Please tag and hide any spoilers for any game, recent or not.
Half-Life 2's ending. Oh shit. Made even worse because it was really a case of---oh look! Let's make Episode 1 instead and not have an ending at all. 
That was pretty bad. I remember it quite vividly. Didn't help that on the first play through it was on the XB, and the chug was the real end boss in that case. I'd aim, shoot and because of what was happening on screen by the time the weapon fired the target had moved.
How about the end of Ico Foolz? I think it falls well into the "good ending" side of the column. One of the very best in my mind. Being the literary genius that you are you probably thought the post credit-roll pay-off was cheap no? (I loved it).
The worst endings are the non-existent ones, the ones that the writers don't bother to finish so they don't need to find an excuse for the sequel. I've mentioned it before and will probably again, but the pinnacle of this is Golden Sun, which not only has no narrative conclusion, it has no narrative progression. The game ends literally in the middle of the narrative without any climax whatsoever. We also see this in the aforementioned Half-Life 2, and Halo 2.
Also problematic is the hostage ending, where the real ending is held hostage unless you do something specific, typically something tedious and completest, or alternatively convoluted and obscure. The worst here I've had is Super Princess Peach. Each level has three toads hidden throughout that you can find, but don't have to in order to complete the level (think the same as the three bonus coins in New Super Mario Bros.). Well, once you reach the final level, you're told you have to go save all of those Toads before you can continue. Also in this camp, the Suikoden games, and the hidden ending is seen in Persona 4.
The last I'll point out is what I'll refer to as Shyamalanism. There seems to be the impetus to make every game have a twist ending. Quit it. See: Uncharted, Bioshock, Klonoa, and perhaps the most pathetically weak one in history, Twilight Princess.
Here are some rules:
- Don't be afraid of having the player do something after the final boss.
- Don't withhold an ending.
- Have one good ending, not several crap ones.
- Not every game needs a twist.
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Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobile
When I read the title I swore Leo started this thread.
Personally I am getting enough happy endings, but in all fairness I probably didn't finish more than half a dozen games last year, and while they all weren't good I do believe they were happy. There are really two problems that games face. One is the aforementioned "how do we end this and still keep them waiting for a sequel?" There's a real art to making a satisfying ending that still keeps the door wide open for a sequel. To date I don't think any game has nailed it better than Kingdom Hearts. Plenty of things were resolved, it set up the sequel and then even gave a nice taste of what was ahead.
The bigger problem I think it just the investment you put in a game. A movie with a so-so ending isn't a big deal since it's only 2 hours out of your life. A game with a bad ending though can represent 10, 20 or even 40+ hours of play time. When you get something less than great you can't help but feel screwed.
I rarely finish games. I've been trying to improve that, but I believe it's my personal gaming trait. The two things I ask from a game when it ends are:
- That it provides a sense of closure.
- That it stays congruous to the main plot.
Those two things aren't necessarily exclusive with a sequel programmed in the future, but not all games provide those. Take Halo 2, for example. It remains congruous, but it doesn't provide any closure, something that even Halo 3 fails to provide. SPOILER Having MC barreling blindly in space towards some planet hardly provides a sense of closure for a franchise and a story arc as relevant to gamers as this. Reach, however, does provide closure. It was one of the coolest endings I had the chance to witness in 2010.
On the other hand, the Mass Effect games (1 and 2) manage to provide satisfying endings despite being parts of a trilogy. They remain cohesive, and bring closure within their little plot arcs SPOILER Saren in the first one, the abductions in the second, while keeping in touch with the overarching plot that is embodied by the Reapers.
Bioshock's ending was insulting. Not because of the ending itself, but because of the final enemy. SPOILER For a game so revered by everyone regarding its alleged Ayn Randian philosophical mumbo jumbo, it sharts itself towards the end by pitting you against a fucking muscular boss that wouldn't be out of its element in a fighting game.
Red Dead Redemption stays true to its source material, westerns. It ends on a sour, contemplative note. VERY HEAVY SPOILERS The main character realizes he will never be able to leave his old life behind him, and goes down fighting the government agents sent to track him down. In time, his wife passes away as well, and only then his son tries to seek revenge on the agent responsible of his father's death. It embodies the things that make good westerns good.
Yoda, I don't think Uncharted had a twist ending. It had a twist in the "third act", but that did not play into the ending (as it did with the second Uncharted).
I agree with the "let you do something after the boss battle". Though that can sometimes be taken too far. In one recent game I played after beating the end boss (which again, was just a regular enemy with more health) you had to back track out of the "dungeon" you were in (fighting enemies along the way) go back to your ship, watch 3 minutes of loading screen, then walk around your home base, take an elevator find your leader and then watch a terrible cutscene for 7 minutes. Then the game ended.
