Games eliciting emotional responses - The Bear and Badger

Vela

This is a branch off from the thread about The Last Guardian where people were talking about emotional responses to games. Personally I haven't had much in the way of responses myself because ~~I'm a dried emotional husk~~ I don't get that invested in the stories which are mostly bad. I will give credit to those that are minimalistic in terms of narrative but still try to say something. Super Metroid does isolation. Rez touches on natural wonder. The Last Guardian is almost a fairy tale.

Skondo wrote:

Finished this morning. Won't say anymore than this is the single most enthralling, emotional and engaging piece of art I have ever experienced. Astonishing.

Skondo wrote:

Mrs Skondo has been watching me play this as I've grabbed an hour here or there. (Redacted) [TLG is] probably the first game to reduce me to tears.

hylian_elf wrote:

I've cried at 3 games. This wasn't one though.

Syph79 wrote:

I cried at Journey... I was very, very disappointed.

Syph79 wrote:

Don't go. We can talk about crying at the Last of Us.

Vela wrote:

I don't think a game has ever come remotely close to making me cry. Maaaaaaaybe some of the hidden story bits in Mario Galaxy but that was just retelling The Little Prince. Anger, fury, frustration are more common emotional responses usually targeted at insane difficulty spikes, shit controls and enemies in invincible animation cycles. That's not really relevant to this thread though but just looking at the discussion re emotional response.

Andy wrote:

Uncharted 4 got me. Firewatch came close, but I don't remember actually crying.

What is it that sets people off like this (emotionally) about games? Perhaps some of the people quoted ( @Andy @hylian_elf @Syph79 @Skondo ) above might like to explain what is it about some games that hits a nerve. I am a bit of a cynic so I tend to baulk at games that ask you to "buy in" to what I perceive as cheap emotional devices (akin to jump scares). The opening to The Last of Us is one that stands out to me as telling the player "you should feel emotional RIGHT NOW". Obviously other people do buy into it, but why?

Skondo

In my case with The Last Guardian I completely bought into the very simple story and I think that's because the story is your relationship with Trico. We had built this friendship together and, artificially I know, we helped each other in difficult life threatening situations. The end, which was somewhat predictable, was still distressing as

Spoiler:

Skondo

To finish as I can't seem to edit my post on this stupid tablet, it doesn't help that I am a softie particularly when animals are involved. I'd probably still cry and an old episode of Lassie or Littlest Hobo.

[Deleted User]

I'm an incredible softy when it comes to visual media. If there's a chance a film will make you cry, I'll cry. A few adverts have made me cry. I'm really quite cynical in day to day life, so evidence of human kindness (even if it's fictional) can make me cry. I tend to invest in characters in films so if they die, I'm nae happy. If they're sad, I'll often be sad, too. I watch Love, Actually every year, and Emma Thompson still makes me cry in that scene. There's a scene in Toy Story 3 that, the first time I saw it, I was so distressed my throats was sore.

It's a wonder that I don't cry more often at games, although it's rare that I get quite so invested in the characters as I do with films, so that may be the issue.

Firewatch

Spoiler:

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Spoiler:

Raiziel

I think it's the unspoken bond that does it for me. Journey didn't make me cry, but it made me feel emotions I don't normally associate with video games. I'm an animal lover, so The Last Guardian was easily able to get its hooks in, but surprisingly it wasn't until my second play through that I actually cried. That's the first time I've ever done that while playing a video game.

The Last of Us, no matter how well rendered those characters were, never came close. But...

(end game spoiler)

Spoiler:

stonechalice

Yeah that was brilliantly done. I was so invested in their bond by then that I was willing to slaughter anyone in my way.

regmcfly

Walking Dead episode 5 is the only one that really springs to mind, but if I'm going by the thread title, Both Hotline Miami and Super Hexagon never fail to elicit emotional responses from me.

Lord_Griff

Well, UC4 elicits so much rage. Stuck in and big room with a chap with a chain gun.

mk64

Does it have to be sadness? A few moments in games have actually brought out rage or anger.

No game has ever made me cry but I was moved by the cinematic effects in single player halo 3

Syph79

I think since having kids I'm a lot more susceptible to anything that pulls on the parent/child heartstrings.

TLoU:

Spoiler:

acemuzzy

I don't want to know what emotional responses TLG is gonna give me. I'm scared of reading this thread.

Kow

Alien Isolation - proper pants shitting fear. Also Amnesia, p.t.

MattyJ

Anything scary will scare me, I'm very susceptible to horror/scary stuff.

I'll also 9 times out of 10 cry when I'm supposed to, like at The Last of Us, Final Fantasy VII... Uncharted 4 did get me actually. Walking Dead did get me I think. Probably others I'm forgetting!

davyK

The little story in Mario Galaxy was touching. But that was a comic book really.

Ico's hand holding is very effective.

Can't remember properly now but I can recall something in Zelda:AlttP that was a side story about a boy who disappeared who had played pan-pipes to animals? Thought it was a nice little aside.

There's something about that starting section in the rain in AlttP that is very effective too.

hunk

Dark Souls 1&2 frequently elicit rage after dying on the spot time after time. Then there's the overwhelming joy of beating a boss or completing a tough section. This must be what it feels like being bipolar....

Moot_Geeza

I've never been moved to tears by a videogame, except possibly in anger as a pre-pubescent stroppy tween. Considering the fact that even the most mawkish country songs are capable of tugging my tearducts, I think games are just an emotional blind spot though.

