Good Endings that You Didn't Like

[Brown Cap]

Have you ever played a game that you could honestly say had a good ending, but didn't make you happy?
That is to say, an ending that pissed you off or made you sad, but not because it was a BAD ending?

My example
Last of Us

Spoiler

Great Ending - but I hate Joel for his decisions. I completely understand the reasoning behind it all, what with psychological analysis and plot development and whathave you, but I was just staring at the credits with my hands in the air cursing him out like there's no tomorrow.

Have you ever had an experience like that?

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

Metro 2033. I loved the game, but both endings were kind of "eh". I didn't feel very satisfying for how much work it took to get to the end of it. I felt a little disappointed watching the credits roll by.

 

[Tom_green_day]

GTA4. There was no escalation from other missions, it was just the same as all of them- shoot some people up in a building, drive a bit. There was one mission earlier on involving helicopter flying and I was so surprised that there were no more like this, it needed to be much bigger-scale to feel fulfilling!

 

[shrekfan246]

Persona 4 Golden.

You know why the ending ticked me off?

Because that meant there wasn't any more Persona 4. D:

I hope Persona 5 will have more things to do assuming it follows on the same life-sim/dungeon crawling JRPG path that the last two games have blazed. Less time skips, more events and lots of special dialogue for characters you romance or have at max Social Link levels!

 

[Resetti's_Replicas]

Bioshock 1. The good ending just seems so.. I dunno wimpy, whilst the bad ending was dark and gripping, and in my opinion, would have made for a better story in Bioshock 2.

 

[Alfador_VII]

Problem with the 2 endings in Bioshock is they are so radically different, you're basically either Mother Teresa or Hitler, there's no middle ground.

 

[Anthony Corrigan]

Problem with the 2 endings in Bioshock is they are so radically different, you're basically either Mother Teresa or Hitler, there's no middle ground.

That issue comes up in a lot of games which have a morality system in them, guess it must be hard from a narrative stand point to give free will to players and then come up with a great moral ending for "grey Jedi" type character. The only time I could think that a neutral type character would get its own specific ending is if you had a game like mass effect or dragons age say where your recruiting people and you could either go the good route and recruit just using good methods and some people in that situation would not be recruited because the cost is to high (like say comiting genocide for them), an evil ending where you follow your own selfish path and your personal rewards might be higher but it ends up driving away or killing some of the good people you recruit and a netural ending where you don't care if the action is good or evil as long as it builds the best army to fight the war. That gives a story reason to be netural rather than following a morality

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Saints Row the Third:

Spoiler

You had two morality choices: Save Viola and Shaundi from imminent death, or chase after and exact revenge on both of the game's main villains, Killbane and Cyrus. I really think the game wanted you to let your homies die and kill the main villains, because that path had an extra, large scale mission ending on a freaking flying fortress -- and the other ending had a silly as fuck but horribly designed mission.

And then Saints Row 4 says "Nevermind, the weirdass mission that ends you up as being a movie star is canon, the flying fortress segment that ends with you hijacking a news outlet and declaring Steelport as independent from America never happens." If they had smushed the good-bad endings together, so that it ended in you saving your homies and killing the bad dudes, it would've been great. Maybe have a choice what you do first -- good option is to save Shaundi and Viola and return to exact revenge on Killbane and Cyrus the next mission (preferably with your rescued homies), the bad option is to initially kill Killbane then... I don't know, save Viola and Shaundi from Cyrus, ending in killing him.

But there was other things wrong with Saints Row the Third otherwise, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone else just didn't care about the endings or never reached it.

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

Bioshock 1. The good ending just seems so.. I dunno wimpy, whilst the bad ending was dark and gripping, and in my opinion, would have made for a better story in Bioshock 2.

This was a close second. The story and the twist ending were both delightful. I didn't care for the game much, but I liked the story it told. However, once I finished it and watched the ending I felt a little cheated. It fit the idea, I guess, but I felt it was kind of...short? In the blink of an eye the final scene was over.

 

[King of Asgaard]

Infamous 2's good ending really rubbed me the wrong way.

Spoiler: spoilers inbound

Basically, there comes the choice of whether to activate the RSI, potentially curing all people in the world of the disease (which conduits are immune to) but also killing all current conduits, or joining the Beast to help in awakening the conduit gene in the populace, curing the plague in those individuals, but killing the rest.

Now I chose the latter, because in my mind, the conduits are the superior people. In choosing the 'good' ending, you're essentially halting humanity's evolution, at least for the foreseeable future. It feels wrong just to kill off the stronger beings just to keep the inferior populace in the status quo.

I should point out that I'm a Magneto supporter, in case that wasn't already apparent.

 

[Jiveturkey124]

Morrowind. No credits and you just have to keep playing...

 

[RJ 17]

Closest game in recent memory that I can think of would be Arkham City. My only bugaboo with the ending was that the Joker's death (if that's a spoiler, seriously, get with the program) seemed rather forced. As Batman said: "Despite everything you've done, I would have saved you." Why would Joker pounce on and stab Batman while Batman's holding the only thing that could save his life?

Obviously the REAL reason for it was because Mark said that he didn't want to voice Joker anymore, but I don't know...I just wish it could have been pulled off a little better.

On another note, I've got a game with a "bad" ending that I actually enjoyed: Mass Effect 3.
I wasn't one of the people yanking my hair out in rage at the ending. It wasn't anything spectacular, but I understood it well enough. So well, in fact, that I actually made a post 6 days after the game came out (when I beat it) that predicted the endings in the Extended Cut simply by using a big of thought to draw out the inevitable events that came with making the possible choices.

