Please Note: This post isn't going to be as detailed as my Period Cube bad ending posts. I originally wasn't going to make a post on this, but I'm bored so I just want to type down some quick general thoughts. Also, there's going to be no screenshots here, sorry.
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About two months after completing Collar X Malice, I decided to go back to collect some bad endings, and of course, the trophies that you get awarded upon finding them. Even though to get a platinum trophy you have to first collect every single ending the game has to offer, I couldn't be bothered to do that, so I only went for the endings that have CGs, the Tragic Love endings. That meant that afterwards, I got some cute completion CGs! I had seen these floating around the Web before, but I thought that they were from the fan-disc. In the past, I had gotten some bad endings, but none of them had CGs, except one that I exited out of to correct my mistakes before I could get to the image.
(BEWARE OF SPOILERS DOWN BELOW!)
I went straight into the endings instead of re-reading the game, so sometimes I had no idea what was going on, but most of the time I could actually remember the plot quite well, so that was quite good.
The first ending I went through was Enomoto's. This one was super sad! Ichika shoots that blonde person (forgot his name, sorry) to save Mineo, and then just stops the X-Day crimes and stops talking to him. Why? Because I'm pretty sure that he wanted to save that blonde person (I really should look up his name!), but Ichika just killed him so now he can't be helped at all, because you know, he's dead.
Ichika doesn't get arrested even though she technically murdered someone, because it was self-defence. She decides to leave the police and go back home to run her parents' inn so that her brother can be free to pursue music or whatever. But then guess who she sees through the window just as the train's about to pull out? Enomoto's there, and he bangs on the window and asks her why she abandoned her values (I think that's what he said?) and shot that man. Ichika just says that she's sorry, but Enomoto screams at her to wait. Then the train leaves the station and he shouts something else, but it's inaudible. Then the game ends.
If I was a more emotional person, this ending might've made me cry. It's quite depressing, especially with the CG of Mineo through the window. These are the kinds of tragic ends I love, where the characters still have feelings for each other, but things don't work out so they have to leave. I want to find out what happens afterwards, but I suppose it's open to interpretation. I think I heard somewhere that the limited edition version of the fan-disc contains something about the aftermaths of these endings, but my Japanese will be too crappy to understand them.
Next, I went for Sasazuka's ending. When I first played his route, I got a CG-less bad ending where he just takes Ichika's collar off and joins Adonis. I had also heard of a really depressing ending in his route where our heroine gets shot and he starts crying or something, I thought that one was going to be the Tragic Love ending, but it wasn't, luckily. I don't really like seeing other people break down and cry, so I'm glad that I didn't get to see that today.
This Tragic Love ending almost seemed like a good ending at first, so much that I was beginning to think that this was a part of the good ending that I had forgotten about. Everything goes quite smoothly, the X-Day incidents get solved, and everybody lives happily ever after. One day, Ichika's hanging out with her boyfriend, Sasazuka. We get a CG of him giving her this cute little necklace as a gift. Nothing seems depressing here, right?
But then Ichika states that it was the last conversation she ever had with him. I was expecting the worst, that Sasazuka was gonna die, but nope, he went off to America to track some Adonis people down and never came back. He didn't even keep in contact his with own girlfriend. What a prick! Maybe he did actually die then, but then wouldn't someone tell Ichika about it? Did he actually even travel to America anyway, or was it just a lie because he was too wimpy to actually break up with his own girlfriend? I suppose I may never know. It is quite depressing, but still, I don't think it's as bad as the other endings....
Okazaki's ending was probably the worst. In the final battle climax bit of his route, Ichika gets shot. I can't remember what happened before that because I skipped through it all. She dies and my poor Kei just breaks down into tears, it's really sad. He says that he can't live without her and puts a gun to his head, but then he remembers that she wanted him to survive, so he can't kill himself because it wouldn't be what she wanted. He thinks that Ichika's dead because he had failed to protect her. Then Zero pops up and offers to shoot Kei and.... I can't remember how it ends. I think Okazaki blames Zero for Ichika's death and vows to stop him and Adonis. It ends in one of them dying, I think.
This ending was just brutal. I wish I could say more but it's hard to describe how I felt about these other than just sad or depressed. To be honest though, I don't let these bad endings affect my emotions that much, so luckily none of this altered my mood for the rest of the day. But if I had come across this ending by accident on my first playthrough, it would've made me feel a lot worse because it would've been my game choices that caused it, not just me going into the menu, selecting a chapter and altering the affection meter.
