by willherox
The entry for THE MISSING contains SPOILERS!!
If you read my piece on my recent playthrough of Mass Effect 3, you'll know that I'm an emotional gal. I cry fairly often from media, and this year had a number of games that fell into that category. A number of them were old ones I was experiencing for the first time, and others were new experiences that cemented themselves in my brain and have stuck with me since. Well until Mass Effect took over my life anyway.
So here are the games I recall crying from this year. Some were me bawling for hours, others were shedding a tear or two. What mattered was that they made me emotional. Please enjoy.
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Reading the link I plugged above would fill you in on why I cried more about Mass Effect than anything else this year. To put it simply: holy shit Commander Shepard you deserve a hug and to rest and be gay with Liara.
I played the entire Kazuma Kiryu saga in roughly 16 months. Starting from a PlayStation Plus copy of 4 in January 2017, I managed to beat the odds and get through all the canonical games that at least featured the Dragon of Dojima (which included importing Kiwami 2) before his final adventure, and it was a trip. Beating all of them and crying at some point in each one wasn't enough to prepare me for the end though; I played the last stretch of The Song of Life in one sitting, and at a certain point I started crying. And it only got worse from there. Hours before the final boss, and for awhile afterwards, I had a hard time composing myself as I grappled with the events that closed out Kiryu's story. It was a very well done ending, and it was enough to make me satisfied with what that series built to.
I won't say much about Yakuza 3 because it's likely the one most of y'all haven't played yet, but maaaaaan it's got some of the best beats in the series, and it might have the best story besides 0? There are some really strong arcs that definitely beat out at least 1, 2, and 4 for me, if not 5 as well.
This wasn't my first time beating Spirit of Justice, but it was the time that the emotional finale really broke me. Apollo gets a breakdown moment similar to the ones Phoenix gets in Justice for All and Trials and Tribulations, but Apollo's feels different to me. It is a gut reaction to a real, tangible loss, and...gosh that moment is extremely well done.
Despite not being a Twin Peaks inspired story full of Hella Gays like the first Life is Strange, Dontnod's sequel managed to grab me just as much as the first season did. If Max's story felt like something real teenagers would experience, Sean and Daniel's so far feels as if it could be real in terms of politics and reactions to the current state of things. It's really well done and I can't wait for more next year.
*This is specifically about the Farewell DLC chapter Me: oh haha this is just a fun nice thing about Max and Chloe's life before the other games! This should be nice and fluffy Me later: OH NO
*SPOILERS* Let me be frank: this might be the best game I've played that deals with LGBTQ+ themes. This is ignoring something like a Fallout or a Mass Effect that has gay characters in it; I mean in terms of a game that specifically tackles the subject of being a member of that population. I did not expect SWERY's new game to do anything related to trans identities at all, I thought if anything, based on the first few minutes, it would be about being a gay woman. But then as time progresses and you find out about the real story...it just. It's a lot. As a trans woman, the reveal of this game hit me dead on and it was really inspiring. It felt honest about self-hatred and other things most games don't, and that made it really special to me. PLEASE, if you're reading this and for some reason haven't tried this game, play it or at least give it some attention. It mattered to me this year almost more than any other title. The crying I did was of both hope and despair; the turnaround for that was almost immediate and was really well done.
You should play CrossCode. Really. As someone who tends to mostly only enjoy indie games that put story about gameplay, I loved this game and would definitely recommend it based on combat alone. But the story is still really neat; in a year of really good protagonists, Lea was still one of my favorites. She goes through some shit.
Kassandra's epic across the Greek world is easily my actual game of the year. In a year where I found most AAA games' combat either middling or downright frustrating, Odyssey had hacking and slashing that felt really stellar and meaningful. But the best thing about Odyssey was seeing the world, interacting with it, and just living in it. It felt realized and incredible. Also I don't remember when I cried, I just recall that I did at some point.
There were several sidequests in Origins that were really good and tugged at my heartstrings.