Is this the worst plot twist ever?

[Drathnoxis]

Spoiler

Danganronpa 3? Cuz I keep hearing about how the twist sucks.

No.

Thing is they wrote themselves into a corner the moment they decided to have that twist, like, if they showed the character like that earlier it would've been obvious they were the mastermind talking to them so he sorta had to be offscreen till late in the story.

That should have been their hint that it was a terrible twist and scrapped it, rather than going to ridiculous lengths to make it 'work'.

Yeah, that sounds like a pretty damn stupid plot twist. Not sure what else to say. I mean, I guess it's one that no-one would ever see coming, but that's not a good thing. I think the best twists are those that actually are foreshadowed, but in ways so subtle that you don't even pick up on them, and only connect the dots with after the fact.

I know the game OP's talking about, it is foreshadowed. His glasses show him what's going around the facility with cameras, and every scene in the game ends with a fade to a static, like CCTV. So you can look at the game like it was entirely within his perspective.

Plus, in previous games in the series, the word "nonary" is used a lot, as in 9 characters are participating, but this time it was "decision" which can mean 10.

Finally, the 9 main characters are split into three groups of 3, two groups are called C Team and D Team because that's the first letters of the names of the team leaders, but in Q Team there isn't anyone with a name like that of the 3 so it is hinted the team name is referring to a fourth person.

Not saying the twist was bad or good, but it was foreshadowed multiple times, and I didn't notice them while playing.

Just because you can see his shadow, doesn't mean it's been foreshadowed! If your foreshadowing doesn't actually make sense in retrospect it doesn't count!

The way the camera in the game swings around it's impossible that he would be out frame in every single scene, especially when he's supposed to be immobile. And why is he going to such lengths not to look at himself anyway?

Nonary does mean 9, decision doesn't mean 10, even though it has 'dec' in it. Word origin of "decide" from Dictionary.com

v.

late 14c., "to settle a dispute," from Old French decider, from Latin decidere "to decide, determine," literally "to cut off," from de- "off" (see de- ) + caedere "to cut" (see -cide ). For Latin vowel change, see acquisition. Sense is of resolving difficulties "at a stroke." Meaning "to make up one's mind" is attested from 1830. Related: Decided; deciding.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/decide

And the game goes out of it's way to never mention bucket head's name to make you think 'Q' is his name, until after the twist when they are suddenly using his name all the time as if they'd been doing it all along.

It's only a twist for the player, and the character is never given a motive for hiding his existence from the player.

Yes, Zero Time Dilemma was indeed, a pile of shit.

The twist is dumb, not because it isn't foreshadowed, but it's foreshadowed in the dumbest ways possible. Like, there's the occasional shadow of the guy in the wheelchair in some shots, but in some instances he literally has to teleport out of the camera's field of vision in the next shot for the gimmick to work.

He's also completely silent despite rolling around in a wheelchair, and is never mentioned or talked to or talked about by the people around him. How fucking convenient. Oh, but there's these minor hints of whatever and whogivesafuck when it comes to him being there. It doesn't matter, because for the twist to be even possible, things have to be so outrageously contrived for nobody to mention him directly, or for him to not be on camera. Leading to teleportation. I guess being a blind mute-deaf makes you pretty much invisible.

Also, there's the part where you can totally kill him via stupid shit with a crossbow. In what is clearly supposed to be a small easter egg once the jig is up and you go back to clear up some gameplay you missed out on. But if you're like me, and you get the stupid fucking name of the mystery character, you type it in as a lark in the aformentioned crossbow room. And, whoops I just bumblekinged into the plotwist, deflating it like a balloon. Yay.

And it's not like that's my biggest gripe with the game, 'cus atleast they tried somewhat with that twist, as opposed to the other abysmal garbage in the game.

Yes, preach! There was sooo much wrong with the game. What was your biggest gripe, though?

 

[Drathnoxis]

...Please don't tell me that's from

Spoiler

Zero Time Dilemma. Because if so, it sounds like I'm never going to finish the 999 trilogy.

