Um...at the end of the first Diablo game, YOU shove a crystal containing Diablo's spirit INTO YOUR FRIGGING SKULL. And you WATCH it happen...in first person!

The view of yourself doing this, and the knowledge that you're now going to become the next Diablo...little bit of a bummer!

getting to the end and then being told the princess was in another castle kinda pissed me off

List fails without I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

Loom. WTF was THAT shiat about?

I think the non happy ending isn't used enough in games, just like in movies. I loved how the Force Unleashed ended, was quite pissed to see they made a shiatty sequel where the protagonist was alive again.

Castlevania 2 had an alt ending where Simon Beaumont dies, it was the first one I saw and didn't realize at the time there were alternate endings (I was twelve maybe).
The ending to Full Throttle was depressing in that it was set up for a sequel that never happened.

dittybopper: List fails without Silent Hunter III: No matter how good you are, no matter how many Allied ships you sink, no matter what you do, Germany loses WWII.

Ah, dittybopper. I know you from the SubSim forums.

You know what's depressing? Getting a Type-XX with all the fixings and STILL getting nailed!!!!

I'm starting to notice a trend on these entertainment media blogs (especially video game-related blogs) where the writer pretends to have knowledge of something, but it's clear that they cobbled their ideas together from a crowdsourced list of options, whatever they could find on Wikipedia, and watching a few videos on Youtube.

Case in point: Shadow of the Colossus. Anyone who's actually played the game knows A) The horse doesn't die, but rather, returns for the finale with a noticeable limp and B) The ending implies that Wander lives on as the horned boys, one of whom will eventually become Ico.

What's truly depressing about the Mass Effect 3 ending is not the end itself, but rather, the sense that nothing that you've done matters because all you've done is break a cycle that will probably re-establish itself if the races of the galaxy can even manage to survive. Most of the games on this list have endings in which the player does save the day to some degree, even if some tragedy does occur in the end.

I also am surprised not to see Red Dead Redemption on the list, because it's a game with one of the best and most tragic endings in interactive storytelling.

The "default" ending of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is also quite tragic, but I guess no one's faked out by that anymore.

I can only assume the author has never played Max Payne 3?

There was a PS2 game whose name escapes me, but after a bunch of trials, you managed to resurrect the Jesus/King Arthur figure of the world so he can fight the bad guys and save everyone, and just as you do, the main villain shows up, takes you hostage, and then the newly back hero guy sacrifices himself to save you. So the villain agrees to let you live and actually honors his promise after killing hero guy. They just pack up and leave you, stranded at the north pole with the corpse of the Savior who died to save you.

Anyone remember the game?

Usurper4: Um...at the end of the first Diablo game, YOU shove a crystal containing Diablo's spirit INTO YOUR FRIGGING SKULL. And you WATCH it happen...in first person!

The view of yourself doing this, and the knowledge that you're now going to become the next Diablo...little bit of a bummer!

And killing your father (Leoric/the Skeleton King) and brother (Albrecht) in the process, if you were the warrior.

Mass Effect 3's ending isn't depressing because it's unhappy, it's depressing because it's so mind-bendingly stupid. You're forced to sit there and wonder how everything could have gone so horribly wrong at Bioware.

CapnPlaty: I think the non happy ending isn't used enough in games, just like in movies. I loved how the Force Unleashed ended, was quite pissed to see they made a shiatty sequel where the protagonist was alive again.

Castlevania 2 had an alt ending where Simon Beaumont dies, it was the first one I saw and didn't realize at the time there were alternate endings (I was twelve maybe).
The ending to Full Throttle was depressing in that it was set up for a sequel that never happened.

Castlevania has a lot of really well done bad endings where the bad guy either wins or the good guy makes the ultimate sacrifice to protect the world.

