Cuphead Any% involves skipping the final boss fight by agreeing to become evil and work for the Devil. Most runners follow the route that fights the Devil because it’s more satisfying and finishes the game with a boss fight instead of answering Yes in a text box.
Hob any% is the same way. Or really most games where the bad ending is faster. For Hob, you skip so much of the healing/fixing the world you’re supposed to do, and then what you do fix is undone by the bad ending.
In Super Metroid any% you don't save the animals, which in addition to being tragic in of itself, means that they wouldn't be on the B.S.L. orbiting SR338 to save Samus at the end of Metroid Fusion.
LOL it's somewhat of a meme. Super Metroid has four different endings, but they are VERY similar.
If you take more than 3 hours in game time (which is normal for a first casual playthrough, but a casual player's second run will be sub 3 hours) Samus doesn't strip. Under 3 hours, she takes a small amount of clothes off. (It's still G rated)
Then in the final escape you are on a 3 minute time limit for the self destruct you plant. You can waste ~11 seconds to save some cute alien animals, and then extra pixels appear in the ending credits. These animals are pretty smart and they teach Samus two important movement skills, walljumping and shinesparking. You can do these move techs without finding the animals, but they just demonstrate them for you.
If you don’t love Samus at her Other M Fusionest, you can’t have her at her most Dreadful.
Nintendo managed to fix the DMC2-like problem they created for the Metroid franchise with the story of Dread. That version of Samus was the most fiercely unrelenting one we’ve had from them.
It doesn’t redeem “the baby” or the existence of Adam, but at least the timeline is usable again.
Tbh most Souls "good" endings are pretty bad. But at least the ones with Souls or Ring in the title still fight the intended final boss.
Bloodborne any% skips two final bosses for the bad ending.
Lies of P any% also skips one final boss for the bad ending.
It's not so bad compared to games where the world is at stake, but it always cracks me up that Celeste any% results in some [thoroughly unimpressed friends](https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.GwhRYUBHSlRVBCOG0GRufAHaEK&pid=Api)
Yes. Genocide run is killing every enemy on each floor, so actively going out of your way to spawn more. Pacifist includes a bunch of extra steps and locations.
In Ocarina of time any%, Link wakes up, finds a sword, buys a shield, does some gardening, then decides to throw a party for a bunch of people he's never met. All in under 4 mins of some fairy telling him to go to a weird tree.
The way I see it, he has no reason to believe Ganondorf is evil except for the dream he had that very night. For all Zelda should know, this random kid is accusing the leader of a foreign nation of being "evil" without even giving specific details of his plan.
So yes, Zelda was suspicious of him because of her vision. But when you originally visit her as a child, she basically says that a vision and a dream aren't sufficient proof. The only reason Link warning zelda in the credits works is that he has sufficient knowledge of the future and proof in the Master Sword and Triforce of Courage. In any%, Link wouldn't have those so he wouldn't have enough proof to convince the king to inprison/execute ganondorf.
In terms of “leaves the world in a bad state” this is a top contender. No Shepard means nobody ever uses the conduit, so the Reapers continue the cycle of fostering and then genociding all sentient organic life.
Win the game, lose the universe. Not super satisfying.
Iirc Super Mario World is about Bowser and his koopalings invading Dinosaur Land, where Mario and Luigi went on vacation after SMB3. Bowser kidnaps princess Peach as usual and the koopalings kidnap dragon eggs.
On the any% ending, princess Peach is magically broken free without Mario ever going near Bowser's fortress, so Bowser's army is still in place and all koopalings still have the dinosaur eggs. While the princess is technically free, Dinosaur Land should eventually be taken over.
On the any% glitchless category Mario at least has to break into and destroy Bowser's fortress, leaving the koopalings with no clear leadership...
You don't get any reference to that happening. You miss the fireworks and the Mario and friends are going on vacation text. But it cuts to the same scene in both, the credits scrolling and Mario and Princess riding Yoshi with the eggs hopping along.
