Best Climax in a Video Game

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Spoiler: Mass Effect

I consider ME to be one long 3 act game (with extremely inconsistent gameplay) rather than three seperate games. I think the mission to Tuchunka where Mordin dies is where the series really hits the "shit got real" moment for me. It's not like the sacrifice in ME1 where you're picking between two barely-interesting crewmembers who you could barely care about for more than a fleeting moment. It really cemented the feeling of ME3 as an entire game that is a final act.

Spoiler: Bioshock

The "Would you kindly" scene. While I can't really say there was an illusion of non-linearity in the game, the sheer twist of that scene practically necessitates a second playthrough just to see the entire movie from a new perspective.

Spoiler: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Yeah... I played the CoD games for the stories...

Anyways, your death by helicopter crash/nuclear fire is probably one of the best scenes of the series, despite being one of the most on rails segment in the entire series. The best part, you're not told what to do, but you can move and there's something in the distance. On your first playthrough, it's entirely possible to think you can still survive by just crawling with your dying breath to some point for rescue. But that rescue never comes, and you die in the radioactive remains of a city in the Arabian Peninsula.

 

[Evonisia]

The climax of all of Silent Hill 2's character arcs, especially Angela's which had me feel cold for a few hours. The exception is Laura which I find underwhelming, it didn't really feel like the closing of her story.

 

[Trunkage]

Oh, yes how could I forget the meeting with Andrew Ryan

 

[Bealzibob]

This might be an odd answer but Castle Crashers. I played with my dad, brother and best mate in like a night long binge of epic proportions and then as we fail and fail at this crazy boss and are left bewildered at the phases we finally finish and get the last princess to well... you'll know if you've finished it. It's not the most powerful experience I've had but it'll stick with me forever as strange as that seems.

 

[havoc33]

Don't know if I can think of many great "climaxes" that isn't a boss battle, but here are some memorable videogame moments that stick out for me:


- Aeris death in FFVII
- fighting T-Rex in Tomb Raider
- final boss sequence in Ocarina of Time, fighting Ganondorf. It's one of the few endings I still remember vividly.
- fighting Psycho Mantis in MGS
- fighting the End in MGS3
- last part of Super Metroid, killing Mother Brain and escaping the planet
- fighting Ultimecia in FFVIII (longest boss battle I've ever done)
- fighting Pyramid Head in Silent Hill 2. The most intense game I've ever played. Absolutely horrifying throughout, almost exhausting to play. The jail cell scene with Maria also sticks out.
- the dog crashing through the window in Resi1.
- the crazy good sequence in Wind Waker with the big revelation
- the reveal of the killer in Heavy Rain
- fighting Meta Ridley in Metroid Prime
- start of GTAV where you almost immediately get a nice car and start racing through Los Santos. Seeing how marvellous it all looked, you just knew you were in for a epic ride.

 

[A BigCup of Tea]

Mass Effect 3.
Three of them, in fact. Tuchanka. Rannoch. Fleet Arrival.

Front Mission 3.
Game had a lot of incredible moments, but my favorite is final confrontation with Lukav inside a reactor. So, Lukav kills Kazuki's father and instead of screaming or rushing in, like he usually does, Kazuki simple states "No mercy" and battle begins. That contrast alone was just incredibly powerful and shown how shit real was getting.

Persona 3 (lots of threes here, huh).
Final Boss. I mean god damn Persona 3's final boss was freaking amazing. I still believe it is the best final boss in video games history.

three 3's! half life 3 confirmed!! (sorry i felt i had to)

gotta go with read dead, never before have i experienced that level of emotion and feels in a game and if i'm honest i haven't felt it since, spec ops has come close though (haven't completed it as my disc got scratched so working on getting a new one, ive just done the bit where you're in the helicopter can someone tell me if i'm close t the end?)

 

[llew]

There are many great one, alot of which have been mentioned, but my personal favourite goes to DMC3. You fight against a man wielding the power of a demon and are losing, then your brother jumps in and together you defeat this powerful enemy. You both dive after the amulet that your mother gave to you and after the sword that once belonged to your father, your brother gets to it first, you try to talk him out of his lust for power only to realise its a futile effort and that ultimately, you have to fight and potentially kill your own brother.

 

[bdeamon]

That final battle in day z or minecraft after you stock up on a lot of good stuff.
That scene is almost never the same for everyone, but the reactions tend to be similar.

