Mini Game Credits

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Video games are supposed to be interactive. You're supposed to play a game, not sit there and watch everything go by. Unfortunately, there are some parts of games that usually aren't interactive, and the Closing Credits is one of them. After all, you as the player don't have much to do as a long list of names goes from the bottom of the screen to the top.

That doesn't have to be the case, though.

What if we took the Closing Credits, and apply the "play" aspect of a video game to it? You get Mini Game Credits. This is when you can play a Mini Game during the credits sequence. If too many players are skipping the credits because there's nothing to do, just make them interactive. Now you have something to do other than watching the long list of names go from the bottom of the screen to the top! It's a great way to entertain the player during an otherwise dull scene, and make people actually want to sit and watch the names go by. These credits are a memorable send-off after the player finished the game.

This is a subtrope of Creative Closing Credits.

Examples of Mini Game Credits include:


Action Adventure

Action Game

  • Devil May Cry games normally give you an infinite number of mooks to beat up, killing enough unlocks an additional scene afterwards.
  • Vanquish has you shooting meteors with the development team on them.

Adventure Game

Beat Em Up

  • The Warriors, similar to Devil May Cry, featured a battle at one point in the credits. You play as Masai, and you and the Riffs beat up the Rogues.
  • Bayonetta has short extra fights during the credits. You even get ranked for each one!

Fighting Game

  • It's a Super Smash Bros. tradition:
    • SSB64: Not really a minigame, shooting the names in the credits would only bring up more specific info about the person's contribution.
    • SSBM: Same as before, but more dynamic, and the game would report your score at the end of the credits sequence. Led to an urban legend that shooting all the names would unlock Toad as a playable character.
    • SSBB: Not really a credits game as much as a roll call of characters\things in the game. It keeps track of your score, and you gain coins from shooting more targets which can be used elsewhere in-game. The actual credits, played after the game's story mode, are traditional for once.
  • In the Wii version of Punch-Out!!, you could correct inaccuracies (mirrored/upside down letters and boxer names) in the credits for points.
  • Tatsunoko vs. Capcom has 2: the normal variety involves Doronjo and her henchmen riding a bicycle and collecting golden letters, while if you beat the game as Roll in the Updated Rerelease version of the game, you can fly around the screen on her broom instead. Collecting all golden letters is necessary to unlock a shooter minigame in the UR version of the game.
  • In Street Fighter EX 3, you can mow down an infinite number of Mooks during the end credits, including Andore from Final Fight, who got bigger the more times you defeated him.
  • In Ehrgeiz, (a Square fighting game best known for including Final Fantasy VII characters) the credits play during the final boss battle. This is actually important to at least one ending: When the boss is defeated, a number of bonus items appear, including coins, jewels, and Han Dehan's severed leg. If you're playing as Han, your ending is determined by whether you recover his leg before the timer runs out.

Miscellaneous Games

  • Katamari Damacy and its sequels had different minigames during the credits. The original had the Prince rolling up all the nations of the Earth in a giant katamari, We Love Katamari had the Prince picking up his cousins in a katamari while dodging the King of All Cosmos (who was rolling the sun), Me and My Katamari had a 8-bit side-scrolling platformer version of the typical Katamari Damacy level, and Beautiful Katamari had a similar Retraux credits mini-game, but as a top-down shooter instead.
  • Retro Game Challenge ends with one final shooter sequence with a 16-bit version of the ship from Cosmic Gate up against Game Master Arino.
    • The sequel has a similar minigame, with the added option of being able to evade his attacks via barrel rolls and being able to collect powerups. If you chose a girl character in the beginning, you're also given the option of using autofire by pressing Y.

