Line #20 Main/TrippyFinaleSyndrome


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7	In long works involving some form of magic, many creators seem to decide that the universe they've so far established is much too prosaic for the [[GrandFinale big finish]] their project surely deserves, and as a result, send their heroes into some [[EldritchLocation uncharted realm resembling a whacked-out dream sequence.]]
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9	Overlaps with GainaxEnding when it gets particularly [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic symbolic]]. Video games tend to make this an AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield, hence the trope FinalBossNewDimension. If the gameplay goes sour, it's DisappointingLastLevel.
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11	!!As this is an {{Ending Trope\|s}}, [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff unmarked spoilers abound]]. [[Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned Beware]].
12	----
13	!!Examples:
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15	[[foldercontrol]]
16
17	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
18	* ''Manga/{{Akira}}''. Most of the movie makes sense, but good luck deciphering the ending on the first viewing once the plot jumps its ball hitch and takes off without you.
19	* The Eclipse from the Golden Age arc of ''Manga/{{Berserk}}''. Many anime watchers know this as the finale of the 90s anime, and up until that point, the series was mostly grounded in reality with a few fantastical elements subtly implied. The last three episodes take place in a frightening hellscape ruled over by four archdemons who want to make Griffith one of their own and in which most of the main cast is suddenly and brutally killed off by ravening monsters. Of course, this is the point where the manga takes off from, so this only applies to the anime.
20	* The manga version of ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'' takes the heroes to the demon world Pandaemonium for their final battles against [[BigBad Aion]]. Pandaemonium is really a CoolStarship, so it's filled with demon technology that's completely anachronistic for the setting, architecture that's obsessed with hexagons, demons who've had their legion corrupted, driving them feral and making them look like mutant starfish and Pandaemonium herself, the demon's HiveQueen.
21	* The GrandFinale of the first season of ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'' was very clearly inspired by Evangelion. However, unlike Eva, they had the decency to give at least a little explanation. It's possible to piece together all the groups' motivations, even if the [[EldritchLocation Gate-induced]] MindScrew is totally incomprehensible. The second season, well... Let's just say that a Contractor copying the entire ''planet'' is one of the easier things to understand. If you think you know what happened, you're wrong.
22	* The ending of ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003'' could be called an inversion of the trope. The ending takes place in what the characters see as a strange alternate reality, but it's ''our'' reality, the real-world during World War I. It's the rest of the series that takes place in the world full of magic and monsters.
23	* Inverted in ''Anime/FutariWaPrettyCure'': after spending a couple of episodes in another dimension, the heroines ''return'' to the Garden of Rainbows (i.e. Earth) for the final battle.
24	* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' pulls out all the special-effects stops and headache-inducing magical locations for its {{Final Battle}}s, despite the battlefields (in the first two seasons, at least) normally being pretty low-key.
25	* ''Manga/MermaidMelodyPichiPichiPitch'' has its final battle in Michel's realm, which appears to be the dream of a drugged-up EvilutionaryBiologist: the pillars in the sky are DNA strands, fish are flying, and everything has wings grafted onto it. There ''is'' evil genetic engineering involved, but Michel, being a DiscOneFinalBoss, is not aware of this.
26	* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''. Not one, but ''two'' {{Gainax Ending}}s. ''The End of Evangelion'' contains several ''minutes'' of [[{{Blipvert}} images zipping by so fast they could be seizure-inducing]], many of them vaguely disturbing (the series had already had much shorter sequences like this). The series ended with a lot of [[ContemplateOurNavels navel-contemplation]], some of it trippy; the film basically had trippy graphics for most of the latter half. Fans are ''still'' divided over whether they're two different endings to the series, or just one ending told in two different ways.
27	* The final battle of ''Anime/OutlawStar'' borders on an action-packed MindScrew, what with BigBad Hazanko and protagonist Gene Starwind apparently merging with their ships to fight each other both physically and in CyberSpace. Of course, the final few episodes are made up of the characters basically running around inside what amounts to God, so all this isn't coming completely out of left field.
28	* The ending to ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', especially the "[[MemeticMutation space hugs]]" scene; while floating around in a freaky sparkly fog, [[LesYay Madoka and Homura]] have a heartfelt [[OutOfClothesExperience clothing-free conversation]]. Then the fog divides into two giant membranes, Madoka DisappearsIntoLight, and Homura ends up back on Earth. Somewhat justified by the fact that Madoka ''literally'' destroys and rebuilds the universe, so venturing into an "uncharted realm" in the meantime was inevitable.