 

[Kinitawowi]

Bayonetta is pretty much one long climax from the Isla Del Sol Jeanne fight to the ending (I even like A Tower To Truth), only getting more and more epic as it goes.

The original Need For Speed: Most Wanted has quite the awesome finale too, although it lets itself down slightly by not having you meet Mia when you clear the bridge. That's totally what it was leading up to all game, dammit.

The Devil Went Down To Georgia. Nuff said.

 

[Alexei F. Karamazov]

I thought that Fallout: New Vegas had a great climax, for me, at least. In fact, the entire game is about the climax! Every quest you do is either to bolster your forces in the final fight, or to beef up your character some more, and considering you can get to lv50 with the DLC, you can basically become a demigod for the final fight (if you have the Alien Blast, you get the same results, but I preferred the Avenger minigun with armor-piercing ammo). The firefight on/in the Dam with all of the forces you've accumulated throughout the game, strapped up in power armor with your floating hamster-ball ED-E and Boone (also preferably in power armor with an Anti-materiel rifle) headshotting Legionaries, and then the Vertibird with the Enclave Remnants lands and melts some poor SOB...

It's the most satisfying feeling in the world.

Also, shout-outs to the New Vegas DLC. Lonesome Road had one HELL of a climax, especially if you had played through mostly the entire game with DLC. The whole DLC was tough as nails too, which only added to the hype!

It's too bad nobody likes New Vegas, but that's another topic for another thread...

 

[RiseUp]

Bayonetta was pretty good. You go from killing the boss with a lipstick to fighting some kind of god on a motorcycle in space, and it's got that amazing music the whole time.

Wha... I need to try out Bayonetta.

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

Spoiler: okami

the at the final boss when you are rendered powerless. then everyone you helped preys for your victrory and chush the final boss

Spoiler: telltale's walking dead season 1 episode 5

meeting the person who kidnapped Clementine and the final moments Clementine has with lee before he is about die and become a zombie. It is going to be hard for future games I play to beat that climax.

snip

I would not say new Vegas is even close to having the best climax in video games. Seeing the allies you made helping you out is pretty good but it's also a kinda underwhelming climax for the game. This is merely an opinion.

as for nobody liking the game-
to me Fallout New Vegas is in the top 3 on my list of favorite games. Steam claims I played almost 900 hours of new Vegas. I enjoy roleplaying characters in this game and this is why my play time is that long.
It has been over a year since I last played it and very soon I will be replaying. I'm kinda excited to go back to the game. I will have to go though that railroaded start of going though prim, Nippon, and novac again. Some people seem to dislike that part but personally I have zero problems with it.
I feel like talking more about new vegas but that would be derailing this thread.

 

[Steven George Jeffrey]

I can think of a few off the top of my head.

-The Suicide Mission in ME:2 as many have already said was absolutely epic.
-I final fight of Sonic Adventure 2 has stuck with me all these years.
- It wouldn't be right not to mention the ending of Saint's Row 3 (epic final mission made even better with the amazing sound track).
- The end of the 'Black Cats' mission in CoD WaW. When you're in the sea plane rescuing people and run out of ammunition as more Japanese planes appear. Then all of a sudden they blow up and American fighters fly overhead, I genuinely felt relieved, and would probably have welled up if I was American.

 

[Animyr]

It's too bad nobody likes New Vegas, but that's another topic for another thread...

I, too, loved New Vegas. I can't point to any one moment that I liked, but the whole thing in general I liked. Out of all of it's sections though, I probably liked the Dead Money arc the best. I was trying to roleplay and have my character experience a bit of a character arc, but as I played Dead Money I actually felt my character's personality shifting in response to the events of the DLC, practically on its own accord. A very satisfying game-within-a-game, even if the gameplay was annoying.

The final scene in the Last of Us is stellar; I love how the climax (it may seem to be an epilogue but for me it is the climax of the story, full stop) is not a massive shootout or a fistfight over a waterfall, but a quiet conversation on a hill. Loved the ending of Red Dead Redemption too; hopefully I'll be playing TWD soon as well, so I can see what all the fuss is about. Finally, the ending of ME2 was, if not particularly deft or sophisticated, a satisfying end to an adventure romp and it holds the place in my heart that the ending to the third game should have taken. Spec Ops also gets an honorable mention; I also watched Metal gear Rising on youtube and that final boss fight was impressive.

