Option Three, I enjoy the ending for what it is, one way or another as long as it is deep and meaningful.
Poll: Do You Like Bad Endings?
- Thread starter Grahav
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Probably the best Bad End I've seen is Hanako's in Katawa Shoujo. The game strings you along, makes you think that you're making the right descisions... then punches you right in the gut and tells you what a terrible person you are. It serves the message of that story very well.
So, yes, I like Bad Endings as long as they are well written.
So, yes, I like Bad Endings as long as they are well written.
I just finished The Walking Dead and that hit me more than any other fictional thing ever has. And it was fucking amazing. If that's what the OP is on about then yeah I guess I like bad endings.
If the OP means being a massive dick then even if I wanted to I can't do it for some reason. Sometimes I try replaying games a second time as evil but I usually can't make it more than 30 mins. I dunno, between that and The Walking Dead maybe I'm just a massive wuss...
If the OP means being a massive dick then even if I wanted to I can't do it for some reason. Sometimes I try replaying games a second time as evil but I usually can't make it more than 30 mins. I dunno, between that and The Walking Dead maybe I'm just a massive wuss...
I admit I find them oddly fascinating; I've been known to watch "bad ends" on YouTube of games I haven't even played. I think the first I remember playing myself was a game called DreamWeb back in the 90s. Well actually, I guess Midwinter 2/Flames of Freedom technically had the possibility of a bad ending, but it was more of a "failure state" than an actual ending.
But, most of the time, I want them to be optional. Very occasionally they're handled so well that they seem appropriate even if they're inevitable, but most of the time spending hours upon hours playing a game only to find that all my character's struggles culminate in a tragic ending that I had no way to surmount just irritates me. Please, game designers- don't have me "rise from the dead" after dozens of failures to bring me to a conclusion to which my character shooting themselves in the head in the first five minutes would have been a preferable alternative.
But, most of the time, I want them to be optional. Very occasionally they're handled so well that they seem appropriate even if they're inevitable, but most of the time spending hours upon hours playing a game only to find that all my character's struggles culminate in a tragic ending that I had no way to surmount just irritates me. Please, game designers- don't have me "rise from the dead" after dozens of failures to bring me to a conclusion to which my character shooting themselves in the head in the first five minutes would have been a preferable alternative.
Absolutely. BRING IT ON. I love having heart-breaking scenes, perhaps I'm a masochist, but it's fun being able to do something very wrong that isn't immediately apparent. That's part of the appeal of visual novels and other games with multiple choices. Cause and effect.
So as an escapist consumer you just want rainbows and bunnies beamed directly into your brain, why not just live in a bubble if that suits you? Or is it impossible to enjoy "losing" something? You're missing out on a lot if you confine yourself to purely "positive" entertainment.Akytalusia said:
Yet the next game is taking from the Hero ending funnily enough. I did like how they decided which ending was 'canon' by using trophy data, 70 to 30 chose the good ending. I don't know if it was based on which they did first, because I liked both equally, also they gave Cole some pathos and didn't have him kackling like an idiot in the 'inFAMOUS' ending.babinro said:
Bad as in evil? Or maybe bad as in baddies win. Yeah, I mean I like when they're well done, meaning they provide a sense of fulfillment, when the journey ends with the connection I have with my character in the most brutal way.
Examples: Spec Ops: The Line, if you haven't played it yet, do it. It's always horrible and brutal, but it ends in the most satisfying way possible.
In Bioshock Infinite I felt like in ME3 ending, but the game explained itself quickly and kept the mystery wthout feeling cheap. It was satisfying because it felt like all the loose ties are coming together with some pretty good explanations, besides it was in-game. With ME3 it felt like, here's your cutscreen.
In Bioshock Infinite I felt like in ME3 ending, but the game explained itself quickly and kept the mystery wthout feeling cheap. It was satisfying because it felt like all the loose ties are coming together with some pretty good explanations, besides it was in-game. With ME3 it felt like, here's your cutscreen.
Bad endings when you work towards them are pretty good. Especially if the game is fun and has re-playability.
I think one example of this would be Super Metroid. Where the 'bad' ending is merely the lack of the 'good' ending.
I don't have many other experiences that I remember off hand.
I think one example of this would be Super Metroid. Where the 'bad' ending is merely the lack of the 'good' ending.
I don't have many other experiences that I remember off hand.
My feelings on bad endings are a bit too situational for me to be able to answer with either "yes" or "No" so I'll abstain from voting. I'll share my thoughts though.