SWtFU II did a decent job trying to tell how Starkiller came back but they lost that in the story sadly. Should of been the main focus. I wanted to know if he was a clone or the original brought back to life again (Yes, Vader kills him twice in Force Unleashed).

secularsage: I'm starting to notice a trend on these entertainment media blogs (especially video game-related blogs) where the writer pretends to have knowledge of something, but it's clear that they cobbled their ideas together from a crowdsourced list of options, whatever they could find on Wikipedia, and watching a few videos on Youtube.

Case in point: Shadow of the Colossus. Anyone who's actually played the game knows A) The horse doesn't die, but rather, returns for the finale with a noticeable limp and B) The ending implies that Wander lives on as the horned boys, one of whom will eventually become Ico.


THIS

He sounded like an absolute idiot describing FF 7. SOTC has an absolutely beautiful ending and I didnt' view the colossi as innocent beings but as inanimate dirt that splintered pieces of an evil soul occupied. Wanderer isn't evil and in the end he saves a life, inadvertently destroys a deceitful and banished god, and all at no cost to the living.

Anyways I still like the ending to ME3.

Also by this guys' standards how did Brood War not make the list? Insectoid species dominates the galaxy as a single hive, beats the earth fleet, nearly destroys the Protoss and other Terran, and has created a genetic hybrid that could be even more devastating.

Not a bad list, even if people will argue endlessly over putting FFVII at the top.

I still wish they'd included Mercenary Force for the original Game Boy (or, at least, the only ending to that game that doesn't require you to do something that makes less than zero tactical sense).

Son of Thunder: List fails without I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

I actually know what that is without clicking. Could never get very far.

The list is missing Freespace 1 and 2. Both end in big explosions and lots of questions with no answers.
Halo Reach was both depressing and cryptic. It presumes you've played all of the other halos to make even partial sense of the ending.
Call of duty, any of them. Everyone dies, always. Especially player characters.
Halflife, both were vague cliffhangers.

Games and happy endings are a rare pairing now that I think about it.

ME3s ending isn't depressing, it just blows chunks.

ctrl + f 'Ico'

List is, as usual, found lacking.

thecpt: Also by this guys' standards how did Brood War not make the list? Insectoid species dominates the galaxy as a single hive, beats the earth fleet, nearly destroys the Protoss and other Terran, and Duran has created a genetic hybrid that could be even more devastating.

Note: at the end of brood war Kerrigan has more or less conquered the Koprulu sector, not the galaxy as a whole. Also, Duran was behind the hybrids, and last we saw, he's *not* affiliated with the zerg anymore, and is strongly implied to be working for the xel'naga (or to actually *be* one of them).

Halo Reach was pretty depressing at the end, but I still enjoyed it.

The original DOOM had a pretty downer ending, now that I think about it.

You fight your way out of the depths of Hell only to find that Hell has come to Earth.

Super Mario Bros 2 (it was all a dream!) was a bit anticlimactic.

thecpt: Anyways I still like the ending to ME3.

You have thus established that you are not a credible analyst.

FarkedOver: Red Dead Redemption's ending was pretty depressing.

/dnrtfa

It was depressing, but well written and appropriate for the story. ME3's ending was neither.

Derwood: I can only assume the author has never played Max Payne 3?

What was wrong with Max Payne 3's ending? I thought the last level was pants tighteningly awesome. Can't really remember anything bad about how the story wrapped up either. I thought it was a damn fine end.

I saw two games on that list and a bunch of stupid crap from Japan.

Strategeryz0r: Derwood: I can only assume the author has never played Max Payne 3?

What was wrong with Max Payne 3's ending? I thought the last level was pants tighteningly awesome. Can't really remember anything bad about how the story wrapped up either. I thought it was a damn fine end.

Didn't say it was bad, just that the entire story was depressing as hell.

Son of Thunder: List fails without I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.

Having read the story, it was the ending that was suppose to happen.

CapnPlaty: I think the non happy ending isn't used enough in games, just like in movies.

