What's the best and worst finale in a game?

Sandman · November 6, 2002, 18:08

Needless to say, this thread contains spoilers.

What makes a good 'final battle' in game?

I'd say that it has to be very difficult: Nothing is more depressing than defeating the last boss on your first try. Ideally you should be sweating and tearing your hair out, that way victory is all the more sweet.

It also has to be climactic, the location and music have to be the best the game has to offer. High-up locations are preferable. I favour a climactic final battle over a difficult one.

Good final battles:

Chrono Trigger has a fantastic battle against Lavos' true form, an astronaut-like creature. The setting was in a time warp, the music was groovy and the creature was really tough. A great one.

Zelda: Links Awakening has a final battle against a shape-shifting 'nightmare'. He has eight different forms, each requiring a different attack strategy. To make the battle even cooler, he uses forms from Link's previous SNES adventure.

Homeworld's final mission was a frantic struggle to repair and reorganise your forces after wave after wave of enemy capital ships hits you, all with your homeworld hanging in the sky above. The emperors mothership was disappointingly easy to destroy though.

Bad final battles:

Deus Ex has three endings, but the final area resembles an obstacle course, filled with silly enemies and slightly ludicrous tasks to complete.

Max Payne had a cool setting (on top of a skyscraper) but in a game of massive shoot-out, the final battle was more of a puzzle. The final battle should NEVER be a puzzle!

BustaMike · November 6, 2002, 18:35

Bad Final Battles

Morrowind - Even thought the game is great the end to the main story is ridiculously easy and just plain stupid.

FFX - You can't die. WTF is up with that. Everytime the guy kills you you respawn.

Good Final Battles

Halo - the race to get to the escape pod is the best part of this game. **** is exploding everywhere while your cruisin' along in the warthog. It's great.

Urban Ranger · November 6, 2002, 22:37

Some of the best finales are ones you don't have to fight the boss/big bad guy/etc.

Wizardry 7 - Crusaders of the Dark Savant has one such ending.

Drake Tungsten · November 7, 2002, 00:06

SaGa Frontier had the worst ending ever when you beat it with Blue. After defeating the difficult Lord of Hell, the screen just faded to black and white and then said "The End". I thought the game had screwed up the first time I beat it, so I played it again. It hadn't messed up; it was just a super shitty ending. Worst. Ending. Ever.

loinburger · November 7, 2002, 00:51

Best: Fallout II, since there were oodles of ways to beat the game (but none of them were particularly simple).

Worst: Final Fantasy 6. "Hooray, you've beaten Kefka! Maybe if you'd done it a bit sooner, then world wouldn't be completely depopulated now!" Actually, any Final Fantasy game I've played follows this same general trend.

Skanky Burns · November 7, 2002, 01:39

Carrier Command had to have the worst ending of all.
You played this game over many months, finally defeat the enemy carrier in an epic battle, and all you get is a screen saying "You have won". Then about 3 seconds later it goes back to the title-screen.

Drake Tungsten · November 7, 2002, 02:43

Quote:

Carrier Command had to have the worst ending of all.
You played this game over many months, finally defeat the enemy carrier in an epic battle, and all you get is a screen saying "You have won". Then about 3 seconds later it goes back to the title-screen.

SaGa Frontier is worse. It doesn't even tell you if you won or not...

Mr. President · November 7, 2002, 07:08

Final Fantasy 2 on the SNES has a cool final boss, Zeromus, even though he looks like a brain that's been left out in the sun too long. Unfortunately, I always get completely slaughtered by him, so I couldn't tell you about the ending.

I actually liked Tatanga (if that was his name) in Super Mario Land. He was cool. The ending when you beat him is nothing to write home about, though.

The ending of Donkey Kong Country 3 is very cute.

Actually, all the Donkey Kong games have cute bosses and endings.

Grumbold · November 7, 2002, 07:31

I quite liked the different ways you could complete Deus Ex. The final level layout had to facilitate all the endings so it wasn't perfectly designed for any of them, I agree.

