Anticlimactic endings in video games

[treismac]

What video game(s) has the most disappointing ending that leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth?

[Malon_Forever]

Star Fox Adventures comes to mind right away.

[Collector_Gaming]

when i watched the karate kid ending for the NES from AVGN i was like "what the hell?"

infact alot of the games he reviews has really stupid endings.

[Emperor Megas]

It doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth, but the end of Final Zone is really anticlimactic. I love the game though, and the solemn music that plays at the end really makes it work.

Rygar: The Legendary Warrior (the original arcade version) has a pretty anticlimactic ending that should sour me, not it doesn't for some odd reason or another. I suppose it's just a part of the games charm.

Now, Sid Mead's Terraforming for the Turbo Grafx CD, there's a game with a terribly anticlimactic ending that leaves me sour.

[Loremaster]

007: Agent Under Fire had a pretty meh ending. I actually had no idea I had beaten it until I confirmed online that, yes, that was the end.

[SparTonberry]

I imagine a lot of NES games have ultimately disappointing endings.
I'd imagine after making the game itself, they perhaps didn't have the memory left for a flashy ending.
Especially for the kind of ending you'd like after beating a "Nintendo-hard" game.

[DragonMaster Sam]

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs for the SNES. All that hard work, and you get a weak ending.

[joshnickerson]

Any old-school Sonic game when you don't collect all the emeralds... screw you Robotnik and your stupid jewelry fetish, I beat the game, I don't care.

[Collector_Gaming]

I imagine a lot of NES games have ultimately disappointing endings.
I'd imagine after making the game itself, they perhaps didn't have the memory left for a flashy ending.
Especially for the kind of ending you'd like after beating a "Nintendo-hard" game.

Star Tropics 2 i thought had a really good ending and that was a pretty lengthy game!

[TonyTheTiger]

Having been into the Donkey Kong Country games at the time, I distinctly remember being royally pissed at Donkey Kong Land's ending. It's essentially just "Congratulations."

I've seen plenty of that "Congratulations...game over" stuff before but usually you kind of expect certain games to have non-endings so it's not so disappointing. But Donkey Kong Land bothered me because of how it clashed with the rest of the game. Super Mario Land had a more fulfilling conclusion.

Final Fantasy X also had an anticlimactic end. Not the ending itself but the fact that the final showdown is between your party members and a tick that will kill itself if you cast the right spells. Final Fantasy VII featured a one on one duel between Cloud and Sephiroth. Even though you can't lose and it's just for show, it made a good show. But apparently for FFX a little bug that could easily pass for a normal random battle was sufficient.

Chrono Cross's ending also kinda pissed me off. I hate endings that are essentially "...and so everything that transpired essentially never happened and nobody remembers a thing." It pisses me off when TV cartoons and comic books do that shit as a way of returning to the status quo. So when your 40+ hour RPG gives me the same thing? I'm going to be pretty angry.

And, most recently, Mortal Kombat 9. Beating Shao Kahn didn't have the same oomph that his defeat in MKII did. None of the "No! No! No! No!!!!" I was hoping for more.

[Dire 51]

It doesn't get more anticlimactic than this:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b302/dire51/karno-2.gif

Yeah. That's the ending of Karnov for the NES. The whole ending. To struggle through the game and get THAT as your reward was a slap in the face as far as I was concerned. But what really grinds my gears is that the Famicom version had not one, not two but three full endings: http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/nes/a/karj.htm

[TonyTheTiger]

Actually, you know what endings pissed me off? Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Vandal Hearts.

These are two of my favorite games on the PlayStation and yet for whatever reason Konami was going through this phase at the time where they thought it would be fun to end on the dumbest cliffhangers...just for the sake of ending on a cliffhanger. And to this day they were never resolved.

Vandal Hearts was especially bad because it leads you to believe that upgrading Ash to Vandalier rank would get you something special and the obvious assumption would be an extended or otherwise special ending. Nope. Just some bullshit splash screen telling you how awesome a player you are.