Robio, I think that because movies are predominantly a story-telling exxperience and are therefore more open to interpretation an open-ended finale is not as much of a let-down. In those cases your imgaination can often conjure it's own ending, which can be even more satisying. How many times have you walked away from a movie with a distinct ending thinking, "They should have had..."
But a game is not just story-telling, in fact it rarely is. It's more like a progressive test of skill -- thus the origin of the end boss. The problem comes when a story-telling game (like Uncharted) feels like they have to have an end-boss due to the inertia of gaming development and tradition. It seems out of place, awkward.
aspro said:That was pretty bad. I remember it quite vividly. Didn't help that on the first play through it was on the XB, and the chug was the real end boss in that case. I'd aim, shoot and because of what was happening on screen by the time the weapon fired the target had moved.
How about the end of Ico Foolz? I think it falls well into the "good ending" side of the column. One of the very best in my mind. Being the literary genius that you are you probably thought the post credit-roll pay-off was cheap no? (I loved it).
Due to my literary geniusI loved everything about Ico, including the ending! (Okay, maybe I didn't love the combat.) It's why the poor uncultured peons such as Robio, Vader and Steel cannot appreciate it. They are not well read enough! 
Have you finished Little King's Story? I liked its ending. It was nicely dark, and ended things well in terms of gameplay and narrative. Even if it was a tiny bit anticlimactic.
Foolz said:aspro said:That was pretty bad. I remember it quite vividly. Didn't help that on the first play through it was on the XB, and the chug was the real end boss in that case. I'd aim, shoot and because of what was happening on screen by the time the weapon fired the target had moved.
How about the end of Ico Foolz? I think it falls well into the "good ending" side of the column. One of the very best in my mind. Being the literary genius that you are you probably thought the post credit-roll pay-off was cheap no? (I loved it).
Due to my literary geniusI loved everything about Ico, including the ending! (Okay, maybe I didn't love the combat.) It's why the poor uncultured peons such as Robio, Vader and Steel cannot appreciate it. They are not well read enough!
Have you finished Little King's Story? I liked its ending. It was nicely dark, and ended things well in terms of gameplay and narrative. Even if it was a tiny bit anticlimactic.
No, I gave up on it. I got to the TV boss and got sick of playing. Maybe I'll go back. I just hated how they handled that whole sequence, it tok forever, and then once you get to the boss I had no fuckign idea what to do... gah.
aspro said:No, I gave up on it. I got to the TV boss and got sick of playing. Maybe I'll go back. I just hated how they handled that whole sequence, it tok forever, and then once you get to the boss I had no fuckign idea what to do... gah.
That boss was awesome! You must just be bad at geography and map drawing.
Nah, I knew all that, but for whatever reason I kept getting my ass handed to me, and I kept blaming it on not having the right class with me. I didn't bother FAQing it, but basically... well... is all you do is dig where he tells you is that all there is to it?
aspro said:Nah, I knew all that, but for whatever reason I kept getting my ass handed to me, and I kept blaming it on not having the right class with me. I didn't bother FAQing it, but basically... well... is all you do is dig where he tells you is that all there is to it?
I think so, but it was a long time ago! Take a lot of miners.
I was reading an interview with Ann Henning, the lead writer of the Uncharted series. Just after Uncharted 1 was finished she was asked about the less than stellar ending of the game. If you have nto played it, without spoiling too much, you basically have a shoot-out that is about 20% harder than the other shoot-outs in the game. Those of you may also recall that in between the first ending and the sweet and satisfying epilogue of Uncharted 2 the "real ending" was comically bad.
This is what she said, "With a lot of games, you get this 'jumping-the-shark' problem at the end because you've got to be ramping up to something. Because movies are more about the narrative and the emotional experience, they get away with less. Whereas with games, it;s almost like we have to shift our thinking away from boss battles to peaks of the experience"
I happen to think she is correct. It is the rule, rather than the exception fo rme to have the ending boss battle be the most disapointing part of a game. The emotional investment and dedication of time you put in a game is rarely satisified with a boss battle -- I much prefer either revelatory endings (where an understanding of the game is unravelled) or the sweet ending (like a romantic pay-off). Another good ending is a nostalgia play (like in Suikoden II or Ocarina).
Anyway, can you guys please solve this for the world? How shoudl a game end? What are some of the best/ worst you've seen. TAG or hide any spoilers
for recent games. (EDIT).