You know that very first Goomba in World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros.?

I never want to kill him. He's so alone, without any friends, you know? I just want to let him keep walking. I mean, screw the 100 points, this is a *life* we're talking about, here. So I don't stomp on him. He may be an enemy, but... No one should be ruled by their genes. The important thing is that he's alive. And I tell him to *live*! *LIVE*, Snake...

...wrong game.

--Steve

About the topic at hand, there were 3 incidents in one game, in the space of about maybe an hour that just had me totally and completly overwhlemed. It was so bad that it left me in shock for the rest of the day, and to this day I couldn't bear to touch Suikoden 2 ever again.

Near the very start, when you come back to the village that's been decimated, by Luca Blight's troops the little girl Pilika recounts in her own comprehension about finding her parents dead. Just the way she talked and described what happened was sort of disturbing. Putting myself in her shoes was just way too easy to do, and it made me sick to my stomach just thinking about the event that happened.

Not too farther along you see the scene of Luca Blight massacaring a whole town. That "DIE PIG!" scene was just.....really disturbing. Not even Silent Hill which is one disturbing and mindwarping experience was that disturbing. Just the way Luca Blight behaved makes him seem so inhuman it defies belief. I hear news stories daily about inhuman killings and genocide, but those people who are profiled in those instances are NOTHING compared to Luca Blight.

And the last instance was seeing Luca Blight kill one of those hapless NPC's right in front of Pilika. That scene was the last straw, I was already in Pilika's shoes then and seeing Luca just flat out butcher a person in front of her left me about as shaken as Pilika was, who couldn't talk no more. That was it, 1 hour into this game and already I'm treated to one of the most emotionally disturbing games in history. I couldn't play Suikoden 2 again after that, each time I'd pick it up, those recurring scenes would linger in my memory, and I'd completly lose it and go do something else to waste some time.

To this day I still think Luca Blight is the most inhuman evil villain EVER created, fictional or otherwise. And I can't bear to see his face again. I won't prod Suikoden 2 with a ten-foot pole anytime soon.

-Lezard

***Skies of Arcadia Spoiler ahead***

After being captured by the Valuans, you are separated from your companions. One of which happens to be the cute and perky (I know, quite a departure for an RPG female character) Aika. Vigoro (your standard big, stupid henchman) decides he wants to force himself onto Aika. He wraps his arms around her, and the scene changes as you hear Aika scream for help. Up until this point, SOA was a light hearted, good old fashion RPG, but as far as I was concerned, this piece of crap was attempting to rape a member of *my* party, who I was protecting. I was livid. I was livid at Vigoro, I was livid at the game designers for allowing it to happen, I was livid at myself for surrendering to Ramirez, and getting our party into such a predicament (I didn't know at the time that you had no choice in the matter). I don't usually get so emotionally involved, but something about a man forcing himself on a women really strikes a chord in me.

***End of Spoiler***

Thanks for taking the time to read this email, keep up the great work (I never wrote to DA before, and now this makes twice in 3 days!)

-Josue

I was in the third scenario, just minding my own antly business, collecting food for my beloved queen. The setting was a peaceful outdoor garden; there was a nice assortment of potted plants and whatnot, a little dirt pathway to boot. A mellow soundtrack accompanied me as I comenced with my work.

Suddenly, before I even realized what was happening, a huge spider emerged from the top of the screen! Now you have to understand -- the spiders in that game are hella-scarey-looking. They're like hairless tarantulas and they're about 50 times larger than your pathetic little ant. The hungry arachnid made short work of me, accompanied by a loud, disturbing noise and the most dreadful crunching sound. It happened faster than I could even think to run and it scared the CRAP out of me. I threw my SNES controller in the air and it landed about six feet away. Zombies shcmombies.

El Cactuar

The part in Shenmue when Ryo Hazuki asked the bartender at the harbor town Yokosuka's motorcycle bar, 'Do you know where I can find some sailors?' brought tears to my eyes. Such a devoted young man, looking for his father, bound only by his brick-like dumbness.

'Ryo Hazuki -- he SHO'ZELL ain't BATMAN.'

Anyway, the most emotional videogame moment for me was the big 180 in Lufia II. All along, you think Maxim and Tia are going to 'hook up,’ because they've been so close since childhood. Tia goes adventuring with him, cringing in fear every time he goes off on his own to fight something big and scary. Maxim ends up saving her every once in a while.

Along comes Selan, badass warrior of a woman. When Maxim wants to charge into battle against Gades, Selan is right alongside him. Tia, however, stands back in fear. The player should empathize with Tia -- we've seen Gades kick numerous asses in rapid succession. We know Maxim's decision to charge into battle is rash. Tia can't fight; Maxim and Selan charge in. The game has gone on for thirty hours to this point. This could, quite possibly, be the end of the game. I mean, games weren't as long as Xenogears those days.

