Did you like or hated the ending of dragon's dogma? (Spoilers)

Let me get this straight and correct me if I'm wrong. You was being tested to take the place of another arisen as god, and if you fail you get turned into a dragon looking for an arisen who has the potential to become a god. Then once you become a god you then have to kill yourself. Once you kill yourself your main pawn takes over your body, and begins a relationship with the person you fell in love with. Some how I ended up with the little girl it felt wrong.

I thought the ending was pretty weird. For me it kinda made me not want to play the game no more. Overall I thought the game was fun. But it got repetitive and traveling got annoying for me. Then the story took a wtf turn that I didn't like at the end. Also I felt like the romance scenes was unnecessary. Hell I didn't relies Selene was in love with me. But anyway what's your thoughts on the ending.

The entire ending part is easily my favourite of the entire game. It all gets 1000x better as soon as the boss battle against the dragon begins. I thought the actual ending itself, narratively speaking, was a cool twist if only because everything else before it was so fucking droll and practically nonexistant. The reason why Patrick and so many others perceive it as crazy is because of how there's nothing else to compare it to; it just comes out of nowhere, out of nothing. Most would no doubt expect it to just end at the dragon boss, but then it all of a sudden became an actual story.

The whole reveal with the prologue arisen character was awesome I think, as is finding out the true purpose of the arisen, but I definitely wouldn't say it's quite as extraordinary as Patrick sold it. It's too bad the whole game didn't have as much effort put forward for its narrative. The only other time it kinda picked up was during some mission where I escorted the witch-girl to see her grandmother, and it's revealed she's actually a pawn and then becomes a human.

@Yummylee said:

The entire ending part is easily my favourite of the entire game. It all gets 1000x better as soon as the boss battle against the dragon begins. I thought the actual ending itself, narratively speaking, was a cool twist if only because everything else before it was so fucking droll and practically nonexistant. The reason why Patrick and so many others perceive it as crazy is because of how there's nothing else to compare it to; it just comes out of nowhere, out of nothing. Most would no doubt expect it to just end at the dragon boss, but then it all of a sudden became an actual story.

The whole reveal with the prologue arisen character was awesome I think, as is finding out the true purpose of the arisen, but I definitely wouldn't say it's quite as extraordinary as Patrick sold it. It's too bad the whole game didn't have as much effort put forward for its narrative. The only other time it kinda picked up was during some mission where I escorted the witch-girl to see her grandmother, and it's revealed she's actually a pawn and then becomes a human.

Yeah the game did get more interesting half-way in. The ending was different then usually. At the beginning I was so confused about the story. Then at the end the arisen explains whats going on. To me I think they should have made the character to talk in the game. It would have made the story more interesting from the beginning.

@Yummylee said:

The whole reveal with the prologue arisen character was awesome I think, as is finding out the true purpose of the arisen, but I definitely wouldn't say it's quite as extraordinary as Patrick sold it. It's too bad the whole game didn't have as much effort put forward for its narrative. The only other time it kinda picked up was during some mission where I escorted the witch-girl to see her grandmother, and it's revealed she's actually a pawn and then becomes a human.

Yeah stuff like this is why I think the whole "ending came out of NOWHERE!?!>!?!" comments aren't totally legit. There was alot of foreshadowing if you paid attention. The Dragon repeatedly says or suggests that it is you who decides the worlds fate and or if you have to fight the dragon. You had former arisen popping up in some places, the intro with Savan, the Pawn turned human who just so happened to look like a young version of her arisen? All I will say is if you paid close attention you knew there was more going on than seemed immediately obvious.

That said the non arisen related parts of the story did need some work. I don't get where people keep saying the Arisen's who fail become the dragon though? I haven't done all the possible choices yet, like not fighting the dragon, or running from the Senechal, so is it something in there that makes people say this?

To answer the thread though, yeah I liked the ending. I thought it was pretty cool and definitely fit with the game when you look at the big picture. It almost seemed like you could call the Senechal a Deus Ex Machina until you stop and think about it and realize that the game had been dropping hints pointing to it since the word go.

@Karkarov: When I killed myself during the final battle. Your character will turn into a dragon. Then the game ends just like how the dragon first shows up in the game, and if I remember I think the Senechal tells you about the dragons purpose.

@falserelic said:

@Karkarov: When I killed myself during the final battle. Your character will turn into a dragon. Then the game ends just like how the dragon first shows up in the game, and if I remember I think the Senechal tells you about the dragons purpose.