Mild Inside/TLG spoilers:

Spoiler:

Kow

Likewise, I've never played a game that has elicited any emotion like sadness etc. They just haven't come that far yet.

Paul the sparky

@Mootsy Same here. Since my boy was born stuff that wouldn't have registered before has seen me bawling my eyes out. There was an advert on recently for a supermarket home delivery service which reunited a lonely old woman with her daughter, had me welling up. An advert for a supermarket FFS.

But I'm surprisingly immune to games. I get the feels no doubt, SotC was a sad and lonely tale, Andy's Uncharted 4 bit up there hit me too, FFVII, the start of TLoU, all sorts connect, but fail to tip me over the edge into tears.

Dinostar77

Anger, fear and shock yes as mentioned in the threads above (dark souls, alien isolation, nuke explosion in COD4). Sadness and tears not so far.

Anyone played "That Dragon Cancer"? I think that's supposed to be a highly emotional game.

Good link below about emotional moments in video games.

https://www.primagames.com/games/red-dead-redemption/feature/top-50-biggest-emotional-moments-video-games-10-1

hylian_elf

Vela wrote:

What is it that sets people off like this (emotionally) about games?

It's not anything specific to games. It's the same thing as with films or books etc. Someone dying, something sad, something happy and uplifting etc. I guess it helps in games in that they are interactive and you are invested in the characters over a longer period than in other media so there is more of a possibility of an emotional response.

Dinostar77

Making a decision that will result in someone dying elicits guilt i.e. Mass Effect 1 when you have to choose who stays behind with the bomb, effectively a death sentence for one of your crew. Also permadeath in the xcom games is a classic for making you feel guilty.

Music is an important for eliciting emotions and very few games do that well. Only Halo and Mass Effect come to mind with musical scores that i recall outside of the game.

I think as a kid I might of got upset at some chick dying in Final Fantasy 7 but I can't be sure.

Tempy

Despite Virginia not being very good overall, the montage of Anne working her way through the Bureau landed for me because it is complemented by well composed music. I have a low tolerance to emotional response anyway, everything sets me off, but my one disconnect is feeling scared. It rarely lands for me, and I find the tension of difficulty is a more frequent response to horror games than any kind of white-knuckle fear. One of the few exceptions is Duskers, a game that is 10x the Alien game than Isolation.

Dinostar77

Duskers looks fantastic, on my list to play.

Vela

Raiziel wrote:

The Last of Us, no matter how well rendered those characters were, never came close. But... (end game spoiler)

Spoiler:

when I was tearing my way through that hospital to find Ellie at the end I have never felt so emotionally synced with a character as I did then. Desperate to save her and ready to tear the world apart if they laid just a finger on her. I thought that was a pretty great achievement for a video game.

Ive had this kind of experience in 3 games, each at the crescendo.

Oddworld Stranger - everything after the pants come off is basically vengeance.
Splinter Cell Conviction - the final level from memory became a man on a warpath mission.
Prey - once Tommy comes back from the spirit world he is angry, swearing, fucking shit up.

Basically what we have here, is games that funnel you towards a very cathartic release and I think that somewhat cheapens the experience if a strong buildup (certainly Oddworld has a more authentic framing than the other 2) can be resolved in the same fashion. Is all that "we are fighting for" really just solvable through bloodletting?

I'm trying to think of games where you either have a completely unsatisfactory outcome, or a "gee, is this as good as it gets" ending. Take No Country for Old Men as an example. Friends who saw it with me were angry and disappointed that the serial killer escaped, albeit injured. Personally I thought it was a case of relief that one character (Ed Tom Bell) manages to walk away with a retirement and not a bullet in his head. Is there an equivalent to "tears in rain"?

Perhaps this is just confirmation bias as most of what I have played is tending towards blockbusters which generally are as well written as their cinematic counterparts.

JMW

No game's come close to making me cry. From what I know of That Dragon Cancer I suspect it could. I avoid it for roughly that reason.

[Deleted User]

Not cried over a game before.
I think the story and gameplay in most games are too disjointed to pull my emotional strings consistently enough for long enough.

Kow

It would be hard for games to have an emotional impact in between mashing buttons and qtes. As well as that you need some kind of character development and quality acting, neither of which games have. They just don't have the writers or the actors to do it, and even if they did then they'd just be imitating films and could only come out worse in comparison.

[Deleted User]

You're stating these things as absolute facts, Kow, despite several of us providing evidence to the contrary.

Kow

I'm stating an opinion, as always, and as is everyone else.

dynamiteReady

Cool thread.

Kow wrote:

Likewise, I've never played a game that has elicited any emotion like sadness etc. They just haven't come that far yet.

Agreed.

I've been awed, but never moved. Books though, I've all out cried by the end of one or two, so I wonder...

I think it will be possible one day, and The Last Guardian looks like a step in the right direction, but I don't know what form such an artefact might take...

That said, while I had some complaints about the film, Joaquin Phoenix' and Scarlet Johasson's relationship in the movie Her did make me think about that subject much more than any game has done so far, because it feels like we're not that far off that point.

So... Falling in love with a computer is a bit silly (for now...), but the idea of it knowing you so well that it's absence would be keenly, or perhaps even sorely missed is not outside the realm of possibility at all...

And that form of technology can certainly be infused in a game somehow.

dynamiteReady

Also, fear is a very clear, primitive emotion... And games can certainly fuck with that one...

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