The Bad Endings

[Raumulus]

I first saw about this game on the Escapist and didn't think much of it. But after reading up on it, I gave it a shot. I have now played through it 7 times, all arcs and Emi's and Hanako's twice. BTW, Emi FTW.

I have seen all good endings, but I've been curious about the neutral and bad ones. After some digging on Youtube, I finally saw Hanako's, and......wow. I absolutely love the characters in this story and can't bring myself to play through the bad endings. I've heard some things on most of them, but nothing that solid. So two things, One, am I alone in this feeling that I just can't play through the bad endings. Number Two is can someone give me a brief summary of the bad endings, I've been looking for Shizune's mainly.

[MoonShadow]

I first saw about this game on the Escapist and didn't think much of it. But after reading up on it, I gave it a shot. I have now played through it 7 times, all arcs and Emi's and Hanako's twice. BTW, Emi FTW.

I have seen all good endings, but I've been curious about the neutral and bad ones. After some digging on Youtube, I finally saw Hanako's, and......wow. I absolutely love the characters in this story and can't bring myself to play through the bad endings. I've heard some things on most of them, but nothing that solid. So two things, One, am I alone in this feeling that I just can't play through the bad endings. Number Two is can someone give me a brief summary of the bad endings, I've been looking for Shizune's mainly.

I'll make it short, you can ask for details if you want.

Shizune : One good ending, one bad. In the bad ending, Hisao try to repair the friendship between Shizune and Misha and fails. Shizune and Hisao break up in the end.

Emi : One good ending, one bad. In the bad ending, Emi breaks up with Hisao after a few arguments. She tells him she don't want to train with him or talk to him anymore.

Lilly : One good ending, one bad, although the bad ending is most often reffered as a neutral ending. Lilly fly away to Scotland to live with her family. She doesn't break up with Hisao, but Hisao says at one point that he don't think he can live a distant relationship.

Hanako : One good ending, one neutral, one bad. In the bad ending... well you've seen it. She gets really angry at Hisao and says she hates both him and Lilly. In the neutral, Hisao convince Hanako that they will always be friends, but in the same time destroys all hopes of a future love relation with her.

Rin : One good ending, one neutral, one bad. In the bad ending, Hisao gets angry at Rin because he can't understand her and she won't explain anything to him. They have a big argument and it ends with the words "Go away, Hisao" from Rin. In the neutral ending, Rin is accepted in a distant art school and leaves.

Edit : You surely are not the only one who doesn't want to see the neutral/bad endings, but it's not my case. I played the game without any help at first, and got the neutral endings for both Rin and Hanako the first time I played each of them. After that, I always was curious enough to check every possible ending.

[Guest]

In Shizune's, you make the choice for Hisao to sleep with Misha. Shizune's ending is the one where Hisao is the most assholish, in my opinion, because after the act he barely if at all feels any guilt - the only guilt he actively describes is while he's screwing Misha, yet he obviously doesn't feel guilty enough to stop (he mentions at the beginning of the H-scene that he feels he had no choice in the matter and saw it coming). He feels some paranoia about Shizune being able to read lips, but that's more saving his own skin and not having to want to deal with a breakup, so he continues dating Shizune as normal. He tries to resolve things between Shizune and Misha, but Misha's guilt over sleeping with Hisao has pretty much wrecked any chances of them being friends again and she avoids the both of them. It's implied that Shizune and Misha have been arguing, and it's possible that Misha came clean about the sex. Given Shizune's cold attitude towards Hisao when he goes to visit her in the council room, and blows him off by saying she's got too much work to do, it's likely Misha did. By that point Shizune's confidence in herself has pretty much plummeted and she doesn't want more fighting, so if she did I doubt she'd go confronting Hisao with all guns blazing - I think by that point she realises she's lost everything, which leads to the next scene.

One morning, Shizune visits Hisao before class and asks for him to walk with her. She wanders around to the back of the school and then pours her heart out to Hisao, saying that all she wanted was for people to be happy, but her competitive nature has really screwed things over, ever since she was a child - and then when her battle is won, she forgets about it and picks something else to fight for just to prove that "anything you can do, I can do better". She realises that she's taken Misha for granted for two years, she's been a bad girlfriend to Hisao and dragged him about, and that at every point she could have stopped this, she didn't. To fix this, she just wants to be away from everybody to stop the situation from escalating further. Hisao asks if she even wants to be away from him, and she says yes. Hisao doesn't even bother to respond to her properly, he just stands up and walks away, shooting a glance at Shizune as he leaves, who is sitting on the steps of the school entrance with her head resting on her arms looking like she's about to cry. The stuffed cat he won for her at the festival is hanging out of her schoolbag.

Given the length of Shizune's bad ending, this counts to me as pretty brief.

[Otakumon]

If you really want to know the bad/neutral ends then man up and play through them so you can make up your own mind about them instead of reading somebody else's interpretations, they may not view them the same way you would.

[DeleV]

Given the length of Shizune's bad ending, this counts to me as pretty brief.

This is actually why I think the Shizune bad end is the best bad end of the game. Not only does it give nearly a whole act to see the consequences of the choice play out, it also leaves enough questions to be debatable.

