Bittersweet Ending/Video Games: Difference between revisions

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* ''[[Infamous (video game series)|In Famous]]'':

** The good ending to the original game sees Cole having stopped Kessler, but having to prepare for The Beast alone, what with his girlfriend dead, his best friend turned a traitor, and the whole disaster pinned on him by Moya.

** ''[[Final Fantasy I]]'' ends with the undoing of the [[Stable Time Loop]] that necessitated the quest of the Light Warriors -- and as a consequence, nobody, even the heroes themselves, ever remember their deeds. Also, the main villain gets everything he ever wanted. He's alive, and apparently near to the Princess.

** Even worse than ''FFI'', ''[[Final Fantasy II]]'' ends with Leon leaving the heroes, saying too much had happened, and that things couldn't go back to the way they were. Dawn of Souls furthers this by showing off all of the dead characters from the game watching over the still living characters. Not to mention most of the world population has been killed off due to [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|two superweapons]]. Lest we forget: the world is not irreparably damaged, and the population isn't all that bad off (only one city is well and truly destroyed). Sure, the psychological scars won't heal easily, but they never do.

** ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'' ends with an ambiguous ending where the characters aren't sure if they've succeeded or not. Rather, they've succeeded, but the question is whether they did the right thing. The ending makes it seem like Ivalice and the real world are two separate universes, rather than having them replace each other. Also, post-game content makes it seem like only Mewt went back to the real world.

** ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics A2]]'' ends with the hero, Luso, leaving Ivalice for good, with all his friends behind. However, it's not explicitly stated that he can never return.

** The three main story arcs ''[[Legend of Mana]]'' all have bittersweet endings: The Jumi are restored to life by the [[Heroic Sacrifice|Player Character's tears]], and learn to cry themselves to un-petrify you, but it's highly suggested that the same tragedy that drove them to extinction will repeat themselves eventually down the road; Matilda dies and is restored to her youth, but her [[Unlucky Childhood Friend|demon BFF Irwin]] rejects their relationship because he believes them to be fundamentally incompatible and she becomes a Wisdom for all eternity instead, and along the way one of your childhood friends went insane and you were forced to put them down; and the Dragon Crystals are restored to their rightful place, but Larc is condemned to [[Walking the Earth|wander the Earth]] until Draconis' curse wears off; he does reunite with his sister eventually, though.

** ''Dawn of Mana'' ends with the [[Big Bad]] defeated and a new Mana Tree created, but at the cost of the life of your [[Unlucky Childhood Friend]].

** ''[[Bahamut Lagoon]]'' ends with one third of the story's principal [[Love Triangle]] dead and another mentally scarred and wandering the world alone.

** ''[[Front Mission]]'' loves these: In the first, for example, sure, a couple rogue squads from the universe's two key supernations have uncovered and shut down a plot to make computers for [[Humongous Mecha]] from human brains - doesn't mean the third party occupying Huffman Island as a peacekeeping force will make the information public. Or that they'll let the island govern itself free from the corruption of all the military forces that have come through. Or that the player character gets to get his wife back, as he chooses to detonate his wanzer that contains her mind.

** Adding to the bitterness of the ending, ''billions'' upon ''billions'' of people are dead on both sides, a good majority of Human colonies have been glassed, and it may take decades to rebuild.

** And by "good majority" we mean "virtually everything but Earth itself". By this point, the total human population in the galaxy is estimated to be around two-hundred million, down from ''tens of billions'' at the begining of the war. [[Word of God]] suggests that ''23 billion'' (out of 30-40 before the war) humans have died.

* In ''[[Betrayal at Krondor]]'', the Great One Makala and real [[Big Bad]] is not evil as much as doing his best to fulfill his duty to protect the Empire of Tsuranuanni from what he misguidedly believes a threat, while being rather colourfully pragmatic in typical Tsurani Great One fashion. And the moredhel (dark elf) Gorath, the [[Noble Demon]]/[[Anti-Hero]] who's lost and sacrificed the most without even the barest complaint, even going as far as joining the sworn enemy of his people in an effort to ''protect'' them, and arguably the actual hero of the story, has to be wastefully killed in a heartwrenching [[Kill Us Both]] moment by the very human he has befriended against all odds. Had he survived, he would have been free to live the rest of his days peacefully in Elvandar with the light elves, or return to what still remains of his clan and try to put the pieces back together, and perhaps even start to lead the moredhel people to adopt less murderous, saner ways. It's a loss alright.

