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."

Comments

My votes

[DavidLeblond]

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."

Interstate '76

[Demon-Xanth]

I can't believe they left this one out. It's THE BEST game ending ever.

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 .45 and proceeds to empty it at a range of less than 2' into the chest of the bad guy.

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.

My list of Best and Worst [8bit/16bit]

[Metroid72]

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

Before you make a list, know your games

[Torgo's Pizza]

Best videogame endings? Hardly. Maybe it should be titled "Best videogame endings of the games I played all time according to me even though I've never touched a computer."

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.

Re:Before you make a list, know your games

[Torgo's Pizza]

Musta been Simoniker who submitted it then.

I"m going to take you to task on Donkey Kong though. I'm going to go by what I think you are defining as a "story". You're after something that is self-contained within the game itself. No instructions necessary. In this case, I agree that Breakout doesn't really have a story to it. Donkey Kong does fit this criteria set forth. So the question is: Is Donkey Kong the first?

So let's see if we can find a game (limiting ourselves to just console and arcade. Computers would be too easy) before 1981 that has a self-contained story. Well, Defender could fit. Everything is fine until aliens start grabbing our people! Defender to the rescue! Don't grab all the people and the planet explodes. A rather final ending I think. That was 1980.

Why not Adventure? Go ahead laugh, it's a great game for it's time. A proto-RPG if you will. There aren't any points involved and it has just as much story as Donkey Kong, if not more. Ah, but you want some sort of set up right? Some sort of narrative to explain the reason why you're doing things right? There's Frogger which was released the same year which includes in game instructions and the same basic premise. Frog's away from home, needs to get home, get's home, repeat.

So how did the frog get there? We're missing the story aren't we? Well, I could say the same about Donkey Kong. How did a giant ape get a girl? Did he escape from the zoo? Is he some space monkey? Is he a pet? Eh, it doesn't have a back story either. Lunar Lander has just as a flimsy story, but has one nonetheless. You're trying to land on the moon with limited fuel. You land. End of game. Eh, it's not Man vs. Man or Man vs. Nature, but more of a Man vs. Himself. There's 1980's Crazy Climber. Climb a building. Climb some more. Climb four! Repeat. Why do it? Because it's there.

If I had time, I could look up more examples. Donkey Kong certainly is one of the first games to have a self-contained story, but not the first. Granted, it's going to be somewhat subjective, but you need to set some groundrules on it. Does the entire story have to exist in the game? Can it have a backstory on the cabinet or instructions? Can you play against another player?

BTW, if none of the above examples sway you this one will. Kong, an arcade game released in 1976, has you in a biplane shooting at King Kong trying to save Fay Wray. It contains all the elements of Donkey Kong to a T, including monkey, girl, hero.

Good points all around. It certainly got me to thinking. Running an underground videogame trivia list, I have to put up with these kind of issues on a weekly basis. It gets really embarrasing when you ask a trivia question about a game, only to have the creater to email you later correcting you. Ouch. At least there's some wiggle room on this question.

Sorry to troll but...

[Anonymous Coward]

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*

Actually, I think there's a reason for that

[LiberalApplication]

...console games of the pre-memory-card past have not been about storytelling, they were gruelling, punishing exercises in devotion and patience. Few had saves, and most were incredibly repetitive. There really should have been a reward at the end. The same expectation holds for PC games, but they have traditionally been more storytelling interactive experiences than console games. Of course, things have changed now, such that most (good) console games revolve around an intricate plot that deserves resolution, but think about it:

• 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.