True Endings

[Banavolf]

(Sorry if this has been discussed recently, I did a check and didn't see it)

How does everyone feel about "True" endings? Or true pairings?

I've got mixed feelings about it. I'm okay with them in plot driven games (particularly horror), but I don't like it in romance. In Clannad, for example, Nagisa is probably my least favourite character, but the game pushes her so hard that the other options feel like second-class endings. If I'm given the freedom to choose, why should one of them be made the "right" choice?

If you're someone who likes true pairings, I'd be interested to hear why. What do you see as the pros?

[Asceai]

Even though most VNs contain a romance component it is not necessarily the principle focus of the story. I would say that Nagisa in CLANNAD was the main heroine for a reason - it was her (and Ushio's) story that required that treatment and it makes sense. For CLANNAD to not have Nagisa's story would have heavily crippled it. (For reference, she wasn't my favourite heroine either. I wouldn't say she was my least favourite - I'd give Ryou that designation - but compared to Kotomi, Kyou and Tomoyo...)

Of course, this doesn't excuse the miserable job done with certain other routes, particularly Kyou's, but that's a problem solely with those routes for being written badly (relative to the VN overall), not the fact that CLANNAD happens to have a true ending.

Back to my original point, the true ending has a place if it makes sense for the story to have a denouement - if there's something it can end on that only makes sense or has maximal impact after you've read the rest of the story.

Sometimes a true ending is bound to a particular heroine, and usually the main heroine, but sometimes it isn't. And I think occasionally they get it wrong - I'd probably give Mea's route in Hoshizora no Memoria as an example of a 'bad' true ending - not that there's anything wrong with Mea and she's clearly the main heroine, but her route was anticlimactic compared to the route immediately preceding it, which would have been a far better place to end the VN. Dracu-Riot is, to me, an especially good example with a true end so disappointing it caused me to re-evaluate the rest of the VN and downgrade it.

So yeah, I'd basically give the same conclusion here as in the 'locked routes' thread - if the story needs it the story should have it, if it doesn't it shouldn't. Naturally, if there is no route locking the 'true end' is pretty much an arbitrary designation - all routes are legitimate, after all.

[avocadro]

I haven't played a lot of games with unlockable true endings, so most of my opinion on them is based on DRAMAtical Murder, where you had to play through the four "standard" routes to unlock the true route.

I didn't completely like the way they did it, but I do appreciate having each route reveal one side of the overall story, so that in replaying you not only get a new romance, but also another perspective that gives you a better idea of the events that occur, until the true ending finally thoroughly explains and ties everything together. It helped that the character you pursue in the true route was present in all the routes and by the time you unlock his route, he's made a pretty likeable character! It definitely made me play all the routes even though I wasn't too interested in half of them.

I think the think I dislike most about true endings is what you've described already: they either push a route too hard that you might not even care about (I was lucky to like DMMr's secret character, but I know not everyone did), or they cheapen or lower the quality of routes that aren't that one. One of my biggest pet peeves in romance games is when it's very clear that a certain character is favored or a certain one is not, and it reflects in the quality of their routes' writing. Why bother writing other routes, then?

Even if the true route is done well, it still made me a little sad going back over the other routes, especially in the sequel DMMr game; it makes it feel like none of those routes are "authentic" anymore, which I think may just be unavoidable. If I had to make the choice, I guess I'd prefer for all endings to be written as true endings, as if each time you start a new game, it's a new "canon" where the pairing you choose is the right one, rather than just a stepping stone to another route.

[SundownKid]

I personally prefer if there is no true ending, but there is a "canon" ending if the creator decides to make a sequel. However, the existence of said ending does not discredit the other endings, which technically "happened" in an alternate universe of the story. Instead of just saying "this ending is true, the other ones are wrong".