29	* The finale of ''Anime/RahXephon'' had several characters running around inside Yolteotl (something approximately like Nirvana) with lots of trippy symbolism whilst Quon and Ayato tried to figure out how they wanted to retune the world.
30	%% Needs Context * Anime/SerialExperimentsLain's EndOfTheWorldSpecial had shades of this.
31	* ''Anime/ShadowSkill'' ends with a bizarre near-death dream sequence involving giraffes and lions, with lots of Fauxlosophic dialogue. It's pretty clear what is going on, but the way they choose to illustrate it is decidedly trippy.
32	* The last three or so episodes of ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' -- whenever that [[SpaceIsAnOcean space ocean]] shows up.
33	** TTGL actually runs the gamut of types of this, from the over-the-top special effects epic, to a homage of the most memorable part of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'''s GainaxEnding, to the biggest AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield ''ever''.
34	[[/folder]]
35
36	[[folder:Comic Books]]
37	* ''Breakdown'': One's character is brainwashed by a computer and sees himself where he was trained. Everything is now filled with a green haze, the steam shoots from random places, and the television screen is filled with static. He has to shoot all of his partners, then is attacked by large, half-naked men while a light flies around him.
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
41	* Perhaps the archetypal example: the end of ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'', as astronaut David Bowman goes to "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite". Do not pretend to understand it. Although Creator/ArthurCClarke's companion [[AllThereInTheManual novel]] offers ''an'' [[MindScrewdriver explanation]], if you really must have one.
42	* ''Film/AntMan1'' takes us on a trip through the Quantum realm. "...a reality where all concepts of time and space become irrelevant as you shrink for all eternity." What Scott ends up seeing certainly lives up to that description.
43	* ''Literature/AtPlayInTheFieldsOfTheLord''. Moon gives the Indians the flu, they all die, Randy dies, and in the novel, Moon is (metaphorically) the only man on Earth. GainaxEnding indeed.
44	* The 1979 Disney science fiction film ''Film/TheBlackHole'' ends with the main characters passing through a black hole; the villain appears to merge with a robot who then becomes Lord of Hell, whilst the heroes either ascend to heaven or simply pass through a white hole into another part of the universe. And then the film ends.
45	** The novelization suggests that the heroes AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence after passing through the black hole, V.I.N.C.E.N.T. included.
46	* The otherwise conventional Western ''Film/{{Blueberry}}'' (aka ''Renegade'') ends with the hero and villain taking peyote and entering the spirit realm to do battle. The hero then has an epiphany that is visualized with trippy abstract images and Native American chanting. It has to be seen to be believed.
47	* In ''Film/{{Brazil}}'', the climax of the film is a sort of fever dream. It's ultimately revealed that the hero has actually gone insane under torture and is hallucinating it all.
48	* ''Film/EnterTheVoid'' (although, most of the film is trippy). The finale takes it up a notch though, culminating in Oscar's spirit flying through a maybe-metaphysical space known as the Love Hotel involving basically every character in the movie, culminating with [[AndYourRewardIsInfancy Oscar being reborn]] after witnessing the impregnation of his sister by his best friend (?).
49	* Creator/BusbyBerkeley's movie [[BusbyBerkeleyNumber musical numbers]] often border on the surreal, but the finale of ''Film/TheGangsAllHere'', "The Polka Dot Polka," is easily as bizarre as the ending of ''2001: A Space Odyssey''. Its kaleidoscopic patterns will make your eyes bleed in Technicolor.
50	* ''Film/{{Interstellar}}'' is already the equivalent of ''2001'' fifty years later, so it wouldn't be complete without the trip inside a black hole where aliens have set up infinite rooms showing Cooper's daughter's room throughout multiple time periods, and then the trip backwards and forwards through time and space as Cooper goes home.
51	* In ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'', Sarah's final showdown with the Goblin King Jareth takes place in a room that looks like it came out of a painting by Creator/MCEscher. Toby is there, too, crawling around happily. As for the RaceAgainstTheClock, the hands on the clock are now spinning wildly out of control... then again, the whole movie is rather strange.
