Note: This is a Spoilered Rotten trope, that means that EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE on this list is a spoiler by default and most of them will be unmarked. This is your last warning; only proceed if you really believe you can handle this list.
Times where The Ending Changes Everything in Visual Novels.
- BAD END THEATER depicts a cast of fantasy characters that, no matter how much they go against their impulses or try to avert fate, always end in tragedy for someone. And after seeing every ending, we learn why: TRAGEDY, the theater's owner and god of the in-story world, created the story as a metaphor for how society forbade her and her lover from being together. The Damsel in Distress is actually her self-insert, and the Evil Overlord represents her lover...who turns out to be you, the one directing the plays, who came to the theater to reunite with TRAGEDY.
- It's standard practice for a Danganronpa game to save some earth-shattering revelations about both the true purpose of each Killing Game and the state of the world, both of which completely recontextualize everything that happened beforehand, for the very last chapter and trial.
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc reveals that the game takes place After the End, where the Big Bad Junko Enoshima caused The World's Most Despair-Inducing Event, which reduced the entire world into a violent, anarchic hellhole, and the School Life Of Mutual Killing that the cast was forced into is a Sadistic Game Show meant to crush any last traces of hope left in the world. While the cast had assumed that they'd been imprisoned inside of the school for much of the game, Hope's Peak turns out to be a shelter from the ruined world, and they'd agreed to stay in there.
- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair reveals that not only has everything in the game taken place in a Lotus-Eater Machine VR simulation program, but the cast are actually The Remnants of Despair, brainwashed followers of Junko, who the survivors from the first game were trying to rehabilitate before the Superpowered Evil Side of the main character of the second game snuck a virus modeled after Junko into the program, whereupon she hijacked it to fulfill her own goals.
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony reveals that this killing game takes place in an Alternate Universe from the originals, which are fictional in this universe, and the game is a "Truman Show" Plot that's been going on for 53 seasons, the characters willingly signed up for it, and their memories and personalities have been rewritten to fill the role of standard Danganronpa characters. The "Flashback Lights" ostensibly meant to unlock the cast's missing memories were actually intended to brainwash them further and provide exposition on the in-universe storyline, and The Reveal that they were the last remnants of humanity was just another lie.
- The light novel Danganronpa Zero: The reveal that Ryoko Otonashi is actually an amnesiac Junko Enoshima who set everything up from the start drastically changes the way the novels come off on a re-read.
- The same goes for the Danganronpa Another duology of Fan Games, which save their most hard-hitting reveals about the plot and characters for the last trial.
- The very last trial of Danganronpa Another reveals that protagonist Yuki Maeda is secretly Utsuro, the mastermind of the Killing Game, his assistant Akane Taira is The Dragon to him, and that the entire events of the game were, despite efforts to protect Class 79 from the Tragedy, a trial run of the Killing Game orchestrated by Junko.
- Super Danganronpa Another 2 repeats Goodbye Despair's twist of the events having took place in a VR simulation, but also adds in the details that both protagonist Sora and antagonist Mikado Sannoji are Artificial Intelligences based on dead people (the former on the aforementioned Akane, and the latter based on a real Mikado that the AI had killed), and that Mikado orchestrated the Killing Game so that he could resurrect Utsuro and then steal his Divine Luck before escaping into the real world.
- Ever17: The Kid you can play as is not the same Kid you see when you're playing as Takeshi, and vice versa. The differences between each team isn't because they take place in alternate universes, but because they take place at different points in time with the future team imitating the past team as best as they can to set in motion an elaborate plan laid out by a fourth-dimensional being to save lives by, among other things, tricking that same being into briefly believing the timelines are the same.
- After several twists one after another, Full Metal Daemon Muramasa has one final bombshell up its sleeve. In the final battle it is revealed that the Big Bad Hikaru, main character Kageaki's adoptive younger sister, is in fact not his sister but his blood daughter, conceived after the intended father, Akitaka, had turned infertile. This reveal completely recontextualizes their relationship, not only why Kageaki is so protective of her and struggling with having to do battle against her as well as the source of his Guilt Complex, but also Hikaru's own motivations in freeing her father from the bindings of morality so that she can know for sure if he truly loves her.
- For most of Liar Liar, we're meant to believe Yukari was spurned into murdering her cheating ex-boyfriend by jealousy and that it was her Start of Darkness. The very end to the sequel reveals this is normal for her, as she's killed every boyfriend and girlfriend of hers since elementary.
- At the start of Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair, you meet the various characters and get some idea of their relationships. For example, Momoko and Hiro are in love (even if their relationship isn't completely happy), Kamen is best friends with Momoko but hates Raiko and Hiro, and Runa claims to be over her crush on Hiro but doesn't seem to like Momoko. The ending reveals that Hiro had never loved Momoko, and had been trying to cheat on her with Kamen, who was in love with Momoko. Momoko refused to believe Kamen, but when she found Hiro's messages on Kamen's cell phone, she snapped and plotted a Murder-Suicide, killing Hiro, leaving Kotoba to die and hanging herself so that Kamen would be blamed for the deaths. As for Raiko, it turns out that Kamen actually is grateful to her for saving her from being accused of shoplifting, and her hostility was due to Raiko's having drastically changed as a result of losing her sister.
- In War: 13th Day, the True End reveals that the entire story is through Wildfire's biased perception, as well as her wishes, hopes, and dreams, fantasy and reality mixed together- and that the story is essentially her life flashing beforehand her eyes, as she was Dying All Along- and the Player Character, of all people, is her killer. In the post-credits scene, Ambrosia even makes this clear.Ambrosia: Her perspective is biased and, to tell you the truth, terribly inaccurate. Do we seem unrealistic? Over-the-top? Annoying, even? That is simply how Lady Wildfire sees us. You could say she sees a satire of us in her mind.
