Downer Ending / Visual Novels

5 Following

Downer Endings in Visual Novels.

• 31st March, Midnight.:
  • In-Universe, 8Rats (the Dating Sim Amy plays) has a Secret Final Campaign that doubles as a Drama Bomb Finale. Most of the route has the protagonist learn about a species of rat people (not the anthropomorphic rat men she dates in every other route) who were driven underground by humans wanting to exploit them and their land. It ends with the sewers they call home being bloodily retaken once again by the humans, with the protagonist having a tearful conversation with her Love Interest as he lays dying. In her narration, Amy mentions that "[she] had to lie down for a while after that one."
  • In the actual game, most of the final scene consists of Amy bitterly remarking on how awful the situation is to herself: she's been forced to work on an Rubium dating sim parody entirely by herself without proper credit. More broadly, the company she's working for has proven itself to be entirely profit-driven, appealing to the LGBT community solely to that end — the dating sim is a key part of that, with Amy describing it as a "product" cynically calculated to boost the studio's public perception. Even Julie, her close friend who helped her out at crucial times in her life, begins acting unempathetic and condescending towards her. In the end, with her dreams of game development thoroughly crushed, she finishes the game, and ends the story, in tears.
• 428: Shibuya Scramble: The normal ending. While Shibuya is saved from being bombed, Kenji is fatally shot by Alphard, who later manages to escape from CIA custody thanks to her contacts there. And to add insult to injury Alphard's employers now have a full monopoly over the Ua antidote, which paves the way for it to be used in future bioterrorism attacks.
• The Ace Attorney series has several:
  • In the bonus case of the original game, if you present the cloth at the wrong time, you will inadvertently and incorrectly prove Ema guilty of Neil Marshall's murder, resulting in Lana being convicted in the current murder case.
  • In the fourth case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All, if you fail to present the correct evidence to the correct person in the final parts of the case, you get a bad ending in which your client and murderer Matt Engarde goes free, the innocent Adrian Andrews is found guilty, Maya is never seen again, and Phoenix runs away from the courtroom.
  • The fourth case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations ends with your client, who you were just about to get off the hook, deciding to kill himself rather than let his girlfriend, who is the real murderer, get implicated. Fortunately, it's mitigated by the knowledge that the guilty party was finally nailed a year later, as played out in the game's first case.
  • The verdict of the fourth case of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is left entirely up to you. If you choose "Not Guilty," you get the normal, happy (and canonical) ending to the game, but if for whatever reason you choose "Guilty," the verdict is postponed until tomorrow, but in the meantime your client, who is in the hospital from being poisoned, dies, and the verdict is "postponed for eternity."
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies has three in the fifth case, and one in the DLC case. Getting a game over in one of the two forced questions has Aura kidnap Athena. Getting a game over on Simon's testimony results in him being found guilty in Athena's place and executed. Aura vanishes with the hostages (including Trucy), Athena leaves the agency, Apollo is completely broken by the events, and Phoenix gives up being a lawyer. Lastly, getting a game over on Fulbright's final testimony results in Athena and Simon getting off the hook, but the phantom getting away clean and the failure to bring him to justice causing public opinion towards the law to sink even lower. In the DLC case, getting a game over during Rimes' Mood Matrix segment results in Orla being found guilty and put down (Sasha does get acquitted, but as a result of something she hired Phoenix to prevent from happening).
  • Continuing the tradition, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice adds a few more. If Apollo fails to keep the Founder's Orb out of Paul Atishon's hands, Dhurke's dream of ending the Ga'ran regime is never realized and Apollo's friendship with Phoenix becomes strained. Getting a game over while guessing who was channeling Dhurke results in Dhurke being posthumously declared guilty and the cast never realizing who Inga's true killer was. Getting a game over after Amara's False Confession ends similarly to the previous ending, but with Amara going to trial as well. Getting a game over after accusing Queen Ga'ran results in Apollo and Nahyuta being forced into hiding and becoming the new leaders of the Defiant Dragons.
  • In the fan-made case The Empty Turnabout, you lose the trial altogether after fighting for three chapters. Your client is found guilty even though he didn't do it, but he's okay with it. Furthermore, Athena is never punished for killing Blackquill, although it is revealed that she did so because Blackquill had killed her mother and got away with it thanks to her testimony... when she thought he was innocent. There's something positive, though: Apollo has figured out who really killed Arts and has called the police.
