Great/Terrible Videogame Ending (1 Viewer)

[Nathan A]

2 of the worst endings ever are doom and life force.

 

[Jeffrey Noel]

How about the NES game Rampage for a crappy ending. My cousing and I played that damn game for hours and finally beat it. I don't really remember the ending but I do remember being extremely pissed. Scarred me for life! :frowning:

 

[Dome Vongvises]

I love Lunar: Silver Star Complete's ending. I also thought that the ending to Final Fantasy VIII was great as well, a real bitter sweet moment (sort of like high school graduation and visting a friend's grave). This ending is a far cry from Final Fantasy VII.
As for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the ending was at best eccentric and unsatisfying, but still not as bad as teh "Thanks for playing" endings tacked onto older games.

 

[PS Nystrom]

I suppose my favorite would have to be Final Fantasy VII . It really was a thrilling moment for me. The last RPG I had ever played through was the original Legend of Zelda - and that was not even traditional - so the story really had me on the edge of my seat. I also enjoyed the end of Skies of Arcadia as well as (and I think I'm in the minority here) Panzer Dragoon Saga .
Pieter

 

[Sean Oneil]

You guys think that the "Thanks for Playing" message is bad, I have one for you. The Capcom shooter '1941' on the NES. I played through about 40 levels of hard assed action and at the end... the screen went black and then some text appeared on the screen... it said "Congratulations" -and then it was gone, back to the title screen. Arrrrgh!
At least with "Thanks for Playing" you got a complete sentance.
Ghosts N' Goblins for the NES has a similarly unsatisfactoy ending too if I recall, especially considering how maddeningly difficult it was to finish that game (you had to play through the whole thing twice).

 

[Sean Oneil]

I loved the end to Skies of Arcadia. I am REALLY hoping for a sequel on the X-Box.

Are you listening SEGA!!!

 

[Peter D]

There were good stories discussing this at http://www.gamespot.com/features/tenspot_bestending/ and http://www.gamespot.com/features/ten...ders_endings/.
Personally, my favorite ending was to an ancient Activision game for the C64 called Portal, which I think about five other people on the planet actually played. In more recent times, Fallout was as good as it gets - the bittersweet tone really rang true, and Grim Fandango was excellent too.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

One thing I loved about FF8's ending a lot was how they showed an image that would make people sad, but the music was uplifting, and right at a crescendo, the whole scene changed. Plus, it showed other people reflecting on the past and then accepting it, even unhappy things (like accepting the death of a loved) and yet the ending was overall quite happy. Excellent CGI, too.

FFX has, in my book, taken the cake for bittersweet. I'm gonna ruin the ending, so don't look if you don't want to know.

SPOILER

Yuna has completed her goal of defeating the one thing that has been destroying her planet (which she has been put to the challenge of defending), she finds out that her love interest, Tidus, is going to just disappear (lots of details I'm too lazy to go into would explain this). When she tries to hug Tidus, she passes right through him and falls to the ground. She gets up, he wraps him arms around her (doesn't touch, but looks like he's hugging her) and then walks away to disappear (actually, he jumps off of the airship they are on and flies down into the big cloud that all the others who are disappearing are in). Then, a scene of Yuna making a speech to all the people of the planet she saved shows her talking about how they should not forget their loved ones, and she is obviously talking about Tidus.

To make the ending happy, though, after the credits is a shot of Tidus swimming through the water below where he jumped off the ship, showing that he actually didn't die!

Beautiful ending. Amazing CGI, also.

 

[Dan Brecher]

A terrible ending for me was Max Payne. Granted the whole plot is hammy, but the last level which lead into its ending was one of the most unsatisfying gaming experiences I've had in a good while. Bah!
Good endings? Well, I'll admit I'm not a good gamer. The "end" is something I rarely see.
Dan (UK)

 

[Joe D]

Bad Endings:

Quake: Not much of an ending here, just a thank you for playing Quake message.

Deux Ex: All 3 of the endings were way too short.

System Shock 2: Way too short.

With these three games, the game play more than made up for the endings, but they would still be nice.

Great Endings:

Final Fantasy IV: Wow, what an ending, not only do you have a terrible foe you have to beat, but a lot of cool things happen during this battle, and a lot of great things happen after.

Gabriel Knight 2: While the final cinematic is nothing great, the entire opera scene during the last chapter is fantastic, so the whole end play makes a great ending.

Gabriel Knight 3: This ending ties up all loose ends, adds some very cool items of information that makes sense story wise.

 

[JasonK]

For best ending, I'd pick Maniac Mansion. There were 6 (I think) multiple endings, each was good, but my fave was when The Purple Meteor gets on TV and then the Space Police arresst him on the show.
I'm still waiting for LucasArts to make another Maniac Mansion game for the consoles.

I also enjoyed these endings:

Zelda: A Link to the Past

Final Fantasy 6 (3 on SNES)

Contra (The best brief ending.)

Resident Evil Code: Veronica

Shining in the Darkness

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (I liked all the cinema's in the game, actually.)

Mega Man 3

The bad endings:

I'll 2nd Rampage. My friend and I played the game for 3 or 4 hours straight, only to find that the ending was "Congratulations" spelled out across a map of the US. We were pissed.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

Ikari Warriors

Commando

That's all I can think of off the top of my head...

-Jason

 

[Mark Evans]

Ha, oh man, how could I have forgotten about Maniac Mansion?
The TV ending was good, but the best ending line in that whole game had to be when
Dr. Fred asks 'How can I ever repay you?' and Dave, our hero, goes 'Cash would be nice!'. Damn I nearly lost it at that one.

Oh, and Full Throttle. Talk about an amazing ending sequence. And it was an adventure game. They should all manage to be so dynamic .

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Thought I would mention another great, bittersweet ending:

Conker's Bad Fur Day

 

[PS Nystrom]

Couple new thoughts...
Liked Tomb Raider 2 , hated The 7th Guest .
Pieter

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Gauntlet! There IS no end! It just loops! This was after we stayed up over 24 hours when my friend got the arcade machine playing in shifts. Someone almost put a baseball bat through the monitor