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Best Videogame Endings Discussed
Thanks to InsertCredit.com for their lengthy, semi-gonzo, spoiler-containing feature on the evolving nature of game end sequences. They ask "Why should an ending be a time to 'relax'? Why should an ending be something long, and complicated? Why should an action game, really, even have a final 'boss'? Do we need these conventions anymore?", while charting classic game endings from Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. through Metroid Prime. They finish things up with the top 11 game endings of all-time, from "an alcoholic cartoon squirrel" to "the collapsing Death Egg."
Everyone knows that crono trigger has the best endings, being one the first RPGs to experiment with multiple endings depending on how you played and finished the game.
_______
Death wish, n.:
The only wish that always comes true, whether or not one wishes it t
It had the most advanced graphics in video game at that time, end the ending was simply amazing. I still remember the music of the final boss!
"...and shit in your neck." Man, I thought he was just joking when I heard that the first time, but no, that is exactly what he did. Damn, what a cool game.
And the game was so short it was easy to get all the endings... at least I think it was.
It had crappy graphic and crappy sound, but there was something almost mystical about the ending...
Must be the fact that it was based on a propper work of prose.
My dad, back in the day, thought he had "beaten" Missile Command. After the game got so fast, it got extremely slow. He said you could take a bathroom break, come back, and the missiles still wouldn't have fallen.
How are you supposed to reach this "The End" screen, anyway? Maybe it doesn't slow down on emulators?
If you choose game type 'B' and win at level 9 then you get to see the Space Shuttle take off. Tough to do with a fresh set of batteries!!
Or did anyone else find that they would've enjoyed Metal Gear Solid 2 more, ending included, if they had just skipped through every cutscene in the game instead of trying to make sense of the so-called plot?
The Gabriel Knight series and the 7th Guest had my favorite endings. I'm not sure if I agree with world 8 on Super Mario Brothers being a "cool ending."
Ahhh yes, Slashdot's a place where the whole family can gather around the computer to read the latest about SCO, Linux, computer games and anime.
Fuck you, you shithead prude.
I always end up dead, and I don't waste any time getting there.
Ah, you do sound like a prude. Let me guess, you're an American? Thought so...
What about the ending to Soul Reaver? It was very uncomplicated, and left an opening for a sequel. I know, I hated it too.
Don't buy WoW Gold! Make it yourself!
the best videogame beginnings
syberia didn't make it to the list? neither did grim fandango?? both were some of the greatest advanture gams i've ever played, i almost cried while watching both endings :/
The IT section color scheme sucks.
My favourite game ending is that of Monkey Island 2, where everything that has gone on before (including the first adventure) is put in a new light.
I have always despised the concept of end bosses. Why, for example, did a beautifully balanced game like The New Zealand Story have such monstrous bosses? They were so hard to beat that you were bound to lose that wonderful, rela-axed feeling playing that game gave you when faced with that floating walrus.
In RPGs I find the concept of end bosses even more despicable. Worst example? The last third or so of Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Baal, where the designers have obiously run out of ideas (and the overly combat-oriented rule system has been taken to its limits) and the game just ends up throwing countless nearly-unbeatable, often regenerating enemies at you. Where's the roleplaying in that?
(And speaking of disappointing endings: the 'good' ending is identical to the 'evil' one, only with a different voice-over!)
Planescape: Torment got all of that just right: here was a game you could finish without fighting the end boss at all, if that didn't fit your character. I wish they'd make a sequel to that one...
Sentimentality is merely the Bank Holiday of cynicism.
- Oscar Wilde
I remember when I first saw (or should I say heard?) the intro to "Blood Money" by Psygnosis on my Amiga. It blew me away. And the opening to Shadow of the Beast II? Awesome.
One of many reasons why Black Isle Studios' Planescape Torment is my (and many others') favorite computer RPG is its haunting ending. The nameless protagonist, having finally achieved self-knowledge, descends unresistingly to his ultimate fate. The single cutscene made sense regardless of whether you played the game as good or evil. An exceptionally nice work, that game.
