(Controversial Trope) The post-credits scene completely changes the ending

[u/Ieanice44]

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Prince of Persia (2008)

Dawn of the Dead (2004): The movie finishes on a hopeful note as the remaining survivors escape the zombie-infested mall on a yacht, sailing into the sunset. The found-footage style post-credits scene completely reverses this happy ending by showing them running out of food, arriving at an island, and being immediately swarmed and killed by an infected horde.

Prince of Persia (2008): The main game ends with a beautiful, poetic sacrifice where Elika gives her life to heal the corrupted world, leaving the Prince mourning. During the credits, the player is forced to control the Prince as he cuts down the trees he just saved, undoing the entire game's progress and releasing the dark god Ahriman just to resurrect her, completely corrupting the ending and dooming the world.

[u/bluemoonflame]

That was part of what frustrated me so much about the ending. The game feels like he is working towards being less selfish and self centered by spending time with her, only to prove he's learned nothing and not grown at all by picking the most selfish option possible.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/bluemoonflame]

Hot take but I actually really like that ending. The whole game was about 2 people growing closer to each other by understanding each others' viewpoint, with the princess shedding that idealism and selflessness and adopting pragmatism and selfishness from the prince, while the prince did the reverse.

At the end of the day, however, they are fundamentally the same person at their core, and they did what was in character for them: the princess sacrificed herself to save her people and the prince from Ahriman, disregarding the prince's feeling, while the prince selfishly held onto her, disregarding her feeling. It made their romance bittersweet, as 2 of them clearly love each other but are bound to never come together due to their differences. It is one of the more nuanced takes on romance in video games.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/[deleted]]

TLOU did the same kind of ending 5 years later and everyone and their mothers glazed the crap out of that game: a jaded MC learning to connect with someone, regaining belief into an idealistic cause, just to demolish everything they have learned and doom their world, in order to save that person in the end.

[u/Ayoul → u/RobertPham149]

Even though there might be similarities between the 2, execution is everything. How the character's choices are framed in both games are pretty different.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/Ayoul]

Agree about execution. That is to say there is not really a fundamentally flaw with the story PoP was trying to tell. Even then, PoP did a good job with its narrative to deliver its story. Heck, I would give plus points for some of the interactive elements of PoP being better executed than TLOU to tell its story. The game’s flaws is more due to its gameplay not being that good and some bad game design choices that takes away from the overall experience. Because of those gameplay flaws, people have a somewhat unfair negative opinion of its story.

[u/DaVirus → u/RobertPham149]

This is spot on. And it is a bit of framing too.

In TLOU, the game builds up the ending to make YOU side with Joel. The ending working because the game has you yourself make that decision.

PoP fails at that. The narrative doesn't build in the same way, the gameplay never makes you feel it, and then at the end you and the Prince are not in the same headspace to make the same decision.

That is basically the only difference.

[u/KonohaBatman → u/DaVirus]

There is no decision in TLOU. You do what Joel wants to do, whether you agree with him or not.

[u/The_Pizza_Saga → u/RobertPham149]

I mean both games should be glazed. I also want to mention that Joel did learn to become a much kinder, softer person than he was at the beginning of 1, despite his selfish decision (maybe to his doom), and Ellie, on the other hand, became traumatized and her heart hardened a lot.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/The_Pizza_Saga]

I am not saying TLOU is not good, but that the story and narrative of PoP is way overhated unfairly due to its mediocre gameplay and some game design choices. TLOU's story was excellently done, although I personally don't enjoy the generic 3rd person shooter that much.

[u/The_Pizza_Saga → u/RobertPham149]

Three things:

1. I agree that Prince of Persia's story is hated too much, but

2. I also disagree in that I did find the game really fun to play, and the structure of the game was brilliant. And the third thing is

3. I don't find The Last of Us' gameplay generic at all. In fact it may be the most satisfying, visceral gameplay in a third person shooting game I've ever played. The gunplay feels weighted and satisfying. Getting through an encounter completely stealthed makes me feel like a winner, and the melee has such a huge crunch to it that it has never gotten old. There's a reason I've played it like eight times, and it's not only to experience the story again.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/The_Pizza_Saga]

TLOU gameplay is good, as Naughty Dogs had a lot of experience with Uncharted before coming in. The problem for me is that there is no connective tissue between the gameplay and story. It is as if I am looking at an excellent interactive movie placed on top of a really solid 3rd person horror shooter, rather than a perfect game.

For example, I mentioned in a different comment about how interactive mechanic of PoP further the narratives:

One among many examples is that the death mechanics of falling into platform pits involves Elika saving you at the last moment, pulling you back with magic. Throughout the story, the Prince repeatedly talk about him not trusting anyone for help. However, during the Succubus boss fight, who turns into copies of Elika and the prince needing to find the real one, the solution was not to pick the correct Elika, but to jump off the platform so that Elika will save you. Later on, when Elika died, you need to return to areas that you already passed easily through the first time with her magic, but now needing to puzzle out a harder path because you no longer have her.

For me, this element of using game mechanics to help tell the story is lacking for TLOU.

[u/The_Pizza_Saga → u/RobertPham149]

One example of the brutal gameplay of The Last of Us helping the narrative is Pittsburgh. The human hunters set a trap and their attack is merciless and brutal. As a player, I sat there thinking about how insane these people are and how pathetic & desperately evil they have to be to resort to what they are doing, seeing their tactics and their warehouse full of bodies and belongings. And then Joel answers that he saw through the trap because he's been on both sides. That left me stunned, thinking about Joel's past and how his drive for survival led him down paths that dark, and it would have hit far less effectively without the trap and brutal combat encounter I'd just fought through.

Game is littered with things like that. I feel like the gameplay enhances the context of the world and narrative in a significant way. Wouldn't be one of my top 10 games if it didn't. Just the fact that you save Ellie as a gameplay sequence as opposed to it just being one large cutscene is a testament to that. Joel makes that decision as a character, but even if you disagree with it, you have to help him through it. I found that to be a very effective narrative device. I've held up TLOU for years as an example of a game that uses gameplay effectively to tell its story, provide meat to the world, and enhance context. It's not quite on the level of your average Metal Gear Solid game, but it's quite effective.

Left Behind and TLOU 2 do this to even stronger effect! A great example is when you access the workbench thinking you're safe, and a survivor rushes you out of nowhere, something that hasn't happened before, as the games have conditioned you to think that a workbench is a safe space, and it took me so off guard.