140) Mortal Kombat 9 – CYBER SUB-ZERO
2011

Cyber Sub-Zero is the only character in the Mortal Kombat reboot with no narration in his ending. I’m not sure if this was an error by the developers or if they decided the visual storytelling could speak for itself. If it’s the latter, I can’t really blame them.

Despite destroying Shao Kahn, Cyber Sub-Zero appears to be in peril. Though Kahn’s body is gone, his soul is not. Kahn’s soul overtakes Cyber Sub-Zero. Shortly after, we see his new form.

Cyber Sub-Kahn! Oh shit! And so, Shao Kahn went off to find a death metal album to be on the cover of.

139) Shaq Fu – SHAQUILLE O’NEAL
1994

Come on. You knew I had to.

Shaq Fu is the famous piece of crap that came from the idea that Shaquille O’Neal, being such a popular basketball player, deserved to be part of the rise of fighting games. The game isn’t very good, though the utter badness of it is rather overblown. It isn’t the worst game ever made, but it’s just too much fun to make fun of a sub-par game where Shaq goes to Kung Fu Narnia to save a little boy from a mummy overlord.

Defeating Sett and saving young Nezu, Shaq returns to Earth to make it to the latest Orlando Magic game with the old man who set him on this adventure and Nezu joining him. He apologizes to his teammates for being late and is ready to hit the court when something stops him in his tracks.

WHO IS PLAYING BASKETBALL?! OH MY GOD BEAST IS PLAYING BASKETBALL! HOW CAN THAT BE?!

Beast, one of Sett’s soldiers, wants a piece of Shaq… on the court! I’m not sure what part of this corn I like the most. The homicidal, savage monster wanting to play basketball? The fact that nobody else seems to be alarmed by this? Shaq playing basketball in a jersey that says, “SHAQ” on the front?

138) Savage Reign – CHUNG PAIFU
1995

Savage Reign is an okay fighting game that takes place in the same continuity as Art of Fighting/Fatal Fury, only in the future. Really, it’s the tag-team sequel Kizuna Encounter that anyone ever cares to talk about, since it’s ten times more enjoyable.

Our character here, Chung, is an old hermit dressed in the clothes of somebody who grew up in the late 20th century. Despite wearing blue, his cap is supposed to have been given to him by Terry Bogard and he gets really mad if you knock it off.

His ending is uncut insanity. He stands before a beaten King Lion and jokes about how “King” must be nominal. He goes on and on about how King Lion isn’t up to snuff and then starts talking up his kickass Legendary Flame Stick and how even though King Lion wants it, he’ll never be able to control it. King Lion is pretty amazed by Chung’s skill, but admits that he has no idea what the hell he’s talking about.

And so, Chung spits on the ground, uses his Legendary Flame Stick to transform King Lion into a chicken, says that he’ll let him off easy this time and then flies away by spinning his stick around like a helicopter.

There’s an ending later on this list from this game that’s even more ridiculous. Stay tuned for that.

137) Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side – JONATHAN BLADE
1995

Eternal Champions was never my game, but despite the lack of any graphical storytelling, the endless blocks of text were actually pretty decent. The game’s heroes have interesting and tragically dark backstories, all of them dying and allowing evil to thrive in their failures. The plot is that heroic victims from throughout history fight it out for a second chance to make things right.

Blade’s deal is that he’s a former Syrian police officer from the year 2030 who became a bounty hunter. He’s hired by the government to capture this scientist who has created a deadly virus and it’s imperative that he takes him alive. Once he corners the scientist, he’s ambushed. It turns out that the whole thing was a setup by the government and whether on purpose or by accident, the virus is unleashed upon the public as Blade dies.

The first Eternal Champions has pretty across-the-board positive endings, but its sequel Challenge from the Dark Side rewrites them for the most part to be less outright optimistic, but still better. For instance, Blade’s original ending is that he’s able to defeat all the agents now that he knows they’re coming, causes government reform and brings peace through becoming the President. That might be just a little too strong.

His Challenge from the Dark Side ending has him fight off the agents, but he realizes he has two options now. He can hand over the rogue scientist so the government can weaponize the virus, or he can save the scientist and destroy the virus, which would ultimately make him a wanted man. Doing the right thing, Blade gets the scientist out of the country and spends the rest of his life as the world’s top bounty hunter who at the same time has a huge bounty on his own head. Although he can never return home, he loves his new life of adventure where he’s the predator who refuses to be anyone’s prey.