That twist sounds like the dumbest twist of all time. As a writer, I almost feel personally attacked by how shit and outright LAZY it is. XD

Okay, I won't tell you what it's from.

But 999 was the only good game from that trilogy. The other two were kind of fun to watch SuperGreatFriend Let's Play, but in an ironic so-bad-it's-good sort of way.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I dunno, Nu!BSG gives many of the examples here a run for their money

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Reminds me of the plot twist for Heavy Rain. And that was after the heavy editing of further ridiculousness. It's the writer literally making it up at the last minute in a desperate attempt to surprise.

It's not David Cage's fault you lack the emotions to feel his brilliant writing.

Spoiler: Keep Calm and Feel Emotions

Furiously beating a dead horse is fun!

In all seriousness, yeah, that was a really dumb plot twist. Not quite "Your wife is a mechanical arm" or "Dude is possessed by another dude's arm" levels of stupid, but still up there.

Hmm, two dumb plot twists involving people existing in an arm. Can we get a third, please? Someone? Anyone?

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

It's not David Cage's fault you lack the emotions to feel his brilliant writing.

Spoiler: Keep Calm and Feel Emotions

Furiously beating a dead horse is fun!

In all seriousness, yeah, that was a really dumb plot twist. Not quite "Your wife is a mechanical arm" or "Dude is possessed by another dude's arm" levels of stupid, but still up there.

It was many of many of many dumb, nonsensical plot...noise. And hey, it's not a dead horse if it still continues to live, making new terrible stories while getting baffling praise and enough money to push half our population out of life-controlling/debilitating debt. Not even mad, just mostly confused and disappointed. I guess the silver lining is that it's something else that isn't as insidious as a lootbox. Or...is it?

 

[CaitSeith]

That's pretty bad, but I'd say the ending to 2001 Planet of the Apes (which, to Tim Burton's somewhat dubious credit, he lifted right out of Pierre Boulle's novel) would give it a run for its money. I mean, there's poor writing, and then there's simply absurd non-sequitur that directly contradicts the plot.

That had me honest-to-God getting up in the movie theater and yelling "what the fuck was that?"

Someone in the writing team surely made a joke about "Ape Lincoln", and the team leader must have found it too funny to waste it.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Metal Gear had a lot of contrived and pointless plottwists. I mean, ideally the impact of a twist should come from how it recontextualizes the story as a whole but most of the ones in Metal Gear seem to be a result of Kojima writing himself into a corner and then comtriving some way to get out of it. What does Venom Snakes real identity add to the plot? What does Ocelot pretending to be posessed add to the plot? What does the Patriots being the mission support from MGS3 add to the plot? Very little, other than not having to get into Big Boss' actual backstory, saving time and effort of finding some way to meaningfully integrate Liquid into the story of MGS 4 and having to establish an actual background for the Patriots, respectively.

It's not so much a twist as it's a sort of deus ex machina but rather than getting the characters out of a situation they shouldn't be able to get out of they get the writer out of a situation they don't know how to resolve. There should be a word for that.

You know, I like Kojima. But he really, really isn't a good writer.

 

[Asita]

Oh, I absolutely have seen worse twists.

Spoiler: Observe.

Seriously, who taught that man how to dance???

 

[WolfThomas]

For me the worst plot twist ever was in Army of Two: Devil's Cartel

Spoiler

The whole "Salem turning evil" thing was just total bullshit, it made no fucking sense whatsoever and pissed all over a character I had grown to like

Spoiler: It was definitely character derailment but I don't think it was nonsensical...

Salem was pretty much a huge dick in the first game, Rios was the one with the moral compass. I think Devil's Cartel made it canon that the second game's ending was the one where Rios shoots Salem to save Shanghai (but he survives) so their relationship is strained at that point.

You add them having that big blow-out argument before he gets hideously burnt and left for dead, which is got to be insanely painful. The cartel pulls him out, patches him up, gets him addicted to pain-killers, a bit of stockholm syndrome and manipulation. People get brainwashed in the real world in lesser conditions.

