I'm old fashioned in the sense that I believe that a game's ending should be some sort of reward -- in a broader sense, that seeing an ending should mean something. I thought Street Fighter 2 did a good job with this. If you're not good at the game, because it's new to you, you can play on difficulty 1 if you want. But, because beating that difficulty level is meaningless, you get no reward for doing so. You don't get to see the ending until you beat level 4 (at least on the Turbo version). And that, I thought, was more meaningful. I wasn't able to beat level 4 with Ryu, for example, until I could dragon punch Chun Li out of the sky. And then higher difficulties offer higher rewards.

Contrast this with a lot of modern games, which have only one ending, and seeing them is meaningless.


So, basically, multiple endings are okay (and maybe even are sort of necessary) if a game has multiple things to reward you for.

I think Chrono Trigger's multiple endings are overrated. For the most part, you only need to see the first one. Most of the others aren't very good. Secondly, they aren't really a reward for anything. Playing through the game a second time is easier than playing through it once -- why do you need a reward for that? Plus, the New Game + mode is rather boring, as it's now way too easy, so it doesn't seem worth it to me to get the other endings (though I've gotten almost all of them at least once).

The only other Chrono Trigger ending which can be good is the programmer's ending, and indeed that one could kind of be a reward, too, since beating the game with Chrono alone at the beginning of the game can be another challenge (provided you do so after playing through the game once or twice, and not forty times).

I can't speak for most RPGs with multiple endings - I haven't played many of them (I've never played Breath of Fire). But, yeah, if you've beaten the game and think you deserve an ending, I can see how it would be annoying to not get one.


I don't like games that are fun.