As Adol: Climbing down Gens d’Armes to finally meet Dana, Eternia sitting in the distance.
spoilerAdol and Dana having a little heart to heart before the final dungeon, hoping that maybe destiny isn’t real just this one time, and she isn’t fated to die soon.
The scripting in the true final boss, with the dawn breaking over an endless field of water, as the introduction ends and the fight begins.
spoilerFighting through gods and spirits to bring Dana back one last time, to say farewell.
As Dana: White Memory. God. Making peace with Olga, and having her finally open her heart to you as a dear friend, a message from beyond the grave. Watching the last sparks of your civilisation die out in an apocalyptic winter. Valley of Kings, learning that you’re the first person to break a divine apocalyptic cycle, but still bound by fate.
I legitimately couldn’t enjoy video games for two weeks after I finished Ys VIII. I still get really emotional thinking about it.
But it’s nothing compared to FFXI, my favourite game of all time:
Chains of Promathia is incredible from start to finish. Weathering the emotional assault of death beyond death and the decay of the spirit in the Promyvions, this horrible, haunting, gloomy drone in the background; and then immediately being taken to this place of both incredible healing beauty and immediate and poignant, human sorrow.
Witnessing the exact moment where a dear companion begins to waver if he’s on the right path with you, and seeing his doubts culminate in fighting you, to the death if need be. Seeing the guilt, shame and lingering doubt when you win… and forgive him.
Seeing the god of regeneration send a little glimmer over the view of a fallen kingdom, which you’ve probably sat and stared at with strangely passive wraith enemies. The entire Distant Worlds song and cinematic as a whole, closing out a musical and narrative theme that had been developing over three years. Definitely another storyline where I had to sit and just process it for a bit. Took me a year to come around on Aht Urhgan since I did it the day after Promathia.
Seeing the ghost of a city-state wiped out by genocide, brought back into a state of undeath by a god of war and chaos, sacrifice himself to save the heritor of the empire that claimed his city. The music for the fight that follows right after, Ragnarok.
The sadness that makes your heart sink, of wandering the Shadowreign era of Vana’diel, seeing a world ravaged by war, hearing Flowers On The Battlefield add an incredible, keening aura of melancholy everywhere, albeit with little glimmers of peace… broken by the drums of war as battle rages once more.
The end of Adoulin, Forever Today. Closing the book on one of your most personal adventures, alongside some of the most brilliant and heroic characters. The sense of finality mixed with renewal, with musical callbacks to the Theme of Final Fantasy and the Prelude.
Rhapsodies of Vana’diel, especially the ending. Seeing the bravery of an old friend’s daughter sacrifice herself again and again as the cosmos rejects her presence in the past. Building a relationship with a character just as sincere and brilliant as her father. Her final monologue to you: “Master, this is not ‘Farewell.’ It is ‘See you soon.’ Until our paths cross once more, the blessing of Phoenix is yours to wield. And I will be with you, always.”
The beautiful poem being sung as this all happens, leading into the Adventurers’ Chorus of over a hundred actual players from across the world, singing the title music from the first release of the game…
The final dream in Disco Elysium. After picking up clues all game about your past, your broken relationship and the reasons you are the way you are, the heart wrenching emotional impact had me reeling. Not mention it’s written and voice-acted beautifully.
Suddenly everything makes sense as Harry gets constantly dressed-down, his futile attempts to cling to the past denied and his insanity laid bare. The letter in the ledger, the little Headless FALN rider figurine, the obsession with Dolores Dei, that awful phonecall on the payphone, everything comes together in a beautiful climax of absolute sadness, ending on that devastating final line:
“This is real darkness. It’s not death, or war, or child molestation. Real darkness has love for a face. The first death is in the heart, Harry.
For me, it was the Precarious World thought, and again after the final cut released with the Communist quest ending.
::: “How not to lose? It is impossible not to. The world is balanced on the edge of a knife. It’s a game of frayed nerves. You’re pushed on by numbers and punitive measures: pain, rejection, and unpaid bills. You can either play or you can crawl under a boat and waste away – turn into salt or a flock of seagulls. Your enemies would love that. Or you can fight. The only way to load the dice is to keep on fighting.” :::
And more succinctly
::: “In the dark times, should the stars also go out?” :::
I’ve been struggling off and on with depression for the better part of my life, and each time I read these it just hits me like a sack of bricks. The recontextualization of the struggle.
I remember the first time I cried because of the events of a video game.
Final Fantasy 7. Aerith’s death scene.