Wasn't blown away by the ending of Bioshock Infinite, but as someone else mentioned, the finger scene at the end is a good 'un. Probably the only moment of the game where I felt the story truly came close to being as good as it promised.

 

[pspman45]

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeace
Super Senator Suplexing Simulator 2013

 

[Brownie80]

Fallout New Vegas is loved to death by tons of people. Don't know where it was gotten that most people dislike it.

 

[Quazimofo]

Bayonetta was pretty good. You go from killing the boss with a lipstick to fighting some kind of god on a motorcycle in space, and it's got that amazing music the whole time.

I don't care if it's been mentioned in the 2 pages since (it's late so I'm not reading the rest before I go to sleep), but I'm just going to agree with Bayonetta on the grounds that you PUNCH GOD WITH A BIGGER GOD SO HARD HER SOUL FLIES INTO THE SUN AND DIES! THAT'S HOW THE GAME ENDS. YOU PUNCH OUT GOD'S SOUL! INTO THE SUN! SPOILING IT DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO REDUCE THE AWESOMENESS OF IT BECAUSE IT'S JUST THAT AWESOME!
Especially on Hard or Non-Stop infinite Climax difficulty, that excellent moment of just punching the fuck out of the last boss is just sweet satisfaction after a whole game of having to scrape for every damn inch. For reference, on the harder difficulties not only are guys tougher and hit harder but the spawns change up so you fight the weaker versions of (arguably) the hardest enemies in the game in the friggin' prologue. Weaker here also means they have less health. That's just about it. Same moves an' shit. Same speed. Hit like trucks and stagger you long enough to get some painful combos in. In the prologue. Several of them. Shit's hard.


*ahem* Anyway,
Besides Bayonetta, I'd say Mass Effect 2 had an excellent ending sequence. Mass effect 3's had some fun combat sections pre-citadel, but Mass Effect 2 not only fit better in the context of the game (i.e it actually made use of all of the upgrades you had taken the time to do and featured, even if just a little bit, your entire squad whoopin' ass) but had some fun mechanics to make the corridor shooting gallery more interesting.

Halo: Reach also had one hell of an ending sequence. It's one thing to have the protagonist heroically charge into a mass of enemies in a suicidal final act, but it's another entirely to play that fight as, for the first time in the whole series, your damage doesn't heal. It was the end of the road, bringing the events of all the halo games full circle, and it really was an excellent conclusion to the human-covenant war. Best halo game yet, and probably the last one I'll ever play (halo 4 was firmly meh. Had some neat assassination animations though. Not going to seek out the next ones).

Also, say what you will about call of duty, but that sequence in Modern Warfare with the nuke was just kinda... wow. I'm honestly finding it difficult to describe besides one hell of a "holy shit" moment which raised the stakes like nothing short of a nuke really could.

Bayonetta was pretty good. You go from killing the boss with a lipstick to fighting some kind of god on a motorcycle in space, and it's got that amazing music the whole time.

Wha... I need to try out Bayonetta.

Yes. Yes you do. Start on easy though and make sure to open the item menu and immediately remove the item it gives you by default. If you don't, it'll just have you execute a variety of pertinent combos so long as you mash either attack button. It sounds nice, sure, but it also means you literally cannot control the combos you are doing and as such can't really learn them properly. Even if you use said item on the harder difficulties, there are some bits you really need to have control over what you are doing (punch-kick-punch with the katana or punch punch *pause* kick are always useful and are the second quickest ways to get wicked weaves out. You'll see what those are after the prologue).
Also, hit the item-menu button during loading screens to go into training mode so you can practice combos with whatever weapons you had equipped at the time. Make sure to scout around and break open blocked doorways and rubble piles and find boxes hidden on walkways above you and such to find all the weapons, because you WILL want the ice-skates for a couple parts of the final boss fight (they let you walk over shallow lava unharmed and ice unfrozen). Finally, google the weapons to find their special abilities if you dont figure them out on your own. It's good to know what exactly you can do with them.
And one last thing, because there's a couple alfheim arenas where this is essential to know. You can jump off of enemies midair, double jump even, if they are close enough. And you can pull smaller enemies to you with the whip (And some larger ones after you break the armor).

