The art of the final dungeon
For some reason I have been thinking about Metaphor: ReFantazio again, and while I know I mostly enjoyed my time with the game I find my reminiscence largely lukewarm. I mentioned previously that I think part of the problem is a thematic failure ont he part of the game, introducing one conceptual through-line and then kind of completing throwing it out the window for the final month, which massively impacted my investment in the story overall.
But then I also think about its final dungeon.
By the time I reached the final dungeon of that game I was kind of checked out and ready to just get to the final boss and the ending. Fortunately the dungeon isn't all that demanding, being only a few screens long with a collection of completely optional mini-bosses. Which is fortunate because the dungeon itself is sadly uninspired, being a floating rocky wasteland with a red filter and some pretty oppressive music (appropriately so, but still). At that point in the game I wasn't really in the mood for a lot of challenges and puzzles so beelining to the final boss was exactly what I wanted, but also...
I got to thinking about the RPGs I've played in the past, and their final dungeons, and it occurred to me that, by ad large, this is the same feeling I got in all of them. I'm tired, I'm ready to finish this story, I don't want to deal with this bullshit. Some of them are better. Some of them make the experience better. (The music doesn't have to be oppressive, one of my favorite tracks in any Persona game is P5 Royal's "Gentle Madman"). But I rarely find myself excited by the final push and oftentimes wind up trying to avoid as many fights as possible just to get to the end faster.
The first true RPG I ever played was Grandia, a game I still hold near and dear to my heart, and I definitely remember this phenomenon hitting me back then, when I entered the final boss (it's one of those final dungeons) and didn't so much fight my way to its heart as I did skirt around every encounter I could and focus on forward movement instead of the normal circuitous exploration I had become accustomed to across most of the dungeons' in the game.
Speaking of Persona, I did the same thing in all of those dungeons; do what's necessarily, make sure I grind up enough that I can kill the dungeon monsters easily, charge to the end. Most Final Fantasies are the same: make sure you're confident but minimize encounters and get to the final boss. Tales games? ...are actually pretty polite, as several of their final dungeons are basically a straight shot to the final boss with completely optional side content.
And then I remember when I got stuck in the final dungeon of Star Ocean 4 and wanted to shoot myself in the fucking face holy shit.
Even the beloved Clair Obscur, by the time I went for the final push, was more a matter of just getting to the end than really rooting around Lumiere and soaking in the atmosphere. Part of this was because I'd more or less cleared the map by the time I got there, but there was a massive different in feeling between ascending the Monolith -- test of endurance across all the game's major environments, including a shattered Lumiere -- and pushing through Lumiere proper.
Maybe, I thought, this is just a consequence of reaching the endgame. I don't head into the final dungeon until I'm ready to finish the story, so perhaps it's a sense of finality and impatience. I'm ready for this to be over, and now it feels like the game isn't so much on my side to carry me through the story but now actively fighting against me to allow me to see its ending. Which isn't how that should feel. It's a final challenge. It's the climax of the story. Why does it feel like a wall I'm forced to bash through instead of a mountain I want to climb?
The game that affected my storytelling philosophy the most was Threads of Fate, and that final dungeon is one I'm happy to play. Why? What sets it apart where so many other games collapse?
Most final dungeons are built around one major story beat-- the final boss. You dock your airship (or whatever) at the mouth of their lair, you slog through their fortress and their final minions, and all of the story impact is dumped on you at the end. This is the phenomenon where all the characters come together and start yelling about their motives and the themes of the game and the villain makes his final appeal. On the way there, the gameplay may reach its crescendo, but it often just feels like a sequence of enemies with too much health and not enough challenge standing between you and catharsis.
Threads of Fate gives you a sequence of rooms with a few puzzles -- enough to tickle your brain but not enough to frustrate -- and some unique enemies, and one of my favorite final dungeon themes. It takes maybe an hour to get through the first time you try it, and once you know the paths, you can probably blitz it thirty minutes. It's just long enough to feel like a finale, not so long you wish you were dead. Star Ocean, take notes.
But more importantly, there are still story beats. There are two bosses before the final boss, both of them wrapping up story beats and contributing to the circumstances of the final battle and the inevitable escape. One of them is placed at about the midpoint of the dungeon, giving you a gameplay break (a pretty rough fight coming out of a puzzle section) as well as a moment of story catharsis. Plenty of final dungeons have midbosses, but usually they feel like oh, the final boss summoned a monster to stand in your way! This is a guy who's tormented you consistently for the last couple of hours. This is somebody you want to smack in the face.
