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Post by Nam on Mar 2, 2011 10:11:08 GMT
Spoilers inbound obviously. Why is it these days games seem to have a conscious effort to set up a good story, and then completely ruin it with an awful awful ending? I'm not talking about some engrish "conglaturations" message. I'm talking proper rubbish "I went through all that for this?" type moments. For instance, I recently finished Prince of Persia: Forgotten sands. Now as an interquel I had some idea what to expect, it's set before Warrior Within, which starts with an etremelymoody angsty prince being chased by an invincible creature known as the Dharka. Obvious conslusion is that something during the plot would set up, or at least foreshadow these events right? Nope. What actually happens is you go fight Ratash, the fight results in his death, where he says "One day you'll be as good a ruler as Solomen himself." then the credits role. A Post credit scene has the prince say he went to babylon to tell the king what happened, and that he sealed the Djinn powered waterblade - the very blade that could've very easily been the same sword that ultimately kills the Dharka in the good ending of Warrior Within - back where he got it. The Dharka doesn't show up, the prince doesn't get the any of the angst that would've been expected and helped Sands of Time's story flow more conclusively to Warrior Within's story, and the whole thing just seems to be dismissed matter of factly. The ending just felt really tacked on, with no real conclusion. It's as if the developers just said "okay, we've only got two weeks before the films out, lets forget the last few sections of the game, and quickly slap together an end, or we'll miss deadlines, and won't sell as many units. |
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Post by Retro on Mar 2, 2011 14:49:22 GMT
The ending just felt really tacked on, with no real conclusion. It's as if the developers just said "okay, we've only got two weeks before the films out, lets forget the last few sections of the game, and quickly slap together an end, or we'll miss deadlines, and won't sell as many units. Agreed with your post entirely. It's a shoddy shoddy ending. The only thing I would say though is it's extremely doubtful it was the developers who made that decision. More likely they were given a deadline set WAY too tight ot cut short by the publisher agreement. Personally, I find Oblivion to carry one of the worst endings, given how long you play the game especially. It manages to completely ignore any sense of scale (the "great daedric invasion" is more like 3-4 enemies) and drama (stopping to talk to an emotionless head every so often) it then says "Oh hey, lets make the player not actually fight the end boss at all and have him killed by a deus ex machina." Absolute tragedy of an ending for an otherwise great (if flawed) game. |
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Post by Alex on Mar 2, 2011 16:34:52 GMT
I found that Mass Effect and Red Dead Redemption had some of the most satisfying conclusions I've ever experienced in a game. For entirely different reasons. Mass Effect's was a case of blowing the entire game's Universe wide open so as to really, really grab you for the prospect of a sequel, while Red Dead put a bitter sweet, touching and final conclusion on the whole affair.
I don't really think it's fair to say it's a case of all modern games. I've played more than a few big story-based titles that climaxed pretty well. GTA IV had a really heightened finish (at least in my ending) that felt like a genuine escalation; Assassin's Creed had a fascinating and intriguing twist on top of its rather grand conclusion; Arkham Asylum had a bit of a dodgy final boss gameplay wise, but as far as plot goes, it couldn't have been better, really.
If you want truly rubbish game endings, you should look to Street Fighter IV's. You obviously don't expect -that- much from a fighting game, but after the beating you take against Seth time after time, by the time you finish it up with everyone, the final conclusion of Seth vs Seth is a huge let down.
I also found that the individual endings weren't even close to the level set by SFII. Some were even more ridiculous than before.
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Post by madhair60 on Mar 2, 2011 16:49:34 GMT
Great thread idea.
I'll nominate one I've seen recently, Gears of War 2. It just has this awesome, awesome final chapter, then it just... ends. Huh!?
Also, another recent one, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Don't get me wrong, STUNNING [censored]ING GAME, and the final mission kicks ass, but it just seemed so abrupt! Maybe it was just me wishing it would never end. What an incredible experience.
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Spudiator
Artist Hume
High Priest of the Religion of Football
STC-O's resident footy obsessive
Posts: 2,815
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Post by Spudiator on Mar 2, 2011 16:54:48 GMT
Super Mario Galaxy. Great game, but for all the effort it takes (a lot) to reach the end of the game, the final stage is just an utter anti-climax.