I can't believe they left this one out. It's THE BEST game ending ever.
.45 and proceeds to empty it at a range of less than 2' into the chest of the bad guy.
Hero walks upto the bad guy who is now stuck in his burning car
Bad Guy: Help, you gotta get me out of here.
Hero throws dice (long story) at bad guy, takes key to nuke. Looks over and sees a ghost of his sister standing there.
Hero: Don't get out of the car, never get out of the car.
Hero pulls out his
Now, how many games do you get to play where the end guy doesn't take the "soft" approach and ends up letting the bad guy live if he has the choice? I can't remember too many, that made this one original.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Slashdot - news for kids, stuff without f-words.
Free as in mason.
Fuck yeah
all you are, is all you are, i'm so sorry for you.
What makes a good ending? Is it a surprise twist on the storyline? Is it a rewarding sequence after a hard game?
My personal best (In no particular order):
-Starfox (SNES) - Very underrated, great ending sequence, especially when they show the specs for each boss... the music is great too!
-Final Fantasy II/III (SNES) - I personally think that SQUARE used to make better endings with less resources than now... Anyone agrees?
-Ninja Gaiden (NES) - This is a classic!
-MegaMan III - Here comes Protoman.. it opened the mistery of this new character
-Earthbound - Masterpiece!
-Bionic Commando - The bad guy is... Hitler!!!!
Other great endings: Metroid, Super Metroid, A link to the Past, Link's awakening.
What makes a bad ending? Is it a hard game with a disappointing/unrewarding final sequence? or is it a highly hyped game with a great story where the developers ran out of gas at the end? I've noticed that arcade conversions make very bad endings.
The worst (In no particular order)
-TMNT (NES) -You get just GAME OVER in colored letters
-Axelay (SNES) - Axelay II never came... damn Konami
-SFII (All) - I personally never liked the endings. The gameplay makes it up.
Hard games with unrewarding endings:
Jackal (hard mode), Battletoads (All), Ultima Quest for Avatar, Solar Jetman, Dragon Warrior, POW, Batman (NES), Blaster Master
Try "Tales of Phantasia".
Superb game! The intro sequence is a FULL VOCAL song in this SNES game. It then starts you out on some sort of a boss scene where 4 guys cleans up on some boss.
And at the end, he then explains why he did all what he did throught the game. I'll leave out what he says...
And this wasnt made by Square.. It was made by the the football game kings, Tecmo.
Wolfenstein 3D final "boss". Now THAT is a mother-freakin-ending. Open a door, piss your pants, get mangled by dual gatling guns.
MORTAR COMBAT!
What exactly happened in the ending of FFVII? I never was quite able to figure it out. Is it supposed to be everyone in the world is dead? Sure, the game is a thinly veiled allegory for environmentalism, and one would expect that every human would die at the end, but come on.
All that time to find out that I had been commanding a girl in a bikini... who then took off her space suit to show off that lovely piece of kit!
I always thought the Ninja Gaiden series on NES had some of the coolest endings, and some of hardest final bosses. They really set the bar high with all thier animated cut-scenes between levels leading up a long scene at the end.
Whats wrong with being American? Your obviously not but you think its ok to bash us?!? I think your just jelous like all the other country's that aren't as successfull as the USA. And what does being American have to do with anything anyway?!? I dont like swearing cuz im Christian and children shouldnt be seeing this sort of foul stuff.
I must say that the ending of Super Metriod was indeed cool. I played that game so much. I kept doing it faster to see what would happen. Eventually got it under 3 hours. It was pretty fun to come back from class with a 4 hour break, beat the game and still have time to eat before afternoon classes.
With Phantasy Star II, I saw on slashdot that PSII may be coming to the PS2. Does anyone have a better link than the one provided. That game was frickin awesome.
