Theory

[Shou]

Tamashii no Mon: PC98 game based on Dante's Divine Comedy. The ending of the game is absolutely breathtaking. Most developers would run away at the mere though of trying to convey the last 2 parts of the comedy in a game, but Koei did it, and did it well (despite borrowing heavily from the illustrations of Gustave Dore)

Mind-blowingly bizzare soundtrack combined with purely visuals (no text) during the 'Paradiso' segment in particular was one of the most incredible game experiences I've ever had. Incredibly hypnotic, the first time I saw it I was left staring at the 'made by Koei' end screen for about 15 minutes before I actually turned the game off.

Wow, someone else actually knows this obscure classic! It's definitely one of Koei's finest which no one has heard about in the Western world.

For myself, I'd say as a naive kid, Cosmic Fantasy 2's ending was quite touching.

[GnaM]

My sister cried during the endings of Chrono Trigger and Legend of Mana. I hate to admit it, but at the time I thought it was sad when Aeris died in FFVII, though I don't remember crying (honestly, even if I did, I probably wouldn't tell you anyway, lol). I was moved recently when listening to the soundtracks of FFIX and Chrono Cross after years of not playing/listening to them, but that probably had more to do with the music and nostalgia than the content of the game. I do find FFIX has a certain innocent charm to it though, even if the character designs and throw-back plot were somewhat ham-fisted.

[Topdrunkee]

I don't recall ever crying, because of a game. (Nor movies for that matter.)
I do recall feeling sad for Goku's dad in that one DBZ movie where Freeza blows up planet Vegeta, lol.

The closest I've come to crying in a video game is in Final Fantasy VI, when I didn't feed Cid enough fish, he died, and Celes tried to commit suicide while her opera theme played.

Same here. The music, the direction, & the entire vibe of their current situation was just depressing.
FF 6 desperately needs to be rewritten like the FF Tactics PSP port.

One of the saddest parts I've seen in a game is during Persona 2 Innocent Sin when one of the main characters gets stabbed to death right after they defeat the final boss.
They couldn't heal her wounds so she died from extreme loss of blood.
The real tragedy is when Philemon offers to prevent the oracle of maiya, before innocent sin began.
(Oracle of maiya is the name of the apocalypse that occurred in IS.)

What happened is that Philemon didn't give birth to a new world at all.
What he had done was channel in the psyche of the world populace before the events that led to the Oracle of Maiya, but with one concession.
He erased all traces of the masquerade & Maya Amano of ever being friends with each other.
Therefore effectively blocking out the conditions needed to fulfill the "Oracle of Maiya" all together.
I'd like to elaborate more about the background story, but I'd need at least 3 post to do so.
I'll just add that the "Innocent Sin" of Persona 2 Innocent Sin is that Tatsuya couldn't forget his friends.
This is the exact moment when Tatsuya f'ed up everything for everybody.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBH5aL9K0Sg

This in turn led up to the "Eternal Punishment" of Persona 2 Eternal Punishment.
I'll quote an old post that I made in some other forum. In order to explain in as few words as possible what the Eternal Punishment actually is.

The core conflict in Eternal Punishment is about a boy who created a paradox. He still retained memories from the "other side".
The "other side" is the world of Innocent Sin.
What triggered his past was a woman who destroyed the world through her death. A ritual called the Oracale of Maiya.

That woman Maya Amano, who will be referred to here on out as "Longinus Lady"
That woman labeled that kid as the Deja vu boy, because that boy who she bumped into at the subway station seemed oddly familiar to her.
With the appearance of the Deja Vu boy, like a domino effect.
Deja Vu boy had unintentionally awakened her memories too.
The deja vu/paradox boy & Longinus Lady were like Adam & Eve & the apple would be their memories of each other.
However unlike Adam & Eve, Paradox boy & Longinus lady don't give birth to mankind, they DESTROY IT!

Or in other words they are both Harbingers of non thought.
The existence of the paradox boy awakened a mechanism that allowed the populace of the world to regain their memories of the other side.
The world of Eternal Punishment was in danger of vanishing If too many people recalled their past lives in Innocent Sin.
(Since you know. Half of these assholes are already dead in the other side. The other side known as "Innocent Sin".)