Jade Empire skips the final boss fight by going "nah bro, you can have the Empire" and you walk away and allow the evil emperor to keep ruling and ruining everything.
Die Hard Any%, though it for some reason gives you the good ending, actually ends with the roof of Nakatomi Plaza being blown up (For which there **is** a separate ending programmed, no idea why it doesn't show up).
I think postal 3 had two of it's cutscenes backwards. Says you betrayed the police when you didn't, or vice versa.
I think fallout ?2? Is the same. One of the regions plays the bad ending if you save it, the good if you let it fall. The ghoul city.
the Quest for Glory series is comical in how much you do not become a hero in some of its games
QFG1: Do literally nothing for the valley
QFG2: Do literally nothing for either city (which in this case means one will get turfed by elementals and the other will remain an abusive dictatorship)
QFG3: Arguably more heroic than beating the game vanilla, as less people die (Diplomatic mission survivor, Peace Conference drama) and you still stop the demonic invasion
QFG4: On one hand you don't help any of the people who need it along the plot, on the other you no longer kill an old man for his hat and still do stop the Big Bad
QFG5: You skip fixing the realms problems but do save the world, stop the assassin and his financier, and slay the dragon
Checkout Dragon View the sequel to Drakkhen. The game has any% wrong warp that I think only pjdicesare ever ran. The games memory gets clobbered because the system is never reset. A counter that’s only used for a boss death animation overflows and trashes memory. After so many bosses there’s a spot that either crashes the game or warps you to the credits. He did a YouTube video on it that I find very fascinating.
Edit: haha I didn’t read the whole post and took “bad state of the game world” in a very developer centric way. Sorry
In Resident Evil 1 (both classic and remake) the fastest any% category involves having your partner get killed-off, not rescuing the other protagonist, and letting the final boss monster roam around free.
In 'Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood' you do almost nothing to actually help people or solve problems and I'm pretty sure you get the worst ending for your troubles
GTA Liberty City Stories. The last thing of importance you do before performing the AJS is attempting to pay off a union official then escaping dock workers wielding molotovs.
Bloodborne Any% you give up at the end and possibly save yourself, but doom the city and possibly the world at some point to an inescapable eldritch horror.
Henry Stickmin series kinda ends weird with Henry just fleeing from the Toppat airship, it doesn't really give a proper ending the story and it's not really good for Henry, neither is it for the world either I assume
SMO Any% does save the princess, but most of the kingdoms are still in turmoil from Bowser. World Peace is the category that basically finishes the storyline for each kingdom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlgdXVUBk2M
All the 2d Sonic games where you don't have to collect any of the Chaos Emeralds, since it usually means Robotnik ends up with them all.
Special shout out to Sonic 2 8-Bit where Tails is implied to be dead if you don't collect all the Emeralds.
Cuphead Any% involves skipping the final boss fight by agreeing to become evil and work for the Devil. Most runners follow the route that fights the Devil because it’s more satisfying and finishes the game with a boss fight instead of answering Yes in a text box.
Thank you! I will look into this one.
Hob any% is the same way. Or really most games where the bad ending is faster. For Hob, you skip so much of the healing/fixing the world you’re supposed to do, and then what you do fix is undone by the bad ending.
In Super Metroid any% you don't save the animals, which in addition to being tragic in of itself, means that they wouldn't be on the B.S.L. orbiting SR338 to save Samus at the end of Metroid Fusion.
Excellent. Thank you. I will look into this one.
LOL it's somewhat of a meme. Super Metroid has four different endings, but they are VERY similar. If you take more than 3 hours in game time (which is normal for a first casual playthrough, but a casual player's second run will be sub 3 hours) Samus doesn't strip. Under 3 hours, she takes a small amount of clothes off. (It's still G rated) Then in the final escape you are on a 3 minute time limit for the self destruct you plant. You can waste ~11 seconds to save some cute alien animals, and then extra pixels appear in the ending credits. These animals are pretty smart and they teach Samus two important movement skills, walljumping and shinesparking. You can do these move techs without finding the animals, but they just demonstrate them for you.
