Multiple endings with one true ending?

[Last caress]

Hey,

So I'm completely new to visual novels (or anything similar to it), haven't played any yet and due to my circumstances won't be able to in a few weeks. I've sone some investigation on this medium already (so far it seems amazing), but one things which buggs me are the "true endings" many multiple-end VN's seem to have.

First of all, what is the purpose of a true ending? Is it to provide a canonical and more in-depth end to the story? If so, doesn't that render all other endings "useless" if they actually were never meant to happen canonically?  Doesn't that kill some ofcthe excitement in achieving different routes? I see this being an issue particularly in the romance VNs with multiple heroines.

How common are true endings really, do all VNs have one? And how do you know a particular ending is the true one? Also, are true endings always happy? I often enjoy a good bitter ending, but are these only reserved for the "bad" ending?

So I'm not sure whether I understand this concept correctly, lol. I'd love to hear your insight on this!

[Kaguya]

True endings are normally a thing for plot-focused games, but they're very present in pure romance stories, too. 

Most of the time, a company won't go out of their way to say "this is the true ending." You just sorta know by which of them is the most complete, reveals the final mysteries of the setting, etc. 

True endings can be good. They can also be bad. And also bittersweet. That doesn't really affect anything. Sometimes you have true endings being less happy than good endings, sometimes not. 

It's a story and none of it actually happened, so I think it's pointless to think of the other routes as useless and whatnot. They're there for your entertainment. Same as the true one. It's only actually relevant if they're going to make a sequel. 

A lot of VNs obviously have a main heroine, where most of the polish went, as well as having the deepest, most relevant routes for the plot. Those are the ones that normally have true endings. 

[Soulless Watcher]

41 minutes ago, Last caress said:

First of all, what is the purpose of a true ending? Is it to provide a canonical and more in-depth end to the story? If so, doesn't that render all other endings "useless" if they actually were never meant to happen canonically?  Doesn't that kill some ofcthe excitement in achieving different routes? I see this being an issue particularly in the romance VNs with multiple heroines.

It depends, but usually (and when I say usually I mean primarily key, since key is pretty much the major offender) the side routes are suppose to give different perspectives on the overall narrative, while being their own story. A good "true" end should draw upon different elements from the different routes. When there is a "true" ending it usually means that the "romance" aspect plays second mugufin to a much larger conflict. As for making the other routes "useless", I just think of it like the many world interpretation theory, as in they all happen and all exist simultaneously...... but yeah, they are just stories so you shouldn't over think it that much.

41 minutes ago, Last caress said:

How common are true endings really, do all VNs have one? And how do you know a particular ending is the true one? Also, are true endings always happy? I often enjoy a good bitter ending, but are these only reserved for the "bad" ending?

True endings in the grand scheme of all visual novel land are not that particularly common, it is usually an aspect of a a particularly high-budget work. Typically in visual novels with true endings they lock the final ending off until you read all of the required routes. True endings can vary greatly in tone.

[Darklord Rooke]

I find the concept to be flawed game design, TBH. The purpose of choices in games or stories is so you can mould your playthrough according to your preferences. The idea of a ‘True Ending’ is contrary to this purpose, and the idea of a ‘True Ending’ which requires you to first go through multiple other routes is often annoying. Mainly because some people may not want to play the same story multiple times, over and over, for the actual ending. 

If there's a required path for you to take so you can experience the story in it's true form, make the thing a kinetic novel and be done with it. Because the 'choices' serve little purpose.

Possible exceptions are Type Moon stuff.

[Hayashi]

Other endings (routes), allows the player to explore and read other main characters backstory and get a feel of their side of the plot.

Whilst true endings (route), usually would feature the main main main cover character of the game,

Yosuga no Sora, Sora route is essentially the true end.

G-Senjou, Haru Chapter/route

Hoshimemo, Hidden heroine true end route

Or, side endings can be used to illustrate the "What ifs"

And in special cases, in the Owaru to sekai birthday VN. It uses multiple routes to give hints and build on the true route/end, once all routes are cleared then the true end route will be unlocked.

 

[Barktooth]

4 hours ago, Rooke said:

I find the concept to be flawed game design, TBH. The purpose of choices in games or stories is so you can mould your playthrough according to your preferences. The idea of a ‘True Ending’ is contrary to this purpose, and the idea of a ‘True Ending’ which requires you to first go through multiple other routes is often annoying. Mainly because some people may not want to play the same story multiple times, over and over, for the actual ending. 

If there's a required path for you to take so you can experience the story in it's true form, make the thing a kinetic novel and be done with it. Because the 'choices' serve little purpose.

Possible exceptions are Type Moon stuff.

I somewhat agree with this. When I first found out about VNs, it was in fact the choice system that attracted me to them. However, right now, choices are the last thing I'd list as defining what a VN is. Most of the time, they are either trivial (I.E. changes only a few dialogue lines), or you will want to play through them all anyway to get the full story.

The only choices that are still entertaining to make are in VNs with lots of bad ends, where you can try to figure out what the right decision is for the first playthrough. But in the end, you will likely want to read through the bad endings too, so it's not too important whether you choose correctly or not.

However, while what I was expecting to be good about VNs (choice system) ended up disappointing me, the medium as a whole ended up offering me a lot more than I expected. I'm sure even if you don't like the multiple endings aspect of VNs you'll find something else that you enjoy, so don't be turned off.

But yeah, I think about them like Soulless Watcher - every ending is a parallel world where you made a different choice, and they all exist at the same time. You can usually just consider whichever one you like to be the "true" ending, even if the plot indicates another ending as such. For me personally, this doesn't take away from the emotional investment in a setting, as long as I take a day or two break between finishing a route and starting another.

[Fred the Barber]

To be completely honest, I've ended up finding that I usually prefer the linear story structure of a kinetic novel over a visual novel, or for choices to impact more the order in which you see things than the things you see. That's because what I'm mostly looking for in a visual novel, is a long, involved story told with visuals and music (and preferably voice acting), and having branching usually means that I'm getting shorter, less-involved stories. Similarly, if a VN has a "true route", I'll usually prefer that over a similar-quality VN which has routes of fairly equal weight, since then, as others already have said, the other routes are usually providing various viewpoints and different angles, and usually some unanswered questions, which the true route will take to completion, which I personally find satisfying.

So, most of that preference falls out of my not being into VNs for a particular route or a particular heroine, so much as for a (hoped-for) bigger story arc. This is one of probably dozens of reasons I didn't especially care for Princess Evangile...

[atorq]

It does make the other endings useless. True endings should not be a thing in romantic visual novels, and probably not in anything with choices. It's like they just went "Hey, we wanna give the players some choices to choose their own approach, but then we also want to throw that out of the window and say fuck them, that's not how it really is." 

[Kabu]

I've only really played a handful of VNs with true endings myself but personally, aside from Planetarian and a couple others I've generally thought very poorly of VNs with a single ending and try to avoid them whenever possible. I very much prefer having multiple routes with one main route.

Aside from that, I really don't see how having a true end makes the other endings pointless, when really, they can help to give greater appreciation for the other characters and I know that as an example something like Rewrite or the original Majikoi's true ending would have had a lot less emotional impact if the heroine routes hadn't been there to help me get attached to the individual heroines and learn about them, rather than just throwing a bunch of irrelevant crap into the main route to try to explain everything.