Bad Endings in Video Games have always been so fascinating to me, not just because of how shocking they can be, but because if done right, they have the potential to be as incredible as good and happy endings, which is what I’m gonna explore today
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0:00 Intro
1:40 Dead Rising Series
3:42 Super Smash Bros Ultimate
5:10 Castlevania Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow
8:08 Ace Attorney Justice For All
11:43 Fire Emblem Series
13:36 Deltarune Snowgrave Route
16:45 Fallout 1
18:49 Conker’s Bad Fur Day
22:29 Unicorn Overlord
24:55 Persona 3
27:52 FAITH The Unholy Trinity
31:40 Ending
#videogames #nintendo #deltarune
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starting with sonic frontiers music this is gonna be a banger
HELL YEAH BROTHER!!!! Great video
I think another great example of a really compelling bad ending is Dredge. I'm not gonna spoil why or how it works, but it says a lot about the kind of person the protagonist CAN BE if you let him, and it expresses so much dread and horror with so little. If you know, you know, I suppose lmao!
I find shadow dragon and Roy's endings kinda worse ends same with edegard route in 3 houses.
If marth doesn't keep caeda alive he's pretty much sad and alone even though he won. Roy's route If you don't get to the true boss you kinda just fail the world. Edegard is definitely a bad end as they wouldn't be able to beat twsitd
I've got to lend you my copy of Digimon Survive when I'm done so you can see what the other routes and endings are like!
You have no idea how happy I am to see you, one of my favorite content creators on this platform cover FAITH. It's genuinely my favorite piece of media, period. I remember recommending it to you in your "video games are dead" vid, you said it was on your list for a while
Both FAITH's good and bad endings make me violently sob to this day. Such a wonderful masterpiece of our time.
i will never forget the time that like 9 year old me had morbid curiosity and decided to watch until dawn, and not only that, i watched a video with the worst possible choices, i still don't know what i was thinking, i had nightmares for forever
great topic! theres not enough videos about this
The one bad ending that has stuck to me the most is one of the bad endings of the PSP remake of Corpse Party. I do not remember how you trigger this specific one as there are a lot of bad endings in this game and I played the game over 10 years ago, but I remember it happens in the last chapter of the game.
The whole group gets divided, with one part returning to reality, and the other staying at the cursed version of their school. Normally, the one group that is in "normal" school decides to return to the cursed school to help their friends come back, but if you do something wrong at the first part of the last chapter, only one of the students that is in the "normal school" decides to return, while the other stays behind, which means you are going towards the bad ending I am talking about, without any opportunity to back down.
I will not go into details, both because I do not remember everything and because it would be kinda long, but what makes this ending so special is that you basically get to play the game for another hour or so, making you believe you are going the right way, and even the music makes you feel like that, as it is uplifting and hope filling, but after a while you will notice that everything will start going south, with the music slowly changing into something dreadful, ultimately leading you to a point where everyone basically slowly dies or succumbs to a darkened state where they become a hollow body without emotions. Compared to most "bad endings" where you see a cutscene and be done with it, this one is basically a whole playable chapter that inevitably leads you to a bad ending.
While many may believe that they have "wasted" an hour or so of gameplay if they get this ending, it is actually a saddening but somehow enjoyable hour that shows you so many things you would never see in the good ending.
the bad ending in Return of the Obra Dinn is simple but i do think it’s pretty funny. basically a mysterious character sends you a book detailing the journey of the Obra Dinn, a ship that disappeared years ago. the goal of the game is to completely fill out the book with the identities and fates of the crew. getting this book filled out is that character’s last wish before they die
if you fill out the wrong answers, you’re sent a letter describing how disappointed he was in you, and how he died because he felt there was no more hope in this world due to your incompetence
M O R T I S .
There is Tales game that doesn't get the attention it deserves and imo when it comes to bad endings…Tales of Xillia 2.
The premise of the game is already the darkest in the series having to exterminate entire timelines to save your own in a test setup by spirits. To win they must reach the land of Canaan which cannot be done without exterminating many lives in the process to gather keys from different timelines. Near the end of the game though, the keys are not enough to reach Canaan and in order to create a bridge to reach it they must sacrifice the main character's brother, who is doomed to die regardless. There is a whole section of choices where you can hesitate to kill him or accept it and fight a boss fight against him. Either way is a tragic moment but if you choose to be unable to go through with it, you end up fighting the entire rest of the party, killing them and dooming the entire world to its imminent demise. In the end the main character's brother just cannot be saved.