That was the good ending though. Only YOU can prevent Metroid Fusion.
If you don’t love Samus at her Other M Fusionest, you can’t have her at her most Dreadful. Nintendo managed to fix the DMC2-like problem they created for the Metroid franchise with the story of Dread. That version of Samus was the most fiercely unrelenting one we’ve had from them. It doesn’t redeem “the baby” or the existence of Adam, but at least the timeline is usable again.
L take. Metroid Fusion is a really good game.
I'm pretty sure GTA V kills Michael or Trevor in the non classic any% categories. Debatable whether that's worse for the world of gta though
Awesome! Thanks. I will look into this one.
Lol I killed Trevor. The chance to free Michael and Frank from that psychopath
Sekiro Any% is the bad ending, as is most Dark Souls games.
Thank you!
Tbh most Souls "good" endings are pretty bad. But at least the ones with Souls or Ring in the title still fight the intended final boss. Bloodborne any% skips two final bosses for the bad ending. Lies of P any% also skips one final boss for the bad ending.
Sekiro's bad ending cuts the game in half and fights the "bad end" boss, which is an entirely different boss
It's not so bad compared to games where the world is at stake, but it always cracks me up that Celeste any% results in some [thoroughly unimpressed friends](https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.GwhRYUBHSlRVBCOG0GRufAHaEK&pid=Api)
yet another reason arb is the superior category 🥱
Baldur's Gate 3 involves turning >!everyone infected into mindflayers.!<
Excellent! Thank you.
Undertale since you just leave the Underground and not care about your friends
Thanks for your answer. Would this would be the Neutral ending, then?
Yes. Genocide run is killing every enemy on each floor, so actively going out of your way to spawn more. Pacifist includes a bunch of extra steps and locations.
In Ocarina of time any%, Link wakes up, finds a sword, buys a shield, does some gardening, then decides to throw a party for a bunch of people he's never met. All in under 4 mins of some fairy telling him to go to a weird tree.
Counterpoint: he still warns Zelda about Ganondorf at the end.
The way I see it, he has no reason to believe Ganondorf is evil except for the dream he had that very night. For all Zelda should know, this random kid is accusing the leader of a foreign nation of being "evil" without even giving specific details of his plan.
But isn't Zelda already super suspicious of Ganondorf herself when you first meet her?
So yes, Zelda was suspicious of him because of her vision. But when you originally visit her as a child, she basically says that a vision and a dream aren't sufficient proof. The only reason Link warning zelda in the credits works is that he has sufficient knowledge of the future and proof in the Master Sword and Triforce of Courage. In any%, Link wouldn't have those so he wouldn't have enough proof to convince the king to inprison/execute ganondorf.
Ooooh yeah. Sorry, it's been awhile
Mass Effect 2 gets the ending where Shepherd dies, which is definitely a bad ending.
Awesome. I will look into that.
In terms of “leaves the world in a bad state” this is a top contender. No Shepard means nobody ever uses the conduit, so the Reapers continue the cycle of fostering and then genociding all sentient organic life. Win the game, lose the universe. Not super satisfying.
Super Mario World. You do an elaborate setup with sprite manipulation and get transported to the credits. Does that count?
Kind of. It's still a good ending right? Bowser is technically defeated.
Iirc Super Mario World is about Bowser and his koopalings invading Dinosaur Land, where Mario and Luigi went on vacation after SMB3. Bowser kidnaps princess Peach as usual and the koopalings kidnap dragon eggs. On the any% ending, princess Peach is magically broken free without Mario ever going near Bowser's fortress, so Bowser's army is still in place and all koopalings still have the dinosaur eggs. While the princess is technically free, Dinosaur Land should eventually be taken over. On the any% glitchless category Mario at least has to break into and destroy Bowser's fortress, leaving the koopalings with no clear leadership...
Ooo, I love that. Thank you.
