JRPGs are often known for their expansive stories, and the best among them oftenhave branching storieswhere the ending is dependent on the player’s actions. Sometimes, players are able to alter the course of the story through making specific choices at particular junctions of the game.
Losing is, philosophically speaking, a choice as well! While most JRPGs are focused on a party of heroes striving to save their world from peril, there is something morbidly fascinating about seeing the effects of their failure, especiallyfor more difficult JRPGswhere the title screen is a familiar sight. These games in particular let players satisfy that morbid urge to see the world go dark with a variety of loss-conditions that lead to a bad ending.
Final Fantasy X-2is a unique title in the expansiveFinal Fantasyseries for a variety of reasons, including its host ofoptional side-contentand the potential of multiple endings, as well as its departure from typical high fantasy aesthetics, drawing more influence from South-East Asia. This is a sprawling game that is far less linear than its predecessor, allowing players to take on plenty of extra missions than what’s necessary to complete a chapter, and also allowing players to complete these chapters in any order. The shifting perspectives in this title smack of a very earlyOctopath Travelerinfluence.
Among this game’s many endings, however, is one gained if the party loses against the final boss. Instead of rolling over to a simple “game over” screen, players will see the final boss unleash an incalculable amount of destruction, breaching their home in the Farplane and attacking the land of Spira.
Koudelkastands out as an incredibly strange, incredibly wonderful, PS1 title. It fuses magical realism, surrealism, and horror into one of the mosticonic horror JRPGseries of the early 2000s, and keeps that title even today.Koudelkashowcases particular eldritch flare with its setting based on Lovecraft’sShadow Over Innsmouth, a mysterious Welsh town teeming with subtle terror at the peripherals of what the player can see.
The bad ending in this title comes from the players losing to the final boss - but having found the pendant necessary to progress to the fight at all. The final boss still dies, but a key character has to sacrifice themselves, and the interesting thing about this ending is that it’s actually the canonical ending which sets the scene for this game’s successor series,Shadow Hearts, which continues the tradition of each subsequent game being set in the ‘bad ending’ canon of the last.
Disgaeais a fantastic JRPG series. It’s got iconic humor, wit, an interesting combat system, and the ability to becomestupidly, wondrously overpowered. With the ability to equip party members with legendary pieces of gear and get their stats up to 9999 (several times over), it might seem strange that there’s even a loss-condition ending at all, but there’s one in particular attached to a character who made enough of an impression to become a staple in theDisgaeaseries across many of its games.
Players who lose to the narcissistic, neurotic Vyers in any of his fights in the first game (there are a few, he’s persistent) will be met with a unique bad ending where he laughs about how easy that fight was, and a special ending song plays. An especially fun kind of bad ending, as long as players don’t mind a bit of salt in the wound for losing to a person who calls himself the “mid-boss”.
Alliance Aliveis an iconic, innovative JRPG that does so many things right. The characters are compelling and humorous, but the story also knows when to take itself seriously. There are many characters, including some who can be optionally recruited, and each has a unique niche and a good amount of utility in the game’s fantastic, addictive combat system.The game’s daemonsare also a very interesting take on demonic creatures in this setting.
If the player loses the final boss fight without any order gems left, they will be subject to an especially grim ending. An order gem lets players retry a lost fight, and having none left usually means reloading an older save, so players might be surprised to see the game still running after losing to the final boss.
Despite its brilliantgrid-based combat, the bad ending in this game does not come from failing a particular combat section. Instead, at one point of the story when the players are exploring the Roselle Village, players will have to scrutinize every nook and cranny closely to find a treasure that makes the difference between life and death.
Players who are unable to find the hidden treasure of the Roselle Village will bravely say their goodbyes to one another before meeting a gruesome end in battle.