... and it did. Damn that was a great game!
What was best about the ending about this RPG is that you got a sense of where everybody was going to be after the story ended. Something you don't always get in RPGs.
No "Star Control II"? I guess they just didn't play it. That's literally the only possible explanation. If you haven't, go download it now - it's available free as "The Ur-Quan Masters" from sourceForge.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Worst NES ending...1942.
You play and play and play, until you finally beat the last 10 out of 100 or so stages (and if you die in stage 100, you restart at stage 90).
And what do you get?
C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S
and that's it.
Steven V.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
Super Zaxxon...you must fight the dragon. Sweet.
If you want a game with no 'boss' to fight at the end, then may I present to you...720 Degrees (the skateboard game that hurts the wrist). Yes, indeedy.
Cursing in and of itself it not a sin. I don't understand why swearing offends you. They are just words like any other words, they have meaning. It's almost arbitrary what words you've been conditioned to find offensive. If I say "kiss my ass" is it worse that "kiss my butt"? Ass is also a donkey? So only the context offends you? Why is fuck worse than shit? Seriously I'd like to debate this. I know *many* devote Christians who have no problem with swearing, and I dare you to doubt that there devotion to God is any less so than yours.
It is a very, very sad list. No mention of Ultima IV, Planescape, Wing Commander III, Baldur's Gate, Planetfall, Zork, or any of the myriad of games with *REAL* endings.
Hint: If you want to make a "all-time" list, do yourself and your readers a favor. Spend a lot of time doing research. That means interviewing and polling friends, people on the street, reading reviews and visiting a library. Then write your article.
The Planescape Torment ending was awesome. I loved that game.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
Metroid for NES. I mean... WOW! What a surprise!
OK, a good surprise is one that just TOTALLY blows you away and you weren't even thinking anywhere NEAR that. Metroid could have ended with a "The universe is saved!" or even a big explosion or some badass mother-brain-lived thing.
But out of nowhere, he... is a she! Go Samus! That girl kicked major ass!
Link's Awakening was the first Zelda game I played, and it was the first Zelda game that didn't play in Hyrule. I thought the ending was really sad, but nevertheless rewarding and interesting.
If you're worried about what your children (or other children using your computer) will be seeing, it's not hard to find a net monitoring software to block out such obsenities.
I fucking agree with this motherfucking cocksucker, and i don't give a shit what you fuckwads say.
And what do you get? C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S
Actually, i believe it was something like "Congraduations" or something to make that awful ending seem even worse!
Yes this is offtopic, who gives a shit :P
Actually though one thing I've always wondered is how exactly some words are arbitrarily marked bad regardless of context and others are not. For example, shit is often used as a curseword, but it is still seen as bad when you simply use it when referring to actual feces. Also certain words are defined as bad, while others of the exact same meaning can be used in their place and not be bad.
A few examples of this would be ass/butt, shit/crap, and fuck/screw.
It simply makes no sense that these words have the exact same meaning, but some of them are arbitrarily marked as vulgar while others are not...
HALO. No I know you are thinkin wtf are you talkin about buddy it wasn't particularly great. Well thats because I'm talking about the after the ending ending aka Red Vs Blue. It's ok I forgive you for doubting me.
Trust Your Technolust
OK, maybe not the best, but I thought it was really cool. Duke has that bloodied-but-not-quite-dead alien on the ground, with his boot on its head. Before he blows the alien's head off with his 10-guage, the following lines are spoken:
"Who are you?"
"I'm Duke Nukem, and I'm coming to kill you alien bastards"
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Ico has one of the most beautiful endings. It rocked. Too bad the US version had the replay mode yanked out of it, so you couldn't replay and understand what the hell everyone was saying.
Other good ones: Final Fantasy Tactics covered a lot of loose ends in its ending and tied a considerable amount together. Rhapsody had some interesting twists right at the end. I liked the music from Legend of Mana. I agree with the author, Final Fantasy 6's ending was perfectly done with wonderful music.
