So Infamous 2 Made Me Cry...

[loudestmute]

I can't exactly call myself late to the party, though one of these days I've gotta man up and finish my evil playthrough. Can't let everyone here ruin that moment for me, now can I?

Spoiler: As for the good ending...

Whether or not you were emotionally moved by the ending (I'll admit to tearing up), you have to give some credit to Sucker Punch. In an era of sequels and balooning budgets, capping off both karmic paths with a definitive end to the series is a pretty bold move.

 

[Eddie the head]

It was sad sure but I can't say that I cried. I don't think I have ever cried due to a Video Game. Hell not even the best movie makes me cry. Although I am emotionally jaded.

 

[jhoroz]

I'm too emotionally dead to cry at anything these days, but sometimes my feelings sneak up on me like a sudden adrenaline rush, like when I first saw the ending to ICO (still didn't cry though)

 

[EHKOS]

Oh good a recent inFamous 2 thread. I can finally bring up that there should have been a trophy referencing Back to the Future where you use an ionic storm to hit the clock tower.

Also, no, I've never encountered a game that made me cry.

I can't exactly call myself late to the party, though one of these days I've gotta man up and finish my evil playthrough. Can't let everyone here ruin that moment for me, now can I?

Spoiler: As for the good ending...

Whether or not you were emotionally moved by the ending (I'll admit to tearing up), you have to give some credit to Sucker Punch. In an era of sequels and balooning budgets, capping off both karmic paths with a definitive end to the series is a pretty bold move.

Spoiler

RRRR THE LIGHTNING HIT THE COFFIN! HE'S ALIVE I TELL YOU, ALIVE!

 

[BehattedWanderer]

It's okay. Money's tight, and Infamous 2 is worth it. We accept this. You played it, and you loved it. Some of us cried as well. It was a very touching moment. Ohh, Zeke. :'( What a great emotional heart to a story. So, basically:

As to games that made me cry, or well up, or feel a profound amount of sadness? Chrono Trigger, Mother 3, Infamous 2, Mass Effect 3, and most recently Xenoblade Chronicles. Oof, did that one hurt. In the first act, when you first meet Metal Face, and what he does? Ow. Ow ow ow my heart ow oh gods did that hurt. There's the perfect setup for a deus ex moment, but then...nothing. They didn't do one. I had to stop playing for a day, immediately thereafter, because I was honestly in mourning. Oof did that one hurt.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The two female characters were undermined by their rather contrived 11th-hour role reversal.

I actually quite liked this and I feel the game would've benefited from more of such moments.

Throughout the game you knew that Quo represented the GOOD path and Nix the BAD path, and this made for a somewhat predicable interaction with these two. The final mission actually shock things up a bit and added a bit of depth to both characters.

OT: The thing that really shocked me about the ending was that it was an actual ending. No sequel bait since every new game franchise needs to be a trilogy or more these days, just a good clean ending that wraps everything up.

 

[AnarchistFish]

I know it's a bit late, but financial strains mean I take a while to get through the latest batch of new games.

I just finished both endings of Infamous 2, and I have to say I was absolutely blown away. Sucker Punch are an offensively underrated developer in my eyes but the quality of story craft in this game was incredible. I was genuinely moved by the good ending, and had the horrible hollowness in the pit of your stomach feeling with the bad ending. It was probably the first game with a morale choice system where I actually, personally regretted my actions.

This brings me to the question: Has a game ever made you cry or, failing that, what game has brought out the strongest emotion in you (being angry at bad design doesn't count)?

Well I'm feeling silly with my sole 360 now, don't I.

For me, probably Mass Effect 3 actually, but that's as a culmination of the trilogy. Watching the relationships my character made with the other characters over the three games, through all the trials and troubles managing to stick together with those survivors and watching how they progress themselves, and then having all those ties destroyed right at the end. I'm not sure if it being your own choice to sacrifice yourself makes it better or worse, but yeah, that's pretty powerful, especially since all that was building over the three games.

 

[Otaku World Order]

The two female characters were undermined by their rather contrived 11th-hour role reversal.

I actually quite liked this and I feel the game would've benefited from more of such moments.

Throughout the game you knew that Quo represented the GOOD path and Nix the BAD path, and this made for a somewhat predicable interaction with these two. The final mission actually shock things up a bit and added a bit of depth to both characters.

