The Top 7... longest videogame endings

So Brett, are you justifying the ending to DQ?

That image on the first page is Lost Odyssey! Fantastic game although I don't remember the ending being 20 minutes long... Interesting article though. Now I know which games I can play and shut off at the beginning of the ending because super condensed versions are clearly easier and quicker.

These endings were so boring i dont know how anyone could see through them and they were all the same thing besides mgs4.

Totally wasn't expecting MGS4! /sarcasm I love MGS and it's convoluted-as-all-hell story, but damn Kojima, there's a limit.

I think Okami has the longest intro that I've played, it's like half an hour <_<

Motherfucking Rampage made me more angry than any other game ever. All they had to do was make the slightest god damned effort to anything at all and it would have been ok. "Congratulations". All those god damned hours spent, leaving my NES on overnight, having to make it look like it wasn't on so my parents wouldn't hit the power button to "save energy" or some bullshit... "Congratulation"... It's a wonder I even continued gaming after that. Fuck you, Rampage. Fist yourself until you impregnate yourself with a knuckle baby. John Wayne Gacey's clown act was more entertaining than Rampage's ending...

Clarification - I wasn't eliminating all JRPGs, just the massive glut that end with nearly identical 20-minute endings. Eternal Sonata, Xenosaga and DQVIII are all 40+ minutes long, so they're notable instead of "another JRPG ending." /copout

oops wrong name meant to say The-Tingler

justthebobreaker, i disagree actually, most of the best games i have ever played are often because of the story and you can never experience a great story if you playing all of the time, MGS 3 comes to mind, i just finished Dragon age and i would play it again even without fighting just coz the story and characters are so interesting.

Huge MGS fan lovely to see it is mentioned here, it may being the longest ending but it was the best. The MGS 3 ending was better in my opinion.

And that, gentlemen and ladies, is why I refuse to even consider playing Metal Gear Solid 4. I love game stories, but they should be told with an absolute minimum of cutscenes. No matter how good some people think it is, if you're just watching everything it is NOT a game. The writing guideline is usually "show, don't tell", but for games this should be amended to "play, don't show".

That gex one seems like something out of saw or some other creepy serial killer drama "You're the greatest!" slow scroll against static with off tune music, "You deserve a medal" "YOU ARE A GOD" You can hear the knives being sharpened now to adorn your entrails on roof of an astrovan with the windows knocked out and taped over with trashbags

The only game I've played on this entire list was Metal Gear. Still an entertaining article Brett, although I still have to disagree with your thoughts on Bioshock's ending when you talked about it on the podcast.

for a list NOT including JRPGs, at least FOUR of them were JRPGs. which is kinda... yeah. but srsly, 20+ for an ENDING?

While predictable it's still nice to see MGS4's ending getting the richly deserved love that it does here. Somewhat controversially among MGS fans I actually think that MGS4 is the most impressive game of the series rather than the oft beloved(and truly great) MGS3. That Kojima manages to tie up the most convoluted tale in the history of, not just games, but tales themselves is incredibly commendable and to manage it in some cinematic style(and, imo, with less of his usual over ripe dialogue)is beyond the call of even this mans anal attention to duty. Instead of ending it like you ight a film he continues with the same sense of pace that pervades, not just this game, but the series and that's the main reason this ending sits so well despite being way longer than most outsiders consider possible for gamers attention spans to manage. Known for ambling diatribes on the pointlessness of war and the futility of the search for power it's a wonder that it's so concise, imo! Because however long and wordy it may be Kojima still has so much to tie up that he COULD have gone on forever and that makes this ending possibly the most to the point on this list as well as being the longest. Jesus, I love this game!The fact that non believers(and a few jealous fanboys who never played a Kojima game in their lives)called it an interactive movie is made all the more amusing to me by the fact that none of the cutscenes in MGS4 are paced like films at all but tailored to fit exactly where they do in the much longer context of a MGS game and with Hideo being such a film fan to think he managed to take his influences over to another medium and still create such a masterful whole from the disparate ends of the three previous console MGS is all the more stunning for me.And he was(SPOILERS)right not to have Snake shoot himself.

1st image is Lost Odyssey, SO BAM!

the fact that all of these games are japenese is worrying but all of them seem to be in he right place on this list, there was no doubt that mgs4 was going to be number 1 just because my mate got bored of me watching a cutseen than rather getting on with the game

I think the joke here is that instead of all of the entries being JRPG's, only 6 of the 7 are.

Bayonetta had a pretty long ending. There were two lots of credits, then add in the "epilogue" and the dance number. Just saying, it was long.

Very nice article. I wish i had heard of more of the games featured though, and why does every ending need a twist? They are nearly always so predictable.