Ah I see, so basically it is the dudes who get to the Schenechal but lose! That makes sense. I will have to try doing some other weird stuff during those final fights just to see what happens.

When i died the first time at the final battle, I thought that was the true ending. Turning into a dragon. Anyway, the ending (The confrontation with the dragon and the post-wakestone gathering) were amazing. It explained a lot and felt satisfying. Probably my favorite ending of any game in a long time.

I liked it.

When I beat this game this Japanese theme song kept popping into my head. Because everytime I kept thinking about the ending I would get a headache. I felt bad for the dragon knowing he was once an arisen who didn't fulfill he's destiny. Then you won't understand what the dragon was trying to tell you until the very end.

Once you become god and kill yourself. I kept thinking was the character trying to break the cycle of the arisens and dragons, or did he realize he's whole existence will be miserably. Because when you return to the world as god. You can't do anything your pretty much a ghost the ending was so weird.

I can't get to the very end because something's wrong with my game disc or my game, I dunno...

I got as far as talking to the Duke after fighting the dragon.

This game has been very good when it came to the battle system and the overall setting of the world.

But the lack of dialog options and the main pawn lack of personality made for a kind of detached playthrough.

There's a romance option but you barely speak to whoever you're interested in and the conversation is basically just them yapping on...

I don't know if any of you have played Dragon Age: Origins but if the character interactions and the romance had been better, Dragon's Dogma would've been what I thought Dragon Age II was going to be like.

The best part of this game however for me is the character creation. It is amazing! The different character models look very good. There're models for every kind of character you'd wish to create. This is by far the best character creation I have ever come across in a game. My character looks awesome and it played a huge part in my enjoyment of my playthrough.

Anyway... now I've to figure out how to get to the proper ending... I don't want to buy another copy of the game because of this one glitch... ugh.

@Libertin said:

The best part of this game however for me is the character creation. It is amazing! The different character models look very good. There're models for every kind of character you'd wish to create. This is by far the best character creation I have ever come across in a game. My character looks awesome and it played a huge part in my enjoyment of my playthrough.

Anyway... now I've to figure out how to get to the proper ending... I don't want to buy another copy of the game because of this one glitch... ugh.

Damn straight, totally agree about the character creator. It makes Skyrim's look like a joke. I can make myself look like a hideous god awful freak sure, but I can look decent too ;p.

Sucks about your game though. Good luck with getting it fixed without having to restart.

Loved it.

Still of opinion that your main pawn does not in fact take over your body. There really is no indication for that theory imo. It's only shown to be merging with other versions of itself and also gaining emotion a bit. Could just as easily be still in the water somewhere. It would be really freaked out if it suddenly found itself in a completely different body, it's "masters" body no less. You as a character are pretty cool and collected there at the end.

@Neferon said:

When i died the first time at the final battle, I thought that was the true ending. Turning into a dragon. Anyway, the ending (The confrontation with the dragon and the post-wakestone gathering) were amazing. It explained a lot and felt satisfying. Probably my favorite ending of any game in a long time.

How I felt, to a tee.

@Tennmuerti said:

Loved it.

Still of opinion that your main pawn does not in fact take over your body. There really is no indication for that theory imo. It's only shown to be merging with other versions of itself and also gaining emotion a bit. Could just as easily be still in the water somewhere. It would be really freaked out if it suddenly found itself in a completely different body, it's "masters" body no less. You as a character are pretty cool and collected there at the end.

The image speaks for itself. This is the loading screen you see at the end of the game, and it heavily implies you are not you at the end.

Well....Ive beaten the game 2 times and I'm on a 3rd play through sitting at 150hrs played. I'd say that counts as me liking it. One of my favorite things of the year actually.

Yeah if I remember. When an arisen dies there pawn gets a piece of there soul, and they start to take on the form of there master. Weird indeed the story is like off of a fantasy anime or hentai.

@Karkarov: I can't quite tell if you're agreeing with me or not, or if maybe you read my post wrong O_o. Because I'm of the mind that thinks that the ending does primarily come out nowhere. I mean sure, you play through it again and it all starts to make some semblance of sense in the grand scheme--plenty of foreshadowing within the dialogue and such--but that doesn't negate the fact that up until the ending, the story is a load of garbage when the presentation is concerned. And there's still all of those flimsy side-stories like the duel between Mercedes (?) and the evil knight guy that went nowhere. Frankly the ending segments are so outlandish in comparison to everything before it that it's like they're from a completely different game.

