Remember playing Rampage for hours and hours and then finally, after all your trouble, all your hard work and determination, your only reward was the word "congratulations" on the screen or a few seconds? Yeah, that sucked, huh?
Tonight we're taking a look back at the very best and worst in retro game endings. Some were memorable for how great they were, some for how terrible they were, and some were so lame we don't even remember them. Do you remember any? Hit the comments with your own best and worst, and we'll see you tomorrow!
| BBcode help |
| [b]Bold text[/b] |
Bold text |
| [i]Italic text[/i] |
Italic text |
| [url]http://www.dtoid.com/[/url] |
http://www.dtoid.com |
| [url=http://www.dtoid.com/]Web link[/url] |
Web link |
|
| [img]http://www.example.com/robot.jpg[/img] |
 |
Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
76 comments | showing # 1 to 50
|
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
Comments policy
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
11:11 AM on 01.06.2008
| 
Best: All the others from Chrono Trigger
good times...ah to be 11 again
"Echelon" was an adventure/flight simulator in which you spent over 100 hours finding pieces to an ancient map and language. (It also included a sound-recognition headset for weapons control, a first for video games.) After spending so much time collecting the pieces, filling out the empty sections of the included map, and translating the text, you then had to perform the steps in the text, which had you going all over the map. The conclusion? A space-age billboard with the equivalent of "Congratulations"!! ARGH!!! WTF?!
As for consoles, I hate the ending to "Starfox 64" because it doesn't give you an opportunity to beat the sh*t out that smart ass, Falco. :)
When it comes to PCs, "Ultima:Ascension" is my hands-down winner for worst ending. It explained nothing, was shorter than the time it took to run the end credits, and is by far the most abysmal way they could have possibly ended the phenomenal "Ultima" trilogy. No PC game ending comes close to being this bad, given the years and loyalty of the "Ultima" following.
Best: Monster Party - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yhHrgKqlA
and my fav game growing up was castlevania 3, still the only game i could beat in one sitting... without dying once
I never completed it but the ending to Ghostbusters looked pretty bad, given the one screen and the spelling and grammar errors.
The beauty of those games was definitely in the actual playing of them, not in the destination. The journey, if you will. The graduation to 16-bit really did see the beginnings of great game endings. Of course Super Metroid is a given, as are many of the awesome Square RPGs.
I'm going to take a page from the Angry Videogame Nerd and say that Ghostbusters for the NES had one of the worst, Engrish-laden, endings of all time.
WTF!? As a kid, this is not the most cheerful way to end your gaming session.
Thanks for the vague bullshit ending, assholes...
The worst ending that still haunts my mine was Grand Theft Auto 2, all that godamn time playing it and earning all that fucking money to save my games and then I get a little notification to hop on a train (if memory serves)and what do I get? I get a stupid congrat screen. No funny "Your the monkey and I'm the cheese grater" 2d cutscene, no huge explosion just a stupid fucking screen.
The funniest was Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 for the Gameboy. You battle though the whole game finding smaller treasure to get to the giant mario statue at the end only to have Mario show up in a helicopter and take it back. I was all like, "yeah, that's what i'm talking about" to "wtf!" But you do get a genie that gives you a house based on the amount of treasure and coins you've collected.
For some reason, my favorite endings are the ones with really good music. So on that criteria I really liked the endings to Mega Man X and Secret Of Mana.
Oh yeah, and the ending to Final Fantasy VI is just epic.as.fuck.
The worst ending I've seen in a game is probably the one where you are forced to remain as a woman and wind up being a sex slave to... oh wait, you probably won't talk about THAT kind of game. :p
The REAL worst ending - or at least the most disappointing considering how much effort it took for me to beat it that I can think of off the top of my head is probably Super Mario Bros. The first look at that cock teasing whore was an u-g-l-y sprite who pretty much said "thanks, now do it again!".
Any ending that pretty much says "buy the sequel when it comes out to find out what happens" deserves special mention for blatantly pissing me (and I'm sure many other gamers) off to know end. If you actually accomplished something it isn't too bad (like in Beyond Good and Evil where you saved your friends and found out your past), but sometimes the only reason this game existed was to stretch the story and sell more units. It's even worse when it's a sequel that is never released!
Just because NightDehumidifier reminded me of it, I have to give props to the GTA III ending. Shooting the girl (presumably killing her) you almost killed yourself to save simply because she wouldn't shut the fuck up made me do a spit take on my monitor. ^_^
GOOD
At that time, that was fine. The home version's ending consisted of corny ass music that was tolerable and (1) shitty pic...and that was it! Just ONE. The subject matter of the pic is open to fair game. You'll see... And then after the player can have at it with the staff roll call. I may be picky, but being able to punch and kick the staff's names as a reward? Pass.
BAD
*Insert furry joke here.
In response to SnotRocket, my older brother and I had a song to go along with the ending music:
"We're having a baby...
and... we're gonna name... him George!"
Hilarious when I was 9. I share because I'm drunk.
UGH...trust me brother, I feel the pain.
Best ending? Metroid. And honorable mention: the ending to Megaman. Thought maybe it would end the same way as Metroid.