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Post by ShayMay on Mar 2, 2011 16:59:33 GMT
Fallout 3 & New Vegas. You beat/talk down the final boss of the respective games, and are greeted with stills while a voiceover tells you what happens. You'd be as well reading it online. Super Mario Galaxy. Great game, but for all the effort it takes (a lot) to reach the end of the game, the final stage is just an utter anti-climax. That's a thing, is this just story-wise or gameplay-wise as well? For instance, Super Mario Galaxy 2's story is, as you can imagine, poppycock. But the final, 242nd star tests the skills you've gained whilst playing through the game so much that I can't help but remember it as one of the best endings in recent years. |
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Post by Sin on Mar 2, 2011 17:54:58 GMT
Fable 2 has a wonderfully broken ending in both the gameplay and story beats sense. I heard the 3rd one had a jacked one too, so perhaps that is just a staple of the series.
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Post by Samface on Mar 2, 2011 18:23:52 GMT
Fallout 3 & New Vegas. You beat/talk down the final boss of the respective games, and are greeted with stills while a voiceover tells you what happens. You'd be as well reading it online. At least Broken Steel gave 3 a better ending. Enjoyed that, I did. (Admittedly the fact that I bought 3 as a GotY version and thus had all the extra mission packs to play with from the start probably helped there.) Spud, when you're talking about the end of Galaxy, do you mean "beating Bowser" or "getting all 121 stars"? (The latter of which I will clearly never do, though I've read what happens.) On a side note, what the hell is up with Galaxy's bosses they're nearly all complete [censored] and they make you fight them over and over whyyyyyyyy |
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Post by Baron Canier on Mar 2, 2011 18:37:02 GMT
On a side note, what the hell is up with Galaxy's bosses they're nearly all complete [censored] and they make you fight them over and over whyyyyyyyyAaw, but the Egg Dino makes for an adorable opening boss. Bowser's final boss encounter was a joke, though. I mean...it's really not what I expected. I was hoping for a straight-up one-on-one fight with a dragon wizard. Not a giant boulder who keeps falling for the same trick. When he fell into the sun I figured "Oh snap, son. Things just got real! ROUND TWO HERE WE COME", only for the game to slap me and tell me to go home. |
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Post by Nam on Mar 2, 2011 18:41:31 GMT
One of the worst endings I ever saw was so bad it actually manged to not only ruin the gaes story, but it ruined the story of the game it was a sequal of. I' o course refering to Drawn to Life 2. Now the original Drawn to Lifewas about a bunch of creatures called the Raposa, who worshipped a God called The Creator (you, the player), and as you played you created a character on a Mannequin to play through the levels as you yourself are too busy being intangiable and Godlike and such, though you ind the tie to draw into life all the helpful platforms, hence the title. You had to defeat a villain called Wilfre, who wanted to destroy everything that The Creator had set about creating. There's a few other subplots too, but the main story is about freeing the rest of the Raposa, and beating Wilfre. The sequal then starts giving you more of the same. Wilfre returns, this plot having him steal all the colour from the world, and you go around exploring new worlds trying to get colour back to save the day, and freeing other Raposa from Wilfre's evil spell. It all seems fairly standard. The problem however arises as the game starts dropping unsubtle hints about Mike. Now Mike was completely unimportant in Drawn to Life 1. His only significance was that he looked like a human, rather than a Raposa, to make a joke about him being lost. The sequal then makes it very clear near the end that Mikes important, but only ater beating the final boss do you find out why. Mike is actually a kid in a coma, and nothing that happened was real, it was merely a coma patients game. That means everything in both games, was a moot point as some hitherto unestablished, and unannounced character suddenly becomes key, and the bad guy you were stopping was merely trying to stop the world from being destroyed as the kid wakes up. It left a really bitter taste in my mouth. I'm not usually fussed by this type of ending, but when it actually retroactively makes another game worse, you know you've done something wrong. |
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Post by Lost Mercenary on Mar 2, 2011 20:04:38 GMT
Ah awful game endings. What a wonderful thread.
I think one of the ones that stands out the most for me (that hasn't already been mentioned) is Halo 2. Arguably the weakest game out of the franchise (by no means does that mean its a bad game) it definatley had the worst ending. I mean the story just... stops dead.
Cliffhanger endings can be brilliant if pulled off correctly but having the Master Chief just stuck in a room and on the radio is just pathetic. I mean with all the big stuff happening and being set up for Halo 3 like Earth under siege, all the Halo rings primed to fire, the Covenant civil war, the revealed existece of the Ark and the Flood now fully unleashed upon the galaxy Halo 2 chose to end in a really poor way.
When the end credits rolled I was completely unprepared and I just sat there perplexed that that was all we got and would be waiting YEARS for the follow up.
