Persona 4 is one of my favorite games. It seems made for me; I live for stories about teenagers and the supernatural, plus there's a murder mystery and human, well-developed characters—some of which are queer—and an exploration of Jungian psychology. Yet, as much as Persona 4 has everything I adore, it also has something I abhor: a bad ending.
Persona 4 (the original not Golden) has three endings: a bad ending, a good ending, and a true ending. The true ending is objectively the best ending; you successfully solve the mystery plaguing the town.
These bad and good endings are common in games, yet they're frustrating and uninteresting. Games are a medium about choice, but you can't have meaningful choice if there is a correct answer. Endings like these do not offer choice, because there is an objectively best ending. The other endings are just alternate lose conditions.
Imagine if in the middle of a movie you were given the option: would you like to turn off the movie now? It sounds silly but this, in reality, is the scenario Persona 4 presents with its endings. The endings that are not the true ending simply end the game a little earlier with the bad ending being particularly egregious. I cannot imagine playing Persona 4, getting the bad ending, turning off the game, and never playing it again. Yet, that is what the game suggests you do, because they falsely label the bad ending as an ending: a valid conclusion to their story. Persona 4's developers mislead the player by calling the bad ending an ending and by pretending that there is a choice in which ending players receive when there is no meaningful choice.
However, the most frustrating thing about Persona 4's endings is that they encourage and fetishize perfection. They suggest that there is such a thing as the perfect ending. In the real world, bad and good endings don’t exist; you can't make the right choices and have the perfect life. So why should they exist in games? Life is never simply good or bad; it is always somewhere in between. Developers must stop coddling players with inane assumptions that all games are escapist and fantasy. Let's create stories that feel more like real life and create choices that are difficult for the player to make—choices that require some sort of sacrifice. Let's feel free to challenge our players. Let's stop making good and bad endings.