1572: Bad End

Been feeling pretty low today (well, all week, really) so naturally, the best possible thing I could do in my mental state was to play Steins;Gate.

Steins;Gate isn’t an “utsuge” (“depression game”) or anything, but it certainly doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the emotional side of things. And it’s also an apt demonstration of how the visual novel medium makes the process of seeking out “bad” endings a desirable process rather than an inconvenience.

I’ve pointed this out before when talking about other games, most notably Corpse Party, which only has one story-advancing true ending per chapter and then a wide selection of bad endings that inflict varying amounts of unpleasantness on the main cast. And yet even though you know these bad endings are going to be bad — the clue’s in the name, yo — it’s hard not to indulge a sort of morbid curiosity just to see what happens. And, to these games’ credit, your curiosity is usually rewarded through some deeper character insights or events you might not see normally — just before everything goes horribly wrong, of course.

Steins;Gate’s non-True endings aren’t depicted as “bad” endings as such, just alternate ends to the story. And yet each of the four I’ve seen so far — I still have two to go, including the True — have been traumatic and bleak to varying degrees.

And you know what, I’ve loved every minute of them, even in (or perhaps because of) as dark a mood as I’ve been this week. Each of them has provided an interesting twist on and conclusion to the narrative, bringing the story to a convincing close without giving that dissatisfying feeling of “you fucked up, game over, try again”. Each of them has been enormously emotionally engaging, and the fact each one of them focuses on one of the main cast members provides deeper insights into these individuals that, by the time you reach one of the endings of the game, you’ve spent at least 30 hours or so with.

What’s been interesting about a lot of them is that they tie in nicely with the themes of the game. The central concept of Steins;Gate revolves around two different plausible implementations of time travel: manipulating the past by sending email messages to the past, and sending your memories back through time to an earlier incarnation of yourself, thereby being able to act accordingly to ensure something happens — or prevent it from happening. Among this, there’s lots of discussion of worldlines, parallel worlds, attractor fields and all manner of other well fleshed-out scientific and pseudoscientific theories. As you might expect, tinkering around with worldlines, parallel worlds and past incarnations has all manner of potential to become royally screwed up, and the various non-True endings tend to revolve around dealing with the consequences of this tinkering.

One ending, for example, explores what would happen if the only means of preventing something awful happening would be to voluntarily create a time loop and repeat the same events over and over again. Another explores what would happen if your changes to the worldline meant you’d never met your friends. Another still questions the consequences of making a decision where you know one person will get hurt — or worse — even as you choose to make someone else happy.

They’re all fascinating “what if” questions, but they’re all tinged with sadness to one degree or another. Even the “Mayuri” ending, which forms the non-negotiable endpoint of the game if you’ve failed to trigger enough “True Ending” flags by a certain point in the narrative, is pretty heartbreaking — and by that point there are no more choices to make, so you have to live with them, at least until you start the game again and make sure you trigger all the True Ending flags this time!

I’m interested to see what the last two endings have in store. Without wanting to give anything away, I’m guessing that the one remaining non-True ending will effectively be the opposite of one of the endings I’ve already seen — said ending involved a seemingly binary choice — but as for the true ending? I genuinely have no idea how that’s going to play out. But I’m excited to find out.