I think that bothers me more than games that simply have shitty endings. At least a game that ends with "Congratulations...game over" is up front about it. Games that supposedly have some bonus ending for accomplishing some special task but ultimately give you crap in return for the effort piss me off more.

Jak & Daxter did that with the precursor orbs. Yes, if you get them all you get an epilogue. But the epilogue is ridiculously short and tells you nothing. The only thing that exonerates it is that it's nicely resolved at the beginning of Jak II.

[SpaceHarrier]

God of War III

First I was like, "uh.. ok. What now?"
Then I was like, "are we there yet?"
Then, "ok this is getting old, also SHUT UP!"

[Something actually happens..]

Finally, "wow, really?"

[NayusDante]

The Chrono Cross ending is a little deeper than just returning everything. Schala is still out there lost in time, and it implies that she's looking for Serge in our world.

Gundam Crossfire's Zeon campaign ends with a text epilogue about how you won the final battle, but soon after, the Federation captured you as a prisoner of war and Zeon falls.

Mega Man Zero seemed like it was going to end on a really interesting note with all the robots looking up at Zero in wonder, like he was some sort of tragic hero who would rise to lead them, but then he slashes them in half. I was really disappointed.

Ocarina of Time ends with a time paradox. If Gannondorf was defeated in the future, then he's still a threat in the present.

Phantasy Star Online just kind of ends. I know there's more in Episode II and stuff, but originally, Episode I doesn't really have much of an ending. Granted, the story is pretty slim to begin with, but it still felt lacking.

[treismac]

To struggle through the game and get THAT as your reward was a slap in the face as far as I was concerned.

Dude, Data East would have to throw a parade in my honor after I beat it for me to attempt to play that game all the way through. The difficulty level is just way too hard for my tastes. I picked that bastard up at the local Flea Market a few months ago because I remember playing it a bit at the local Seven11 and with an old childhood neighbor on his NES. After 15 or so minutes, I recalled why I didn't have much memories of the game: we played the game, put the game down, and cautiously walked away. The game just does not offer near enough pleasure in exchange for all the pain it gives.

Actually, I might revisit the game again if I can find it on eBay for the Famicom. ;)

[old_skoolin_jim]

Some of the weakest endings (based on the effort you need to put in to get them):

1) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1 on NES (only achievable for me thanks to save/load states): If I went through THAT MUCH EFFORT to actually beat the game without cheating, only to see that weak-ass 5-second ending, I would have thrown my controller into the TV and sworn of games for good. Thank you, NesterDC.

2) Battletoads: I actually *did* beat this game without cheating (single-player, Genesis version), and I never touched the game again after witnessing, again, a completely anticlimactic 5-second ending. Soured me on the entire franchise after that, actually.

and lastly, I need to mention Shenmue 2. Truth be told, I count the entire 4th disc [highlight for spoiler](your entire walk along the river/chat with Shenhua) [end spoiler] as a denoument/ending, but where the final scene leaves the story, and the fact we likely won't ever see any resolution, leaves it as one of the biggest **** teases in gaming history.

[TonyTheTiger]

The Chrono Cross ending is a little deeper than just returning everything. Schala is still out there lost in time, and it implies that she's looking for Serge in our world.
Yes, but it both goes nowhere (similar to the SOTN/Vandal Hearts thing) and is obfuscated by the ridiculous, near nonsensical scripting.

What it boils down to is that if I'm given an actual ending I expect it to actually do something. Ending on a cliffhanger isn't necessarily bad. Inception did it masterfully. But the way these games tend to do it is just annoying and random. There's no real need to close off Chrono Cross with live action footage of this girl wandering around what appears to be Tokyo and then expect me not to be mad. LOL


Mega Man Zero seemed like it was going to end on a really interesting note with all the robots looking up at Zero in wonder, like he was some sort of tragic hero who would rise to lead them, but then he slashes them in half. I was really disappointed.