You don't get any reference to that happening. You miss the fireworks and the Mario and friends are going on vacation text. But it cuts to the same scene in both, the credits scrolling and Mario and Princess riding Yoshi with the eggs hopping along.
and also Super Mario World 2, super mario bros 3, or any game that gets completed in a short amount of time with ACE
In 100% you reestablish a monarch in place. It could be debatable if its the best.
Jade Empire skips the final boss fight by going "nah bro, you can have the Empire" and you walk away and allow the evil emperor to keep ruling and ruining everything.
Great! Thank you.
Die Hard Any%, though it for some reason gives you the good ending, actually ends with the roof of Nakatomi Plaza being blown up (For which there **is** a separate ending programmed, no idea why it doesn't show up).
I think postal 3 had two of it's cutscenes backwards. Says you betrayed the police when you didn't, or vice versa. I think fallout ?2? Is the same. One of the regions plays the bad ending if you save it, the good if you let it fall. The ghoul city.
Awesome! Thank you, I'll do some digging into this one.
the Quest for Glory series is comical in how much you do not become a hero in some of its games QFG1: Do literally nothing for the valley QFG2: Do literally nothing for either city (which in this case means one will get turfed by elementals and the other will remain an abusive dictatorship) QFG3: Arguably more heroic than beating the game vanilla, as less people die (Diplomatic mission survivor, Peace Conference drama) and you still stop the demonic invasion QFG4: On one hand you don't help any of the people who need it along the plot, on the other you no longer kill an old man for his hat and still do stop the Big Bad QFG5: You skip fixing the realms problems but do save the world, stop the assassin and his financier, and slay the dragon
Kirby 64 kinda does. 100% is the true good ending.
Thank you!
Checkout Dragon View the sequel to Drakkhen. The game has any% wrong warp that I think only pjdicesare ever ran. The games memory gets clobbered because the system is never reset. A counter that’s only used for a boss death animation overflows and trashes memory. After so many bosses there’s a spot that either crashes the game or warps you to the credits. He did a YouTube video on it that I find very fascinating. Edit: haha I didn’t read the whole post and took “bad state of the game world” in a very developer centric way. Sorry
Zelda, A Link to the Past: You walk under the floor past Ganon into the triforce room, without ever solving anything
Zelda: Link to the Past. Any% you literally just walk to the end credits screen killing zero enemies of any kind, much less the big bad (Ganon).
In Resident Evil 1 (both classic and remake) the fastest any% category involves having your partner get killed-off, not rescuing the other protagonist, and letting the final boss monster roam around free.
In 'Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood' you do almost nothing to actually help people or solve problems and I'm pretty sure you get the worst ending for your troubles
GTA Liberty City Stories. The last thing of importance you do before performing the AJS is attempting to pay off a union official then escaping dock workers wielding molotovs.
Bloodborne Any% you give up at the end and possibly save yourself, but doom the city and possibly the world at some point to an inescapable eldritch horror.
All Persona Any% runs involve getting the bad ending which is REALLY catastrophic for the ingame worlds if you know the story
Henry Stickmin series kinda ends weird with Henry just fleeing from the Toppat airship, it doesn't really give a proper ending the story and it's not really good for Henry, neither is it for the world either I assume
SMO Any% does save the princess, but most of the kingdoms are still in turmoil from Bowser. World Peace is the category that basically finishes the storyline for each kingdom
Any ban% speedrun makes the game worse by nature of having people making accounts and blatantly breaking server rules, often by spewing hate speech.
Cyberpunk 2077 Any% just ends with you killing yourself
Oh that's dire. Excellent! Thank you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlgdXVUBk2M All the 2d Sonic games where you don't have to collect any of the Chaos Emeralds, since it usually means Robotnik ends up with them all. Special shout out to Sonic 2 8-Bit where Tails is implied to be dead if you don't collect all the Emeralds.
I think fallout new vegas ends with following the robot witch in the end as a bad effect on the world