Games where their ending lessened your opinion of it?

[Deleted member 17627]

Early today someone brought up Tokyo Mirage Sessions in a different thread in and it reminded me, that despite being such a fun game from beginning to end, it had such a lackluster ending:

Spoiler

• Very generic follow up after defeating the final boss being just an exclamation of "we did it!" and that's pretty much it.
• The rest of the cast is pretty much shoved to the side in favor of Itsuki, the MC, where you don't see them interacting with one another and the last moments of the game are just one-on-ones with Itsuki.
• Continuing off of that last point, the Mirages essentially disappear after a couple of sentences of dialogue with Itsuki, a really poor sendoff, especially weird when the Mirages never even got to say goodbye to the party members that they were actually bonded to.
• Getting the true ending of the game required A LOT of extra work in both getting the social level and battle levels of your party members as high as possible. But all you get is just a different "where are they now" card that's just text and their game art as well as an extra 30 second cutscene of Itsuki sitting in a chair and becoming president, it felt very tell and no show and it was pretty lackluster.

It's annoying that the game had so much heart put into it, only for the ending to be so rushed. I still enjoy the game a lot and it's one of my favorite RPGs, but having more resources and time put into it would've been much more appreciated so aspects of the game such as this didn't turn out the way they did, and it kind of left me with a bad taste in my mouth, where I was previously forgiving a lot of the game's flaws.

So ERA, what are some game endings that hampered your opinion of the overall experience?

 

[Massicot]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Spoiler: Ending Spoilers

I feel like the ending would have been much more poignant and meaningful if they had found Pyras core at the end, rather than the whole sacrifice bit being a fake out and Pyra being 100% fine. There would have been lingering questions about whether she'd have memory or not upon rebirth (Aegis don't lose their memories, but the situation was a bit non-standard. so maybe?) Instead it made the last bit of the game feel like cheap drama to be neatly resolved one credits sequence later.

 

[McNum]

Obligatory Mass Effect 3 mention.

Do you destroy everything you've been fighting for, fulfill the villain's plot, or grossly violate every sapient being's body in the galaxy? All that's different, by the way, is the color of the explosion about to happen. So, red, blue, or green?

 

[Sub Level]

Mass Effect 3 used to be my answer.

But there's a PC mod to change the ending so our relationship is cool now.

 

[Deleted member 249]

Danganronpa V3. You know why.

I go a bit back and forth on Xenoblade 2.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Spoiler: Ending Spoilers

I feel like the ending would have been much more poignant and meaningful if they had found Pyras core at the end, rather than the whole sacrifice bit being a fake out and Pyra being 100% fine. There would have been lingering questions about whether she'd have memory or not upon rebirth (Aegis don't lose their memories, but the situation was a bit non-standard. so maybe?) Instead it made the last bit of the game feel like cheap drama to be neatly resolved one credits sequence later.

Click to shrink...

This is why.

 

[Lukemia SL]

Rage. It made you realise why it was named Rage.

 

[headspawn]

The Darkness 2.

I enjoyed up until the ending.

 

[Atolm]

Danganronpa V3 elevated my overall opinion about the game.

Zero Time Dilemma lowered it, for complex motives.

Kotor 2 and Rage literally have no ending.

 

[Deleted member 4037]

Life is Strange, almost completely ruined the game for me

 

[Strings]

DanganRonpa V3. You know why.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, all the Danganronpa games, Zero Time Dilemma, every Tales title--

Most things I play have endings that drag and make me think less of them.

 

[Bahamut]

BoTW.

Still one of the greatest games I ever played in my life, but the final boss and ending were very underwhelming compared to the rest of the game. I was pretty let down. Mario Odyssey, for example, had a MUCH better finale.

 

[danm999]

Fallout 3 vanilla is a pretty dire ending.

 

[poklane]

Call of Duty: Ghosts. Actually thought the story was quite decent, really liked that the US was less powerful than its enemy for once and really liked the space-weapons thing.

Spoiler: Ending

Then came the ending, bad guy gets shot in the chest (and what looks like right in the heart as well) with a .44 Magnum, resulting in him being knocked out in a submerged train filled with water. You take your brother (who by the way was also shot in the chest with a .44 Magnum), swim out of the train before you drown and everything seems well because the bad guy is dead, the South Americans have lost control over their super weapon and the war is basically over. Then suddenly, out of nowhere the bad guy appears like nothing happened to him, snaps your arm in half like it's nothing and takes you away to be brainwashed in a South American rain forest.

I know Call of Duty isn't exactly the most realistic of shooters, but that ending just took the bullshit to a whole other insane level.

 

[Lotus]

BoTW's ending is why Nier was my GOTY instead.

Persona 5's ending soured me on a game I was already increasingly disliking. Just did not care for any of it.