52	* ''Film/{{Lucy}}'': As the titular protagonist transcends her human existence by unlocking the full capacity of her brain and travelling backwards in time, a reverse time-lapse occurs of the creation of earth, the universe, and everything else from Lucy's point of view.
53	* The 1974 ant thriller ''Film/PhaseIV'' ends with the surviving human characters -- a man and a woman -- apparently being captured by ants and forced to become the next stage of human evolution, or something along those lines.
54	* ''Film/TheQuietEarth'' (1985), a rare post-70s example, ends with the main character seemingly transported to the moon of a distant ringed planet, or possibly the afterlife, or perhaps he remains where he is and the universe changes around him. It makes no sense. It wasn't meant to.
55	* Creator/DannyBoyle took the final 20 minutes of ''Film/{{Sunshine}}'' in a decidedly unusual direction, with the soundtrack reaching a screeching cacophony and the camera struggling to focus on what's going on. No doubt meant to signify the laws of physics breaking down due to the ship's proximity to the sun, [[JustifiedTrope which was predicted]] earlier in the film.
56	%%* ''Film/TheTreeOfLife''
57	* John Boorman's deranged post-apocalyptic sci-fi film ''Film/{{Zardoz}}'' ends with the main character and his wife growing old in timelapse, as their child grows up to adulthood, to no discernible cinematic purpose.
58	[[/folder]]
59
60	[[folder:Literature]]
61	%%* The Literature/BookOfRevelation in Literature/TheBible.
62	* The ending of ''Literature/{{Catch 22}}'' goes into this significantly, elucidating an event that has been hinted at since the first chapter of the novel, but never before shown. We see a handful of flashbacks and gain the deepest insight into Yossarian's psyche yet.
63	* ''Dragon Ultimate'', the seventh and final volume of Christopher Rowley's ''Dragons of the Argonath'' series, sees heroes Relkin and Bazil transported to the Sphereboard of Destiny, an abstract representation of the multiverse, to inhabit a pair of giant constructs (reminiscent of the piloting of giant Japanese robots) and battle a golem for the fates of all oppressed peoples in all realities. Needless to say, it's a bit of a departure from the series's usual, relatively traditional, fantasy setting.
64	* The King's Cross sequence in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'' which is the manifestation of Limbo in Harry's mind. %%Also, earlier in the series, we have the Battle of the Department of Mysteries at the end of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix.''%%What about it?%%
65	* ''Literature/OneHundredYearsOfSolitude'', by Gabriel García Márquez, ends with an almost metaphysical look at the small town setting, reminding us of the seven generations of Buendia family members we have met.
66	* The "Great Dance" sequence at the end of C.S. Lewis' ''Literature/{{Perelandra}}'', a trippy and colorful spiritual vision that takes a year and shows the protagonist the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything. (No, not the Creator/DouglasAdams book.)
67	* In ''Literature/{{Perfume}}'', Grenouille finally uses his perfect perfume at his execution. Overcome by the beauty of his fragrance, the crowd universally proclaims him innocent and then falls into a massive orgy. Unsatisfied with the perfume's hollow effects, Grenouille kills himself by dumping the remainder of the perfume over his head, causing a nearby crowd to devour him out of overwhelming love. Unlike most examples this one is only trippy because of the perfume's power over the mind.
68	* ''Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years'' (previously called ''The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes'', which is altogether more preparatory for the madness) spends its first two acts as a reasonably diverting fusion of Doyle, Kipling, and the sentiment of a Tibetan exile. Then it abruptly introduces bona fide magical powers, and once that can of worms is opened, said magical worms manage to crawl all over everything else in the story with alarming speed. Once you find out about the ninja with the levitating swords, you will probably be shouting "what the fuck" at least once a minute until the very last page.
69	[[/folder]]
70
71	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
72	* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' was infamous for its DistantFinale that attracted as much anger as ''Series/ThePrisoner1967''.
73	* Creator/RainerWernerFassbinder's adaptation of the novel ''Literature/BerlinAlexanderplatz'''s epilogue features a sudden GenreShift from naturalistic HistoricalFiction to VisionQuest, filled with AnachronismStew, {{Futureshadowing}}, surreal imagery, and flashbacks and flashforwards.
74	%% * "Forever ''Series/{{Charmed\|1998}}''".
75	* ''Series/LegendOfTheSeeker'', the television adaptation of ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'', pulled a time travel stunt in the first season finale, then had a rather anticlimactic... grappling sequence for the previously DismantledMacGuffin between Richard and Darken Rahl.
