Games that move to tears

[cat]

Truly great stories are entertaining even if you know how they will end.

True, but the experience is different. There are stories you should play/read/watch again once you've completed it, to see it again with a different point of view. However, while can be rewarding to see it when knowing the end before seeing it the first time, you'd miss out on the opportunity to experience it with a free mind and be surprised by plot twists etc.
For example, we recently re-watched the first season of Dirk Gently and it was amazing to see the details they put in for people watching it again and how well-crafted the story is. However, first time watching, it is also great to experience the same confusion and not knowing what this is about as the main characters.

[milkanannan]

Delphine's "Another World" was very important for me, when i was 13. Because i completely identified with the main character; i felt i was banished in another world. My parents divorced that year, and there were other issues too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xqz5nfocLrA

Wow, yeah good call - I would say the same. I had to use a walkthrough that I found on dialup, but even then it was a LONG and extremely hard game at times. The very end when he flies off with his friend to a safer unknown... I think I remember being choked up.

Another for for me a year or two earlier was Quest for Glory 2. There was something about the uniqueness of the Arab landscape, the desert, the quirky characters, the city of Shapeir, the RPG randomness (i.e. you don't have to quest every day; some days could be devoted to character development.) I finished the whole game without any hint and I remember feeling super accomplished but very sad when it was over, like it was a moment in my life I knew I would remember as iconic. The game ends with all characters paying tribute to you, and I know there was a bit of dust in my eye at that point.

[milkanannan]

And by the way, I had the boxed 'Out of the World', which is probably worth something now on account of it being recalled and retitled!

[DBoyWheeler]

When it comes to tearjerkers, you can't beat

Spoiler

Toby sacrificing his life for Tanya in Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness.

[close]

[ollj]

Games with "shandified meandering narrative" more likely are tearjerking, if only because they delay the conclusion of an obscured/fragmented tragedy.

"meandering narrative" initially seems to be multiple barely connected elements, of a first act that makes up 70% of the narrative, with more mystery than conflict, showing a lot of apparently disconnected events, where you just wonder about a least common causal chain, that seems to be there, but hidden.

It still follows a 3 act structure story circle, but it is likely temporally discontinuous, locally discontinuious, "meandering a very curved path" in rambling tangents, and apparently more abstract. Its easy to tell a story in reverse (frontloaded tragedy/death), meeting at the middle (the missing central connection), or moving out from the middle "mirror moment" (train-wreck in slow motion)
The 3rd act is often just the last 10% , but it sure avoids a nonsensical plot twist or lack of resolve (like the Lost-series)

To The Moon
Finding Paradise
Edna And Harvey The Breakout
Obra Dinn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvwlt4FqmS0

[milkanannan]

The end of Super Mario World on Gameboy, partially because the music is so incredible. When it breaks into that chillout tune as the spaceship flies off...I'm welling up now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VztCEY5wFW4

[CrashPL]

Definitely Mother 3 on GBA for me.

[TheFrighter]

Definitely Mother 3 on GBA for me.

Why, CrashPL?

_