1103: One Hundred Percent

I very rarely “100%” the games I play. The reason for this is that in many cases, doing so involves a lot of abject tedium and just stops being fun after a while. Often it requires the systematic use of a walkthrough to find all the hidden packages/shoot all the pigeons/see all the events, and once you start playing with a walkthrough next to you, I often feel you’re missing out on part of the game’s fun — discovery.

And yet I find myself tempted to pursue all of the endings in Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2 simply because it’s one of the most enjoyable, entertaining games I’ve played for a very long time. Whether or not this means I will actually play through the whole thing enough times to get each separate ending or just cheat the system with a well-timed save I haven’t decided yet… but I do sort of want to see all the different endings and all the content on offer.

An exception to the 100% rule is visual novels. I’ll usually try and see everything a visual novel has to offer before moving on, because it’s often quite straightforward to do so — though in games with a huge number of decision points like School Days HQ, it’s often quite a time-consuming process. I have, to date, 100%ed several visual novels, though, including Katawa Shoujo and Kana Little Sister. When I finished them, I did feel satisfied that I’d seen everything the game had to offer because, in those cases, very little felt like filler.

In the case of RPGs, though, a lot of that additional content to push you up towards the magic 100% figure is very grindy, rather dull and has nothing to do with the story. But in some cases, the game can wrap you up in its world and its systems enough for that to not matter. Final Fantasy VII is the earliest example I can think of that my friends and I worked all the way through and acquired (almost) all of the secret stuff — all the hidden materias, all the nightmarish Chocobo breeding and at least a good attempt at the secret areas and bosses. We loved that game so much we didn’t want to stop playing; pursuing these time-consuming, ultimately irrelevant and often game-breaking sidequests meant we could continue playing for longer, so we did. Then we played it again. To date, I have no idea how my friends and I found time to complete Final Fantasy VII as many times as we did.

So far as Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2 goes, a single playthrough is apparently relatively short (for an RPG, anyway) and thus charging through it multiple times isn’t out of the question. The advent of the “New Game+” mode means that you can carry a bunch of stuff over from game to game, too; given that a number of the endings are dependent on some gradually-increasing relationship statistics that will likely be a bit of a pain to achieve in a single playthrough without some serious grinding, it almost makes sense to play it through several times to make building up these values a more natural process. Hmm. Hmm.

Oh, what the hell. I saw all four endings of Nier (and had my save file deleted by the game to prove it) and enjoyed the experience hugely. (Yes, I enjoyed Nier.) It is but a small jump from four different endings to seven, right?

Right?

Place your bets now on how many I get through before I give up.

#oneaday Day 786: On Endings

I’m not going to discuss Mass Effect 3‘s ending here, largely because, as you all know, I have not played the game, nor will I be doing so. I have, however, been reading up on it and I understand that it is SUPER-MILD SPOILER rather bittersweet — or just plain bitter, if you prefer to look at it that way. /SUPER-MILD SPOILER

There’s been a ton of coverage regarding fan outcry over the ending. For the most part, those complaining about the ending (and even, in some cases, petitioning BioWare to change it) have been held up as figures of ridicule, the exemplification of that overused and increasingly meaningless word “entitlement”. Some professional industry commentators have even taken to insulting and verbally abusing people who believe that the ending is “wrong”, with one notable example referring to anyone who had criticised either Mass Effect 3‘s controversial DLC strategy or its ending as “whiny fucking babies”. (That netted an instant total loss of respect and an unfollow from me, incidentally, not that the person in question likely cared.)

Other outlets took a slightly more measured approach to criticising this group, noting that forcing BioWare to change its creative work according to public opinion rather than steadfastly sticking to the ending it chose to write would cause Mass Effect to cease being art and to simply be another product. (I would argue — and have done — that it’s already there, but that’s a whole other issue.) Meanwhile, articles like this one, that offer a well-considered message of support to disenfranchised fans, are rather more rare.

I’m not quite sure where I stand on the debate. From what I understand of the ending, the thing that people are most upset about is the fact that it appears to render most of the decisions made throughout the course of the entire three-game series completely irrelevant. Given that this “decision-making, choose-your-own-adventure then deal with the consequences” nature has been a key selling point for the entire Mass Effect series, I can see why people would be pissed off about it. And if this truly is the case (still haven’t played it, remember) then I’d be inclined to come down on the side of supporting those who are upset at the ending.

On the flip side, I have nothing against a bittersweet ending. In fact, some of my favourite endings over the years have been bittersweet ones. (Spoilers ahead. Highlight the text to read it. Mobile users, copy and paste the white text into a note or something.) Take Conker’s Bad Fur Day, for example, where despite kicking all kinds of ass throughout the course of the game, culminating in an epic battle spoofing Alien, Conker’s girlfriend, whom he has simply been trying to make it home to for the whole game, is still dead. Or Final Fantasy XIII-2 (another game which saw a bit of fan upset regarding the ending, though not to the degree of spawning a petition) where Serah dies in Noel’s arms, having suffered a vision just like all the Yeuls the duo had seen throughout the course of the game — a possibility which the game had set up and repeatedly reminded the player of throughout. Or To The Moon, where the old man dies and it’s still massively upsetting despite the fact you’ve known for the whole game it’s going to happen. Or how about Persona 3 (I haven’t played FES yet so don’t spoil it if I’m wrong here!) where it’s rather strongly implied that the protagonist dies peacefully on the school rooftop surrounded by his friends. Or Persona 4, where after spending a year with people, building up close friendships, solving a series of horrible murders and eventually saving the world, you have to leave them all behind by getting on a train and not looking back. I even loved Fallout 3‘s original ending, where the player character dies a horrible, painful death in a radiation-filled room while saving everyone else. Or… you get the idea by now, surely.

