Which character death affected you the most?

[𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥]

Read title, thought this would be an interesting thread 🙂

Please be sure to mark your response with SPOILERS, someone might be playing the game you're talking about so don't ruin the experience for them!

Edited April 5, 2023 by 𝙇𝙤𝙠𝙞

[Fabulously Olivier]

Gameplay answer -  Dynasty Warriors

Spoiler

Zhou Yu in Dynasty Warriors 8. Losing one's main to a historically accurate death is gonna make the rest of that playthrough just a bit less fun.

 

Actually made me cry - The Last of Us

Spoiler

Joel's daughter at the beginning of the Last of Us.

 

Effected me even though I knew they didn't actually die - The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3 & 4

Spoiler

Olivert in Trails of Cold Steel 3 and 4. The grave site scenes were really unexpectedly good. 

 

And of course, the heroic reentry was the best damn scene in the franchise.

 

Made me really pity the protagonist - Yakuza Kiwami

Spoiler

Kiryu's adoptive father, brother, and girlfriend, all within the course of a couple hours.

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Fabulously Olivier

[lenticular]

I'm not really sure what the best way is to deal with spoilers here, since even saying that a game has a prominent death can be a bit of a spoiler. But on the other hand, if you don't mention what game you're talking about outside of the spoiler then people have no idea whether it's something they want to avoid or not.

So, um, minor spoilers for... a 2013 indie game:

Spoiler

Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons. This has some of the best gameplay/story integration of any game I've ever played.

And now the massive spoiler that you absolutely should not read if you haven't played this game and have any intention of doing so in the future. (Which you probably don't because it's an indie game from 2013, but hey, can't be too careful.)

Spoiler

So, it's been a decade since I played this and my memory is a little fuzzy, but as far as I can remember: The basic idea behind this game is that it's a single player game that plays a bit like a co-op game. You control two different characters -- the eponymous brothers -- simultaneously using different sides of your controler. Then towards the end of the game, one of the brothers dies. And it feels strange and bleak and a bit desolate to suddenly only be using half your controler. Except then you get to a point where suddenly you do have to use the other half of the controller again, as your character draws on the memory and spirit of his dead brother to overcome the adversity he's facing. It's really quite brilliant. To quote the review from Rock, Paper, Shotgun: "Brothers is the first game to ever make me feel emotional about the button I pressed on a controller." Yeah, that about sums it up.

 

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Okay, so...

The Last of Us:

 

Sarah. That was hard to watch, and even harder to actually play through.

Next, Insomniac's Spider-Man:

 

Aunt May. I wasn't expecting that, and when it happened in the end, it was done so well and it hit so hard.

And, finally, one I'm not sure anyone has talked much about before: What Remains of Edith Finch

 

The baby in the bathtub. I was shocked the game went THAT far and actually made you play through a baby drowning in the bathtub, from the baby's perspective. That was the most difficult thing I ever played and I'm never doing it again.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Fire Emblem Fan

[Florete]

Spoiler tags are pretty pointless without knowing what game is being spoiled. How am I supposed to know if I've played the game being spoiled or not? I realize for some games even knowing that there is a "spoiler death" at all can be considered a spoiler, but if someone is opening this topic they should have already accepted that fact.

I don't really have a #1 so I'll just mention a few that stuck out for me.

I'll start with Resident Evil 4 Remake since I just played it and thus it is currently on my mind:

Spoiler

Luis is 100% a better character in the remake and thus his inevitable death hits harder than before.

FE7

Spoiler

I'm not sure how these would affect me today, but this was the first game I played that had a story with any kind of depth, so the major character deaths (Leila, Elbert, Athos) all got me pretty good at the time.

Radiant Dawn

Spoiler

Pelleas. Despite his clear inexperience he tried his best to be a good king, but he got tricked and made things worse. He finds the solution (or so it seems) and it requires his death...which he readily accepts.

Being able to save him on subsequent runs is kind of cool as an alternate universe thing, but I do think I prefer the original as canon.

Okami

Spoiler

A bit different here due to the circumstances; finding Rao's corpse and realizing she'd been dead all along and that the Rao we'd been interacting with the whole time was an impostor was a pretty big deal for me. And this comes right after you see a vision of her under attack, so you think if you can get to where she is fast enough you can save her...but it was just a vision of the past and she's already long gone.

Hollow Knight

Spoiler

This one's just got a laundry list of potentially impactful deaths. Myla, Cloth, the grey mourner and the traitor's child, the nailsmith, the broken vessel, even the knight.

And last but certainly not least (in fact, probably the most impactful one in this post), NieR Automata

Spoiler

2B. If you've played it, you know.

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Florete

[𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥]

For future posts on this thread, format it how Florete did it, makes things less confusing and you'll know which game is being spoiled. Forgot to mention that in the original post. 

[HendrikMoaG]

I have to apologize in advance if gacha game isn’t accepted here. But for me, it’s in Honkai Impact 3rd, Chapter 9

Spoiler

it’s Himeko from Honkai Impact 3rd. I get that she’s always been raising death flags since day 1 and death means nothing in that game since you still get to use her. But they gave her so much screen time and her words always mean a lot because she’s so wise and caring. I just keep crying over that cinematic ‘Final Lesson’.

 

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

I reset for all of them. 

Oh.

 

Spoiler

On 4/6/2023 at 3:57 AM, Florete said:

And last but certainly not least (in fact, probably the most impactful one in this post), NieR Automata

  Hide contents

2B. If you've played it, you know.

Not gonna lie, her death was the funniest thing in the whole damn game.

pls execute me and stop the pain/hostile takeover

ok

stabs android through stomache, so they still get their heartwearming little revenge inducing reunion

[Etrurian emperor]

On 4/5/2023 at 8:49 PM, Fabulously Olivier said:

Gameplay answer -  Dynasty Warriors

Even worse in DW7 where he's playable for like....two stages before dying. Which beats some of em being playable for ONE and then dying!