Fallout 1/2 had the excellent 'what happens now based on the things you did' endings. Much nicer than seeing a single fmv ending that is the same every time just because you beat the final boss.

Father Beast · November 7, 2002, 09:10

Monkey island 2 had a nasty bit at the end, where I was tearing my hair out trying to get everything together while i kept being stabbed by the voodoo needle. very frustrating. and then the ending sequence just left me hanging - going "What?!?!?".

Civ2 has the best ending that comes to mind, after you land on Alpha Centauri. maybe i'll think of a better later.

I don't think i've ever played a shooter through to the end.

axi · November 7, 2002, 14:09

HalfLife: Opposing Force has one of the most difficult and annoying finales I have seen.

DinoDoc · November 7, 2002, 15:58

Quote:

Originally posted by loinburger
Worst: Final Fantasy 6. "Hooray, you've beaten Kefka! Maybe if you'd done it a bit sooner, then world wouldn't be completely depopulated now!"

Did you ever try beating it sooner? I've never played a FF game before though.

Freedom Force has the best finale of the recent games I've played.

MattyBoy · November 7, 2002, 23:32

I can't think of many.
Can somebody remember what happened at the end of Doom 1 or 2?

Worst:
I don't like the silly looking ending in Master of Magic.

Best:
Nethack's finish is excellent, with the really awkward air and water levels followed by the end, which is a tactical, stressful battle in the semblance of a slugfest. The finish is satisfying and perfectly informative.
The worst thing about the end game is the ridiculous combination of things you have to do to get to the bottom level. That should at least be made more obvious via hints during the game.

loinburger · November 8, 2002, 00:00

Quote:

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Did you ever try beating it sooner? I've never played a FF game before though.

It's not possible to beat him before he's pretty much destroyed the world. Final Fantasy games are scripted up the wazoo. (Approximately, the last 1/2 to 2/3 of the game take place after the world's been cracked and almost everybody's been killed.)

Skanky Burns · November 8, 2002, 00:03

Doom 1 had you getting killed after reaching the end of Ep1, and then going to hell.
...

Actually, I can't remember more than that, despite the fact that I've finished all 3 episodes of 1 and finished 2 as well.

MattyBoy · November 8, 2002, 01:22

The DOOM endings are all a blur to me.
Don't tell me I have to play them through again.

catullus · November 8, 2002, 08:32

Doom episode endings were mostly text. Boring.
Except the cool one with a picture of your pet rabbit's head on a stake with cities burning in the background.

I like the UFO/XCOM loser slideshow.
And the Civ2 loser movie.

Worst ending must be XCOM 2 (TFTD). For the whole last level you are not allowed to save. The actual fight was, IIRC, pretty lame, and the win slideshow confusing.

C.

BustaMike · November 8, 2002, 17:46

The ending for the original halflife is kind of cool (even though the boss is dumb). The man in a suit gives you a choice. Come work for me or die. It's kind of funny. I swear if the game would just let me keep my weapons I could take those hundreds of aliens...

Traianvs · November 8, 2002, 18:25

Err, halflife was overdone... i mean... that guy in a suit so ridiculous, he's always watching you from a safe spot, with aliens crawling up my ass all over the place and he never gets threatened, i was also wondering how he could get in those neat safe places damnit!!

and the boss was so easy... hide behind the pillars, shoot, then hide again, etc..

Thrawn05 · November 8, 2002, 19:10

In AvpGE, The Marine and AL|EN endings were great.

Morrowind ending was good too (although Dagoth Ur looked like a sissy, but that's me).

The two ending battles for Total Annihilation was good.

The last battle for Force Commander was cool... although I rather be an Imperial then a stupid Rebel.

Which reminds me, the last battle in TIE Fighter was great. I'm glad Zarrin got what was comming to him.

The Grim Fandango ending was very cleaver, and I was very amussed. The same could be sad for most of the older DOS LucasArts "Point and Click" games.

