Becoming Emotionally Attached to Game Characters and Feeling Sad After Beating a Game

[Cold Shiny]

To this day, Shadow of the Colossus remains the game that had the greatest emotional impact on me. The ending, which I won't go into, leaves you with a deep sense of melancholy. I didn't want to leave, it still breaks my heart that I had to. The fates of the two main characters are actually pretty open, and you'll never really know for sure what happened to them. I always wonder if there was more you could have done, if the developers had let you continue the story a little bit longer.

Definitely my favorite game on a Sony console.

 

[loa]

Undertale is pretty savage about that. And it knows.

 

[MiskWisk]

I get very easily attached to characters. It's part of why I can't play "evil" routes because I don't like disappointing my allies or being a dick in general.

Anyway, throw in another vote for Clementine and Lee. That game was just Telltale beating down on my feels.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This is why I keep replaying The Witcher 3 and Mass Effect 2 over and over again. I want to inhabit those worlds and interact with its characters. It feels like reading a book. I love these characters so much I don't want to let go.

 

[The Jovian]

Thomas was Alone

Spoiler: *spoilers for the whole game*

The game ends with Sam and Jo escaping the mainframe and into the Internet. After everything they've been through and the sacrifices the other main characters made for them (Paul gets eaten by the last of the pixel clouds along with Grey to prevent him from escaping as well and Thomas, Chris, John, Claire, Laura, James and Sarah all sacrifice themselves to the creation matrix to alter the system and create the routes needed to escape) it's hard not to get the feels.

David Housden's music and Danny Wallace's narration are what sealed the deal in the end.

 

[WoJ]

I'm going to be sad when Life is Strange ends in a couple weeks....

Yeah add that one to my list. I didn't think of that since Episode 5 is still forthcoming, but I will definitely miss Max and Chloe a ton. And Life is Strange is one of those games that I feel will be hard for me to replay because it has that "my story is my story" vibe to it. It's hard for me to go back and play games like that.

 

[distortedreality]

Clementine in The Walking Dead

This. The end of season 1 was hard, and then season 2....haven't had too many characters get to me like she did. Brilliantly written.

 

[Balimaar]

I'm going to be an outlier and say GTA4's Niko Bellic. Maybe its because I can relate to him having immediate family members who went through what Niko had.

I just felt rotten either way in GTA4. Niko ended up sad and more or less alone every time.

 

[bossfight1]

Undertale is definitely one of the most recent examples of this. Also Walking Dead, and Twilight Princess for hopefully understandable reasons.

 

[FakeSympathy]

It happens more often than not for me, which i cried for every single one of them. Some of them include;
Lee at the end of TTG WD,
Johnny at the end of To the moon,
Emile the ending ofValiant Hearts: The Great War
and Ezio Auditore after beating AC: Revelations/

 

[BlackBark]

Yes, this happens to me sometimes, although it's almost exclusivley rpgs, although can be with other story heavy games. Having said that, it's normally rpgs because they last long enough to get invested in the characters.

Persona 4 was one for me as well. I wasn't expecting to like the game much, but I ended up finding all the characters quite interesting and likeable.

Some other games I didn't want to end were Suikoden 2 and 5, Golden Sun/Lost Age, Trails in the Sky, Witcher 3, ...basically any rpg where I like the characters.

 

[krystalphoenix]

For me it was Tales of Symphonia, I never realised the first time that there would be a point where my choices would determine which of two characters would be with me to the end of the game. I was so heart broken the first time that it took me months to come to terms with it and play it again under the advisement of a friend. I was then heart broken all over again at the loss of the other character.

 

[Hero of Lime]

When I beat Fire Emblem Awakening for the first time, I felt a sense of emptiness. Sure, I still had several post game paralogues, and I wanted to keep making my units stronger. But, actually finishing the story was so sad. I had grown very attached to at least 20 different members of my army.

 

[Fox12]

Recently I just beat Persona 4: Golden, and I also made sure to unlock the true ending and extra epilogue. After doing so I have to say that I feel somewhat depressed and happy; kind of like a melancholy sort of feeling. This happens every time I get so emotionally invested to the either the characters or story of the game that I actually start to care about both on a much deeper level, almost as if both were actually real. I realize that it's all fictional, but I still can't help feeling that way. So I was wondering if anybody else ends up feeling this after beating a game they really like, and if so then how about sharing some stories or examples of times it actually has happened to you?

Damn, I was going to say the same thing. No game can quite capture the sense of melancholy at the end of a game like Persona 3 and 4 can. It doesn't help that a lot of my closest friends in college were going their separate ways. We said we'd keep in touch but... we knew it wasn't true. Or even possible. I imagine the characters in Persona 4 will keep in touch to some degree, but they won't really be a part of each others lives in the same way. Half of the cast is leaving the city, after all. I could really relate to the ending as a result. It doesn't help that the game had some of the most authentic characters I've seen in a long, long time. They all felt like people I know.

