Best/Worst Twists in Video Games

[J.T.]

15 minutes ago, Craig H said:

I doubt Xenogears inspired that scene, but it's eerily reminiscent of it.

The Wachowskis being voracious consumers of Asian culture, particularly Japan and China, and the release of Xenogears predating The Matrix Revolutions by five years,, I could totally believe that the conversation between the Architect and Neo was possibly inspired by Xenogears.

[Contentious C]

I'm not at all surprised that a certain plot twist hasn't been mentioned, not that it matters, since everyone is familiar with it and it's far from best or worst, but I thought I'd share a little anecdote.

I had one of the official FF7 player guides while I pumped I don't know how many hours into that game. Marvel Heroes might be the only game I ever played more. Anyway, I'm reading through the guide, which is decidedly spoiler-free in meaningful ways, and I look at the final battles with Sephiroth, and I think, "Well, big deal. I'll just get Aeris up to a limit break and invincible my way through that shit when it arrives. Hey, why is Aeris not in any of these late game photos? That's weird."

100 gameplay hours later... "WHA-WHA-WHA-WHA-WHA-WHAAAAAAAT????"

Those were the days.

[J.T.]

No one's pure caster stats were better than Aeris, so naturally she was your go to for all things Black Mage / White Mage.. 

Killing her off in mid game and forcing you to improvise was genius because it prepped you for the future of FF where characters and their relationship to the story were more important than what class you assumed they were.

[Craig H]

I didn't have a SNES (I had a Genesis) before getting a Playstation so I never played FF6. What happens to Aeris is my first gut punch ever when playing a video game. It was such a WTF moment and throughout the rest of that playthrough I kept thinking she would come back.

I think the only twist that came close to really throwing me off was probably playing SMB2, getting to the end of that, and then both not facing Bowser (a fucking frog, wtf is this shit?) and then it's either all a dream or Mario is still stuck in a dream, I forget. I really like SMB2 because it was so much different than SMB, but that ending is just so weird. That's probably also the first time I encountered some Japanese bullshit in a video game.

Years later things made more sense when I found out that this wasn't even supposed to be a Mario game.

[Craig H]

1 minute ago, J.T. said:

No one's pure caster stats were better than Aeris, so naturally she was your go to for all things Black Mage / White Mage.. 

Killing her off in mid game and forcing you to improvise was genius because it prepped you for the future of FF where characters were more important than what class you assumed they were.

I don't even think I finished the second disc or maybe I made it to the second disc, but I didn't finish the game, took a break like I always do, and came back to the game. I had the Aeris stuff in mind and decided to re-start the game. That time I didn't even really bother much with boosting Aeris. I also wound up grinding out XP even more.

[Zimbra]

This topic was made for me, the guy who is still mad about Wing Commander 3 almost 25 years later

Spoiler

Hobbes being a brainwashed double agent came out of nowhere and flies in the face of the story of the past games.  And then the 'good' ending of the game has you attempting genocide against the Kilrathi.  It's some real shit.

Game is still good, though.

[Death From Above]

3 hours ago, Craig H said:

Not for me either. That shit was par for the course as far as anime goes. What really threw me off was that there was nudity (kinda) in the game. It took me a long ass time to play through Xenogears too. I bought it when it came out and then stopped for a really long time. Maybe a year. When I came back to it I had started buying up VHS tapes of Evangellion. When I got closer to the end of the game I was able to understand what was going on. It was funny re-watching the conversation with Existence because it immediately made me think of the conversation Neo has with the Architect. I doubt Xenogears inspired that scene, but it's eerily reminiscent of it.

Good game and good combat system. I played FF7 first, which I also loved at the time, but Xenogears was so much better as far as gameplay was concerned. Same combat system, but then when you add in playing as your gear, customizing it, etc., man that shit was really cool.

It's actually a long totally separate topic where we point out how literally every science fiction movie and TV show in the 21st century is blatantly just stealing material from a far more creative sci fi video game, but because old lawyers don't give a fuck about video games it's not considered intellectual theft.

[J.T.]

