I must be destined to be forever alone...

Visual Novel Community Visual Novel Talk
#1

I am curious as to what type of endings other players generally get when they play eroges. Generally eroges have a good ending, normal ending and a bad ending (and sometimes a true ending). I always seem to get normal endings for whatever freakin’ reason. My theory is that it has to do with cultural differences between the western world and Japan. Issues such as dating and friendships are approached slightly different there than in the western world. They are not exactly brazen when they are dealing with these issues.

In the games, often times you will come across branch choices where you have an action that someone from the west would normally take and an option that a Japanese person would normally take (timid, shy option, which happens to often be the choice you SHOULD pick). So, If there is one thing that I learned from playing these games is that most choices I pick are always the opposite, which means I usually get normal endings and that ticks me off. The game that most frustrated me in this respect was YMK way back when it was released. The protag did the opposite of everything I would have done and often times the choices for things I would do were never even offered, which was prevalent during Aika’s route.

I always try playing the game the first time without a walkthrough, and I usually always get a normal ending and at times a bad ending when I’m usually aiming for a good ending. It seems like good endings are something that has a 20% chance of happening with me, and perhaps I should always just pick the opposite from now on. To get good endings I usually have to find a walkthrough and that just sucks the experience out of it especially when the branch choice relies on only one to get a good ending.

So what endings do you normally get (w/o a walkthrough)? Do you intentionally go for a certain ending when you play for the first time? Do you use a walkthrough at all?

#2

i never play without a walkthrough
i like the story not try to figure out what i am doing wrong
i also like to pick certain girls to choose first then skip the girl or skip through the girls(if needed to unlock cg’s or other routes) i don;t like

#3

In my first two games, Ever 17 and Phantom of Inferno, I got a bad ending in each in my first run throughs. In Phantom I liked Claudia more than Ein so I was destined to not get one of the later endings. As for Ever 17 I got ending 4 I suppose because I loved both Sora and Tsugumi. Ever 17 was my first game I took a chance on, so I didn’t know back then to go “all-in,” but I also wasn’t ready for sad good endings either. When I saw ending 1 I decided to always use the crutch of a walkthrough.

Oh, I didn’t use a walkthrough during Kokoro’s route in Remember 11 and my first ending there was a bad ending which I believe most people playing that game would get given the number of traps.

Every other game I played I used a walkthrough. In all cases I can think of besides one I probably would have gotten bad endings if I went on it on my own.

#4

I don’t use a walkthrough unless I’m replaying or I think I might need help avoiding something or if I’m shooting for a certain ending I am missing.
Usually, on my first playthrough I end up with a good or true ending if I follow the simple rule of : focus on one girl…

When I first started playing these games, I varied my choices trying to get to know all of the characters a little… MISTAKE! That usually gave me the BAD end. Although every once in a while there are bad endings I just CANNOT resist! (Phantom of Inferno, getting revenge…)

#5

I usually decide very early which heroine I want to get on the first playthrough, so I tend to get her good ending without many problems. Since most games work this way - choose an heroine, make the choices that raise affection with that heroine, get her ending - I tend to get mostly good endings.

There are some exceptions, though. Innocent Grey titles are incredibly though, and usually require a lot of bad endings in order to find the key to get a good ending (which is usually not really good :slight_smile: ). There are some other titles that are equally hard to clear - Mindead Blood comes to mind, since I’m playing it now. With these games, I usually try and get a good ending on my own, then I’m satisfied and clear the rest with a walkthrough.

#6

Interesting. It seems like bad endings are pretty common. I gotta admit I wonder how the poll would go if Japanese players were asked the same questions. I have noticed that myself as well that if you try and go for more than one girl you will almost without a doubt get a bad ending. I learned that one quite early on in my career of playing these games.

I sometimes find it hard to go back and play a character when I get an ending to one of them (good or bad). An idea of mine once was to play a game and try to get one ending for each girl, and then shelf the game for a couple months and play through it again, but changing my choices I make the second time around. I wonder if that would make the impact return as I may forget some of the smaller things.

#7

That is a key reason that I haven’t been using guides recently. I am not happy about getting bad endings when they add very little, but in my case I feel if I simply get only good and true endings using a guide I would never see the bad endings. Not using a guide extends the length and over all enjoyment for me. I can think of a couple games where I only got good endings and still have bad endings not cleared. In the case of Remember 11, I felt I earned the normal/good endings after struggling through the traps. It also added to the story. Only time I used a guide in that game was to figure out how to not be locked in a bad ending on the second route.

Old me = guide and never saw bad endings. Now I can appreciate the bad endings, then again, I don’t like those games where the bad endings are simply “you didn’t get the girl” or “something bad happened to her.”

#8

I take it that a “normal” ending would be one where nothing bad really happens, but you don’t end up with anyone, and that a “good” ending is one where you do end with someone. If so, then I tend to get good endings. Probably the only game I’ve played where it was next to impossible for me to get anything other than a normal end is Casual Romance Club. The only way I’ve ever gotten a good end is by using a walkthrough.

#9

I clear all endings, good or bad, but in many cases eroges just have a generic no-route ending that I don’t count because it’s not interesting. This is why I always use a kouryaku- so that I don’t waste time in completing a title. I have only so much time after all =P

If a kouryaku isn’t available I can usually still complete the eroge in question, getting all endings, but it can take far longer.