Persona 3 was the same. I played it over the course of about a year, fairly regularly, during a period in which three of my relatives died. Given that the story spends a lot of time talking about death, I could relate to it then as well. Playing it over such a long period of time also made me grow more attached to the characters then I normally would be. It also had one of my favorite game endings ever. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't played it. Somehow I always seem to relate to the themes of those games. here's looking forward to 5!

...

FF7 certainly delivered, with one of my favorite casts ever. I think I was satisfied with its ending though, I couldn't have taken anymore.

Mass Effect 3 came dangerously close as well, but the ending kind of let all of the air out of the tires three inches away from the finish line.

 

[jhoroz]

Undertale. Both times when I finished the pacifist ending I was in tears. The amazing music, goofy dialogue and ludonarrative synchronicity combine to be absolutely overwhelming. It's like listening to the last movement of Beethoven's 6th Symphony when the strings swell and release. It's just so perfect, and that ending scene... god damn I was openly weeping at that point.

I can't bring myself to play it again because in order to do so, I have to undo that "happily ever after". That's the tragic part. The fact that the game allows you to replay and just slaughter everyone after such a perfect ending... wow.

I came here to post exactly this. I haven't had a game or piece of media get under my skin the way Undertale has. 100% my GOTY.

 

[pookie101]

mass effect. played the trilogy all the dlc and got to the end and citadel felt like a final good bye to the normandy crew.. no MY crew

 

[ZodiacMaster101]

Recently I just beat Persona 4: Golden, and I also made sure to unlock the true ending and extra epilogue. After doing so I have to say that I feel somewhat depressed and happy; kind of like a melancholy sort of feeling. This happens every time I get so emotionally invested to the either the characters or story of the game that I actually start to care about both on a much deeper level, almost as if both were actually real. I realize that it's all fictional, but I still can't help feeling that way. So I was wondering if anybody else ends up feeling this after beating a game they really like, and if so then how about sharing some stories or examples of times it actually has happened to you?

Damn, I was going to say the same thing. No game can quite capture the sense of melancholy at the end of a game like Persona 3 and 4 can. It doesn't help that a lot of my closest friends in college were going their separate ways. We said we'd keep in touch but... we knew it wasn't true. Or even possible. I imagine the characters in Persona 4 will keep in touch to some degree, but they won't really be a part of each others lives in the same way. Half of the cast is leaving the city, after all. I could really relate to the ending as a result. It doesn't help that the game had some of the most authentic characters I've seen in a long, long time. They all felt like people I know.

Persona 3 was the same. I played it over the course of about a year, fairly regularly, during a period in which three of my relatives died. Given that the story spends a lot of time talking about death, I could relate to it then as well. Playing it over such a long period of time also made me grow more attached to the characters then I normally would be. It also had one of my favorite game endings ever. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't played it. Somehow I always seem to relate to the themes of those games. here's looking forward to 5!

...

FF7 certainly delivered, with one of my favorite casts ever. I think I was satisfied with its ending though, I couldn't have taken anymore.

Mass Effect 3 came dangerously close as well, but the ending kind of let all of the air out of the tires three inches away from the finish line.

Dang, the way you described how you played Persona 3 actually reminds me what I did with The Legend of Zelda Skyword Sword. So I got Skyward Sword back when it first came out in 2011, but at the time I was actually busy with my first semester of college, so I spent a lot of time playing it and then taking frequent breaks. Due to getting a larger stockpile of games, and my first job back in May 2013, I played it even less frequently then I did before. It wasn't until either March or April 2015 that I was able to beat it, and when I did I felt so empty, because that game had taken almost 4 years of my life to beat. What happened to both Fi and Impa certainly didn't help with those feelings. Funny how even though Fi annoyed me to end I still came to think of her (it?) as a dear friend; kind of like those friends you bicker with a lot, but in the end your friendship actually gets stronger because you both know you can rely on the other no matter what.

 

[Selucia]

I felt sad after finishing my second playthrough of Kotor i chose the darkside path meaning before i could enter the final level i had to butcher most of my companions which was rather unexpected. Another time was probably mass effect 3 all the little interactions in between major missions getting me very attached to some of the normandy crew.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

The biggest relief I ever got from finishing a videogame came with Halo CE. Mainly because it was back when I was very much learning to play, so completing it took me a year and a half; probably over 100 hours of playing and replaying every segment until I was good enough to finish it (Because back in the day games had proper difficulty curves. To beat a campaign game you had to get good at it.)
I finished the final level warthog gauntlet run with literally about 4 seconds to go. I actually didn't think I would make it because the swordfish was at the top of a long stairway, and I couldn't climb it in time, but I ran at it anyway and the final cut scene actually triggers from near the bottom of the stairs. I couldn't quantify my relief.

The other game I put a similar amount of effort into was Medal of Honor Frontline. Another game that I took about a year and a half to complete, but when I did I remember replaying the final level every single day for a week just to cement my victory and rewatch the ending victory cutscene.

I suppose I did feel rather sad when I completed them both, it was a bittersweet victory because it had been an actual journey to complete both of them. So many memories and such good games.


Nostalgia!