Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.
It's pretty safe to say the entire game is full of Tear Jerker moments.
- Most of the party has some heavy tear jerkers in their backstories.
- Seth's parents are constantly arguing over his father's frivolous spending, to the point of throwing things at each other. One pot nearly hits Will should he decide to visit Seth's house, as instead of hitting the closed front door, it goes clear over the open threshold and into the street.
- The exceptions are Kara and Neil, whose backstory misfortunes are part of the plot, Erik, who instead has a tear-jerking reaction to the plot happening around him due to his backstory, and Lilly, who doesn't have a tear-jerking backstory.
- Lance and Will both had fathers who went to the Tower Of Babel, and their mothers only fared little better. We never learn when or how Will's mother Shira died, while Lance's mother is apparently frail.
- Will's father Olman is a Chekhov M.I.A. while we only learn of Lance's father being involved in the expedition when Lance finds him in Watermia, allegedly with amnesia.
- On the Incan Gold Ship, discovering that the people you've just met have actually been dead for centuries and never got to take the trip they were dreaming of.
- In Larai Cliff, finding the skeleton of an adventurer with a note from his children wishing for his safe return. And much later in Watermia, you can find his children who have no idea he's dead, and are still expressing hope that he'll return. You never tell them, either. No option, no extra dialogue if you did find his body, nothing. It doesn't even tell you if or why Will decides not to tell them, he just doesn't.
- Just before the final boss fight, you're transported to the roof of Babel Tower, where you meet with the pure souls of people you met throughout your adventure, including Seth, Hamlet, and your opponent from Russian Glass, who laments, "Is this really living? I felt more alive when I had a terminal disease..."
- In the Native's Village, Hamlet's Heroic Sacrifice. The game was retranslated by fans, and resulted in a very different portrayal of the Native's Village. In the original translation the Natives were starving to death and the skeletons around the village were those of the villagers who starved to death. While still heroic, Hamlet's actions seemed rather random. In the retranslation, the Natives had resorted to cannibalism due to the famine, meaning Hamlet throwing himself into the fire had a bit more purpose: he did it to save Kara and the others from being eaten. What's interesting is that the cannibalism is portrayed in a sympathetic and sad light. They're not monsters, they're people desperate to survive, and doing the absolute last thing they want to do to live. The boy who shows you a skeleton with tears in his eyes in particular takes on a comparatively whole new meaning in the retranslation.
- Ishtar's fate. After you pass his test, you go back to his room to retrieve the item that will restore Kara to normal and find him sealed inside his newest, final painting - a self-portrait. He doesn't tell you why he did this, only that you must take care of Kara.
- The backstory of your opponent for Russian Glass in Watermia. He's a longtime champion of the game, but is secretly suffering from a terminal disease. When you face him, he's gotten to the point where he's playing to lose, so that his family will live a comfortable life with the money he accumulated from years of winning. And when he does lose, he chooses to Face Death with Dignity by putting on a show of Honor Before Reason and drinking the poisoned glass. The next morning, when his now-widow gives you his will, she puts the icing on this Tear Jerker cake by saying, "We don't need money. Real joy is being with those you love."
- In another early location, it's mentioned that the luxurious carpets in Edward Castle take forty years to make. Near the end of the game, you visit Dao, the town these carpets are made in. It's revealed that the female workers spend their entire lives making these carpets by hand, from their childhood to adulthood.
- The ending, oh that ending. Just as it seems that Will and Kara have earned their happy ending, they are told that, with Dark Gaia gone, the world is turning back to what it would have been without its influence. That is: history itself is being rewritten, and when they return to Earth, not only would they be separated, they would not retain any memory from this timeline. They do not take this kindly, and defiantly promise to remember and search for each other. (It does work.)