Platform Game

  • Super Monkey Ball had you collecting Bananas whilst the credits got in your way.
  • Kirby had one in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror.
  • Wario Ware Smooth Moves has you move a hole in the stage floor around, sending the Miis of the creators falling in it.
    • Mega Party Game$! also had one where you shot panels to reveal letters in the credits, and kept track of how many you hit how many appeared total at that point.
    • D.I.Y. has you destroy UFOs that are carrying the names across the screen. There's actually a medal (achievement) for getting a perfect score!
    • Touched for the DS lets you manipulate little, blue video game shapes (the Game Cube logo, The Triforce, etc.) in different ways as the credits roll.
  • New Super Mario Bros. Wii has you hitting the letters of the developers' names as blocks to get coins.
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2 allows you to run around as Mario in moving dioramas of some of the levels. Once you have all 120 stars, you can use a Bee Mushroom to fly around the levels and even fly off the screen and die.
  • In the credits for the Wii version of Sonic Colors, you can use the homing attack and various Wisp powers to attack the names displayed and get rings. You even get extra lives for your rings at the end.

Puzzle Game

  • Meteos lets you play a game with tiny blocks during the credits- any Meteos launched here count towards fusion.

Rhythm Game

  • Recent Guitar Hero games have had a final song played over the credits roll in career mode, being played without any scoring or possibility of failure whatsoever. These have included "Through the Fire and Flames" on III, "Pull Me Under" on World Tour, and "21st Century Schizoid Man" on 5
  • On Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2 for the original Xbox, you can play a little minigame during the credits that involves hitting chains of arrows appearing in the background, getting enough points in it unlocks a song.
  • Subverted by Beatmania IIDX 16: Empress; the credits themselves are not a minigame, but the game's ending theme later became a playable track revealed to be entitled "THANK YOU FOR PLAYING" ... whose background video is the credit roll.
    • This gets funnier on later versions where the song is still there, and still uses IIDX 16's credit roll! You'd think they would have replaced it with a "generic" movie on IIDX 17, wouldn't they?
  • Some of the Rhythm Heaven games have this. Rhythm Heaven for the DS had the minigame "Airboarders", and Rhythm Heaven Fever had a remake of "Night Walk" from the original Rhythm Tengoku for the Gameboy Advance.

Role Playing Game

  • In Final Fantasy IX if you input a code you can play blackjack after the credits.
  • Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales has a minigame where you have to tap the letter "O" where-ever it appears in the credits, while trying to avoid other letters. You have to figure this out for yourself, though.
  • The first Boktai game had one of these every second clear of the game if Otenko is saved, consisting of Django picking up items while dodging bombs. Par for the game, you get better items and get faster the stronger the sun and the more items you pick up without hitting a bomb.

Space Shooter

  • Star Soldier on the PSP allowed you to shoot the credits for points. You could also blow up and lose your power ups (but never your lives).

Stealth Based Game

  • In Hitman: Blood Money, you play the last level over the credits, after Number 47 wakes up from his faked death and starts wasting everyone at his funeral.
  • Assassin's Creed 2 throws you out of the Animus when the credits begin and you fight as Desmond, now having a hidden blade and all of Ezio's abilities, some Abstergo guards, when the game leaves you at a cliffhanger. Still, the credits roll for quite some time even after the level has been beaten.

Survival Horror

  • The Typing of the Dead: typing out the names of the creators listed in the credits will make dancing zombies jump out from the containers.
    • Typing the entire credits and freeing all the zombies unlocks the New Game+ features (such as AI partners/opponents for "two-player" mode).

Third Person Shooter

  • In Kid Icarus Uprising, you can shoot the names to turn them red, and it counts how many you get. One of the treasure hunt goals is to get at least a certain number.

Visual Novel

  • During the credits after Case 5 of the first Ace Attorney game, you can play a little version of the fingerprinting mini-game, allowing you to see some concept art of each of the characters.

Web Games

  • The Bright in The Screen, a surreal, psychological horror flash game allows you to play a creepily pointless game while it loads. A man trapped in a room can unleash seemingly very destructive energy blasts... But there are no enemies to attack, and no way to get out of the room. Even the loading screen interactively messes with your mind.
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