The most recent disappointment I've had is Suikoden 1, which I picked up used recently. It had 100+ characters, and all I get is a "where are they now" one sentence blurb for each.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Since so much of RPGs are story, the endings provide the climax to all of your vested interest and time. My vote for the best endings go to Fallout, Ultima6, and the Final Fantasy series.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Aww come on... not all of us Americans are fucking prudes. We just get a bad rap because of Disney. I hope they die from axphyxiating on their own vomit for turning the word "kids" into "family." "It's a family film!" Fuck you, it's for 3 year olds.
So don't be so quick to call us prudes. After all, our country is responsible for NAMbLA.
-=-=-=-=-=
I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
Probably the most unfufilling ending I ever experience myself was Zero Wing (of "All your base are belong to us" fame). It's not the hardest side-scrolling shooter, but it doesn't take it easy on you either......and I was rewarded for my hours of diligent play by what I could only describe as knock-off California Raisins dancing by the word "Congradulations". A big let-down, since I ws hoping for an ending as entertaining as the beginning was......."You have no chance to survive make your time....."
[este]
You hit the nail right on the head. I was hoping to see some variety in there, however I we see is some list of console games that people have played and finished. Are we strickly a console based game generation? Not that I know of, so the title should really read:
"Best Console Videogame Endings Discussed"
IMHO I think there should be some mention of one of the Ultima's. VII my fav, I could hardly wait for part 2, and the animation at that time was just breath taking. I couldn't belive the 3d effects it had.
Anyway, perhaps someone could make either a real list or a list that included Computer games and not just console games.
Actually here is an idea, perhaps the next slashdot poll should be between a handfull of games and then we get to pick which had the best ending (granted we played it).
E.
Never rub another man's rhubarb - The Joker
What happened to the Doom ending??? Does anyone remember that cute lil rabbit?? :-D
My apologies, but that's got to be one of the most ameteurish articles that I've ever read. Not only was it laid out poorly, it was, at best, scatter-brained. If they wanted to talk about two (or three!) games per bullet point, they should have made two (or three) separate lists with clear-cut categories.
For that matter, why should I take their word for it? Most other top-10 ("Ours goes to Eleven!") lists at least poll the audience. This one sounds like it was born of some random pipe dream.
*shakes his head*
Plenty of games out there with no ending. Not just arcade games, either. MMORPGs, for example.
- How many people played all the way through 100 ridiculously difficult levels in Zillion for the SMS?
- How many people even finished Super Mario Brothers? Talk about repetitive, punishing, and unrewarding.
- How many people finished any of the MegaMan games prior to battery-powered memory?
Point being that the endings of the old world of console games were much more important than those of PC games because you had to go through the entire thing in one sitting, performing nearly perfectly, for upwards of three hours, following god knows how many prior attempts that ended in failure. If there wasn't much of an ending, it made you want to toss the damned thing out the window.This isn't to say that PC games were less important, but that the ability to save your progress and the general nature of PC games made the experience itself part of the reward.
Put it this way: Playing console games was like having sex with the added requirement of five hours of foreplay. If it didn't end happily, it was pretty annoying. Playing PC games was like... um... huh. I can't think of an analogy. Multiple orgasms maybe? Somebody help me out here.
I'm so fucking embarassed to be associated with you uncouth, cumfaced wretches.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
One article, many, many comments, and no reference to Deus Ex. You all have my pity.
Gnarly, Mondo, Yoshi's House, etc. from beating Star Road and finding the secret exits. That was a lot of fun, and kinda cool.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
This dude writes like a fifth-grader. Maybe he is really a Halfdim scholar, and somebody fucked up. One of the most messed up articles I have ever seen.
