What game had the most emotional response from you?

[Shink]

guilty crown lost christmas

nothing else can beat it, atleast for me anywho

[Gegan]

The Walking Dead by Telltale hands down. There have been several other games that played with my emotions before, but none like it did. Here's hoping the 2nd season is just as amazing, if not better.

[reckoner04]

Probably not the most emotional response from me, but just a very recent experience I wanted to share:


The game Prince of Persia (2008) made me experience...

...Romance/Love by the relationship between the player avatar (Prince) and the NPC companion (Elika) as it's expressed not only in the story, but also in gameplay mechanics and animations. First, there is a button dedicated to actions performed by Elika:
- You can perform a traditional "double jump" if you press it midair
- You can use it as a special attack during fights
- You can use it to show you where you actually have to go (it's an open game world, only few restrictions)
- At the end of each level you will use it to complete it (heal the fertile grounds from the corruption)
Ingame, all of those actions are actually performed by Elika. For the double jump, she will use her magic to pull you (the Prince) up again and for directions she will send a magic light ahead that you can follow and so on. You learn to rely on all of those abilities during the game.
In most games, having an NPC companion is a horrible experience because they are clunky, don't do what you want them to, they don't have an elaborate personality etc.. Elika isn't one of those as she will always follow you around and (through her magic) will never get stuck, will never have to catch up before she can perform some action and cannot die. Also, you can't die or go game over in this title, Elika will always save you and put you to the last save point if you mess up. At one point in the game, this is tested: You will have to find Elika, and the solution to the puzzle is basically to try to commit suicide so she will come and save you.
The animations (and art in general) are beautiful in this game and most actions have animations to them where the Prince and Elika do something together. They look fluid and feel right.

...[I]Shock/Depression[/I] comes at the very end of the game and I think it's really well done even though it made a lot of players give bad reviews since it's not a happy end. As described above, the player/Prince forms a relationship with Elika in all aspects of the game (animation/story/gameplay) and eventually you fight against the final boss. The expectation is that the evil will be banished and everyone will be happy (as in most games...). But what the player then learns, and Elika has hidden that fact during the whole game, is that she will have to sacrifice herself in order to banish the final boss. She does this before you can intervene.
Then you have to slowly carry her body outside the boss chamber onto a tomb while the credits are playing. You could say the game is over here, but the player is given a final choice (I think many don't realize this, though in retrospect it's quite clear as the credits have marked the ending already). You can either leave it at that, with Elika dead and an empty kingdom saved from the evil. Or you can UNDO EVERYTHING you have worked for during the game by freeing the evil again and in turn resurrecting Elika. Making this choice is quite an emotional matter.
Lastly, when Elika is dead and you try to destroy the seals to free the evil again, the map is designed so that you want to perform her double jump but you have to find a way around it (since she's dead, duh) which makes you feel how dependent you have become.


That is quite a wall of text, even though I didn't mention everything (dialogue for example). The game was quite an enjoyable experience but too long imo (took me 14 hours). I find that the relationship between the Prince and Elika has been nicely portrayed and the ending was also well done. I would rate this installment of PoP higher than the others. It's easier/more casual, but also much more mature. Sadly, many gamers didn't like that.

[Deleted]

Well not sure, from a story standpoint I'd say the most emotional response was from WoW, I mean, I still go to topics about it defending the night elves even if I haven't played it for almost 2 years. I don't know, in a way I identified with the night elves from certain aspects (until they slowly started retconning them one by one)

From a novelty standpoint (as in me being thrilled about every new thing I discover in a game), I'd say GW2. Seeing the grass move, hearing an npc say a poem, talking to an npc that says they'd like a truffle, you bringing them one from across the map and them actually taking it and thanking you, it just surprised me pleasantly.

From a mechanics standpoint, the games that get the most emotional response are those that annoy me the most. For example, in Anno 2070, that helper popped up so much with "helping messages" that it annoyed me so much I quit the game, it just broke the whole game for me, even if the game itself was good the fact I couldn't turn off those annoying messages just made me quit in rage.



There were also games from which I expected to get a response, but did not. For example, Tomb Raider the new one... it has a great story, lots of emotional moments yet... I just didn't feel it as much. I mean, ok, I want to save Sam because I thought she was nice and a great friend to Lara but the rest... the ones that died, didn't feel much for them except for the guy that liked Lara (no spoilers) since I just felt sad for him since all he wanted to do was to impress her a bit. Yet overall, didn't feel much and have no clue why. Maybe the game didn't manage to actually establish the personalities of each character enough for me to care except for Lara and Sam.

[Deleted]

Final Fantasy IX for me.

My first RPG, was too much for my kid self back then.
The ending made me shed tears of happiness and sadness at the same time (at the part with Vivi's kids).

[KCguy]

Honestly? Pretty much no game ever has that I can remember. That was until the recent adventure game, 'The Walking Dead'. Never before had a game gripped me as much as that game did. Especially the ending. Goodness.

