I just finished Archetype Arcadia, and wow. What an emotional roller coaster that was. This dark sci-fi visual novel is so impressive in terms of length, character growth, and world building. Along the way, players may find themselves making decisions that lead to one of the game’s many bad endings. When I play visual novels, I prefer to get the bad endings out of the way first.

Sometimes I choose not to experience the bad endings in VNs depending on my mood. In Archetype Arcadia though, if you skipped the bad endings you’d be missing an integral part of the game due to its grim atmosphere. So let’s get the bad stuff done first, then you can see what happens in the single “true” ending.

There are 20 bad endings to get through, and once you get through them and view the real ending there are 6 sub-endings related to some of the characters you meet. It’s very easy to return to the choice options with the index and select the option that continues the story when you hit “New Game” on the main menu after a bad ending. I’ve done my best to include the least amount of spoilers possible by only listing which lines lead to certain endings and censoring most names or pronouns.

CHAPTER 1

• Bad Ending 1: Don’t go into Archetype Arcadia
• Bad Ending 2: I give up

CHAPTER 2

• Bad Ending 3: One more battle
• Bad Ending 4: Emma
• Bad Ending 5: Meet up in the —- world.
  • Amazing.
  • It’ll be rewarding to take them down
  • I agree with A—-.
• Bad Ending 6: Calm down and identify the enemy
• Bad Ending 7: Yeah, time to die
• Bad Ending 8: Don’t (“Can you trust him” section in Chapter II-3)
  • …
  • I don’t want to hurt —-
  • I still want to save —-
  • Find a weapon
  • I don’t wanna —
• Bad Ending 9: Meet up in the real world
  • …, then follow the same path as Ending 8 until you see “Let —— die” and choose that.
• Bad Ending 10: Start a new game at “…Do you want to —-?” under Chapter II-9 and choose “Let me l—-”
  • ——. ——’s alive.

CHAPTER 3

• Bad Ending 11: I can’t get out
• Bad Ending 12: Something I hate

CHAPTER 4

• Bad Ending 13: Keep fighting
• Bad Ending 14: Fight using C——

CHAPTER 5

• Bad Ending 15: Lasmoth Zotyra Turahka
• Bad Ending 16: We Stand Together Onto Death!
• Bad Ending 17: They’re not on our side
• Bad Ending 18: Call for others to help

CHAPTER 7

• Bad Ending 19: Don’t put ——- in the —-

CHAPTER 8

• Bad Ending 20: Leave

SUB-ENDINGS

These endings supplement the single true ending; you’ll get to see them after the credits roll.

• Sub-Ending 1: Where I spent time with M- A—-
• Sub-Ending 2: Where I d———— M- O—-
• Sub-Ending 3: Where I spent time with K——
• Sub-Ending 4: Where I met M- L—
• Sub-Ending 5: Where I met K—-
• Sub-Ending 6: Where I walked with A——-