Tear Jerker / Tales Series

Warning: Spoilers Off applies to these pages. Please proceed at your own risk.

These games have their own pages:

• Tales of Symphonia
• Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
• Tales of the Abyss
• Tales of Xillia
• Tales of Xillia 2
• Tales of Berseria
• Tales of Arise

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Tales of Phantasia

• The starting song sung by Yomi is really sad. You might want to bring a tissue for this...
• You encounter one at the very start of the game. Cless and Chester goes hunting, and their town gets attacked and leveled while they're away. Cless is effectively orphaned as a result and Chester loses his little sister. That's right, the game slams one in your face within 5 minutes of starting the game!
• After you've avenged Arche's friend, her ghost thanks the party.
• The scenes in Ary. The Background Music didn't help things. Although to be fair, it's of the happy variant since the player has come far and the party is about to enter the very definitive Final Dungeon.
• The end of the game, where the party has to disband. Arche and Klarth have to return to the past (although Arche's longevity means she is still alive in the present of the other party members, who are re-united with her in the post-credits scene).

Tales of Destiny and its sequel

• In the remake, Leon Magnus' death is turned from a sadistic Jerkass death (who deserves it) into one Heroic Sacrifice. As he sends the party to safety while dooming himself to drown in a flooding death. (And to think that his own mode in the Director's Cut still have him end up this way...)
  • The sequel of the game had this on the flashback scenes, especially on Loni and Nanaly. In Loni's case, watching in full blown detail on how Stahn was killed by Barbatos and how he blames himself for initially causing all of them by getting taken as a hostage was just crushing. Nanaly, on the other hand, after being given an alternate world where her dear brother was alive instead of dying, had to face the truth full blown that it's just fake happiness and while her brother constantly tells her that he exists, ALL WHILE CRYING, Nanaly had to say good bye on him, in tears, as the brother vanished. And she ends up bawling on Loni's shoulders. Seeing the usually strong hearted girl like her to eventually break down like that...
• Later in the sequel we see Harold, a Genki Girl and also a rather Mad Scientist, when her brother Karell just does a Heroic Sacrifice right in front of her:
  Harold: Nii-san, nii-san!
  Karell: Harold?...Thats odd...am I hallucinating? You always calls me Aniki...
  Harold: Don't speak! The wound will get worse!
  Karell: What's wrong Harold? Why are you...crying? Are you...being bullied again? Don't worry...Nii-chan will protect you...
  Harold: I said don't speak!
  Karell: Harold...no matter what...I'll always be...with...you...
  • Even sadder when you realize that this happens in the past timeline. Cue to the future, Karell's soul got kicked from the Swordian to be replaced by Miktran, the very guy he sacrificed his life to defeat, and then used to manipulate Hugo Gilchrist and caused all the troubles in the first series. You can't help feeling sorry for both the Berseliuses.
• First game, Mary recovering her memories and talking about them with her husband. The whole scene is sad, sad, SAD. It's even sadder when he tries to kill her and the rest of the party. And it worse when he dies. This goes DOUBLE when you consider that Mary was a Cloudcuckoolander and the happiest party member.
• Another from the sequel, when the realization hits that if the party achieves their goal of destroying the goddess Fortuna, time will be rewritten so that everything that was caused or influenced by her, directly or indirectly, never happened- meaning the party, save for Kyle and Loni, will have never met, and none of them will remember the journey or each other. Not only that, but Reala and Judas, who only exist because of Fortuna, will never have existed in the first place, and they both knew this all along. Granted, Reala does recover in the ending, Judas is implied to have survived somehow, and you can visit the 9-year-old Nanaly, but it's still a pretty emotional moment. The only party member though that has a little chance of meeting up though is Harold who is far from the past and is most likely dead at that point.

Tales of Eternia

• Pretty much every Trial of Seyfert that Reid has to go through is just heartwrenching to varying degrees.

Tales of Rebirth

• In Hilda Rhambling's story arc, she finally met her blood mother, but got blatantly refused and thrown away like a thing many times. When Tohma appears trying to kill her, her mother took the hit and died. After she's dead, Hilda found a letter written by her mother that sums up that her mother really loves her, and found out that her mother refused her to prevent a prophecy that could bring about her death. All that, and Hilda has yet to even call her 'mother', which caused her to break down and cry.
• Hilda's trial, especially how Tohma easily kills her father with one hit with his force (which her father obviously didn't have) and then kidnapping baby Hilda with the same force. The cruel subversion of the Papa Wolf trope is very sad.
• The death of Agarte...

