to explain it to a 5 year old explanation.

My old Chemistry teacher said that he thought "because I say so" is one of the worst things you can say to a kid. That is, what appears to be, your augment. Why dose it work this way? "They say it dose." Umm, no Mass Effect has never been that type of Sci Fi. To change within the last 10 min shows a lack of competence in the writer.

And again I have not problem that you might not care about all this, but some people do. If you don't understand this you're just being ignorant. I don't have a problem with you not minding the ending, I do have a problem with you saying I should accept it "because I say so."

 

[Vault101]

snip.

I expected an ending...not the game switching into 2001 space odessy mode and then cutting to credits

 

[Doom972]

so i finally finished mass effect 3 last night. i was excited for the ending because i kept hearing how horrible it was and honestly, i thought it was one of the better video game endings i had seen. definitely much better than the ending to any of the other mass effect games. i mean i can certainly understand the disappointment that *spoiler* your actions didnt effect the ending (unless you had the extended cut) and it just came down to one of 2 or 3 choices at the very end of the game that determined which very similar ending you got. still, after all the outcry about the ending i was expecting much much worse and i certainly dont see how the ending ruined the entire game, as some people have claimed and i also dont agree that your actions in the first two games meant nothing. your actions affected the final game, just not the final ending.
anyway, im not here to talk about mass effect but the ending made me think about how some games just seem to have extremely love or hate endings. so what are some game endings that you loved but most people seemed to have hated. or what are some endings you hated that most people seemed to have loved?

Mass Effect was different because it was a trilogy of games in which you developed the same character, whose actions carried over between games. People became really invested in the plot and hoped that like the suicide mission in ME2, the final mission in ME3 will be filled with choices and rewards/punishments based on how you played and how well prepared you were.

The fact that the 3 endings you could choose from too similar in addition to a literal Deus Ex Machina character, made people very angry. The original endings made me disappointed enough to not give this game more than one playthrough. The EC, however, fixed most of the damage and I was able to enjoy the series once more.

I think that the reason the endings didn't seem so bad to you is because you expected the worst, while people who played it when it first came out had much higher expectations.

I don't remember people "hating an ending" to a noticeable degree, except for the ME3 case. The only example that comes to mind right now is the ending for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I didn't like it, but not so much that I wouldn't want to play it again.

 

[FalloutJack]

Probably all of them. People complain too much and I'm relatively forgiving.

 

[Saladfork]

2) I liked that there wasn't some happy-sunshine-and-rainbows-everybody-survived-and-we-used-the-lazerus-technology-to-bring-everyone-back-to-life-and-now-everythings-right-with-the-world ending..

people seem to miss the point that THATS NOT WHAT WAS WRONG WITH IT,yes I found it too depressing but you CAN balance a sense of accomplishment/hope with that sense of loss and sadness..thats what a good ending does..thats what "earn your happy ening" means

I'm not sure what you're getting at. I liked that it was a depressing ending.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Well, I don't know how hated it actually is, but I really liked the ending of Assassin's Creed 2. SPOILERS and such: I mean, come on, fist fight with a wizard pope? That's hilarious. I also liked the bit where someone sent a message to Desmond through Ezio. Bet that bugged the crap out of Ezio for the rest of his life. Or not, I didn't play any of the sequels, so I wouldn't know.

I agree, I mean, sure it's not ideal, but how else could it have ended? I feel like killing him in the regular Assassin-y way would end up being anticlimactic (although there's some value in that, in a way). Admittedly having him pop up in Brotherhood only to be

Spoiler

poisoned/choked/otherwise killed (I assume) by Cesare Borgia

was incredi-weak, much as I like the historical context of AssCreed, it wouldn't hurt to go the alternate history route...

 

[snave]

Prince of Persia (2008 Re-reboot)

Whilst I'll use generalisations for the sake of anyone skim reading, there are spoilers to follow as the true surprise of the ending comes in the narrative pacing.

I wouldn't say everyone else hated it, as it was critically well received, but broadly disliked for being a 'bad' ending. Not bad as poorly thought out but bad as in... imagine a Mario game where Bowser kills Mario and the credits roll over gouging on cake whilst a chained up Peach toils in the kitchen in the background, watched by goombas with whips. That type of bad.

The thing is, it was artistic, and the way the level of interactivity was handled was truly unique. Basically, there is a 'good' and a 'bad' ending. To get the good one though, you are given clear cues the game is over (namely that the credits have rolled) and simply have to turn the game off. That's it. Turn it off, good ending, we all go home. If you choose to keep playing though, you go through a labourious task essentially undoing everything you've done for the bad ending.

The added kicker is that this ending really jumps out of the blue at you. There are hints, but the game is somewhat, uhm... simplistic. The story is simple, the controls are simple, and everything in the game is symmetrical to an unnerving degree. The writing is fantastic, but fails to mask the simplicity of things as you play through. There are even moments where the 'you fight the sub-boss once, then 4 times, and then 3 times' pattern every stage takes is attempted to be subverted by the writing, only to have a lame plot twist tear that change away from you, hurling you back into the pattern, simply because some game designer stubbornly decreed it be so. So, after a solid 20 hours of strictly predictable experience (enjoyable for the eye candy and writing, much like many a popular but technically simplistic Hollywood film franchise) getting an ending like this is a real curve ball.

There is also an additional layer of complexity over the ending sequence that raises questions as to whether the bad ending is truly bad, if things are all they seem, or if the game is a strange story of the quirks of human nature.

I think a lot of the hatred perhaps came from the lack of appreciation of the 'good' ending option. After years of being conditioned to expect a reward for everything, frickin' achievements for simply performing a tutorial, etc, etc, the mere idea of turning off the game being an interface option just eludes the average gamer. I'd even argue some find the lack of aknowledgement or reward for doing so somewhat offensive. Personally, I find it genius.

