The death of a protagonist doesn't render the time you spent with them irrelevant. Actually, it can make the fun times even more meaningful in contrast. An alternate ending would ruin it.
And, in any case, if there's one thing about Versus we
can be sure, it's that it'd do just as much to make the player miserable as XV did. Remember this?
- It’s a dark and sad story which aims to show how heavy and painful the burden that the heroes are carrying is, how painful their paths can be, and how important flashes of happiness are in a world ravaged by greed and despair. The keyword for Versus XIII story is misery, and it can be applied to all main characters.
- “I would say misery and worry play a huge part in the story and when the plot was being first considered I spoke with Mr. Kitase and we decided to take an even more “sad’ direction for the story” – Tetsuya Nomura on Versus XIII Story
- “People will cry because of the story, they will get involved into it and will be crying for a whole week and on!”- Yoshinori Kitase giving his view on Versus XIII story
- “It’ll be that awful?? We’ll balance it very well because playing and seeing those unpleasant sad scenes for hours could become a problem for avid players so we’ll work on that” – Tetsuya Nomura responding to Kitase’s comments.
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http://gematsu.com/2010/08/final-fa...e-details-so-far#g6YmmQJTk5tfm4kr.99][Source][/URL]
Tabata just balanced the "unpleasant sad scenes" by back-loading them and offering the player a chance to take a breather using Umbra. =P