Sad Endings That Are Good (Potential Spoilers)

[Starke]

Medal Of Honor 2010s ending.

The ending itself or that it comes five hours into the game?

The ending itself, I didn't care about the length because it was such a good game. A shame is was automatically branded a Call Of Duty Copycat.

Yeah, though, honestly at this point any modern military shooter's bound to be compared to Call of Duty. What I didn't find was Medal of Honor being all that good, but to each their own.

EDIT: Though, as kman reminds me, the ending did pull together remarkably well, so there was that.

 

[Nouw]

Spoiler: Moon spoilers

Even though Sam 1 died, Sam 2 got to Earth and told the truth .

 

[Asita]

Perhaps you've heard of Romeo and Juliet?

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog ended on a depressing note with the protagonist emotionally destroyed because of the...collatoral damage of his last attempt to beat Captain Hammer.

There's Conker's Bad Fur Day, Starcraft Brood War (Despite you controlling the Zerg for the final mission, that's an objectively bad ending, as Kerrigan's practically an omnicidal maniac at that point)...and have you ever played Persona 3? Let me sum that ending up for you:

Spoiler

You and your friends are determined to fight something that everyone tells you is unbeatable. The person who knows that best of anyone even says that the best solution would be to lock away their knowledge of their impending doom so they wouldn't have to suffer in fear until it came for them. All the same, you fight and put up a valiant effort before it finally beats you. You rise back up through sheer willpower (and the power of love/friendship), and - with a new power - manage to seal that enemy away. After the denoument, you die, surrounded by your friends. That was the cost of the seal you implemented. There's a follow-up story called "The Answer" which culminates with a reaffirmation of this.

 

[CAMDAWG]

The problem I have with sad endings is that a lot of people seem to think that they're intrinsically "better" than happy endings. Which I hate. On the subject of ME3, I feel like some of my shepard's stories deserved a sad ending, some deserved a happy one, so I guess I'm disappointed with the lack of happy endings, but more because it means you're shoehorned into a sad one, rather than because I want shepard to live forever.

OT:

Infamous 2's good ending.
RDR of course.
MGS3.
MGS4 kinda counts in my mind, up until the point when snake DOESN'T shoot himself. But it's more bittersweet than actually sad
Shadow of the colossus also. Kind of. Sure you save the girl, but you're a baby again...

 

[Evil Alpaca]

Books:

Game of Thrones - Eddard Stark. nuff said... actually you what? Any of George R. R. Martin's books in the Song of Fire and Ice could probably fit.

King Arthur - Once an Future King - because nothing says timeless classic like reading about a ruler watch his idealic utopia burn to the ground.


Movies:

Casablanca

Donnie Darko

Seven

Titanic


Video Games:

Starcraft Human Campaign ending - You spent the entire campaign putting a rebel leader into power only to realize that he is a ruthless dictator willing to sacrifice anyone to get his way.

Warcraft III Frozen Throne: Not necessarily sad, but the final campaign implies that the mass murdering, king of the dead is now stronger. The bad guys definitely won in that game.

Halo: Reach - Obvious tragic death competition aside, the ending of the game was well done where you simply take out as many covenant as possible before you are killed.

 

[Starke]

Does Silent Hill 2 not end pretty sadly? I've never played it, but I've heard that while it has various endings and a branching story, it revolves around your character going insane and pretty much either dying or killing themselves in various ways, percieving different endings and stories through different perceptions of one fairly common and unchanging set of "real" events.

Note: I haven't played it either.

My recollection is, the endings revolve around the player finding a new love in Silent Hill and leaving with her. This includes a shot of her coughing, which hint's she may be ill, (this is relevant because the protagonist's wife died (or he killed her because) of a terminal illness.

He commits suicide by driving his car into a lake with the woman's corpse in it.

I'm not sure on the last two endings, I think one was him limping off out of town alone, and the other was him remaining in the town and letting it consume him, but really not certain.

