Games that change the story upon replay.

After playing Nier: Automata, a title where replaying the game changes the story and you have to get multiple endings to get the full story, what constitutes as beating it? Does the first ending counts as beating it?

This is more similar to Sonic Heroes than a SMT or Mass Effect game.

The first ending you get would count as Main Story completion, any other endings beyond that I would qualify as Main + Extras.

The first ending you get would count as Main Story completion, any other endings beyond that I would qualify as Main + Extras.

Even though it's technically the first part of the main story?

Even though it's technically the first part of the main story?

The front page defines Main Story as "You complete the main objectives, just enough to see the credits roll."

The first ending is just that: an ending. The plot concludes and the credits roll. If we only count getting every ending as "Main Story" then that's going to invalidate a lot of playthroughs from people who only got the first ending. Based on Automata's completion list, it looks like most people are submitting their Multiple or All Endings playthroughs as Main+Extras anyway.

To jump in with my own example, take Chaos Rings. That game has four campaigns, but you only need to play one in order to get to the end and ostensibly have done "a playthrough." However, it's only by beating all four campaigns that you get the entire story, since each campaign focuses on a different set of characters, and because that's the only way to unlock the true ending.

So yeah, a good rule of thumb is "if I reached the credits, that's main completion." (Unless you did a bunch of sidequests, too, then that's obviously main+.)

So how many games use this mechanic? I think it's pretty cool and unique. Specifically I'm talking about games where you start over from the beginning, but the story changes somehow. Or you use knowledge from your previous playthrough to alter the course of the story. Off the top of my head I can think of:

All three "Drakengard" games
Both "Nier" games
Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter
Bravely Default 1&2
Ico (sort of - you can understand the shadow people's language)
Chrono Trigger

Any others?

Bastion does this in New Game Plus, where the narrator will tell the same story but add things like "Well, isn't this familiar...?"

Well, playing the game after ending B is a dramatic shift as it is very obvious that the story is no where near complete; probably just bast the half-way mark. But for the sake of this site I'll log it as Main+Extra as it is a playthrough.

(Being sarcastic here) Since I can also roll credits within the 30sec of the game, does that count too?????????? (Very sarcastic)

I'd disagree with Ending A counting as "main story beat", as the story very clearly continues on following playthroughs. It's not a New Game+, Routes B and C feature significant new content.
And if we take the "see the credits roll" rule literally, by getting one of the optional endings you can finish the game in less than four minutes from completely new save file without skipping cut-scenes. This is counting the time it takes takes the game to boot on Steam, creating the save file and for the first stage to load.

Log it as whatever you want, but people are going to get the first ending and submit it as Main Story. I just don't think it's anybody's place to say that their submissions are wrong.

The front page defines Main Story as "You complete the main objectives, just enough to see the credits roll."

The first ending is just that: an ending. The plot concludes and the credits roll. If we only count getting every ending as "Main Story" then that's going to invalidate a lot of playthroughs from people who only got the first ending. Based on Automata's completion list, it looks like most people are submitting their Multiple or All Endings playthroughs as Main+Extras anyway.

The problem with this definition in this particular case is that the first ending isn't actually the conclusion to the story at all. It kind of pretends to be a conclusion, but it only actually covers the first half of the game's main story (in terms of both gameplay and story content). It's not like most games with multiple endings, where the first ending you get is one conclusion to the story but if you replace you'll get alternate conclusions. In Nier: Automata, the first ending is almost more like the credits rolling halfway through the game than it is an actual ending.

I mean, you're right that people who get to the first time the credits role and then stop playing are going to log it as "main story", but I would also argue that anyone who does that hasn't actually finished the main story at all. The "second playthrough" is kind of an extra, but the "third playthrough" isn't an extra, it's literally the second half of the game's main campaign.

The problem with this definition in this particular case is that the first ending isn't actually the conclusion to the story at all. It kind of pretends to be a conclusion, but it only actually covers the first half of the game's main story (in terms of both gameplay and story content). It's not like most games with multiple endings, where the first ending you get is one conclusion to the story but if you replace you'll get alternate conclusions. In Nier: Automata, the first ending is almost more like the credits rolling halfway through the game than it is an actual ending.

I mean, you're right that people who get to the first time the credits role and then stop playing are going to log it as "main story", but I would also argue that anyone who does that hasn't actually finished the main story at all. The "second playthrough" is kind of an extra, but the "third playthrough" isn't an extra, it's literally the second half of the game's main campaign.

I do get what you're saying but there just isn't a solution for it. Look at the list of Main Story completions for this game. Of the ones that have completion comments, 18 of them say "Ending A" and only 7 of them (not counting the duplicate entry) say "All Main Endings." Under Main + Extras, there's about 26 for "All Main Endings." And in Completionists, people are mostly listing the times it took them to get the Platinum trophy.

Realistically, this is what we're dealing with. Even if we could somehow enforce a rule that meant only A-C or A-E completions counted for Main Story... would that actually be a useful statistic? A significant number of people are only playing up to the first ending, so it stands to reason that a significant number of prospective players will also only play up to the first ending. Having a time estimate that can give them an idea of how long that will take is not only helpful, but is actually the point of this website.

So in this instance it might just be helpful to imagine that instead of "Main Story" it says "Ending A," instead of "Main + Extras" it says "Endings A-E," and instead of "Completionist" it says "All Trophies/Achievements." Because regardless of what is "technically" correct, we can't just change the way that hundreds of users choose to use the site.

I do get what you're saying but there just isn't a solution for it. Look at the list of Main Story completions for this game. Of the ones that have completion comments, 18 of them say "Ending A" and only 7 of them (not counting the duplicate entry) say "All Main Endings." Under Main + Extras, there's about 26 for "All Main Endings." And in Completionists, people are mostly listing the times it took them to get the Platinum trophy.

Realistically, this is what we're dealing with. Even if we could somehow enforce a rule that meant only A-C or A-E completions counted for Main Story... would that actually be a useful statistic? A significant number of people are only playing up to the first ending, so it stands to reason that a significant number of prospective players will also only play up to the first ending. Having a time estimate that can give them an idea of how long that will take is not only helpful, but is actually the point of this website.

So in this instance it might just be helpful to imagine that instead of "Main Story" it says "Ending A," instead of "Main + Extras" it says "Endings A-E," and instead of "Completionist" it says "All Trophies/Achievements." Because regardless of what is "technically" correct, we can't just change the way that hundreds of users choose to use the site.

All of your posts are correct. We simply can't change the rules for special games because people use the site in a certain way. It's always best to put notes so people can see what you did and what your time means.

A few​ I can think of do this:
This game
Resident Evil 4, has 2 additional characters to play.
Resident Evil 6, has 2-3 perspectives.
Metal Gear Solid 5, you think you beat the game after 30 hours and they tell you it's Act I. Act II is replaying the missions for an occasional new cut scene.

Even myself, personally going through my backlog have marked MGS5 and Resident Evil 6 as beaten with some of the things mentioned above because I wanted to clear them out to my backlog.

I have a question for the people in the thread if you can avoid spoilers! I haven't started the game yet. To receive the "extra endings" how much extra time did it take you? And how many of said endings did you get then?