Then there's a boss rush room, where you get to feel how much stronger you've become since you first encountered these enemies. Then the confrontation with the main villain who put these events in motion, and for Rue in particular this is the emotional catharsis he's been seeking since the start of the game (although they both have beef with this guy but Mint's confrontation is WAY funnier, he has NO idea why she's so pissed at him). Then, of course, the actual final battle, against a villain who's threat and power the whole game's goal has been circling around.
It's not too long, it's textured, it's emotionally satisfying.
NIER does the same thing.
Yeah, look at that, I got there.
NIER's final dungeon is longer, but it is relentless in the way it keeps yanking you around with different gameplay challenges -- enemy hoards, minibosses, a chase sequence -- and, far more importantly, in how it absolutely assails you with a sequence of story revelations. As soon as you enter the dungeon Devola and Popola are suddenly there telling you to leave (and also teleporting you back to the Village if you decide to, which is pretty funny). When you refuse, they engage in battle, and now you as a player are asking questions: why are they trying to stop me? What are they trying to keep me from understanding?
Even the first 'puzzle' (the dove on the fountain) raises some weird questions about why it's asking these particular questions, and what the right answers mean.
The dungeon has introduced not just an obstacle to the final boss, but events that are forcing you -- as you beat up enemies -- to start asking questions recontextualizing the events of the game as you understand them.
You find Shades dancing peacefully, so engrossed in their waltz that they ignore you. You kill them anyway and force a fight. They unify into the most powerful entity you have encountered on your quest -- a big angry boar -- and this boar turns out to be immortal. She chases you up a flight of stairs, forcing a different gameplay mode of evading obstacles on the stiarwell; nothing fancy, but it gives you a break from combat.
You're forced to face her again, but it's hopeless, until the next story beat activates and the King of Facade shows up with his royal guard, winding back to one of the most memorable characters from the story and finally allowing him to repay his debt. Nier and the party make it into the next hallway while the King and his men hold off the Shade. Big hero moment, swelling music, you feel pumped again. The emotional texture has changed.
Another hallway, and this time you're led to the Twins, who literally throw the backstory out you and then engage at a full-force fight to the death, forcing you to kill these two women who have been fixtures throughout the game, encouraging you, guding your quest. In Replicant, Popola is almost a surrogate mother for Nier and Yonah. And now it's Popola who forces you to kill them both.
You do. Popola responds with a catastrophic detonation, determining that if Devola is dead, there is little worth to anything else, and she's going to take you with her. Emil lets himself be taken by the explosion to allow Nier and Kaine to finish what's been started.
The story has crescendoed. The emotional texture has changed. Everybody involved is crying, except for Kaine, who is beating the shit out of Nier because she's bad at emotions. You have the choice now to read the documents the twins gave you. Or not. It doesn't matter. There is a hollowness to your journey now, and the game knows it.
Also the King died after finally killing your boar friend so if you weren't already upset here's another opportunity.
The final push is a single hallways filled with relatively weak Shades. They exist only to force you forward, toward the final door. If the game had lingered much longer, it would have broken its spell-- but it doesn't. This is just enough time to let you transition back into combat mode, just enough time to let you rest before you open those doors.
And the final monologue from the villain?
It doesn't need to. Nier doesn't need to tell the Shadowlord that he understands what he was doing but he has a Yonah to save as well. The Shadowlord makes no final appeals. You, as a player, are emotionally spent. All you have left is violence.
And in the middle of the fight your asshole talking book, your longest and most snide companion, sees fit to sacrifice himself, on top of everybody else you've lost. And then berates you for being sad about it. Jackass.
The game knows where you are, as a player. You are no longer psyched to kill the bad guy. You're gutted, you're tired, you may not even remember why you're here anymore, you just know that this is the final boss and you have to finish it.
This is not the same as trudging your way through a long, annoying hallway that seems intent on siphoning all the forward momentum you had approaching the final boss. This has been a cruel roller coaster intent on keeping you engaged on every level that a video game can-- the shifting interaction with the gameplay, the climactic revelations of the story beats, the emotional brutality of losing characters you don't just like in a passive sense but whom have been with you, fighting alongside you, know everything you've been through.
I can't speak with quite the same detail about the Automata final dungeon (I've only been through it the once) but I definitely recall it follows the same philosophy of pacing gameplay shifts with constant emotional and story revelations that keep you constantly engaged on multiple fronts. The story isn't over-- it's still twisting, it's still evolving, and it's still stabbing you in the gut.
