Alternate endings: yay or nay

[Spirit]

I'm mostly talking about video games here but i'll make mention to movies too hence dropping this thread in the media subforum.

Anyway, what are your opinions on alternate endings?

I both love and hate them. If the alternate ending is part of a stand alone movie or game then that's fair enough, if there is only going to be the one then more than one ending is fine with me... Where i disagree with alternate endings is in video games and movies that have sequels...

For example; Prince of Persia: Warrior Within had an alternate ending, and to be honest it was pretty hard to get. You had to get all the health upgrades and the water sword and take out the Dahaka to get it, I didn't mind this until the next game 'Two Thrones' took its lead from the alternate ending instead of the one most people got, this bugged me because it meant that Two Thrones had to spend a good portion of its lengthy introduction explaining why certain characters were still alive...

This happens in movies too...

So, what are your opinions on alternate endings?

 

[Azure Sage]

Honestly, I don't like them. They're just a nuisance for me because it means if I want to see the others or the proper one I had to do the entire game all over again. I put it in the same category as sidequests that can be missed after a certain point.

 

[Musicfan]

I honestly do care either way. Alternet endings add to the replayablity of the game and let you make new choise or explor different areas.

 

[Djinn]

They definitely made Chrono Trigger much more enjoyable. What would typically be a short RPG got me to replay it over and over again because there are a few dozen random endings to that game depending on what you do and how you do it. Same with Seiken Densetsu 3 considering it has 3 separate end game bosses and three endings depending on the team comp you pick out at the beginning of the game.

 

[Wolf Sage]

I quite like them. It's not like they take anything away from the main game/movie. If nothing, they add more to the overall experience. Speaking of which, I really need to get back to Asura's Wrath and defeat Chakravartin.

 

[Trio the Punch]

I really don't care for alternate endings. They seem to inevitably make the entire experience less tight and I don't really like the constant in-game stress of worrying about how I might be effecting what ending I get based on whether I miss **** or not. I also don't like needing to play a game over and over to fully complete it. I also really hate the whole idea of moral choices influencing the path of a game that has become so popular lately. I don't like having to tailor my playstyle to the game's whims so that I can earn every dumb variation of "THIS IS WHERE YOUR CHOICES GOT YOU". That said, this problem is really only relevant when all that's changing is the cutscene for the ending. When I get an entire extra leg of the game, complete with a hidden boss, then I'm totally on board with an alternate ending. Like, a true ending type deal. But only if earning it is based on completing gameplay challenges and not some arbitrary decision about whether or not I kill some ****ing NPC. I don't really care about narrative consistency when it comes to sequels so it doesn't bug me if a game wants to pick a secret ending to jump off of for its sequel. I honestly don't pay attention to stories in games much anyway, so that aspect of a branching narrative is fine with me. In some cases I think alternate endings can add a lot of strength to a narrative, even. The Stanley Parable was all about that shizz. But for the mostpart, I like going through a game once, then one more time to one hundred percent it. I don't like having this nagging thought that there's still an entire other play through that I'll need to do to actually have completed the game. I think perhaps the most egregious form of alternate endings would be those of the Persona series, where there's like a hundred ****ing endings per entry and all of them are based on completing certain TIME SENSITIVE events within a playthrough. In fact, everything about the way that Persona makes it impossible to see everything in one playthrough pisses me the hell off and is a huge reason why I completely gave up on P3. I don't like replaying the same game lots of times, I guess, would be the central theme of this post.

 

[Fiery Klongo]

I really dont like alternate endings in most games. One or twice Ive seen some that I did like, but not for Zelda.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

I'm not to big on them.

 

[Dio]

I quite like them. It's not like they take anything away from the main game/movie. If nothing, they add more to the overall experience. Speaking of which, I really need to get back to Asura's Wrath and defeat Chakravartin.

Love that game

Anyway, alternate endings are not something I would be a huge fan of in a lot of games. However in games like fallout where player choice is really important and part of the experience to such a massive degree that it just wouldn't make sense to have only the one ending.