* ''[[Tales of Phantasia]]'' ends with the heroes defeating the [[Big Bad]]... but then finding out that rather than being evil, Dhaos was just trying to keep his world alive. In which case the heroes are feeling slightly less heroic than they'd thought.

** But then again, Alphonse Tartare (the original name of Lans Tartare) and the Lodis side are [[Designated Hero|designated heroes]] since [[Evil Empire|the Empire of Lodis]] itself is an evil conquistador seeking global domination, no matter how ''The Knight Of Lodis'' romanticizes Alphonse's actions.

*** The [[Grey and Gray Morality]] of the world this story is set in makes you (the player) have to choose between an empire that is trying to conquer the world, and a [[Fallen Angel]] trying to DESTROY the world. Also, your character (at the time) truly believes in the goals of Lodis. He doesn't see Lodis as evil at the time of the game, so why wouldn't he follow it? You'd only know Lodis was 'evil' if you had some sort of future sight, [[Captain Obvious|which Alphonse lacks.]] Despite turning into a antagonist, he still saved the world, and only went evil after {{spoiler|losing Eleanor in the canonical ending}}.

* ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation]]'' ends with the heroes defending the Earth from both the Divine Crusaders, and the alien invasion of the Aerogaters. Nobody playable even dies, only losing the two [[Anti-Villain|Anti Villains]]. The problem? The Aerogaters were only one of the fleets of the Balmarian Empire, meaning that the Balmarian Empire might attack again, and even worse, The Guest, aliens that tried to conquer earth by forcing Earth to surrender that caused the Divine Wars in the first place, were not the Balmarian Empire, meaning a second alien menace is out there. Even worse, due to the nature of the Original Generation series, they had only scratched the surface of wars.

** ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation 02]]'' actually kills off an important playable character. The kind and good [[The Federation|Earth Federation]] was secretly overthrown and replaced by jerks. Also the Inspectors where only a part of an alien menance starting with "Zu-" that the Guest are a part of meaning they will be back. Even Worse? Banpresto made some more Super Robot Wars games meaning that they will adapt even more games into Original Generation games.

*** No, the "even worse" part is that Sony's policy of requiring games released in America to have English audio tracks has [[No Export for You|stonewalled all effort to bring the sequels to the United States]]. The conflict does get resolved, but Dark Brain is only letting the Japanese be privy to the truth.

** Any other ending is much worse, though. The worst is you learning nothing of yourself, killing the [[Big Bad]], leaving your friends' dead bodies behind in a lifeless fortress stuck in an endless void...And ''then'' going to hell to be punished for the crimes of the first incarnation.

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]: The Sacred Stones'' ends up with Eirika and Ephraim defeating the Lord of Terror with the help of their companions, but not before the twins' beloved friend/bitter antagonist Lyon dies in front of them. The last CG of the game has the twins recalling the day they met Lyon. Not to mention the whole issue of Grado falling victim to a catastrophic natural disaster... just as Lyon had predicted and fell into darkness trying to stop. Several charas have to stay behind and help reconstruct the Empire.

* Maxi's ending in ''[[Soul Calibur]]''. He dies in Kilik and Xianghua's arms. True, it was [[Retcon|ret-conned later]] with Maxi barely surviving but [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|becoming amnesiac]], but still...

* ''[[Pikmin]]'' does this to the player. Get all of the parts for the dolphin and Olimar will be able to fly back home safely, but has to abandon his pikmin in the process. This isn't so much the Bittersweet aspect of it (especially with the sequel and the fact the pikmin are shown to be much braver to hunt on their own) as it is the fact getting all the ship parts allows you to save your high score on how many pikmin were lost during your 30-days-or-less task total. Unless you're a natural god at pikmin or spoiled yourself silly on how to play it via walkthroughs or videos before touching the game, your score the first time around will probably be pretty high...

* If you don't find the all the pieces of the title artifact in ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]: Mask of the Betrayer'', you have a choice between staying forever on the Fugue Plane to seal away the Spirit Eater or curing yourself and returning to Faerun, but leaving the Spirit eater free to ravage Rashemen.