136) Tekken 5 – ANNA WILLIAMS
2005

The Williams sisters have a very unique relationship. The two assassins spend equal time trying to kill each other, humiliate each other and simply coexist. Anna spends much of the first few games being humiliated by her sister. More notable instances include her Tekken 2 ending where Nina sneaks into the bathroom and takes a photo of Anna getting out of the shower or the Japanese Tekken 3 ending where Anna is flirting with some guys and Nina decides to cut her bikini top off.

Now it’s time for Anna to get her revenge. Her sexy revenge.

After the fifth tournament, a movie producer finds out about the Williams sister’s rivalry and offers to turn it into a movie. Both agree, though Nina isn’t especially excited. We see the two in medieval armor, sword-fighting outside a castle. After dueling to a standstill, they dash past each other, swing their swords and after a delay, Anna keels over. The director yells, “CUT!” and is annoyed that they did the scene wrong. Some crew see to Nina when her headband comes undone.

That’s some impressive precision. Anna gets up in the background and laughs to herself.

135) Mortal Kombat: Deception – KABAL
2004

One of the new characters introduced in Deception is Havik, the Cleric of Chaos. He’s all about anarchy, so while he’s against the villain Onaga gaining complete order throughout the realms, he still doesn’t want it to be a complete happy ending for the good guys. Once Onaga is defeated, Havik hires the Black Dragon thugs to lure the heroes away from the body. As it turns out, Onaga’s heart has the ability to resurrect others and Havik is in love with the implications of this.

Kabal, leader of the Black Dragon, sees use for such a weapon himself and turns away from the battle to sneak up on Havik and kill him with his hook swords.

Despite dying, Havik is pretty jazzed about these developments. It’s chaos, baby!

134) Survival Arts – HIRYU
1993

When I slightly defend Shaq Fu and Tattoo Assassins by saying that there are worse games out there, what I mean is that Survival Arts is out there. Holy shit, this game. It’s an especially bad Mortal Kombat clone with overly-big digitized actors, terrible control and some of the most laughable bells and whistles. For instance, this is our final boss, Dantel.

Yes, your final challenge is Brian May from Queen dressed in a fruity robe. His powers include T-1000 knife-hands, fire breath and Darkseid’s Omega Beams. Once he’s defeated, he leaks souls just like Shang Tsung or Shao Kahn, with one difference.

Dantel bleeds the souls of multiple Hitlers, Mussolinis and Satans! Hahaha!

The endings are garbage, but I have a soft spot for Hiryu. The male ninja in the game, we see him cradling the body of Tasha, a female ninja from his same clan who is certainly not just a woman in an 80’s aerobics outfit. Tasha wonders why Hiryu didn’t kill her, but he refuses to, as he’s in love. He then makes her the best offer.

“Lest’s go far away and make a country of our own… a kingdom of ninjas!”

(Yes, it says “Lest’s” in the game)

I hope that one day I can find that one lady and ask her if she’d like to start a country of ninjas with me. Ah, romance.

133) Guilty Gear X2 – FAUST (Path 3)
2002

Once upon a time, accomplished surgeon Dr. Baldhead failed to save the life of a little girl in what should have been an easy operation. The incident caused him to snap and become one of the world’s most notorious serial killers. Baldhead came to his senses and was horrified at his actions. Wearing a paper bag over his head, he rechristened himself Faust and now spends his days trying to better the lives of the ill.

He comes to discover that the little girl’s death may not have been an accident after all. An investigation finds that the Assassins Guild was behind the girl’s death and Baldhead’s rampage. Faust seeks out top assassin Venom for answers. After the defeat, Venom starts talking. The Guild did in fact do the deed, though Venom wasn’t the one who made the order. Besides, the amount of blood on Venom’s hands is nothing compared to the number of victims Baldhead has taken. Faust doesn’t defend his past actions, but he does defend his current actions. The world still needs a healer.

Venom says that the whole conspiracy leads up to the Post-War Administration Bureau, a faceless threat that pops up a lot throughout the game. Venom’s cool with explaining everything because it turns out those jerks want the Assassins Guild wiped out. That’s when Faust notices that they’re surrounded by robotic copies of the game’s hero Ky Kiske, a calling card of the Bureau.

