Ending discussion (MAJOR SPOILER!)

[Verlindios]

Hello there people,

While I mostly enjoyed the game I find the ending however lacking or somewhat forced. We learned in the beginning that 'Setsuna' will be the 'sacrifice' which prepares us for her demise. In the ending however a alternate option appears in which we think she does not need to die.

We follow the 'Dark Samsara a.k.a. Youth' back to the past (which is very vague in and by itself) in order to finally defeat it or otherwise preventing it from altering the future for the worse. The point that I am having issue with can be taken from the following scene which is summarized in the journal topic [Towards the Future]:
"... The final battle then begins, in front of the Falling Snow Monument.
However, having learned of their enemey's pain, Setsuna makes up her mind to die together with the Dark Samsara, and asks Endir to deliver the finishing blow. After some agonizing, Endir makes his final decision."

She suddenly felt compassion for the 'Youth' and decided to die together with him? Why? It might be that this is some 'spiritual' or otherwise 'faith' related topic that I do not understand but I would think that dying together with him is very pointless. Primarly because her sacrifice will not change anything... she will not save or help anyone (not even the 'Youth'?) with this and it feels like this was put together to force her to die which results in us feeling 'sad'.


It might be that I am totally missing the point here but I was bugging me and I am curious to wat you people might think about this.

Verlindios

[Gans]

From what I gather through my play through is that Setsuna was compassionate and very "Give them a second chance." or "You don't know the whole story." ie. the monster child in the cave.

To me, she learned that Youth has been tormented and alone so much which causes the timeline events, she decides to "befriend" Youth by taking it's spirit into her own body and showing it compassion. Then, to prevent all the events from happening in the timeline she becomes the sacrifice and has Endir take her life thus ending Youths as well.

[scy]

To me, she learned that Youth has been tormented and alone so much which causes the timeline events, she decides to "befriend" Youth by taking it's spirit into her own body and showing it compassion. Then, to prevent all the events from happening in the timeline she becomes the sacrifice and has Endir take her life thus ending Youths as well.

Mh, I never thought of that, interesting. That would certainly be one explanation as to why her death was necessary again all of a sudden. Especially considering that he might have found a new "host body" or whatever, which is just speculation. He seemed quite defeated at that point which makes me wonder how much of a threat he actually still posed.
Then of course, your're still left with the choice to actually kill her or not. I didn't, and from what I've gathered it doesn't really change anything, Endir walking through the snow, past the tree, then Satsuna's spirit (?) appearing after he left. Why is she in this form even though Endir never delivered the killing blow?

Like Verlindios said, it all seems very vague and lacking indeed, which is unfortunate, since I very much enjoyed the journey up to that point. And even though I expected that there would not be a happy ending, I was hoping for a bit more of an explanation and the closure that would have come with it.

[Verlindios]

Originally posted by scy:

To me, she learned that Youth has been tormented and alone so much which causes the timeline events, she decides to "befriend" Youth by taking it's spirit into her own body and showing it compassion. Then, to prevent all the events from happening in the timeline she becomes the sacrifice and has Endir take her life thus ending Youths as well.

Mh, I never thought of that, interesting. That would certainly be one explanation as to why her death was necessary again all of a sudden. Especially considering that he might have found a new "host body" or whatever, which is just speculation. He seemed quite defeated at that point which makes me wonder how much of a threat he actually still posed.
Then of course, your're still left with the choice to actually kill her or not. I didn't, and from what I've gathered it doesn't really change anything, Endir walking through the snow, past the tree, then Satsuna's spirit (?) appearing after he left. Why is she in this form even though Endir never delivered the killing blow?

Like Verlindios said, it all seems very vague and lacking indeed, which is unfortunate, since I very much enjoyed the journey up to that point. And even though I expected that there would not be a happy ending, I was hoping for a bit more of an explanation and the closure that would have come with it.

I agree that Setsuna is very 'compassionate' as this is demonstrated a multitude of times in the game. But it sounds very strange to me that she allowed herself to be possesed by the Youth in order to show 'compassion' and then lets herself be executed (aren't those contradictory?).

As 'Scy' mentioned you will see Setsuna in the final scene in which her spirit(?) appears and watches over Endir, which is kind of bitter sweet. What I noticed is that she appears through a 'blue flame' which is similiar how Endir and she appeared in the 'go the past' scene. It could be that she did not die but by obtaining the Youth's power she can now move as a spirit(?)... But there is little to prove that aside from a very high amount of speculation. The fact that they threw time travel in there makes things even more convoluted/complicated.

The end contains little to no answers and leaves the player with a lot of questions. I like games which allow the players to speculate about certain things even though the ending was pretty solid but this is borderline forcing us to guess what actually happened.

[Caprontos]

Or she was actually selfish and saw an opertunity to gain control of an endless supply of magical energy which was only held back by her physical body, so she tricks Endir into releasing her spirit, which is now endless powerful.. and she can move forward with here new plans for world domanation.... No? I didn't think so..

But I agree I feel.. The ending was a little flat. Which is a bit sad cause the game in general was pretty good.

I think this is an instance where the deisions should of effected the ending (ie a good bad and netural ending based on if you fight, lose to, or "save" the youth).. and perhaps your choice to kill or not kill Setsuna to have its own effect.. The rest of the game I was fine with them having no meaning but here.. idk.. If you select "let him go" do you even fight him at the end? I assume he just attacks you?

[Tanasinn [AZ]]

Yeah, I've been reading up on the ending since I just finished it as well, thinking maybe I missed something because that was a very odd way to end it, but... nope. It just ends with Setsuna dying with the last boss. As someone else said, "The story pretty much fell flat on its face".