Depends.....they changed it in later runs of the cart.....I still have a Hitler boss version, my friends and I were all freaking when we first beat the game, we couldn't believe they would use that likeness
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
No mention of Karateka? The game where you fight through a gazillion bad guys to rescue the girl. But, when you finally get to her and forget to drop out of fighting stance, she boots you in the head an kills you.
Now, that's an ending!
I'd give a runner-up position to Diablo. You fight your way through all the demons of hell to get to the Big Guy himself. You kill him. And, in the ending cinematic sequence over which you have no control, your character shoves the bloody soulstone into his head, becoming the bad guy! WTF?! I don't recall signing on to play an absolute freakin' idiot as my character. It's like Frodo deciding to keep the ring after all at the end of the third book. It's not exactly satisfying entertainment.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
-Axelay (SNES) - Axelay II never came... damn Konami
Arr, that reminds me of the SNES version of Shadowrun. Maybe because I played it first or something, I liked it *so* much better than the Genesis version. I don't consider the Genesis version to be the promised sequel...
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The Link's Awakening ending I totally agree with. One of the most fun games I'd every played on Game Boy, and definetly one of the creepiest endings.
FF7's ending made plenty of sense to me, and I loved the sequence, but one thing bothered the hell out of me... Nanaki is the last of his race! How the F*ck did he end up with kids?! Nanaki being RedXIII. Bah.
Other good endings? The Freespace series has never dissapointed there. And with some of the best in-game sequences too. (Who didn't have a brown-trouser moment at the special-ops mission and the scream of DIVE DIVE DIVE!)
Bad endings? Diablo 2's Lord of Destruction. The ending to the regular game (act 4) is great. The Act 5 LoD ending? Bleh. Who gives a fuck about Tyrael? I want to know about my characters!
And then there's Bubble Bobble, which while being the finest video game ever made, was very frustrating in that you couldn't get the 'real' ending unless you were playing 2 players.
Also notable was the game endings for Jet Moto 2, for being the first racing game I've ever played that HAD character endings, and decent ones.
"To pass through the jungle; silence, courtesy, ferocity, as the occasion demands." -- Kamau, "Proper Passage"
This guy didn't understand the ending to FFVII at all which leads me to believe he barely played the game or didn't understand the game. The "beams of light" were the visual of the Holy Materia/Holy Magic being used by Aeris. If you recal the game stated that only holy could destroy meteor that is why Aeris had to sacrifice herself in order to save the world (yeah yeah it's been done before in other games).
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
If there's not some kind of climax, it's not going to be a very interesting story. All this person seems to be arguing is that the point where the ending starts should be moved. Most games switch from gameplay to ending at the peak of the climax, when you deal the final blow to the endboss or solve the final puzzle or whatever. When done in that manner ending catches the tail end of the action, and then procedes into the denouemont. he just thinks that the begining of the ending should be delayed until the denouemont is already underway. Is that really a significant change? As he pointed out himself, some games already do that, but it's really an artistic choice, and i can't see why any one way of doing it should be inherently superior to another.
He doesn't think games need "bosses," and in some sense that's true, if you just mean a large enemy more powerfull than any other you've placed in the game. However you need something to cause a climatic scene at the end, or the player isn't going to be very satisfied. And if you have that climatic moment you need some form of resolution afterwards, or it's just going to be really weird.
This artle is just a lot of philisophical meandering that doesn't have much of a point and certainly doesn't propose answers to any of the questions it poses. If not a climax and a denouemont, then what? The game just randomly stops at some point in the middle of whatever is going on and presents a black screen that says "The End"? That won't go over too well as a replacement.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
If anyone has ever played (nevermind finish cause the game wasn't all that common) Target Earth, it has the best ending.
For a no-game made by dreamworks not comprised of big name music composer on the genesis 16bit, this ending was insane.
The music was superb as you are the last mech the leave this giant bosses body. You are walking out of the mech without a mech suit, some chics thinking about you at base. You fleet shows up...
