Games where you prefer the "bad ending"

[PartridgeSenpai]

Based on your description, MrEco, I'm with you on that bad ending.

And I completely forgot to list my favorite bad ending of all time: Mass Effect 3.

We're probably all familiar with the controversy over the Mass Effect Trilogy ending. If I'm remembering right, most of the outcry was due to the fact that you were presented with the same three choices no matter how you'd played your game (the only variable was how many of the three were available to you, which was dependent on the quantity of war resources and galactic readiness you'd gained).

But even if you don't agree with the "my choices didn't matter" lament and are satisfied with your own Shepard headcanon, the three options just... don't make a whole lot of sense. One option is very clearly foisted as "the best" when I think it's actually the worst, the most logical option has strings attached to it that are a load of B.S., and it's completely unconvincing that Shepard would accept any of these choices at all based on the way they're delivered and the complete lack of faith we have in the character laying out the options.

ANYWAY. The bad ending.

In the bad ending, you refuse all choices presented. You say that the galaxy will win the war in the long run on its own terms, without resorting to iron-fisted assimilation or destruction or genetic altering of any sentient life... but you accept that this won't be achieved by you. You've run out of time; victory is lost.

Thus, history repeats, with all advanced civilization falling to the reapers through another interminable dark age...

...then you see mountains. Trees. A pastoral planet. Enough time has passed that it has recovered from the ravages of the conflict. A blissful and ignorant peace is achieved.

The camera pans down through the crust, down down down into the planet's layers, and comes to rest on a device. It springs to life on its own and plays a message. It is the digital archive of Liara's records and research on the reaper invasion, which she, the archivist, compiled and preserved -- of her own volition -- as a fallback plan in case Shepard failed. It's a warning to the next cycle of civilizations, containing all the amassed galactic intelligence on the enemy. It was too late for her kind, the message says... but with all this knowledge, this time -- surely this time -- the invasion will be stopped.

And you are left with this bittersweet hope.

Freaking. Beautiful.

I didn't even know that ending was in the game! O.o
How do you even get that one, if you don't mind me asking?

[MrEco]

The main game I accidentally went with the bad ending. I can't say I prefer it but I felt bad about it. Maybe that's a topic for another day: "Endings that made you feel something."

Yeah, I like the debate that goes on over which ending for the main game is considered the good ending.

By the sounds of it, you got the ending where Ciri died? That's a bummer. I got the "Ciri becomes a witcher" ending, and that's my personal favourite. I think it leads to the happiest life for both main characters. A lot of people say the "Empress Ciri" ending is better though, because it's the best turn out for all the free people of the North. Whether or not Nilfgaard won the war, Ciri is sure to be a much kinder and fairer leader than her father was, and would likely improve everyone's life while essentially sacrificing her own to spend all her time leading an empire. Because of this a lot of people refer to the witcher ending as the "selfish" ending, which is kind of true I guess. But I don't consider it Ciri or Geralt's responsibility to correct all the worlds problems, and they've lived a hard enough life that I believe they deserve the better personal outcome for themselves.

[Key-Glyph]

I didn't even know that ending was in the game! O.o
How do you even get that one, if you don't mind me asking?

You either have to have the Leviathan DLC or the expanded ending DLC; pretty sure it's the former. Then, if you allow the character at the end to explain every choice and turn them all down, you'll be given a final option to be like, "Screw this! I'm not playing your game!"

Rumor has it even before the Leviathan DLC existed, if you finished the final conversation and fired your gun at the character presenting the choices instead of schlepping off to make one, you would activate the bad ending too. I never tired this myself, though.

And I do call it the "bad ending" because the game itself doesn't acknowledge it as a win. My husband's Long Service Medal achievement failed to unlock when he chose this ending instead of one of the usual three. I think that might have been the biggest "fuck you, audience" moment I've ever experienced from a piece of media in my life.

[Westane]

*don't say eroge don't say eroge don't say eroge*

...Eroge.

*damnit!*

[casterofdreams]

The main game I accidentally went with the bad ending. I can't say I prefer it but I felt bad about it. Maybe that's a topic for another day: "Endings that made you feel something."

Yeah, I like the debate that goes on over which ending for the main game is considered the good ending.

