Was anyone else letdown/upset over the ending to the Deponia series? I was. Maybe we'll get lucky and there will be another game in the series, but until then... that ending was such a letdown to a great series.

*potential spoilers*
yeah. It really didnt feel like an end to the series. We know Elysium is sinking and deponia is an environmentally unstable place.. and we dont know whats going to happen. Further, the game spends the whole time showing us why it doesnt matter much if rufus dies since hes just a bunch of clones who can keep coming back... so him dying doesnt feel conclusive at all.
Its a shame too.. because i liked the game and thought it had some of the best puzzle scenarios in the series.

Yeah, was very disappointed by the ending as well. Not sure if I would pick up another game from the series, if they would make one. Three games without a proper ending in either one would make it hard for me to even bother with yet another sequel.

::spoilers::








It really sucks that Rufus dies for sure, but what's worse is that Cletus get's rewarded for Rufus becoming a better person. It seems like Goal knows that it's Cletus but she's trying to convince herself that it's Rufus so that she can be happy, and Cletus has no choice but to act like Rufus for the rest of his life... still there were the genetic differences between them and Cletus will always be a bastard. That's the way I interpret it.

I was very disappointed. I replayed the ending puzzles just to see if there was some chance to get a different ending because I was so saddened by it. However, as Zavlin pointed out, because of the cloning, Rufus' death is not entirely convincing. And if Goal and the Elysians live, maybe they'll need to to make a new Rufus or go down and try to find him in order to solve their problem, since Cletus certainly isn't up to the task both intellectually and willfully.

If Daedalic does make a 4th entry in the series, I will certainly buy it. I agree with Zavlin that Goodbye Deponia had the best puzzles by far, and really it was my favorite adventure game I've ever played. The whole series was fantastic except the ending, and each one was better than the previous installment. I really do hope they make a fourth one. Unfortunately, before the 3rd game was released I seem to recall hearing that it was planned to be a trilogy.

Oh well, if they made enough money the end does seem to be open enough to make a fourth one that is more fair. Also, we don't know exactly what happened to Argus yet, do we? Sure, it was implied that he fell and died like Rufus did, but you never know... more ridiculous things have happened in the game, like at the beginning of the first game when Rufus fell from the Organon cruiser into the bed of cacti. If he can survive that, why not a fall from the highboat?

Keeping my fingers crossed...

For anyone else looking for a bit of insight into the ending of the series, I found this over on the official Daedalic forums. It's from the writer of the games, Poki:

"Wow!

I am extremely impressed by this discussion. I've been reading some postings, that issued and discussed the exact same questions I've been pondering about for the past years.

They say, the author should be silent so his work can speak for him. Nevertheless, here are some of my thoughts, you can see for yourself how they fit into the big puzzle that is Deponia:

They say, you lose your ideals when you grow older. We all are on this planet only for a limited time, so it's just realistic to settle your goals with what's achieveable. The ability to learn from experience, which plans will fail and which ones will be succesful, is called reason. So it's reason that makes you settle down with your ideals. But we admire "courageous" people, who keep their goals, even if they've become highly unrealistic.

Rufus is such a person - in perfection. He wants to achieve the impossible, symbolised by Elysium. But the closer he gets to Elysium, the clearer it gets, that there will always be another goal for him: Elysium, Utopia... and then?
Rufus can't settle down peacefully without becoming something he hates. He could have had "A life of peace and satisfaction" in Kuvaq already, had he been willing to clean up a little bit and be satisfied with his life. But that's not the kind of guy he is.

In the end, the central conflict of the game are the two conflicts, that are discussed here - to reach the end or just keep on going forever?

You can imagine how hard it is to find a fitting end for this conflict. It seems impossible. But I'm too much Rufus myself in this regard... ;)

P.S.: It gets even more interesting when you consider that this whole conflict isn't even Rufus' conflict essentially. Rufus already chose Chaos before the game even started and is very unmoveable in this regard throughout the whole trilogy. It's actually Goal, who brings the conflict to the game and carries it for most of the time. She's the one who's indecisive - and the rotor-situation isn't a metaphore for her indecisiveness by accident."


You can read and join in the whole discussion here:
http://forum.daedalic.de/viewtopic.php?f=169&t=4319

My biggest issue is not only with the ending itself (which was, quite simply, awful), but the lack of any development, or even closure with any of the characters. I loved the characters to death in the series, and I felt each had a wonderfully bizarre personality that had me genuinely intrigued. But, as the game drew to a close, I came upon the realization that through the whole series, each character was entirely static with no depth whatsoever. Goal is split into three personalities in the second game, and either a baby or gone in the third, so you can hardly get to know her. Rufus is the same old jerk doofus he was from the start, learning absolutely nothing throughout all his experiences (and, in fact, sometimes getting worse). All the characters are like this, being not dynamic, but, again, static. Surprisingly, even Bozo appeared more complex than Rufus.