• Artificial Nexus: While most of the endings are bittersweet at best, the first ending, chown, is this: the Big Bad Prometheus is successful in downloading himself into Susan's body, overwriting her consciousness, and taking it over as his own.
• As the name implies, the selling point of BAD END THEATER is its numerous bad endings. There are 41 bad endings in total, though many of them are simply a Perspective Flip of one another on account of the game having multiple protagonists. While there are a few bittersweet endings and a couple of protagonist-centered good endings, each path ends with at least one protagonist murdered, and even if the protagonists make the morally correct choices, the background NPCs will be the ones to screw everything up. The only way to get an unambiguously good ending is to trap all four protagonists in a room together, perform a Deus ex Machina to save them all, and defeat the theater's owner in a boss battle.
• Most of the Normal (aka bad) Endings in Code:Realize are more bittersweet, but Saint-Germain's is particularly grim. Saint-Germain is lethally wounded during his battle with Guinevere and dies in Cardia's arms; afterward, Cardia joins the Ancient Conspiracy and never contacts Lupin or her other friends again, instead allowing them to believe that she's dead. The only positive note amidst the tragedy is that Cardia makes it clear she doesn't plan to follow Omnibus's orders without question and will try to save people if she can, but even so, she will never be able to form connections with anyone outside of the order, and the final lines of the ending describe her entering London on a mission for Idea with a "mask-like smile" on her face. Some of the Game Overs also go the extra mile to twist the knife, especially the ones which occur late in the game.
• Danganronpa:
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc can end with one such ending if you choose to pursue Kyoko's lie in the fifth trial, by pointing out that she could have used her special key to unlock the door to her room, resulting in her being convicted and executed. The remaining survivors remain trapped in the school for the rest of their (and their children's) lives, with the strong implication that Toko died at some point. However, this is quickly revealed to be a Daydream Surprise and Makoto wakes up right before that point, allowing the player to progress as normal.
  • The bad ending of the Fan Game Danganronpa Another has protagonist Yuki getting Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Monokuma, with the implication that the others followed suit. The true ending has Yuki's Empty Shell true personality overwrite his own and attempt to sentence the others to death after deciding to Break Them by Talking. However, they get a Heroic Second Wind thanks to Alter Ego and The Dragon Akane's Heroic Sacrifice, and manage to escape with Yuki allowing them due to a subtle Split-Personality Merge. Yuki and Akane die together in the collapsing facility as the others manage to escape, with the implication that Kinjo's fallen into his Black-and-White Insanity once more and is going back down the path of a Well-Intentioned Extremist. Plus, since the game is a Stealth Prequel to Trigger Happy Havoc, the nightmare is far from over.
• In the Death Room, it's only possible for one person to get out alive. So, your options are either to die or let someone else escape.
• In Ever17, some of the GOOD endings are Downer Endings! The worst being Tsugumi's Good Ending: Tsugumi and the protagonist, Takeshi, are able to get out of Lemu before it implodes upon itself, thanks to a tiny submarine that will propel itself to the surface, where rescuers are waiting. Partway through the journey, it breaks and begins to sink again...breaking underneath fifty feet of water. Takeshi manages to lock Tsugumi into one section of the sub, and disconnects the part that he's in so that the lighter weight will carry her to the surface. Takeshi sinks to the bottom of the ocean and drowns, while Tsugumi floats to safety, pounding on the glass window, screaming and crying to Takeshi that she doesn't want him to die. Sora's ending is even worse: Takeshi drowns when Lemu collapses because he refuses to leave Sora behind, who cannot leave. Tsugumi escapes but she's mentally scarred from the experience, not least of which because of how her relationship with Takeshi turned out. The rest of the cast probably die of the disease that killed the staff because Tsugumi's blood was apparently never used to synthesize an antidote. It's notable that of all the endings this is the only one that plays no real role in the true ending.
• Whilst most of the (actual) endings to Fate/stay night are bittersweet, the Normal End of the Heaven's Feel route is truly heartbreaking and tragic. Shirou sacrifices the ideal he'd been living for to protect his girlfriend Sakura halfway through the story and ends up with progressively worse brain damage in his attempts to keep her safe and get her back. At the end, it finally kills him. That's bad, but then it switches to the perspective of Sakura, who never moves on and never accepts that he's dead.
