Top 10 Games to Move You to Tears
- Categories: Games, News
- Date: Oct 16, 2008 14:29 JST
- Tags: Clannad, Comparison, Final Fantasy, Rankings, RPG, Tales Series, Visual Novels
This recent survey, asking of Japanese gamers “Which games moved you to tears?”, presents some interesting results.
The resultant ranking:
1. Final Fantasy X (PS2)
2. Clannad (Xbox360, etc.)
3. Crisis Core – Final Fantasy VII (PSP)
4. Metal Gear Solid 3 – Snake Eater (PS2)
5. Kanon (PSP, etc.)
6. Tales of the Abyss (PS2)
7. AIR (PSP, etc.)
8. Dragon Quest V (DS, etc.)
9. Final Fantasy VII (PS, etc.)
10. Little Busters! (PC)
Via Dengeki.
The sample was mostly male, and this perhaps goes some way to explaining why 53% of those asked reported never having been moved to tears by a game. Presumably they were unmoved by film or novel either?
Personally, I was surprised to see a Metal Gear game make the cut – perhaps they were tears of joy that the story had finally ended. The presence of RPGs and visual novels is quite expected however, and it is gratifying to see a magnificent title such as Tales of the Abyss feature.
Since it perhaps would not be in the spirit of the investigation, I will spare you any evaluation of the statistical validity of the results and instead pose the questions: what do you think of these results, and which game have you found most moving?
Puzzle & Dragons X Gets “More RPG Elements!”
Eager Index Bunny Girl Figure
Shingeki no Kyojin PV More Colossal Than Ever
Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 “Owner’s Mode” = “SJW Bait”
Musaigen no Phantom World Relentlessly Cute
Dragon Quest Stage Event Highly Promising
Project X Zone 2 Trailer Hits Hard
Kagura Ero-Figure Extremely Tentacular
Monmusu BD “Bigger With Every Release!”
MLP Futanari: “Bronies Weirder Than Ever…”
Blade & Soul Launch Unexpectedly Voluptuous
Nisemonogatari Pachinko Machine Unveiled
Lax Lady Venera Figure
Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut Ceaselessly Naughty
“Abusive” Breast-Groping Fundraiser Molested by Petition
Hanayo Koizumi’s Birthday Highly Revered
Toyota Prius CM Goes Full KanColle Mode
Usamimi Anette-san Micro-Bikini Figure
A Full Course Dream 3some “An Otaku Wet-Dream”
Dimension W “Both Cute & Grotesque!”
Adorable Ati Cosplay by Kaieda Kai Kemonomimi Chaos
Momo Velia Deviluke Cosplay Bursting With Bridal Beauty
Skimpy Sonico Cosplay Barely Contained
Kumiko & Reina Cosplay Hardly Blows At All
Skimpy Elf Bikini Cosplay by Saku Supremely Sexy
Gothic Lolita Hatsune Miku Cosplay Busts Out
Delectable Dizzy Cosplay by Lechat
Dark Elf Cosplay by Non Very Dark Indeed
Titillating Tamako Cosplay Perfectly Pink
Goddess of 2ch: “Full of Lust & Urges (& Also Videos)!”
Embodiment of Scarlet Devil moved me to tears.
Whenever I have Flandre in front of me, to be precise.
T_T
CoD: World at War moved me to tears...
How can a paradigm of a game like CoD4 have a successor like that?!
Indeed. Also, that one scene in CoD4 after the nuclear explosion was kinda sad too...
hmm...
i've never played those games before...
but i wanna get my hand on key's product... >.<
Having played Metal Gear Solid 3... it actually makes sense to be on this list. It has an incredibly powerful ending, if you make it that far.
I definitely cried when playing CLANNAD, multiple times, too, and the AIR anime. I don't agree with FFVII and I can't really speak for much else on the list.
Surprisingly, I didn't cry at Planetarian, though I can understand why people think that should be on this list.
Not exactly a game, a graphic adventure indeed...
Narcissu...
http://narcissu.insani.org/
this one made me to cry like a baby...
Ahh, I remember it all too well - it was the first visual novel I ever read, and at the same time the first one (the only other that managed to achieve this was 'Planetarian: Chiisana Hoshi no Yume') to actually make me cry, although I managed not to until the last chapter, and those are only 2 visual novels out of many I've been able to read that had that kind of effect on me...
haha yes Clannad on 2 is fine, I cried in the game and the anime.
I remember ,when the ending of Crisis Core started, I almost cried because it was over. really enjoyed plaing it, the story could continue endlessly <3
rest in peace, zack.
i watched the crisis core ending six times. cried hysterically every time.
kanon T_T
Fails to include MOTHER 3. List fail :(
How is AIR not #1? Ah well, clannad really does make a good number 2. good list artefact
they shud make a survey on the top ten anime to make u cry
Anybody who's played MGS3 wouldn't be really surprised by the mention. I dare anyone to tell me that the final battle in MGS3 isn't utterly heartbreaking: Snake going up against his mentor and killing her for betraying the US, despite the fact that she's his mentor, taught him everything he knows, and was like a mother to him.
And then he finds out she was a Fake Defector.
Heartbreaking.
More precisely, she was a Fake Defector because of someone else's screw-up and had to die knowing her deed will go unsung and the people she died to protect will not remember her for any of her heroic legends but for this one 'betrayal'.
If I understood MGS4 correctly, her unjust death was the what inspired both Big Boss and the PATRIOTS to lose faith in the world and attempt to rectify it in her memory.
damn skippy!
