Endings in Visual Novels

[ririruetoo]

What type of endings do you like or dislike? What sort of ending irks you to no end? What is your views on types of visual novel endings? Including: Sad, Happy, Cliffhanger ( and whatever others you can think of.)What do you consider a 'good' ending?

[HigurashiKira]

Personally, I like the bad endings since it's always something atypical As well as seeing an annoying hero/heroine suffer a horrible, painful death. The good endings are always a variation of "And they lived happily ever after" which gets old after the 50th or so time

[Mink]

Bad endings can also be entirely contrived: case in point, Cry For Justice. The plot only works and the ending comes to the conclusion it does because everyone has the collective IQ of a radish. Also, the ending of the Alice Is Dead. I don't mind the violence of it, I don't mind that a character was killed off, but I *DO* mind when something only comes off as mean-spirited, done just for shock value, and seriously reaching for that bad ending. I wasn't shocked, I wasn't really surprised, I wasn't sad; I was ANNOYED.

So yeah, that's the kind of endings I hate. And yes, the same thing goes for happy endings. If your happy ending make me roll my eyes and go, "Oh, that's bull." then you fail. 8|

[LVUER]

That's because different from bad/horrible death ending, the most interesting part of good ending is how they could get that kind of ending rather than the result itself.

Personally, I prefer happy ending and obviously I dislike sad ending (including bittersweet ending). Cliffhanger is ok (a bit), as long as it's pointing to another impending sequel and there's some conclusion reach in the current part.

[Aleema]

Here, another one of my polls. The general masses liked happy, not surprisingly, and then bittersweet, and then ... harem! Basically no one liked open endings, haha.

[Rilxi]

It depends on if I'm playing a game with a lighter tone or a darker tone. If the tone is darker I expect some pain and suffering even in the "good" ending. If it is lighter, I want the bad endings to be a bit comical in nature and the good ones to be pretty much fairy tale endings.

[lordcloudx]

There are two things I consider when I think of a good visual novel ending:
1. The major plot points have all been resolved. Even if the ending leaves you with a sort of cliffhanger, I find that acceptable as long as everything that was actually introduced within the body of the story has been sufficiently addressed.

2. Personal satisfaction. This is kind of hard to pinpoint exactly, but there are some endings that are satisfying but simply lack impact. A good ending, in my opinion, should also leave the reader satisfied and feeling like, "this was a good read" after the story is done. There are many different ways to accomplish this, of course. It doesn't necessarily have to be the ending I anticipate or the logical conclusion of the story. In fact, a surprise ending that is well-justified when you look back on what you have read can be quite nice.

[Arcanum]

I love endings that give you an special insight on the story and that come together after you gather all of them. Say, if each ending show you part of the plot, and you can understand the story completely if you run after all of them - even the bad ones - I think it's a very good game. After all, it entices you not to give up and pursue the paths you wouldn't!

[Omnificent]

For some reason I am a sucker for bittersweet ends and extensive bad ends. Case in point: Fate/stay night. Sparks Liner High, Sakura Normal End, and Saber True End are my favorite endings, while Rin's Good End was the weakest. At the same time, it depends on the overall tone of the story. Having a ton of violent, grimdark bad ends in what is overall a lighthearted high school romantic comedy might be entertaining (I'm looking at you School Days!) but also has the potential to be visceral and cheap.

[ririruetoo]

Personally, I'm a sucker for bittersweet endings. Yes they some what annoy me, but all in all they have to be some of my favorites. Happy is always good of course, but bittersweet usually adds just the right amount of emotional kick ( like in the film 5 centimeters per Second.)

[Rewritten Ennui]

I love endings that give you an special insight on the story and that come together after you gather all of them. Say, if each ending show you part of the plot, and you can understand the story completely if you run after all of them - even the bad ones - I think it's a very good game. After all, it entices you not to give up and pursue the paths you wouldn't!

I second this one. An excellent example of this occurs in 999, in which every ending is bad except for the True ending. The True ending uses plot points that were elaborated upon in the other endings and ties them up so deliciously well <3

Personally, I like bittersweet endings that lean more towards the bitter spectrum (why do I do this to myself? T_T). I don't believe in completely happy endings because those are unrealistic and cheap. Stuff happens, and then all the happy sparkles go away. That's life for ya The kind of happy endings that I do like are the ones that leave you with a hopeful feeling that things will brighten up momentarily. They aren't definite "they lived happily ever after" kinds of things, but you know they'll be alright. (Does that make any sense whatsoever?)

[LVUER]

Can't resist to post this:

It's true that in 999, every ending other than the true ending is bad ending... but every bad ending in 999 feels good but the true ending, while it's still nicely done, feels detached from all other endings and the game itself... and the story that it have been carefully builds during the entire game...

[Blue Lemma]

I think what's better than the ending and doesn't get enough focus is the build-up to the ending. Growlanser II was great at this Your actions in various battles affected the story in some major ways, and one of the last battles, in particular, could put you on a short alternate darker path to different endings. This is in contrast to a lot of games where actions/choices give you "points" for certain endings and the one with the most points at the end of the game is the ending you get.

It's about the journey, as well as the destination with endings Think about the build-up as an extension of the ending for cool spine-tingling effect!

[Mink]

Rewritten Ennui, part of me wants to interpret that as, "No one is allowed to have a happy ending ever. There will be no closure." That's...probably not what you mean. 8D

Though, I used to like dark endings more, I really did. But it's been ruined for me by people who seem to think a dark story automatically equals a deep story. Hint: it doesn't. That, and I can only take so much darkness and bad happenings before I just become bored. I mean, I love Junji Ito's work, really I do, but his endings have gotten predictable in the sense that if you pick up a random story/book, it's more likely than not to have a dark/depressing/bittersweet ending. Just once I'd like a, "Oh hey, everyone was totally fine afterwards." ending. Just ONCE.

Also, if you don't believe me, here's a short list:
-House of Marionettes
-Lovesick Dead/Undying Love
-City Without Streets
-Long Dream
-Uzumaki
-Gyo

Yes, a happy ending would be weird coming from Juni Ito, but it'd at least be something different.

TL;DR: I hate predictable endings. If the entire story is basically "bad things continuously happen to this person/these people", the end usually isn't hard to figure out.

[HigurashiKira]

For some reason I am a sucker for bittersweet ends and extensive bad ends. Case in point: Fate/stay night. Sparks Liner High, Sakura Normal End, and Saber True End are my favorite endings, while Rin's Good End was the weakest. At the same time, it depends on the overall tone of the story. Having a ton of violent, grimdark bad ends in what is overall a lighthearted high school romantic comedy might be entertaining (I'm looking at you School Days!) but also has the potential to be visceral and cheap.

School Days only had 3 Bad Endings (4 in the HQ remake) The other 18 endings are Good/Normal/Harem endings. But that's what such a surpise. No one expected those endings since it appeared like your typical high-school erouge. And the best part, it didn't feel like a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere