Shin Megami Tensei 5's Ending Sucks

You may have intuited from certain subtle clues I’ve dropped here and there over the course of this year that I’m not a huge fan of Shin Megami Tensei 5.  But just in case I was being too coy about the myriad ways in which the latest installment of the mainline SMT series is disappointing, let’s talk about the ending.

First of all, it’s dull and empty.  You beat the final boss, the Nahobino briefly exchanges nods (because dialogue would have required someone at Atlus actually doing their job that day) with the dead Hero and patron of the path he chose in a white void, he finds himself in this empty space-y expanse with planets and frozen celestial beings and a really, really ostentatious New Years ball in the center, and he starts walking nonchalantly through the extra-dimensional emptiness as the narrator tells, not shows, what the results will be of the protagonist taking or breaking God’s throne for a whole whopping 2 minutes (and the narrator isn’t exactly rushing through his lines, either), and then it goes to the credits, which play over a scene of the Nahobino continuing to just walk in a straight line with someone’s very pretty Deviantart landscape in the background.  Finally, once the credits are done, the stroll concludes with the Nahobino walking up to God’s super special disco ball and the screen fading to white.

And that’s it.  That’s all!  That’s the ending.*  That’s your reward for forcing yourself to play Shin Megami Tensei 5 for 40+ hours: a lack of dialogue from the characters who matter, a minimal narration-dump, and trudging through an atmospheric but thoroughly empty void.  Well, it may be garbage, but I suppose you gotta give SMT5 credit for being consistent to the bitter end.

I suppose there’s an argument to be made that the endings of most of the previous mainline SMTs are also a bit, shall we say, sparse.  I certainly can’t deny that point, any more than I can deny the fact that character development in the same games has likewise been on the low and understated side.  But as with the depth of the cast, prior SMT games have maintained an approach throughout their course that makes it clear to the audience that their endings’ stoic minimalist-leanings have been a matter of storytelling design, something chosen and planned for, rather than just a consequence of not having spent enough time and effort on the game.  In previous games, the span and scope of the plot (whether good or subpar) has possessed enough substance and artistry that a somewhat austere and spare conclusion feels acceptable (and aesthetically appropriate), while with Shin Megami Tensei 5, the scanty approach to its finish just feels like more of the same inadequacy that’s plagued the game’s entire narrative to this point.  Even if the result is superficially similar, there’s a big and discernible difference between a landscape artist who paints a desert out of a wish to capture the sensation of sprawling starkness it invokes within him, and a landscape artist who paints a desert because it has fewer features and he’s lazy.

So yeah, Shin Megami Tensei 5’s ending is empty and half-assed.  And yeah, it’s hardly surprising; watching SMT5’s story unfold is like reading a book printed with only a single sentence on each page, with an epilogue scribbled on a sticky note taped to its back cover.  But--and this is also, sadly, not surprising for SMT5--what little material IS there in the ending also manages to disappoint in its own right.  Because every ending of this game seems kinda determined to leave you dissatisfied, or at the very least tell you that you’re a stupid jerk.

Seriously, there’s really just no pleasing ending to this game.  So let's say you choose Chaos.  What happens?  Why, what happens is that a mere 3 sentences into his monologue, the narrator makes it a point to let you know that the new world you’ve chosen of multiple gods and an ever-changing society has been difficult for some people to adapt to and find happiness within.  That’s the first reaction he speaks of; the fact that there are plenty of people who thrive in the new world of Chaos is only something he mentions AFTER he shows you your 1-star reviews.  And then a mere 2 sentences later, this pessimistic prick’s back on the complain train as he informs you that, shocker of shockers, a bunch of competing divine narcissists (and 1 actual Narcissus) is naturally a recipe for, and I quote, “immeasurable conflict.”  The ending narration then talks about how sad the Nahobino is to witness his reality completely plagued with war, but that he holds firm to his belief because of some sloppy, shaky philosophy about how people should be able to choose for themselves rather than have things chosen for them.