I am personally not so sure that Misha told Shizune about it. There are as many reasons to assume that she didn't as that she did. What I did see was Hisao's guilt. While it wasn't part of an explicit monologue, it appeared through the subtle changes in dialog through the first half of act 4. Unfortunately I can't give any specific examples because I did her path first, so it's almost a month ago for me. Anyway, the subtle changes in attitude brought on by guilt were easily capable of flipping the balance from fixing the relationship to Shizune leaving. I thought that was a nice touch and much preferable over a big fight. Also, would Shizune have left with the stuffed cat in her bag if she knew about Misha and Hisao? Anyway, good stuff. I would actually recommend reading it to those that don't particularly like bad ends.

[dunkelfalke]

Yep. I actually liked Shizune's bad ending better than the good one.

[Nobody in Particular]

Yep. I actually liked Shizune's bad ending better than the good one.

Agreed. It was depressing, very depressing, but I thought it was a lot better than the good ending which was pretty meh.

It would seem that a lot of people don't do the bad or neutral endings because of the reasons the OP stated, I find that doing them before you do the good ending is a good way of playing the routes however. Matter of opinion I guess.

[hickwarrior]

Yep. I actually liked Shizune's bad ending better than the good one.

Agreed. It was depressing, very depressing, but I thought it was a lot better than the good ending which was pretty meh.

It would seem that a lot of people don't do the bad or neutral endings because of the reasons the OP stated, I find that doing them before you do the good ending is a good way of playing the routes however. Matter of opinion I guess.

To me, a bad ending is what shizune would feel. It's hard to describe, but I take things more personal than others, I think. I really hate it when someone else gets so depressed just because of what I did, I would feel very guilty about something. And the bad end is just that.

Even if I'm not Hisao, bad endings still affect me by a lot.

[Guest]

I thought the bad ending was a lot better in writing quality - I also feel the same way about Rin's neutral ending.

I personally think that Shizune took the stuffed cat with her on that morning to try and comfort herself, and remind herself of what she was going to do - as painful as it was for her, she was really taking measures to "fix things" this time. Maybe it's a metaphor for the "cat was let out of the bag"? Either way I don't think Shizune would have just carried it around with her all of the time or else Hisao or Misha or someone would have mentioned it, particularly as the cat seems to be a bit too big for that.

[Guest]

Also (can't edit) - I play the bad endings before the good endings too, usually because they're shorter, but also because I can then play the "good ending" to resolve it. Only exception was Lilly's - playing her good end ensures you get all of the scenes anyway - you're just cut off earlier.

[hickwarrior]

Also (can't edit) - I play the bad endings before the good endings too, usually because they're shorter, but also because I can then play the "good ending" to resolve it. Only exception was Lilly's - playing her good end ensures you get all of the scenes anyway - you're just cut off earlier.

I don't like that kind of thinking. Have to complete everything to 100% is just stupid in my eyes, and makes the story feel less valid or at least alive.

[Mirage_GSM]

Usually I don't need to complete all the bad endings in a VN either, but in the case of KS, you miss out on a lot if you don't read them.
The best bad end in KS - and in fact in any VN I've read so far - is Rin's. It is so elaborate that I didn't want to believe that all that buildup was for a bad end...
I thought Shizune's bad end was very well written as well - maybe the best part of her whole path.
I think I'd rate Emi's bad end third. It's the one that hit me the hardest, because it felt most real, and a relationship ending like that would be horrible.
Hanako's ending is a bit surprising and has some shock-value, but comared to the elaborate endings above it just can't... Well, compare ^^°
Lilly's Bad End... Well, you know... I think it would have been better to end it after "Under a Maudlin Sky", but apparently Suriko wasn't that sadistic.

tl:dr
Rin > Shizune > Emi > Hanako > Lilly

[Guest]

Usually I don't need to complete all the bad endings in a VN either, but in the case of KS, you miss out on a lot if you don't read them.
The best bad end in KS - and in fact in any VN I've read so far - is Rin's. It is so elaborate that I didn't want to believe that all that buildup was for a bad end...

Do you mean her neutral end (where she goes off to art college)? Rin's "bad"-bad end is probably the shortest in the game, it's basically one scene after you demand her to explain - you have a fight with her, storm back to Yamaku, that's it.

[Nobody in Particular]

Also (can't edit) - I play the bad endings before the good endings too, usually because they're shorter, but also because I can then play the "good ending" to resolve it. Only exception was Lilly's - playing her good end ensures you get all of the scenes anyway - you're just cut off earlier.

I don't like that kind of thinking. Have to complete everything to 100% is just stupid in my eyes, and makes the story feel less valid or at least alive.

I suppose it is a matter of opinion, but I feel that the bad and neutral ends really do add quite a lot to the story. Shizune's is a good example, as well as Rin's neutral one. Some are relatively pointless however, such as Lilly's which literally adds nothing to the game.

[hickwarrior]

Also (can't edit) - I play the bad endings before the good endings too, usually because they're shorter, but also because I can then play the "good ending" to resolve it. Only exception was Lilly's - playing her good end ensures you get all of the scenes anyway - you're just cut off earlier.

I don't like that kind of thinking. Have to complete everything to 100% is just stupid in my eyes, and makes the story feel less valid or at least alive.

I suppose it is a matter of opinion, but I feel that the bad and neutral ends really do add quite a lot to the story. Shizune's is a good example, as well as Rin's neutral one. Some are relatively pointless however, such as Lilly's which literally adds nothing to the game.

Well,t hat's what it is to me. I'm more sensitive when it comes to hurting people, something I'd genuinely hate doing. This is why I would hate bad endings, since I just can't stomach myself being an ahole.