Actually, the Mega Man X series bothered me a bit with the endings. The SNES games were fine because they weren't really doing anything beyond what the NES ones did. The PlayStation games, though, started throwing in all these plot points, particularly X5, about what apparently happened to Wily and all that. It kinda started in X2 but the PlayStation games dialed it up.

But the endings never really gave much beyond the standard Mega Man fare. So you had these X games feature cryptic references and dialogue apparently aiming at something but the endings (and subsequent games) completely ignored all of that even existed. It's really jarring when you go from cryptic in-game dialogue like "An old friend of yours built me this new body!" to an ending that's "Fight, Mega Man! For everlasting peace!"

I think this is appropriate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coglCRr77aA

[aryoshi]

The Guardian Legend. It's up there in my top-25 favorite games of all time, and all that hard work I put into the game was ended in disappointment.


Ocarina of Time ends with a time paradox. If Gannondorf was defeated in the future, then he's still a threat in the present.

I actually agree with you and brings me back to Back to the Future 2. Why in the holy mother of fuck did they even bother going to the future to change Marty's kids when.. It's going to happen anyway? If you go BACK in time, that period of time's going to happen again.. You can't change the future and then go back to the present with the future turning out fine.. What. That makes absolutely no sense at all.

[BydoEmpire]

Metroid Prime. I don't think I ever worked so hard to beat a game, and got basically "Congratulations" because I only had 78% scanned. It still ticks me off.

[AceAerosmith]

007: Agent Under Fire had a pretty meh ending. I actually had no idea I had beaten it until I confirmed online that, yes, that was the end.

You took the words right out of my mouth. That was it?? Really? Whatever.

Also, Vegas Stakes for SNES. You actually win the game when you earn $10 million. They show a woman who asks you "What you are going to do now?" and you have to type in an answer. I typed in "Eat your pussy" for the hell of it. And she "replies", "I hope you get to eat your pussy."

[Ackman]

LMAO at Ace.

[xelement5x]

Rampage for the NES is the one I remember.

"Congratulations!!" Now rolls credits.....that's it.

Several Tales games I've played have kind of meh endings, but I really play those games more for the journey than the actual ending. The characters are so well developed I never really mind.

[Collector_Gaming]

The Guardian Legend. It's up there in my top-25 favorite games of all time, and all that hard work I put into the game was ended in disappointment.



I actually agree with you and brings me back to Back to the Future 2. Why in the holy mother of fuck did they even bother going to the future to change Marty's kids when.. It's going to happen anyway? If you go BACK in time, that period of time's going to happen again.. You can't change the future and then go back to the present with the future turning out fine.. What. That makes absolutely no sense at all.

not exactly

Take for instance your kids turn out to be assholes in the future like Marty's did.

Doc Brown takes you to the future to show you this
You go "wait a minute my kid can't be like this.. i am gonna change this so this never happens"
go back to present day with knowledge of how the future will look like and fix it before it even happens

unless you do the whole Terminator where everything happens no matter what you do story.

[Dire 51]

Dude, Data East would have to throw a parade in my honor after I beat it for me to attempt to play that game all the way through. The difficulty level is just way too hard for my tastes. I picked that bastard up at the local Flea Market a few months ago because I remember playing it a bit at the local Seven11 and with an old childhood neighbor on his NES. After 15 or so minutes, I recalled why I didn't have much memories of the game: we played the game, put the game down, and cautiously walked away. The game just does not offer near enough pleasure in exchange for all the pain it gives.
Man, you said it. Imagine how I felt when I finished it and that popped up. Makes me glad I'd only rented it, or I'd have really been pissed.


Actually, I might revisit the game again if I can find it on eBay for the Famicom. ;)
There's a couple on eBay right now that are pretty cheap, even with the shipping from Japan.