 

[CorethPWilshire]

Bioshock and Fallout 4 are the first to come to my mind.

 

[Deleted member 249]

I'm one of the wierdos who likes BotW's ending lol

Now, I do hate the credits :(

 

[Deleted member 17627]

Yeah, all the Danganronpa games, Zero Time Dilemma, every Tales title--

Most things I play have endings that drag and make me think less of them.

Click to shrink...

I love Tales games, but it bugs me that Xillia 2, Zestiria, and Berseria all had the same issue in their ending that they use the theme of:

Spoiler

Unless the protagonist sacrifices themselves, the entire world will be destroyed.

 

[Echo]

Zero Time Dilemma.

It was already really bad imo, coming off of 999 and VLR there was so much hype behind it, and ZTD totally did not deliver in any way. ... but then the ending came and it just got worse. As bad as ME3's ending was, at least getting there was fun. ZTD was shite beginning to end. :(

 

[Richter1887]

Danganronpa V3 made the game even better IMO.

Persona 5 finale made me like the game less. Mostly because it was too

Spoiler: Spoilers for 3-5

similiar to other 2 games.

though the plot twist about you know was great.

 

[The Unsent]

I loved most of MGS4, but the first thing that comes to my mind about the game is

Spoiler

Big Boss

taking out War and Peace and reading it all to Snake before the second credits come on.

 

[Seraphis Cain]

Yakuza 5.

I don't know if I've ever been more angry at a game's ending. It actively made me dislike

Spoiler

Haruka

as a character.

 

[Zhukov]

Alright, firstly let's just get this particular narrative gall stone out of the way then:

For a proper answer, one would be Life is Strange.

It gives you a choice right at the end, implemented as press X for ending A, press Y for ending B. It's the only thing that determines your ending and is completely divorced from any choices you made previously. It basically boils down to choosing between a bittersweet but thematically appropriate ending and an absolutely nonsensical thematically ill fitting ending. It was very obviously done just for the sake of having a choice.

Another one was, sadly, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (God, that title is the fucking worst.)

(Yes, I'm aware that that image makes it look great. But I used images for the other two and it was either that or this one which is even more awesome looking.)

The actual climax is awesome and interesting and cathartic, if a bit confusing (and featuring some needlessly recycled boss fights). Then it goes and detracts from it with an epilogue where the main character literally looks at the camera and gives a weirdly out of character monologue about life being a wonderful experience. It isn't quite a power-of-hope speech, but it feels like one in the sense that it seems that the writers ran out of ideas and just threw together a bunch of cookie-cutter platitudes.

Then it closes out with a woefully mismatched ending credits song:

 

[Deleted member 7450]

Bringing it up yet again: AssCreed 2

Soured noT only the game, but the whole franchise for me.

(Dis)Honorable mention: Borderlands.
All that build up to bugger all, coupled with a sequel with even worse writing.

 

[Sev]

Zero Time Dilemma brought down my opinion of Zero Escape as a whole, and I adored 999/VLR.

 

[Wilsongt]

Radiata Stories: Such a great game with a good lead up to the end all for it to end like... that. What a let down.

 

[thebagel1]

If Botw had a better (actually good) final boss and ending it would probably be my favorite game of all time.

 

[Gemeanie]

Danganronpa V3. Perhaps I'd have been more forgiving if it was a $25 indie game.
Fable 2
BOF IV which felt rushed and empty after the traumatic climax

 

[Deleted member 6949]

Resident Evil VII started strong, but then it turned into a tube shooter and the final boss was basically just a qte.

 

[Deleted member 9714]

NieR: Automata

I really enjoyed the journey, but the ending felt very incomplete to me. After the credits battle, which ends up beating itself in most cases, I was expecting 9S and A2 to ally together and defeat some final boss (like the game's programming itself) after being inspired by the pods demonstrating their own will. But it just ended.

 

[jakoo]

Thimbleweed Park. It had a promising and interesting premise which it decided to scrap in favor of being an overly meta inside joke that doesn't adequately resolve any of the questions it initially posed.

 

[Bosh]

Borderlands 1

The ending was so bad

 

[MrConbon210]

Bringing it up yet again: AssCreed 2

Soured noT only the game, but the whole franchise for me.

(Dis)Honorable mention: Borderlands.
All that build up to bugger all, coupled with a sequel with even worse writing.

Click to shrink...

Blasphemy. Assassin's Creed 2 was the hyped ending ever for my 11 year old self. I remember screaming and freaking out over that fourth wall break.

 

[BriGuy]

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver ends with a "to be continued." I never bothered with the sequels after that.

 

[Dylan]

Mass Effect 2

 

[Zaied]

Killzone 3 left me extremely sour at the end. The final mission as a whole was just disappointing and didn't hold a candle to the epic showdown against Radec, and finally the confrontation with Visari in Killzone 2.