[Deleted]

Walking dead

Cried my eyes out. I rarely cry too.

[Holy]

Live A Live... it's a crying shame almost no one knows about it.

[Nearmyth]

As of late, Bioshock Infinite. Just... Dat ending. Jaw was on the floor during the whole ending.

Also, Dark Souls.

[MrSerious]

Probably not the most emotional response from me, but just a very recent experience I wanted to share:

The game Prince of Persia (2008) made me experience...

RAGE!! great platform game but ffs at least give me an option at the end not to let the nagging stuck up princess live.

MGS4 was emotional if you had played through all 4, the final fantasy series, legacy of Kain series was good as well.

GW2 is the latest one, but its more about the environment. I catch myself stopping every now and again and soaking up the amazing sights. Gw2 has the ability to really pull you in if you aren't in a hurry to get to max level, taking your time to stop and listen to the NPC telling their stories, follow the quest lines and really take notice of what is happening.

[Notos]

Different games, different emotions/feelings:

FF8: angst...and then warm fuzzies
Eternal Darkness: best way to describe it would be...dread and trepidation mixed with awe.
Mass Effect 3: so much sadness. Seriously I was depressed for days after I beat the damn thing. Probably the biggest emotional response I've had to any game in recent memory.

[Tojara]

FF6 and Chrono Trigger hold a lot of sad moments for me.

Celes suicide probably tops it off though. Although some of FF6 is comical there are plenty of dark themes littered throughout this world filled with 2D sprites. Kefka poisoning Doma, Edgar/Sabin deciding the fate of Figaro to a coin toss, General Leo death, Lock/Rachel/Phoenix arc, Shadow/Relm. The list really goes on. While it's 2D and really dated, it does get kind heavy thinking about some of the themes in FF6. It didn't help the soundtrack to the game was amazing complimenting pretty much all of these scenes.

Crono dying was sad, but the saddest moment in Chrono Trigger was a tossup between the robots of the future rejecting Robo (it was pretty sad) and Frogs character as a whole. The flash backs to Glenn/Cyrus and what he had to go through are pretty saddening. Again a lot like FF6 the music played a heavy role in stirring dormant feelings lol.

Interestingly enough a few of the HoTS cinematics were pretty touching as well. The one where she killed Warfield and let the drop ships filled with injured soldiers free was a good one.'

Groms death in WC3 was pretty sad, but uplifting as well.

All sad moments. The only game I've ever freaked out about was playing RE2 on N64 going into that fucking interrogation room the second time. I threw the god damn controller across the room when that fucking licker jumped through the glass. I was young and that moment has prepared me for any 'shock scares' that have popped up since then lol.

Edit: Oh reading back I forgot about Heavy Rain. That game was pretty 'heavy' too. One of the only games I've watched someone else play.

[Kasierith]

I'm not an overly emotional person, but I would have to go with Alan Wake.

[reckoner04]

RAGE!! great platform game but ffs at least give me an option at the end not to let the nagging stuck up princess live.

Um, I'm not sure if you read my post, but you have an option. When she dies, the credits play and the game is over. It's your choice whether you want to resurrect her or not. If you don't want to, then don't.

Of course, the game urges you to resurrect her (even MrSerious did, though he didn't want to...) because that's what the Prince would do. He can't accept this ending to the story and has to resurrect her, as she's the first person he's cared about. Also, he's selfish. But the game clearly offers the alternate ending where she stays dead and everything is nice.

EDIT: It's crazy how so many gamers cry for games with meaningful decisions and don't even recognize one when it comes. The traditional way of presenting a dialog with Yes/No options (as you can see it in almost all those games which are praised for their "meaningful" decisions) is much less involving and boring imo. Or the games with multiple parallel endings, which just lead to the player loading the last save over and over again to see all the different endings. How deep they are indeed, I really felt like I made a choice in them (sarcasm)...

EDIT2: The only critique I would agree on is the fact that PoP2k8 isn't a decision-centered game, so that when the decision finally comes, many simply don't recognize it, even though the ending credits make it pretty clear.

[Olddreth]

FF VII, Aeris why? Also the You're Not Alone battles in FF IX had its impact. Frog's story in Chrono Trigger was pretty heavy too.

You are so right ... first time for me someone i liked died in a video game. Sad day!

[Naxere]

Let's see...

1) First time we killed Onyxia in Vanilla WoW. Our tanks died early on phase 3 and I (as an Arms Warrior) threw on a sword/shield and tanked the entirety of the phase.
2) Mass Effect 2 ending. Played Renegade the whole way through, saved everyone, blew up the Collector Base and told the Illusive Man to go fuck himself. Still love it.

[Powerogue]

Lots of games have been emotional roller coasters. Cry of Fear definitely has the most drastic ups and downs. From

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!


to sitting there in a puddle of your own sweat and piss, when this starts playing

You're safe. For now.