Faust stands with Venom and vows to help him get out of this alive. Not only to find out the truth about his past, but because he’s a doctor, damn it, and being a doctor is about saving lives.

Also, one of the nicer touches is how Venom refers to him as “Dr. Ba—” before being hit. It’s the closest the games have come to outright saying that they’re the same character, as if being a 9-foot-tall doctor with a giant scalpel wasn’t enough.

132) Marvel vs. Capcom – LILITH AENSLAND
1998

In the days of Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom, Capcom would recolor certain characters for the sake of making shitty knockoffs of others. Sometimes they outright claimed the character was someone else, like saying Blackheart colored red is Mephisto or dark gray Captain America is US Agent. Other times, they were blatant, but let you make the conclusion. Like Red Venom, Orange Hulk and Gold War Machine? Yeah, we know who those guys are supposed to be. Most of the time, these bonus characters didn’t get any endings at all.

Lilith is just a recolored version of her sister Morrigan, which doesn’t quite work because part of her gimmick is that she’s, well… lacks Morrigan’s the voluptuous form. They actually come up with a storyline reason for this, as hitting their heads together has caused them to switch bodies. As shown in her ending, Lilith’s petite body has Morrigan’s color scheme. The two figure that if hitting their heads caused this, it would probably fix it. Lilith-in-Morrigan’s-body flies back and zooms at her sister, headfirst.

Suddenly, Zangief pops in and asks to be part of what he figures to be some kind of weird training ritual. He headbutts Lilith-as-Morrigan instead and there’s a big explosion. Once that’s over, everyone appears back to normal, at least in terms of color schemes. Morrigan feels like her normal self and asks Lilith to return home with her. Lilith appears a bit confused and stammers her words, but then agrees and the two fly off.

Zangief gets to his feet and looks at his hands in horror. He cries out, “No! I can’t stand this! Come back to me, sister!”

131) King of Fighters EX 2 – ART OF FIGHTING TEAM
2003

The villain of EX2 is Gustav, who has kidnapped about a dozen kids for the sake of an evil ritual. After the adventure, Ryo catches Robert up to what’s happened. To make sure those kids are safe, Takuma has taken them in as students and is instructing them in Kyokugen Karate. Normally, this would be a rather sweet turn of events, if slightly predictable.

Then Ryo lets it slip that Takuma not only forces these kids to be part of his dojo, but he makes sure they all pay their monthly tuition!

Despite that being a horrible thing to do, Robert nods in agreement at Takuma’s greediness. “Our master is on the ball.”

130) King of Fighters ’97 – ART OF FIGHTING TEAM
1997

Yeah, let’s have another. I love these guys.

Prior to the tournament, Takuma is beaten up by someone linked to the game’s main villain, Orochi. Once the evil god Orochi is dealt with, the trio of Ryo, Robert and Yuri discuss the severity of what they were just up against. Their discussion is interrupted, as they expected, by the appearance of Mr. Karate!

Mr. Karate is an alter-ego of Takuma’s that he once used to hide his shameful actions from being a blackmailed mob enforcer. Then he just started using it as some kind of goofy mystery man who would appear and give the other three a hard time. They all know that he’s Takuma, but he no-sells any mention of it and just yammers on about training and making him proud.

The three barely even react to him by this point, giving off more of a, “Not this shit again,” vibe. As a reward for saving the day with Kyokugen Karate, Mr. Karate rewards them by finally revealing his true identity. He removes the tengu mask, shows that he’s Takuma Sakazaki and acts completely shocked that none of them could guess who he was. The three simply roll their eyes and uppercut him into the sky, jointly referring to him as a, “Senile, old coot!”

129) Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 – IRON FIST
2011

Iron Fist’s ending is short, but sweet. Having defeated Galactus, he wonders about where to go next. He can do some soul-searching and maybe some lengthy meditation, but that’s not fun. Maybe it’s time to use this crossover to rebuild Heroes for Hire, better than ever!

Colleen Wing, Misty Knight, Ryu, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Chun-Li and Batsu. I would read this comic until my eyes bled. Can’t Disney buy UDON or something? I need this.

Plus it would be nice for Ryu to finally get a job.