I liked all of those endings. I thought they were effective and, in many cases, quite moving. I think the difference we’re seeing with Mass Effect 3, however, is that the ending is being seen as rather at odds with the way the rest of the game — nay, series — has played out to date, and fans feel that they are being cheated out of the choice of ending that they want, deserve, whatever you want to call it. Of course, there is a very complicated flowchart in a ring binder somewhere in BioWare HQ that maps out all the possibile decisions players might have made over the course of the three Mass Effect games, and attempting to untangle that in order to produce an ending that would satisfy everyone would be absolutely impossible.

Without getting into spoiler territory here, though, I feel it would at least have been possible for there to be one or two alternative ways for the saga to end besides those which are already there — and which are, from what I’ve read, relatively similar in their execution, if not their consequences and eventual outcome. It seems very strange for BioWare to do this given that they’ve been so good at endings in the past — look at the variety of ways Dragon Age: Origins can conclude, for example, whereby the player is pushed towards the final battle of the game, making it seem like a linear run to the finish, but is then thrown a number of massive decision points that significantly affect exactly how the ending goes down. The outcome is the same in each case, but the means by which it is achieved is enormously different — and, more to the point, is dependent on player choice as well as how they have played their character up until that point, factors which Mass Effect fans feel that the trilogy’s conclusion is not taking into account.

Basically, I can see both sides of the argument here, though both sides also have a lot to learn about respectful debate. Many in each camp are making valid points which then have all credibility removed when someone causes things to descend into name-calling and hair-pulling. A debate over something like this should be interesting and exciting, not leaving everyone involved and any onlookers feeling faintly disgusted and ashamed. A game provoking such discussion should be celebrated; instead, this whole episode is proving to be something of an ugly blot on gaming history.

#oneaday Day 693: Endings

I finished L.A. Noire tonight. MILD SPOILER: It’s somewhat bittersweet. I liked it, because it was entirely in keeping with the genre in question.

Endings are a tricky business, though, whatever medium you’re working in. The temptation to have a happy ending where everything resolves itself nicely is always strong, because everyone likes things to be “resolved” and for characters they’ve spent a hefty amount of time with to have some degree of “closure”. Leaving things hanging either leaves an author open to accusations of planning a sequel, or leaving the audience unsatisfied.

I wrestled with this particular conundrum throughout the course of the month-long piece of fiction I wrote over the course of November. In fact, for the final post, I rewrote the ending several times. I eventually plumped for a “happy” ending because I felt it was in keeping with the personal journey my protagonist had been on — to smack him down after everything he’d been through would be a bit harsh.

Well, yes, it would — but equally, a harsh ending isn’t necessarily a bad one. In fact, a bittersweet ending where not everyone leaves feeling satisfied can actually be very effective and memorable. I’m not going to spoil L.A. Noire‘s ending here in case there are people reading who haven’t played it yet, but instead I’m going to talk about the first game I remember to have a strikingly “bad” ending — and I’m not talking “bad” in the sense of “poor”.

Rare’s Conker’s Bad Fur Day was a peculiar game. Starting out as one of the cutesy platformers that typified a lot of the N64’s catalogue, it eventually morphed into something completely unexpected: a “mature” title. Now, by maintaining the game’s original cartoony visuals, there was an element of immaturity about it, too, particularly when combined with the not-very-well bleeped out swearing, the grotesquely excessive violence and the crude situations (a bee cheating on his wife by humping a large-breasted sunflower (off-screen, but very audible) being a particularly memorable example). But there was an undercurrent of maturity about the whole thing, too — the game treated the player as an adult who enjoyed puerile humour but was capable of understanding pathos and an impressively wide range of references to movies and popular culture.

Most notably, though, it had a brilliant ending that not only spoofed Alien fantastically, it also managed to provide a genuine “What the fu–” moment in a game that prided itself on its ridiculousness throughout. By providing a sobering, heartbreaking ending after the hours of cartoonish insanity which had preceded it, the game was giving the player a very marked wake-up call. It was marking the end of your time in this brightly coloured world filled with chocolate, poo monsters and cogs which told you to fuck off. It was time to wise up and start being a grown-up again. It also mirrored Conker’s own journey throughout the course of the game — the basic premise of his whole adventure was him attempting to get home and recover from the mother of all hangovers. The most sobering experience he could have was the loss of the one he loved.

This isn’t to say that good endings aren’t satisfying — who doesn’t like to see the Death Star blowing up? But a well-made “bad” ending can be just as — if not more so — effective at tugging at the heartstrings and provoking an emotional response. To date, my favourite game endings include the aforementioned Conker along with Silent Hill 2, surely one of the most depressing interactive experiences you could ever sit through — but all the better for it. Heavy Rain, for all its plot holes and flaws, also had a great “bad” ending. Several, in fact.

So what makes an effective ending? For me, it’s a sense of “closure”, that this is most definitely and unequivocally “the end” — whether that’s because everyone is dead, because the planet is saved or simply because our lead characters are closing one chapter in their lives and starting a new one. Get me invested in your characters and I’ll care what happens to them — so make sure whatever shenanigans they’re involved in reaches some sort of satisfying conclusion — even if you’re planning a sequel.