Tales of Legendia

• Stella's death, especially, hits particularly hard. After making every possible effort to save her life, it doesn't work, and Stella ends up dying in the arms of her little sister and the man who loved her.
• Senel and Shirley have a particularly powerful scene afterward, too. Shirley finally works up the courage to tell Senel that she loves him, only to end up getting her heart kicked to the curb by Senel because Senel "has to stay with Stella," who was dead by this point in the game. It's enough to make you want to jump through your TV and strangle Senel.
• Fenimore's death, before her Creepy Twin shows up.
• The ending scene of Will Raynard's character quest.
• Moses's character quest, Manly Tears were shed in the ending when Moses and Giet parted ways in the Quiet Lands.
• Grune's character quest, from the Wings of Light to the end. Everything about it. Especially the huge difference in Grune's personality before and after her awakening.
• The ending of Norma's character quest, especially the realization that she had completed her search for the Everlight not only to cure Zamaran's sight, but also in a sort of tribute to Sven itself was really touching. Sven's own sacrifice and the resolve that Norma showed in order to reach this point, since she's usually the one slacking off or joking around.
• The end of Chloe's character arc. Moses' was also surprisingly touching, especially Giet's final howl.
• The part in the quiet lands where everybody is given a powerful blessing by The quiet Nerifes... except for Senel, who gets a temporary case of divine rejection, causing a bit of a breakdown. Sure, he gets it later, but the brief period of time where he is being written out of the groups plans, and is quickly being rejected by them.

Tales of Vesperia

• Anything and everything involving Alexei kidnapping Estelle, including her boss fight. A real Player Punch.
• The events BEFORE going to Zaphias to save Estelle, when you end up fighting Raven/Schwann in Baction. And after the fact, when he risks his life to save everyone from the cascading ceiling, blood pouring from his head and his blastia heart giving him the strength to carry the rubble as everyone runs to safety. Then there's the fact that Rita and Karol were always so close to crying. But then when you fight Alexei in Zaude and he cries.
• While Raven in actuality being Schwann wasn't a big surprise, the way Schwann deflects their questions in such a flat and stolid tone really made the twist convincing, let alone dispelling the possibility that he'd switch sides again.
  Karol: Raven, why? WHY?
  Schwann: I will tell you again, I am NOT Raven.
  Rita: I...I hate you!
  Schwann: Heh, many people hate me.
  Karol: Damn it, I really liked you Raven. I couldn't tell you before, but if my dad were...
  Schwann: How unfortunate, "Raven" isn't here.
  Judith: You, do you intend to die here?
  Schwann: I am ALWAYS ready to die in battle, so I fight with everything I have.
• In the PS3/Definitive Edition version, there's Patty getting her memory back and having to Mercy Kill her friend Seifer, who was turned into a monster (the Wandering Skeleton you fought a few times). After the deed, she keeps telling herself not to cry, but ends up doing so.

Tales of Hearts

• After becoming very likeable characters, Peridot and Byrocks were wounded by Incarose. Chalcedny owns Incarose, but he can't save Peridot and Byrocks. To add to the sadness, Peridot then began talking about her dead little brother in order to persuade Chalcedny to go. Byrocks added to the persuasion, as Chalcedny's big brother.
• The part where Clinoseraph trapped Richea in his spir maze. He made her watch the day of calcification of Quartia over and over again, repeatedly looping it while all she could do was watch in horror. And after the 388th playback of it, all she could say was...

  Richea: Please... forgive me... I'll make up for this sin with my life... So... somehow... forgive me...

Tales of Graces

• The first few hours makes such a drastic Mood Whiplash with Absel witnessing Sophie dying and living with the guilt, later discovering that his father is dead, and of course the rain scene where there was even an in-game Tear Jerker.
• In the Future arc, where Sophie realizes that all her friends will grow old and die off without her, since she doesn't age like the rest of them, being non-human of course.
• The ending for the main game when Asbel sacrifices himself in Sophie's place. Everyone helplessly screams out for him, especially Cheria. The quiet, sad remix of "Mamoritai ~white wishes~" that plays during this scene doesn't help...
  • There's also the part earlier when Richard begs Asbel to kill him while he's still sane.]] [[Taking a Third Option Of course, Asbel has a good solution in mind for all this.
• Lambda's flashback scenes. Every single one of them. Makes you almost completely forget that he's a Eldritch Abomination.
• Narm or not, you have to admit that the infamous "TOMADATCHIIIII" scene is also saddening when (at least in the Wii version), Richard sounds like he's crying, and he honestly feels betrayed.
  • Watching Richard struggle against Lambda and turn into the exact opposite of himself. Especially when you consider he was aware of what Lambda was forcing him to do but wasn't strong enough to stop it. Then you realise he's being forced to fight against the only people who ever really made him happy.
• Learning that Lord Aston's actions were done entirely out of love and a desire to not make the same mistakes his own father had made. Lady Kerri giving you his diary so you could hear his concerns first-hand didn't help.

Other

• The website announcing the next Tales game has been launched, but so far it has revealed nothing about the game. What it is showing is a single clip from every other mothership Tales title, and every single clip as of this writing (which includes all the games from Phantasia to Rebirth) is a death scene. Meaning we go there expecting to learn about the newest game, and instead we relive the deaths of some of our old favourite characters. Damnit, Namco, why?

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There's an old saying: If you're playing a Tales game, expect lots of tearjerkers.