• Hatoful Boyfriend: Some of the birds' true endings are this. Most notably, Nageki, who turns out to be a ghost and disappears because your love enabled his spirit to move on, and Dr. Shuu, who dismembers you and flees St. Pidgeonation's with your severed head in a jar... but that's okay, because you really loved him. Additionally, if you fail to romance a bird, you are executed by the Hawk Party.
• The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty: "Conclusion: Gone" - Liang is alive, but Sui is no longer to be found in Luoyang city. Via the red pouch, she indirectly reveals her hatred towards Liang killing her father, but left her new shoes in front of the lake, which makes her situation ambiguous as to whether she's just tricking Liang into thinking she drowned, or if she really committed suicide by drowning. Either way, Liang never finds an answer, and the narration calls this conclusion as "the gentlest yet cruelest revenge".
• I Wani Hug that Gator!: The "Tragedy" ending where Inco sets up Olivia to deliver a eulogy in a skimpy dress to photograph her emotional breakdown. After he tries to paper over a serious argument with Olivia by hugging her, she pushes herself away... realizing only too late that her wheelchair is right up against the steps. The resulting tumble puts her into a coma, and Inco is left with a Jerkass Realization.
• Most endings in the Visual Novel Kana: Little Sister can be seen as Downer Endings, since in all but one of them the protagonist's beloved sister dies, often in some of the most tragically depicted death scenes in gaming ever. The fact that the makers tried to give most endings a bittersweet lining doesn't lessen the sad fact that the protagonist fails to save the most important person in his life, even after offering one of his kidneys for transplantation, as happens in some scenarios. The one ending in which she doesn't die results in her leaving him after a while. The guy just can't win.
• Makoto's route in Kanon. The only bright spot to Yuuichi feeling terribly heartbroken is that he has a new friend who understands what he just went through and that he will get better. Eventually. It's bad enough that it almost seems nicer to Makoto if she's just allowed to vanish and presumably die of exposure like in the other routes.
• Katawa Shoujo:
  • If Hisao fails to befriend one of the girls enough to seek out their company for the school festival(or makes the wrong choice at a critical point), he'll resign himself to giving his paranoid hallmate Kenji his company. While on his way to meet with Kenji on the roof of the school, he finds himself annoyed by the festivities. Once he meets up with Kenji, the two spend the entire day eating pretzles and drinking whiskey. After spilling his guts to Hisao, Kenji starts invading his personal space. Hisao, heavily inebriated, tries to back away, only to end off slipping and falling off the roof. His last thoughts were of how this was a fitting way to end such a crappy day. Cue red flash, fade to black, roll credits.
  • Every single route has at least one and possibly two Downer Endings. Emi breaks up with Hisao after their argument, telling him that while she knows he's a good guy, they just cannot last together and he's not the kind of boy that can handle her. Hanako lashes out at Hisao (and by proxy, Lilly) for pitying her and breaks up their buddying relationship. Lilly goes to Scotland permanently, leaving behind her boyfriend Hisao and her best friend Hanako. Rin either has a fall-out with Hisao in her atelier and their bonds are explosively severed, or leaves Hisao and everyone else she's close to behind to study art in Tokyo, even if it means changing herself (which could potentially result in her suicide). Shizune ends up alone, believing that she pushed Hisao and Misha away with her competitive personality, since they drifted apart from her. (And unbeknownst to Shizune, Hisao cheated on her with Misha, as a result of Misha having an emotional breakdown over her Unrequited Love for Shizune.)
• Kokoro:
  • Kokoro No Doki Doki Senpai?? has three Bad Ends that are all comedic. One has Player's love interest, Moku, fall in love with their weird classmate, Largo^note  who is a red, furry, horned creature with a massive head and a tiny body, causing Player to become heartbroken. The other two, however, have Player die; One sees him spontaneously combust and burn to death after the player themselves make him squirt mustard all over Moku, and the other has an angry mob stone him to death after he exposes his genitals in public.
  • Kokoro Baka Monogatari has one for Genki's route, where after she loses in the Nippon's Got the Next Top Idol competition and the player chooses to have Tuu confront her about her co-dependency issues, the two girls have a falling out that leads to Genki getting in a relationship with Kuuru of all people, leaving Tuu feeling empty about everything that's happened. Oh, and Tuu and her friends get kidnapped by the Secret Earth Government so they can continue their (previously secret) training for the incoming war with alien parasites, which only further dowers her mood.