The saddest part is that Maya Amano. (The girl who died from loss of blood in Innocent Sin.)
Is forever forbidden to remain a stranger of the masquerade.
(The cast from P2 IS.)
The Persona 2 duology finally ends with Maya watching her "past" pass her by.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbAslwd_kZY

She would've opened another can of worms/pandora's box had she approached Tatsuya in that ending.
If there's one game that came the closest to having a story that was so touching that it could make a grown man cry. The Persona 2 games were probably it.

I almost cried when "The Boss" died in MGS3.

I almost cried from embarrassment. MGS's overly elaborate melodrama just sickens I.

Another game that was tragic imo is Suda 51's Moonlight Syndrome.
It's about a guy who had an incest love affair with his older sister.
She dies in a traffic accident.
The guy clings on to a girl named Mika Kishi, because Mika reminded him of his older sister. In order to persevere the memory of his older sister. Mika Kishi later gets killed by a rapist.
The guy makes a deal with the god of contracts, Mithra.
In order to anull Mika's death, & extend her lifespan.

I'll skip all the details & say that the guy had to kill Mika himself in order to bring her back to him. If only for a few seconds.
The real tragedy happens in Suda 51's "Silver Case"
When the guy from Moonlight Syndrome gets gunned down by a cop, lol.

[zinger]

Tamashii no Mon

I have the CD soundtrack, do you know if there's an OPN version also, or any other version for that matter? Maybe I'm mistaken but it sounds weird to presume all gamers have access to a CD drive for their PC98 in 1992?

[raphael]

Plenty.

Towards the end of Chrono Cross...
During Snake Eater's epilogue...
After Gitaroo Man's "battle" with Kira...
For the death of Grey Fox...
For nearly half of Suikoden 3...
Ah, Final Fantasy Tactics, at least once...

In my defense, 1997 - 2003 were hard times, and prescription drugs had a lot to answer for.

Wow, you beat me.
Damn, I must have grown cold hearted.
I even played and enjoyed many of theses games... but not tears.

[GnaM]

When the guy from Moonlight Syndrome gets gunned down by a cop, lol.

I feel that this quote deserves its own internet acronym; GGDBACL. As in "gets gunned down by a cop, lol."

"OMGWTF, I went down to the corner to pick up a dime bag from my dealer, but it turns out he GGDBACLed. Luckily someone got it on tape and put it on youtube, and now I'm making it into a YTMND (cause he did a barrel roll when he hit the ground LMAO.)"

[Macaw]

Tamashii no Mon

I have the CD soundtrack, do you know if there's an OPN version also, or any other version for that matter? Maybe I'm mistaken but it sounds weird to presume all gamers have access to a CD drive for their PC98 in 1992?

That is an arrange album. The original PC-98 version had OPN synth (I much prefer the original synth, although the arrange album is still cool)

There was also a FM-Towns version of the game that came on a CD. Not sure what the sound was like.

[szycag]

Does crying out of sheer frustration count? Because I did that with Super Mario 64. I won't tell the story if it's OT though.

[icycalm]

szycag, use your judgement. There's usually nothing wrong with making off-topic posts, but in the few cases where there is I will be sure to point it out. By asking for permission all you are doing is ensuring that the thread gets even more off-topic posts (your question and my answer).

Does crying out of sheer frustration count?

Not really. I am interested in whether a game can move you to tears, not frustrate you to tears. Their ability to accomplish the latter is already well-documented.

[zinger]

That is an arrange album. The original PC-98 version had OPN synth (I much prefer the original synth, although the arrange album is still cool).

Got it, I had forgotten to update my HOOT archives, just found it.

[Mr.Stevenson]

I can't recall any time that I have cried because of a event in a video game. I certainly have cried while watching watching films, animations, and reading books--but mostly because I wanted to. I was still in control of my emotions, yet decided to loosen the reigns on them.

[szycag]

Looking back, I think I teared up during some parts of Earthbound. It was the music that ended up making me cry, though, in the end. It makes me really curious about Mother 3, since the ad campaign for that game was that it could move people to tears.

Crying about Aeris dying in FF7, for me, would be like crying about no-name guy on the away team dying in Star Trek. Too many games try to tug at your emotions with shit like that. I'm not going to get attached to a character in a damn video game, no matter how much of a backlog you give me on the person.

[Mr.Stevenson]

Does anybody find it ignorant that many "professional" video game critics/sites say things to the extent of "if video games want to take the next giant leap, then video games will have to tap into our emotions."