** There's an additional one if you got One of Many instead of Okku, and you romance Zafiya. It generally follows the good one, but with one major difference: After you marry Zafiya and return to Faern, One of Many kills her and consumes her soul. In revenge, you hunt him down and eventually kill him as he pleads to spare his life in Zafiya's voice.

* In ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]] 3'', MegaMan.EXE sacrifices himself to stop the [[Big Bad]] of the game, although the post credits show him returning to Lan/Netto. Of course, since everything was [[Status Quo Is God|back to normal in the next game]], it's obvious this one didn't stick, and was obvious even at the time of release because [[Late Arrival Spoiler|Battle Network 4 had already been announced with the same cast.]]

* If you ignore the stuff that happens after the credits roll in ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]] 2'', it's pretty depressing. Your character basically gets erased out of time because the planet didn't go into paralysis (so no one from the future could have come back, including you) and after your companion returns and tells everyone, the last shot you see is them crying on a friend's shoulder at the place you first met, in pretty similar circumstances too. Except he's all grown up. Considering everything you went through, and the fact that this scene takes place a good couple of months after everything's restored, it's pretty jarring.

* ''[[X-COM]]: Terror From The Deep'' - Defeat the boss alien and you save the world, but the alien city explodes and takes all of your soldiers with it.

** It's even worse, because canon dictates that when it exploded, it sent a crapload of pollutants into the atmosphere and basically caused much of the world to need to be abandoned. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]].

* ''Prey'' ends with Tommy defeating the Mother and destroying the Sphere. However his grandfather and his girlfriend, the only people he felt any connection with, are both dead. Neither seems terribly bothered by this and her spirit tells Tommy she will be waiting for him, so it's not so bad.

** Brood War also, fairly early in its plot, turns the Bittersweet Ending of the original into a Downer Ending by having a new Overmind be created to rule the Zerg until Kerrigan's rise to power, basically rendering Tassadar's heroic sacrifice ultimately futile in the long run.

** And R.O.B. is thus the [[Last of His Kind]].

* ''[[Fable]] 2'' in The Sacrifice route. Sure, the world is saved and everyone has their loved ones back. Except for you. The price for everyone else's happiness was your own because your spouse, children, sister and even your dog is dead. You can never get them back and you have to live with the knowledge that you choose the lives of others over theirs. It doesn't matter what you tell yourself: at the very least, you ''will'' miss that dog.

* ''[[Castlevania]]: Order of Ecclesia'', the good ending. Shanoa manages to defeat Dracula and reclaimed her emotions, but in process lost her home and foster brother Albus. And as the said home is evil, she then vanished into obscurity as records of her home became written out of history, probably including herself.

* Averting this becomes the main motivation (story-wise at least, completionists be damned) to obtain all 108 stars in most of the ''[[Suikoden]]'' series.

** Watching that end sequence after having been through the entire game is enough to make someone [[Manly Tears|cry and salute]] at the same time.

*** Although Snake himself doesn't seem too bothered by the fact that he's going to die. He has a year to live his life free of outside influences, and in [[The Stinger]], he even sounds happy that he has that chance.

*** According to a Gamespot interview given before its release, Kojima's original ending for ''MGS4'' would have seen it be closer to a [[Downer Ending]]--Snake and Otacon would have turned themselves in and been executed for crimes they committed in the process of saving the world. Kojima was, [[Protection From Editors|somewhat amazingly]], vetoed in this decison, but the credits song ''Here's To You'' remains a thematic connection to his original vision.

* ''[[Ace Combat]] 5'' has this, along with ''Zero'' and ''6'': in ''5'' Chopper was KIA after crashing, your squadron members are declared traitors and officially recorded as being KIA, and while you gain unofficial recognition as the Ghosts of Razgriz, it will be years before the truth about the war and your achievements is known. In ''Zero'' you lose both of your wingmen, the first to treason and the second to being shot down by the first. ''6'' has quite a few: Ludmilla and Toscha are married in a prisoner of war camp, Viktor Voychek is presumably a POW as well (despite giving up the schematics for the Chandelier superweapon), the valiant Ilya Pasternak was KIA covering his squadron's retreat from Gracemeria only for some of them to be shot down in the final battle, Garuda Two's wife and daughter were killed before he could meet them again, and he is confined to a wheelchair after being shot down during the final battle. Oh, and the fate of the Hartman family's husband/father is left unstated.

