Lufia 2 had a reasonably depressing ending… You fight the four bosses (some of them for the gazillionth time) and then you have to escape. The hero and his wife die at the end, leaving only a child behind. Twas very depressing for me, whom truly had begun to love the characters involved, and wanted to see them happy.
Mega Man X5 had a fairly downbeat ending if you don’t take it in context, with the destruction of the hero’s best friend and the possible destruction of the hero. It was sad and reasonably dramatic, until you take into account how many times the hero’s best friend has actually died throughout the series (and sure enough, he comes back. AGAIN), diluting it. The same goes for the death of the villian, who, as is par for this series, has come back about infinity minus one times. And the hero never actually died, it only was implied in the ending I got.
I think this is a sign I should play some deeper games, as my selection tends to have quite upbeat endings.
Oh, there’s Super Smash Brothers, where you find out you were only a toy. Makes me CRY! =(
And Majora’s Mask, which had an ending which really made very little sense whatsoever.
Loom (a very old Lucasarts Adventure Game) was a real downer. I don’t even remember it anymore, but it was depressing. Granted, the game is based on an Andersen tale, but… ugh.
Take it as a fact, the game makes no sense, is filled (much like Xenogears) with pointless repetition of occaisionally offensive insults to religion, mindless overuse of religious imagery without any context, a deep plot that still doesn’t make any sense to me, and one of the most underplayed endings I’ve ever seen.
(not sure if this is how you do the spoiler thingy:)
[Spoil] The Hero and his Sister do make it back, as they ride past their own graves on Chocobos (Big, yellow bird that goes Warrrrk!). The Church does burn some guy you met at the stake. For some strange and unknown reason, the great and powerful King, formerly part of some group doing something for some reason (I literally never understood any more about it), who was a great knight and your former best friend at the same time, murders his wife, the Queen, who may or may not have been adopted (the characters make a big deal out of this, though I never understood how it possibly made a legal difference). To add to the confusion, the English grammer is utterly horrible, the text speed is very slow, and the main character is likely to be the weakest PC if you pick up the better characters later on.
I thought the first american ff game was a downer its just a epilogue but eventually your deeds are forgotten and basically discounted as a age old myth
Oh you forgot the ending in wc 3 where its possible to not get either girl …
Wizadry1 didnt really have a ending, … is it me or are rpg’s the first genre to have endings besides congratulations the end? …
I didn’t mind finding out that I was a TOY in SSB…that was pretty clear from the game’s opening. (They also…sorta…expand on this in Super Smash Bros. Melee.)
The disappointing thing was watching a bunch of credits scroll by, and then getting a cheesy photo of, say, Mario holding a flag that says “You Are Great.” I mean…I killed the Master Hand. I knew that.
Doh, I forgot about Wing Commander: Prophecy. Oops. Correction taken.
Wizardry I had a sort of ending, and I call it a downer, too – once you kill Werdna, recover the amulet, and trek back out of the dungeon, Trebor says, in effect, “Hey thanks! Here’s 250,000 xp for each of you. Oh, and by the way, I’m going to tax you for some reason, so all the equipment you’ve collected? It’s mine now. Ta!”
Fortunately, Wizardry was very nice about letting you duplicate your scenario disk and transfer characters from one to another. Before I’d kill Werdna, I’d copy the disk, kill the wizard, lose the equip, and then transfer my characters from the original to the copy and pass over the equipment. No fuss, no muss, no rough stuff.
Loom’s ending was a bit depressing, true, but at least it wasn’t a slap in the face.
I just remembered another one, Final Fantasy Legend for GB. The last boss is “Creator” who is basically God (not a god, the God). He tells you, your whole quest was purely for his enjoyment so you kill him, and then… not much really, cheesy music and a short montage. I guess that’s either an upper or a downer depending on your view of God.
Man I’m feeling old. I’ve never played 90% of the games mentioned here. I’m still hooked on Millipede.
It’s been a while since I played it, but I thought the end of Myst was beyond lame. You sort of feel like the whole thing was for nothing, and then the old guy just blows you off. “Thanks for saving the world. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”
It wasn’t that good. Instead, after running all over all those damn islands, he just says “Thank you for helping me out and stopping my evil kids. Feel free to explore the Islands that you’ve already explored.” Now if he had opened a new place to explore, I don’t think I would have minded so much.
Yeah, but he didn’t save the world. At the end of the game you help sever the connection between the world and whatever that place the swans live in is. So yeah it’s good for the main character who goes off to live as a swan with the village, but he leaves behind all the people in the world he was travelling in to be ruled by Chaos (that freaky demon guy).
My favorite would be the Soviet ending for Command and Conquer:Red Alert.
Stalin is jubilant over his victory over the Allies, and celebrates with Natalya with Kane standing silently in the background. He drinks some of her poisioned tea and dies. She suddenly goes berserk, shoots him a couple of times after he’s dead (funny too, gunshot sounds but no muzzle flash or bullet wounds!) then says some line about Cain going into the land of Nod…Then Kane kills her and mentions something about the future…
The ending for Tiberium Sun for the Nod side has the Nod pyramid launching the Tiberium missile, then Kane appears to chronoshift after the whole planet gets blanketed in Tiberium radiation
Something that bugged me about Tiberium Sun is there is some subplot about aliens, but the aliens role kind of evaporates later in the story.
I dunno, I thought the ending of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was a little depressing. Not because of the story, but mostly due to the worst ending music of all time. It made me want to cry.
As for other depressing endings, isn’t just about every ending in any Twisted Metal game just another way for your character to get screwed over? I can’t seem to remember a single one where the character got what they wanted…
Oh, King’s Quest IV. The overall quest is to find the magical fruit that will save your father’s life – but it’s really just a side quest that can be completed at almost any time. The first time I completed the game, I kept thinking “Okay, after THIS puzzle I’ll go get that magic fruit” … until I found that I had reached the end of the game and was sent back home.
“Rosella! You’re home! You’re back! Did you bring the magic fruit for dad? … …oh. You forgot.”
I seem to remember one character, the black guy in the big tire vehicle from Twisted Metal 2, getting exactly what he wanted without getting screwed over. His wish was to get even with his father for putting him in that vehicle, he was stuck in it forever, and that’s exactly what he got with no twist ending.
I seem to remember one character, the black guy in the big tire vehicle from Twisted Metal 2, getting exactly what he wanted without getting screwed over. His wish was to get even with his father for putting him in that vehicle, he was stuck in it forever, and that’s exactly what he got with no twist ending.
Eh…I would say…play it again! In my answer book for KQVII, they have a summary of each game…in KQIV, the ending is supposed to be with King Graham alive! After all, he does survive to go through KQV.