History BittersweetEnding / VideoGames

* Despite the cheery aesthetic, emphasis on ThePowerOfLove and ThePowerOfFriendship, and the indefatigueable optimism of the main characters, the ''KingdomHearts'' franchise is ''full'' of these, with so far only one game out of five with a definitely happy ending. Then again, considered who [[DisneyAnimatedCanon made]] [[SquareEnix it]], perhaps [[{{Bambi}} we]] [[FinalFantasyVI should]] [[TheFoxAndTheHound have]] [[FinalFantasyX seen]] [[WinnieThePooh it]] [[VagrantStory coming]].

* [[StarOceanTheSecondStory Star Ocean: The Second Story/Second Evolution.]] The planet of Expel is saved, the Sorcery Globe is dealt with, and most of the heroes can go back home. But at what cost? [[spoiler: Remember Narl/Nall, Mirage, Marianna, Noel and Chisato (if you didn't recruit them), the psynards, the buzzing Fun City, the wondrous technology, and all the random townspeople you ran into during the second half of the game? [[TearJerker They're gone forever]], and nobody other than the heroes realises that they ever existed.]]

*** Untrue. Shadow may actually survive when you wait for him long enough, especially if he was part of the main party.

* ''RedDeadRedemption''. [[spoiler:Sure you get revenge as his son, but that doesn't change the fact that the man you grew to admire and sympathize with is dead.]]

* TalesOfRebirth: the world is saved,and Agarte can finally tell Milhaust her feelings, but suddenly she collapses and dies in Milhaust's arms. Then he realizes that he loves her too, but then again too late...

** The Revenge ending of ''IV''. Niko finally kills BigBad Dimetri and finally finds some measure of peace in his life, only to see his girlfriend gunned down by Dimetri's vengeful [[TheDragon dragon]]. Despite this loss, Niko is still able to come to some form of peace after avenging his girlfriend (who was kind of a bitch anyways), his cousin Roman is alive and well (the Deal ending would've had him killed instead of Kate) and is in fact soon to be a father, which is a major step up from the ButtMonkey status he had throughout the game.

* The Order/Academy campaign in [[HeroesOfMightAndMagic Heroes of Might and Magic IV]] ends with the hero defeating the BigBad, like all video games do. It also ends with [[spoiler: TheHero paralyzed from the waist down, [[MentorOccupationalHazard her advisor and father figure mindcontrolled and killed by their own men]], and a FateWorseThanDeath for the BigBad, who is actually a WellIntentionedExtremist.]]

** ''Chinatown Wars'' ends with Huang, after a harrowing journey throughout the city, finally avenging the death of his father, retrieving the stolen ancestral sword, and becoming the new leader of the Liberty City Triads. On the downside, a lot of people, many of them Huang's friends and allies, died along the way.

** ''Chinatown Wars'' ends with Huang, after a harrowing journey throughout the city, finally avenging the death of his father, retrieving the stolen ancestral sword, and the new leader of the Liberty City Triads. On the downside, a lot of people, many of them Huang's friends and allies, died along the way.

* The [[MultipleEndings Bad and Forgotten Dream endings]] of ''{{Yo-Jin-Bo}}''. Hatsuhime is home safe, but Sayori doesn't get her guy.

* ''PlanescapeTorment'''s ''best'' ending is as follows: you have regained your mortality, learned your true name, and brought your friends BackFromTheDead... And now all your hard work pays off, as you get to die and go to hell to be punished for the crimes of the First Incarnation. (Of course, the entire point of the game was to figure out a) who you are and b) how to die.)

*** What makes it less bitter is that well, Hell does suck, but does it suck any worse than the rest of the multiverse? With the lifetimes of experience the No-Longer-Nameless One has, he can [[{{Badass}} shrug it off and carry on]]. And isn't having your true identity the greatest consolation when facing an eternity?

*** Neither did its spiritual predecessor, Koudelka. In the official ending of the game, one of the three main characters sacrifices his life to defeat the BigBad, and the other two (who have spent most of the game flirting) wind up going their separate ways. And, of course, the central character from the game shows up again in Shadow Hearts, having been captured by witch hunters and locked away in an asylum, where she is tortured for years, which effectively orphans her only child. And then Yuri rescues her... only for her to die shortly thereafter.

* FatalFrame lives and breathes this trope. All of the endings are designed to twist your heart because no matter which ending you got – even the happier ones – someone has still lost or had to do something that has either contributed to their death or given them lasting scars. It's made even worse in that the canon endings to the first two games border on DownerEnding

* ''Rule of Rose''. In the difference between the good and bad endings is if Stray Dog is killed or kills himself. If the good ending is achieved, Jennifer wanders the orphanage making nostalgic comments about all the dead orphans then going to the shed to lock the puppy version of her dead dog, Brown, away in her heart forever. It ends with her leaving as he whimpers.

