Should FE titles have multiple endings with possible bad ends?

[henrymidfields]

I'm not talking about FE Fates with its three branches of fairly happy endings; nor I'm talking about half-baked attempts like in Binding Blade or Mystery of the Emblem, with only a couple of lines in the epilogue. I'm talking about full bad endings scenes from wrong decisions done in, say, Persona. Playing Persona 4 for the first time, what I liked about the entry was how the threat to screw up the otherwise lighthearted story was there. I wonder what it would have been like if politics-heavy titles like the Tellius/Jugdral games had bad or premature ends where:

• the campaign/strategy fails, the player character's army surrenders, and the enemy's empire expands, or otherwise show more details in the outcomes, instead of just a simple game over screen.
• Or where some specific units from earlier chapters are dead, and now you cannot use them as pawns for diplomacy. It's a fight to the death against the enemy's empire. You win, but at a huge cost to your own country with ravaged cities, and with a bitter, resentful protectorate that may revolt and retaliate sometime in the future. In a better ending, both you and the enemy come forth to discuss, and more people return home safely, and people are more willing to work with, and not against.

Edited August 27, 2018 by henrymidfields

[omegaxis1]

12 minutes ago, henrymidfields said:

I'm not talking about FE Fates with its three branches of fairly happy endings; nor I'm talking about half-baked attempts like in Binding Blade or Mystery of the Emblem, with only a couple of lines in the epilogue. I'm talking about full bad endings scenes from wrong decisions done in, say, Persona. Playing Persona 4 for the first time, what I liked about the entry was how the threat to screw up the otherwise lighthearted story was there. I wonder what it would have been like if politics-heavy titles like the Tellius/Jugdral games had bad or premature ends where:

• the campaign/strategy fails, the player character's army surrenders, and the enemy's empire expands, or otherwise show more details in the outcomes, instead of just a simple game over screen.
• Or where some specific units from earlier chapters are dead, and now you cannot use them as pawns for diplomacy. It's a fight to the death against the enemy's empire. You win, but at a huge cost to your own country with ravaged cities, and with a bitter, resentful protectorate that may revolt and retaliate sometime in the future. In a better ending, both you and the enemy come forth to discuss, and more people return home safely, and people are more willing to work with, and not against.

I don't necessarily think it works that well in the context of this game. See, the thing here is that this means that they messed up way earlier, and thus ends up needing to start over from the very beginning, strategize through chapters again and make sure everything is perfect. It makes it much more tedious.

[Jingle Jangle]

In a ideal world yes, practically no. The problem with multiple endings/ multiple branch-ways in video games is that it spread the writing and development time thinner,  most of the player base may not experience. I feel that the resources are better used to polish the main game than what if tales. 

[Zihark11]

I dont think its necessary but of course more content is always welcome. Some fire emblems already have multiple endings. In Radiant dawn you cant get the true ending unless youve beaten the game once already and let me say that the true ending is so much better and adds so much to the game.  

[Hawkwing]

I'd think a Fire Emblem game with multiple endings could work rather well, and in several different ways too. There would be decisions the player could make in the story as well as on the battlefield in gameplay, and several times one would affect the other. It'd be cool, for example, to choose to deal with "that strange cult" early on, making the late game easier, or even removing the subplot entirely, but in turn you would make other levels harder as the enemy was able to gain more ground and reinforce their position during that time. Or if capturing returns, you have a choice between killing or kidnapping certain enemy units. Some you could interrogate for map information, hold hostage to make certain levels easier, or put on trial which affects later story events, but each would have a drawback, such as you having to go out of your way to capture said unit, or it adds another level were the enemy attempts to rescue the hostage.

However, that's if they have the writing team and resources for it. If a Fire Emblem game were to have multiple endings, I'd expect it to be very linear with several major decisions affecting the ending. Said decisions could still be based on both story choices and gameplay performance, though. And capturing or killing certain enemy units, and/or whether certain characters are alive or dead, could still affect minor events, similar to how Shadow Dragon has different dialogue and scenes depending on who you decide to sacrifice.