Shiraishi's Tragic Love ending was a little bit weird. Ichika starts working for Adonis, and becomes their personal killer. She kills so many people, including Yanagi and the others, that she becomes an emotionless shell of her former self, who doesn't even know if she's dead or alive. As a reward for her good work, the higher ups at Adonis let her have Shiraishi to play with. Unfortunately, he's had his voice taken out. All he does is cries, and Ichika says that he's probably doing it for her because she has no tears left to shed.
The reason why I think this ending is a bit strange is because of the CG. It's really pretty and all that, but I'm not really sure what Shiraishi's supposed to be doing in it? It looks like he's naked too...... It's just a bit creepy and odd, but I still like it. This ending is also super depressing because Ichika has to literally kill all of her friends and other random people for the group she tried to stop. I honestly can't remember why she joined Adonis in the first place, I'm sure it was to protect Shiraishi or something.
There were now two final endings for me to complete. The first one is in Chapter Six of Yanagi's route. Ichika tries to shoot Saeki in the police headquarters, but he manages to kidnap her and take her to Adonis' headquarters. Yanagi and the Gang try to rescue her, but he shoots them all.
When our heroine wakes up, she sees the bodies of her dead friends, then Saeki pops up and they have a little conversation. Saeki tells her about his motives and all that, then he tells Ichika that she really does sympathise with Adonis. He asks her to join him, and she accepts. There's a CG of Ichika taking his hands, and in the background, you can see Yanagi's dead body. Ichika vows to eventually destroy Saeki and his terrorist group, then it ends. This ending was actually a little bit romantic. I thought that it was just a regular bad ending, but according to the trophy I got for it, this is actually Saeki's route? It's like Kazama's ending in the original Hakuoki games, they're both really way too short to be called "routes".
It would be cool if Saeki had a proper route though. He was such a sweet guy before we found out who he actually was. I think that he'd make an interesting love interest, what with him being a villain and all that. It sort of reminded me of the secret route in Sweet Fuse, actually. The CG for this was super pretty though, even though it was depressing and it did have a dead body in the background.
The final ending I got was Yanagi's Tragic Love end. To get this end you don't need to have low affection, you just have to miss the shots you have to fire in the final fight scene. I actually got this ending my mistake on my first playthrough, but as soon as it started I knew what was going to happen, so I rewinded it so that I could get the best ending instead.
I think Yanagi ends up getting shot, but my memory's really hazy at this bit (even though I played it last!), so I think Ichika gets really angry, and thinks he's gonna die. Even though Yanagi pleas with her not to, she shoots Saeki and manages to kill him. Then I think it cuts to Yanagi's perspective, a few months into the future. Everything's going great in the world, Adonis was thwarted, X-Day was stopped and Shinjuku's no longer under quarantine. However, Aiji's not feeling too happy. Ichika just went and left, and he has no idea where she went. I think that she went back to her hometown like she did in Enomoto's bad ending. He says that even though things are perfect, he didn't want this. He wanted to thrive in this happy world with Ichika, not alone. He doesn't know where she went, but he vows to find her, so that they can live happily ever after. Does he manage to find her? I don't know. It faded to black before I could find out. There's a nice CG of Yanagi looking up at the sky, all alone.
This ending was sad, but not as bad as the others because nobody actually dies, except Saeki, but he deserved it so it doesn't count. There's still hope for happiness here though, the same with Enomoto and Sasazuka's endings. They all still have a chance to track Ichika down and make things right again. Maybe I should write a fan-fiction for this? But with Okazaki and Shiraishi's endings, things are quite tragic so it's harder to save things. I can't remember if Kei dies or not, but if he's alive, he could try to seek help and move on from Ichika's passing, but things still won't be that perfect because there'll be no happy romance ending. In Shiraishi's ending, I suppose Ichika could escape with him somehow, but she's a murderer who probably doesn't really want to live anymore. It'd probably be almost impossible to make things happy for her again.
I'm glad I read through all of these endings. I was thinking of going through them before, but I really wanted to move on and play Diabolik Lovers, so I decided not to in the end. The completion CGs were awesome too, especially Okazaki's one. I'd seen most of them before, but it didn't really matter. I don't think I have a favourite out of these Tragic Love Endings, but it would probably be either Enomoto or Yanagi's because they feel like they're from romance films or something.
After this, I was going to go through Amnesia's normal and bad endings, but for some reason I couldn't find the feature that let me select an exact chapter to start from, and I wasn't willing to skip through entire routes, so I didn't bother. Maybe if I decide to read the routes again in the future, I'll do it then instead.
I have no idea how to conclude this post now. Well, I suppose I'll just say goodbye then. Bye. Have a nice day.
:)
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