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[paste]

I'd really like to understand better what people find emotionally moving in the games they play.  I assume most of it has to do with the story, and in the timing of the story as it plays out in the game.  What game has moved you the most, emotionally, and why?

For me, it would probably have to be The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.  Mainly, it was just in the epilogue when it was showing all the people whose lives I changed and how they were happier then.  I was like 15.

[namre]

I don't know why but I always feel moved everytime I finish a Suikoden game. At the very end you will see what has become of your characters. It was kind of sad to see them parting ways with you as if a bond has been formed during your adventures.

[valkrin]

ChronoCross and Xenogears.

I don't even remember what the hell happened in those games. All I know is, whenever I think about them, I don't remember the game per se, but I remember how they made me feel. ChronoCross made me really sad, can't recall why but it was the sadness of loss.
Xenogears is... er really complicated.

[Saint]

I don't know why but I always feel moved everytime I finish a Suikoden game. At the very end you will see what has become of your characters. It was kind of sad to see them parting ways with you as if a bond has been formed during your adventures.

Ditto. For me it was Suikoden 2 specifically, though, since it felt like the characters had genuine development after facing real hard choices throughout the game. They managed to present a story that wasn't about toppling some ancient evil, but rather about a struggle between nations and how it affected three friends. But then again, I too was like 15 the time I first played it.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

vanguard bandits, lunar 1 and 2, xenogears, ys3, soul blazer, suikoden 2

[Ushi-kun]

I forget exactly which one is the "official" ending, but there's one scene in, what I think is the true ending (it's also the ending for the Anime version) for, Disgaea : Hour of Darkness, which is probably my most moving moment in video games.

Which came somewhat as a delightful surprise, since Disgaea as a whole has a very comic tone (pretty rare for a company game).

There's probably a lot of elements as to what makes it a very moving scene, but I think generally it has to do with how attached you are with the main characters. Also, music and dialogue (voice acting) are definitely key elements of making the mood right.

[voidSkipper]

Freespace 1 and 2. Perfect atmosphere, excellent voice acting (for the most part), amazing gameplay.

Admiral Petrarch's addresses in FS2 could not possibly convey the story better - you can really imagine yourself sitting in the briefing room, watching the tired old warhorse try to rally his pilots.

[namre]

For me it was Suikoden 2 specifically, though, since it felt like the characters had genuine development after facing real hard choices throughout the game. They managed to present a story that wasn't about toppling some ancient evil, but rather about a struggle between nations and how it affected three friends. But then again, I too was like 15 the time I first played it.

Yes, Suikoden 2 was also my favorite out of all of them. The characters seem more human even if it is in pixels. Very fleshed out.

[jwaap]

grim fandango
reeally started to love those characters, was shocked like never before by a game when bad things happened to the biggest of them --> ending also so much emotion

[Fegon]

In Secret of Mana, when the gang first arrive at the mana tree, seen from a distance in the Land of mana/forbidden land, whatever they called it only to see Thanatos, that bastard, blow it away a moment later. When the girl say: It´s like a dream.. first time I cried from a vidoegame.
Also the story and characters in FF9, powerful stuff.

[kinnas]

Freespace 1 and 2. Perfect atmosphere, excellent voice acting (for the most part), amazing gameplay.

Admiral Petrarch's addresses in FS2 could not possibly convey the story better - you can really imagine yourself sitting in the briefing room, watching the tired old warhorse try to rally his pilots.

Didn't reach the jump node in time. Died a hero. I was so proud I didn't even play the mission again.
Though in my heart I knew I was not defending the escaping civilians but going full power to afterburners towards the jump node and simply failed to reach it in time.

And when you're in that shivan fighter deep behind enemy lines and you see that the Sathanas is not a the but an a you can really feel shit getting real.

Freespace 2 did some amazing things with emotions.

[BoxedLunch]

i dare to say some things in bioshock games. mainly some of the audio diaries and the corpses.
often things like suicides and when people make failed escape attempts. i find it sad that hell on earth is real in that game, and you can't escape it by anything other than death. and in some cases children are involved in this. 

