Tear Jerker / Final Fantasy VI

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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• The entire interlude into the World of Ruin is unbelievably depressing. Celes wakes up on an island after being in a coma for a year with Cid taking care of her. Being the closest thing she has left to a family, she begins referring to him as her grandfather. But it turns out that Cid is ill from having lived on nothing but rotten fish for the past year. If that wasn't bad enough, try leaving the area and visiting the world map. The island is absolutely desolate, and the music only further drives home the feeling of isolation and despair. On top of that, any monsters you encounter won't attack so much as pathetically try to cast spells they don't have enough MP for and then drop dead on their own before you can probably attack. And if that isn't bad enough, let Cid die. He doesn't give any last words; Celes simply finds him silent and unmoving. She doesn't even realize he's dead at first. Now completely alone and with no hope of ever seeing civilization again, Celes climbs to the top of a cliff (which you control) and jumps off. Damn.
  • And then there's the first time players who experienced Cid's death, eventually learn it's possible to save him. Players that were none the wiser realize it's their fault.
  • Dissidia Final Fantasy implies that this version of events is canon, as it mentions Celes going over the cliff. While such a thing may seem passé in more modern times, this was genuinely shocking at the time of its release that a main character would try to commit suicide, on-screen.
  • Fortunately, it leads to a Heartwarming Moment when she survives and finds a bird bandaged with Locke's bandana on the beach, giving her a Hope Spot to keep going.
• Immediately after leaving the desolate island, you arrive very close to Albrook. The man in the cafe there says that he thinks back on how good the world once was—leading to a brief flashback showing people dancing and relaxing in the cafe—and then realizes that it will never be the same way again. To emphasize the point, the flashback shows the time when the empire's soldiers were in the town and took charge. Compared to the ruins the man lives in now, he prefers the world from before, even if it meant being under an oppressive ruler, since at least things were somewhat stable and death wasn't the main threat. In a similar vein, old lady in Kohlingen, who, when spoken to, will give you a brief glimpse of the cheery, pre-collapse town, complete with a little girl running and playing around the flowerbed.
• Aria di Mezzo Carattere: Guaranteed to make you bawl if you take the lyrics of the song to heart, and have lost someone you loved or were in the situation of a painful triangle love.
  Our love, come what may
  will never age a day
  I’ll wait forever more!
• Go around and talk to people in the World of Ruin. First thing you notice is that there are a lot fewer of them (some towns are even completely empty). Talking to the people who are left makes you realize that almost literally everyone lost someone they knew or cared about.
  • To make matters worse, everywhere you go, there are few people who speak happily about life now. It is implied THOUSANDS died when the Floating Continent fell and the world collapsed. Just about every town's theme is now "From that Day On", the song used to show people are in despair, most of the field map is barren wasteland, the World of Ruin's theme before you get the second airship representing desolation and misery, and you only see the sky at sunset in the overworld. You spend the second half of the game in a world that is basically waiting to die.
• Lola's story. When you go to Mobliz, Sabin and Cyan can meet her boyfriend, an Imperial soldier that didn't took part in the attack on Doma and was badly injured when he tried to escape. He doesn't even have the strength to take a pen and reply to her letters. Later, when the Cataclysm happens, and he dies, possibly even before Mobliz is destroyed, but Lola, who doesn't get replies anymore, is unable to accept it and move on despite the fact that she knows it. Cyan sympathizes with her and writes her letters and sends her silk flowers that he made himself while pretending to be her boyfriend, but after a year, he realizes that she's just like him, unable to move on from the past, and writes a final letter in which he admits he had lied. If you have Cyan in the party and visit her house, he will talk to her and encourage her to keep living her life instead of escaping from the past. She does get some closure thanks to him, but still...
  • General Leo foreshadows this turn of events in the moment we are introduced to him in the Imperial Camp outside the Kingdom of Doma, during an exchange with a soldier:
  Leo: You're from Maranda, right?
  Soldier: Y... yes sir. Why?
  Leo: And your family lives there? Fall in battle, and I'll have to deliver the bad news... What shall I say to them?
• The Game Over music, aptly named "Rest in Peace". The song plays in such a sad way as you see your lead character kneeling down in a black screen and then fades away as the music fades to a close.
• After defeating Humbaba by changing into her Esper form, Terra lands near the orphaned children she's sworn to protect, all of whom run from her and scream about the 'monster' in their midst. Terra recoils and scurries away, horrified to cause the children further distress, until one lone girl breaks away from the group and slowly approaches Terra, seeing through her Esper form and calling out "Mama"? Cue a dogpile of children hugging her, Terra changing back into a human and accepting that this is the 'love' that she will fight to protect, joining the group in storming Kefka's tower.
• The part of the ending where Shadow stays back, tells his dog to go on without him, and promptly stays behind to die. His last line is "Baram! I'm going to stop running. I'm going to begin all over again!" There's all kinds of debate about this meaning he actually does survive the collapse (but just wants to leave everything behind, including his history with the party)... or if he's a firm believer in reincarnation.
  • The music doesn't help at all. Shadow's theme is normally played with an air of mystery, just a mouth harp, a simple guitar chord and a whistle to show that he's a man who comes and goes like the wind blows. During his part of the ending? It's fully orchestral, slower, and very melancholy
• Cyan's storyline. The death of his wife Elayne and their son Owain as part of the poisoning of the waters in Doma. Almost everyone in the kingdom, including the king, had died, not to mention Owain, who is just a child. It's soon followed, however, by a level where you accidentally board a train to the hereafter, the Phantom Train. You fight your way to the engine, defeat the train, and it agrees to take you back to the land of the living. But while it drops you off, it picks up all of the residents of Doma. When Cyan desperately runs to say goodbye to his wife and son, the last words you hear from them as the train rushes off into eternity is the son promising to practise with his sword to look after his mom. Just to make sure you're feeling Cyan's pain, the game lingers on the scene for a good 30 seconds afterward while Cyan stands at the edge of the depot in despair, staring at where the train once stood.