I could also see them taking a page out of Battle For Wesnoth's book and have multiple enemy commanders on the same level. If you defeat one, you proceed to one level, while if you defeat the other, you go to a different level, and if you manage to defeat both within the time limit, you have a choice of which level you wish to go to.

I don't think that there should really be a "bad" ending, though. Ones that are better than others, sure, but that should be determined more by gameplay performance than story choices. Sure, it'd be cool to see an odd choice you made early bite you in the butt as now the ending is a little less bright, but having a defined "good" and "bad" ending just means that people will pick the same choices every playthrough, thus defeating the purpose of having multiple endings in the first place.

[Fortron]

it could work in certain ways i think it would be bad if you were forced to restart the game because you need one unit for the best ending which died earlier well as long as there isn't any random gaiden chapters with no hints  im fine

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

Hell, I was hoping they were doing that with Fates by controlling how many enemy royals die etc. I'm all for it, as long as it's not too frustrating like forcing you to play slowly etc.

[henrymidfields]

Does anyone know if there are other similar games with branching outcomes? Does anyone know examples from, say, FF Tactics Advance or Tactics Ogre?

[link16hit]

mm I know in Langrisser 2 there is different branch path.

[Hawkwing]

Certain campaigns of Battle for Wesnoth have branching paths, and some even have multiple endings. It ranges as to what causes them, but they're all related to gameplay. I believe the most common cause is having multiple enemy commanders to face on a single map, and depending on which ones you defeat before the turn count expires, it determines which map you play next. If you manage to defeat all of them, then you're usually offered a choice of which level you wish to go to. Also, whenever dialogue choices are offered, they occasionally allow you to choose which branch of the story you take, although for the most part they just affect the map you're currently playing on

[henrymidfields]

As an alternative to multiple endings, should there be extended game over scenes? Like a time skip after you fail a chapter and show you the consequences?

Or like in the beginning of a chapter, you have a response choice in the dialogue immediately after you select the upcoming chapter. If you choose the correct choice, you proceed to the preparations menu as normal. Choose the villainous, or the wrong choice, and BAM, you see the consequences.

The game over cutscene will be something similar to the bad endings in the Persona series where the consequences of the failures are shown with dialogues and animations. For example, the alliance breaks down and your allies storm out of the conference. After a time skip and some narration, your weakened nation has the enemy flag on your palace, and you and your allies are in chains, awaiting executions. Alternately, if you fail a late-game chapter, after a time skip, your nation still managed to win the war, but it ends on a more cynical note - your family is grieving, your allies have scattered, and some of your foes are still alive and are attending the peace treaty which is implied to be short-lived.

Of course, the system should be set up in a way that such non-standard game overs from wrong dialogue choices do not undo progress made in the actual game - whether this is done by extra save opportunities before cutscenes, or setting up dialogues and game over triggers at the very start of a chapter, or other means.

[Hawkwing]

5 minutes ago, henrymidfields said:

As an alternative to multiple endings, should there be extended game over scenes? Like a time skip after you fail a chapter and show you the consequences?

Only in certain situations. If you failed a critical mission or a battle against a major antagonist, then it would be awesome to see what the consequence of doing so would be.

9 minutes ago, henrymidfields said:

Or like in the beginning of a chapter, you have a response choice in the dialogue immediately after you select the upcoming chapter. If you choose the correct choice, you proceed to the preparations menu as normal. Choose the villainous, or the wrong choice, and BAM, you see the consequences.

I heavily disagree with this proposal. Instead of being interesting, it would just mean that the player would have to find the "right" choice via trial and error, and if they already know which "decision" is the correct one, then they'll just skip to that one to get on with the game (unless they were deciding to have a little fun or are making a youtube video about the potential endings).

The only way I see this working is if it's a choice to make the level easier or harder, such as succeeding or failing to turn a neutral party to your side.This would mean that the player would need to pay attention to certain details provided in the story the first time around, and in the future they can decide whether or not they want to make the level easier, or if they want to make it more of a challenge.