Miraculously, Selan and Maxim triumph, ridding the world of evil. The heroes of the world, including Guy, Tia, Selan, and Maxim convene at the first town for a celebration. During the celebration, we see Tia walk off by herself. Guy finds her, and asks her where she's going. She says she's leaving, departing from the game, venturing west of the sun. She says she can't be with Maxim anymore, if she's so afraid of him getting killed. She says Selan is the woman who deserves Maxim, since she respects him enough to actually fight with him. She tells a story about how she's always cried for everything, and never herself. She says it's time for her to do something for herself. She leaves.

Apparently, Maxim and Selan understand all this, because they get married and have a baby within a year. The game fasts forward a year and a half, and then proceeds to go on for thirty more hours. (More, if you take on the Ancient Cave, Forfiet Island's casino, and other sidequests)

Tia never appears again.

In the end, when Maxim and Selan sacrifice themselves to save the world, you can't help feeling the same way as when you watched Tia stay behind during the first battle with Gades.

Selan and Tia, I realized at those two points in the game, are the two most realized female characters in RPGs. Elly in XG was pretty good, too. Aeris and Tifa served as nice opposites, for about the first six hours of the game. Aeris started to grate on me, with her 'responsibility.'

In short, the makers of Lufia II created, however simple, however super-deformed, however pastel-colored, the most convincing RPG love story of all time – Kawabata’s sensibility comes to mind.

Well, almost as good as Ryo Hazuki and Nozomi, with their tender, 'I'm going to Canada, Ryo, I don't have much time left;' 'Okay;' 'Can't we stay like this, a little longer?'; 'Okay' moment.

Um... yeah.

Ahem.

Oooh, the part with 'Welcome Back, Chrono Trigger' in Chrono Cross hit me hard. I felt chills.

--tim rogers, in a random mood... ooh, Lufia for GBC comes out in less than two weeks!

The last time I was overcome with emotion was when I first saw Dr. Dance while playing Unison. His hair....it was so big and.....flowing. Afros don't flow! Afros don't flow.

- Megane

On topic of the topic yesterday, I have 2 words: Valkyrie Profile. Of any RPG I have played in the past, other than FF7, I have never become as emotional as I did during this game. Sure, the deaths of some characters could be extremely depressing, but even those, nor any other death of any other character from any other game could not compare to the prologue. The way Platina's mother treated her, when Lucian told her that she had been sold, and finally the scene in the weeping lily field, then combined with the music and the voice acting... I was actually crying. The most I could think about doing was smashing Platina's mother's face in. That would have 'availed' me.

- Esto Carass

PS: I think the name of the book that Parasite Eve was based from was called... Parasite Eve.

[This paragraph contains an FFV spoiler].

One brief moment where I felt that kind of emotion at a game was while playing Final Fantasy V. I'd heard what a great character Gilgamesh was (mostly from The GIA using him as an in-joke), and I was diasappointed when I actually played the game - he was just a comic relief sidekick, and not even that funny. No depth. Or so I felt until I got to the fourth fight with him, in Exdeath's castle. I won the fight, not thinking much of it, until the music abruptly changed from Gilgamesh's kickass theme to Exdeath's more-generic tune, and Exdeath announced that he was sick of Gilgamesh's incompetence and was sending him into the Void o' Scary Doom. As Gilgamesh started futile-ly begging for his life, he suddenly became a pitiable character - a guy who was way out of his league, but too loyal and too proud to do anything but keep trying. So that scene made me, for just a brief moment, really feel for Gilgamesh (and hope he'd show up again), and actually develop some hatred for Exdeath. But I can't really explain just why the scene worked so perfectly. Maybe it was the music.

Secondly, well, it's interesting that mej's topic was chosen with Chrono Cross in mind, since that game seems to be great at stirring emotion for some reason. I can think of a few great moments in Chrono Cross - I came close to crying at the end (and I _never_ cry at books/movies/games), and of course lots of Trigger fans must've found the Dead Sea haunting.

But the moment in that game that stands out to me more than any other in recent memory comes before the game itself, in the intro sequence. "Scars of Time" is playing (yeah, again with the music), and the little solilioquy comes up on the screen. You know, the one about "even then, we ran like the wind," etc. The combination of the words and the music just stirs something in my mind. I feel like I get just a hint of what the ultimate fantasy story would make me feel, and also the deep melancholy that comes from the narrator knowing that it's all in the past and thinking back. Chrono Cross is one of my favorite games, but if there were a game that could make me feel the way that the into hints at... that would be absolutely perfect.

Then Luna walking by herself is startled by a lone figure playing a lute, who sizes her up like she was a piece of meat. "Who is this unassuming elf-boy," I thought to myself. "He better stop flirting with my best girl." For some reason I was enraged at this person who would dare to look at my Luna in that manner.

But then Ghaleon started helping us and was sure to lead me to my Dragonmaster heritage. he wasn't such a bad guy after all. Little did I know...little did I know.

Then he steals my Luna and turns her into some kind of S&M bondage queen who poisons people with her voice and makes giant fortresses rise into the sky.

And that LAUGH he had! I would hear it in my dreams!

Oh, it still haunts me so.

-- Ur

And now for something compleatly different.

Please don't tell me that they actually found a witty, well read, female gamer that, to boot, had a subscription to UGP. I didn't know such a person existed.

DCB- crafter of poorly crafted letters

Do you have a plush Tonberry?