76	* ''Series/{{Lost}}'' somewhat inverts this: it ends in a mysterious imaginary realm whose events are far more prosaic than the supernatural ones on the Island. Yet it contains a few mindscrews of its own with its inconsistent timeline and trippy memory flashes.
77	* "[[Recap/ThePrisonerE17FallOut Fall Out]]" in ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'', which was ''massively'' controversial. A truly peculiar episode in which the main character barely speaks, one of the main villains pulls a HeelFaceTurn, there's a shootout set to "All You Need Is Love" by Music/TheBeatles, and a beatnik leads everyone in a DancePartyEnding. The DrivingQuestion of the series ("Who is Number One?") is finally resolved, but in a way that doesn't make any physical sense. [[TrollingCreator The creator has gone on record stating that he did this specifically to piss people off.]] Some ExpandedUniverse material (by other writers) has stated that, yes, it ''was'' an LSD trip, although a lot of fans of the original series reject this as a dismissively simple interpretation. Whatever your interpretation, this is probably the TropeMaker as far as television goes.
78	* ''Series/{{Roseanne}}'' stretched this out over its entire final season, only to [[InvertedTrope invert]] it in the series finale proper. After eight seasons of the Conners struggling to get by and dealing with realistic issues, the family abruptly wins a huge lottery jackpot and become multimillionaires overnight. The rest of the season consists of bizarre episodes, including fighting terrorists on a train, Jackie being wooed by a foreign prince, a ''Film/RosemarysBaby'' spoof featuring the cast of ''Series/AbsolutelyFabulous'', and Roseanne and Jackie going to an exclusive health spa (which also features a lengthy ImagineSpot of Roseanne as [[Series/XenaWarriorPrincess Xena]]). In the finale itself, though, it's revealed that the entire season (and much of the actual series) was [[NestedStoryReveal actually a book Roseanne has been writing about her life]]; the lottery subplot was her dreaming of a situation completely different than her own as a form of escapism.
79	* The finale of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', "All Good Things...", has a modest version of this, featuring Q, and involving Picard being thrown back and forth between timelines from the past, present, and future. Of course, given that it's ''Franchise/StarTrek'' we're talking about, trippiness is a relative concept, but it's particularly notable for the scope and complexity of its trippiness.
80	* In the finale of the original run of ''Series/TwinPeaks'', the Black Lodge is represented exclusively through the trippy dreamlike sequence, complete with strobe lights, maniacal screaming, and a doppelgänger chase scene. When ''Twin Peaks'' was revived for a third season decades later, it too ended with a truly perplexing final episode that seems to be set in a completely different timeline from the main series.
81	[[/folder]]
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83	[[folder:Music]]
84	* Every album by Music/TheDoors does this. Sure, the songs in the middle are trippy, but the finale is the craziest. Frequently overlaps with Main/NightmareFuel and Main/EpicRocking.
85	[[/folder]]
86
87	[[folder:Theatre]]
88	* In the climactic number of ''Theatre/JesusChristSuperstar'', "Superstar," Jesus descends into Hell and is reunited with Judas, who sings at him in an explicitly modern voice; although the depiction of ancient Judea is generally AnachronismStew, the departure of even the veneer of that time and place tends to be taken as license to go all-out.
89	[[/folder]]
90
91	[[folder:Video Games]]
92	* ''VideoGame/BatenKaitosOrigins'': The final boss is pretty standard, but if you went back in time and killed Wiseman on the Battlefield of Atria, then Wiseman's spirit shows up, assimilates Verus and the afterlings in the core, and turns into a monstrous demon in a starscape. Then, the rest of Malpercio shows up to help you defeat Verus-Wiseman. Then, afterwards, you're back in Tarazed Core, like all ''that'' never happened. Granted, it ''does'' make for a hell of a boss fight.
93	* In ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'', the Final boss is fought in The Darkness Beyond Time -- the place where things go when they no longer exist. The finale also seems trippy just because all the dialogue on Disc 2 is dedicated to explaining the back story of the game... and even after reading it all, you still need a Master's Degree in Strange Back Story-ology to understand it. If you don't use the eponymous item, Lavos just respawns from another timeline. If you do, cue GainaxEnding.