And if that wasn't enough, if you proceed through with it and reach the true final boss, you're still met with a choice where either you have to die to save your daughter (from another timeline) or you let your daughter go. No matter the ending you go for, someone has to die.
AND IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH…ok this is about the cameo in Tales of Arise fighting Chronos from Xillia 2, but when you reach the battle arena in Arise, players who played through Xillia 2 can notice that the background implies that this is a version of the game where humanity failed its trial and every single timeline was wiped from existence.
When it comes to Xillia 2, there is no truly perfect happy ending..except for the joke ending which is pretty funny tbh!
This makes me think though this is a video topic similar to thinking about the "hardest choice options in games".
One of my favorite endings in a video game is from Star Wars Republic Commando
spoiler ahead for the games ending
So throughout the game you start to truly feel like a leader of a team, you get to like them, it feels like your a group of friends.
The ending requires you to split up, to abandon your team, but its what must be done for victory.
But as soon as the mission is over you must escape, one of your friends is ambushed, you want to help him.
But the area is to dangerous, the leader forces you to evacuate the area without your friend, leaving him to die.
Of course your mad, your supposed to be mad, you were forces to leave your friend to die without any help.
The leader reveals that your role in the operation was more important then you thought, if you didn't evacuate the whole war for the planet would've been lost.
You lost your friend, but you won the war.
You secured freedom for everyone on the planet, your friends death shall only truly be remembered by your team.
Hehe Olimar is Pikmin now
One bad ending that always stuck with me was the bad ending for the Oddworld games, especially the one from Munch’s Odyssey
it always left me unnerved even for a game that’s supposed to have dark humor, it’s bad enough seeing one of the protagonist’s head on a mount but the other one is literally having their lungs extracted while fully conscious until they die 😭
Engage has a bad ending!?!??!?!
I'm flabbergasted
Fallout 1 does have pretty good bad ending yet there are different ways to get the bad ending. The game doesn't tell you but you got a time limit before the super mutants find your vault. Now this isn't too much of a problem since you should have enough time to handle the master unless in HubTown you have some people deliver water to your vault. Word spreads of your vault and now you have more time finding the water chip but less time to stop the Master's plan. Or upon being kicked out of the vault you head straight to FEV facility and rat on your vault because why not, you have the freedom to do so.
This channel is so massively underrated. Every time I check out a video of yours, I'm delighted how original it is and how much heart I can feel in the content. It reminds me of how i felt about content I watched in the golden era of youtube, 10 years ago.
Tom and Jerry mentioned, peak video
Pretty fitting that you talked about Dead Rising in this video, considering Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster just got announced
Radiant Historia has a BUNCH of bad endings and the flow of gameplay implies you're supposed to get all of them. The most popular of these is where the main character throws in the towel, says "fuck it", and marries one of the party members, where they live out what's left of their lives together. The world is doomed, of course, but they were apparently very happy.
Glad you mentioned Ace Attorney here. But my favourite bad ending is still the one in Tales of Xillia 2.
For me, one of the most chilling bad endings was actually to a side quest. In Majora's Mask, you can access Romani Ranch only on the third day until you can access the Powder Keg. Romani can be found here, dazed, forgetful, and distracted. Later on, when you can access the ranch earlier, you are given more context: aliens reminiscent of the Flatwoods Monster attack the farm to abduct the cows. Defending the ranch is TENSE. You're approached from all sides by "Them" and need to use your horseback archery skills to keep the waves and waves of enemies at bay, until daybreak. If you fail the quest, you discover why she was dazed every time you met on the third day – trying to protect the ranch, she too gets abducted. It's heavily implied that her memories were wiped.
Dang bro no Banjo Kazooie mention? Chrono Trigger also has a great "bad ending". Great video friendo 😀
Tales of Xillia 2 has a bad ending that is super cool but also super messed up simultaneously
Honestly, I think that Conker's idea of a bad ending, the game over screen, I mean, should be used more. I honestly would LOVE to see the fate of the character after they lost, especially like something in Fire Emblem, or any Squeenix RPG. It gives a sense of "no, this character is actually gone, you messed up." and I love that.