** ''Zero'''s Assault Records have what must have been some Bittersweet Endings for some Belkan aces if you shot them down: Robert Gloden Spieler left the Air Force a year after the Belkan War and ended up running a small hotel in San Salvacion by the ocean. (Based on the "FMV" cutscenes taking place at the time of the Usean Continental War in ''Ace Combat 4'', if the same timeframe is assumed for the Assault Records he may have been the unfortunate uncle in that game's cutscenes.) Dietmar Wolf Absender would be tried as a war criminal, although the charges would be dismissed. And Daniel Bierofka Wetterhahn would go from ace pilot to ''automobile salesman'' and ordinary citizen.

* ''[[Free Space]] 2'' ends this way as the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Shivans]] are revealed to be essentially unbeatable due to the magnitude of their warfleets. Upon realizing the futility of further struggle, the GTVA High Command forces a draw, of sorts, by severing all subspace links to Shivan-controlled space. A vital star system (Capella) is lost in the process, along with most of the Terran/Vasudan fleet. It is also heavily implied that the Shivans will eventually [[Sequel Hook|find a way around this obstacle]].

* ''Halo Wars''. The Covenant have been stopped, the Arbiter is dead, the Prophet of Regret has been stopped and the Spirit of Fire is safe...but then Captain Cutter pauses to lay his hand on Sgt. Forges [[Tear Jerker|empty cyro bay.]]

'''Anders:''' Not all of us, Captain. }}

** Not to mention that the ''Spirit of Fire'', left without an FTL Drive, is now effectively stranded in space with no way to reach a human world anytime during the next century.

*** And also there is none of the imperial bloodline left to protect the world from another invasion. Which next time will NOT be able to be sealed off or halted as the only person who could turned himself into a stone dragon. So after all that work, all your character did was delay the destruction of the world by a couple of hundred years, which is the blink of an eye to the Daerdra. Sucks to be you.

**** Mostly confirmed, in Skyrim which takes place a few centuries into the future the empire still exists but any attempts to crown a new emperor are failures and the empire is on the verge of collapse and civil war, infact many nations are, Skyrim is infact amidst one of its own over whether to secede from the empire or stay and to top it all off while Daedra aren't your issue this time dragons are suddenly returning to Tamriel and the 'only' person who can stop them is you the player.

* In ''[[Breath of Fire]] IV'', Ryu sacrifices himself to rid the world of the gods, so that a similar tragedy won't happen again. Although the [[Mad Scientist]] Yuna simply claims he can make as many gods as he wants

** Well the ending isn't as bad as Ryu actually survives, but becomes mortal.

** The only official Half-Life game that didn't have such a bad ending was ''Blue Shift'', where Barney Calhoun successfully escapes Black Mesa, only to be seen in Half-Life 2.

*** Given that the player allready knows Black Mesa is about to be destroyed with all the former coworkers that have not allready be killed by aliens or government troops, it's not really a good ending. Also, in Half Life 2 we learn, that an [[Alien Invasion]] that lays waste to earth is about to happen within the next couple of hours or days.

* ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'': Assuming Chell survived, there's still the whole GLADoS is still alive with God knows how many test subjects to have fun with. If she didn't, then it's a [[Downer Ending]].

** With the recent update, we're ''definitely'' in this territory; Chell survived only to be dragged from the ruins by a robot, presumably to undergo yet another round of 'testing' in ''[[Portal 2]]''.

** Portal 2 has {{spoiler|1=GLaDOS deciding that she's tired of dealing with Chell and releasing her to the surface, along with her Companion Cube (which apparently survived incineration). Of course, this is several hundred years into the future, where the Combine might just still be around.}}

* ''[[Star Fox Command]]'''s nine endings included several bittersweet ones, most of which included Krystal abandoning Star Fox to join Star Wolf, her relationship problems with Fox unresolved. The most gut-wrenching of them involves Krystal saving the universe with Star Wolf, only to be shunned by the public for her double-crossing of Star Fox, leading her to leave and wonder alone, becoming a bounty hunter known as Kursed. The most bitter sting is that years later she comes across Fox, who does not recognize her. Other slightly more upbeat, yet still somewhat sad endings involve Peppy and his daughter reminiscing about their dead/wife mother while Fox and Krystal patch things up, Slippy retiring with his fiancee and years later telling tales about Star Fox while wondering if they were still out there, and one ending where Falco, depressed at not being able to rejoin Star Fox in time to rescue the universe, is convinced by Katt Monroe to start his own team called Star Falco. A variant on this ending has Fox and Falco both being depressed after Star Wolf beats them to the final boss, and they cope with it by dropping out to become G-Zero (an F-Zero reference) racers.