94	** Even its predecessor, ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', doesn't escape from this. Once you enter Lavos' outer shell and initiate a battle with the "real" Lavos (The Core), the background graphics just goes all hippie on you, occasionally combined with semitransparent images of places you've been to in the past, present, and future.
95	*** The trippiness of ''Chrono Trigger'''s finale begins sooner than that; the Black Omen sequence is very bizarre by the standards of an otherwise pretty straightforward game, what with the dream/waking duality and the your-party-floating-in-jars and the Zeal's-a-mask-and-gloves-in-space.
96	* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'':
97	** The final levels from the [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry1 first game]] and ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening'' take place in the Underworld/Hell. In ''[=DMC1=]'', it is depicted as [[WombLevel the innards of a giant monster]], complete with a [[BeatStillMyHeart giant pulsating heart]], which you enter through a mirror and the broken window roof of an upside down cathedral. In ''[=DMC3=]'', it is depicted as an amalgamation of several bizarre architecture such as a road that assembles itself before your very feet, a giant chessboard, a roomful of stairways that would make Creator/MCEscher's head hurt, a lake of blood, a broken time space warp connected via mirrors made of mercury, and a chamber made of purple flesh that is situated at the feet of a statue of a godlike figure so tall you can't even see its knees.
98	** The final battle in ''Devil May Cry 3'' takes place in a river. A river in ''[[BonusLevelOfHell Hell]]''. It doesn't ''appear'' to be Styx.
99	** In ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4'', Stage 18 is an apocalyptic battle, held on floating platforms, against a giant mobile statue and a combination of animated suits of armor. The final battle takes place in the normal-by-comparison, surprisingly-squishy innards of said giant demon made of animate marble.
100	* Technically, you are [[NoOntologicalInertia in a different world]] by the end of ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}}'', and it definitely shows. This trope applies most literally to the [[DroppedABridgeOnHim fifth ending]] however.
101	* ''[[VideoGame/{{Mother}} EarthBound Series]]'':
102	** ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound\|1994}}'''s final area before the final boss battle looks like a giant bizarre vagina, leading into a maze of tentacle-like pathways over a void. If that's not bad enough, said final boss battle [[AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield sure]] is. The battle's inspired by an old-fashioned CSI-esque movie that starts (well, not immediately, but you get the point) with a close-up of the soon-to-be victim's face, which the creator saw as a child when he entered the wrong theater and mistook it for a rape scene.
103	** The sequel, '"VideoGame/Mother3'', does this as well. You're in a cavern miles below the city, when... whoa! What's the deal with the dropoffs? And the animate crystals and balls of electricity flying around?
104	* ''VideoGame/EternalSonata'' had the Elegy of the Moon zone. In contrast to the bright, colorful, and vibrant zones previously seen, the Elegy of the Moon is a rather...odd zone that is essentially purgatory for the souls lost to the mineral powder.
105	* ''VideoGame/FearEffect''. It seems normal enough at first, and then suddenly it starts turning into a precursor to ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness''...
106	* The ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series frequently uses this.
107	** TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' is a past version of the castle ruins in which the party originally fought Garland at the beginning of the game. Not so trippy, until you realize that you're unable to leave the castle (which is probably stuck in a time loop).
108	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' involves traveling to the capital of Hell. Though it makes sense, as the final boss has [[ThanatosGambit used his own demise as a stepping stone]] [[HellHasNewManagement toward dethroning and replacing the Devil as King of Hell]].
109	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'' finds the player's party in the World of Darkness, a dark temple floating in an endless void.
110	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'', of course, during the final boss fight against Zeromus.
111	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' has the Interdimensional Rift, a twisted landscape of everything that has been trapped between the worlds for a thousand years, as its final dungeon. Part of it is a town that phases in and out of time and space. The final battle itself takes place in the very heart of the Void where the villain consumes and regurgitates himself as a horrible mishmash of creatures that declares 'The Laws of the Universe mean nothing!'. Also, the world ends, but that can be reversed by leaving the area before the actual fight begins.
112	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has a relatively tame final dungeon constructed from the wreckage of [[TheEmpire an empire]], but the end boss is preceded by an enormous tower of vaguely Renaissance-esque statues(?) of nude men and women, usually in bizarre positions, which all want you dead. Fighting your way through them looks like you're ascending towards heaven to confront [[DeityOfHumanOrigin God]] above the [[FluffyCloudHeaven clouds]].
