Tearjerking moments in video games

Post Reply New Topic

I'll freely admit that I didn't go through all eight pages here, so my apologies if it's already been brought up, but ...

The best I can recall is towards the end of Ultima VI. Basically, without spoiling the whole thing, the entire story line twists in a way that makes you rethink the whole game.

It's probably been mentioned about ninety thousand times already, but Sephiroth's callous evisceration of Aeris in Final Fantasy VII still brings a tear to my eye, lol.

The end of MGS4. The death of Big Boss, along with the beautiful end credits song "Here's to You", brought tears to my eyes.

Many scenes in Final Fantasy 6 send me sobbing. Celes' suicide attempt after Cid's death at the start of the world in ruin being at or near the top. Also moving is during the confrontation with Kefka and Gestahl on the floating continent in which Kefka asks Celes to kill the rest of the party. She says a few poetic and moving pacifistic lines and then turns around and stabs Kefka.

Gotta say there's point in the game Lost Odyssey when Kaims daughter died that's really tear jerking; mostly since the player is lead to believe she died in childhood, and has only been introduced to this person shortly before her death. The memory of her falling off a cliff lierally haunts the main character throughout the story, forcing his mind to keep revealing painful memories that it he had tried to forget over his thousand years wandering the world. It's a really an emotionally powerful moment, when he finds someone whom he never thought he would ever know, and it's turning point for several of the other characters as well.

Unfortunately, it just ends up ruined by what happens immediately afterwards.

The scene happens surprisingly early in the game, and really, it was very sad, but part of the emotional effect is dampened by having to spend the next ten minutes looking for flowers for her funeral that:

A. the flowers only appear in the surrounding area after her death despite the player having walked around earlier

B the following sequences linger on a bit longer than that of the original emotion it evoked.

C Animations of the characters are very stiff.

Afterwards you attend funeral, where you are give a TUTORIAL on how to use a torch to burn the ribbons tied to her funeral boat. Something which could be replaced by a cutscene, and would likely be more emotionally stirring. Also, the things you learn in the tutorial are never, as far as to my knowledge, never used again for the rest of the game.

Now consider this, this is a game where spirits exist, and can actually offer advice, grant magic powers or just drop items when defeated. Secondly, innate magic abilities found within pretty much all individuals (never stated, but there's just too many shops that sell this stuff just to ignore it) and can be modified via the forging and use of magic rings.

Somehow, all this translates to holding down the right trigger and releasing it to improve your attack damage on physical attacks.

Now, when I first played this (after the crying part) I thought they were basically going incoparate these new context sensitive moments (presented in the tutorial) that I was doing with the torch into the battle system, perhaps with the explanation that her spirit somehow granted you the ability to use a new form of magic (which it wouldn't be the first time that happened, in fact, that is how one character learns shadow magic).

They already have you releasing the right trigger to improve your attack damage for physical attacks, and the torch sequence was pretty much an extended quicktime event.

I think they made this sequence in order to try to pull you into the expierence, to make you feel like you're actually burning the ribbons, but in my opinion you get pulled out because THERE'S A TUTORIAL ON HOW TO DO IT (Use the right stick to move the torch!), and of course, when you do it wrong, you have to do it all over again.

I understand if others think that the sequence following her death were just as, or even more emotionally linking since now the player is involved in it, versus someone in cutscene. However, to me, this was just poor attempt extending the impact of a single scene, over the course of about 20 poorly put together minutes of gameplay.