- When They Cry:
- In Higurashi: When They Cry, we find out in Tsumihoroboshi-hen that the conspiratorial events of Onikakushi-hen (the first arc) were all in Keiichi's head, horribly twisted by the Hate Plague he was infected with. And then later arcs come along and cheerfully informs us that, while we have never been LIED to, we've just seen the action through the eyes of several different unreliable narrators.
- Umineko: When They Cry:
- Several murders are shown to be committed via crazy, insane magical means, like demon robot bunny girls shooting seeking arrows of energy through keyholes to kill people in locked rooms. One major plot point is the main character trying to disprove those supernatural justifications and find a human culprit.
- Umineko Episodes 4 and 6, in particular, reveal that certain completely mundane-seeming scenes we've been shown in previous Episodes were in fact complete lies.
- Episode 7 reveals the identity of the culprit and Beatrice's true identity - the servants Shannon and Kanon, who are the same person all along and the true family head. This places all scenes in which Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice are shown to be interacting since Episode 1, since we now know that they all represent the culprit's internal thoughts and are not real conversations that were happening.
- With Episode 8, most of what came before (specifically Episodes 3 through 6) is revealed to be the result of amnesiac Battler trying to figure out what really happened.
- Zero Escape:
- Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors has several revelations near the end that completely change how you see the game. Throughout the game, the narration is from a third-person perspective. But then the ending reveals it's not: it's a first-person perspective from another character's point of view. The character you were REALLY playing as. The top screen doesn't show the present or the events that are happening to your player character. It shows the future. You're playing as a character who's seeing the future on the top screen, while simultaneously experiencing near-identical events on the bottom screen; the touch screen where the gameplay happens, in the past. The two screens actually show exactly what the REAL player character is seeing during the Nonary Game: The world split into two, where she can see what's happening to her, and what's happening to Junpei in the future at the same time. The only exception to this is the game's final puzzle where you finally play as Junpei for the first proper time. You have to turn your DS upside down so that the future is now on the touch screen, to reflect the fact that this is the first real-time you're actually playing as Junpei, who you thought you were playing as the entire time.
- There’s also the reveal of Zero’s true identity and motives- it’s Akane, and she’s not a Sadist but a Well-Intentioned Extremist who’s getting revenge against the real Big Bad. This completely changes the meaning of her various interactions with Junpei. And the above reveal means you were playing as Zero all along.
- Santa is Akane’s brother and helper throughout the ordeal.
- The real Big Bad is Ace, the leader of your group who is actually the CEO of Cradle Pharmaceuticals and original creator of the Nonary Game.
- The current Nonary Game was never actually a Deadly Game: only two people (both of whom were Ace’s helpers) had bombs in their stomachs, and the game was designed so Everybody Lives in the end. To top it off, the game took place not on a sinking ship, but a building in the desert made to look like a ship. In other words, Zero/Akane never actually put anyone in danger, other than the ones who deserved it.
- In Virtue's Last Reward pretty much everything is changed thanks to revelations in the ending, that makes a second playthrough of the game feel completely different, as well as changing how you view all the interactions in the game. Included twists are:
- The fact you were playing as an old man the entire game, not a 22-year-old college student (more specifically, it was an old man with a 22-year-old consciousness residing in them).
- That Luna is actually a robot.
- That Sigma, the player character, was actually Zero himself.
- That K is two different people depending on what path you pick to go down thanks to the effects of Schrödinger's Cat. One is Sigma’s clone, and the other is Akane.
- That the game takes place on the moon.
- Time is actually going in fast forward due to the effects of everyone having the virus Radical-6. The effects of the difference in gravity due to them being on the moon through, balances it out and makes everything seem like it's going at a normal speed.
- Tenmyouji is Junpei, the protagonist from the previous Zero Escape game.
- The old woman is Akane, the Zero from the previous game and the one who helped set up this game too.
- The purpose of the AB game is to save the world from Radical-6 and the cult that set the virus loose. And Dio is a leader in the cult.
- Zero Time Dilemma has a few as well.
- Phi’s background was never clear in the previous game. In here, we learn that she’s Sigma and Diana’s Kid from the Future. And so is the series Big Bad, Zero II/Delta.
- Delta himself was present throughout the whole game, simply offscreen. The character that Team Q referred to as “Q” was actually him, while the little boy who appeared to be Q was Sean. And Sean is a robot.
- SHIFTing through timelines switches one consciousness with the other, meaning if someone about to die SHIFTs, the other them will die in their place. The characters are a bit more hesitant to SHIFT after learning this.
- Perhaps the biggest reveal, however, is when the characters finally beat Delta’s game and earn a Golden Ending where Everybody Lives- only for Delta to reveal this was what he intended all along. Literally, everything Akane and everyone else did went all according to his plan- and now he’s created a timeline where nobody has to die. He even offers to let Carlos shoot him dead as an apology of sorts for all the evil he’s done in pursuit of this goal.
- Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors has several revelations near the end that completely change how you see the game. Throughout the game, the narration is from a third-person perspective. But then the ending reveals it's not: it's a first-person perspective from another character's point of view. The character you were REALLY playing as. The top screen doesn't show the present or the events that are happening to your player character. It shows the future. You're playing as a character who's seeing the future on the top screen, while simultaneously experiencing near-identical events on the bottom screen; the touch screen where the gameplay happens, in the past. The two screens actually show exactly what the REAL player character is seeing during the Nonary Game: The world split into two, where she can see what's happening to her, and what's happening to Junpei in the future at the same time. The only exception to this is the game's final puzzle where you finally play as Junpei for the first proper time. You have to turn your DS upside down so that the future is now on the touch screen, to reflect the fact that this is the first real-time you're actually playing as Junpei, who you thought you were playing as the entire time.