* ''[[Knights in The Nightmare]]'' in its "good ending". Despite beating the [[Big Bad]], the loyal knights of King Willimgard are all dead, his son is dead, the Tiamat race is doomed, and the whole kingdom is in ruins.

*** If you ''didn't'' find Ancardia, Maria and the Wisp are just stuck [[Walking the Earth]] for the rest of their lives. However, [[All There in the Manual|since disembodied souls can only survive for so long before dispersing]], this is probably going to be very short. Not to mention that the world is slightly screwed with no Arbitrator.

*** In Meria's route, it's even worse, as the only way to get a reasonably "good" ending is to backstab Meria and side with [[Big Bad|Marietta]] despite everything you've been through together and the [[Taking the Bullet|self-destructive]] loyalty she's shown you.

* Every saga in ''[[Disciples]] 2: Dark Prophecy'' has a [[Bittersweet Ending]]. Even the ''[[Villain Protagonist|bad guys]]'' don't get everything they want in the end. Empire: Demon Uther was defeated, but not before he murdered his father the Emperor, leaving the Empire in ruins without a ruler or an heir. Undead: Mortis succeeds in reviving her lover, but he is so repulsed by what she had become and by [[Moral Event Horizon|what she had done to bring him back]] that he rejects her and abandons her forever. Legion of the Damned: Demon Uther wasn't actually their god reborn; he was a [[Creepy Child]] draining his power. The loyalist Legions manage to kill him, but their god Bethrezen is still sealed away, so they have to go back into hiding. Nobody in this game gets a completely happy ending.

* The normal ending of ''[[Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World]]''. The world is saved, but Ratatosk, and by extension, Emil, has to seal himself away for 1000 years so he can repair the Mana flow. At least he'll have Richter and the Centurions (including Tenebrae and Aqua) to keep him company.

*** Since Ratatosk and the Centurions are at least 10,000 years old at that point and have no limit to their lifespan, 1000 years shouldn't be much of an issue for them. Richter, however, is only 20. 1000 years is a long time even for a half-elf.

* ''[[Frontlines: Fuel of War]]'': You just fought through the downtown core of Moscow and [[Hold the Line|held a square]] against a seemingly endless supply of Reds. Too bad the Chinese are still in the fight, and that citizen militias and the harsh Russian winter are likely to beat you back.

** The first game, the original ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', ends with [[Big Bad|Ansem]] apparently defeated, and the [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|worlds restored to life]]...but [[The Chick|Kairi]] is now stuck alone on the restored islands that the protagonist called home, [[Rival Turned Evil|Riku]], who has finally [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|come to his senses]] about [[Evil Is Not a Toy|the darkness]], has locked himself in a dark world along with Mickey, the king [[The Hero|Sora]] and company have been desperately trying to find, and our heroes are left wandering and lost and on [[Foreboding Architecture|Castle Oblivion]]'s doorstep.

** The second game, both chronologically speaking and in order of release, ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]: Chain Of Memories'' has two endings, one for Sora-mode and one for Riku-mode, and neither are all that cheerful: Sora ends up a shell of his former self, having completely forgotten Kairi, and must sleep for a year while [[The Woobie|Namine]] restores his mind to how it should be--that not sad to you? How about I tell you that Namine, under orders from the [[Big Bad]], was the one who replaced Kairi in Sora's memories with herself, and now must make Sora forget she ever existed when he was the only person in her life who actually cared about her. As for Riku, it turns out that Ansem has been possessing him and while he stops him now, he'll always be lurking, [[As Long as There Is Evil|waiting to possess him again]], and that no matter what he will have to come to terms with his own darkness. He finally finds Sora again--but just after Sora begins that year-long sleep, and thus has to leave him while he goes on his own path.