113	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' has the party traveling through a crater down into the heart of the planet, through strange and varied underground landscapes. The strangeness hits a fever pitch towards the bottom, which is just a series of floating rocks surrounded by flowing Lifestream. Cue final fight with an EldritchAbomination, OneWingedAngel, OminousLatinChanting, a supernova that destroys the solar system every time it's used but can't kill you (since it takes 9/10 of your HP, rounded down) but does give you time to make a sandwich, ClippedWingAngel... And once the heroes return to the normal world, something spectacular happens, but you can't really be sure what it was just by watching the end movie(s).
114	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' involves the party being sucked through time to the far future, where the main villainess' castle waits floating ominously over a destroyed world. The rest of the ''world'' as the party knows it becomes like this as well due to Ultimecia's "time compression".
115	*** The actual battle against Ultimecia is plenty this as well. She conjures an imaginary creature, wields planets, and begins to [[AssimilationPlot merge with the universe]]. Defeat her and time decompresses into a bad trip.
116	** TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' is a collective mishmash of ancestral memories, taking the party to locations from the entire world's history and ending with the origin of the universe.
117	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' sends the party into the innards of Sin for the final dungeon. The first section is basically a bunch of tubes filled with shallow water and floating magical symbols (which maybe [[FridgeBrilliance makes sense]] because Sin is a creature created by magic). The next section is the ruins of an ancient city that is inside Sin... for some reason. The city is probably some part of the original Zanarkand. Or it's part of dream Zanarkand, the construct of the Yu Yevon, who creates and possesses Sin and has been explained a few minutes before arriving.
118	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' has the ''Chains of Promathia'' expansion end in the Celestial Capital of Al'Taieu, conveniently located in another freaking plane of existence.
119	** Even the first film loses coherence by the end.
120	** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' Endwalker, the final expansion of the MythArc, ends in Ultima Thule, a realm located at the literal edges of the universe made up of concentrated Dynamis -- a mix of Dark Energy and emotional energy. The realm is suitably trippy and cosmic, with a gigantic black sun looming above and a bright star illuminating from below, and the entire landscape made up of floating 'islands' based on recreations of dead planets.
121	** The finale to [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles Crystal Chronicles]] takes place in the Nest of Memories, an abstract realm that's home to the memory-eating demi-gods Mio and [[FinalBoss Raem.]]
122	* The final track of both the story and racing modes of ''VideoGame/FZeroGX'' take place in Phantom Road; think of it as [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs Rainbow Road on LSD]]. Made even worse by the fact that the pattern on the track is moving and can actively disorient the player, which can cause ''a lot'' of screwing up on Slim-Line Slits.
123	* ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' goes from a somewhat realistic physics lab with NoOSHACompliance to the alien world of Xen, a bunch of {{Floating Continent}}s of trippy, organic space.
124	* The finales of ''VideoGame/{{Hellsinker}}'' are notable for being incredibly surreal and weird even by the game's standards.
125	* In ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami2WrongNumber'' The Son dies in such a fashion; After a drug-fueled rampage, he enters a set of gates and walks into a rainbow of colors and brings forth the end of the game. [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome In reality, he simply walked off a building]].
126	* ''Franchise/KingdomHearts''. Especially noteworthy because of the escalating levels of trippiness the closer you get to the end.
127	** [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI The first game's]] final world is the End of the World, a strange mishmash of various dead worlds surrounded by a violet ocean.
128	** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII''[='s=] final world is called the World that Never Was (more accurately, it's a world that never should have been) and is on the edge of the realms of light and dark. It's a huge, completely empty facsimile of a city with an enormous, misshapen white castle/spaceship and a heart-shaped moon hanging over it. Then the buildings get weaponized...
129	** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsCoded'' ends with Castle Oblivion, where half-baked memories spend their time in {{White Void Room}}s.
130	** ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance'' ends with the World that Never Was again, but this time it's even worse. Many areas start off making no sense architecturally and are only slightly more intuitive as pathways are assembled from [[DiagonalCut cleanly sliced]] skyscrapers. One set of buildings warps and breathes, while others move up and down to serve as trampolines. Even the cutscenes are weird, thanks to a DreamWithinADream. Also, TimeTravel.
131	** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' subverts this, getting all the requisite trippiness out of the way in The Final World but then following it up with a series of final boss battles in more grounded, established locations. Then loops back around to MindScrew with the DLC.