Up to that point, you’re given several romance options between her and Tifa and I basically friend-zoned Tifa and was pursuing Aerith. So when Sephiroth murders her out of nowhere, it was like he really murdered my girlfriend. FWIW, the game came out when I was 12 and I was probably 13 or 14 when I actually got to own a copy and play through the whole thing.
The most latest game, tho, that hits hard is Cyberpunk 2077. The overall main plot is just a mashup of cyberpunk films like Johnny Mnemonic, Strange Days, 6th Day, 5th Element, Dredd, etc; but the side stories with the main characters are where the real beauty lies. Shit had me choked up like every time there was a lengthy bit of dialogue. The reason your character is dying might be goofy, but the way they portray someone who knows they are going to die is pretty fucking good. And the unique thing is that it’s you. Your own character, not some other character you’re just meant to empathize with.
I have major issues with this game’s battling system. The original game’s combat is pretty complex but it is well balanced with 6 different stats, types, abilities, etc. Pokemon go simplifies it into type advantages and a number (CP). CP is more affected by atk than def and hp. This (amongst other things) trivializes def and hp stats.
I was hopeful that they would rework this with pvp but they didn’t. Instead they tried to copy the Smogon tiers (the different leagues) but somehow made the original combat which requires a lot of strategy to a dumb tap fast to win combat.
I used to play Pokemon Go a lot till covid and I kept hoping for better updates and new mechanics (I even theorized how they could translate the turn based combat to real time) but it seemwd they didn’t want to make it anymore than what it was so I quit.
I hate anything that stops me from playing the game. Stun mechanics, usually, but I also include quick time events.
The one that sticks in my mind was those dumb water mages in genshin impact. They trap you in a bubble and hold you there for a few seconds. If it’s an intense enough fight, a few seconds is an incredibly long time, and you’re just sitting there watching the game happen and you’ve lost your agency. It’s worse for me because I had built shields and healing into my team to shore up my shortcomings with dodging. It felt clever, but them the game sends in this mechanic which invalidates my solution.
With quick time events, I just get annoyed at the genre switch. Don’t get me wrong, there are cool enough cinematics out there… It’s just… Like usually I’m watching these and thinking, “wow, that would’ve been fun to do, you know, myself.”
Nevermind that I’m too ADHD. Like I have cats and a partner and a phone. If I get a buzz or whatever else, I might miss the prompt. Or if I ignore the buzz, whatever that might have been can sometimes get discarded in my brain.
I love team building. The interplay of abilities, the hard choices with limited slots and opportunity cost. Finding unintentional synergies, or even stumbling on them. Its all a dream, and it’s part of why I love ttrpgs so much.
I can sometimes get so bogged down (positive) with team building I never make it amywhere in the game itself.
Also love me a good physics engine. God knows how many hours I spent building stupid shit in Garry’s Mod. I learned to code before I played that game, so it was delightful to put those skills to use with wiremod as a little kid. LoZ: ToTK I have like 1000 hrs logged just fucking around in the builder spot at the base of Tarry Town.
Also, Roland’s death in Borderlands 2 just because the game up until then may have some dark-ish moments, but for the most part is still a nigh-brainless looter shooter. Angel’s ark makes you feel like they’ve hit their important-character-death-quota and then Roland dies as well.
There’s a big moment in SOMA that really stuck with me. Not gonna spoil it. Mostly it’s a horror game but it engages with some pretty intense ethical questions and does so in a way that feels very personal.
Oh fuck… I remember getting to “that point.” I was so engrossed in the game that I wanted more and didn’t want it to end. But I was also happy to see how the story concludes.
The Last of Us 2 is the only game to make me cry every single time I play it, ever. It also is so emotionally painful that I genuinely get minor depression after I do my yearly playthrough for at least a few days. I honestly don’t think there’s a game out with nearly as much of an emotional impact on me as that game.
The little mermaid side story was sad. Then, I spent the entire second act just grinding along to get the best character in my party back only to end up super depressed about it when that didn't happen.
Mass Effect as a series had so many heartbreaking moments. I’ll never forget the horror of finishing 2 without doing enough loyalty quests and seeing that final mission play out. For me, it was Legion and Tali that got me. I always sided with the quarians over the geth, but Legion’s death was always just so hard
I went through that whole thing waiting for -- apparently -- a Paragon option that never showed up, that would've managed to save them both. It kinda put me off the series.
HOW DARE YOU PUT ME THROUGH THIS RIGHT NOW. I was just sitting here, enjoying some coffee, truly having a great day. I can’t handle this right now,@Xariphon
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