Best Videogame Endings Discussed 126
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."
It seems obvious... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It seems obvious... (Score:2)
If you don't know what I'm talking about, you must read this review [fefea.org] of Phantasy Star III.
Final Fantasy VII (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Final Fantasy VII (Score:2)
"Estuans interius" is the first line of a poem in which the speaker laments the fact that he is more interested in worldly pleasures than salvation. While there are some dark and brooding parts that m
"I'm going to rip off your head..." (Score:3, Funny)
Re:"I'm going to rip off your head..." (Score:1)
An ending that took ages of fighting and fighting and fighting.
Was great.
Re:"I'm going to rip off your head..." (Score:2)
The game ending was good to when he kicks the alien in the head and his eye pops out and flies through the field goal =)
Bladerunner (Score:1)
Loom gets my vote (Score:4, Informative)
Must be the fact that it was based on a propper work of prose.
Missile Command's Ending? (Score:1)
How are you supposed to reach this "The End" screen, anyway? Maybe it doesn't slow down on emulators?
Was it just me... (Score:2)
Re:Was it just me... (Score:1)
My votes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My votes (Score:2)
One level features every land enemy in the game (i.e. goombas, turtles, hammer bros) in a water stage. You can just swim along the top of the water through the whole thing, but it's cool to see.
Another stage is basically an outdoor castle. It's like a castle stage, where all the blocks are made of castle blocks. But there usually isn't a ceiling, it's a blue sky, the normal Mario theme, vines t
Like the special levels in Super Mario World. (Score:1)
dead (Score:1)
I always end up dead, [anzwers.org] and I don't waste any time getting there.
Very basic... (Score:1)
Re:Very basic... (Score:1)
Despite the crappy gameplay on occassion (LOK 2 comes to mind), I freakin love the storyline of the whole Kain universe.
Let's not forget... (Score:2, Interesting)
what?? (Score:1)
Favourite game ending & most hated end bosses (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
Re:Favourite game ending & most hated end boss (Score:2)
What about game intros? (Score:1)
Re:What about game intros? (Score:1)
Planescape Torment (Score:2)
One of many reasons why Black Isle Studios' Planescape Torment [interplay.com] 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.
Interstate '76 (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Interstate '76 (Score:1)
That whole damn game was great.
The intro, and tutorial (listening to your dead sister on tape telling you how to drive her car was a brilliant beginning), all the cut-sceness were perfectly placed (if a little shoddy in the graphics detail department), and the ending...
Simply a superb game.
My list of Best and Worst [8bit/16bit] (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Re:My list of Best and Worst [8bit/16bit] (Score:2)
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.
Re:My list of Best and Worst [8bit/16bit] (Score:2)
Actually, i believe it was something like "Congraduations" or something to make that awful ending seem even worse!
Re:My list of Best and Worst [8bit/16bit] (Score:2)
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
Re:My list of Best and Worst [8bit/16bit] (Score:2)
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...
Forgetting another wonderful one... (Score:2)
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.
Re:Forgetting another wonderful one... (Score:1)
Re:Forgetting another wonderful one... (Score:1)
Re:Forgetting another wonderful one... (Score:2)
I felt the Dejap release was quite good, but they didnt need that "I betcha Arche fucks like a tiger" comment. And I didnt know it's being released on the GBA
It'll be fun to see what they changed, as it's quite a dark game.
Re:Forgetting another wonderful one... (Score:1)
Re:Forgetting another wonderful one... (Score:2)
I've looked all over the net with no sucess. I've also called up japanese book/manga distributors. No luck at all.
Re:Forgetting another wonderful one... (Score:1)
Re:Forgetting another wonderful one... (Score:2)
GUTEN TAG (Score:2)
FFVII (Score:2)
Re:FFVII (Score:2)
After the party escapes from the crater where they killed Sephiroth, you see that the Meteor he summoned is just about to hit Midgar.
Holy activates to stop it, but it looks like it's too late, as Meteor just keeps going. Then when it looks like you're screwed, the lifestream (aka all the souls of dead people, assumably being led by Aeris by the picture of her that flashes at the end) seeps out of every damn hole on the planet. The lifestream then helps Holy and obliterates Meteor.
Fast forward
Re:FFVII (Score:1)
It's been a LONG time since I played FFVII, and I only played it once so I didn't get to go back and check this...
But wasn't there some Really Important Place in the game called the Temple of the Ancients? And didn't it look an awful lot like what Midgar looks like in the future? I thought maybe it was some big cycle repeating itself. But again, I haven't played it in years and I never went back to confirm what I thought.
Re:FFVII (Score:1)
Red XIII is not human. Holy will determine what threatens the planet and eradicates this threat. It was humans that had abused the planet and the lifestream. Even though Cloud and company proved that good exists in humanity, it's up to the gamer to decide if the humans survive or not.