[NayusDante]

I always found the ending for King's Quest VII to be pretty lame. That game had already departed from the rest of the series so much in terms of art style and interface, but it still had a pretty decent story and some neat design. If you don't save Edgar, the game just sort of ends, and they go back to Daventry. If you do though, the "good ending" is not much more than "You saved my life. Would you, uh... go out with me?"

A bit less known, Commander Blood (sequel to Captain Blood) was about searching for black holes to travel through in order to reach the Big Bang at the beginning of history. You don't find the Big Bang. Instead, the game ends with two minor characters getting married on a giant space night club. There's another game in the series that picked up the story after, and has something to do with repopulating the universe, but it was never translated from the original French. Edit: Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELmkRgH98m4)'s the intro. I want to play this one so much...

[treismac]

Rampage for the NES is the one I remember.

Rampage was such a monotonous, lack luster game that it would have been a well played joke if the game actually had an epic ending. If memory serves me correctly, I recall just being relieved that the damn game was finally over.

[sfchakan]

It doesn't get more anticlimactic than this:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b302/dire51/karno-2.gif

Yeah. That's the ending of Karnov for the NES. The whole ending. To struggle through the game and get THAT as your reward was a slap in the face as far as I was concerned. But what really grinds my gears is that the Famicom version had not one, not two but three full endings: http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/nes/a/karj.htm

You took the words right out of my mouth. I hope you don't have herpes.

I never knew about the full Japanese endings but... FUCK. That only makes it worse.

[Dire 51]

You took the words right out of my mouth. I hope you don't have herpes.
Don't worry, you're safe. I tested 100% negative.


I never knew about the full Japanese endings but... FUCK. That only makes it worse.
The opening and brief cinemas between levels were removed too. They're all basically the same picture of Karnov kneeling in front of God while he speaks, but at least they explain how Karnov manages to travel around on a bolt of lightning, if nothing else.

[treismac]

I just popped in Karnov a minute ago to see just how hard that game really is, and I'll tell you what, Dire 51, the rapid fire function on my recently acquired NES Four Score makes all the difference in the world!!! With fireballs launching out of Karnov's mouth faster than my puny right thumb could ever have hoped to launch them, I made it to level 4 in probably less than 15 minutes before the Caterpillar Woman made me say, "fuck it". I suppose you need to use the ladder to jump over her, but whatever. Did you beat the game without the use of rapid fire? Man... without rapid fire I didn't have a prayer.

[sfchakan]

I just popped in Karnov a minute ago to see just how hard that game really is, and I'll tell you what, Dire 51, the rapid fire function on my recently acquired NES Four Score makes all the difference in the world!!! With fireballs launching out of Karnov's mouth faster than my puny right thumb could ever have hoped to launch them, I made it to level 4 in probably less than 15 minutes before the Caterpillar Woman made me say, "fuck it". I suppose you need to use the ladder to jump over her, but whatever. Did you beat the game without the use of rapid fire? Man... without rapid fire I didn't have a prayer.

Yeah, I beat it with a rapid fire pad when I was pretty young. Used the same pad to beat Deadly Towers as well. I think they were the first games I finished that had "endings."

[old man]

Super Double Dragon

After the epic, cinematic adventure that was Double Dragon II beating up a guy in jogging pants only to see a black screen pop up, as soon as he dies, with a happily ever after message was really disapointing. I heard the japanese version has a better ending, but I've never gotten around to playing it.

[shinobimusashi]

Metal Gear Solid 2 was quite anticlimactic for me. The part where Snake and Raiden meet up and Snake gives Raiden the sword before the two of you fight together was epic. Especially how the game would kind of mess with you. However the last battle with Solidus and the final ending was very, very anticlimactic in my opinion.

[Kirbysuperstar]

Only one that comes to mind at the moment is Cold Fear. The player character and some woman jump in a helicopter, take off and... that's it, roll credits.

[Emperor Megas]

Ghost House for the SEGA Master System was also pretty bad with this.




