3 Games That Hit Me the Hardest Emotionally
Video games have always been a part of my life ever since I was a kid, so I have experienced many different games and very few games have hit me as emotionally hard as the games I will be discussing today. Whether it’s through characters, storytelling, or atmosphere, there have been very few games that have been able to have a lasting emotional impact on me. Today I will be discussing three games that have hit me the hardest emotionally.
Kingdom Hearts 2 mainly the prologue had the hardest emotional impact on me. During the opening hours of the game it focuses on Roxas, a brand new protagonist to the Kingdom Hearts series. This prologue follows Roxas who is looking to spend his summer vacation with his friends, but throughout his summer his world slowly starts falling apart. What hits me the most about this story was how it explores identity and loss. Throughout the prologue Roxas slowly learns that his life isn’t actually his and has many encounters with strangers telling him his life isn't real and his fate is to give up his life to wake up Sora. He does his hardest to try and fight this so-called fate everyone was telling him but in the end after realizing that no matter how hard he fights it will always end up with him giving up his life to bring back Sora. So in the end he finally accepts it and says “Looks like my summer vacation is over.” This simple line completely broke me. This is the perfect example of how to capture the pain of letting go, knowing you were never meant to exist in the way you hoped for. That kind of emotional weight at the start of a game is something I never experienced before, and it’s stuck with me ever since.
This is one of the most recent games I played, but a game that will stay with me for a long time because of the impact it had on me. In this game you play as Amicia, a teenage girl trying to protect her younger brother Hugo, who’s born with a supernatural curse called the Prima Macula that is slowly killing him. What makes this game so emotionally impactful to me is that throughout the journey of the first game and this game, everything you do isn’t enough and no matter what you do things just keep getting worse and worse. What also hit me the hardest was the message behind the whole story, which was no matter how much you love someone, no matter how hard you try, you still might not be able to save them. The combination of the story's message, having watched the characters over time losing hope and reaching their breaking points but not having time to process any of the emotional and physical damage done to Amicia because all she cares about is saving her brother is heartbreaking. Then the masterpiece to this game was the ending which left me speechless, because from the beginning you are given hope that you might be able to find a way to cure Hugo but as the game goes on you slowly lose hope until the very end. This is one of the few games that doesn't give you the happy ending you hoped for, but because of that it was one of the most emotionally impactful games I have ever experienced in gaming, and the game, series and ending is something I will never forget.
The last game that has had an emotional impact that will stay with me is Ori and the Blind Forest. This surprised me because I didn’t think a game with very little dialogue could have such an emotional impact on me as it did. From the very beginning of the game it sets an emotional tone of sadness through loss of a loved one and the destruction of the beautiful world the game is set in. Throughout the game you experience sadness through the visuals of the world and the music that evokes emotion while playing which leads you to the ending of the game which throws you off completely because the game is setting up this villain the Owl named Kuro and how she was the cause for all of the destruction of the world. But the end of the game throws a twist on you showing that the light was killing her babies and all she was doing was trying to protect them, and in the end Kuro sacrifices herself because she finally realizes that she is causing so much destruction in the world, so she decides to bring the light to the tree to save the world even though it costs her own life.
Ori and the Blind Forest left me emotionally drained but also moved in a way I never expected. It showed me how a game that doesn't dialogue can tell such incredibly emotional stories that can make you think about compassion, sacrifice, and what it means to care for others.
To conclude I have played many different video games over the years, but I haven't experienced any games that have hit me emotionally like these 3 games have. Whether it's Kingdom Hearts 2 with it's emotionally driven prologue to make you feel connected with Roxas then rip him away from you like he never even exists, to Amicia fighting to save her brother's life with no avail, to Ori and the Blind Forest's ability to attach you to characters through the atmosphere created by the visuals and outstanding soundtrack. I will never forget these games and their emotional impact they have had on me.
Now let me know what games had a similar effect on you. Comment or send me a message @levelupmentally.bsky.social on Bluesky or @LevelUpMentally on Twitter.
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