The reason I fell in love with this game early on was because I connected with the themes of struggle and self sacrifice for future generations. In Act 1 and Act 2, that is clearly the focus of the game. We need to defeat the Paintress to make the sacrifices of all the prior expeditions worth it. I didn’t expect that narrative to necessarily be straightforward, but I DID expect that theme of self sacrifice for a better future would be paid off in some way…Boy was I wrong.

When you fight the final boss in Act 3 (which is way too easy btw), you are presented with a decision to either destroy the canvas (Verso’s ending) or save the canvas by forcing Verso to continue to live and Verso’s soul to continue to paint. (Maelle’s ending).

In my playthrough, I chose Maelle’s ending originally because I wanted to see my mission to completion. This whole journey we’ve been fighting and struggling to save the people of Lumiere (very clearly real people with free will, trauma, and complex emotional depth).

But the way the game presents this ending is odd. It almost tries to portray this as Maelle not accepting reality, and not focusing on the real world which is more important. The message seems to be that you should accept reality and let these people die. Which, like…wtf.

I care about my party members. I spent the whole game with them.

Then I went back and watched Verso’s ending separately and whew man this is what really set me off. We just let everyone fucking die except the Dessendres, and this is pretty clearly presented as the “good ending”. The colors are more vibrant, the music is more hopefull, the Dessendre family is together, and they are ready to greive and move on with their life.

Like I get what they were trying to do here, but I really don’t think this works from a narrative perspective.

The Dessendre family represents the “meta” narrative. They are stand ins for the for the player and people in reality. So the meta narrative is telling you that the world the painters built isn’t important and isn’t worth saving. And actually the fact that you might enjoy playing this game, is used as a meta narrative beat to make you feel guilty for wanting to stay in the world longer.

The goals of the main narrative, on the other hand, (ya know…“Expedition 33”) are completely thrown away and not really even acknowledged in either ending. Even if you choose Maelle’s ending there really is no self sacrifice. Everyone comes back; Gustave, all the people of Lumiere who were Gommaged, presumably anyone that Maelle has a memory of. And her argument for staying in the canvas isn’t because these people deserve to exist. The only justification she gives when speaking to Verso is “I need them”.

I don’t think either of these endings are “good”. I don’t mean that in a way where " there are pros and cons to both sides, you have to choose which pros and which cons you value you more". I mean, neither ending works to sufficiently as narrative resolution. And this gets into my biggest complaint about the game:

Verso

This guy is such a fucking twat and so unlikeable once you realize what his game is. He has the same goals as Renoir, he just hides his motivations from the party until the final moment of the game.

First off, when we’re introduced to his character it’s after the death of Gustave. In a conversation with Maelle at the camp, Verso admits that he could have saved Gustave but he chose to let him die. The reason being that Maelle wouldn’t have joined him otherwsie. Dude, wtf, the expedition is on a journey to defeat the Paintress, of course they would welcome your help. You’re already fucking lying to them, so I’m sure you’re capable of lying in a scenario where you save Gustave. Actually it would probably help to have 6 of you guys if you really want to expel your family from the Canvas.

Second, we go all of Act 2 with Verso withholding information, being super dodgy, not telling the party Renoir is his dad and who he actually is. Then at the end of Act 2, he betrays the party by helping Renoir kill everybody in existence in Lumiere.

Third, the party forgives him for that for some fucking reason and we continue on to the final fight in Act 3 where he betrays everyone yet again.

This is the would be protaganist who replaced someone who was far more noble and selfless. And then he doesn’t have any character arc, he’s just a bitch at the beginning and a bitch at the end.

Like why do you even have relationship levels with your party? You’ve clearly made up your mind that they don’t deserve to exist.

Sorry, for my vulgarity and rambling. This is just something I wanted to get off my chest. I find it pretty disappointing when a piece of media that I’m enjoying botches the ending.