• LifeSigns: Surgical Unit has this as a Bad Ending if you fail to convince Suzu-sensei, or if you fail Professor Sawai's heart operation. In this ending, Dr. Tendo fails to save Sawai's life, and says that his death has left his family far behind. Suzu-sensei loses her job, and Tendo-san quits being a doctor. After a conversation between Aoshima-san and Hoshi-san, a shot of a newspaper (with the headline "Tragedy of the Holy Night!") appears with Aoshima-san saying that she still doesn't remember what really happened on the night Professor Sawai died, and "now everything is covered in darkness." Then the credits roll while showing old-fashioned pictures of various places in the game.
• Long Live the Queen: In a game where most of the people you meet want you either helping with their plots or dead so that they can take your throne, this is a given. Even if you make it to your coronation without being killed, you might still be forced to watch your father die (or become physically and mentally handicapped if he does survive), lose your fertility to your aunt's poison, unintentionally spark a rise in prejudice against Lumen, cause Merva to secede from Nova after you alienate them by executing your aunt's entire family...And the list goes on.
• Near the end of Muv-Luv Unlimited, "Alternative IV", Professor Yuuko's plan to turn the tide of the war against the BETA and reclaim the Earth from its invaders, is unceremoniously cancelled by the UN. With the termination of "Alternative IV", the UN enacts "Alternative V": the evacuation of humanity's best and brightest from Earth to a new homeworld far from the reach of the BETA. Sadly, Takeru is among the remainder of the human race left behind to fight the BETA to the bitter end. The story can end on a bittersweet note if the player makes the right choices to ensure their love interest manages to get aboard one of the migrant fleet ships fleeing Earth. It is this exact scenario that Takeru works to avoid in Muv-Luv Alternative, while the continuation of the story of Unlimited, Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After, reveals that the humans left behind on Earth descended into war with one another over the remaining resources, including habitable land, left behind in the wake of "Alternative V" and the subsequent mass-bombardment of the planet's surface to destroy the BETA (which doesn't even completely destroy them anyway).
• Otaku's Adventure: Waifu's route ends with the world ending. The planet is destroyed; there’s seemingly no way to repair the damage; and the player helped the apocalypse come about unknowingly.
• Physical Exorcism Series:
  • Case 03: True Cannibal Boy:
    • In the normal ending, Lily delivers a Mercy Kill to Sally, but this causes her to become emotionally numb to everything except hating evil spirits, resulting in her becoming a ruthless Blood Knight exorcist. Marty is arrested for the various serial killings and is never seen again. In a twist, this is a somewhat happier outcome for Lily than the true ending.
    • In the true ending, it turns out that not all the victims were due to the Cannibal Boy. Some of them were actually Marty killing various women in order to find a new body for Sally, and Jade helps him kill Lily. Right before Marty beheads her, Lily swears to become an evil spirit to take revenge on Marty and Jade. Nya is pleased with Jade's work and "rewards" her by sending her to the world of the Peacemaker Series.
  • Blood Lily Loop: If Sally chooses not to forgive Lily, the latter will break the time loop. Unfortunately, Nya's son is still in her womb, who breaks free and destroys the world anyways.
• For one whopper of a Downer Ending, look no further than Planetarian, which ends with Robot Girl Yumemi getting gunned down by a big mecha, after the protagonist hauled her out of the planetarium she still felt obliged to work for and where she had been waiting for her co-workers to return for thirty years. The worst part is that she had a fair chance of surviving where she was - if the protagonist wouldn't have blown her power supply by letting her run all that heavy equipment for that one last show. Leave it to Key/Visual Arts to make as depressing an ending as possible.
• The "Nightmare" endings of Queen's Gambit are pretty much relentlessly horrible, involving the deaths of a lot of the main cast and the loss of everything the protagonist values. The "Rookie" endings can also be pretty grim, though they usually provide at least some spark of hope.
• In Rewrite (2011) most of the endings are downers, though some of them don't seem that way at first. Shizuru and Akane's routes end with the apocalypse, Lucia's route has the entire town destroyed and will also result in the apocalypse, except even worse this time. Kotori and Chihaya's routes seem to end well, but these routes will also result in the apocalypse, though at least the main characters will live out their lives before that. It's not until Moon and Terra that you get an ending that doesn't result in the world ending.
• Save the Date is a short game in which you attempt to go on a date with a girl, but the date is always cut short by her death. Literally every single time. No matter what you do to avoid the previous deaths, new ones will pop out of the woodwork. And the true ending, obtainable after you exhaust all other options? You don't go on the date. The girl finds love with someone else. You are left alone. The only exception is the secret ending that requires you to edit the game.
