History BookEnds / VideoGames

** Episode 2 begins and ends with Jorji and Lucas as the first customers, meeting the Barista on a stormy night. The Barista {{lampshade|Hanging}}s it by saying that it feels like déjà vu, while Jorji orders the same drink you served him on his first visit and Lucas orders the same Blue Pea Latte with art that Riona ordered on that first day.

** Episode 2 begins and ends with Jorji and Lucas as the first customers, meeting the Barista on a stormy night. The Barista {{lampshade|Hanging}}s it by saying that it feels like déjà vu, while Jorji and Lucas order the same drinks that were served on their first meeting.

** Episode 2 begins and ends with Jorji as the first customer, meeting the Barista on a stormy night. The Barista {{lampshade|Hanging}}s it by saying that it feels like déjà vu, while Jorji orders from them the very first drink they served him on their first meeting.

** Episode 2 begins and ends with Jorji as the first customer, meeting the Barista on a stormy night. The Barista {{lampshade|Hanging}}s it by saying that it feels like déjà vu.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

* A staple in the ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' series:

*** [[Videogame/PaperMario64 The first game]] has another example. The very first battle is a fight against Bowser in a hall of Peach's castle. The [[spoiler:second-to-last]] fight is another battle with Bowser in the same room.

* ''VideoGame/EarthBound'': After Ness returns home and goes back to bed after going to check out the meteorite, he gets woken up again by Porky/Pokey banging on the door and asking for you to help him find his brother Picky. After the credits, you get woken up by Picky, who arrives with a letter left behind by his brother that serves as a SequelHook for ''VideoGame/Mother3''.

** If we include optional bosses, then the very first boss in the game is the Cleric Beast. The BonusBoss of the ''Old Hunters'' DLC is Laurence, the First Vicar, a Cleric Beast that's WreathedInFlames.

*** The first Nobody, as well as the first member of the original Organization XIII, Sora ever fought was Xemnas in a BonusBoss added in ''Kingdom Hearts [[UpdatedRerelease Final Mix]]'', with Xemnas also being the final Nobody and original Organization XIII member Sora fights in this game.

* The first thing you hear in ''VideoGame/Splatoon2: Octo Expansion'' is a the song "Calamari Inkantation" from the first ''VideoGame/Splatoon1'', as a [[{{Epigraph}} mysterious poem]] appears onscreen. The ''last'' thing you will hear in the ''Octo Expansion'' (assuming you get OneHundredPercentCompletion) is the song "Calamari Inkantation" once again, as the music that plays during [[spoiler:the BonusBoss fight against Inner Agent 3]].

* A musical meta-example in ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' fangame ''Concealed the Conclusion'': the theme of the FinalBoss fight, after which Gensokyo [[DreamApocalypse ceases to exist]], contains a piece of the very first theme of the first ''Touhou'' game. In a way, [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic the same music that marked the beginning of Gensokyo, also marks its destruction]].

* ''VideoGame/BlackMesa'', as FanRemake of the original ''VideoGame/HalfLife'', has the first and final encounters with the H.E.C.U. in the levels "We've Got Hostiles" and "Forget About Freeman". Both sequences are set at sundown and involve Gordon, who had just made his way up from an underground portion of the titular research complex, engaging a large group of soldiers before heading back underground, with Ospreys flying in the background. In the first confrontation, Gordon is forced to retreat due to the H.E.C.U. having an advantages in numbers, position, and artillery, with new troops FastRopinf into the battle via the Osprey to give you trouble. When Gordon faces them in "Forget About Freeman", however, they've been mauled ''very badly'' by a combination of the Black Mesa security personnel, the Xen Aliens, and [[OneManArmy Gordon himself]], such that he ends up wiping out the entire force sent to stop him. Even the framing of the fights is different - the former represents the H.E.C.U.'s initial thrust into Black Mesa, while the latter is their retreat.

** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'', the first area you go to outside of the forest is Hyrule Castle after you are turned into a wolf and captured. Hyrule Castle is also the final dungeon of the game.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'' had this in a sort of way. The game begins with Marin waking you up on Koholint Island, and the game ends with [[spoiler:Link waking up from the dream world of Koholint on a log in the middle of the ocean]].

** As a Meta example, ''Twilight Princess'' is a launch title for the Wii, while ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' is the final major release for the Wii.
*** If one groups the Wii and Wii U together as a sort-of "extended Wii family", ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' was one of the first games released for the original Wii, while ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' was the very last game Nintendo produced for the UsefulNotes/WiiU. Both games released on other consoles as well, with ''Twlight Princess'' releasing on the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube and ''Breath of the Wild'' launching on UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch, making them serve as similar segues between console generations.