Bad endings can be a good thing. especially when they punish a player for abusing the videogame cruelty potential, or for simply ignoring the details of the story for too long. There are times when they're fairly arbitrary and unpleasant though. You brought up fate/stay, for instance, and while I have no qualms with that game in particular, there are plenty of linear graphic novel-style games that are quick to dole out bad ending based on purely arbitrary choices that you can only make a move on based on trial and error.
"You feel that something is chasing you. you should move quickly:
-go right
-go left"
Scenarios like those annoy me endlessly, especially when they result in game overs. *glares at Fate/extra*
Bad endings can be a good thing. especially when they punish a player for abusing the videogame cruelty potential, or for simply ignoring the details of the story for too long. There are times when they're fairly arbitrary and unpleasant though. You brought up fate/stay, for instance, and while I have no qualms with that game in particular, there are plenty of linear graphic novel-style games that are quick to dole out bad ending based on purely arbitrary choices that you can only make a move on based on trial and error.
"You feel that something is chasing you. you should move quickly:
-go right
-go left"
Scenarios like those annoy me endlessly, especially when they result in game overs. *glares at Fate/extra*
Oddly enough, Fate/Stay Night was what turned me off of deliberately getting bad endings for 100% completion. I could never get more than a few at a time after finishing the game (since I only got a handful of bad endings naturally), and getting them all damn near broke my soul. Especially Bad End 40, oh god...
So yeah, I don't think I can say I like them. At the least, I no longer deliberately seek them out, unless the reward is just that worth it.
So yeah, I don't think I can say I like them. At the least, I no longer deliberately seek them out, unless the reward is just that worth it.
Oh god, Mind of Steel...I liked it well enough, but its appeal lowers quite a bit when I listen to people who seem to miss that it's a bad ending and why.Grahav said:
I like bad endings that I deserve. I tend to pursue all endings eventually, but on my first 'true' playthrough where I basically roleplay myself, I like the ending to reflect what I've done. Being a perfectionist though, I would be disappointed if I only had one playthrough, but I will generally have multiple, including one where I do everything 'right', so 'screwing up' on one playthrough because that's what I deserve is still satisfying.
I don't like bad endings that are determined through arbitrary choices like which direction you go down a corridor, but I'm fine with ones that result from not paying attention to detail. No really good ones actually come to mind, sadly, although Katawa Shoujo's are pretty good - especially Hanako, as has been noted, because the game is geared to let you play along doing exactly the wrong thing and thinking you're right. But there's not a lot of factors to consider or a lot of room for variability in KS. Another vaguely related thing is just little consequences in the game that are like bad endings in themselves. For example Dragon's Dogma, where if you do a quest earlier in the game, being a dick basically saves a family's lives in the end, but resolving it in the 'best' way results in their accidental deaths, which I liked. It's such an airy, typical fantasy world, but then it has these dark things out of the blue.
Endings that are arbitrarily chosen, like ME3's, DE:HR's and Dark Souls', aren't particularly satisfying either. They're like a nice cinematic, and although the latter two do a decent job of showing endings as shades of grey, it doesn't really have any impact because you chose them on a whim.
I don't like bad endings that are determined through arbitrary choices like which direction you go down a corridor, but I'm fine with ones that result from not paying attention to detail. No really good ones actually come to mind, sadly, although Katawa Shoujo's are pretty good - especially Hanako, as has been noted, because the game is geared to let you play along doing exactly the wrong thing and thinking you're right. But there's not a lot of factors to consider or a lot of room for variability in KS. Another vaguely related thing is just little consequences in the game that are like bad endings in themselves. For example Dragon's Dogma, where if you do a quest earlier in the game, being a dick basically saves a family's lives in the end, but resolving it in the 'best' way results in their accidental deaths, which I liked. It's such an airy, typical fantasy world, but then it has these dark things out of the blue.
Endings that are arbitrarily chosen, like ME3's, DE:HR's and Dark Souls', aren't particularly satisfying either. They're like a nice cinematic, and although the latter two do a decent job of showing endings as shades of grey, it doesn't really have any impact because you chose them on a whim.
