160) X-Men vs. Street Fighter – JUGGERNAUT
1996

Apocalypse sure owes a lot to the X-Men cartoon from the 90’s because for the longest time, he was considered THE top level threat of the franchise. You’d use Magneto as your go-to personal villain, but when you wanted to make things look extra dire, you’d toss in the seemingly-invincible guy who could turn himself into a giant. That last part made him a perfect boss for X-Men vs. Street Fighter.

Luckily, there’s one guy out there who’s just as unbeatable.

Juggernaut spends the entirety of his ending lecturing Apocalypse over underestimating him, especially in the brains department. He even brings up the time he outsmarted the Hulk. Granted, he’s talking about when Hulk had Banner’s intelligence and Juggernaut’s plan was actually pretty clever. On the other hand, you aren’t doing yourself any favors by saying you’re smarter than a monster everyone knows as “the really dumb, green guy.” Especially when you’re telling this story to a mutant who isn’t even conscious.

159) Samurai Showdown – HAOHMARU/GEN-AN
1993

These two endings complement each other, so I’m putting them together.

Haohmaru is the main hero of the Samurai Showdown series. After defeating the mad wizard Amakusa, he berates him for being a conceited fool. Oshizu, a woman who appears to be in love with Haohmaru, runs to him, but Haohmaru immediately tells her it’s not to be. Despite the Engrish that appears throughout the series, Haohmaru says one of the cooler lines.

“I’m a samurai, a rebel guy.”

So, having given his girlfriend the Pee-Wee Herman speech about being a loner, Haohmaru runs off to the next adventure. We see him raring for another fight.

Where… he’s… fighting Mai Shiranui? What in the Hell? It’s weird enough that Eiji Kisaragi was professing his love for her in the 1970’s, but what is she doing in feudal Japan? Is she immortal and SNK never brought it up? Regardless, the two banter and attack at the same time, ending on a Rocky III non-cliffhanger. Cool enough.

Gen-An is the game’s freak character. A green monster with a giant Freddy Krueger claw. His ending is just like Haohmaru’s, only not quite. He destroys Amakusa and boasts about it. Then a woman named Azami runs out to him. She’s wearing tattered clothes like a cavewoman, with a bone in her hair. Gen-An leaves her and goes on to fight elsewhere.

Like Haohmaru, Gen-An gets in a scrap with a time-displaced Mai. The same dialogue plays out and they attack at the same time. Only here, they show the results. Mai lands a hit and Gen-An screams out for Azami.

Oh. Welp. Sorry, Gen-An.

158) Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 – BILLY KANE
1998

The endings in Real Bout 2 are pretty minimal. Over the course of the credits, they would show a series of stills with zero words. Nothing too special happens in the more straight-faced ones, but there are a handful of comedy endings. I’m a fan of Billy Kane’s.

Billy’s known for his long reach, coming from his staff, which has the ability to split into three pieces, like a three-piece nunchaku. We see a very cartoony Billy in a lab with some mad scientists who have concocted a brand new staff for him to use, with even better reach.

Billy goes to test it out, firing it into the sky. The next image shows that it works a little too well, stretching upwards and breaking a passing airplane in half. Billy’s reaction is priceless.

157) WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game – BAM BAM BIGELOW
1995

Ah, yes. WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game. To follow up on the success of Mortal Kombat, Midway took the WWF license and went completely over-the-top with it. Digitized wrestlers would fight it out in the ring with ridiculous super powers. Lex Luger had T-1000 arms. Undertaker could shoot ghosts out of his hands (though to be fair, he can already sort of do that on TV). Razor Ramon could jump fifteen feet high.

Usually in wrestling, becoming champion is merely the start of a new chapter in your story because it means you have to start defending it. Not so in the world of Wrestlemania. It seems that by becoming champion, you remain champion forever because you’re that dominant. The endings are done in text form and tell a lot of strange stories. Bret Hart becomes an accomplished actor. Lex Luger becomes known as a great American hero. Yokozuna’s victory causes America’s collapse. Undertaker devours the souls of his opponents, regardless of alignment, and returns to his desert home. Doink holds a circus that goes completely out of hand. Shawn Michaels is stripped naked by his female fans and then goes into politics. Razor Ramon is mugged for his title and ends up running a pawn shop in Chile.