First of all, this is a fucking stupid statement and correlation all on its own.  The Choose For Yourself ship has already sailed for the people of Chaos’s world because the fact that the world is this way was a choice the Nahobino made without consulting every other person in existence, or any of them, for that matter.  All they’re getting in exchange for never-ending violence is the ability to choose which powerful being to obey because they’re powerless themselves.  And also, even if this idea that people are self-determined in this world was legitimate, you’re saying that the trade-off for having any choice in your actions and the direction of your life is constant war.  Free will may be inseparable from the potential for, and eventuality of, conflict, but there’s no rational way you can argue that the reasonable price of it is or should be a never-ending turf war between insanely powerful deities that makes the entire human species a reluctant participant and casualty.

Secondly, and more importantly, what kind of shitty way is that to end your game?  There’s only 7 fucking sentences of narration in this ending to reward the dozens of hours you put into this garbage, and of them, 3 are devoted to admonishing you for your choice.  And sure, Chaos IS a dumb choice to make in Shin Megami Tensei 5 and anyone who couldn’t see bickering godly gang wars being its result is probably as facile an unquestioning a moron as Atsuta himself, but that’s still excessively negative to a degree that feels mean-spirited.  The writers seem to actively want you to feel bad about having played their game.

And lastly, let’s not forget that the whole reason that Atsuta becomes the game’s Chaos Hero is because he’s told by Koshimizu (and because he unquestioningly, blindly believes this statement) that Chaos’s world of multiple gods will be the best way to protect Tokyo and its people.  And by siding with him, you’ve wound up bringing about a world where the people are caught in constant, inconceivably devastating warfare from which they can never be safe.  I’m getting flashbacks to Wild Arms 4’s ending with Jude, Mr. Codependent Everyone Let’s Be Friends Forever And Work Together And Never Ever Let Each Other Out Of Our Sight becoming a goddamn forest ranger hermit who lives completely separated from his friends and the entire human species.  Just as it was with Jude, for Atsuta, this conclusion is the opposite, the exact polar fucking opposite you understand, of the single solitary overplayed trait of his 1-dimensional character.

You might think that maybe this poor showing of Chaos, the latest in a whole game’s worth of instances of this route’s lesser quality, might just be a case of SMT’s preference for the Neutral path being taken a little too far.  But the fact is that both Neutral endings, though not quite as poorly reasoned and inconsistent to their figurehead’s stated purpose, are equally unsatisfying.

The ending in which you destroy the throne involves what’s-his-name, the monk guy who decided out of nowhere right at the last second that he was gonna be some important lofty observer entity, outright talking about what a foolish decision you’ve made, so right off the bat you have a tidy little bit of narrative disapproval for your actions even before the other endings get their chastisement.  Then when you get to the regular ending narration, the game makes sure you know that plenty of people will perish in the efforts to resist and stand free of the influence and control of demon-kind.

Granted, Neutral Hero Yakumo, who is basically what happens when you decide to base your entire personality around your Resting Bitch Face, has made it clear that any human being who can’t personally stand up to malevolent godlike beings and beat them in hand-to-hand combat doesn’t, in his opinion, deserve to live.  So this ending gloating about how many people will be casualties in the world you’ve created isn’t as thematically opposed to its representative as Chaos was.  And at least this time around the game doesn’t tell you that even the protagonist himself is disappointed with the results of his choice.  But it still is an example of SMT5 going out of its way to use its extremely limited ending summary to make damn sure you know that the ending you got was really bad for a hell of a lot of people.  The very people, in fact, that you presumably chose this path with the intention of doing right by--the deities and demons certainly don’t benefit from breaking the throne, and the Nahobino doesn’t gain God’s power with it gone, thus presumably you could only be choosing this path because you genuinely believe that it will be in the best interests of humanity as a whole.**  So thanks for making sure to hammer home the fact that the players who have made this decision for the good of the people have, in fact, fucked those very people over, SMT5.