I should have been more specific. But, yeah, tragic ends were what I was thinking about. The kind of thing to leave you depressed.Trueflame said:
That is a good option.HorrendusOne said:
I also do that. Normally, I fight for the good ending (I tend to care for the characters too easily). Then I go to Youtube (specially for long games).Callate said:
I got bad endings 3 times in each path (for a total of nine) in normal gameplay. In those moments I was shocked. When I was deliberately goin for them I had a morbid curiosity.NeutralDrow said:
I guess the reason that why so many people (including me) enjoy that sad ending is because they have been playing as Emiya and have been smashed, cut, cursed, burned, torn, tsundered and being called fat by almost every single other character in the game. And that even without getting the dead/bad endings. "Mind of Steel" is tragic and sad, but from a player's perspective is viciously cathartic.
And there is the factor that a lot more of people live in that way. Yeah, the innocent person that you love and others die, but hundreds of innocents that you don't know live and Shirou becomes Stannis Baratheon. It contrasts perfectly with the true endings of Heaven's Feel which makes both endings even more powerfull.
Final note: Almost 50/50 on the poll until now. Pretty cool.
If it's done properly. The ending to Red Dead Redemption and the bad ending to Metro Last Light were examples of bad endings done right, because they made sense, didn't invalidate all the time you spent playing the game, and didn't come across as a desperate attempt to be dramatic without any context or sense. Mass Effect 3 was an example of a shit bad ending because it basically went "You're getting a bad ending because we say so. We don't care if it doesn't make any sense, we're deep and dramatic."
I really do not understand that perspective. Shirou's been smashed, cut, cursed, burned, torn, and tsundere'd by most of the people in the game, and every single time he's flipped the bird at whoever did it and come out gloriously on top. Mind of Steel strikes me about as cathartic as a murder-suicide.Grahav said:
I also don't believe I've ever heard that perspective before. I think I've only ever heard, "deep-seated problems with Sakura/Heaven's Feel in general," "he's Kiritsugu now? That's awesome," or people mistakenly thinking that it's keeping with Shirou's ideals.
"Contrast" is probably the nicer word for it. "Contradicts" is the word I typically use, since (because it totally ignores both Shirou's character revelations of Fate, the moral of Unlimited Blade Works, and <color=aliceblue>Archer's motivations) it's one of the most incredibly out-of-character actions he could possibly make. The fact that dozens at most of offscreen innocents survive is the only positive aspect, and it's entirely incidental.
...then again, since it's pretty much the exact opposite of the entire route's story, I do see your point about it making the endings even more powerful. Although, since there was never a possibility that I'd abandon Sakura, it was one I missed in my actual playthrough.
It really depends on what you mean by bad ending. If you mean an ending, where evil main character achieves his evil goals (RPG's, alreaddy mentioned Infamous series), then no, I don't like it, because if I can, I always walk the path of the light.
If you mean an ending, where main character(s) do not achieve said goal, or achieve it, but at high price, or anything like that, then it really depends on execution.
Take my favorite FFX, for example: you save the world, but Tidus must dissapear because of that. That was nice.
But take "The last theorem" by Arthur C. Clark (was it his book?): everything is fine, everything is fine, whoops, my wife gets poisoned, she dies, to hell with everything, I am living only virtually now. Not only it felt rushed (like the whole 2nd part of the book) it also didn't leave any, well, satisfaction. I really, really didn't care about the wife and her death had zero impact on me.
If you mean an ending, where main character(s) do not achieve said goal, or achieve it, but at high price, or anything like that, then it really depends on execution.
Take my favorite FFX, for example: you save the world, but Tidus must dissapear because of that. That was nice.
But take "The last theorem" by Arthur C. Clark (was it his book?): everything is fine, everything is fine, whoops, my wife gets poisoned, she dies, to hell with everything, I am living only virtually now. Not only it felt rushed (like the whole 2nd part of the book) it also didn't leave any, well, satisfaction. I really, really didn't care about the wife and her death had zero impact on me.
beaming rainbows and bunnies directly into my brain? sounds wonderful. i'll take it. however, i think you're going off topic a little. this is about bad endings, not purely positive entertainment, or entertainment with no negative aspects. things would be pretty dull if nothing bad ever happened. i just don't like it when the protagonist ultimately fails, and the message is that life is cruel or unfair or whatever. i already -know- that. i'm trying to get -away- from that. i don't need to be told this when i'm trying to enjoy myself/forget about reality.MammothBlade said:
but to each their own. i'm not saying it's wrong to enjoy bad endings. i'm just saying it's not for me. if your reality's so naturally full of rainbows and bunnies that you welcome messages reinforcing futility as a refreshing changes of pace, then power to you.