Oh, for fark's sake it's the trope of the GenX generation at this point. It stopped being edgy ten farking years ago, if not twenty. If not a sad ending per se, the "every victory will be either ridiculously Pyrrhic and/or completely undone and/or after the protagonist dies" is a goddamn cliche after all this (in no particular order):

A Game of Thrones
Battlestar Galactica
X-Men: First Class
The Sopranos
The Walking Dead
The Grey
Sin City
300
Star Wars: Episode III
Evangelion
Fate/Stay Night
Matrix Revolutions
Saving Private Ryan
[every gore-nography film in existence]
American Beauty
Shutter Island
The Last Samurai
The Dark Knight

That's off the top of my head. We can quibble on this or that, but if you want to get flippant about it I can replace every title you disagree with two more "ZOMG this is SOOO edgy because it's DARK" title that today's pop culture eats up like candy. That's not enough? You need MOAR?

This isn't to say that gloomy fiction or sad endings are inherently bad. Some of the above are very good. However, a lot of emo trope is getting a free pass simply because it's dark with the same idiocy that Baby Boomer "classics" are a bunch of crap by druggies that sound nostalgic to a bunch of ex-druggies. The fact that there are more "dark" titles than can fill my head are out there yet people are scrambling for more pretty much goes to show we aren't even close to saturation yet.

Conker's Bad Fur Day (surrounded by tards for eternity), and Freespace 2 (didn't play 1).

Derwood: Strategeryz0r: Derwood: I can only assume the author has never played Max Payne 3?

What was wrong with Max Payne 3's ending? I thought the last level was pants tighteningly awesome. Can't really remember anything bad about how the story wrapped up either. I thought it was a damn fine end.

Didn't say it was bad, just that the entire story was depressing as hell.

It had it's moments of depression, but the end I thought was a happy note. Exacted your revenge on the UFE leader in a pretty glorious way, took down the other bad guy, retired to a sunny place with a warm beach and well stocked bar, and lived life away from the insanity.

Rest of the story was depressing, but Max finally got what he deserved by the end. Don't think that quite qualifies as a depressing ending.

Final Fantasy X -
Link

To this day, when I re-play the game I can't bring myself to actually beat it because the ending is too sad.

Metal Gear Solid 4 was a bummer at about 3 different times, yanking you all over the place before it finally settled. MGS3 was even more depressing, setting the stage for Big Boss' ultimate downfall.

Demon's and Dark Souls are sort of depressing if you manage to follow the scattered plot by reading all the dialogues and item flavor text.

Limbo (downloadable PC/360/PS3 game) is depressing throughout, but the ending especially.

Red Dead Redemption?

Really? That ending sucked so much, it literally made me emotional

secularsage: I'm starting to notice a trend on these entertainment media blogs (especially video game-related blogs) where the writer pretends to have knowledge of something, but it's clear that they cobbled their ideas together from a crowdsourced list of options, whatever they could find on Wikipedia, and watching a few videos on Youtube.

thecpt: He sounded like an absolute idiot describing FF 7.

Except that FF7 really is that vapid.

The new Medal of Honor was pretty depressing at the end... but it got such bad press for having the Taliban in it I don't think many people bought/finished it.

Siphon Filter was incapable of producing a satisfying ending in any game from the series while progressively getting worse each time out. The games were decent which made them suck all the more.

All the endings for shadow of chernobyl except for the grass ending.

capnmonkey: Final Fantasy X -
Link

To this day, when I re-play the game I can't bring myself to actually beat it because the ending is too sad.

Crisis Core always makes me shed a tear when I play that game. And I knew what was going to happen long before it was going to end. That game has one of the best sad endings ever. Just because you know its coming and you still can not help but feel bad.

pSPAZz: The new Medal of Honor was pretty depressing at the end... but it got such bad press for having the Taliban in it I don't think many people bought/finished it.

I loved the ending to MoH. Depressing, yet poignant. Actually really looking forward to the new one.