** Any ending other than the [[Golden Ending]] is going to be bittersweet, as well, and they ''can'' be imported. You could, for instance {{spoiler|have Shepard survive, but lose the Normandy crew and all but two of your squadmates in the process, possibly including Shepard's love interest. Sucks to be you, Shep.}}

** Even the [[Golden Ending]] is arguably bittersweet. You've killed the Collectors, but hundreds of the most powerful star-battleships ever devised are coming to wipe out all advanced life in the galaxy:

* By the end of ''[[The Darkness]]'', you've successfully killed Paulie and Shrote. But [[Love Interest|Jenny]] is dead, and at the cost of your sould belonging to The Darkness forever. And you're allowed one last meeting with Jenny, before you're seperated from her forever.

* The good ending for the "Trouble on the Homefront" quest in ''[[Fallout]] 3''. Vault 101's tyrannical Overseer steps down in favor of Amata and the Vault is finally opened to the rest of the Wasteland, but Amata is forced to permamently exile you from the Vault because most of the Vault's residents still believe its your fault the situation got as bad as it did. At least she gives you a nice parting gift.

** The good ending for the vanilla campaign isn't without a bitter taste either. Even if you ''do'' survive the obscenely high radiation you got by activating the purifier (which you can only do with ''Broken Steel'' installed), it doesn't change the fact that your father, whom you were trying to find for the whole game, died to protect the purifier from the Enclave.

* Almost inevitable in ''[[Dragon Age]] Origins'', depending on the decisions made throughout the game. The only way to defeat the archdemon without requiring a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] from ''someone'' is to allow Morrigan to perform a blood magic ritual that will let her conceive a child with the soul and power of an old god - with no guarantees as to what consequences this might have for the world as the child grows up. If this ritual is not performed, either the [[Player Character]] will die, Alistair will die, or Loghain will die and Alistair's faith in the PC will be so thoroughly broken that he will leave in disgust.

** If you leave Flemeth alive this may have dire consequences if Morrigan is pregnant with one of the old gods.

** The happiest ending is arguable to make Alistair king then recruit Loghain and have him kill the archdemon. No one dies except Loghain who redeems himself for his past crimes and proves a true hero, and no dangerous demon babies are involved. The only thing bittersweet will be that the Warden and Alistair's friendship is more or less destroyed after all they went through. Even though Alistair is king and admits Warden was right, it's fairly clear he no longer considers him a friend.

** I would submit that executing Loghain, leaving Alistair and Anora on the throne, and romancing Morrigan leads to the happiest ending; you have left strong leaders in charge of Ferelden and since [[Love Redeems]] Morrigan is much less likely to do something stark raving mad with the child, and you don't alienate any of your companions.

* In ''[[My Sims|MySims Agents.]]'' No, really. After getting the Nightmare Crown back, Morcubus suddenly comes in and takes it and is about to open the portal to the Nightmare Realm when Evelyn suddenly comes in and stops him...by sucking them both into the Nightmare Realm. And she had just been reunited with her father. Ouch. And wait, there's more! If you complete all of the dispatch missions, you'll be able to go and save Evelyn. But to save Evelyn, you have to save Morcubus. And when you do, he escapes. [[Sarcasm Mode|Great.]]

* In ''[[World of Warcraft|Wrath of the Lich King]]'': Arthas has been defeated, and the scourge has been destroyed, but many soldiers died, and Bolvar gives up his chance at humanity to contain the scourge.

* The final cases of the first three ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' games kinda end like this. {{spoiler|Phoenix exposes the real killer and wins the day, but either his client or another suspect he was desperate to exonerate still end up imprisoned for lying under oath and interfering with a crime scene.}} The third games is even worse, as {{spoiler|[[Sympathetic Murderer|Godot]] will also have to stand trial for his crime (assuming he even lives that long), and Maya witnessed her own mother's death but has to put on a strong face for Pearl's benefit.}}

* The Neutral ending of [[Shin Megami Tensei I]]. {{spoiler|Humanity has been freed from the constraints of both angels and demons, but the only main characters left alive are the protagonist, the Girl, possibly the protagonist's dog, and an old man who may or may not be the reincarnation of a Chinese philosopher.}}

* None of the endings of ''[[Devil Survivor]]'' are 100% happy. Yuzu's ending is a straight up [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]] [[Downer Ending]], but the rest are varying degrees of this. No matter how hard you try, everything inside the Yamamote line is more or less destroyed and hundreds of people die. The government will cover up the events of the game and God's next ordeal is inevitable unless you pick the Chaos ending (which allows the demons to overrun Earth) or the Law ending (which implies the protagonist went [[Knight Templar]] with the power).