• At the end of Sayonara Wo Oshiete you discover that Hirosuke is a patient in a mental hospital suffering from psychosis, with most of the girls (except Mutsuki, who was a patient institutionalized for depression) being stuff he found around the facility, seeing them as people as a result of his delusions. Semina and Tonae are his older sister and doctor respectively, who have done everything they could to get him better, to no avail. Even worse, in The Stinger, just as he seemingly remembers who he really is, he retracts to another delusion. Which means that no, he'll never get any better.
• School Days is rather infamous for its bad endings, all of which involve gruesome and bloody murder (or suicide, in one case). The PS2 "all-ages" port added several more bad endings and extended the existing ones. The game's sequels, Summer Days and Cross Days, have bad endings of their own, though most aren't nearly as horrifying as the ones in the original.
• Most of the endings in The Shell are pretty terrible, especially if you count the Bad Ends, which have extensive stories. There are only two endings that really qualify as bittersweet.
• Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair has four of the Multiple Endings fall into this category, with the good ending being a Bittersweet Ending.
  • If you agree that Kamen Eiga, the current prime suspect, is the culprit, she'll be taken into questioning for the murders, and will never forgive the other survivors for abandoning her.
  • If you accuse Runa Hikari of being the culprit, she'll be cleared after a blood test fails to find blood on her kimono. This results in Runa, Rie and Kamen refusing to speak to Raiko.
  • If you accuse Hiro Shiratake of being the murderer, Raiko will also accuse Kamen of killing him in revenge for what he did to Momoko. As a result, Kamen gets arrested for something she did not do.
  • If you choose the correct culprit, then choose a wrong answer when asked who the mastermind of the plot is, Taiko will stop listening to Raiko.
• All three endings of The Song of Saya can be considered downers. One has Fuminori's brain returned to normal, only for him to be locked up and separated from Saya forever. In the next, Saya "blooms" and begins to transform the entire world into her own nightmarish species. Finally, the last ending kills off all but one major character, who's gone half-insane and will very likely commit suicide one day soon.
• Spirit Hunter:
  • The bad ending of Spirit Hunter: Death Mark, where at least one Mark Bearer dies. The protagonist fails to properly seal the Big Bad and she comes for him at the end.
  • Spirit Hunter: NG:
    • The Bad End, predictably. All of Akira's companions are dead. The grief overwhelms him, as does his Bloodmetry power, until a mysterious voice offers her help. However, his Bloodmetry is too powerful even for her, and he's turned into a murderous Spirit that kills the last few survivors that he cared for.
    • The 'Normal' End is actually pretty dismal- because one or more of Akira's companions were killed, their grudge manifests as them preventing the Nagoshi no Gi ritual from working. This leads to Kakuya (rather gruesomely) possessing Seiji or Kaoru and having them drag Akira into Kakuriyo, where it's implied that Kakuya kills him (hopefully, because the alternative isn't much better). And since the ritual was imperfect, it's only a matter of time before Kakuya escapes again.
  • Much like the previous game, Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II's bad ending involves the protagonist failing to figure out the Big Bad's true identity, resulting in his death.
• In Strawberry Vinegar, if you refuse to let Licia stay in your house, her older sister will come, prove she was indeed a demon, and reap your soul to Hell as punishment. Ouch.
• The first chapter of Suika ends with Itsuki realizing she's dead, disappearing and leaving Akira all alone. His personality is completely broken and when he finally meets Sayo again, the girl they both thought was really dead, he refuses to introduce himself and runs away. Both the endings of the third chapter are also disturbing. Yoshikazu either ends up with the extremely controlling, manipulative Touko or gets stabbed to death by Akane, who hooks up with Touko instead after apparently hypnotizing her.
• sweet pool is well-known for having no happy ending whatsoever, no matter what decisions you make. Only one among the six possible endings can be considered a Bittersweet Ending at best, but nevertheless, the protagonist either dies, will die soon, or suffers from a Fate Worse than Death.
• Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet has several.
  • The Candibal End has Syrup eat Gumdrop. Pastille is so disgusted he leaves and never returns, and due to dwindling sales Syrup has to close down her shop.
  • The Frozen End has Syrup tell Butterscotch she hates her which leaves Butterscotch unable to get them out of the icy cave they're in. They end up freezing to death in there.
