Everyone has a role to play in a standard fairy tale. There’s the helpless damsel in distress, the brave hero who embarks on an ambitious quest to save her, and the big, bad villain who stands in his way. These stories always end with the guy getting the girl after vanquishing great evil.
But not in Bad End Theater. This title deconstructs the fairy tale genre and defies these age-old expectations and character tropes in a way that is equal parts fun and clever.
There are four main leads in Bad End Theater: the Hero, Maiden, Demon Overlord, and Underling. They live in a world shared by both demons and humans, who have been embroiled in constant conflict for as long as anyone can remember.
The story kicks off with the Maiden purposely seeking out the demons, thinking that it must be her destiny. As one might expect, this sets off an entire chain reaction of events that the rest of the cast must contend with. However, no matter what anyone does, the story always ends in tragedy. Is there any way that everyone can be happy?
While trophy hunting in Bad End Theater, you will discover the answer to this question. Read on to find out what our completionist experience with the game was like and whether we’d recommend it to other trophy hunters!
Table of Contents
Why Bad End Theater?
This isn’t my first foray into the world of Bad End Theater. I originally played it on Steam Deck about a year ago and had a blast earning all of its achievements. When I realized it had made the jump to PlayStation consoles, I just had to add its platinum trophy to my list.
I loved the game so much that buying it twice was well worth the investment in my eyes. Supporting the developer NomnomNami so that she can hopefully continue to create amazing games is just icing on the cake.
The three major things that attracted me to Bad End Theater in the first place were its art, music, and themes.
I’ve always been fond of colorful pixel designs, especially when they are drawn in a cute and exaggerated style. Bad End Theater’s characters and background silhouettes are oozing with exactly the type of charm that I adore in visual media.
Furthermore, the music is varied for each protagonist’s story and adds so much whimsy to their adventures. Not only that, but each song also adds a significant amount of personality to these characters that simply cannot be done with writing alone. I occasionally find myself booting the game up just to listen to the soundtrack. For example, it’s almost impossible to be in a bad mood when you’re vibing to the Maiden’s song.
I’ve also always been partial to tragedies in storytelling, so this game was checking all the boxes. More than 40 different endings that are all some flavor of hopeless, dark, and depressing? And with bonus romantic subtext? Sign me up!
Although the game is incredibly short, it is packed with meaningful content. Beautifully detailed full arts and thought-provoking events give Bad End Theater staying power that lasts well after you set the game down. While I completed the platinum trophy in under two hours, that doesn’t make the game any less worthy of respect.
Between recommending the game to friends and experiencing several full playthroughs just for fun, I’ve spent far longer than two hours with the game on my mind.
The Trophy Hunt
Get All the Endings
When you first launch Bad End Theater, you will be greeted with a brief tutorial that explains the game’s mechanics. In short, you determine the actions of the cast to influence the course of the story.
At the start, you will not be able to change any of their behaviors until you unlock them by progressing their individual stories and selecting the indicated option. However, once they start appearing in the main menu, you can freely dictate how each character will act with the others, even when playing through someone else’s story.
This is important because different combinations of these behaviors interacting in a variety of situations are how you unlock the vast majority of the game’s endings.
The first step in the trophy hunt is simply to experience the game. Go through all four protagonists’ storylines, unlock all their toggleable behaviors, and experiment with different combinations of them.
If you’re struggling to figure out which endings you’re missing, you can check your progress in the menu. Each character has a branching decision tree that you can follow to see what behaviors are required for any given ending.
Once you’ve seen all the endings for a single protagonist, you will unlock a special letter that can be viewed in the top right section of the main menu. Successfully doing so for all four protagonists will unlock a trophy.
When you’re ready to see the game through to its conclusion, you must see the true ending for the Maiden. You (yes, literally you!) will be able to intervene in the story and change how things play out.
Lose the Final Battle
Before you get too ahead of yourself, you must lose the final fight against Tragedy. This is required for the trophy “YOUR BAD END.” After summoning your friends to help, you will be given a handful of options to select from to fend off Tragedy.
The correct options are displayed in the image above (Willpower, Hope, Tenacity, and Ambition); however, you should select the other options in order to get the bad ending first.
Reset the Game
After failing the battle against Tragedy, you can challenge them again by revisiting the Maiden’s true ending route. This time, you should aim to win!
Once you experience the ultimate ending for Bad End Theater and learn the truth behind the story, the narrator will prompt you to reset the game. You won’t be able to play the game at all at this point until you select an option to reset.
If you haven’t completed all the endings or failed the final fight yet, you should opt to simply return to the state before the true ending and continue collecting what you’ve missed.
Otherwise, you should choose to completely reset the game to its original state. Once you do, all your progress is wiped clean and you’ll earn the trophy “TOTAL RESET.” If you’ve done everything correctly, this will unlock alongside the platinum trophy.
If you want to have a 100% file at this point, you’ll have to run through everything all over again! Thankfully, you don’t need to do so for any achievements (only our respect).
Short But (Bitter)Sweet
Bad End Theater ends all too soon. It’s incredible just how wide an emotional range the game manages to achieve despite its admittedly short length. In just two hours, you become well acquainted with four compelling characters and the fantasy world that seeks to blot out their light.
I would have loved to see this formula expanded upon with even more endings and branching paths. It would have been a dream to have 5-10x as much content, delivered with the same high level of care that the developer NomnomNami has demonstrated in her work.
It is truly a shame that many trophy hunters will avoid this title simply because of its easy requirements and brief length. Bad End Theater will likely settle at a 90% or higher completion rate on PSN Profiles in the long-term.
Despite these facts, I would never classify the game as a shovelware title. While it is true that it can be used as easy filler for die-hard trophy hunters, that does not mean the game was developed for that purpose.
Bad End Theater has value beyond its platinum trophy. There is a meaningful story, beautiful art and music, and engaging gameplay mechanics. There is so much more to the game than its ability to add +1 to a trophy hunter’s metrics.
If you’re not sure what it means for a game to be considered shovelware in the trophy hunting community, you can learn all about it in my article here.
Conclusion
Bad End Theater is an engaging ride from start to finish. Although I’ve already completed the game three times over at this point, I can still see myself returning in the future. I will also be keeping an eye out for future works from the same developer.
What was your favorite ending in Bad End Theater? Do you relate more to the chaotic energy of the Underling, or the serious quality of the Overlord?
If you liked reading about our experience with Bad End Theater, you might also get a kick out of reading our deep dive into the Danganronpa series, another visual novel adjacent title. We discuss every single game in the series and what it’s like to get their platinum trophies!
Leave a Reply