As for Bam Bam?

Bam Bam uses his fire powers to not only kill all of his opponents, but fries every man, woman and child in that arena, reducing the entire place to ashes. Because he’s the champion and he’s evil. That’s fucked.

156) Mortal Kombat: Armageddon – SHAO KAHN
2006

Armageddon is a mediocre game with a laughably simplistic story. All the Mortal Kombat characters – even the ones who are supposed to be dead – have a big-ass good vs. evil fight to the death in the desert just because. Then a pyramid pops up with a big monster Blaze guarding ultimate power. It becomes a big game of King of the Mountain as everyone trips over themselves to reach the top first. Granted, the intro movie that depicts this is completely awesome, partially due to Kurtis Stryker suckerpunching Mileena and making the first move.

Despite the inability to create any images for the endings due to time and likely budget, the game genuinely impresses me by coming up with 63 unique scenarios based on these different fighters rising to the top and absorbing Blaze’s power. All of them are shown the same way: the character in question performs a kata on top of the pyramid while we see text that’s also narrated.

In terms of canon, Shao Kahn is the winner, although we don’t see the aftermath. In the game that follows, Raiden uses magical time travel to change the timeline and prevent it. But ignoring that, I find Kahn’s Armageddon epilogue rather interesting. After defeating Blaze, Kahn becomes even stronger. He easily conquers Earthrealm and absorbs it into Outworld. He’s so powerful that nobody can stand in his way.

That ultimately becomes his undoing as even though he’s victorious, he isn’t about ruling. He’s about conquering. All of reality is under his thumb and all that’s left is for the almighty Kahn to succumb to madness.

155) Darkstalkers 3 – HUITZIL
1998

Darkstalkers 3 is the home port of Vampire Savior, which includes a couple extra characters. One of these characters is Huitzil, one of the many robots the alien villain Pyron sent to Earth during the prehistoric era. In this game, Huitzil is awakened by a little boy named Cecil and has an Iron Giant relationship with him. Cecil would even be seen during all of Huitzil’s fights, running around in the background.

Huitzil succeeds in killing Jedah, but at a horrible price. The robot has taken some serious damage and is falling to pieces. Understanding its mortality, it sends a command to an identical model. At least, that’s its intent. Instead, it sends the mission to ALL the dormant models.

The series of Huitzils hover over a city. Military is confused, especially because their weapons have no effect on them. The robots decide to scan the city and classify everything under two options: the boy they must protect or threats they must destroy to protect him. Uh oh.

154) Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha – CRACKER JACK
1997

When you look at the first few Tekken games, you see an evolution in CGI cutscenes. The ones from the first game are a laughable mess, the second batch is a huge step up and Tekken 3 looks great compared to that. In the home release of Street Fighter EX, the polygonal series that Capcom outsourced, the endings are a slight step above Tekken 1, but definitely below Tekken 2. Which is surprising, as it comes out around the time of Tekken 3’s release.

The endings are all equally 20 seconds, so they can all fit the same 20-second sample of porn music. A lot of these are terrible, such as Ken’s ending, where he does a series of Shoryukens. Cracker Jack, meanwhile, gets a pretty cool animated bit.

A former Shadaloo henchman-turned-anti-hero, Cracker Jack is seen at a train station where a Shadaloo train starts up. Jack is seen on the tracks in front of it, none too pleased.

Despite the train picking up speed, Jack rushes forward and uppercuts it into the air. He walks off with his hat draped over his face, ignoring the huge explosion going on in the background.

153) Mace: The Dark Age – POJO
1997

Mace is a more violent knockoff of the Soul series with a similar story. A great demon named Asmodeus has a powerful, evil, corrupting weapon called the Mace of Tanis. Warriors from around Eurasia are each out to challenge him and steal this weapon away. There are all sorts of great character designs in there, from a mercenary, a sorceress, a gargoyle, a dwarf in a steampunk mech, a knight from Hell, a blind Shaolin monk and so on. One of the game’s hidden warriors is Pojo.

Pojo is a chicken.

A chicken, I tell you. A giant chicken.

