Ending disappointment

[ewan]

Just finished as Celts, having previously completed as Romans.

 

I'm afraid that I feel hugely let down by the forced-path ending without *any* scope for actions by *either* Romans or Celts to affect it. After so much fun, interest, and thought went into the rest of the game - just feels like a cop-out at exactly the wrong time. Why the need to have an impossible goal for both parties (even, for the Romans, to the extent of alowing Sylak to take actions after death)?

 

Not that I'm going to affect anything - hence this rant will now be cut short - but a huge anti-climax, I'm afraid, at least for me. Feeling slightly conned .

[Student of Trinity]

I know what you mean, but on the other hand, how many real alternatives were there? The game has to end sometime, and this means that the most Jeff could really have done would be to have written a few different ending texts, and made the outcome depend on one or two final challenges.

 

If these final challenges were not too hard, then everyone would do them, perhaps with some save-loading, and get the 'good' ending for each side. Yahoo; again you save the world in an RPG. Does it really make so much difference how it ends? The current version has the merit that, either way, it fits with actual history. So you can go away imagining that it was all real.

 

On the other hand, it could be that if you did something really, really hard, you would either destroy the Nethergate as the Romans and avoid Sylak's curse, or achieve Sylak's goal without any disruption, and destroy Rome with crystal wands as the Celts. That would give another reason for replay, to power-game everything so well that you could be strong enough to fully win the endgame.

 

Yeah, that might have been neat. But it's just not really Spiderweb style. The challenges that really matter to the plot in his games are always doable by the average, casual gamer customer. The harder challenges are easter eggs. That's probably important for the business: no customer left behind.

[Alorael at Large]

Nethergate's ending fits the game much better than saving the world, and it's also the ending that can continue the theme of everything being the same no matter which perspective you play from.

 

—Alorael, who wouldn't object to some minor changes in the ending based on what you do. Whether or not the hags end up dead could make some difference, for example, or slaughtering everyone in the Hollow Hills, and so on. In the end, though, the faeries get screwed, the Celts get no reward, and the Roman Empire has hit its peak. That's history. Especially the faeries.

[Sarachim]

Sorry for resurrecting this, but I feel compelled to point out that there is a bad ending if you fail to destroy the crystal wands as Romans.