 

[Lieju]

Problem with the 2 endings in Bioshock is they are so radically different, you're basically either Mother Teresa or Hitler, there's no middle ground.

That issue comes up in a lot of games which have a morality system in them, guess it must be hard from a narrative stand point to give free will to players and then come up with a great moral ending for "grey Jedi" type character.

The problem with Bioshock was that it made no sense from a narrative standpoint. There is NO reason why Atlas just didn't make you kill the very first Little Sister.
The choice should have been given to the player only after Jack was freed from mind-control.
Then you would have had a choice, not necessarily between 'good' and 'evil', but whether you try to repent for what you did under mind-control or not.

Closest game in recent memory that I can think of would be Arkham City. My only bugaboo with the ending was that the Joker's death (if that's a spoiler, seriously, get with the program) seemed rather forced. As Batman said: "Despite everything you've done, I would have saved you." Why would Joker pounce on and stab Batman while Batman's holding the only thing that could save his life?

Obviously the REAL reason for it was because Mark said that he didn't want to voice Joker anymore, but I don't know...I just wish it could have been pulled off a little better.

I can see Joker dooming himself to get under Batman's skin, and considering how he had distanced himself from his friends in Harley's revenge, I'd say he succeeded.

Finally win by losing so bad the hero wishes he hadn't won?
Sounds like a joke Joker would appreciate.

 

[Lucky Godzilla]

The good ending of Dishonered.

It just felt so rushed, as if the devs had a checklist for what they had to show for all your admirable chocking skills.

 

[Raine_sage]

Dragon's dogma.

Spoiler: In order to get the true ending...

You have to kill yourself. You become god, decide being god sucks, and you kill yourself. The remnants of your soul then go to your pawn who essentially becomes you and goes on to bang your love interest in your stead. Worse yet you have no idea what that actually did to the game world as a whole. Did it break the cycle of destruction? Did it knock things a little off kilter and upset the order of the world? Did everyone lose the will to live? Did it do diddly squat? You never know and probably won't know until they come out with a sequel.

I like the bad end where you refuse to become god and instead go back home to live a peaceful life as a normal person. The game calls you a coward, but damnit I killed a dragon I earned a damn break.

 

[IanDavis]

It was the giant boss battle that soured Bioshock's ending for me. Fight big bad guy, win (of course), and watch cutscene. I... expected more. LIke that scene in the middle with Ryan and the golf club? Something more emotionally effecting like that.

On my first playthrough, I got the crappy ending because I absorbed ONE little sister. The game keeps begging me to do it, so I'd try it at least ONCE. Stray from the path just a little bit, and you don't even get a full cutscene.

Likewise, I totally botched Chrono Cross's ending. See, I just beat the final boss down instead of using your special Chrono Cross power. Doing things the way you've always done them rewards you with a blank "Thank you for playing" screen. That's literally it. I couldn't muster up the willpower to replay the battle just to see the proper ending.

 

[Mocmocman]

Problem with the 2 endings in Bioshock is they are so radically different, you're basically either Mother Teresa or Hitler, there's no middle ground.

That issue comes up in a lot of games which have a morality system in them, guess it must be hard from a narrative stand point to give free will to players and then come up with a great moral ending for "grey Jedi" type character.

The problem with Bioshock was that it made no sense from a narrative standpoint. There is NO reason why Atlas just didn't make you kill the very first Little Sister.
The choice should have been given to the player only after Jack was freed from mind-control.
Then you would have had a choice, not necessarily between 'good' and 'evil', but whether you try to repent for what you did under mind-control or not.

Spoiler

That would have exposed the fact that he was controlling you. He didn't care enough about you killing the little sister to gamble his deception.

OT: The only game thus far I've played that had multiple endings was Bioshock, and I'm enough of a sap to have enjoyed it. Besides, there was a (minor) theme about family that Bioshock had that it rapped up.

 

[Mocmocman]

It was the giant boss battle that soured Bioshock's ending for me. Fight big bad guy, win (of course), and watch cutscene. I... expected more. LIke that scene in the middle with Ryan and the golf club? Something more emotionally effecting like that.

On my first playthrough, I got the crappy ending because I absorbed ONE little sister. The game keeps begging me to do it, so I'd try it at least ONCE. Stray from the path just a little bit, and you don't even get a full cutscene.

Likewise, I totally botched Chrono Cross's ending. See, I just beat the final boss down instead of using your special Chrono Cross power. Doing things the way you've always done them rewards you with a blank "Thank you for playing" screen. That's literally it. I couldn't muster up the willpower to replay the battle just to see the proper ending.

Really? The wiki (and other sources I've read on the ending) state that you can harvest a little sister, and you can still get the good ending: http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Fontaine_%28Level%29

 

[Lieju]

Spoiler

That would have exposed the fact that he was controlling you. He didn't care enough about you killing the little sister to gamble his deception.

OT: The only game thus far I've played that had multiple endings was Bioshock, and I'm enough of a sap to have enjoyed it. Besides, there was a (minor) theme about family that Bioshock had that it rapped up.

Spoiler

What did Atlas care? He says that he considers not killing the Little sister a risk, because of the benefits doing so will give you. And he doesn't have any issues with using his control over you on other times. I guess you can argue that that choice is the sign of Jack's true character, but it makes more sense to me if it had happened once he was more informed about the world and free to do as he wished.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Metro 2033. I loved the game, but both endings were kind of "eh". I didn't feel very satisfying for how much work it took to get to the end of it. I felt a little disappointed watching the credits roll by.

Beat me to it.
You probably know this, but the book's ending is much more fitting.