But the lighting is done in such a way that you know the war will never end.
I know I'm going to be modded down for this, but it's gotta be said; the author of both articles is very full of himself, prefering to talk about "enlightened" gaming and how games were so much better "back when *I* was a kid," and yet barely discusses the subject matter at hand, good game endings. The first article is particularly bad about this. The author discusses the so-called glory days of games and moans about how modern games don't hold a candle to the good ol' games of yor, without justifying his opinion in the slightest. (His comments about games "winding down" nearly drove me up a wall.)
The second article is just plain BAD! It's like jumping into the middle of a dialog where you don't know what is being discussed. There's at least two voices in each part, and neither goes into any detail about the mentioned game. I've played some of these games and I was still confused.
I have no tag line
Natuk is a great shareware RPG dungeon crawl game.
Spoiler alert:
You play a party of selfish orcs. At the end of the game, there is one final battle to kill the king.
After a very difficult fight, you win. The party now realizes that only one person can be the new king. You pick one member of your party, and play him as the game degenerates into a deathmatch. The last surviving party member becomes king. A shocking and hilarious way to end the game.
Mabye I am just morbid but, I thought that the endings for Twisted Metal Black were great, and the end boss just made you want to break something. Also The character Sweet Thooth was enough to give anyone nightmares.
"Gordan Freeman in the flesh. Or rather in the Hazard Suit. I took the liberty of relieving you of your weapons. Most of them were government property! As for the Hazard Suit, I think you've earned it."
Way back in the olden days before Windows 95, was my favorite game ending. Might and Magic 5, had an amazing end game sequence for more reasons then one.
First, and most importantly, it was the conculsion of the struggle between Corak and Sheltem. The two creations of the 'Ancients' that your various parties of adventurers have been following/aiding/thwarting through Might and Magics 1 through 5. When fighting in this end sequence, Corak was losing, and was about to be defeated, but he sacrificed himself to destroy Sheltem.
Story aside, the graphics were very well done for the ending, and the speech was amazing both in its quality and length (this was around 1993-1994 if I recall correctly).
Definatly the highest point in video gaming endings in my opinion.
RAMPAGE! If anybody ever wasted enough time to finish that game, you know what I'm talking about. You go through the entire country destroying cities (which are all pretty much the same) and get rewarded with... nothing! I think the game designers were trying to make fun of all the poor souls who devoted their time to finishing such a dumb game.
So I can honestly say that I beat all 8 levels of 4 boards each, no warping, in Super Mario Brothers. No continues, no saves, just hours of stomping baddies and eating mushrooms. Luckily I was rewarded with another game in addition to the ending.
And 8-4 sucked so bad with the looping until you got the right pattern. Ugh.
If not now, when?
You can also do this throughout the game in two player mode (possibly single, don't remember) to give your friend a spare life. With infinite continues it makes it nice in that the dead player doesn't have to wait for the continue but it doesn't really hurt the first player in the long run. Also I think player one can steal player two's lives this way.
If not now, when?
I tried the trial of Natuk that cut out at some point and wasn't quite as impressed. I've since gone back to Nethack for my fix of computerized dungeon crawling.
If not now, when?
what a n00b
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
Got to agree with you here, and the chap earlier who talked about Loom.
The main problem with this article is that it appears to be written by people who have only played consoles. All the games mentioned in their Best Endings are console games (a few have been ported, sure). Where are the Day Of The Tentacles, the Commodore Amiga's Turrican?
I have no sig yet I must scream.
If you listen closely to the dialogue, the reason why he shoves the soulstone into his head is because he believes that no one could be trusted with the thing. I guess he thought it was the best way of making it sure it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands. I guess your character ends up being Diablo (D2) anyway. So maybe it was a dumbass idea afterall. I guess it was the best ending Blizzard could think of to keep the plot going.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
Why don't you put down your bible for a bit and pick up an English book? You embarrass the rest of us.