Also: gonna point out, shocked you didn't point out Omori. No spoilers, but Omori has 6 endings, with 5 of them being "bad" endings. It's honestly an amazing game that deals with anxiety, suicidal ideals, PTSD, Depression, general psychology, and so much more. I honestly would highly recommend making a part 2 to this video to cover the Omori endings, as I think they're a VERY interesting part of this topic.
(also two of the leads in that game are Mexican so you're required by law now.)
I thought of Engage the moment I read the title tbh. Glad you mentioned it!
Dude, bows not the time for optimism. Go talk about negative stuff like your last video.
A Bad Ending I found notable was the Conquest Ending of Hyperdimension Neptunia: Re;Birth2 / MK II where you literally kill the other main characters to power up the Gehaburn to defeat the Diety of Sin, Arfoire, who in this ending, actually speaks, prophesizing her return once the world wants a new leader.
It's worse when Sisters vs. Sisters shows that this ending is canon to the events leading to the game, which also has another grim part of the story (not an ending) in which most of the main characters are killed by Arfore, who actually lost her consciousness from her great power, being a mindless husk that only kills. After her boss fight where she literally cannot die, she kills the protagonist before the last main character time travels in the past (this game is a time travel fight).
Great choices in your list!
If you ever make a part 2, I would love to see the bad ending of Tales of Xillia 2.
Will talk about it so if you don't want spoilers don't read weee.
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Basically, the main character refuses to sacrifice someone to open the door to the final dungeon. And in doing so, decides to fight against the ENTIRE Party, in a 1v8 fight. (With 4 enemies at a time)
Not only is it messed up from a emotional perspective, but it is also the hardest fight in the game because not only you are outnumbered, but if you get hit by certain artes and they proc the "Confused" status condition you basically instantly lose because you can't take control of your character, and there is no one else to use a cure status item on you. Winning this fight requires expert control of Ludger the main character, and knowing his air combos that let you combo the opponents safely and avoid touching the ground as much as possible, because in this fight the ground is lava lmao.
What I love about Persona bad endings is how well they go against the themes of the games
Persona 3- Goes against accepting death as a natural thing and something you can fight to prevent happening sooner, living life to the fullest. The bad ending is caused by choosing to live in ignorant bliss
Persona 4 Golden- Goes against finding the truth and being yourself. By protecting Adachi, you've willingly chosen to keep the case unsolved, and now you're Adachi's puppet who can be used for anything he wants
Persona 5- Goes against freedom and rebelling corruption. You willingly allow the masses to live as slaves and a corrupt God to continue to take control of the events in the world
And all of these bad endings are betrayals to your parties. They trusted you to do the right thing after everything you've all been through, and with just one action you betray everything you've stood for. What's even more devasting is that they don't even know it. SEES forget everything, the Investigation Team believe the case is resolved, and the Phantom Thieves believe the big evil has been defeated
Tales of Zestiria has one too. If you go a certain area before you're supposed to (you even hear the bad ending music playing in this area), you can find the final boss wandering around. Engage him in battle and kill him.
What you get is the corrupted version of a character from Berseria slowly making their way to the cabin where the main party is sheltering from the eternal rainstorm they've caused because you the player haven’t found out the link between the end boss of this game and the character from Berseria.
A very good bad ending is Chrono Trigger's. If you don't kill Lavos (or the Time Destroyer in one path), he will rise up and destroy the world.
You literally see everything get destroyed very quietly in the final shot before hearing Lavos's scream.
As he screams, the following text comes on screen:
"But… the future refused to change…" ("In the end… the future refused to change…" in the DS re-release).
There is 1 bad ending that I think is the greatest bad ending of all video games, and that has to be cuphead
Persona 3 has a bad ending
Kill Ryoji and get An ending Where everyone loses their Memories and You, Yukari and Junpei go to Karaoke than it's implied that The Fall happens
Edit: Oh, well…… You talked about it anyway. I commented before getting to that segment 😂
hell ya buddy!
Bro we got the same laptop
Gotta love how Classic Sonic games Bad Endings are just: "Well, Eggman escaped, and he haves some of the Emeralds. But this isn't over yet."
Meanwhile Knuckles' Chaotix is casually "Everyone is dead and there's nothing you can do."
Also shoutout to Sonic CD, 3D Blast and Mania Bad Endings where aren't that graphic but are very subtle to the idea of "We're fucked and IT'S YOUR FAULT."
Great video.Evoland 2,it has only one ending and it hits hard
[22:54] 10 YEARS IN THE-