What RPGs have the most varied ending branches?

[StaceyPowers]

I feel like with just about every RPG, there are many complaints about the endings not having enough branching. This makes me curious--are there any RPGs that have largely escaped this complaint? 

[killamch89]

I remember Star Ocean: The Second Story on the PSP had a lot of endings to the story - I know it was over 50 (that's what the developers said). I just checked and it had 87 endings...wow! That reminds me - I need to download it for my PSP emulator.

[Akun]

I'd like to think that I'm pretty reasonable when it comes to varied endings on an RPG. I didn't complain when Fallout: New Vegas dealt with this problem by making its multiple endings a series of slideshow. I didn't complain with SMT games either because they usually focus on three endings, and these three endings are varied enough that they feel unique and worth the replayability (minus SMT V where the difference only lies in the last hour of the game), at least in comparison to Mass Effect 3. Even the Extended Cut of it looks cheap compared to what SMT games do with their endings.

But again, as I've noted in another thread, this seems to be a western RPG problem and less so for JRPGs. I think it helps that they have visual novels as an influence, and VNs would often contain multiple endings, and it helps that they aren't just dating sims anymore and can contain a wide variety of stories (even gameplay on some titles), so JRPGs might have taken some influence from that. See Digimon Survive.

[Empire]

Infamous for sure! It’s not as good looking as the other games and it’s pretty old, but I really enjoyed the entire series! Easy mode is getting that bad karma, too easy to be evil! The choices are more of your actions rather than speech options. Like if you choose to kill a civilian vs heal them. Or if you subdue a bad guy vs kill them. It’s really a question of do you want to kill a bunch of people or try really hard not to? Lol

[Grungie]

18 hours ago, Akun said:

I'd like to think that I'm pretty reasonable when it comes to varied endings on an RPG. I didn't complain when Fallout: New Vegas dealt with this problem by making its multiple endings a series of slideshow. I didn't complain with SMT games either because they usually focus on three endings, and these three endings are varied enough that they feel unique and worth the replayability (minus SMT V where the difference only lies in the last hour of the game), at least in comparison to Mass Effect 3. Even the Extended Cut of it looks cheap compared to what SMT games do with their endings.

But again, as I've noted in another thread, this seems to be a western RPG problem and less so for JRPGs. I think it helps that they have visual novels as an influence, and VNs would often contain multiple endings, and it helps that they aren't just dating sims anymore and can contain a wide variety of stories (even gameplay on some titles), so JRPGs might have taken some influence from that. See Digimon Survive.

I’d disagree about it being more of a WRPG problem than a JRPG problem.

A large chunk of JRPG’s tend to have one ending and that’s it. You could have been super lucky with only playing ones with multiple endings, but most of the big ones have just a singular ending. Franchises like Final Fantasy, Dragon Wuest, Tails, Ys, Legend of Heroes, etc, have one ending.

[Justin11]

When you say branching are you referring to RPG'S having a definite ending or referring to RPG'S where your gameplay would determine how the game ends.

I haven't seen much of the later but I know as dusk's falls your game play usually determines how the game would end.

[Scorpion]

Absolutely! "The Witcher 3" and "Mass Effect" series offer impactful, branching endings based on choices, satisfying many players' expectations.