Mordoch · November 8, 2002, 22:51

FF2 has an absolutely superb ending especially for when it was a new game. Most of planet is just fine at the end of the game, only a few locations were actually destroyed. The game goes to various cities you have traveled to and shows them rebuilding damage caused by recent fights in many instances. The game ends with the two primary charactors in the game's romantic subplot getting married and a final credits scene. I personally view FF2 as having one of the most rewarding end game scenes in a game I have played. P.S. Zeromus is definately beatable, you just have to remember that FF2 is an older school game that requires you to level up before beating the final boss. Be sure to fight Bahamut and defeat him so that Rydia can use that summon spell against Zeromus.

axi · November 9, 2002, 11:18

Opposing Force OTOH has you go on a platform, at one side of the giant monster with the killer beam attack and aim a laser installed there to it's eye until you blind it. Then go straight to the other side, do the same with another laser to the other eye. Then wait till it opens up it's belly, shoot your laser inside, when it closes up go to the floor level, kill an alien that has come out of it and then go again and do the same for about 3 TIMES (depends on the damage you do to the belly) without getting killed. After the first time, the bridge between the two sides collapses and you have to do the Tarzan thing with the barnacle and a spore plant hanging from one wall.

John D Ward · November 9, 2002, 12:16

Worst ending - The victory screens for Civ III

Best ending - The victory and defeat videos for Civ II

Moral: It may be more recent, but it is not progress!

loinburger · November 9, 2002, 13:35

FFVII gets special recognition for crappiness of ending, since not only does everybody get killed at the end (of course), but you also have to sit through the five minute "Supernova" sequence over and over again. It was cool to see once, it's not cool to see twenty times. (Same holds true for all of the summonings, though -- yeah, yeah, Bahamut Zero sure looks cool, now please just give me the option of skipping his animations...)

Kassiopeia · November 9, 2002, 14:40

Best ending: tough one. In FFVIII's ending video, the part about Laguna and Raine was really touching...

Worst ending: Civ3. I mean, you get to space and get a text box?

Quote:

Originally posted by loinburger
FFVII gets special recognition for crappiness of ending, since not only does everybody get killed at the end (of course),

They do? I always thought... eh... I guess they did.

Quote:

but you also have to sit through the five minute "Supernova" sequence over and over again.

I only saw it once; and I had relatevily weak characters at that battle.

But the summon animations otherwise really would need cutting, during KotR I could go grap a cup of coffee.

Sandman · November 9, 2002, 17:42

Remember folks, it's the finale, not the end sequence.

Mr. President · November 12, 2002, 06:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Mordoch
Be sure to fight Bahamut and defeat him so that Rydia can use that summon spell against Zeromus.

I think that might be the problem, I breezed through the moon and the Bab-Il Giant and I'm only level 45 average. Plus I didn't get Bahamut.

The last level of WarCraft II is really frenetic and fun, though hard. I must have gotten massacred fifty times before I got the idea to attack with about a hundred dragons.

Mordoch · November 12, 2002, 16:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Mr. President

I think that might be the problem, I breezed through the moon and the Bab-Il Giant and I'm only level 45 average. Plus I didn't get Bahamut.

Bahamut is in another cave on the moon. You could exit Zeromus's lair and go to the other cave to fight Bahamut. Going through Bahamut's cave would also be a good way to raise your charactors' levels as well.

Dis · November 13, 2002, 20:59

Fallout I and II without a doubt- despite a few minor bugs.

Civ2 was decent.

Civ3 is pretty lame. Especially for the other victory types.

Baldur's Gate 2 was decent and the exp pack for that.

Diablo1 and 2 were OK. The movies were of good quality though.

Axis and Allies ending was lame, but of course the gameplay is what the game is about. It is a computerized board game after all.

fallout: tactics had 3 seperate endings, but still could not compare to the original games.

That's all I can think of. Looking through some of my games, the games either did not have endings (madden football), or I have never beaten the game (like black and white- I grew bored of that in a day)

Skanky Burns · November 13, 2002, 23:17

Thief 1 and 2 had very nice endings. Then again, I loved the whole atmosphere of the two games.