Bad Endings Options

[Jens of Zanicuud]

Some times ago I was working on a project (now dismissed - or rather, waiting for my current project completion) which was designed to end badly, with the death of every character in the party (this was however related to the plot).

I've seen quite a few RPG with a default (i.e. not optional) bad ending (FFXIII-2 / KH Birth by Sleep - if we can call their ending bad), so I wonder if it's a taboo to make your game ends in a tragic way, or simply players prefer an happy ending to every game they play, since they are playing not to think to their problems...

What's your point about it?
Would you play/create a game with a tragic ending (not optional - main ending)?

If so, why?

That's a feature I've never found in a RPG Maker game (excluding maybe survival horror...)
If you know some link 'bout that, I'd be pleased to give it a look.

Maybe my project will resurrect, who knows?

Jens

[Shaddow]

Actually an XBOX360 series of turned based strategy games handled this pretty well, IMO, Record of Agarest Wars. Now, this is advertised in the games, so no worries about spoilers. It's a multi-generational game, and each 'chapter' is a generation, in it your main character must choose a wife, have a kid, then die to save that area from corruption.

This is sad, also the fact that any human or non-long lived character doesn't go with you to the next generation as they obviously die. The game really builds up every character and it is pretty sad to lose a lot of them, but the story is so intense and they die for such a good reason that it's something you can cope with.

I think it's an excellent way to handle 'sad endings' even though it's not actually the end of the games, though you do have multiple endings so I'm sure there are some 'sad endings' too.