That's about it for stuff not particularly well explained or easy to overlook. Have fun! The game really earned its high ratings.
OH ONE LAST THING! There's a hidden level if you beat all 21 alfheim arenas, but for them to count towards the hidden level goal you must complete the rest of the level afterwards. Beat it and exiting might get you the trophy/achievement but it won't get you the bonus level.

 

[The Doughboy]

This is going to be a weird one.

Has anyone ever played KoTOR 2? Have you played it with the restored content?

The last planet you go through absolutely changed the way I looked at that game. It had the balls to make a commentary about destiny and in the most meta way, climaxes in general (just read the final boss's dialogue and you'll see what I mean).

It's still my favorite game ever. It may not be the best climax ever, but I'll be damned if it isn't a hell of a denouement.

 

[scorptatious]

I thought that Fallout: New Vegas had a great climax, for me, at least. In fact, the entire game is about the climax! Every quest you do is either to bolster your forces in the final fight, or to beef up your character some more, and considering you can get to lv50 with the DLC, you can basically become a demigod for the final fight (if you have the Alien Blast, you get the same results, but I preferred the Avenger minigun with armor-piercing ammo). The firefight on/in the Dam with all of the forces you've accumulated throughout the game, strapped up in power armor with your floating hamster-ball ED-E and Boone (also preferably in power armor with an Anti-materiel rifle) headshotting Legionaries, and then the Vertibird with the Enclave Remnants lands and melts some poor SOB...

It's the most satisfying feeling in the world.

Also, shout-outs to the New Vegas DLC. Lonesome Road had one HELL of a climax, especially if you had played through mostly the entire game with DLC. The whole DLC was tough as nails too, which only added to the hype!

It's too bad nobody likes New Vegas, but that's another topic for another thread...

Are you kidding me? I LOVE New Vegas!!

I wholeheartedly agree with you, it's so satisfying seeing all the people you've dealt with prior to the battle for Hoover Dam take part in the fight in some way. After about six or so playthroughs, it never gets old.

OT: Shadow of the Colossus's final moments were great.

Spoiler

Between supposedly losing Agro after she sacrificed herself so you could get across the bridge, the initial climb to the final colossus, the stormy weather, the chilling music, I found this to be one of my most favorite final bosses ever. And of course there's the bittersweet ending.

Final Fantasy IX's final dungeon was so haunting and beautiful. It's just so out there and the final boss battles were very cool. The very final one was particularly intense as it had an attack that can potentially screw you completely over if you're not lucky. It's so satisfying bringing him down though.

Persona 4 Golden, a game I recently discovered actually had a couple of awesome climaxes.

Spoiler

Initially, I thought Ameno Sagiri was the final boss. And I LOVED his design and his boss theme. It really felt like everything was riding on this one fight, and that I couldn't let down the wonderful friends that I have made. I was slightly underleveled, so the battle felt like a 40 minute war. I was really relieved when I finally beat him. As that meant that damned fog was finally gone.

Later on, after getting the normal ending, I found out that Ameno Sagiri wasn't the final boss and that I missed the path to the true ending initially. Thankfully, I had a save not too far from the last day, so it didn't take me long to get back to it.

So the second climax of the game, I fought against Izanami. The fight was just as intense as Ameno Sagiri, and I did die a couple of times to her. RIGHT when her health was about to go down though, she uses an attack that was going to instantly kill me, but my friends, one by one, put themselves in harm's way so I wouldn't die. And one by one they fell until only I was left, and I went down along with them.

Things seemed hopeless, but then Dojima, Nanako, and all of the people I completed my social links with appeared next to my body and encouraged me to get back up. Hearing Nanako on the edge of tears was particularly heart wrenching. I got back up, and Izanagi transforms into Izanagi-No-Okami.

Then, after getting back up and taking the brunt of Izanami's onslaught, I went to skills and chose "Myraid Truths". Then I saw the protagonist throw his glasses off, summon Izanagi one last time, and nuke the fuck out of that *****.

Metal Gear Solid 3's climax was also great.

Spoiler

A ten minute fight against the Boss in a flowery field. It's dead quiet, we took turns taking pot shots at each other from behind the trees and occasionally charge at each other and engaged in CQC. I remember the first time I played, I was pretty close to losing, but I was able to beat her RIGHT when the song that came on halfway through the fight was about to end. It was epic. It was pretty saddening being forced to pull the trigger on her when it was all over though.