* The ending of ''[[Don Pachi]]'', in which the player character joins the elite [[Super Soldier]] force DonPachi Squadron...after having completed training in which he is ordered to kill a massive plurality of allies posing as enemies.

* ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]''. {{spoiler|Sure, Jack gets revenge for John's murder, but that doesn't change the fact that the man he grew to admire and sympathize with is dead. Furthermore, Jack has become a wandering gunslinger and a broken shell of a man, exactly what his father didn't want for him.}}

* The [[Baldur's Gate]] Series has a few bittersweet endings for some of the NPCs.

** Each spoiler contains the epilogue for each NPC.

* The Order/Academy campaign in [[Heroes of Might and Magic|Heroes of Might and Magic IV]] ends with the hero defeating the [[Big Bad]], like all video games do. It also ends with {{spoiler|[[The Hero]] paralyzed from the waist down, [[Mentor Occupational Hazard|her advisor and father figure mindcontrolled and killed by their own men]], and a [[Fate Worse Than Death]] for the [[Big Bad]], who is actually a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]].}}

* [[Metroid]], ever since Super, loves these:

*** She also mourns the destruction of the Chozo Temple, which was their last great work. The game ends with her just sadly staring at the smoking ruins of it.

** Prime 2 - Samus has destroyed Dark Aether ([[Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds|Sound familiar?]]), but Dark Samus is still about and causing havoc.

*** Though this game also renders the endings of the first two Prime games a bit sweeter, as Tallon IV is recovering and the Luminoth's civilization is thriving again. So there's that.

** Super Metroid - Samus has killed Mother Brain, but has lost the closest thing she has yet had to a child, as well as her childhood home in the process.

** Metroid Fusion - Samus has destroyed the X parasite, by blowing up a space station and [[Colony Drop|the planet it orbited]], but openly admits she's probably a fugitive, for destroying federation property.

* ''[[Freedom Fighters (video game)|Freedom Fighters]]''. Sure, [[La Résistance|the resistance]] forced the [[Dirty Communists|Russians]] out of New York. But in the process, they blew up the infrastructure of most of the city. And it's not like [[Sequel Hook|they won't come back]] [[Cavalry Betrayal|with more forces.]]

* The ''[[Ultima]]'' series ends this way. When all is said and done, the Avatar and his companions manage to save Brittania one last time (hopefully for good) by finally defeating the Guardian. Sadly, the Avatar must perform a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to do so because the Guardian is the manifestation of everything the Avatar cast aside after perform the Quest to become the Avatar of Virtue -- as long as the Avatar lives the Guardian will too.

* ''[[Cave Story]]'''s normal ending is one of these. {{spoiler|Quote, Sue, Kazuma, Itoh, Momorin, and possibly a couple others escape, but the other half of the cast dies, the Mimigas are almost certainly extinct, and it's hinted at that not even the [[Colony Drop]] would stop the cycle of the Demon Crown.}}

** In ending A, {{spoiler|Nier defeats the Shadowlord and rescues Yonah, ''finally'' ensuring her survival after a five year struggle, but the world is still a slowly dying husk, Facade is in ruins and without a king, Emil (seemingly) died in a [[Heroic Sacrifice]], Weiss fades from existence after losing its power, and Kaine, despite her feelings for Nier, has to leave them to attend to "unfinished business".}}

** In ending B, {{spoiler|not only does all of the above happen, but the Shadowlord, and the Shades in general, are given the mother of all [[Alas, Poor Villain]] moments. On the plus side, [[The Stinger]] shows that Emil is still alive...as a disembodied head. To his credit, he doesn't seem to mind all that much.}}

* ''[[Company of Heroes]]'' ends with Able Company leading the encirclement of the Falaise Pocket, capturing a crippling percentage of the Wehrmacht. On the other hand, Captain Mackay is dead and 80% of Able Company is either killed or wounded. [[War Is Hell]], indeed.

** Both expansion packs actually make things worse. Not only are most named characters ultimately killed by the end, in an indirect way, YOU kill them off when you play the same scenario but from a different point of view.