 

[Johnnydillinger]

Casablanca

Finally. That title totally describes this thread; feared noone would mention it.

As a twist, I think the total opposite of that (happy ending that is really just bad after all) would be Seven Samurai by Kurosawa. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about.

 

[Eddie the head]

Pyramus and Thisbe but other people have said that. Infamous 2's good ending was like that. Pygmalion the play not the movie had a sad ending. The first god of war game. (I would think I never played it)

 

[uhddh]

I'm gonna get crap for mentioning a JRPG but: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. For more or less the same reasons RDR's ending was good.

Spoiler: spoilers

Guy dies trying to fight 1000+ troops to save his friends/loved ones

Also Halo:Reach, if you don't know why; go online more

 

[Bvenged]

CoD 4
Saving Private Ryan
Mass Effect 2 has a happy, neutral and sad but successful endings.
Fallout 3 pre-Broken steel
Splinter Cell Double Agent (to some extent)
Gears of War 3?

 

[Arqus_Zed]

I'm gonna get crap for mentioning a JRPG but: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. For more or less the same reasons RDR's ending was good.

Spoiler: spoilers

Guy dies trying to fight 1000+ troops to save his friends/loved ones

I'm going with this guy. That game had a surprisingly strong ending, despite (or because?) everyone knowing exactly how it was going to end.

As for other games:

Shadow Hearts

Shadow Hearts: Covenant

Legend of Legaia

I'm not going to spoil the endings (it just would do injustice to the magnificent stories), but take my word for it, they're as good as they are sad.

 

[soren7550]

One I can think of right away is Black Hawk Down (yes, I'm well aware it's a real event, but bear with me). The results of the Battle of Mogadishu led to a Pyrrhic victory, with 18 Americans killed, 73 wounded, and one captured, the mission was supposed to last an hour at most but dragged on for a day, and the political fallout forced the U.S. to withdraw from Somalia. While this is sad, it's still a good ending to both the excellent movie and book (yes, I'm well aware the book does continue a bit after the battle, but still).

I'm not sure if I'd constitute the Battle of Mogadishu as a happy ending, as the actual fallout has been pretty horrific.

I never said that it ended on a happy note (unless you want to count the release of Mike Durrant as a happy ending). This is a thread for sad but good endings, and I consider Black Hawk Down to be one of them (even though it's a real event).

Romeo and Juliet, anyone?
Basically defined the idea of a sad ending for me.

Sad but good endings dude, not just sad (unless you count it as such).

 

[Rooster893]

Klonoa: Door to Phantomile.

Ouch.

 

[Leemaster777]

Persona 4.

Train ride + Teddie's monologue = Perfect JRPG ending about friendship that wasn't cheesy and cliche.

Good answer. That ending credits song always makes me tear up.

Anyways, I'm going to throw in:

Final Fantasy X (Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you X-2)

Grave of the Fireflies (makes you want to slit your wrists afterwards)

 

[Slayer_2]

Medal Of Honor 2010s ending.

Same here, say what you will about the rest of the game, although I enjoyed it, but the last few levels actually had me caring about the characters. And then after all that, you lose Rabbit. It did a good job branching away from the usual "war is great and a fun time, if you're American" BS most shooters have.

Also, the first time I beat Fallout 3, I was almost in tears, I dunno why, but I had such a connection with my character, and to sacrifice them like that plucked my heartstrings. Although, the later DLC removed any such feelings.

 

[DoctorSun]

Romeo and Juliet, anyone?
Basically defined the idea of a sad ending for me.

Sad but good endings dude, not just sad (unless you count it as such).

Well the families get along in the end, so I'd imagine that counts.

 

[5-0]

Red Dead Redemption is the ultimate good sad ending for me. Halo Reach was pretty good also. I can't think of any right now, but I kind of like sad endings. Shakespeare is the master of that.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

The hero ending of a particular game that came out last year....

ENOUGH. FREAKIN. SAID!