I personally have yet to decide what happened to Cloud and company. I think it doesn't matter too much, because even in death, you exist on a spiritual level in the lifestream with everyone else.
Re:FFVII (Score:2)
Re:FFVII (Score:1)
Metroid (Score:2)
Ninja Gaiden (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Bah! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bah! (Score:1)
Re:Bah! (Score:2)
my vote... (Score:2)
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.
Before you make a list, know your games (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:2)
Worst PC game ending for me was the Bards Tale game where you get to the end, kill the last mob, it rewards you with the standard "you found a (magic item name)!" and before you can ever even see what the item is like, it cuts to a 'cut scene' and you see words scrolling letting you know that yadda, yadda, yadda, there will be stars in the sky named after you, yadda, yadda, yadda.
When I played, during that last encounter I saw "Yo
Mod this up! (Score:1)
"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 effec
Actually, I think there's a reason for that (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Super Mario Brothers (Score:2)
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 additio
Re:Super Mario Brothers (Score:2)
Re:Before you make a list, know your games (Score:1)
. . . Well, mostly. It's mostly console-centric. There's one little piece [insertcredit.com] of an article about Neverwinter Nights back from January, and that's about it. Other than that, the author prefers to keep PC games to himself.
The name of the site is "insert credit," which implies something of an arcade/console concentration. Few PC games require the insertion of a credit, unless you're talking about Everquest or Magic: The Gathering Online, and the "credit" in those cases
Re:Before you make a list, know your games (Score:2)
To be fair, it's a good list of console games and Tim Rodgers did a good job of writing, with several little twists, even if he only mentions the games that he himself played. But even if we stick to the focus of "arcade/console concentration" that you mention, there aren't any arca
Re:Before you make a list, know your games (Score:3, Insightful)
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. Co
Re:Before you make a list, know your games (Score:2)
Re:Before you make a list, know your games (Score:2)
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.
Did it occur to you that when you see a list of "top 11 videogame endings", and every single one of them is for a console game, none of them for a PC game, that they're probably using the word "videogame" to mean console games, as opposed to "computer games"?
Or do you prefer to think that they just all hated the endings of your favourite
Re:Before you make a list, know your games (Score:2)
Secondly, I listed three RPG games, two text adventures and one space flight-sim in my quoted statement. I don't know where you're getting the idea these are all CRPGS.
Also note that the website administrator and I talked about it and feel that it was pr
Best Ending Ever is... (Score:2)
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!
Best ending ever... (Score:1)
Re:Best ending ever... (Score:1)
Duke Nukem 3D (Score:2)
"Who are you?"
"I'm Duke Nukem, and I'm coming to kill you alien bastards"
Other great endings (Score:2)
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 rec
Re:Other great endings (Score:2)
Aye, I nearly cried. I didn't realize until witnessing the ending just how much I had become involved with the characters- the ending evoked a complex mixture of sadness and joy. Yes, from a video game. When was the last time a movie did that?
-h3
Re:Other great endings (Score:2)
It's especially nice because there is an ending *after* the ending, after the final sequence and credits play and you control the boy running around on the beach.
You did see it, right?
Re:Other great endings (Score:2)
RPGs have it hands down (Score:2)
The worst I've suffered..... (Score:2)
Doom (Score:1)
Sorry to troll but... (Score:1, Insightful)
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 he
*No* ending (Score:2, Informative)
For a Fulbright scholar... (Score:1)
Worst... Ending... Ever! (Score:2)
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, beco
Good eye. (Score:1)
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
Bubble Bobble (Score:2)
Dogging FFVII b/c he didn't understand (Score:2, Interesting)
That's how it works (Score:2)
If there's not some kind of climax, it's not going to be a v
Natuk! (Score:2)
Natuk [proudft.com] 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.
Nahlakh (Score:2)
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.
Re:Nahlakh (Score:2)
They're very similar, although Nahlakh is much harder.
I found the Natuk interface was a bit more streamlined, and there's more of a plot.
It's a real shame that more people didn't register those games, the author hasn't put out anything new in years because he had to go back to his day job.
I gotta say it... (Score:2)
Re:I don't want to sound like a prude (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:I don't want to sound like a prude (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:I don't want to sound like a prude (Score:2)
Re:I don't want to sound like a prude (Score:1)
Re:I don't want to sound like a prude (Score:2)
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 simp
Re:I don't want to sound like a prude (Score:1)
Re:I don't want to sound like a prude (Score:2)
So don't be so quick to call us prudes. After all, our country is responsible for NAMbLA.
Re:I don't want to sound like a prude (Score:1)
Re:I don't want to sound like a prude (Score:1)
Re:I don't want to sound like a prude (Score:1, Offtopic)
Hmmph (Score:2)