[MaloEspada]

The games that moved me the most are often my favorites.
Mother 3, Chrono Cross, Grim Fandango, Ace Attorney and the Metal Gear games are really incredible at this aspect.

I think it's a lot more related to characters and their interactions than the story of the game itself. Like JW said, events to a certain character you like make for shocking scenes and move you. That depends on your sensivity too, though.

Audio helps a lot on this, too. Actually, the presentation of moving scenes, depending on how well it's done, can really do the trick and be deep and awesome.

[agersant]

I got a bit of that feeling playing the Biohazard remake on the Gamecube, reading the diaries of an ex-soon-to-be-zombie and some guy whose corpse was hanging in the room where his diary lays.

I think that most games that moved me did so when they killed important characters I had become used to (Secret of Mana, Fable II and Shadow of the Colossus come to mind). It's an old trick but it works.
Though it can also terribly fail. In Star Ocean 3, there was this melodramatic and cheesy Romeo & Juliette cutscene about two characters dying whereas they were both bland and obviously intended as plot-devices. That's my #1 entry in "worse JRPG scenes ever".

It turns out that most characters I dont wan't to see dead are characters who did impact not only the game story but also its gameplay. Party members and quest dispatchers (R.I.P. Griswald from Diablo) seem more precious to me than the others.

[s0]

Experiencing my first tantrum spiral in Dwarf Fortress was heart breaking. That game does such an amazing job making you attached to your characters, despite its complete lack of "planned" storytelling.

Also, the way Mother 3 likes to make 180 degree turns from the zany/whimsical to the dead serious really hit me hard. The "drago fang" sequence early in the game is a great example of that.

[chris_b]

It's not the game that moved me most, but I was all kinds of emotional when I had to put Jen out of her misery in Prey.

[voidSkipper]

Freespace 1 and 2. Perfect atmosphere, excellent voice acting (for the most part), amazing gameplay.

Admiral Petrarch's addresses in FS2 could not possibly convey the story better - you can really imagine yourself sitting in the briefing room, watching the tired old warhorse try to rally his pilots.

Didn't reach the jump node in time. Died a hero. I was so proud I didn't even play the mission again.
Though in my heart I knew I was not defending the escaping civilians but going full power to afterburners towards the jump node and simply failed to reach it in time.

And when you're in that shivan fighter deep behind enemy lines and you see that the Sathanas is not a the but an a you can really feel shit getting real.

Freespace 2 did some amazing things with emotions.

The Galatea going down in FS1 and then not hearing Wolf's voice in debriefing. Fffffffffffff.

Also all those FS2 escort and patrol missions in Capella when you're like "man what are those Sathanass (Sathani?) doing with that sun?"

[Hangedman]

Mother 3
Chrono Trigger (Death Peak.)
Earthbound (All kinds of stuff.)
FF9 (VIVI   )
Shadow of the Colossus (It just got more and more...)
In The Company of Myself

[AustinD]

FF9 (VIVI   )

Still haven't finished, but Vivi constantly pulled at my heat strings while playing with every little thing he was learning about himself.

The games I instantly thought of were:
ICO
Shadow of the Colossus (got me bad)
Heavy Rain
MGS4 (more of a stressful sadness. The hallway towards the end. And the final "boss" battle gave me a good feeling, like something EPIC was happening)

[Alistair Aitcheson]

To be honest I've not played many games that have moved me, so to speak. I don't deny that games have a power to be moving, but in practice I've not really experienced it. To be honest, story-intense games tend not to interest me.

I'd say World of Goo did, mostly due to its awesome soundtrack and the sense of malaise behind a lot of the settings. There were a lot of simple little ideas in there, like the idea of not being compatible with the world when it upgrades, and the little people running off to buy the next big thing, even though you don't know what it is. Those are quite poetic and powerful notions that I quite like.

Also Every Day the Same Dream.