I say this as someone who played Salem in both previous games. I could see it happen.

On a completely unrelated note I actually quite liked Alpha and Bravo. They grew on me through the game. Alpha's straight man nature, the jokes about his (non-existent according to Bravo) girlfriend. Bravo's dream to own a boat. I really wish they'd make a sequel. There's not a lot of COOP 3rd person shooters.

 

[Tanis]

Have you SEEN the last X-Files episode?

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Spoiler: Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

Sora gets possessed by Xehanort.

Why, in a meta-narrative sense, did this have any reason to happen?

 

[Drathnoxis]

Have you SEEN the last X-Files episode?

No, tell me about it. I stopped watching X-files around season 4 or 5 of the original series when I couldn't take the ridiculousness of the government wide conspiracies anymore.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Spoiler: Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

Sora gets possessed by Xehanort.

Why, in a meta-narrative sense, did this have any reason to happen?

Why wouldn't it happen? The Bad Guy eliminates the good guy as a threat and switches the good guy over to his side in one fell swoop. Xehanort would have to be an idiot NOT to.

 

[DarthCoercis]

None of those seem as stupid as the "It was the trees!" thing from The Happening.

 

[Pseudonym]

That sounds like a really dumb twist...

But were we all murdered by machines to protect us from the machines murdering us?

 

[Warhound]

None of those seem as stupid as the "It was the trees!" thing from The Happening.

That can be forgiven because we got the timeless scene of Mark Whalberg negotiating with a house plant.

 

[Ima Lemming]

I can think of four games off the top of my head where the plot twist is either "The big baddy wants to destroy the world to stop the world from being destroyed" or "The big baddy wants to kill everybody to stop everybody from killing each other."

 

[Dalisclock]

That sounds like a really dumb twist...

But were we all murdered by machines to protect us from the machines murdering us?

There is an insane troll logic explanation to this.

The species being reaped aren't being completely annilated, their DNA and presumably all data about their culture is preserved as a reaper, so in a twisted as hell way, those species are preserved(in the form of an eldritch abomination) as long as that particular reaper exists. To the reapers, it's probably the best thing any species could hope for, to be preserved forever.

 

[DarthCoercis]

None of those seem as stupid as the "It was the trees!" thing from The Happening.

That can be forgiven because we got the timeless scene of Mark Whalberg negotiating with a house plant.

Yeah, ok, that was pretty damn funny.

 

[TilMorrow]

-snip-

Spoiler

Actually he does get mentioned/hinted to quite frequently throughout the game and moreso during events with the Q team. I mean literally right at the start of the game someone says out loud where the old man went and who the hell is the kid. Why they never directly talk to him is also explained by the fact that when they were brought in they were told that this guy was deaf, blind and mute and didn't appear otherwise during the initial days of the test. I guess the twist could also be dependent on if you played the previous games and then would know about 5 of the participants cannot possibly be the killer. To use your example, it'd be more along the lines of Sherlock and Watson had been charged with guarding an previously indisposed Moriarty whilst solving a complex and continuing series of murders before finally establishing a link between the cases and the supposed disabled criminal that they had been commenting on throughout the investigation.

Spoiler

Danganronpa 3? Cuz I keep hearing about how the twist sucks.

Spoiler

I will preface this by saying I am a fan of Danganronpa so my opinion is biased as fuck, but personally I think the twist ending to V3 was damn ballsy and pretty good at that. The solution to it did feel pretty mediocre but the overall execution of the case and sudden re-establishment and framing of the game's events and meaning was great. Add in the bit of intrigue at the end and it felt like a genuine improvement of the last two games where the MM didn't participate till the end.

A lot of Final Fantasy plot twists are pretty bad, XIII stands out with it's "actually the Leader of the city turned you into the L'Cie (slaves with a mission or become zombos) and wants you to destroy said city and it's host after they've merged with them so they can be reborn as a god whilst killing everyone in the process but then it's all resolved by doing just what they set out to not do and everything turns into crystals... before suddenly being alright again".