@Karkarov:

I remember reading it but did not draw the same conclusion from it, at least not from the information i knew of the DD setup, and the cutscene that follows as well

That is still extremely inconclusive and does not actually imply that it's the pawn that's you. You are not the same person but it is just as easily still you just as a reborn soul. Being a god, killing yourself and basically re-organising all of creation can easily wipe your slate clean while we're at it. Not to mention that you, your whole personality are all about the will to live, it's the reason you were arisen in the first place, and the reason you got as far as you did, everything about that sentence to me read exactly like your own personality just without the memories. Which is what I assumed your soul was basically blanked by the whole mess, and godkilling yourself, there has been some precedent for this perspective of mine to form from other fiction literature.

But yeah i guess there is a posibility that your pawn transeferd into you. Would be kinda really weird tho in my case considering the uh significant differences between me and my pawn :P. Liekwise the soul being nameless and "awakening" are a bit weird for a pawn too, considering they have names, and also had an existance prior to that however emotionless (even tho pawns do have traces of emotion). Selene likewise didn't suddenly awaken but matured slowly from a blank pawn to a personality but her identity was still always there, it didn't stop or get wiped as far as we know, even with the definitive event of her arisen granting her her heart.

Then there is the Godsbane sword, you could kill yourself with it but always you could ressurect haing wakestones, so we can't really consider it to be some end all be all soul extinguishing artifact, further going down that reasoning path, it's effect on a god likewise becomes questionable, extingusihing a gods soul for example but leaving a simple core of a mans soul behind is a possibility, and a clean slate is again not out of the question with this .

Sadly the "lore" of the dragons dogma universe being just way to thin and sketchy doesn't help either. There just isnlt enough depth to it or it's characters in the first place to make speculation truly meaningfull imo.

@Tennmuerti: what about when Selene goes up to the character in your body and says "oh the same thing has happened to you as happened to me and your master gave you life," that seems fairly conclusive imo...

As for the supposed "foreshadowing" of the ending, well, I concede that things like Selene (one of the only really interesting quests, story-wise) and the dragonforged make a lot more sense at the end of the game, I can't call it foreshadowing really. If you guessed from those bits of story "oh when I kill the dragon a big hole will open up and I will fight the dude from the beginning of the game and become God" then your mind goes to strange places. I'm being a little facetious, I guess. But I think calling those foreshadowing, or hints, is overstating it. Hints normally provide some clue as to the truth/ending. I think it would be fairer to say that the ending does actually pick up on some disparate elements of the story, so that what looked like a really random collection of events, characters and story-threads crystallises to a point where you realise there was some purpose to it. With that said a story that ends with a character straight up telling you this stuff is generally not hugely satisfying - although stories do tend to, so maybe that's just a pacing issue more than anything.

With all that said, I thought that the actual lore of the ending was pretty cool, interesting and a bit different - it just falls down in the telling a bit. In terms of the set-pieces though it was absolutely awesome. Flying through the air on a dragon was rad! Jumping into the everfall was rad! new monsters - awesome! Although at that point I was kind of like...why couldn't some of these monsters popped up in the main game? By the time I got to the dragon I was pretty sick of ogres, chimeras and cyclopses, but there are like 6 different large enemies in the everfall.

@thomasnash:

Her master is burried in the groud body and all, and is still a very different and seperate entity. As well as the soul still being there and talking to you. Selene does not inhabit her masters body like people are thoerising the pawn is inhabiting yours at the end. She has gained individuality on her own, using only the gift of her masters heart to start the process. If anything Selene gaining personality over time with only something there to kickstart it is major factor why I believe your pawn is not you. As your pawn is likewise shown to be gaining emotions towards the games end, and then we see it's duplicates merging into it as well.

Or wait. Do you mean she says this when you wash up on the shore? Because in my game the character who picked me up remained silent. If so and she says this at the very end then yea it seems pretty conclusive.

Yeah she said it to me at the end when I washed up on the shore. Although you do raise a fairly good point about her master having a grave. I guess you can always say that we have no proof that there is actually a body in the grave but that does feel a bit weak.

@Tennmuerti said:

Or wait. Do you mean she says this when you wash up on the shore? Because in my game the character who picked me up remained silent. If so and she says this at the very end then yea it seems pretty conclusive.