OT: The thing that really shocked me about the ending was that it was an actual ending. No sequel bait since every new game franchise needs to be a trilogy or more these days, just a good clean ending that wraps everything up.

And the thing is, Quo's heel turn is believable, because I wouldn't want to die either.

I really liked both inFamous games, more then I ever thought I would. COle is a bit blank, but the other characters and the solid story help carry it all. Cole's blandness can probably be attributed to the fact that all the cutscenes have to present Cole in a way that everything he says and does can fit with both Good Guy Cole and Bad Guy Cole.

And I do like that inFamous 2 provided a solid ending for both paths.

Captcha: Have Fun

Thank you, I will.

 

[razor343]

I believe I've said this a few times before here on The Escapist but the only 'game' to have made me shed a manly tear was GTA: The Lost and Damned, specifically its ending. There's just something about how things turned out for The Lost Biker Gang that's horribly sad. To me at least.

 

[teebeeohh]

the bad ending for infamous 2 did not touch me as much because i really was in magneto mode and while i hated killing zeke i rationalized it as moving humanity forward, with Cole having to suffer by killing his best friend to set humanity on the path to a better future.

the good ending made me feel much more sad and bleak because i felt like i achieved nothing, i killed everyone who was superpowered but now that they know it's possible somebody will recreate the tech and start anew and how will protect humanity?
while contemplating this I finished the thing because i had a cramp in my middle finger and let got of the trigger and i really regretted doing it.

i guess i as a gamer really like when the game stops and involves me in an emotional scene that is going on, even if it is just pushing a button and i don't have a choice if i want to continue the game, that's why the ending of MGS3 had to much impact, it took me years to finish that game just because i refused to pull the trigger and replayed it again and again, hoping to find a way around that.

 

[JasonKaotic]

The game that's evoked the strongest emotions in me, by very, very far, is definitely Nier.
If you've played it and you're wondering why, that's because the developers of Nier are idiots and hid all the good bits in an alternate playthrough it never tells you about. After the credits roll the game starts again from halfway through, and things are... not particularly cheerful. Not that they were before, even the first playthrough was pretty sad at points, but yeah. Playthrough B is just heartbreaking. The game plays out the exact same way, but there are extra cutscenes in which you see things from a different perspective. And originally you couldn't understand what the enemies of the game were saying, but playthrough B adds subtitles that translate them. I can't really explain it in a way that people who haven't played the game would understand, so I won't go into detail. But seriously... wow. Playthrough B onwards of that game is just... wow. It didn't make me cry, but I did go quiet for a very, very long time after finishing it. And there were a lot of point where I didn't want to carry on because of what was going to happen.
But don't skip ahead and just play playthrough B if you somehow find a way to. You need to play playthrough A first to understand why it's such a kick in the nuts.

Big group hug to anyone who knows what I'm talking about.

(Honorable mention goes to Lost Odyssey. That game was pretty damn sad too. But it's got nothing on Nier.)

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Snip

God-damn, playthrough B of Nier is so depressing. It also makes the fight against the shades in the fields near the start (which, if memory serves, you don't play in playthrough B) make a lot more sense. They don't attack you and the first time through and it seemed odd... after the second playthrough it becomes horrifying.

Spoiler

"Please! They're just children, they don't know any better!"

 

[JasonKaotic]

Snip

God-damn, playthrough B of Nier is so depressing. It also makes the fight against the shades in the fields near the start (which, if memory serves, you don't play in playthrough B) make a lot more sense. They don't attack you and the first time through and it seemed odd... after the second playthrough it becomes horrifying.

Spoiler

"Please! They're just children, they don't know any better!"

Nice to see I'm not the only one who's played it. There are not enough hugs in the world to make us feel better about what we've done.
I haven't done playthrough C or D yet though. Having to get every weapon in the game seems a bit much.

 

[-Drifter-]

The last few minutes of Journey was the most uplifted a game has ever made me feel, due in no small part to what came right before it. Jesus, that was a depressing level.

 

[natster43]

For me the closest a game came to making me cry was the end of Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. That made me tear up and that is the closest I came to crying from a game. That ending is really depressing.

