Has there ever been a game that has actually impacted you?

I make this topic because a friend of mine just finished Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box... and he told me that it made him tear up. Looking back, the end of that game made me do the exact same thing. The middle part of Mass Effect 3 was the same way for me. Has there ever been a game that has truly impacted you before?

im emotionally impacted by games all the time. not in a huge meaningful way mind you, but its effective at what its trying to do.

Really all 3 Mass Effects, MGS4 in a weirdly personal way, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Spec Ops: The Line, both Walking Dead eps. Earthbound's final quarter remains one of the best videogame "endgames" of all time. After Onette goes dark, shit gets very real, VERY quickly in a massive (earned) tonal shift.

a certain point in Yakuza 3 got to me, and The Walking Dead constantly makes me feel like shit, but nothing to the point of tears.

plenty of times.

Nier is probably the biggest one I can think of though.

Man...That Valkyria Chronicles ending.

Im guilty of this from alot of games. Most recent was Journey though. I full on shed tears.

Yep. Not always through tearing up or sadness, but there have been games that have captivated me enough to get some extreme emotions. The Mass Effect series being the most notable, but also Chrono Trigger, The World Ends With You, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy X, and most recently The Walking Dead.

I found myself wanting to drink, alone, in the dark, while playing Max Payne 3... Yeah, I like that game way more than I probably should.

Final Fantasies make me sad at parts. Aeris, Freya, Sazh and the Black Mage Village in particular.

@TooWalrus: yo that soundtrack

Journey

To the Moon was one that really affected me, on account of just pondering and looking at things differently than I had before I had played it. It's also one that stuck with me for a good week or two after I beat it, although I beat it over the span of a single night. In the same way of sticking with me, I guess Alan Wake did too, but that was more of a pondering of fiction than a pondering of emotion.

Also: Persona 4 impacted me in an extremely extremely personal way that I do want to talk about at some point in the future, but I just don't think I'm ready to go in depth at this point in time.

One game. To the Moon. I shed a tear or two after the final scene.

Both of Ninja Theory's games moved me. It's like they have their own way of telling a story. The games I'm talking about is Heavenly Sword and Enslaved. However, the first game to actually make me cry was Final Fantasy X-2. It was the scene with Yuna singing in the Thunder Plains.

Bastion. It's infected my theories of storytelling.

Emotionally, LA Noire. The ending gameplay wasn't the greatest, but I had invested so heavily in Phelps during the main game that the ending story bits had me pouring a finger of scotch and sniffing conspicuously.

Most games emotionally impact me in some way, but the first thing that comes to mind that's the closest to what you're asking (I think) is feeling legitimate scorn for Jon Irenicus while playing Baldur's Gate 2. Well written with the amazing voice work of David Warner sold that character completely for me.

Spec Ops The Line. comes to mind.

@Undeadpool said:

Really all 3 Mass Effects, MGS4 in a weirdly personal way, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Spec Ops: The Line, both Walking Dead eps. Earthbound's final quarter remains one of the best videogame "endgames" of all time. After Onette goes dark, shit gets very real, VERY quickly in a massive (earned) tonal shift.

Man. I forgot all about Walking Dead. I felt real bad after the end of episode 2.

Fragile Dreams... dear sweet holy goodness Fragile Dreams... fuck man... just... damn... PLAY IT!!!! PLAY IT NAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

999, Amnesia, Braid to name a few.

WoW and Starcraft 2. For WoW, you don't play a game for that long and it have it not effect you in some way. For Starcraft it became my main source of entertainment for about a year abd a half. If I wasn't playing it, I was watching it, and if I wasn't doing that i was reading about it or listenig to a podcast about it.

Pokemon impacted me as a kid to seriously start drawing- and now I have an Associate's in art, so I'd say it worked out well.

Final Fantasy X impacted me on a personal level in the same way it impacted several people who wrote their stories on the Video Games Saved My Life site. There seems to be a theme of abuse and standing up to it in the game (Tidus coping with Jecht's neglect, Yuna speaking out against being forced into marriage) and it really forced me to think about how some people in my life took advantage of me or treated me like shit, and how I needed to take initiative in telling them I wasn't going to take it anymore.

Persona 4 particularly the hospital scene. It reduced me to manly tears.

Absolutely, being emotionally impacted by a game is one of my favourite things about playing them, though it is a very rare thing (not that I'd have it any other way. Games that I can think of that recently pulled a reaction out of me are Journey, Bastion, and especially Mass Effect 3. Building up those relationships over the course of three games and 100+ hours only to have to say goodbye to these characters made me feel like I had just been punched in the gut. I don't think I've ever actually full on cried while playing a game, but ME3 most certainly had me struggling to fight back tears more than any other.

Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3. They are the only two games that have really gotten to me emotionally and they are also my favorite two games.

Emotionally, it's hard to say. Lots of games have gotten me emotional, but no clear standout is coming to mind. Honestly I may have to say any of the NBA 2K games. I've been playing them for years and the broad range of emotions one can experience during a game can be pretty intense, but obviously not in the tearing up sort of way. ...Well maybe, but that would be weird.

Beyond just emotionally, games like Alan Wake have impacted the way that I try to write and tell stories.

Rock Band and Guitar Hero completely reshaped my musical tastes, so I'd say those had a significant impact on me as well.

@RedCream said:

Persona 4 particularly the hospital scene. It reduced me to manly tears.

I really, really had to take a break at that point. Oh, man.

Plenty of games have gotten to me, but it rarely has any lasting effect.

Persona 3 and Nier are the only two that really stuck with me after the game was finished. The ending to P3 was so well executed and so cruel that I still dwell on it occasionally. Nier was just so relentlessly depressing and required that you do horrible things to progress, I don't think I'll ever forget that game.

Spec ops: The Line no doubt. It Emotionally impacted me in many... many ways.

Every game affects you in some way. They're just all different. For example, when I beat Spec Ops: The Line, I kind of just stared at the screen for a while and let it sink in. And when I beat Super Meat Boy, I ran around my house fist pumping.

@skyline7284 said:

@Undeadpool said:

Really all 3 Mass Effects, MGS4 in a weirdly personal way, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Spec Ops: The Line, both Walking Dead eps. Earthbound's final quarter remains one of the best videogame "endgames" of all time. After Onette goes dark, shit gets very real, VERY quickly in a massive (earned) tonal shift.

Man. I forgot all about Walking Dead. I felt real bad after the end of episode 2.

That, to be fair, was the first game where I felt not only emotionally impacted, but actually shaken up.

Half-Life 2: Episode 2, The Walking Dead, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, and Beyond Good and Evil. I'm sure there's others, but those stick out in my mind.

@Hailinel said:

@RedCream said:

Persona 4 particularly the hospital scene. It reduced me to manly tears.

I really, really had to take a break at that point. Oh, man.

Ha, for some reason, I thought we were talking about your Friday night job- janitorial work at the Hospital, and that these were sarcastic comments about how scary it is being left alone with that nurse...

Forza 3 & 4. I'm legally blind and don't drive, but still have some okay vision in my left eye with glasses. Before Forza 3 & 4, racing games were usually pretty difficult for me. Hiring racers in games like Gran Turismo and Forza 2 was okay for a while, but it never really got me involved. When I picked up Forza 3, I didn't expect much more out of it, but I was immediately and totally blown away on a deeply emotional level - they made driving accessible for me again. Sure, it's in a digital format and it feels very little like the real thing. But for me, right now, it's the closest thing I have to experiencing something I haven't done in over nine years. That's pretty incredible to me. Forza 4 continued this with even more accessibility options.

A certain death scene in Persona 4 is the closest I've come to crying because of a video game.

Also, that Heavy Rain self mutilation scene was pretty fucking crazy.

Quite a number of games have "impacted" me, not necessarily made me sad or cry but have a personal value that I will never forget.
 
They are: Grand Theft Auto 4, Persona 4, Dark Age of Camelot, Morrowind, and probably a few more. 

MGS2 fucked my lil 12 year old mind up in 02. Still my favorite game of all time.

• Metal Gear Solid (1,2,3,4)
• Persona 4.
• Ratchet and Clank a Crack in Time.

Half-Life

Deus Ex

KOTOR

Mass Effect

Alan Wake

not necessarily emotionally, but they definitely impacted me more than just 'yeah that was a cool game'.

machinarium, sword & sworcery, and braid- all had amazing visual design, but the soundtracks are what's truly phenomenal. best sound design i've ever encountered, regardless of medium. probably makes sense since they all were made by musicians in their own right.

There are only two moments in games I can think of where I have shed a tear for or felt the rage conveyed to me that the developers wanted. First, in the days of the Super NES. When Zero sacrifices himself in Mega Man X to give you that edge over Vile, it was on. Recently, it was Asura's Wrath. When that little girl that was following you dies and your just unable to help her, I felt the helplessness and the rage. Also, to a lesser degree, Dark Souls. That game was just dark. I mean everywhere I went no matter how strong I got, there was that full on sense of despair all over the game. Every time I talked with some of the characters and some of them had that bit of hope, I just felt shitty. In particular, the sun guy and the cleric chick.

I know it's not really a game, but Dear Esther is very cool.  
 
As for real emotional impacts, I know this is silly, but the end of Star Wars: Republic Commando hit my 12 year old self pretty hard. I didn't cry, but that ending hurts so much after all the time you've spent with those awesome characters. It helps that I was (and still am for the most part) a big Star Wars fanatic, and the Republic Commando fiction is all really sweet. 

Quite a few. Shadow of the Colossus' ending had me in tears, as did To The Moon. Even though they didn't make me cry, I feel as though The World Ends With You and Persona 4 helped me take things a little less seriously and live life in a more laid-back manner.

Red Dead Redemption had me in tears by the end. Now, I was going through a depression at the time, so that may have affected me a bit. But I still can't hear "Dead Man's Gun" without getting a lump in my throat. :(

I was pretty sad throughout all of Halo: Reach, just seeing everyone sacrifice themselves. However, the ending was a triumphant one knowing what you actually accomplished during the game and how it affected everything after your death was awesome.

No, can't think of anything other than it steals my sleep, steals my budget, wrecks my wrist, squares my eyes and effects my health condition.

Persona 3 made me think about my future and change my life lol, no joke. And the ending was so perfect that I was sad for days that it was over.

Rarely. Mafia, BioShock, The Walking Dead and those are the only ones I recall at the moment. But I haven't slept in some 24 hours, so I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.