128) Street Fighter Alpha 3 – SAKURA
1998

M. Bison’s master plan in Alpha 3 is to mind-control Ryu, corrupt him into using the Dark Side of the Karate Force, possess his body and then rule the world. The conclusion to this story is told in Ryu, Sagat and Sakura’s respective endings, but Sakura’s is the more exciting telling.

Although defeated by the young girl, Bison knows that he can still win by taking over Ryu’s body. Sakura stands in his way with her arms out. If he wants to get to Ryu, he’ll have to kill her first. Bison is completely fine with that and punches her down.

Ryu sees this and starts going through some primal screams. Bison goes into full Palpatine mode and eggs him on. He cares for the girl? Then let the hate flow! Give in!

Bison gets more than he bargained for. Ryu snaps out of his funk and kicks the shit out of Bison under his own righteous hand. With a Shoryuken to finish it, Ryu blows up Bison and saves the day. Afterwards, he apologizes to Sakura about being mind-controlled, but she quickly forgives him. Ryu takes this as a sign to mean that he needs to train more and become stronger. They agree to meet up in the future and eventually have a sparring match. Ryu walks off into the distance and Sakura watches her idol go, smiling.

127) Tekken 5 – PAUL PHOENIX
2005

I can already tell there are going to be people annoyed that this isn’t in the top ten. It used to be that Paul Phoenix was a kind of important guy in Tekken lore. He was Kazuya’s rival and was so well-protected in terms of story that all of his losses came from technicalities. For instance, Paul essentially won the Tekken 3 tournament by defeating Ogre. Only after he left, Ogre rose back up, turned into his true form and Jin Kazama ended up taking him down.

After having a strangely serious (and dull) story in the fourth game, Paul’s characterization changed as of Tekken 5. No longer was he the Ken Masters of Tekken. Instead, he was the Dan Hibiki. In his Tekken 5 story, he’s obsessed with proving that he’s the strongest fighter in the universe. He doesn’t care about the Mishima Zaibatsu or Heihachi’s mysterious death or Jinpachi Mishima threatening to destroy the world. He just wants the bragging rights. Upon taking down Jinpachi, you’d think he’d be content. You’d think wrong.

See, when he says he’s to become the toughest guy in the universe, he isn’t kidding. He literally means the universe. He has a satellite built, where he trains in a dojo within. Copying from his Tekken 1 ending, he punches through a brick wall, only with a crudely-drawn picture of an alien on it instead of a crudely-drawn picture of Kazuya. More confident than ever, he loudly yells, “ANY TIME! ANY PLACE! BRING IT ON, YA ALIENS!”

Oh dear. …Do you want to tell him, or should I?

126) Capcom Fighting Evolution – JEDAH
2004

Capcom Fighting Evolution is one of the laziest releases in Capcom’s library, turning their tendency to reuse 2D sprites into self-parody. Regardless, the endings at least looked cool. They were all drawn by UDON artists, tying in with the release of the then-new Street Fighter comics. Many of them were teasers of various Capcom characters from different games interacting. Ryu challenges Talbain from Darkstalkers. Felicia and a bunch of other Capcom ladies dance together as showgirls. Alex wrestles Mike Haggar. They’re cool, but a little expected, since all these cameos are by established fighting game characters.

Jedah’s is admittedly unexpected. The Vampire Savior watches from within his lair as his evil forces cause havoc across the globe. Monitors show death and destruction on an epic scale. Zombie pirates, mass flooding, swarms of bee people and earthquakes. Jedah takes a second to laugh maniacally at his handiwork.

He might not be laughing in five seconds.

Dante’s going to fill his dark soul… WITH LEEEEAAAAAAD!!

125) Tekken Tag Tournament 2 – LEE CHAOLAN
2012

When people describe someone as being, “like a boss,” they’re really comparing him to Lee Chaolan. He and his assistant exit a limousine and slowly make their way towards Violet Systems Labs. Despite their easygoing dialogue and calm, happy music, there’s really a dozen or so Tekken Force soldiers ready to ambush him.

Lee gives no fuck about them. He gives not a single fuck.

Not a one.

They discuss scheduling and stock and to rub more salt into the wounds of these goons, Lee asks to have his breakfast meeting with a foreign dignitary cancelled so he can get some training in. While hearing about how well their stock is doing, Lee punches a Tekken Force soldier in the dick. He smirks to his assistant and says, “Excellent!” The two walk into the building, leaving a pile of bodies in their wake.

124) Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike – Q
1999

One of the more memorable inclusions to the third incarnation of Street Fighter III is the introduction of Q. Mysterious and creepy, the trench coat-wearing enigma may be a robot or a man in a mask. Either way, we don’t know who he is, what he is and what he even wants. There’s speculation, of course. Perhaps he’s Charlie. Or Chun-Li’s father. Maybe he’s Seth or one of Bison’s unused doll bodies? Who’s to say that there’s just one Q?

His ending adds to the mystique. A presentation between some CIA agents talks about a link between 13 important (though unexplained in terms of context) incidents that have taken place over the last 10 days. The chief is disturbed to discover that the same man in a trench coat and fedora is found in the background of each incident, even though they take place in different spots around the world. Using some technology, they’ve been able to synthesize what he looks like.

Nobody knows anything about this person. The chief tells them to make it a priority in figuring out who in God’s name they’re dealing with here and dismisses them. The three agents leave the room and the shot lingers on the projector. The silhouette of Q passing by the projector is shown. Whatever he is, he gets around.

123) King of Fighters XIII – K’ TEAM
2010

I’ve never been much of a fan of K’ and his team of misfit toys, but I dig their exploits at the end of the latest King of Fighters game. With the tournament over, K’, Maxima and young Kula Diamond enjoy a well-deserved vacation on a cruise ship. Well, “enjoy” is the wrong word. Even in this calm setting, K’ is unable to enjoy himself. His life as a genetic experiment who’s always on the run from various organizations has made him quite cynical and he’s unable to unwind.

His partners don’t share the sentiment. Maxima is given the world’s most obnoxiously-huge ice cream sundae and says that he’s certainly not unhappy. Within seconds, the entire dessert is devoured off-camera. Their more optimistic member of the trio Kula is happily using her ice powers in the pool, much to the dismay of others. K’ swears that this is the last time they get involved with the stupid King of Fighters tournament and starts to complain about his outright boredom.

Right on time, a bunch of staff members reveal guns and attack the trio. Yet another group of goons out to take them down. Maxima and Kula are disappointed to have their vacation cut short, but at least K’ will have some semblance of fun.

The XIII endings seriously have the coolest art.

122) Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (Japan) – CHUN-LI
2008

The Japanese version of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom features short, fully animated anime endings that were removed and replaced for the American version. Chun-Li’s sure is something else. We see a group of what I can only assume to be bad guys trying to escape a burning complex. Usually, Chun-Li would just show up and beat everyone up with rapid and/or spinning kicks, but being in a bizarre anime crossover has brought new resources to the table.

To the horror of the thugs, the wall gives way and Yatterman’s giant, robot dog Yatterwan rolls out. He opens his mouth to reveal a series of tiny Chun-Li robots, each apologizing in a mechanical voice.

“GO.MEN.NE.” “GO.MEN.NE.” “GO.MEN.NE.”

The horror increases as they bundle together and explode, taking out the entire complex. Chun-Li is shown safely far away, controlling the situation with headphones. She removes them and yells, “GOMEN-NE!”

The last image we see is a mushroom cloud shaped like a smiling Chun-Li.

121) Power Stone – ROUGE
1999

Taking place during the early 20th century, Power Stone is about various characters duking it out over a mystical jewel that will grant you whatever you wish for. Rouge is a fortune teller who seeks the Power Stone for purely altruistic reasons. When she gets her hands on it, she doesn’t want to use it for herself, but for all people around the world. She simply wants to make everybody happy.

Years later, we see her in Paris at the World’s Fair. One of the game’s bad guys Kraken is now a reformed hype man, trying to convince people to see Rouge and have their greatest wish come true. Three guys are brought into her tent, where she instructs them to make a wish with all of their heart and it will come true. The three men focus…

…and are all amazed that their wish came true! Rouge, blushing like crazy, runs over and tries to cover up the image, telling them that they should be ashamed.

Similar Posts:

• The Top 15 Best Fighting Game Storylines: Part 3 (5-1)
• The Top 200 Fighting Game Endings: Part Seven
• The Top 15 Best Fighting Game Storylines: Part 1 (15-11)
• The Top 200 Fighting Game Endings: Part One
• The Top 200 Fighting Game Endings: Part Three

Posted in Lists, Top 200 Fighting Game Endings, Video Games by Gavok |