Author's Rant # 1

I dislike bad endings in video games, I am not talking about poorly written endings here. I am talking about bad endings intended to punish not doing things right in a visual novel or any story-based game really. The first reason I dislike them is that unless you’re playing like an action game like an arcade shooter a bad ending feels bad by design and makes me wonder if having a bad ending in a game really counts as content when really, you’re going to save scum back in order to get the gold ending usually anyways. Worst yet are good endings locked behind a special sequence of events that require a walkthrough guide in order to get the ending every player would want anyways. Sure, without a sense of failure bad endings require the good endings wouldn’t be as good. I still think having bad endings outside of maybe visual novels just seems unnecessary. I obviously want the good ending in a game so why even have bad endings in story-based games other than to punish a player. Am sure there is a counterpoint out there something that would destroy my entire point here, but I just dislike bad endings just for an excuse to make the player save scum backwards just to finish the story properly.