* {{Lunar}} 2 "officially" ends with Zophar defeated and Lunar safe, but Lucia is forced to return to the Blue Star, leaving Hiro behind on Lunar. The epilogue allows you to find Hiro a way to travel to the Blue Star, but this only sets up another bittersweet ending: Hiro is able to be with Lucia but at the cost of leaving his friends and family on Lunar, probably forever.

*** What makes it less bitter is that well, Hell does suck, but does it suck any worse than the rest of the multiverse? With the lifetimes of experience the No-Longer-Nameless One has, he can shrug it off and carry on. And isn't having your true identity the greatest consolation when facing an eternity?

* ''CompanyOfHeroes'' ends with Able Company leading the encirclement of the Falaise Pocket, capturing a crippling percentage of the Wehrmacht. On the other hand, Captain Mackay is dead and 80% of Able Company is either killed or wounded. WarIsHell, indeed.

** In ending B, [[spoiler:not only does all of the above happen, but the Shadowlord, and the Shades in general, are given the mother of all AlasPoorVillain moments. On the plus side, TheStinger shows that Emil is still alive...as a disembodied head. To his credit, he doesn't seem to mind all that much.]]

* After sitting through the credits for [[GSenjouNoMaou G-Senjou no Maou]], you are treated to a MoodWhiplash epilogue. After surviving the chaotic incident he instigated in the climax, "Maou" pays Kyousuke and Haru a visit, which culminated in Haru chasing and gunning down said person. Kyousuke takes the hit for Haru by tricking the police into thinking that he killed "Maou". After spending 8 years in prison, he meets Haru and her daughter, and assumed that she got together with another person. [[spoiler: The trope is then subverted when he asks how old the girl is, to which she replied:]]

* {{CaveStory}}'s normal ending is one of these. [[spoiler:Quote, Sue, Kazuma, Itoh, Momorin, and possibly a couple others escape, but the other half of the cast dies, the Mimigas are almost certainly extinct, and it's hinted at that not even the ColonyDrop would stop the cycle of the Demon Crown.]]

* The ''{{Ultima}}'' series ends this way. When all is said and done, the Avatar and his companions manage to save Brittania one last time (hopefully for good) by finally defeating the Guardian. Sadly, the Avatar must perform a HeroicSacrifice to do so because the Guardian is the manifestation of everything the Avatar cast aside after perform the Quest to become the Avatar of Virtue -- as long as the Avatar lives the Guardian will too.

* In WrathOfTheLichKing: Arthas has been defeated, and the scourge has been destroyed, but many soldiers died, and Bolvar gives up his chance at humanity to contain the scourge.

* ''StarFoxCommand'''s nine endings included several bittersweet ones, most of which included Krystal abandoning Star Fox to join Star Wolf, her relationship problems with Fox unresolved. The most gut-wrenching of them involves Krystal saving the universe with Star Wolf, only to be shunned by the public for her double-crossing of Star Fox, leading her to leave and wonder alone, becoming a bounty hunter known as Kursed. The most bitter sting is that years later she comes across Fox, who does not recognize her. Other slightly more upbeat, yet still somewhat sad endings involve Peppy and his daughter reminiscing about their dead/wife mother while Fox and Krystal patch things up, Slippy retiring with his fiancee and years later telling tales about Star Fox while wondering if they were still out there, and one ending where Falco, depressed at not being able to rejoin Star Fox in time to rescue the universe, is convinced by Katt Monroe to start his own team called Star Falco. A variant on this ending has Fox and Falco both being depressed after Star Wolf beats them to the final boss, and they cope with it by dropping out to become G-Zero (an F-Zero reference) racers.

* Every saga in ''[[Disciples]] 2: Dark Prophecy'' has a BittersweetEnding. Even the ''[[VillainProtagonist bad guys]]'' don't get everything they want in the end. Empire: Demon Uther was defeated, but not before he murdered his father the Emperor, leaving the Empire in ruins without a ruler or an heir. Undead: Mortis succeeds in reviving her lover, but he is so repulsed by what she had become and by [[MoralEventHorizon what she had done to bring him back]] that he rejects her and abandons her forever. Legion of the Damned: Demon Uther wasn't actually their god reborn; he was a CreepyChild draining his power. The loyalist Legions manage to kill him, but their god Bethrezen is still sealed away, so they have to go back into hiding. Nobody in this game gets a completely happy ending.