  • Not to mention his assault on the imperial camp during the siege of Doma. After he realizes that his wife and son didn't survive, he's in grief, especially when he discovers that Owain was dead. He's then absolutely furious at the Empire for what they had done, to the point that he kills some Imperial Soldiers on his own until Sabin (and Shadow) helps him out fighting a few others.
  • Sleeping in Doma Castle with Cyan in the party during the World of Ruin will cause Cyan to have a nightmare and not wake up in the morning, as he still suffers from PTSD due to his shame of not being able to save anyone in Doma, and the three characters who are with him go in his tortured soul, which is being haunted by a three demon brothers who want to eat it, and a monster named Wrexsoul, made up of the souls of dead in the War of the Magi, who is feeding off Cyan's anger and guilt eating him from the inside, and implies that Cyan's pain is nearing the point where he can no longer bear it, as he was brainwashed and was even willing to give up his own soul. Even when he's saved and meets the spirits of his family, he's so ashamed of his failure that he thinks he had lost his honor. He leaves this event behind only after saying goodbye one last time to his wife and son, who leave for him the best katana, the Masamune.
  • Cyan’s personal theme when he was first introduced. It feels emotional and has some sadness to it. And we know why later on…
• Even Gau generates one. "Father... alive. Gau... ha..ppy.."
  • Together with Heartwarming Moments; after the cutscene, comes back and talk to that insane man. He, always mistaking the heroes as repairmen every time they're visiting, suddenly stops doing that and says everything is fixed. He's pretty much drowned in guilt for abandoning his son in the wild, he becomes obsessed to fix anything and finally finds closure when he knows Gau is alive and (mostly) well.
• The entire story with Locke's previous love interest, Rachel. She lost her memory and Locke was forced to leave Kohlingen, but when he returns a year later, he finds out that his girlfriend was killed by the Empire, and he joins the Returners to avenge her and fight the Empire. In the scene where he brings her the Phoenix magicite, and as the Magicite is damaged, it only works for a few minutes... and she tells him to be happy with Celes, tears were shed.
  Rachel: Please, let go of the chains that bind your heart... I release you... Give your love to the one who now dwells within your heart... Love her... as you loved me...
• If you fail to get Locke back in the World of Ruin, Celes' ending is the same as the heartwarming ending, except that Setzer saves her and yells at her for going back for Locke's bandana. After he leaves, she looks down (at it) and says, "Locke, promise me some day you'll look after me again." before walking out the room.
• When Terra talks to Banon in the Returner Hideout, he asks her if she will be their "last ray of hope". If you say no three times, he says "I see..." and Terra walks in and says "How can anyone look to me as hope". And each time you say "no", he looks progressively sadder.
• Edgar and Sabin's backstory, with their father dying. Sabin is disgusted by the fact that no one cares about their father's death, but only about the succession, and wants his freedom. He urges Edgar to run away from the kingdom with him, where they can be free of the kingdom. Edgar wants his freedom just as much as Sabin, but can't bring himself to leave the kingdom without a leader. So, he suggests a single coin toss. Whoever wins will choose his own path, with no regrets. He rigs the coin toss by using a two-headed coin to give Sabin his freedom, choosing to shoulder the burden neither of them wanted. Now, that is brotherly love!
• If you pay attention to what Cid has to say in the Magitek Factory, he makes a comment that Kefka was also part of the experimentation to create a mage who could use magic for the Empire's war efforts, but the process utterly shattered his mind. Call to mind another villain who went insane due to the origins of his being and it leaves you wondering: is Kefka an insane nihilist from the beginning, or did the experiments make him that way? While it's still difficult to sympathize with him, it does give him a few points of sympathy if he wasn't like that originally...
• General Leo's death scene. He was one of the few just people in the Empire, as Sabin and even Cyan, who hated the Empire for killing his family and everyone in the kingdom he serves, respect him. They even give him a proper burial with a Weapon Tombstone.
  • Terra's words at his funeral. She previously had a conversation with him telling him that she was unable to understand love.
    "General Leo... People only seem to want power, don't they? Do they really want to be like me? I... I wanted you to teach me so much more..."
• Right after Leo dies, Interceptor comes hobbling in, and it appears Shadow is gone too. You find him — stabbed and betrayed by Kefka and he tells them to forget about him.
• The flashback scene in Darill's Tomb. Setzer recounts his days with Darill, even racing the skies with her with their personal airships. However, while she soared off to push the limits of the Falcon, Setzer waited for her on their usual hangout spot...but she never came back. All he saw was the wreckage of her beloved airship. While he did restore it, he put it to rest at her tomb, not having the will to pilot it without her.
• When Kefka is defeated, all magic vanishes from the world, and so do the Espers. Terra, half human and half Esper, would seem to have represented a balance between the two, or an ability for them to coexist, but she must sacrifice the Esper part of her. Originally created for war and destruction, without sentience, the Espers gained sentience and became the incredible creatures we see, protecting themselves from those who would use their powers for greedy, selfish reasons. But they also deliberately sacrifice themselves and change into crystals to help good people fight for truth and justice. They have been doing everything they can to survive, only to "cease to exist" because magic disappears from the world. The Espers are more than their magic. This is one of the saddest and most unfair endings in a Final Fantasy game.

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