By the sounds of it, you got the ending where Ciri died? That's a bummer. I got the "Ciri becomes a witcher" ending, and that's my personal favourite. I think it leads to the happiest life for both main characters. A lot of people say the "Empress Ciri" ending is better though, because it's the best turn out for all the free people of the North. Whether or not Nilfgaard won the war, Ciri is sure to be a much kinder and fairer leader than her father was, and would likely improve everyone's life while essentially sacrificing her own to spend all her time leading an empire. Because of this a lot of people refer to the witcher ending as the "selfish" ending, which is kind of true I guess. But I don't consider it Ciri or Geralt's responsibility to correct all the worlds problems, and they've lived a hard enough life that I believe they deserve the better personal outcome for themselves.

That's the ending I got. I'm going through it again from the start because I enjoyed it so much. Getting that ending, after so much time invested, was a bummer emotionally. I'm probably reading too much into it but I guess that's a testament of how good the game was to me.

As for Mass Effect 3 the fourth ending they added in through the extended cut was the most "damn that sucks" moment. You had the ghost thing go from a child's voice to a scary machine voice saying "so be it."

Creepy.

[PartridgeSenpai]

The main game I accidentally went with the bad ending. I can't say I prefer it but I felt bad about it. Maybe that's a topic for another day: "Endings that made you feel something."

Yeah, I like the debate that goes on over which ending for the main game is considered the good ending.

By the sounds of it, you got the ending where Ciri died? That's a bummer. I got the "Ciri becomes a witcher" ending, and that's my personal favourite. I think it leads to the happiest life for both main characters. A lot of people say the "Empress Ciri" ending is better though, because it's the best turn out for all the free people of the North. Whether or not Nilfgaard won the war, Ciri is sure to be a much kinder and fairer leader than her father was, and would likely improve everyone's life while essentially sacrificing her own to spend all her time leading an empire. Because of this a lot of people refer to the witcher ending as the "selfish" ending, which is kind of true I guess. But I don't consider it Ciri or Geralt's responsibility to correct all the worlds problems, and they've lived a hard enough life that I believe they deserve the better personal outcome for themselves.

That's the ending I got. I'm going through it again from the start because I enjoyed it so much. Getting that ending, after so much time invested, was a bummer emotionally. I'm probably reading too much into it but I guess that's a testament of how good the game was to me.

As for Mass Effect 3 the fourth ending they added in through the extended cut was the most "damn that sucks" moment. You had the ghost thing go from a child's voice to a scary machine voice saying "so be it."

Creepy.

If anything, I say I prefer that "ending" best too (even if the game doesn't register it as an ending apparently Xp). It's much more tailored to the character, and leaves the universe more tailored to a sequel with a similar set-up much more than any of the other 3.

[Key-Glyph]

If anything, I say I prefer that "ending" best too (even if the game doesn't register it as an ending apparently Xp). It's much more tailored to the character, and leaves the universe more tailored to a sequel with a similar set-up much more than any of the other 3.

I really do think it fits best with the crux of the series, really. Or at least with the first game. It just feels right to me... but I also freely admit that I'm not in love with a lot of plot points and ideas introduced in the sequels and ignore a lot of them in my own head, so I'm biased.

Another bad ending I love is from the horror game White Day, which I watched playthroughs of on YouTube. (It's technically considered a "good ending" for a particular character, interestingly enough.) I don't really want to go into details because spoilers everywhere, but

you're a student trying to escape your haunted school at night with a few other kids you run into along the way. In this particular ending, you and another student escape but another classmate gets left behind.

The last cinematic is your character walking out with the other escapee into the quiet morning, and right in the middle of this peacefulness the camera cuts to inside the building where that abandoned friend is pounding against the glass and screaming something like "I'M STILL HERE! I'M HERE!! DON'T LEAVE!!" as she tries to get your attention. For a moment, your character turns around to look at that window as if he's heard something; the girl stops slamming on the glass and yelling, so shocked is she that you appear to see her... but then your character shrugs it off as nothing and continues walking on.

Cut back to the girl inside, weeping, as she begins fading into a ghost and the spectre of her dead sister appears beside her.

Then the game ends on a super creepy note, which makes you think that your escapee friend knows something and is pleased...

Man, it made me feel so weird in my stomach. Pretty powerful.

[casterofdreams]

If anything, I say I prefer that "ending" best too (even if the game doesn't register it as an ending apparently Xp). It's much more tailored to the character, and leaves the universe more tailored to a sequel with a similar set-up much more than any of the other 3.

I can see how that would make sense but does anyone really want a whole new trilogy where the main threat looming over all three games is the same from the last three games?

[Gunstar Green]

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

[ItsACerealWow]

Drakengard, because without the bad ending, there would be no NieR!