Multiple Endings

     Every story has an ending. Same goes to games. When a game's story ends, that's it. There might be some sequel baiting or some unfilled plot holes, but point is this is how the story ends for this particular title and as far as that IP's universe is concerned, it all ends right there. The ending might be great, it could be sad, it could be confusing, yet make you want to play through again to see if you get it the second time, and it could also be non-canon at all. WHAT!? I played through this game and the end title card tells me I can unlock another ending? What does that even mean?

     Here's my problem with multiple endings: it gets a little complex when you try to figure out if all that just happened in the story actually happened. If the main ending is canon, it means everything that happened did in fact happen. If it is non-canon, then what is the point? Some games pull the devious act of telling you your “true” ending is only unlocked on the hardest difficulty. It is never the original ending obtained by completing the game without doing any special side missions or getting 100% completion. If you block your best conclusion to a story behind a wall that not many people will even attempt to climb over, then why put it in?

     Dishonored is an example of this. It has two endings that I know of: one of which is if you so much as kill one person, you get the “bad” ending. I won't spoil what happens, but it shouldn't be hard to figure out. The “good” ending only occurs if you spare every life and only incapacitate your victims or have them eliminated by other non-lethal means. This means that if I want to play as an assassin who kills so many people in a variety of ways, I get stuck with a terrible ending. I have to play a specific way, despite the freedom of choice, or I don't see the better ending.

     What could be worse? Why, making endings a collect-a-thon. Guess who is most notorious for this? It's one of the world's greatest RPGs Chrono Trigger. If you beat the game under specific conditions, you unlock other endings. I don't know how many you can unlock, but it's at least ten. I have to play through the game ten times at the minimum just to see what changes after I kill Lavos. Usually, it's very slight. The change could very well be a tiny difference that holds no impact on the overall story. As for which of those endings is canon to the Chrono Trigger universe, I have no clue. It just feels like a way to force replayability on a title. Granted, I am not saying Chrono Trigger is at terrible game. If I could find it again, I would replay it. I just dislike the separate endings with obscure and cryptic requirements to unlock.

     I have seen multiple endings done right, however. So far, Radiata Stories does a fairly good job of that. What happens is in the middle of the game's story, you are presented with a choice. This choice will affect who can be recruited into your party and who becomes your enemies. It also changes the story dramatically. One road leads to one ending, another leads to another ending. As for the ending that is canon, the “Non-human” path is accepted as being the “true” ending. It's just better in terms of how everything turns out. The “Human” path just fills you with regret and tears, but it was still well executed. This method encourages replaying the game at least one more time to see what would happen if you went down this road.

     There is some appeal in multiple endings. I see that. It just becomes a frustrating chore when you try to view a specific ending only to find out that you must go through an overly intricate system of tasks and tribulations that would make a Rube Goldberg machine look ridiculously simple and straightforward. Kind of like the Stanley Parable. A game that is all about endings has you doing all sorts of things just to find out what will happen, how Stanley will end his story, and if the narrator says anything humorous. If it feels like a contest, you will flip tables and throw chairs to find out how to get that specific ending.

     However, the Stanley Parable encourages exploration and finding out how you can end your story. I absolutely love that about the game. It makes me not care about what I have to do to earn a specific ending. I just walk around ignoring the narrator or doing some of what he says and seeing what happens. But the overall point is this: making a bunch of endings that have no real bearing on the story of the universe just makes the game a collect-a-thon that requires a playthrough of the exact same content countless times. If the game plays differently towards these alternate endings, that would help replayability, but it would still make no sense in the story of that particular IP. Unless maybe you have some game with five characters who have their own stories separate from the others along with unique gameplay mechanics for each as well as five distinct endings. Maybe that would be an exception.