End Game

[Slothy]

You mention that you can still unite them to get the ultimate ending, which sounds kind of like Skyrim's faction quests mixed up with the multiple endings you can get in many games rather than completely different plots (correct me if I'm wrong!). I'm more thinking of a game where there are two or more sides you could join up to, but that you could only join up to one side for the rest of that playthrough. Basically forcing you to restart from that save if you were to want to check out the other plots available. Imagine if you could be a freedom fighter who frees the world from Shinra... or if you could join Shinra and then go up the ranks there and get rid of those freedom fighters. Two completely different stories... in one world/game. One interesting take on this is Crysis and Crysis Warhead, which saw the same plot from the view of two different good guys who were on the same team. I thought it was pretty well done, but couldn't help but think "How awesome would it be if a company did that without me having to pay for two games?"

The thing about Way of the Samurai though is that the entire plot is very different depending on your actions throughout the game. Even to get the ultimate ending of uniting the factions against their common enemy you play out a completely different series of events than if you simply join any one of them, and if I'm not mistaken it even required that you not join one specific faction to accomplish. And even when it comes to joining them, there are multiple ways the stories can play out depending on everything from the choices you actively make to the battles you may unintentionally lose.

It's a hard concept to get your head around without playing it, but the game essentially took place over the course of a few days in a small town in Japan. Each day played out with events happening in the morning, afternoon, evening, night, etc. But there were many different events happening with all of the factions at different times of day in different parts of the town. Anytime you went to an area and completed a major story event time would progress and new events would take place. Some were somewhat static and would stay the same regardless of your previous choices, but many times, what was available changed based on which events you had previously completed and the choices you made there. It was a wonderful system filled with more possibilities than most people would even take the time to explore. A lot of games with player choice make a big deal about the game being different each play through when it's really just the minutia of major events which changes more often than not. But if you played through Way of the Samurai more than once it had the potential to legitimately be a completely different experience on subsequent playthroughs with the only repetition being the initial events of the game (which succeeding or failing in themselves drastically changed how the story would play out). If you watched two separate people play the game for the first time, odds are you'd see two completely different games. To the point that if it weren't for the graphics, gameplay, and characters being the same you'd think they weren't the same game.

That game had more complexity in it's branching story and player choice than most developers dare do more than dream of these days. And yes, it does include letting you join the obvious good or bad guys in the game, though the real irony is that doing so will not get you the good ending.