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WARNING! WARNING!

Spoilers Within!

So, last night I beat Crisis Core. It's a fantastic game, as Sarah pointed out. It is also, when considered inwhole, a sad game. Anyone who's played the original Final Fantasy VII knows what happens to Zack at the end, and if you haven't and don't want it spoiled, stop reading at this point.

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Okay, still with me? Right. After spending around 30-40 hours getting to know Zack, seeing his romance with Aerith build, and learning of all the stuff he has to live for, he's brutally gunned down by the whole Shinra army just outside of Midgar.

(Sidenote: This is a slight retcon from the original game, where it was three soldiers that got the drop on him. Given the level Zack is built up to over the course of the game, it only makes sense they had to up the ante.)

Right now, I'm not really sure whether knowing Zack's fate beforehand makes the scene more heartbreaking or less. The way Squeenix worked in the DMW during the last sequence certainly adds to it, as you literally see the people you've depended on through the DMW dissolve before your eyes.

(Another sidenote: If it were any other battle during the game, I so could've taken the army. Hell, you take on similar numbers at varying points in the game.)

Anyway, as I said before, it's a very sad sequence, and I was a little choked up as the credits rolled. Then I was thinking, and realized it was fairly rare that a game garnered a genuine emotional reaction from me beyond anger at the difficulty/cheapness of the game. In most games, there's plenty of points where the characters are clearly in an emotional state, but aside from Crisis Core there's only a few other games I can think of that affected me emotionally.

The first that springs to mind, of course, is Final Fantasy VII, and you can probably guess what scene got to me. That's right: Cait Sith confessing to being a spy. I totally didn't see it coming.

Kidding. I hated that fat tub of lard. I'm not sure why, but I did.

Anyway, I'd known about Aeris/th's death long before I even thought about playing the game, mostly because an otherwise spoiler-free magazine strategy guide said "Aeris dies, disc one ends." But even knowing what was coming, the way the scene plays out, with Cloud's struggle, Aeris's smile just before, and how her theme plays as her white materia bounces down into the water, it got me going. I didn't full-on cry, mind you, but damn was I pissed at that white haired bishi bastard.

The next one I can think of is Mega Man X4, believe it or not. It was my first X series game, and while yes, the voice acting sucked, Iris's death at Zero's hands got to me. Maybe I'm just a sucker for doomed romances. 

And then there's ICO. It was an artsy little game that you may or may not have played, but it had a lot of cute little touches. For example, the save points were couches (why an evil magic queen had couches lying around her medieval style castle is another matter entirely), and to save, you and the girl you're escorting sit down and take a load off. When you load the game, though, the screen fades in to see them sleeping with her leaning on him. Awwwww...

Throughout the game, the two grow dependent on eachother, and though there's very little dialogue between the two (and she's speaking a language he doesn't understand), they more or less fall for eachother.

The part that really got to me was close to the end of the game, when they're close to actually being able to leave, but she's exhausted from using her magic to open the gates, and will stumble if you pull her too hard. Even though for most of the game I was draggin her around, I couldn't bring myself to go at more than a walk. It's one of the few times I really felt like I cared for an imaginary character, and I think it speaks a lot for the game that it had that kind of affect.

So why is it so rare that a game can get that kind of reaction from someone? Maybe it's because games are still maturing as a medium, and the storytelling in most games isn't up to the task of really getting to player's hearts. What games have gotten to you in the same way?

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