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Post by Baron Canier on Mar 2, 2011 20:21:47 GMT
Halo 3's opening also ignored most of those circumstances, anyway.
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Post by Arch on Mar 2, 2011 22:52:37 GMT
Sonic 1. Seeing some extra flowers and stuff for collecting the Chaos Emeralds sure aint my idea of an ending. Hmph.
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Post by Retro on Mar 3, 2011 0:22:31 GMT
Every Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon game out there.
I get they're trying to be realistic, but surely some degree of dramatic emphasis can be used. Instead they're pretty much "standard mission done, good work." *Credits*
At least Splinter Cell is usually a bit better. Conviction's ending was fantastic.
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Spudiator
Artist Hume
High Priest of the Religion of Football
STC-O's resident footy obsessive
Posts: 2,815
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Post by Spudiator on Mar 3, 2011 8:53:34 GMT
Super Mario Galaxy. Great game, but for all the effort it takes (a lot) to reach the end of the game, the final stage is just an utter anti-climax. That's a thing, is this just story-wise or gameplay-wise as well? For instance, Super Mario Galaxy 2's story is, as you can imagine, poppycock. But the final, 242nd star tests the skills you've gained whilst playing through the game so much that I can't help but remember it as one of the best endings in recent years. Both really, I was never that bothered about an engrossing storylline, otherwise I'd have just played Super Paper Mario all over again, but more gameplay-wise really. I'd already seen a YouTube video of Galaxy 2's Grandmaster Galaxy so, after having had to beat the game twice to unlock the final level on Galaxy 1, I expected something similar, but then I got there eventually, expecting some kind of epic battle, and it was a whole load of nothing in the end! Regarding Galaxy 2's final stage, that's still a bit of a sore point for me. I've done the main stage (just about), but can't do the Prankster Comet, though admittedly I haven't tried again lately. Spud, when you're talking about the end of Galaxy, do you mean "beating Bowser" or "getting all 121 stars"? (The latter of which I will clearly never do, though I've read what happens.) I mean getting all 121 stars, though technically it's 242 because once you get all 121 with Mario, you have to start over all the the whole game again with Luigi before the final stage is unlocked, which is very annoying. |
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Post by L. T. Dangerous on Mar 3, 2011 10:14:03 GMT
One game I played really irked me lately. The last level is a tried and true boss rush, but the final boss is 95% identical to one the same team used in 1992! After he goes down (fairly annoying fight with a cheap suicide attack at the end), you escape and then just run around a bit. Which is rubbish in itself, worse when you consider it's ripped off from a game released 18 years previously!
I mean, really, how they pretended that was a sequel to my favorite game of all time I'll never know.
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Post by Samface on Mar 3, 2011 10:50:41 GMT
Aaw, but the Egg Dino makes for an adorable opening boss. Yeah, him, the giant spider, the mole and the octopus are alright. The rest can [censored] off. Especially Bowser. "hey guys do you want to do the exact same really irritating boss like five times?? yeah?? Yeah?? great!" One game I played really irked me lately. The last level is a tried and true boss rush, but the final boss is 95% identical to one the same team used in 1992! After he goes down (fairly annoying fight with a cheap suicide attack at the end), you escape and then just run around a bit. Which is rubbish in itself, worse when you consider it's ripped off from a game released 18 years previously! I mean, really, how they pretended that was a sequel to my favorite game of all time I'll never know. ...Nope, can't work out which game you're on about here.  Maybe a Mega Man instalment? |
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Post by Blizz on Mar 3, 2011 11:42:42 GMT
I think he's talking about Sonic 4....
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Post by Nam on Mar 3, 2011 13:36:24 GMT
I thought Sonic 2 has a pretty dissappointing one. Not the cutscene still images, they were cool. But the fact that you get [censored] all for doing it as Super Sonic. Really dissappointing after spending ages trying to get all the emeralds, and get to the end with the final boss, to get [censored] all for your efforts. Sure you can cakewalk the Winged Fortress Zone boss, but you can't even be super in the final boss.
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Post by Arch on Mar 3, 2011 14:31:08 GMT
I thought Sonic 2 has a pretty dissappointing one. Not the cutscene still images, they were cool. But the fact that you get [censored] all for doing it as Super Sonic. Really dissappointing after spending ages trying to get all the emeralds, and get to the end with the final boss, to get [censored] all for your efforts. Sure you can cakewalk the Winged Fortress Zone boss, but you can't even be super in the final boss. I think being Super Sonic is a decent enough reward for getting the Chaos Emeralds. |
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Maybe a Mega Man instalment?