18 minutes ago, henrymidfields said:

The game over cutscene will be something similar to the bad endings in the Persona series where the consequences of the failures are shown with dialogues and animations. For example, the alliance breaks down and your allies storm out of the conference. After a time skip and some narration, your weakened nation has the enemy flag on your palace, and you and your allies are in chains, awaiting executions. Alternately, if you fail a late-game chapter, after a time skip, your nation still managed to win the war, but it ends on a more cynical note - your family is grieving, your allies have scattered, and some of your foes are still alive and are attending the peace treaty which is implied to be short-lived.

Again, this would be cool, but only if it were limited to certain moments. Personally, though, I'd prefer it if the endings and decisions you made resulted in more neutral and/or bittersweet outcomes.

19 minutes ago, henrymidfields said:

Of course, the system should be set up in a way that such non-standard game overs from wrong dialogue choices do not undo progress made in the actual game - whether this is done by extra save opportunities before cutscenes, or setting up dialogues and game over triggers at the very start of a chapter, or other means.

Thus defeating the purpose of having multiple choices. They'd be nothing more than "joke" options in an otherwise linear story.

 

Sorry if I came off as negative or hostile in this post, but I'd like for the decisions made in the story to actually have an effect, however minor, on something later down the road. Awakening got some minor flak for only having the final "choice" actually mean anything, as it was seen as a missed opportunity. This proposal only comes off as a more complex version of that system.

[henrymidfields]

23 minutes ago, Hawkwing said:

 

Thus defeating the purpose of having multiple choices. They'd be nothing more than "joke" options in an otherwise linear story.

 

Sorry if I came off as negative or hostile in this post, but I'd like for the decisions made in the story to actually have an effect, however minor, on something later down the road. Awakening got some minor flak for only having the final "choice" actually mean anything, as it was seen as a missed opportunity. This proposal only comes off as a more complex version of that system.

The reason why I said to arrange the save points - some people have previously mentioned the potential frustration of haveing to start over the chapter, or even the entire game all over again.

Also, when did Awakening offer the bogus choice? I didn't really pay attention to the mediocre story when I played the game several years ago so I don't remember. I do have to say, I really do not appreciate the branching scenarios being called "joke" choices. I was actually thinking more in terms of, say a certain date in December that leads to the bad ending in Persona 4 - expanding the story to include alternate scenarios of what happens if you fail, and through this show how high the stakes are in the war. I want to see the actual consequences played out should, say Roy/Eliwood failed to bring Etruria in as allies against Bern in Binding Blade - what , or should Ike/Micaiah not survive in Radiant Dawn. What happens to their allies? What happens to the wider politics? What happens to the ordinary citizens? I'd like to see all of that instead of just another generic "GAME OVER" screen.

Edited September 11, 2018 by henrymidfields

[Hawkwing]

7 minutes ago, henrymidfields said:

The reason why I said to arrange the save points - some people have previously mentioned the potential frustration of haveing to start over the chapter, or even the entire game all over again.

Oh, I most certainly agree with save points in any choice based game. However, what you proposed seem less "choice A will lead to B, while choice C will lead to D, and both decisions have pros and cons" and more "Choice A, B and C are available, but B and C leads to the bad ending, while A is the only correct choice". It means that the player will be forced to choose the "right" choice in order to get on with the game, and this may require some trial-and-error if they don't want to look up a guide beforehand. This defeats the point of offering multiple decisions, as it leads to a linear adventure regardless, just with some extra "fake" endings along the way.

12 minutes ago, henrymidfields said:

Also, when did Awakening offer the bogus choice? I didn't really pay attention to the mediocre story when I played the game several years ago so I don't remember. I was actually thinking more in terms of, say a certain date in December that leads to the bad ending in Persona 4 - expanding the story to include alternate scenarios of what happens if you fail, and through this elaborating the world building and story.

Less the choices were bogus, more that they didn't effect or mean anything. Granted, I did think it was clever that the only two choices that actually did something (the ending and Yarne's prologue) were ones where you took an action, while the rest were just words, several people wanted more.