132	* Most ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'' games end this way, usually with EldritchAbomination {{Final Boss}}es.
133
134	* The final part of ''VideoGame/LandsOfLore 2'' involves Luther entering the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBt3lef-yZk Chamber of Voices]] in the Huline Temple, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD4C8LA0_24 there raising the city of the ancient gods]] and travelling [[WombLevel through Belial's mother beast to the rebirth chamber]].
135	* ''VideoGame/LastScenario'': The entire final dungeon seems to be designed from the ground up to confuse you as much as possible, although it's really deceptively simple to figure out. Then there's the background during the final boss battle and the interior of the biorite cluster.
136	* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfDragoon'' has The Moon That Never Sets. It's a rather surreal place with actual towns and forests, and the constant sound of the Virage Embryo's heartbeat. The area right before the final boss is even more surreal, consisting of static-y television monitors and an overall weird, digital-looking landscape.
137	* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'': The final area takes place inside the monstrous moon itself. Which, in fact, appears as a vast and beautiful green field with a single large tree in the center, surrounded by children at play. And then Link goes to fight the boss in a room painted like an acid trip... and in its second stage, Majora's Mask ''runs around very fast making clucking noises''.
138	* ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}} Infinity''. The first two games were straightforward enough, albeit with a fair amount of ambiguity. ''Infinity'' goes balls-out, featuring multiple timelines, dream levels, some of the most surrealistic text terminals in the series, and an ending over which fans still speculate nearly 20 years later.
139	* The final stages of ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' are set in "Zero Space", a bizarre holographic lightshow area created by the power of the Zero Virus somehow materializing a portion of {{Cyberspace}} within the real world.
140	* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'': The Colonel makes insane comments like "[[TalkativeLoon I hear it's amazing when the famous purple stuffed worm in flap-jaw space with the tuning fork does a raw blink on hara-kiri rock!]] [[MemeticMutation I need scissors, 61!]]" He then reveals that he is within the A.I. that is actually the collective consciousness of the spirit of American freedom that controls the White House. Raiden's girlfriend is also a part of the A.I. but she appears in reality. [[MindScrew Then things get weird.]] And in ''Substance'', one of Snake's missions is an outright parody of this aspect of the original game, as well as Raiden's status as a ReplacementScrappy.
141	* Events in ''VideoGame/MystIVRevelation'' progress from a mundane visit to Atrus's {{Steampunk}} residence, to forays into exotic, yet still coherent Prison Ages, to a surreal vision quest through {{Arcadia}}, to a final BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind sorting puzzle using abstract symbols and disjointed tidbits of recent past events.
142	* They were already established outer planes in the Forgotten Realms setting, but ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights: Hordes of the Underdark'' has its final chapter in the frozen hell of Cania, and ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2: Mask of the Betrayer'' has its finale in The City of Judgment on the Fugue Plane.
143	* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarIV'' features an ethereal crystal world inhabited by a disembodied voice named Le Roof who arms you before sending you off to a huge hole in the ground, where you enter a twisty-backgrounded epileptic-rainbow maze to fight the personification of evil. PS Online does a shorter version by having you arrive in a [[MoodWhiplash flower-filled field]] that quickly turns into a desolate wasteland when the BigBad arrives.
144	* In the finale of ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia2'', Jaffar warps the Prince into a weird otherworld with giant chess pieces, Kryptonite crystals, and an Creator/MCEscher-esque battleground.
145	* If the trippiness of ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' wasn't already high, the last level presents the Meat Circus, which is extremely dreamlike even when compared to the other mental worlds.
146	* In ''VideoGame/{{Robopon}} 2'', the final battles take place in an unexplained, creepy location called the Robopon Graveyard. All you know is this is where the souls of Robopon go when they're scrapped, and the graveyard is totally filled.
147	* The ''VideoGame/RType'' series' final stages got progressively trippier as the games went on. Most notable of all, a Bydo dimension filled with crystal-encased human fetuses, strands of [=DNA=], free-floating sperm the size of the ship, and fertilized ova... And that's not even mentioning the neutral ending of ''Final'', in which the screen-filling silhouettes of a man and a woman embrace and make love in the background. The first alternate ending of ''Final'' has you trapped in a really trippy dimension, fighting a space slug thing, and [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie mutated by the Bydo]], then forced to fight your allies. You can see the mutant ship from this ending fly past in the first stage.