Worth a playthrough if just for the ending.

 

[kyogen]

I know you could point to plenty of other RPGs with more consistently interesting stories, but without exaggeration, Dragon's Dogma's closing hours brought back that sense of childlike wonder that I really hadn't felt since, well, childhood.

I agree about Dragon's Dogma as a game, and I loved it's ending--all the layers to it make it really interesting.

I also liked the ending of Nier--four of them, and the fourth one comes complete with an extra surprise that completely fits the lore. It's great. Most people seemed to love or hate the game, but very few in either camp ever played as far as the final ending.

 

[Captain Pancake]

I would agree with you actually. Although the ending to ME 3 was bittersweet, I think that's a point in it's favour. I don't think the story could have ended justifiably without Shepard making the ultimate sacrifice in the end, and I think it gives some sense of inspiration that heroism of his/her level can overcome any obstacle - which is a positive message to send. Too many people got caught up on the nitty gritty details (But what about intergalactic society! How will people cope without the Mass Relays!)and missed the overriding themes of the game. Battlestar Galactica ended in a similar way, and while convoluted I thought it was quite fitting that they decided to abandon technology to end the cycle of humans fighting cylons fighting humans - but again people got caught in the details.

 

[sunsetspawn]

Since ME3's ending is being discussed quite a bit here, I just want to chime in with a paragraph or two (or three).

The moment they abandoned the original (and actually foreshadowed) "humans are special to the Reapers" and "Dark Energy is doing nasty things" ending, it just wasn't possible for them to put together a coherent ending without contradicting their expensive marketing campaign. When the war was all about the Reapers turning humans, and humans alone, into new Reapers, it made sense to have a final confrontation on Earth.

They just couldn't abandon having the climax in London, because too much development time and marketing money had already gone into making that an integral part of the endgame. So in the end we got the Crucible arc, the Reapers moving the Citadel to Earth without explanation or justification, and an entirely new motivation for the Reapers themselves finally barfed out in the last few minutes of the game. (Also, a Citadel interior that looked nothing like the Citadel interior, and a Conduit that seemed to exist for the sole purpose of beaming people into a corridor with quick access to another set of master controls for the Citadel.)

And, of course, on top of that there's the complete disconnect between previous actions and the events that transpire in the endgame.

Basically, it was a mess. The more Mass Effect 3 ignored the previous games, the more the ending needed to be straightforward. By the end of Mass Effect 3 the crucible would've needed to just be a simple weapon, like an omnidirectional FTL cannon, for it to really work. Actually, that possibility seemed to be foreshadowed in the codex with the idea of all FTL technology having safeguards to prevent ramming, and the Reapers having initially developed such safeguards because FTL projectiles would be the ultimate equalizer due to destructive power and effective range.

A wacky mindtwist of an ending that added new characters and physics to the game could only have worked if the narrative had been flawlessly developed up until that point so that the ending would have had some type of payoff that had been alluded to.
Instead, our wacky ending just happens, just because, with no foreshadowing or anything. It had no connection to the story whatsoever, it introduced a new omniscient, perhaps omnipotent character, and introduced new physics far more advanced than anything we've seen in the series.

Basically, the game feels like this...
A happens, then B happens, then C happens,

when we all know good storytelling goes like this...

A happens, because B happens, therefore C happens

- Lessons from Trey Parker


Interestingly enough, there is something that was foreshadowed the whole damn game that hasn't been addressed. Perhaps the new DLC will address it.

 

[redmoretrout]

I keep hearing people reference an original Mass Effect 3 ending that they abandoned. What are you referring to? Where can I read something about it?

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

I hated the ending to The Darkness II to be honest. The whole game was so good and so worth it, but the ending made me want to just attack someone. I know a sequels never going to happen so I'l sit and curse at it while I play it at the same time.

 

[Starik20X6]

The ending for Red Dead Redemption gets a lot of stick, but I found it quite poignant.

Spoiler

That moment when you realise John Marston failed. Everything he did was to protect his family, and ensure that Jack didn't grow up to life the life he lived. And how does it end? Jack becomes a killer and an outlaw, just like his father.

 

[JediMB]

I keep hearing people reference an original Mass Effect 3 ending that they abandoned. What are you referring to? Where can I read something about it?

The "original" ending was, I believe, initially made known through an early script leak. There's an interview with the original lead writer, Drew Karpyshyn, where he confirmed that it was one of a few possible endings. Most likely it was intended to be the ending, but Drew doesn't want to make it sound like his former employers screwed up.

Basically, it involves Dark Energy (the stuff Biotics and FTL use to manipulate mass) accelerating stellar decay, which was foreshadowed during Tali's recruitment mission in Mass Effect 2. The Reapers were created to try to find a way to stop this, and have basically been waiting for all those millions of years to find the organic race needed to create Reapers capable of doing this. This is also foreshadowed in Mass Effect 2, when Harbinger speaks about the potential of humanity and the worthlessness of all other species.

The ending would basically be about either sacrificing humanity for the sake of the rest of the galaxy, or destroying the Reapers and hoping that the united galaxy would have what is needed to solve the Dark Energy problem without the Reapers. Honestly, from the description I can't say it would be a very satisfying ending either, but it would make more sense.

 

[kortin]

I think people just expect to damned much to be honest. I loved the ending to ME3.

They expected too much for a damn good reason. One of the developers said that all decisions you made throughout all of the games would affect the ending. Then, in the game, they told you "choose one of these 3 options and that's the ending you get". Frankly, the outcry against it is well deserved. In fact, I actually can't think of anyone who hated the ending because of the ending itself, they hated it for the blatant lie told directly to their faces.