"Conglaturation !!!" WTF?
My vote for best is the ending in ChronoTrigger where you are in the End of Time. Each of the characters you see represent actual members of the Chrono Trigger development team.
Mischief Makers was cool just because you saw more if you had more gold gems, and the super secret ending was really neat.
For the worst ending of a game, I elect Mario 64, if that's retro. COME ON LET'S MAKE A CAKE!!! DURRRRR. Watching Wiley get away for the Nth time was more satisfying than that.
Sonic Endings
1. You beat the first two bosses at the end of Launch base. Then since you don't have the Knuckles add on, you don't know why he was so pissed at you besides being a jerk. And oh yeah, now you have a ridiculously hard boss battle for the "true" end of Sonic 3 because you don't know about Sonic and Knuckles yet. Yay, the death egg is destroyed. AGAIN.
2. You added the Knuckles cartridge and you get some story, you find out Eggman betrays Knuckles, blah, blah, blah. You rush into space to destroy the death egg for the third time, because that first ending was a lie and Eggman built it again.You get to the end and fight the lamest boos ever, some silly gravity boos that you can't actually attack. Fine and dandy. Then you go to the next level which is a boos run a la Sonic 2. (No rings except what you have on you when you come in) Thus if you die, from then on each hit is a one hit death. And of course it's not actually a separate level, so if you make it there and fail, you have to go back to the beginning of the act. But no matter what, you beat the bosses. Yay! Second false ending!
3. You've collected all the chaos emeralds. You put them in the hidden palace and start your quest for the next seven. You go and finish ending #2. Oh wait, that wasn't an ending at all. Super special awesome final boss fight go! Sonic can breathe in space because he's going so fast now. He also doesn't fall down to Earth because of his speed. Which makes some sense at least. You beat Eggman one final time, and the world is saved. Yay. But what of Knuckles?
Knuckles Endings
1. You stop two stages earlier from Sonic and beat up Metal Sonic. You save the Master Emerald. Yay.
2. You were awesome and got all the emeralds. Very slight difference, I think the floating island starts floating again or something.
I think those are about it, though I guess Sonic 3 could have another ending because of emerald status as well. Either way, this games was ridiculous. I do enjoy it though. Best ending of these would have to be the perfect completion Sonic run though. It signals the end of the good series until the game boy advance came along.
Some of the worst endings belong to Mario games (thank you for saving the princess. the end.) but then who plays Mario for the story?
What happens? No spoiler needed... the game just crashes. Classy. I thought EA had enough memory on the cartridge to do something. >_>
Best ending...hmm... the one on FF VIII made me cry a bit, so yeah. Resident Evil 4 and Ico come close.
well the music and the constant bullying and realisation that i was all alone in a godless universe.
er, zelda,....yeah.
As a tribute, at the end of the show can you all have a fight to see who wins Collette? My money is on Topher.
Worst ending - Xenon 2. After shooting your way through a pretty tough shmup you get a tiny white dot, the same as you used to get on old TVs when turned off. Yeah cheers.
ALSO QUESTIONS:
If collette is back, then: Whar did you goez and how did you get your fix of dolphins without Concelmo?
Then a question for Chad: If a movie was made based off of Ecco the Dolphin, would you buy every single seat on opening day?
Also, I think ti was Mega Man 3 . . . Where they ended up doing the complete Robot Registry up to that game, including ProtoMan and Roll. Which ever one that was, that was just fantastic.
And speaking of Mega Man, Mega Man X's ending was amazingly emo/epic. Its a little vague in my head, but I remember feeling completely mind-fed and satisfied.
And sadly, the worst ending I remember is from a game I, maybe thankfully, completely forgot the name of. It was NES, some obscure japanese publisher. The main character was a green elf girl with a bow and arrow. The game progressed from top to bottom and has a metric-TON of levels. After which, you didn't really get an ending, but were dumped back at level1, renumbered to be level 103 or something, and you just do it all over again. Me and my mom played to the end twice (keeping the NES on the hole three days to do it) before we gave up on any real gratification.
What the hell was that game called!?
I think as a kid, I did have an idea of what a good ending was, and what a bad ending was, but at the same time, I was filled with such pride that I beat the game, I didn't care.
Looking back at the endings now, and all the time I put into them, I feel a little ripped off.. RPGs and Nintendo seemed to be the only ones who really nailed endings.
Not to say there aren't good endings done by other people, but those left me feeling the best.
And since you guys talk about Dreamcast on this show.. Skies of Arcadia was a freakin' awesome ending.. And of the flip side.. Shenmue, now that I know the story will never finish
Yeah, some of those were just downright awful, but they were still hilarious. My favorite was Fire Man, though.
Fire Man: Waste Disposal Robot (Burn that styrofoam!)
Also a great ending, Dragon Warrior 1.
"No."
"But thou must!"
"No."
"But thou must!"
"No."
"But thou must!"
"Yes?"
"But thou must!"
Arkista's Ring by American Sammy.
125 levels, looped at 32. The thing is, once you get to 125, it loops over again. I barely remember if there even WAS an ending.
Just the worst . . .