It’s not even like it’s a sure thing that those sacrifices are even toward a greater good.  The narrator ends his stunted little spiel by expressing certainty that humanity will, in the future, come out on top against the demons and gods that would control them, but he doesn’t actually state it as fact.  Even the underwhelming, disappointing ending for the Black Eagles route in Fire Emblem 16 at least made it pretty unambiguous that the long, bloody war with Those Who Slither in the Dark, a costly and prolonged conflict that would have been quickly and relatively painlessly settled had the player possessed the brains and/or human decency not to back Edelgard,*** would end in an eventual victory.  In SMT5’s first Neutral ending, the best we get is a “surely” that humanity will eventually be able to stand on its own and win its right to freedom from the machinations of higher (and lower) mythological beings.

But okay, sure, that’s the lesser Neutral ending.  If any conclusion in the game is gonna be crappy, it’d be that one.  Surely**** the True Neutral ending is reasonably satisfying, right?

Well I’m talking about it right here and now in this rant about how the game’s endings suck, so I guess you can probably tell from context alone that it isn’t.  Hell, we’re talking about a component of Shin Megami Tensei 5--that should be all the information you really need right there.

So yeah, the “best” ending of SMT5 is also unsatisfying.  Now, this time around the game is at least kind enough not to gleefully make all the myriad people who are going to be miserable and dead because of your decision the most memorable takeaway.  And there’s even more content besides, with a more enthusiastically positive reaction from Tao and I Refuse To Bother Learning Monk Guy’s Name Because Holy Shit What A Forgettable Character, and a more involved talk and confrontation with Lucifer.  No, rather than the game forcing unnecessary admonishment into the ending text, the dissatisfaction of the True Neutral ending comes from qualities inherent to its nature, thanks to the incompetence of the game’s writers.  The disappointment of the True Neutral boils down to 2 points.

First of all: it’s an emotional betrayal to everything that the game has shown us.  See, in the True Neutral ending, the Nahobino takes God’s throne and uses his power over creation to decree that there will be no more gods or demons, that Earth is for humanity alone, because SMT’s Neutral faction always has such a boner for telling all mythological entities to get the hell off humanity’s lawn, as though we aren’t the ones who created and invited them to start with.  And in most Shin Megami Tensei titles, that’s fine, justifiable, and emotionally consistent, as gods and demons and the like are the source of most of humanity’s problems in the game.  But while that’s still true in SMT5, what’s also true is that pretty much every noticeably positive character relationship that the Nahobino has over the course of SMT5’s events is with a demon character.

I mean, think about it.  The most (inexplicably) loyal and supportive character in the game to the protagonist is his partner Aogami, who can’t seem to speak 3 consecutive sentences if at least 1 of them isn’t affirming that he’s gonna protect the protagonist at all costs and make all his dreams come true and wuv him and cuddle him and give him head-pats.  Then the runners-up behind Aogami are his companion Amanozako, who helps the Nahobino off and on for most of the game and who is weirdly sort of a half-assed love interest for him or something, and his friend Tao, who may start as a human but is resurrected as a goddess who outright pledges to help him become God because he almost made a mild effort to help someone one time (more on that in a later rant).  All 3 of the only people in this game who demonstrably have a positive character connection to the main hero are demons.

Additionally, most of the outright moral and decent people you meet in the game are likewise inhuman.  Khonsu, for example, is devoted to saving the life of the sickly Miyazu to a self-sacrificial degree.  In fact, Khonsu shows way, way more active concern and affection for Miyazu, not to mention expends way more effort in trying to help her, than her own brother Atsuta does!  And lest we forget, Atsuta is the clown who’s supposed to be entirely defined by his wish to protect her!  Meanwhile, the fairies under Oberon and Titania’s leadership graciously take in the lost, wounded, and helpless kidnapped human students in Chapter 2, treating their injuries and providing a safe haven to them for the entire rest of the game’s course, completely without complaint or expectation of reimbursement.  Hell, they didn’t even need to be asked to do it--Fionn mac Cumhaill just started bringing hurt human beings to the fairies to care for, and they set right to it.  And speaking of, Fionn, a mythological entity himself, just up and takes it upon himself to go around saving the students from their captors, again for no discernible reason beyond the desire to help the helpless.  And then there’s various minor sidequest demons like Idun and Demeter and Hua Po who are friendly and generally decent individuals.  Hell, the Neutral faction itself is much more likable for its demonic patron Nuwa than it is for that human jackass Yakumo.