That is, until the very end, in which Rufus has a spontaneous change of heart and decides to die for Deponia. Why now? Why so sudden? I don't know, the ending was awful. Not only did it give no closure whatsoever, but it ended the series with an extremely high amount of loose threads that simply beg answers.

But, the games were great besides that. I loved the gameplay, I adored the animation and style, and, despite the nonexistent depth within the characters, I thoroughly enjoyed them and the story. They were all extremely likable, even with their lack of depth. I just feel so bad when a series gets so close to being even better, with endless potential, but doesn't succeed at doing so even though I so desperately wish it could. But, those are just my two-cents on the ending and the series as a whole.

Am I the only one who liked the ending?

SPOILERS AHEAD


Rufus was a different clone. Hermes said he had hope, which made him unique. That element made him a noble person, and while he caused pain to many around him, he was able to come to peaceful terms with everybody. Bozo's reaction after you anger him is probably a proof of this. And, in my opinion, it became quite evident through the series that Rufus' interest shifted from getting to Elysium to being with Goal. Yeah, she suffered many times due to his behaviour, but he always came back to her. He could just leave after getting the codes, and, in fact, he was about to do that. Also I think the fact that he said "save yourself Goal" proved both to us and to Goal that he was the true Rufus, because both Cletus and Argus had hidden agendas. In the end, I couldn't bring myself to completely hate Cletus, though. He's not as bad as Argus was IMHO. That sad expression on Goal's face and what she said under the truth serum (I love Rufus) proved to me that she knew Cletus was the survivor, and she just let him go as a fake Rufus because, well, his loved one simply died. And yeah, I think he died, because Hermes is not around to clone him anymore.

You could say that it sucks to see Cletus as the good guy and Rufus falling to his death, but I don't imagine what could have been better for an ending to the series. I wonder what happened to Toni, Bozo, Doc and the others, though.

The end is surprisingly unhappy for a mostly lighthearted adventure. Also it leaves a lot of questions open. I think it's not very rewarding for the player...

Edit: the bottom line seems to be: you can be an asshole your whole life and get away with it, but the moment you do something right you die and the bad guy gets the girl. well...

I wouldn't say it's not a proper ending. While 1 and 2 were clearly cliff hanger endings, 3 had a definite "The End" ending even if it wasn't as satisfying and one could have hoped for.

What I meant with "not a proper ending" is what Notoremo wrote in this paragraph:

"That is, until the very end, in which Rufus has a spontaneous change of heart and decides to die for Deponia. Why now? Why so sudden? I don't know, the ending was awful. Not only did it give no closure whatsoever, but it ended the series with an extremely high amount of loose threads that simply beg answers."

But my main point was just that I was agreeing with the others that felt unsatisfied with the ending.

I found the ending a little confusing since the falling figure's laugh sounded rather like Cletus but the survivor was clearly not Rufus, plus there was no precedent for the player to control anyone but Rufus, or a Rufus at least. In general I think the rather significant fact that the (anti-)hero and the two main villains were in some sense the same person was not exploited very well.

Was it meant to mirror Goal being split into three parts? Selfish and haughty (Cletus/Lady Goal), direct and violent (Argus/Spunky Goal), and optimistic and stupid (Rufus/Baby Goal)? I think hearing of Elysium's problem's in the final scene was making the point that it's not a paradise like Rufus was looking for; it has problems like anywhere else.

I don't recall Deponia being depicted as decaying. Indeed, for planet essentially named "junk pile" it's generally rather pleasant and even picturesque. The Rust Red Sea is a actually a pretty blue, for instance. Argus did what he did to save the Organon from being betrayed and destroyed. Although it becomes somewhat unclear later in the game, Cletus' motivation was apparently to travel to Utopia on Elysium and was willing to kill all of Deponia to do so. In other words Cletus was the same as Rufus without the shred of conscience that made the latter turn back at the end of Part 1.

I do understand perfectly WHY it needed to end like this. If someone can't understand it, watch the movie 'Blood Diamond'. I understand it, it does feel right, but it gives the whole series a painfully dark tone.
The ending was almost as painful as the hastily created ending of the Mass Effect series!