The arcade ending tells a story of Pojo being unable to pick up the Mace of Tanis and instead being its protector, but that’s kind of boring. The Nintendo 64 version has Pojo grab the Mace and grow in size, while at the same time becoming corrupted. Pojo goes on to attack entire villages, setting them ablaze as she smashes everything in her wake. These attacks all happen in the dead of night, so none of the survivors ever get a real good look at this giant, bloodthirsty chicken.

Hence, when they do try to explain this monster, the concept of the dragon is invented. Pretty certain the idea of dragons predates medieval times, but I don’t want to rain on this giant chicken parade.

Fun fact: Pojo is also playable in Gauntlet Legends.

152) Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter – AKUMA
1997

Back in the late 90’s, Capcom games liked to play up the contrast between Akuma and Dan Hibiki for comedic effect. Akuma is the nigh-unbeatable Master of Fist, while Dan has his own personal bed reserved at the hospital. One of the better examples is Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter.

The game doesn’t have much resembling a story, but the final boss is Cyber Akuma. From the looks of things, he is the tinkering of Apocalypse, likely as his Horseman of Death. In his ending, Akuma dismantles his cyborg doppelganger and appears to have no challenges left in his path.

Or does he?

Akuma Shoryukens Cyber Dan, causing all of the cybernetics to fly off in one shot. Dan’s only response as he flies back is, “Ouch. That hurt.”

151) Marvel vs. Capcom 3 – HULK
2011

When Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was announced, the trailers hyped it up through some fitting inter-company rivalries. Ryu fought Wolverine because they’re both wandering lone-wolf warrior hero types. Deadpool fought Dante because they’re both over-the-top, cool guns for hire with a love for swords. Iron Man fought Morrigan because libido.

Chris Redfield lacks Hulk’s strength, even though he’s known for punching boulders. What makes them work as rivals is that despite unknowingly being on the same side, Chris spends his time fighting science-created monsters. Hulk spends a lot of time fighting gun-toting government flunkies who won’t leave him the Hell alone. Of COURSE they’d go after each other.

One of the trailers even shows a moment of character development when a clusterfuck situation that pits Chris, X-23 and Arthur against Wesker, Magneto and MODOK leads to Hulk hitting the scene, swatting MODOK away, saving X-23 and then angrily glaring at Chris before turning his attention to Magneto. Chris, unsure about what the hell is going on, still has the understanding to ease up on his gun and acknowledge that Hulk isn’t the enemy.

Hulk’s ending builds on this, as Chris has come to realize that having an unbeatable monster on your side has its advantages. Chris is shown wandering through an Umbrella facility with zombie carcasses littering the hallways. Turns out a playthrough of Resident Evil is a piece of cake when you have this guy with you.

Hulk goes through all threats, including Nemesis. Under Chris’ orders, he’s let loose on Wesker, promising that Wesker is puny and thus, Hulk will smash him.

150) King of Fighters ’99 – ART OF FIGHTING TEAM
1999

All the endings in King of Fighters ’99 feature the same opening sequence where the NESTS Cartel turn on the game’s final boss Krizalid and drop a big piece of roof onto him, ending his life. Then the place begins to collapse and the winning team runs out.

In this scenario, we have karate hero Ryo Sakazaki, his best friend/rival Robert Garcia, sister Yuri and unhinged father Takuma. They all sprint through the crumbling headquarters, but Takuma isn’t lucky enough. A concrete slab much like the one that killed Krizalid (in fact, it’s the same piece of art reused), lands directly on Takuma. His children and practical son-in-law keep running with tears running down their cheeks.

After things have settled, the three return to the site and create a makeshift tombstone, decorated with a tengu mask, which Takuma used to proudly wear. The credits roll and we see Ryo, Robert and Yuri praying before it. The three get up and walk off together, heartbroken.

That’s when they realize that Krizalid is no Takuma Sakazaki.

Not only have they not seen the last of Takuma, but neither has this list. Not by a longshot.