Death of main character in AoM.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yJlDCqaKJw[/youtube]

Tales of Symphonia 1, where Lloyd finds out that to regenerate the world Collete must bit by bit give up her human senses the give up her life, and the bit in Tales of Symphonia 1 where Lloyd finds out exspheres are made from Humans. Soul caliber 3 Setsukas negative ending as she is so cold : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHdhODjy ... 2&index=39

Tenchu Fatal shadows when Rin is leaving her village on the boat after all her people have been killed , the music is really chilling in my opinion.
Fable 2 when your dog gets shot : (

The death of olivia in advent rising, the ending to final fantasy crystal chronicles ring of fates, and the music for endless ocean(a scuba-diving game for wii which is win for me because marine biology is my passion) which will be the only one i'll show through youtube. It's the theme song from endless ocean mixed with advet rising footage since i have never been able to find an in-game version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUNFyDLp_Vc also heres a video of endless ocean 2 to go with it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPctP10lXXI

Planescape: Torment-I cried in the Fortress of Regrets when the Transcendent One kills everybody in your party, one by one. Annah and Nordom's deaths were particularly sad. Also sad when you come across their mangled bodies before talking with the Transcendent One.

Earthbound-The battle with Giygas made me cry a lot at several different points. When Paula's parents and all the children are praying for her, when Ness' mom prays for the safety of Ness and his friends (the change in music here to the Magicant theme makes this part especially tear-jerking), "Paula's call was absorbed by the darkness," everything about this part of the game had me crying. It was also very unsettling to think that by killing Giygas I was more or less performing a mercy killing. Totally did not expect the game to have this kind of effect on me, but it did.

Mother 3-So many moments in this game made me cry buckets. Flint lashing out against everyone, Lucas' flashback where he remembers his mother telling him to change out of his pajamas before heading out, and the final battle...just...damn, that was really powerful. "Lucas didn't know what to do anymore."

Mother 1-Cried just a little when Magicant disappears. Shigesato Itoi really knows how to move people.

Persona 4-The hospital scenes. Teddie in the Velvet Room. Your friends sacrificing themselves for you during the final battle (true ending).

EverQuest-I was a gnome warrior on the free-for-all pvp server Rallos Zek, back when this game was really popular. Anyways, there was a certain troll shadowknight (evil paladin) who more or less stalked me all across Norrath for months on end. No matter where I went, he was never too far behind, and it seemed like he would travel all the way across the game world just to make me miserable. I basically stood little to no chance against him because he was a higher level than me and had really good armor. Each time I encountered him he would chase me down mercilessly while telling me how he was going to turn me into gnome stew or something like that. Afterwards he would gloat over his victory in the most humiliating fashion (often involving cruel jokes at the expense of my virtual stature). I was absolutely terrified of this guy for the longest time, but finally I decided to stand up to him and challenged him to a duel at the entrance to Upper Guk. After a long and grueling battle, we were both at our limits, but it appeared that this time I would finally teach this nasty troll a lesson. It was one of the most exhilarating gaming moments of my life, and I charged forward to deliver the killing blow, only to be hit with a Harm Touch. "Oh, that's right, I forgot that Shadowknights have that special ability they can only use once a day that kills pretty much anybody who isn't at full health." He ended up taking my best piece of armor, some really rare crustacean breastplate, and then I begged him like a sore loser for several months to get it back, in the end having to borrow a ton of platinum from a friend (I never paid him back) in order to have it returned to me. I'm not sure if this really counts or not, because those were tears of shame and humiliation.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura-Okay, so I don't actually recall ever crying during this one, but you try listening to that exquisitely sad main theme without getting the least bit melancholy.

Does anyone remember Illusion of Gaia?

I was shocked and sad when Princess Kara's pet pig Hamlet jumped into a fire when the party visits the starving African village, just to become food for the villagers.

I still sometimes play this game for a few hours straight just to see that moment.

For me? Hmm...







If I played Punch-Out, and lost three times in Mac's Last Stand, it would say a heartfelt quote.

"Mac has left the ring."

It would show a cutscene of all of Little Mac's achievements. Then, I would be near tears because of his retirement.

Xions 'death' at the end of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days.

The ending of FFVII Crisis Core has been the only game to make me cry....and I rarely shed tears except when i'm laughing too much

when axel gets the icecream stick from roxas in kh 358 days.