I’m not saying that all or even most of the demons in this game are good people, but there’s pretty much no denying that all of the likable and nearly all of the morally decent members of this game’s cast are gods and demons, and definitely all of the Nahobino’s own positive friendships are with these supernatural entities.  So the True Neutral ending really sucks and betrays whatever emotional weight the game has managed to create, and makes the Nahobino look like a complete tool, because you’re basically turning on every individual who’s extended meaningful friendship to you and disintegrating them.  What was the point of protecting Amanozako, helping her with her search to find her soulmate, if a mere couple hours after she finally achieves what she needs to lead a happy and secure life, you force an abrupt conclusion to that life?  Why make a big deal about Tao being reborn if she’s just going to re-die the next day?

As with Atsuta’s criticism of Law, the writers of SMT5 clearly just paid absolutely no attention whatsoever to what they themselves had been doing.  They’ve made a story wherein the “best” ending involves killing every single character in the game who isn’t a jackass!

But even if you don’t give a shit about any of that and just hate them dadgummed durned demons for the hell of it, the True Neutral ending’s still unsatisfying.  Because it, in all its special Trueness, gets a special post-credits scene of the new (but basically just the same as the old) world you’ve created, and the narrator, as well as the golden-eyed putz sitting on a bench, strongly imply that this humanity-for-humanity-only world is not gonna last because the Mandala universal will thing cannot be denied or escaped.  So yeah, after all that rigamarole, after sacrificing everyone who demonstrably gave a shit about you in the game, it turns out it was probably all for nothing.

Honestly, compared to the rest of these, the fact that the Law ending only insults your intelligence probably makes it the least disappointing of all of them.  Sure, the narrator’s clearly relishing the opportunity to hammer home the idea that people who follow Law can’t think for themselves (a stupid claim that has been soundly proven wrong by the game’s own cast), but at least humanity is safe and generally happy, the Nahobino himself is pleased with the result, and it’s stated flat-out that the future is prosperous.  Frankly, I’ll take a clumsy attempt at an insult over any combination of being told that countless people suffer and die in war, being told that even the protagonist himself hates what he’s done, the assassination of the only people we’ve seen capable of being nice, and being told that my actions didn’t accomplish the 1 thing they were meant to.

Honestly, between this and the fact that the Law faction is the only one with anything approaching actual character development, I’d be tempted to think that SMT5 is actually intentionally favoring Law...if not for the fact that Dazai spends 85% of the game wearing a baseball cap that says “SUCKER” on it.

Make no mistake, though: even if the Law ending is the least unsatisfactory, the game’s still sneering at you for picking it.  The facts of the matter are, that all of the endings are careless, empty after-thoughts in a story that’s as barren and abandoned as the wastelands it takes place within, and that 3 of the 4 endings leave a player feeling unsatisfied, with the other one still goes out of its way to make you feel like you made the wrong choice.  SMT5’s endings are the perfect crappy way to cap off a crappy game.














* Well, there’s an extra scene for the “true” Neutral ending tacked onto the end.  But it is nothing beneficial, as we’ll see in a moment.


** Or you might just be simping for Nuwa, I guess.


*** Well, not Dimitri either, since the bad guys actually effectively win in his route.  But he, tiresome and dumb edgelord though he is for most of his route’s narrative, is at least not a gullible, amoral dingus like Edelgard.


**** See, SMT5?  See how effortless it is for “Surely” to be linked to an ironic opposite?