When Endings Go Bad

[Lord_Seth]

Those type of things, I take up Lemony Snickett on his advice. "If you really want to think this story has a happy ending, stop reading right here and pretend it happened." There's a reason I have read A Series of Unfortunate Events past book 6. It just didn't feel worth continuing.

Actually, despite him constantly talking about how it's depressing and how the reader should stop reading because it'll just end unhappily, the series does have a decently happy ending. A confusing ending that leaves most of the questions in the series unanswered, but it's happy enough for the main characters. There's a whole lot of depressing stuff on the way, but, again, things at least seem to turn out all right for the main characters.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Those type of things, I take up Lemony Snickett on his advice. "If you really want to think this story has a happy ending, stop reading right here and pretend it happened." There's a reason I have read A Series of Unfortunate Events past book 6. It just didn't feel worth continuing.

Actually, despite him constantly talking about how it's depressing and how the reader should stop reading because it'll just end unhappily, the series does have a decently happy ending. A confusing ending that leaves most of the questions in the series unanswered, but it's happy enough for the main characters. There's a whole lot of depressing stuff on the way, but, again, things at least seem to turn out all right for the main characters.

Ah. That's pretty much the opposite of what I heard. That might even be enough to get me through the series, if I picked it up again (though I'm never rereading the first six books).

 

[Dioxide20]

Wing Commander,

Spoiler: the secret mission

The one where you valiantly stay behind as the rear guard to defeat all the enemy fighters. The mission ends with you all by yourself, alone, abandoned, because you don't have hyper, only the carrier did, and you fought the fighters to give it time to escape...

But stuff like that, it ends poorly for you, but you did something heroic. You accomplished something.

 

[chinese_democracy]

SkiFree had a sad ending. No matter how free you skii, you get eaten by that damn snow monster thing.

 

[WafflesToo]

Wing Commander,

Spoiler: the secret mission

The one where you valiantly stay behind as the rear guard to defeat all the enemy fighters. The mission ends with you all by yourself, alone, abandoned, because you don't have hyper, only the carrier did, and you fought the fighters to give it time to escape...

But stuff like that, it ends poorly for you, but you did something heroic. You accomplished something.

I wonder if 'Downer' endings are being confused with unsatisfying or unresolved endings. Endings where the story just stops instead of concluding.

I've played a good many games where things don't end well player's character(s) but still felt like at the very least, a proper ending to the story. Most of the downer endings that I've encountered that I didn't care for had no real closure to the events within the story, or worse, left everything open for a sequel =o

 

[Dfskelleton]

What about games where your decisions change wheter the ending is good or bad? Take Bioshock and Silent Hill 2 for example.
Bioshock: You either A: save a bunch of little girls, raise them as your own and die a happy man, or B: Slaughter the little girls, inject their genetic material directly into your writst, go th the surface and kill the population of a continent.
Silent Hill 2 has some good ones:
A: You leave the town knowing your sins and repenting from them, with the memory that your wife always loved you.
B: You are so overwhelmed by the events that you drive your car into a lake and kill yourself.
C: You still cling on to the false delusions that you've made up to try and protect yourself from the truth.
D: You sink into even more of a cold shell of a man than you already were, and attempt to ressurect your wife from the dead with occult items, with unknown results.
I'd have to say that the main character killing himself is a pretty "Downer" ending, don't you agree?

 

[reg42]

The 2008 Prince of Persia literally had the worst ending I've ever seen. It just makes me so mad.

 

[spike0918]

I am honestly extremely surprised no-one mentioned Red Dead Redemption at all I mean

Spoiler: Red Dead Redemption Spoilers

After playing through the whole game as a badass western gunslinger fighting to redeem yourself from your previous live, all that ends up happening after 4 or 5 idyllic missions is John getting massacred by 20 US Army Troops.

 

[Chamale]

Bad endings suck, and that's that. When I play an open game, I want an open ending, otherwise I'll be really pissed. When my character, who I carefully built and role-played, dies, it sucks. I feel more sympathy for an RPG character than I could for any movie character, and when it's my character, I really want to keep them alive. When, as in Fallout 3, they die without my having a choice, it's really bad.

 

[L-J-F]

People should have the choice, otherwise no. You know where the bad ending is? When you press the "restart" button because you died, that's your bad ending right there, but people go back and play again until they "win". So what the hell is the point of having them lose in the end? The whole game is pointless, they may as well have not played or given up on their first death.

It's not all about death though, sometimes a bad ending works, but having one just for the sake of having one is a really REALLY bad idea.