I just finished a second playthrough and yeah that's when Selene mentions your pawn now inhabiting your body. I'm kinda bummed about it, originally I just figured maybe my pawn is out there in the ocean somewhere.

I hope my pawn enjoys her newly acquired genitalia.

@vorpalparasite said:

@Tennmuerti said:

Or wait. Do you mean she says this when you wash up on the shore? Because in my game the character who picked me up remained silent. If so and she says this at the very end then yea it seems pretty conclusive.

I just finished a second playthrough and yeah that's when Selene mentions your pawn now inhabiting your body. I'm kinda bummed about it, originally I just figured maybe my pawn is out there in the ocean somewhere.

I hope my pawn enjoys her newly acquired genitalia.

Yea i had a different person meet my character so did not get this.

What further threw me off is that when your character jumps awake you hear the pawns voice scream "master!" but my character was wearing an open faced helm and his lips remained closed. Whereas the pawn was shouting it's ass off just seconds before perfectly fine at using it's mouth. So naturally i assumed that you were just waking up to this scream still in your head.

@Tennmuerti: Or maybe the low res faces didn't allow the mouth to move. You may have been reading too much into it, as the game pretty much throws it in your face that your pawn would soon become you.

@LikeaSsur said:

@Tennmuerti: Or maybe the low res faces didn't allow the mouth to move. You may have been reading too much into it, as the game pretty much throws it in your face that your pawn would soon become you.

Except all characters in Dragons Dogma open their mouths when they talk. It's just your chracter never talks for obvious voice over reasons. The scream is in the persons head when waking up regardless if it's you or a pawn.

Besides Selene assuming it's the pawn in the end, there is nothing "in your face" that the game tells you about that the pawn will be becoming you. So Selene's line is the one thing that cements it if she is the one that picks you up at the end that I am willing to accept as concrete evidence.

I thought the ending was dope. Best one I've ever seen in a game.

but to be fair I don't mind ambiguity

and for what it's the lack of obvious buildup (in retrospect there were lost of subtle hints) helped make it more powerful in my mind. Not many games manage to surprise me anymore, this one did.

it was completely silly and made no sense

the way to end the game is to kill yourself and by that, you kill god. by far the best ending in a videogame I have ever seen.

If you defeat the dragon in the forest before the shadow fort then it gives a giant hint. He literally says "the seat of a God awaits..."

I just finished this game now. I'm still kind of reeling from the madness, and I'm a little bit drunk. I never caught the part where if you refuse the role of seneschal you become a dragon and have to search for a new arisen until just now reading this thread. They could have made that more clear, it would have made the whole thing make a bit more sense anyway. I like how fucked up the ending is, but it really does come out of nowhere. It's just fairly generic fantasy until you beat the dragon, then it's fucking batshit insanity until the credits roll. It's a shame Capcom is basically dead at this point because I'd really like to see a sequel where they could iron out the narrative and maybe make the world a little more interesting. I kept expecting a huge amount of open world to open up to the west, and it never did. I was pretty tired of traversing the same bits over and over by the end. I was also probably massively overleveled for the vanilla game, though I went in to the Ur-Dragon's place once and got blasted almost immediately. It's a bit annoying that now since I've finished the game, I have to nearly finish it again to face the Ur-Dragon again. At least it's going to be a joke since I'm level 71 and it apparently doesn't scale. What a fucking weird game...

Anyhow, I think I need a break from DD:DA for now. Final game time was slightly under 80 hours, and that took a couple of months because I took a break to play some PSO and I haven't exactly been swimming in free time lately; however, vacation approaches! I'll get back to BB Isle later on. I need something a little more upbeat and less brown and grey for a while. Maybe grind out some procedurally generated guns in the new Borderlands.

I always felt the bit about stabbing yourself was circumvention of the rules. It is the 3rd choice between god or dragon in my mind. You choose oblivion and your soul going to your pawn rather than the binary choice. The prior god wanted you to stab him to gain freedom, but your character just say, "screw it I'm gonna stab myself, because the hell with waiting or these 'rules'."

But, it has been a hell of a long time since I played the game; so maybe my interpretation is wrong.

I loved the game. What it really needed was two or three more cut scenes in the middle to keep the story moving forward very clearly in that part. (On the other hand the lack of cut scene moving the story forward very clearly means you can do whatever the hell you want for the whole middle section without feeling rushed.) All the same, I would have loved a few more cut scenes. If the screw the next game up, I will literally flip over a table.