#10

I almost always play with a walkthrough, but only to speed through all possible paths to unlock everything in the gallery. Then I see what path is the true path and play that normally to enjoy it. Afterwards, I go into the gallery and look for scenes from other paths to give me a “what if?” view of what could have been.

#11

I usually get “Good” Endings on my first playthrough through games. I don’t really use walk-throughs, because I’m lazy… and I save ALL THE TIME. To be fair though, I don’t see how anyone can get “True” ends on a first playthrough considering those are usually routes that need to be unlocked. I guess I just don’t play enough games with Bad Ends, though Soul Link has enough of them in it to make up for all the other games I’ve played. Also, with the genres I play, there’s no real call for them in general…not too many NTR/death scenes in romantic comedies.

Just like real life, messing with multiple women very rarely leads to a happy ending… unless you’re a prince and have unlocked the harem route. I just doggedly pursue whatever heroine I fancy the most, figuring that I save more original story when I play through the other routes available.

#12

I often will do a mixture of using walkthroughs and playing through legitimately. In Ever 17, for example, I got Sora’s ending on a legitimate playthrough, but I messed up the turn-the-valves sequence. In Tsugumi’s route, that prevents you from getting the ending at all, but I liked Sora more so I was on her route anyway. Then in games like Tokimeki Checkin or Snow Drop, I eventually had to get some hints and consult walkthrus for parts of it, because the way to actually figure those games out is rather hard.

(Snow Drop is particularly bad … the game gives no indication that time passes when you select a room, and there’s nothing there. Usually when you go to a room and it’s empty, you just pick another and the game doesn’t penalize you. Not Snow Drop.)

Generally, if the nature of the choices is interesting, I’ll try to play the game naturally. But this is rarely the case at least in English-translated games. The choices are either something like “Go to the cafeteria / Eat in the classroom” or “Go grocery shopping / attend music class” - choices which lead you to meet one or the other of the girls, sometimes without any indication ahead of time which might be likely. Or they’re something that basically boils down to “Pick this to suck up to girl X / Pick this to suck up to girl Y” or a similar variant, “Pick this to suck up to girl X / Pick this to tell girl X to suck it”.

I legitimately played most of Soul Link, for example. That first chapter was pretty awesome. I had to consult a walkthrough briefly because I couldn’t quite survive the initial attack, but after that, I didn’t have that much trouble.

#13

there are certain games like soul link and fate/stay night that need walkthrough since there are only some many right ways to play through others like yin-yang x-change alternative you can pretty much guess your way through it and be on a route
x-change 2 and 3 were harder for me and easier to screw up
the main reason i use walkthroughs is cg’s

#14

Not quite. Generally, an ending where nothing bad really happens but you don’t end with anyone would be considered a kind of “bad” end. A lot of games will actually have a classification:there will often be a “normal” ending with a girl, but then a “good” end or a “happy” end for the same girl. Route labels like “normal” “good” and “true” serve to differentiate between multiple endings for the same girl. (Otherwise you’d have to talk about “the one ending where this and that happens” and so on.) Typically, the difference between a “true” end and other ends will be that loose ends will be tied up.

In a game involving (say) a love triangle, the Normal end would be you pick one, the other is heartbroken and the one you do pick is somewhat regretful because they were friends. The Happy end might involve the other girl putting on a front so you and the one you picked are happy (but she’s still hurt; it’s better, but not great). The True end might involve you rejecting one, but then she gets over you and finds someone else, so everyone’s happy in the end and the situation is resolved.

Sometimes, characters will have True endings. Other times, there is a unique True End which represents the canon ending to the game or the main route. (Critical Point’s true route, for example, is clearly the best route in the game, and it clearly has one good ending, so that ending is the True End.)

For instance, Amorous Professor Cherry, which I just played, has multiple different endings with Chieri. At least in the FAQ I was using for scene completion, these are referred to as Normal/Happy/Best.

#15

Often that kind of ‘true end’ that becomes available only after the rest of the game is cleared and typically clears up the rest of the story is referred to as the ‘grand route’. I’ve seen ‘grand’ used in this context in many titles, most recently Hatsukoi Sacrament, but also things like Gunjou no Sora - in these cases we can see that ‘grand route’ is the term the eroge’s creators have used because it appears as a selectable option on the main menu after finishing the rest of the endings rather than becoming available through choices, so that’s the nomenclature I prefer to use now. ‘True ends’ are also often used to differentiate themselves from ‘good ends’, often in stories where a tragic ending is predetermined but a good (though certainly non-canon) ending is available to people. An example of this in translated stuff is Tsukihime, where a number of the routes contain a good end and a true end.

#16

Speaking of Tsukihime, that was another one I had trouble navigating without a walkthrough. Everyone always says just listen to Ciel at the end of the game, but I never found that to be very helpful to me. I really wish I still had access to the game (I had borrowed it from a classmate when I was taking Japanese at the community college) so that I could see the ending with Kohaku. I got the good and true endings of every character except her.

#17

Just download it…
The money used to buy a copy with only goes to the owner of the used copy

#18

Goes to the owner of the used copy who happens to be in the business of buying eroge and will probably buy more with that money. It feeds back into the system - maybe not all of it, maybe not all the time, but it does.

Or you could donate the money to the Japanese Red Cross Society or something. In fact, I recommend doing that anyway.

#19

I think its going to be quite hard to restock on a 400 dollar doujin ;_;

#20

Not more of the same thing, more and different eroge! The point is that the money goes back into things we like.