Visual Art's / Key sure are epic. :B
The bit right b4 the ending of Beyond Good and Evil did it for me. =P
beautiful. crisis core is here.
err... WHY THE FRICKIN' HELL IS FFVII 9TH?
-hardcore ffvii psycho
Oh wow. OP obviously hadn't played MGS 3.
Yes... I have to agree with Crisis Core. The ending is just so... epic.
MGS3... beat it, and I found it okay...
Dragon Quest V was touching too when ...
spoiler...
....
...
..
..
Your father died saving you.
Your wife got turned into stone.
I played Metal Gear 3 and enjoyed it! It didn't make me cry though... That one electrified guy (can't remember his name) was a bitch to kill though. Fighting him almost brought me to tears...
The only games that have moved me to tears have been visual novels.
Clannad, saya no uta, utawarerumono and ever 17 to be precise.
Final Fantasy X... #1?
What is this? Explain this madness.
MGS33 had the nice touch of makiing you pull the trigger at the end, it shifts out of the cutscene with you immobile standing there and press[] boom!
I choked up in Klonoa and Zone of Enders but maybe im just a crybaby. The MGS1 characters were emotive despite having smudges for faces
i think final fantasy X should fuck off and give its place to Tomoyo After ~ It's A Wonderful Life~ that is the most heart touching game I've ever played
hitomi little sister.
^^^ i mean kana little sister. lol
hitomi little sister, rofl.. good stuff.
Indeed Crisis Core Final Fantasy VII really moved me to tears
CLANNAD, everybody says that is really sad, but its quite normal
Normal? If you mean it's realistic, sure.
The only game that I have ever cried for was Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. The ending sequence always gets to me.
Sorry, but the only game I can remember moving me to tears was Halo 3.
!SPOILERS! !SPOILERS! !SPOILERS!
When Sergeant Johnson died, it was easily one of the most emotionally moving scenes in video game history. Here is a character who has been with us for almost a decade and he dies. Plus his last words are manly tears worthy.
"Don't ever let her go.."
I would have to say metal gear solid 3 was the only one that made me cry. For those who are suprised, it doesnt make you cry until you see the ending!
The other games didn't really force me to tears. Even tho arguably AIR has the most tragic fate of any character (kept being reincarnated), MGS3 had the best cinematography, so I thought it was effective.
If the author of this article is surprised MGS3 made the list its because he clearly did not played the game.
My first and only game I've cried to in my life. Fucking awesome and the best MGS game out there to date closely followed by MGS4.
only 2 games that have ever made be wibble were estopolis 2 and ICO
ICO is particularly worth mentioning since there's probably less than 50 spoken lines throughout the whole game, but it's beautifully moving in manners far less conspicuous and direct
grandia 1 & 2 had some moments, grandia 3 could make you cry with it's terrible-ness and shadow hearts had a few fairly poignant parts
though oddly enough MGS3 never did anything for me...
Final Fantasy XII was so BAD It made me cry.
never cried while playing games. but mgs3 was the first that i felt my throat getting tight and my eyes start to burn a little. the ending drove it home i think.
AIR's at seven?!! I thought it would make it to the top 5 at least :S
Anyway, for a game such as LT to make it at the top 10's quite interesting (since it's only been out for less than 2 years).
~Meant "LB"#
Final Fantasy X? What? No.
Final Fantasy VII can be sad at times, not devastating, though. If you want to cry with the tears of a thousand nutslaps. Play Lost Odyssey. Please.
Pretty please.
I'm really amused how this list is solely composed of 1) video games and 2) Key works
even though it's so true, when I expected some of the other popular visual novels to make the cut (Ever17, Tsukihime, etc).Equally surprising because I thought the word was that Little Busters wasn't up to previous Key standards.
Then again, this is a survey for gamers, who may or may not be a different subset from anime fans in Japan.
Now all we need is a similar survey for anime and I'll have a list of stuff to watch...
OK, now I'm not sure if my second comment went through at all, but I'm getting pretty badly demolished by your comment system.
But anyway, "even though it's so true" in regard to the Key VNs is supposed to be strikethrough'd there, and if that's not possible, I'd like to request The Powers That Be to remove that clause. Sorry for the trouble.
Changed that for you, sorry to see it troubled you.
Strikethrough tagsworked when I tried it... Not sure about that.Cursed lack of an edit feature. And HTML.
That "even though it's so true" is supposed to be strikethrough'd in that comment. Sorry.
Most of Little Busters! backlash came from Clannad fans expecting it to be an exact copy of its predecessor, even though Maeda said himself the game wasn't anything like their previous works.
After the pre-release, when people bitched and moaned to their heart's content, they started playing the game seriously and noticed it wasn't so bad as they tried to make it sound. Even more when EX came out and added more awesome heroines, which can be considered one of the best Key games ever made and a big financial success. Long story short, never believe pre-release hype.
Key should have a whole river of tears for their awesome VNs. lol.
They could probably fill a moat around their office with the tears shed by their customers.
Some people have grown up with Solid Snake and Big Boss, so seeing the tragic end of his "mother" and her true role in the story is pretty sad. Plus the mgs theme is epic.
Heh, i did remember crying in MGS1 after the boss battle against Sniper Wolf. The whole presentation brought by the game was impactful, and i think more and more games should have emotional impact to the players.
after all, we did invest our time to the game.
Where's my Yume Miru Kusuri and Ever17 in this list.
I agree, I just played Yume miru kusuri, and it has one of the saddest stories I've ever seen.