148	* This is basically a requirement for ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts''. In the first one, set before UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, the heroes head into ''space'' for the final battle.
149	* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'':
150	** The final dungeons of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' are a massive heavenly Domain called Purgatorium and a grandiose palace with swirly backgrounds called Lucifer's Palace.
151	** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse'' has YHVH's Universe, a truly massive otherworldly location with space backgrounds and reflective blocky platforms that form an incredibly massive dungeon that dwarfs all of the other dungeons in the ''SMTIV'' duology in sheer size. The final area has you walking up a long set of stairs through huge doors tens of times taller than you while the BigBad YHVH insists that you turn back at once if you want His forgiveness, before revealing Himself to be a crowd of heads in a vast expanse of space that are rendered in 3D even during the boss battle with Him in a game where most other enemies use 2D sprites.
152	* ''VideoGame/{{Solatorobo}}'''s true final boss fight takes place inside Tartaros, which is full of floating squares in various shades of pink or purple.
153	* ''VideoGame/SonicShuffle'': 4th Dimension Space has no real floor, letting you walk upside down, sideways, and diagonally in space.
154	* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
155	** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'': After Bowser is defeated, his own galaxy implodes and turns into a black hole destroying the universe until every Luma uses their energy to make it destroy itself and restore whatever was destroyed by it.
156	** The last race of every ''VideoGame/MarioKart'' game, Rainbow Road.
157	* Pretty much every single ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' hack ever to some degree. Examples include VIP 2-5 (which have a ridiculously psychodelic-looking rainbow-coloured final level filled with random gimmicks), ''VideoGame/BrutalMario'' (second part of Bowser's Castle especially), VideoGame/AnSMWCProduction's void level, ASMT's void level and probably a whole lot of others.
158	* Every ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' game's Classic Mode final stage is set in an arena referred to as "Final Destination" from ''Melee'' onwards. Here, the player fights against the FinalBoss Master Hand, a giant disembodied hand. The battle platform itself is quite featureless, but the background puts on some serious theatrics, including swirly light patterns and transporting the battle across mountainous landscapes and oceans.
159	* ''VideoGame/WildArms3'' has its final battles ''literally'' take place in a trippy dream sequence.
160	* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' ends with the party entering "Space Memory", which is essentially outer space, except they can walk through it. Seeing how they entered it through Prison Island, which was located at the top of the Bionis, and were therefore entering the Bionis' (i.e. Zanza's) skull, they're essentially entering his own memories, which hints at his background involving space. The final battle itself takes place in an AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield, which occasionally changes to look like the party is in the sky.
161	* The finale of ''VideoGame/YsVLostKefinKingdomOfSand'', the Lost Sand City of Kefin is quite mind-screwing, especially if you don't know Japanese.
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163
164	[[folder:Web Comics]]
165	* Subverted at the end of the lengthy "Island and the Idol" arc in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' When the two SufficientlyAdvancedAliens who had been driving the plot finally leave, Molly complains because they do it very suddenly and anticlimactically. She says, rightly, that in movies when such entities finally depart, there's supposed to be a giant light show of some sort. The [[HigherTechSpecies less powerful aliens]] the heroes are currently staying with give a bemused shrug and indulge her by firing all their ship's weapons at once, making a spectacular light show that doesn't actually mean anything, but it makes her happy.
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168	[[folder:Web Original]]
169	* ''Toys/{{BIONICLE}}'': The first seven chapters of ''Brothers In Arms'' focus entirely on Mazeka and Vultraz. Once the two finally meet in battle, they fly through [[DeusExMachina a portal that randomly opens in front of them]], sending them to an alternate reality where Spherus Magna was never destroyed and the Matoran Universe was never created. [[ShaggyDogStory The conflict between the two is never resolved]], [[WriterCopOut due to this]].
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172	[[folder:Western Animation]]
173	* The climax of the ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'' special "Destination Imagination" has the characters escaping from an imaginary world that exists within a toy box. As they escape, the imaginary friend that controls this world causes everything to [[LoadBearingBoss explode into a hallucinogenic void around them]]. Of course, the entire episode is pretty trippy anyway.
174	* The series finale to ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'' is a serious MindScrew, even for those who've been paying attention to the series-wide StoryArc.
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Context Main / TrippyFinaleSyndrome