Shin Megami Tensei IV

[dsheinem]

um. I apparently just beat the game. I suppose I got what you guys would call one of the bad endings.

Credits?

[noiseredux]

Credits and unlocked new game plus w/ character carry over. Yes.

[ZenErik]

That's the bad ending. I would at least load the save again to play through neutral, law, or chaos. I wouldn't even count the bad ending as finishing the game, personally.

Just like getting the bad ending in Persona 4. A good 10+ hours shorter than the real endings. But your choice!

[MrPopo]

If you choose the other choice of the two you got, you'll then get a second question, and upon answering that you get locked in to law/neutral/chaos depending on your final standing.

[noiseredux]

That's the bad ending. I would at least load the save again to play through neutral, law, or chaos.

I'm not opposed to going back and playing my save to see other endings. I absolutely adored everything about SMT IV.

I wouldn't even count the bad ending as finishing the game, personally.

Now that's just silly. The developers made multiple paths with multiple endings. Without using a checklist to tell me what choices to make to get a certain (sigh) "good ending," this is the ending that I got. Sure if I had made other decisions then it would have lengthened the story. And again, I'm not opposed to going back and seeing that.

But, I got an ending, I got credits, I got a message saying like "congrats, you unlocked a New Game Plus and Expert Difficulty", and I got a save file that says "CLEAR." It seems pretty obvious to me that according to the developers, I have finished the game - or at least one version of the story.

[ZenErik]

Whatever works dude! To me that's just like getting the bad ending in a visual novel a few hours in and saying the story is done when there is actually a ton more content. I mean, I'd probably do that if I didn't like the game. But if it's one I really enjoy I'd definitely go back and try for one of the good endings.

[CavZee]

I would load up the save and choose the other choice. Then from there you'll get locked into Law, Neutral or Chaos. No way would I be satisfied with that as my finale to this game. You owe it to yourself to go on further.

And why would you return the world go nothingness anyway? That's like giving up.

[noiseredux]

I would load up the save and choose the other choice. Then from there you'll get locked into Law, Neutral or Chaos. No way would I be satisfied with that as my finale to this game. You owe it to yourself to go on further.

I am satisfied in it being the end to the story as how I originally played through it.

Again, I probably will continue on to see another ending. But that's more to me like "ok, I beat the game... but I loved the game so I'd like continue playing it and see some other ending(s)."

And why would you return the world go nothingness anyway? That's like giving up.

Funny you ask...

It actually went like this: I was asked if I wanted to return the world to nothingness, or to try to rebuild or whatever. I said rebuild. They asked me HOW I'd do it. There were two choices (I assume representing law and chaos) and a third choice was like "I don't know." Well, not really thinking about the weight of the question my genuine answer was "I don't know" - and to this end I think I've played the whole game very conflicted. Sometimes I naturally sided w/ Jonathan, sometimes Walter. Truthfully Isabeau was my fav character in the game because she seemed to be a lot more like me. I don't know if "neutral" is the right word at all. More like "unsure." At any rate, after I said "I don't know," they asked the first question again. So thinking this meant that I had answered the first question incorrectly, well... you know what happened next.

At any rate, this whole thing reminds me of the recent Games Beaten/Mastered/Completed/Blahblah discussion. In my mind I "beat" SMT IV. I did not "complete" it, or "master" it, or "platinum" it, or "100%" it, or whatever. But I played 35 hrs, got an ending/conclusion to the story (good, bad, or ugly being inconsequential), got a New Game Plus, got credits, was told by the game that I had "cleared" the game.

[Stark]

I think I must be getting close now. I am in the Tokyo after you beat Pluto.

[ZenErik]

At any rate, this whole thing reminds me of the recent Games Beaten/Mastered/Completed/Blahblah discussion. In my mind I "beat" SMT IV. I did not "complete" it, or "master" it, or "platinum" it, or "100%" it, or whatever. But I played 35 hrs, got an ending/conclusion to the story (good, bad, or ugly being inconsequential), got a New Game Plus, got credits, was told by the game that I had "cleared" the game.

You can do that in 10 minutes in some visual novel/murder mystery style games. So the first bad ending you get you'd say you beat it?

I don't know.. I'm not saying to 100% do EVERYTHING, but I always aim for a good ending. That's the goal for me. And perhaps not for you.

Even in BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend each character has a shorter bad ending, a gag ending, and a true ending in story mode. I wouldn't settle for anything less than true. But I like seeing the other endings as well so I got them all.