 

[suitepee7]

The two female characters were undermined by their rather contrived 11th-hour role reversal.

I actually quite liked this and I feel the game would've benefited from more of such moments.

Throughout the game you knew that Quo represented the GOOD path and Nix the BAD path, and this made for a somewhat predicable interaction with these two. The final mission actually shock things up a bit and added a bit of depth to both characters.

i second this, i loved the mixup right at the end, felt it really added something.

OT: yeah, infamous endings made me pretty sad, i also shed a manly tear at (ME3 spoilers)

Spoiler

mordin sacrificing himself while singing. seriously, that was haunting...

 

[Zhukov]

The two female characters were undermined by their rather contrived 11th-hour role reversal.

I actually quite liked this and I feel the game would've benefited from more of such moments.

Throughout the game you knew that Quo represented the GOOD path and Nix the BAD path, and this made for a somewhat predicable interaction with these two. The final mission actually shock things up a bit and added a bit of depth to both characters.

The problem was that it didn't come naturally from the character's respective development. There was nothing to suggest that Nix would care about saving regular people or that she would rather die than be just another super person in a world full of them. While Quo being scared of dying is fair enough, there was nothing to suggest that she would be totally okay with murdering 99% of the world.

It was just a surprising 11th hour role reversal for the sake of having a surprising 11th hour role reversal. That's not how you add depth to characters.

Ya got to foreshadow that shit. Show that Nix is indifferent rather than malevolent towards the general population and places ridiculously high value in being "special". Show that Quo has a ruthless streak. Then pay that off in the reversal.

They didn't do that. They just went, "BAM! Role reversal! Because role reversals are cool!" Sure, it was surprising, but it just undermined the characters.

 

[Syzygy23]

To answer the question, no, no game has ever made me cry. The combination of nigh-universally lacklustre writing and the uncanny valley prevent them from having that effect on me. It's kinda strange considering that movies can make me tear up at the drop of a hat.

[snip]

The remark about the uncanny valley does bug me about many games, though. It makes many of them less believable when you're just staring into the character's dead eyes during what's meant to be a heartfelt moment. I feel this is another strength of Planescape: Torment; it relies on text, not animation, to convey most of it's story. This goes for actions as well as dialogue and most of it is very well written. As a result, the "cut-scenes" happen in your head, helping to largely avoid the dreaded uncanny valley.

Yeah... I never really got into Planescape Torment either.

That old-school RPG format just doesn't do it for me. There's no voice acting and the little sprites can't emote in the slightest, so there's nothing there for me to "connect" with. The written text was too dry and clinical to make up the shortfall. No flair or imagery. The characters all felt too wooden and soulless for me to care much about them.

Sure, the writing and story was pretty good, but it was good in a "Huh, that's interesting" kind of way, as opposed to an "Oh, the humanity!" sort of way.

I don't think we're playing the same game. "Dry and clinical"? What are you SMOKING?

Anyway, back on topic.
I too, teared up at the good ending. It was one of the most satisfying and bittersweet ends to a game ever made, ever.
The music that plays during the credits doesn't help. It just really hammers home that note of finality. And don't get me started on the evil ending. I cannot get past the part where I have to kill Zeke. I just... I can't kill ZEKE. That's just crossing the moral even horizon.

I hope they never make a sequel to InFamous 2, it would cheapen the effect it has.

Also, just for you guys:

*sniff* God damnn it...

 

[bruggs]

The two female characters were undermined by their rather contrived 11th-hour role reversal.

I actually quite liked this and I feel the game would've benefited from more of such moments.

Throughout the game you knew that Quo represented the GOOD path and Nix the BAD path, and this made for a somewhat predicable interaction with these two. The final mission actually shock things up a bit and added a bit of depth to both characters.

i second this, i loved the mixup right at the end, felt it really added something.

OT: yeah, infamous endings made me pretty sad, i also shed a manly tear at (ME3 spoilers)

Spoiler

mordin sacrificing himself while singing. seriously, that was haunting...

Spoiler

It is so much sadder if you shoot him yourself
I didn't *want* to do it, but I was absolutely determined to be as prepared for the reapers as possible, and I needed that Salarian support.

Of course, Wrex and Eve both survived for me, and Kai Leng failed to kill the Salarian council member, so my choice actually ended up being the worse one.