999 Ending Rant (spoiler)

[left4bass]

Firstly, fee free to comment with spoilers from the later games if they relate.

The writing in this game was incredible. A deep storyline with such deep writing, complex concepts, and wrenching twists. The one thing that left me with a sour taste was the very ending. I have never wanted to see a couple work out so much as I wanted Akane and Junpei to work out. I was waiting so eagerly for the happy ending where they finally embrace and everything is perfect.

Instead, she just disappears. I looked into a couple spoilers (I needed to know what happened), and it doesn't seem they ever end up together. I waited the whole freaking game for them to end up together I feel like a starving dog having a steak waved in his face for hours only to watch it get auled to the garbage at the very end. You stay on the line for hours only to be deprived at the very end.

You might prefer this ending, and it might work with the later storylines somehow, but I refuse to accept it. In my headcannon. Junpei saved her, the game ends with them happily embracing, and they live happily ever after.

[El Kawaw0]

You know, the reality of the story is much more bittersweet, and because there are secuels, I liked the ending a lot. Even if it was for the sake of saving herself, she still is responsible for the deaths of a lot of people. So it kinda makes sense that she doesnt wanna be with Junpei, tho there are more "Jumpy+Kanny" monents in both the 2nd and 3rd game. So you can look forward to that I guess.

[NowBobCat]

It seems like you got the sub ending, and not the true ending. The true ending would better satiate your desires.

[left4bass]

@ ImBobCat No, I got the sub ending and the true ending. I got all of them. In the sub ending, he finds her dying after being stabbed, before he finds the last survivors stabbed and then gets stabbed.

In the true ending, he wants to be with Akane more than freedom, but when they go outside and find Santa and Kanny already gone, and they never find them before the end.

@Kawaw1 She was responsible, but she never killed anyone. She let Hongou do it. That could have come with an explanation that they were dangerous, were carrying out experiments and that it was the only way to stop them. Or maybe Santa could have been the one behind that part.

IDK, I just didn't like how the whole game builds up to something that never ends up happening. i thought one or both of them might die, but I didn't think she would just leave.

[El Kawaw0]

She feels responsible, if you let a gun in the ground, and someone else picked it up and kill somebody, you didnt kill anyone but still your fault. Also even if you dont count the bad guys, she still is responsible for lying to everyone, puting them in that situation, and she probably knows about the deaths of the other timelines

[left4bass]

@ Kawaw1 Isn't a lot of the point that they can prevent the other timelines from occurring? thus the reason Junpei Could save Akane in the past and why it's called the true ending? IDK. The good people were never in any real danger besides Hongou, and she may not predicted he would try to kill anyone but his former coworkers.

[El Kawaw0]

Its called true ending because game reasons, but every timeline happened, thats how Junpei can access it. They cannot prevent anything, just hope that their timeline is the good one. All preparation were made so the possibility of saving june can exist

[joshuabaker121]

There's still more work to be done; as an esper who can see into the future, Akane is able to tell that something terrible is coming.

Huge spoiler for the sequels: if she just goes off with Junpei now, then the entire human population will be wiped out - or, at the very least, 6 billion people. Play VLR followed by ZTD, and you might just get your wish...

[White Fire]

Small spoiler for the sequels:

There is one ending where they get together. It's in ZTD at the very end.

[CyberNaZ]

Still something bugs me. When we reach the "true ending" we are too quick to forget unexplained events of the bad endings.

I've been through the submarine ending again and I still can't tell how do we find ourselves being killed. Even with what I know from the other endings, the other group would have never been able to open the doors that were opened then.

3+6+8=17 ; 1+7=8

They could go through door [8]. But then they would only find the [Earth key]. And nothing we saw suggests they have.

1+3+6+8=18 ; 1+8=9

They could escape together through door [9] and a fight might break over the possibility. However it's pointless since the door was not reachable yet.

1+6+9=16 ; 1+6=7

That solution would not have worked, given we know about Zero's little trick with the bracelets. Door [7] would not open and they couldn't retrieve the [Jupiter key].

I don't have much of a clue here. All I can think of is the killer was originally left with all the keys on him when they were brough to the ship, so they could do whatever they wanted. That would make even less sense since they would not be willing to play the Nonary Game if they could escape that way from the beginning. If Akane's responsible for whatever happens during the game then I can't see why she'd let that happen. It doesn't serve the purpose of saving herself.

So thinking about this, isn't that branch of the story tree just poorly written ?

[Tirear]

Originally posted by CyberNaZ:

That solution would not have worked, given we know about Zero's little trick with the bracelets. Door [7] would not open and they couldn't retrieve the [Jupiter key].

That is never confirmed. If you think about, the reason they came up with that theory is that they didn't think Zero would make two bracelets with the same effective value (we're ignoring the existence of the q door, since they didn't know about it). To explain that, they came up with a theory where there instead are two bracelets with the same actual value, plus a third with that effective value, and no bracelet with a value of 3. They assume June's real bracelet value is 9 because the appearance matches, but to explain the complications with that they declare that Santa's bracelet value has nothing to do with its appearance. They explain that by assuming Santa is Zero, but we having seen the true end know that deduction is incorrect.
Ultimately, the whole switcheroo makes no sense unless you go by the universal argument that Zero did things that way because she saw it happen that way, and even that is weaker then usual since she didn't actually see it happen, she just saw people jumping to conclusions. The much simpler explanation is that June and Santa had bracelets that functioned as six and three, and Santa never left June's side because she is his sister (note that the group does not know this, so they could not have proposed it as an alternate explanation for Santa's actions).