Originally posted by Threecide:

To me, she learned that Youth has been tormented and alone so much which causes the timeline events, she decides to "befriend" Youth by taking it's spirit into her own body and showing it compassion. Then, to prevent all the events from happening in the timeline she becomes the sacrifice and has Endir take her life thus ending Youths as well.

I guess this made me feel a little bit less bummed out.

[No man’s scarf]

From what I've saw and my own opinion, I think that Setsuna did not died, judging from the last scene after credits where she appears by the tree. She have a shadow which I assume that she's in human form, not a soul.

[Damyel]

Originally posted by some taters:

"The story pretty much fell flat on its face".


It's a timeless JRPG tradition in my eyes. I always play them for the ride. If it nails the ending it's a plus.

[Asgharm]

I actually quite enjoyed the ending. To me it felt like a solid close to the game. Setsuna was already prepared to die, and in the story it is straight up told to you that she's special somehow and that she's the one that has to defeat the Samsara. To me, it seemed like she took in the energy of the Youth and pacified it, basically containing it inside her. If you kill her, she's released and you see the ending. If you don't kill her, she leaves anyway using the power of the Youth because she knows that she can't go back to being "normal."

That said, there are things that are never answered and that basically tease you with extra sidequests but never get resolved, and that does kinda make me sad and disappointed. Also like multiple people said, the lead up to the ending feels like it was cut short and there should have been more there.

[Klaus]

it's only my opinion, but didn't you guys noticed something ? when setsuna and endir went back to the past we arrived on the bridge and when they arrive at nive valley ,, you can talk to the town's people and everybody were talking about the secrefice just went on a journey . if u guys talk to them there's a child and if you talk to the child, the child said "poor little girl left by her mother, maybe i should take care of her..." and where that child standing is the same spot as the person who loved setsuna on the beginning ,, so my point is isn't it that girl is setsuna "right?" even though the future setsuna died when she went back to the past but she still alive "right?" because that child is setsuna ...
what I want to know is about endir,, is endir stuck on the past ? because he is no where to be seen when aeterna vanished into light.. even if they do finnish the job in the "past" didn't that mean the feature must be diffrent? cause the monster problem should be gone in the future ?
one more thing before setsuna and endir went back to the past ,, isn't it that the world of them is disappearing because the youth went to the past ? so when the youth die in the past with setsune isn't it the future should be diffrent and setsuna still alive because the young setsuna from the past still alive ?

i'm sorry if I making you guys counfuse ... it is just my opinion and its a good ending for me cause setsuna still alive and the future will be better ... i just confused where the hell is ednir gone ...

sorry if my grammar is bad guys ^.^

[BlagaMan]

I think Endir ends up stuck in the past. He becomes the old mercenary that appears in the beginning of the game and guides Endir during the player's first mission. You then face him at the end of Endir's siquest and when you defeat him he says something like "Do you understand who I am?" - which I think is a pretty clear indication he's Endir closing the circle. Of course, you know, this is time travel and everything falls apart if you look at it too closely.

[boybrushdRED]

I finished the game but I was lost in the details. So, did both Setsuna's mom and aunt's pilgrimage ended in a failure?

[Asgharm]

Originally posted by boybrushdRED:

I finished the game but I was lost in the details. So, did both Setsuna's mom and aunt's pilgrimage ended in a failure?

No, her aunt's pilgrimage did. That was the one that Nidr was on (this is the one in the flashback that only Nidr and Endir see). I believe her mom's succeeded but I can't recall if that is ever stated outright or not.

[Riley]

I agree with the ending being rather lackluster, you go through this entire journey with the notion that setsuna has to die, only to reach the end and fight the big bad (Which was quite disappointing in and of itself in my opinion.) and basically prove that she does not need to perish, and that we're going to break the chain of sacrifices. And yet she ends up dying anyway willingly due to her compassion for others just to give this 'Youth' a brief moment of respite, before it's inevitable end.

I felt like it was a very weak ending overall, instead of leaving me emotional it just left me confused, much like Verlindios mentioned in his own posts above, she didn't need to die, and it seemed as though her bond with endir was a lot stronger than "I'm just going to let you kill me now so this spirit can feel happiness before it dies". Not only that but we don't really get a sense of what happens to the rest of the crew afterwards, just that they go back to their lives, did they eventually give up on the other two returning? did they search for an answer as to why they didn't return?

One of the other things i believe the game does a poor job of is of the big bad, Samsara, for a game based on crono trigger i thought they would nail this part a bit better. We don't even learn the creatures name until literally the last thirty minutes or hour of the game, it then puts up a very disappointing fight and boom, it's done. I know it's not fair to compare it directly to Lavos, one of the best JRPG bosses in video game history, but when the game directly says it's inspired by crono trigger, i don't think it's completely unfair to compare the two.

[robthebob11]

It's the kind of "emotion over logic" endings I used to find touching as a kid playing JRPGs, but kind of disappoint me as an adult. I'd prefer a clearer, more definied narrative rather than "tears tears tears faith hope the power of friendship tears."

I'm also quite tired of the ever-suffering heroine trope in JRPGs. Willing to self-sacrifice to the point of absurdity. Compassion is all well and good, but when you're ready to jump in front of every blade and insist on being harmed to save others no matter the circumstances, the only thing you're really doing is hurting those around you.

[Wyrtt]

Originally posted by robthebob11:

"emotion over logic" endings.

Thank you. I searched for good phrase to describe that kind of ending.