*** Again in Tales of Valor, another scenario has you, the Allies capturing a town. At the end of the scenario, you learn that the last surviving named character later went on to take part and was killed in Operation Market Garden. But in the other expansion pack, Opposing Fronts, you play as the Germans who ultimately succeed in defeating the Allies in Operation Market Garden.

* ''[[Lunar]] 2'' "officially" ends with Zophar defeated and Lunar safe, but Lucia is forced to return to the Blue Star, leaving Hiro behind on Lunar. The epilogue allows you to find Hiro a way to travel to the Blue Star, but this only sets up another bittersweet ending: Hiro is able to be with Lucia but at the cost of leaving his friends and family on Lunar, probably forever.

* [[Stolen]] has this for an ending. Breeze is (likely) dead, Richard Killian has been arrested for murdering his own goon Night. The previous mayor is back in power. Louie, Anya's partner, puts a [[Lampshade Hanging]] on the trope by saying that nobody is better off, but nobody is worse off either. Louie and Anya's apartment has been blown up, and so the two of them take off on a motorcycle, perhaps to go on vacation.

* In [[The Witcher]] series, though the first game can end on a somewhat hopeful note, the second game ends this way no matter what you do. On one hand, Geralt is reunited with Triss, has recovered much of his memory, and knows Yennefer might still be alive. Unfortunately the seeds of chaos have been sewn across the Northern kingdoms, and [[The Empire|Nilfgaard]] is planning on marching in. Just about everything accomplished in both games has been rendered effectively moot.

* ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'' has Alex having destroyed the nuke to save New York City, but he is [[Awful Truth|unhappy with the truth]] that he ''is'' the Blacklight Virus having unleashed by the [[Complete Monster|real Alex Mercer]], his sister is in a comatose state, his ex-girlfriend has betrayed him, and the virus is yet to be stopped.

* ''[[Dead Rising 2]]: Case West'' has good news, best news, bad news, and worst news. The good news is that Frank and Chuck escape with proof that Phenotrans is responsible for the Fortune City outbreak and evidence to clear the latter's name; the best news is that the evil company is going down. The bad news is Marian Mallon, the head of Phenotrans, refuses to release the permanent cure as she [[The Social Darwinist|sees only the strong ones will get it]], and escapes with Isabela; the worst news is that nobody will believe of what happened to Phenotrans.

* ''[[Batman: Arkham City]]'': {{spoiler|Though the day is saved and Batman's cured of the toxin in him, it wasn't without a cost - a portion of Arkham City is in ruins, almost 25% of the inmates are dead because of Dr. Hugo Strange's Protocol 10 along with Strange himself, Ra's al Guhl, his daughter Talia, possibly Clayface and ''the Joker himself''. Even more, Harley Quinn's pregnant with the Joker's child and she wants ''vengeance''.}}

* At the end of ''Ikaruga'', {{spoiler|your ship sacrifices itself to destroy the final boss.}}

** It's even worse with the Kamino mission. He and the other stormtroppers stop the uprising but having to kill their younger brothers in the process and the Emperor replaces the old cloning template with the useless incompetent stormtroopers of the original trilogy basically making the 501st the last of their kind.

* ''[[Heavy Water Jogger]]'': The good news is Mr. Fluke, owner of the biggest, most dangerous nuclear power plant in the USA and jogger, turned the heavy water back on, saved the plant, and got out of there alive. The bad news is the [[No Name Given]] disgruntled employee, who started the whole mess in the first place, has escaped, called the police, and pinned the crime on him. The police arrest Mr. Fluke. Then again, [[Alternative Character Interpretation]] seems to suggest that Mr. Fluke may have been a [[Bad Boss]] and [[Villain Protagonist]], while the employee may be a [[Magnificent Bastard]] who wanted to take down Mr. Fluke. [[Your Mileage May Vary]] on all that!

* ''[[Asura's Wrath]]'' ends with {{spoiler|Asura destroying the source of all mantra, and eventually ending the world's suffering once and for all, but at the cost of his own life. As long as his daughter is safe, however, [[Tear Jerker|That's good enough for him.]]}}

* [[Diablo III]], for once, ends well. The prime evils have been [[Deader Than Dead|vanquished forever]], heaven is safe, and humanity is recovering the power it once had. But all of this comes with a hefty price: Many good people, like Deckard Cain and Leah, are killed, and Adria [[Sequel Hook|is still around]].