  • Bad End 1 has Syrup give Gumdrop over to Butterscotch and refuses to help Pastille get her back, and he leaves her. The candy store goes into decline and Syrup's left with nothing and nobody.
  • Bad End 2, similar to Bad End 1 has Syrup give Gumdrop over and Pastille leaves her, but in this ending she hires Toffee to help out around the store. They and Butterscotch take it over and Syrup quits, resolving to never get close to anyone again so nobody can betray her like Pastille did.
  • And the Worst End has similar events to the Frozen End, except Pastille and Treat rescue Syrup and Butterscotch before they freeze to death. However Syrup tells Butterscotch she still hates her, and the own coldness in Syrup's heart ends up killing her.
• Tsukihime has these in about half of its routes, especially in the True Ends.
  • Arcueid, continually losing her power, in the end leaves her lover behind and goes back to eternal sleep in her castle, forever dreaming of her times spent with him.
  • Akiha's route ends with the protagonist killing himself to restore her sanity, though it is hinted in the fandisc sequel that he might still be alive. Her normal ending simply has her spending the rest of her life as a mindless bloodsucker.
  • Hisui's ends with her sister Kohaku, the mastermind behind most of the game's events, killing herself in guilt and to let Hisui live in peace. Akiha also dies. This is a really bittersweet ending since you still get the girl and it gives an incredible feeling of life continuing.
  • The Epilogue, taking place after any (or all) of the routes, has the protagonist once again meeting the woman who taught him to value life. He thanks her for all she had done; during their talk, it is revealed that the protagonist will only have a few years left to live, less if he continues to use his Mystic Eyes.
• Urban Myth Dissolution Center: The game ends rather miserably for everyone except the Big Bad, with Japan in complete shambles from millions of people's personal info leaking, the Center demolished, the case itself being marked no-solve, and the game ending in an Ambiguous Situation with Jasmine confronting Azami, now revealed to be a split personality of Ayumu / Ayumi, at a new Center in another country.
• In War: 13th Day, the True End reveals that the entire game is Wildfire's Dying Dream.
• When They Cry:
  • Both exemplified and ultimately subverted by Higurashi: When They Cry. Most of the individual arcs end with one of the main characters either brutally murdering or being murdered by one (or more) of their best friends, but the cycle of murders ultimately leads to a Good End for the main characters.
  • The same applies to its companion, Umineko: When They Cry. One of the worst endings has the protagonist stripped naked, forced to be a pet/servant to the antagonist, and is eaten alive by people in goat-masks. Oh, and this is after a lot of the other island's inhabitants are murdered.
  • The ending of the series also applies where it at best is bittersweet. Battler finally once again can meet his family and Beatrice in the golden land or a downer where everything from ep 3 and forward was just a way for an amnesiac Battler to sort out his memories about Rokkenjima.
• Yandere-chan has a whole host of bad endings that all conclude with your untimely death, usually via scissors. The only ending that could be considered good is the one where the titular yandere gets sent to a mental institution.
• Zero Escape:
  • Every ending but the true ending in Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors ends with everyone dying, killing each other or having one character go Ax-Crazy. The Coffin ending is the worst, just a cockblock to the true ending if you forgot to get the Safe ending. Even the true ending can be seen as bittersweet, since June and Santa played a role in the deaths of three people. Granted, Ace killed two of them, but the 9th man was killed by his bomb, which could be connected back to "Zero." Thus, two characters are fugitives and Junpei may never get a chance to spend a happy life with June because she is on the run with her accomplice. Also, per Word of God, it's heavily suggested that Junpei never does find June, and spends the rest of his life pursuing her. At least, until the events of Virtue's Last Reward, when both of them are old.
  • Also, in its sequel Virtue's Last Reward, nearly every ending. The game includes a number of outright bad endings that give you a game over screen. It also includes at least 10 "locks" that have a role similar to the Coffin Ending of the first game... these endings force you to come back after learning something in a different timeline. Even the non game-over endings tend to have things like the entire complex exploding, people dying of the Radical-6 virus, bracelets injecting you with chemicals that kill you, escaping out into a blank, featureless desert.... However, the final few endings are even bigger downer endings, as you discover that nearly the entire population of Earth was killed off by the Radical-6 virus and the detonation of the anti-matter reactors. However, Phi's ending includes a Sequel Hook that implies you may be able to fix things in the next game.