EDIT: Also, let's not forget the possibility of Ace figuring out the secret of the O bracelet through experimentation in that route, so he could use 1+9+O. Or if you prefer different suspects, there's also 1+"3"+"6"+9+O to include the people who already know about it.

[Mysti_Fogg]

Originally posted by left4bass:

@Kawaw1 She was responsible, but she never killed anyone. She let Hongou do it. That could have come with an explanation that they were dangerous, were carrying out experiments and that it was the only way to stop them. Or maybe Santa could have been the one behind that part.

IDK, I just didn't like how the whole game builds up to something that never ends up happening. i thought one or both of them might die, but I didn't think she would just leave.

But they aren't "dangerous" beyond corporate greed. And Santa isn't the mastermind; Akane is. And all of those realities where the innocent people died, the bad endings, happened because of her. Those are just the facts. If you like her, don't make up excuses for her. Then you don't really like her, you just like the ideal of her.

In an interview with the creator, he said that he designed Akane to be "the worst heroine" (based, of course, on Japanese concepts of heroes and morality). This may, in part, be why there is no happy ending to the original story (which was intended as a stand alone game).

Personally, while there's plenty to like and dislike about VLR, one of the things I like best about it is it provides info on an ending where Akane kept running and Junpei built a life without her and finally rejects her for never taking time for them in her efforts to put people through hell to save the world.

[CyberNaZ]

Originally posted by Tirear:

Also, let's not forget the possibility of Ace figuring out the secret of the O bracelet through experimentation in that route, so he could use 1+9+O. Or if you prefer different suspects, there's also 1+"3"+"6"+9+O to include the people who already know about it.

Alright.
Let's say they could do it. What about the [Sun key] ?

The first door is unlocked, maybe the way you showed us, with [Jupiter key]. The second door is unlocked too. And it's key should be inaccessible to any of those who didn't go through door [2]. However, this door seems like it was already open and June is behind it. What scenario would make sense of that ?

The one where that door was never locked to begin with and they just haven't properly checked ? It would be a game-killer. I won't believe that one.

The one where Akane has all the keys already in case of life-threatening emergency ? She'd open the door to the submarine room in a hurry after the deaths of her team mates so she won't be locked in the ship with the killer. But the killer would be quicker and... Wait. She should know there is no escape this way because they're in Nevada desert. The submarine would lead nowhere but back to deck D. What the heck was they supposed to find there anyway !?
If she already had all the keys on her, in an emergency she wouldn't go that way to escape. She'd take the elevator to deck E, wouldn't she ?

[joshuabaker121]

Originally posted by Tirear:

Originally posted by CyberNaZ:

That solution would not have worked, given we know about Zero's little trick with the bracelets. Door [7] would not open and they couldn't retrieve the [Jupiter key].

That is never confirmed. If you think about, the reason they came up with that theory is that they didn't think Zero would make two bracelets with the same effective value (we're ignoring the existence of the q door, since they didn't know about it). To explain that, they came up with a theory where there instead are two bracelets with the same actual value, plus a third with that effective value, and no bracelet with a value of 3. They assume June's real bracelet value is 9 because the appearance matches, but to explain the complications with that they declare that Santa's bracelet value has nothing to do with its appearance. They explain that by assuming Santa is Zero, but we having seen the true end know that deduction is incorrect.
Ultimately, the whole switcheroo makes no sense unless you go by the universal argument that Zero did things that way because she saw it happen that way, and even that is weaker then usual since she didn't actually see it happen, she just saw people jumping to conclusions. The much simpler explanation is that June and Santa had bracelets that functioned as six and three, and Santa never left June's side because she is his sister (note that the group does not know this, so they could not have proposed it as an alternate explanation for Santa's actions).

EDIT: Also, let's not forget the possibility of Ace figuring out the secret of the O bracelet through experimentation in that route, so he could use 1+9+O. Or if you prefer different suspects, there's also 1+"3"+"6"+9+O to include the people who already know about it.

I don't think that option in the EDIT is possible. The only way to obtain bracelet (O) is by going through Door [1], which can only be reached by opening the Jupiter door (or by backtracking through the [4] and [5] doors, which is impossible) and then opening the Earth door - meaning that they must already have gone through both Door [7] and Door [8] in order to get the relevant keys. If you went through Door [3], then no-one has done this yet; if you didn't, then both of these rooms will already have been investigated, and so there's no need to return to them after going through Door [1] - especially since the Jupiter door had already been unlocked. Therefore, it's impossible to open Door [7] for the first time with the (O) bracelet: you need to go through Door [7] to get to Door [1] to get the (O) bracelet.

As such, your first suggestion is the one which I believe. After all, like you said: the "6"=(9) and "3"=(0) speculation was merely a theory by Snake to convince Junpei, Clover and Seven that Santa was Zero (which, of course, we later discover to have been false). Besides, if Santa's and June's bracelets didn't function as they display, then Ace and Clover would surely be pretty suspicious of them.

[CyberNaZ]

Thank you. So this storyline still seems pretty unlikely.

[sunosi]

.......play through all the games and you'll see