If video games aren't tapping into ones emotions right now (which clearly they do, for some people), what's going to make video games be able to suddenly tap into them in the future? I might be narrow minded, but it's hard for me to envision a shift where this occurs.

[U-Rat]

Wachenroder (Saturn) completely screwed me up!
...I am still traumatized by its story / music / atmosphere.

otherwise... hmmm...
I cried when my first tamagochi died in his poo.

[walrusdawg]

Playing Nethack and realizing that death is inevitable, I have stood up, paced back and forth for 20 minutes with my eyes welling up and tears running down my cheeks, knowing that I will be prompted whether or not to identify my possessions on my very next turn. I have talked to my PC at these times.

"Well, we've gotten out of tight spots in the past, had a lot of close calls. . .I know you're determined, But this is it. Stop trying to draw protection runes in the dirt and give them a scar to remember you by, because I don't think we're gonna make it out of this one."

The emotion there is magnitudes greater than any game where "death" means "continue form checkpoint 20 seconds before you died." I have cared for these @'s more than I have ever cared for anything else in entertainment media.

[ExiledOne]

It's a vague memory but as a kid I cried once, after losing a battle in Pokemon Stadium. That's the only incident I can remember crying from a videogame. I remember recently, getting a lump in my throat while watching the boat scene in "Lunar Silver Star Story Complete". Although, I've never actually played the game so I don't think that counts. With other forms of media, I didn't cry except when I saw the beginning of "Tales of the Krypt ".

[somes]

Only one time that I can remember: the ending of Planescape: Torment.

What a terrible thing.

[Sejez]

Only one time that I clearly remember, the end of Terranigma got my eyes all watery and made me shed some tears. The ending just made me feel sad.

I have some other examples of games that have moved me (maybe even to tears but I am not sure since my memory is a bit foggy). The similarity between each time it has happened is that it is either music or a story situation(or both) that has made me get emotional.

In the recent time I have not come across any games that has moved me emotionally (save for a few soundtracks). Might have something to do me getting bored of JRPGs, having played quite a lot of them I have grown bored of the way they are played. There is only so much fun you can have with the same old game mechanics, not to mention that new JRPGs are piss easy. Waiting for 40 hours for maybe a few emotional scenes and some nice music is not really what I would like to do anymore. In addition most of the stories of new JRPGs seem only to be rehashes of the same childish old stories anyway.

I don't really see how games not should be able to provoke emotions, since the medium uses sound,images and text which I know are sufficient to move a person to tears. Or am I missing something here?

[icycalm]

Yeah, you are missing the most important thing. It is true that a game uses sound, images and text, but it uses them in a very, very different way from movies and novels, and it is only the movie and novel way of using sound, images and text that can move you to tears, not the game way.

If a game does in fact end up moving you to tears, that just means it's using sound, images and text in the movie and novel way, which just means that it's a bad game.

I'll have a lot more to say about this in my book. The whole issue basically revolves around the concept of loss.

[Sejez]

I think I know what you mean, I have never cried because a game itself has made me sad, only because of a cutscene or the music.

But that makes me wonder if labeling a game like Yume Nikki like a game is just idiocy,
since as a game it is absymal but is an enjoyable experience for completly different reasons.
If it is stupid what should it be called then? An interactive adventure?

[icycalm]

The term 'interactive adventure' is an extremely pompous one. Basically,

interactive adventure = virtual reality

So no, it would be quite stupid to use that term for Yume Nikki, or indeed for any other game.

Yume Nikki is quite simply a game. A bad one, but still a game.

[Sejez]

What would be a legit game way of making a player cry?

[icycalm]

I've already given you a hint, and explained that I am not ready yet to go into detail.

Really, though, that hint gives away everything.

[TurbulentBlue]

I have had 3 moments when I cried during a game.

The first was when I was about 10 after the metroid died in Metroid 3.
The second was when The Boss died in MGS3.
The third was in Spyro: The Legend Begins, the first and last God of War/Devil may cry action game i purchased (I did not know that it was one at the time). I cried when I discovered that when you die you are instantly revived where you stand with full health, making what little challenge the game had void.

[bullethell]

I have never cried playing a video game.

The only moment that I remember I felt really sad was back in 1995 in Final Fantasy VI on Super Nintendo. That ghost train that took Cyan's wife and son away.