[Zetsubou]

I don't mind true endings, as long as they're done well.
Clannad's true ending annoyed me since it took so much time away from other characters/routes. If you're going to focus so heavily on the true route, then it might be a good idea to just do the true route.
In other words, true routes are fine by me as long as they don't result in the other routes being watered down or shortened. The true route shouldn't be the only one of a decent length/quality.

[Tyrantauranox]

I like how Tsukihime did endings. Most of the routes had at least two endings, and reaching every possible ending unlocked an epilogue that didn't reference the specifics of any route.

[Ran08]

Oh my, haha, my first game was romance and it had a true ending. )

It's not exactly the RIGHT ending though, it's just the ending you would get if you didn't pursue any specific guy. Like, in my game, the protagonist didn't really want to join the dance, so if it happened her way, her grandmother would pick the guy for her. So that's the TRUE ending, because that's what would've happened if nothing else did. But that doesn't mean that the guy there is the TRUE guy.

I'm pretty much alright with true endings, as long as they don't insist that it's really what should've happened and not [this other route] here.

[Banavolf]

Thanks for all your input!

It seems that the general opinion is true endings are fine so long as they don't come at the expense of other routes. Still, I think I'll steer clear of true endings in my games, unless I ever make a sequel. (Although I ought to make a game first before I think about sequels >o> )

[ArachneJericho]

I wonder how one would handle "no single true ending" with sequels. Would you write a sequel that had initial branching paths depending on your original ending, and then merge into the beginning of the main story? That might involve killing off or otherwise moving off-stage your original beau, and continuing from there. And that has problems of its own.

Another approach might be to write sequel stories that focus on each possible ending. That would result in a lot of stories without necessarily crossing paths but I think it could still be done (but it would need a lot of care, story-wise and coding-wise).

Just an interesting problem I might face >_>

[Asceai]

I wonder how one would handle "no single true ending" with sequels. Would you write a sequel that had initial branching paths depending on your original ending, and then merge into the beginning of the main story? That might involve killing off or otherwise moving off-stage your original beau, and continuing from there. And that has problems of its own.

Another approach might be to write sequel stories that focus on each possible ending. That would result in a lot of stories without necessarily crossing paths but I think it could still be done (but it would need a lot of care, story-wise and coding-wise).

In the commercial Japanese VNs market, standard sequels are very rare- when they exist, they're typically either tangentially/spiritually related (White Album 2, Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru 2, Mugen Kairou 2, Parfait) with so much distance the route in the original story doesn't matter, a fandisc (in which the stories are typically less serious and based on either a continuation of one route, the continuation of multiple routes or some unspecified mashup of all of the above), a sequel to a relatively linear story (the Rance games- although some of the modern titles have had extra non-canon endings added on, the Djibril games, ChuSinGura46+1...) or something terrible made to cash in on the popularity of the previous game (Konatayori Kanatamade 2, Suika Niritsu, Suigetsu 2)

[Banavolf]

I wonder how one would handle "no single true ending" with sequels. Would you write a sequel that had initial branching paths depending on your original ending, and then merge into the beginning of the main story? That might involve killing off or otherwise moving off-stage your original beau, and continuing from there. And that has problems of its own.

Another approach might be to write sequel stories that focus on each possible ending. That would result in a lot of stories without necessarily crossing paths but I think it could still be done (but it would need a lot of care, story-wise and coding-wise).

Just an interesting problem I might face >_>

My initial thoughts were more or less the same, either make the events of the first game irrelevant through some means, or make a sort of collection of epilogues for each separate ending.

I suppose a middle ground could be having a connection to the first game while still being a largely new game. To go back to the Clannad example, a possible non-true ending sequel could still follow Tomoya and his child, but the child resembles him, and the mother is left unspecified (This can work for the endings that aren't about romance too, with enough of a time skip to allow for him meeting someone after high school). The cast would be largely new, but feature some of the cast from the original outside of the romance endings. Which would give the opportunity to have some arcs that tie back to the original, such as being able to get with Mei (and Yukine, if you're like me and consider her arc more of a friendship).