** The ending where you [[spoiler:let the Illuminati rule the world as a shadow government has a conversation that mirrors the opening conversation.]]
** The game's opening conversation starts with an establishing shot of a statue of the globe with a hand curled around it. [[spoiler: All three endings close with an identical shot of the statue, this time accompanied by a quote reflecting which ending was chosen.]]

[[BookEnds So you played the game from beginning to end...]]

* The stage themes in ''VideoGame/CoolSpot'' take Book Ends to its logical conclusion: The entire latter half of the game's stages are the first half stage's, only in reverse.

* ''VideoGame/TrailsSeries'': A few games in the series have book ends especially since the series is a LongRunner.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' actually has four book ends:

** The Refusal Ending for ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' is a book-end to the inciting incident with the Prothean Beacon in Mass Effect 1. To wit: in ME 1, Shepard finds a warning by an extinct civilization which had fought and been wiped out by the Reapers. It sets off the first effort to stop the Reapers in this cycle. In the Refusal ending, after Shepard [[spoiler: has refused to cooperate with the Catalyst in any way]], pretty much the same thing happens - all advanced civilizations are wiped out but a few warnings were sent out. However, the creator of the new warning [[spoiler: Liara]] has learned from the mistakes of this go-around. Cut to [[spoiler: an unknown race]] thousands of years in the future defeating the Reapers because the warnings left for them were easy to understand and contained vast amounts of scientific and technical data.

*** Which also stands as a book end to the entire MythArc. Both the WhenItAllBegan story of ''Snake Eater'' and the GrandFinale story of ''Guns of the Patriots'' end with [[spoiler:Big Boss saluting The Boss at her grave, fifty years apart]].

** There's even a sort of ''middle'' Book End. It is explained in other series media that the player lives on Earth. At the beginning of ''Myst'', you link to Myst from a book on Earth, which is where the fissure leads and where you're trying to get at the end of ''Riven''. But in between, you [[spoiler: rescue Atrus by taking his missing page to D'ni/K'veer, which is a cavern underneath the surface ... of Earth.]]

** Even the original ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'' has some sort of Book Ends: The game's second world apparantly features an underwater level followed by a level taking place on top of a broken bridge, and the third world apparantly takes place at night. This is actually reversed for the game's sixth and seventh worlds. And while at the end of World 1-4, the fake Bowser is revealed to be a gray Goomba, at the beginning of World 8-4, a trio of gray Goombas can be seen in a hallway.

** ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'' begins and ends in the Sanctuary of Mana -- in fact, the Sanctuary even acts as a DiscOneFinalDungeon, making for a Book Middle, as it were. Each character's story also begins and ends in their own home town.

[[BookEnds ...want to go try for]] a NewGamePlus?

* VideoGame/MinecraftStoryMode:

* ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'' has one spanning the entire series: one of the first things Guybrush has to do at the beginning of ''VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland'' is shoot himself out of a circus cannon. The objective of the final major puzzle in ''VideoGame/TalesOfMonkeyIsland'', the final game in the series, is to get Guybrush into a cannon so that he can shoot himself out of it. He even grabs a nearby pot and uses it as a helmet in the latter case, calling back to him doing the same thing in the former.

* ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'' has one spanning the entire series: one of the first things Guybrush has to do at the beginning of ''VideoGame/SecretOfMonkeyIsland'' is shoot himself out of a circus cannon. The objective of the final major puzzle in ''VideoGame/TalesOfMonkeyIsland'', the final game in the series, is to get Guybrush into a cannon so that he can shoot himself out of it. He even grabs a nearby pot and uses it as a helmet in the latter case, calling back to him doing the same thing in the former.

** Chaos presents this twofold. ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' begins and ends with Sonic fighting him, in their normal and super forms, respectively. Things come even more to a full circle from a narrative standpoint by ''VideoGame/SonicFrontiers'': [[spoiler:Not only are Chaos's origins explored, but the being whose actions set his tragic destiny in motion has been defeated, his desire to protect and avenge his kin has been fulfilled by the one who saved him from himself (Sonic), and all the characters who were involved in his story can now progress forward with their own separate paths, just as his actions helped shape their separate stories previously. The long journey begins, ends, and begins again with Chaos]].