149) Mortal Kombat 9 – SHEEVA
2011

Australia, being Australia, banned the reboot of Mortal Kombat due to its violent content. Ergo, Sheeva’s ending acts like an inspired middle finger to the land down under. Sheeva turns on Shao Kahn because she sees the writing on the wall and knows that her Shokan race is gradually losing favor. Kahn appears to be more supportive of the centaurs and Tarkatan race and this will likely lead to Shokan extinction. Fighting for her people, Sheeva destroys Kahn and his forces crumble like dominos.

Due to her actions and her desire to get away from all the centaurs and Tarkatans, Sheeva moves the Shokans to Earthrealm. The world governments are totally cool with them moving in and even gives her reign over the entirety of Australia as part of the deal. Humans and Shokan live in peace and Sheeva, protector of Earthrealm, is regarded as the most honorable Shokan in history.

148) Marvel vs. Capcom 3 – TRON BONNE
2011

Tron Bonne, the teenage pirate of the future from the Mega Man Legends games, has always had a love/hate relationship with said game’s hero Mega Man Volnutt. After the battle against Galactus, Tron uses her mechanical and programming knowhow to introduce a new member to her loyal army of Servbots.

Tron is shown looming down at Volnutt from up high, obviously intimidating him and sweetly asking that they place nice together and perhaps get some food. Of course, if Volnutt refuses this generous and friendly offer, he’ll have to deal with Servbot #42, who doubles as Tron’s scout and bodyguard.

Tron reiterates the offer while Volnutt quietly says that he just wants to go home. Hey, date extortion is still above genocide, so good on you, Miss Bonne.

147) Final Fight Revenge – BELGER CREDIT SEQUENCE
1999

Final Fight Revenge is a rather forgettable 3D follow-up to the first Final Fight with a Street Fighter style. The game deals with the return of crime boss Horace Belger, the main villain of the first game, who has come back from being splattered on the Metro City streets. While this is never expressly explained, Belger has returned as a zombie.

The game’s endings are pretty uninteresting, but there is a great reward to be found. If you can complete the game without continuing, you’ll be treated to Belger dancing during the end credits. And yes, being a zombie, he does that dance.

The funk of 40,000 years.

146) Tekken Tag Tournament 2 – KUNIMITSU
2012

If you’re expecting any endings from the first Tekken Tag on this list, don’t hold your breath because they’re all terrible. Except maybe the one of Kuma dancing while Heihachi happily claps. Kunimitsu had an ending based on doing a cliché sword rush duel with Yoshimitsu. You know, the kind when two warriors rush past each other with a sword, stand still and one of them falls over and dies? It’s to be expected, since Kunimitsu hasn’t made an appearance in Tekken’s canon storyline since Tekken 2, so she hasn’t been able to bring more to her character than, “ninja who hates Yoshimitsu and totally wants his sword.”

At least Tekken Tag 2 is able to make something cool out of it. Yoshimitsu is riding his horse through the forest when Kunimitsu sneaks around, quickly jumping from tree to tree, and takes out the horse with a blow dart. Yoshimitsu and Kunimitsu end up having a neat ninja throwdown with smoke bombs, throwing stars and teleports. Yoshimitsu has it won and points the blade to Kunimitsu’s throat.

He takes a swing to end her life, but comes out of it surprised.

Yoshimitsu sees Kunimitsu standing near some trees, where she shows off the sword, smiles and escapes by zipping into the distance. Yoshimitsu isn’t even angry at this. Impressed, he says out loud, “You’ve greatly improved.”

145) Street Fighter X Tekken – PACMAN
2012

Putting Pacman in the midst of the big crossover battle between the Street Fighters and Tekkeners (?) is a wacky decision only eclipsed by also tossing in Creepy Box Art Mega Man. While nobody understands what Pacman’s deal is, he too is after Pandora’s Box. When finding it in Antarctica, he does what you’d expect Pacman to do. He eats it.

The energy causes Pacman to grow and the enigmatic yellow ball stops smiling creepily for the first time out of shock. Cut to a major city, where giant Pacman is on a rampage, eating trees.

As the camera zooms out, we see the trees represented by dots and the city itself is just a giant version of any given Pacman level.

144) Tekken Tag Tournament 2 – VIOLET
2012

Lee “Violet” Chaolin is one of my favorite fighting game characters, easily. Adopted into the Mishima family, he stepped out of all that madness to find his own way while making it his hobby to throw a wrench in their plans. Since Tekken 4, he’s worked on the creation of Combot, the ultimate in robotic combat. In his Tekken Tag 2 ending, he mixes his business with pleasure.