CONGRATULATIONS!
Now you can not live without this game.



I'm pretty sure that's all you got. They don't even add the final bonus (500,000) to your end game score. When the high score is at the top of the screen after the 'ending', it's the same as before you completed the last stage.

[FrankSerpico]

This many posts and no one has mentioned Soul Reaver?

[Haoie]

Think of all the games designed with a sequal in mind but never got it due to commercial failure.

What comes to mind from my PS2 library are Kya: Dark Lineage and Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy.

[Dire 51]

I just popped in Karnov a minute ago to see just how hard that game really is, and I'll tell you what, Dire 51, the rapid fire function on my recently acquired NES Four Score makes all the difference in the world!!! With fireballs launching out of Karnov's mouth faster than my puny right thumb could ever have hoped to launch them, I made it to level 4 in probably less than 15 minutes before the Caterpillar Woman made me say, "fuck it". I suppose you need to use the ladder to jump over her, but whatever. Did you beat the game without the use of rapid fire? Man... without rapid fire I didn't have a prayer.
I'm pretty sure when I finished it I used the NES MAX. You're right though, without rapid fire you're pretty much screwed.


Think of all the games designed with a sequal in mind but never got it due to commercial failure.
Two immediately come to mind: Bionic Commando '09 and Splatterhouse '10.

[BlastProcessing402]

It doesn't get more anticlimactic than this:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b302/dire51/karno-2.gif

Yeah. That's the ending of Karnov for the NES. The whole ending. To struggle through the game and get THAT as your reward was a slap in the face as far as I was concerned. But what really grinds my gears is that the Famicom version had not one, not two but three full endings: http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/nes/a/karj.htm

It's been well over 20 years, and that bullshit ending to Karnov still sticks in my craw. My friend and me spent so many hours on that game, only to get the shaft as our reward. Not cool. So not cool.

[TonyTheTiger]

Damn, I almost forgot one. But that's probably because the game itself is mostly forgettable.

Sudeki.

Its biggest problem is that despite having a very nice FPS battle mode for two of the characters, it is very unpolished so all of its good qualities get lost among the stupid stuff like an uneven narrative and massive slowdown. But it was at least decent enough to hold my attention through to the end. But the ending was so pointless it may as well have not even been there. You beat the last boss and get treated to a 30 second narration telling you "And the world was saved." I seriously thought I missed something or accidentally skipped a scene.

[NayusDante]

Solar Jetman didn't have much of an ending. It's so long and difficult, then the ending is a lame text screen and a little animation where your ship flies into the sun.

[Aussie2B]

The ending for Quest 64 is as half-finished as the rest of the game. For the most part, it's just a still shot of a castle with text scrolling over it. Sure, it wasn't the "Congraturation" of the NES era, but it definitely wasn't up to the standards of its own era.

[Tempest]

I beat Karnov several times back in the day, I never thought it was any tougher than other NES games of the time.

Interestingly the Japanese intro/ending are still in the US version of the game. I accidentally triggered the ending once by giving my NES a static shock. The text was all jumbled, but the image was there. It was really cool, but I could never figure out how to trigger it again. I never knew what it was exactly until a few years ago when I saw it on the web.

Rogue Galaxy's ending really ticked me off considering how good the rest of the game was. Not only was it sort of MEH, but most of it is told as a all text epilogue explaining what they did. Would it have killed them to throw in the 2 min cut-scene?

Tempest

[j_factor]

Shadow of the Beast. In contrast to the rest of the game, the final boss is pretty easy. After you beat him, you get a "congratulations". I did not make it through this hard as hell game to fight a wimpy boss and get a congratulations screen.

[Nz17]

The Longest Journey's conclusion was quite... unexpected and anti-climatic. It's followup, Dreamfall, might also be considered so, though it was more of a cliffhanger... a cliffhanger we're still waiting for a resolution to all these years later.