 

[Phendrift]

What Remains of Edith Finch, easily.

I was expecting a huge revelation

 

[Deleted member 19213]

Metal Gear Solid V. Amazing game, but holy crap that true ending was a slap in the face.

 

[Pascal]

I'm gonna go with MGS4. I kinda liked the game up until the ending cutscenes. But those ending cutscenes...It was just way too much. Turned the game off while the ending in the graveyard was playing out and never played the game again. Just didn't give a fuck anymore.

 

[bulletyen]

Radiata Stories: Such a great game with a good lead up to the end all for it to end like... that. What a let down.

Click to shrink...

I have such fond memories of that game, especially the lovable characters. But yeah, so many JRPGs just drop the ball on endings...

For me, one such RPG that I remember having an ending that slayed me was Wild Arms V. It was depressing for a game that was otherwise so fun and colorful throughout.

Spoiler

At the end you realize the characters are stuck in a time loop and doomed to repeat everything that happened, the alternative being something worse, and so nothing that you did in the game mattered.

I see Mass Effect 3 here but my opinion of that series went downhill long before the ending.

 

[Cats]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution. You go into a room with 3-5 (?) pedastools that have a button on them. Each one plays a different pre-rendered stock footage movie with some mumbo jumbo and then the credits roll.All you need to do is just reload your game and press another button. It's honestly a joke.

Life is Strange, almost completely ruined the game for me

Click to shrink...

Absolutely, and it did retroactively hurt the last 4 episodes for me greatly. Episode 5 is incredibly weak and has a lot of filler. It complete falls into the Mass Effect 3 trap of "Your choices do not matter at all." I get that they ran out of money/time but they could have handled that a lot better.

 

[Steiner]

Xenoblade Chronicles.
It comes out of nowhere and it was just done for the sake of it, imo. The ending doesn't use any story mechanics or themes that the game established until that point.

Persona 4
Similar problem, the ending relies on subjects and themes that the game barley touched upon, during the whole time. It also doesn't help that it came literally out of nowhere. At least Atlus learnt from it and managed to create a way more coherent ending in P5.

 

[Yasumi]

ZTD made me discover new lows of disappointment that I didn't even know existed.

Xenoblade 2's ending was too neat, and due to how little they elaborated on the actual conclusion, just plain unsatisfying.

 

[osnameless]

Life is Strange, almost completely ruined the game for me

Click to shrink...

I strongly second this. What was a good story with very smart gameplay mechanics was marred by a stupid ending that renders everything you've done pointless.

Here's hoping that Max returns in season 2, but they do a better ending this time.

 

[Ultimadrago]

Persona 5, like Persona 4 before it had a really overdrawn and slightly crappy endgame. I'm talking more from a play perspective too and not just a rushed cliche cinematic storytelling one (though that applies too).

 

[Haze]

Metal Gear Solid V. Amazing game, but holy crap that true ending was a slap in the face.

Click to shrink...

Man I love that game but the entire end segment is not good and really made me hungry for what could have been.

 

[Foxdeimos]

I see some people bringing up Danganronpa V3 and, although I can't comment on THAT one in particular since I haven't played it yet, it reminded me of how much I disliked the ending of the very first Danganronpa. Everything up until the end stretch was pretty neat, but then you arrive at the big twist and the conclusion and everything just felt... Downright inane to me, to put it VERY mildly. It kind of soured what could've been an overall good experience, in my opinion.

Besides that one... Well, I wouldn't say it actually LESSENED my opinion of the rest of the game, but I feel like I must bring up Batman: Arkham Knight if only for how sheer disproportionate the amount of required effort versus the feeling of reward is in that game when you go for the true ending. After all the soul shattering busywork you have to go through to finish the Riddler side quest, getting THAT ending as a reward just leaves you feeling broken and empty inside.

 

[number8888]

Danganronpa V3 for sure. I am not even sure if I wanted to play any game in the series after that ending.

Thimbleweed Park also. Feels like a cop-out giving the pedigree of its creator.

 

[Grimmjow]

Tales of Zestria ending was some garbage. You beat the final boss then you get an anime cutscene showing a time skip and no spoken dialog.

 

[Korigama]

Steins;Gate's true ending, which I ranted on about for months back on GAF after finishing the game.

I quite liked Persona 5's ending.

 

[Echo]

People mentioning Life Is Strange, I kinda agree but for different reasons. I don't mind that it's boiled down to those two choices, and the endings themselves don't hamper my thoughts on the game as a whole but rather the fact that it is super obvious one ending got all the attention and the other was super undercooked.

The imbalance there was always distracting, and made me bitter for a while that the ending I wanted most was the one least developed. I do understand the budget and time was running out for dontnod though.