2 hours ago, Craig H said:

I don't even think I finished the second disc or maybe I made it to the second disc, but I didn't finish the game, took a break like I always do, and came back to the game. I had the Aeris stuff in mind and decided to re-start the game. That time I didn't even really bother much with boosting Aeris. I also wound up grinding out XP even more.

The fact that Aeris's Ultimate Weapon (Princess Guard?) has seven Materia slots adds fuel to the seminal speculation that there was supposed to be an optional side quest where the party could resurrect Aeris, but it was left out of the game in order to meet the release schedule...

IIRC, there was an interview with some of the developers that stated that the explanation for the above was simple.  The devs did not want to give away the story, so Aeris's Ultimate Weapon was given the same Materia properties as the others and they fucking knew that she wasn't going to survive long enough into the storyline to wield a fully empowered UW.

 

[Spritenaut 32]

I kinda hate that I only played my way through FFVII for the first time last year and had known about the Aeris plot twist for years by then.

[Chaos]

11 minutes ago, J.T. said:

The fact that Aeris's Ultimate Weapon (Princess Guard?) has seven Materia slots adds fuel to the seminal speculation that there was supposed to be an optional side quest where the party could resurrect Aeris, but it was left out of the game in order to meet the release schedule..

IIRC, there was an interview with some of the developers that stated that the explanation for the above was simple.  The devs did not want to give away the story, so Aeris's Ultimate Weapon was given the same Materia properties as the others and they fucking knew that she wasn't going to survive long enough into the storyline to wield a fully empowered UW.

 

That reminds me that I need to finish reading this at some point.

https://www.polygon.com/a/final-fantasy-7 

[The Comedian]

"Anyone seen my wife?"

Spoiler

Oh that's right, I killed her...

 

[Contentious C]

I knew a guy who wouldn't shut up about how much he loved that game. I never played it, so I can't say much about it, but he explained the whole psychology of it once and it was just...too specific. Like, if every creature has some in-world connection to some other emotion or event, wouldn't you bing-bang-boom your way to connecting those dots a lot faster? I get it from a storytelling perspective, but it made me glad I never played SH2. 

[odessasteps]

Are we counting Raiden/Snake or is that a separate discussion?

[Brian Fowler]

6 hours ago, Robert C said:

Since I got it last night, I feel like end of Far Cry 5 goes here if you choose to shoot that fucker in the face.  The hints were there, but I sure as hell wasn't expecting that.  I dunno if it's in the best or worst category, though.  The twist to the other ending was very, very predictable.

Far Cry 4 has a great twist at the beginning if you just don't do anything for several minutes, you beat the game.

[Craig H]

1 hour ago, odessasteps said:

Are we counting Raiden/Snake or is that a separate discussion?

I wanted to call that out too. I think it counts. I would say it's a bad twist or at least not a welcome one.

And yet, in a game series full of twists, many half-baked, that's not even close to being the worst.

[Raziel]

MGS2's twist worked in the overall narrative of the series, but I understand everyone hating playing as Raiden in the last 2/3rds of the game. 

 

I often wonder what would've been if Squeenix let the devs finish Xenogears instead of rush it out to capatalitze on FF7's hype.  The game was overall better, but that 2nd disc kills it's momentum dead.

Speaking of Final Fantasy, I hated 8's "We were all in the same orphanage and just forgot!" twist.  X's twist and the ending it triggered actually brought a tear, which is an amazing bit of work since I HATED Tidus 90% of that game.

Grandia II's twist would've been ok if you didn't see it coming 5 miles away, but props for being another RPG that has the balls to kill off a character perm.

[John E. Dynamite]

7 hours ago, Contentious C said:

I knew a guy who wouldn't shut up about how much he loved that game. I never played it, so I can't say much about it, but he explained the whole psychology of it once and it was just...too specific. Like, if every creature has some in-world connection to some other emotion or event, wouldn't you bing-bang-boom your way to connecting those dots a lot faster? I get it from a storytelling perspective, but it made me glad I never played SH2. 

No, no, not at all. This is post-GTA3 PS2 stuff we're talking about. Legs-for-heads monsters and creepy nurses and lumps of flesh in the shape of a bed just seemed edgy and M rated until that sweet, f'ed up reveal.