Heihachi, Kazuya and Jin wake up together inside Violet Systems Labs, with Violet calmly watching them from a control panel up above. He introduces them to the Super Combot DX, who really just looks like your average Combot. Heihachi laughs it off as a piece of junk, but proceeds to get his ass handed to him. The new Combot fights off all three Mishimas at the same time as Violet smugly talks about how he’s programmed with all of their fight data, so they can’t lay a finger on him.

Except they don’t need to. Jin turns into Devil Form and blows Combot’s head off with his laser eyes. Violet thinks out loud that he forgot to add in the Devil data. Heihachi continues to laugh at his adopted son’s failure, but Violet isn’t too down. He still has the upper hand.

Violet looks to the viewer, laughs and says the catchphrase that’s sweeping the nation, “Excellent.”

143) Guilty Gear X2 – MILLIA RAGE (Path 3)
2002

Wow, about time I had some Guilty Gear on the list. Guilty Gear X2’s story mode has three possible endings for each character and a lot of the time the third appears to be the most climactic. This one’s no different.

Millia Rage is an escapee from the Assassin Guild. She had been raised to be an assassin based on the ability to control her overly-long head of hair and grew sick of it despite her close relationship with top member Zato-1. Zato-1’s become a bit obsessed with both gaining power and making Millia pay for her betrayal. Sadly, both of those obsessions end quite badly for him and he’s become a host for what is essentially the Venom symbiote with the serial numbers sanded off.

The hatred between the two seems pretty black and white for the first few games. By X2, Millia decides that she can never truly be free until she takes Zato out of the picture completely, even if by this point, Zato is just a lifeless husk for the liquid, black parasite Eddie. Millia finds Eddie and sees that the creature is slowly dying from the lack of a suitable host. She decides that she no longer truly wants revenge, but to mercifully put the creature down like Old Yeller. Even that is taken from her, as the game’s villain I-no – who has been watching the whole thing go down – grows bored and slaughters Eddie.

After dealing with I-no, Millia buries Zato’s body, while at the same time cutting off her massive hairdo and leaving it with Zato’s remains. Although she expected it, Millia admits to feeling hollow over her revenge. Despite Zato being painted as such a bad guy throughout the series, Millia points out that he did more for her than just corrupt her into killing. He saved her life, took her in and loved her. That’s at least earned him a proper burial. Finally feeling liberated, Millia wonders what her next step is.

142) King of Fighters EX2 – TEAM KOREA
2003

The EX games from King of Fighters are a forgotten pair of spinoffs for the Game Boy Advance. The first one is seriously bad while the second one is a huge improvement and is rather fun. Kim, Chang and Choi have dedicated their performance in the tournament to fallen comrade Jhun. Jhun has an obsession with pop sensation and fellow King of Fighters contestant Athena and, long story short, his fandom caused him to get hit by a car.

Having won the tournament, the trio go visit Jhun. They just won King of Fighters. This is a HUGE DEAL! Surely, this will up his spirits! Instead, Jhun barely cares about it. He even forgot that the tournament was going on. He quickly segues into talking up the new Athena live performance DVD he ordered and how her angelic voice gets him through the day.

Kim is speechless while Chang wonders, “What were we thinking, anyway?”

141) Killer Instinct – FULGORE
1994

Fulgore is the prototype robot soldier for corrupt corporation Ultratech. Once it kills Eyedol and proves its worth, it’s mass produced. Surely, nothing bad will come from that, right?

Ultratech creates a robot army and uses these guys to run things. The Fulgore from the game is deactivated and ends up in a museum. The final line reveals that the only humans left to see it are slaves.

Thanks a lot, jerks!

Similar Posts:

• You Got Kahn in My Darkseid! You Got Darkseid in My Kahn!
• The Top 15 Best Fighting Game Storylines: Part 3 (5-1)
• The Top 200 Fighting Game Endings: Part Four
• The Top 15 Best Fighting Game Storylines: Part 2 (10-6)
• The Top 200 Fighting Game Endings: Part Seven

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