Game Moments that Shocked Us: Part 5

Kefka (almost) destroys the world in Final Fantasy VI

After playing Final Fantasy VII for the first time, I quickly decided to play the other games in the series as well. I hadn't played through any of them and was fortunately spared spoilers from all titles. So it came as a huge shock to me when the big bad Kefka of the sixth game seemingly fulfilled his goal and became ruler, destroying the world in the process. Well, almost, anyway. Because, as the game tells us, the world was never the same after destroying large parts of it, including several cities and many animal species. That event in itself was shocking, but what left an even deeper mark on me was when Celes, who after this event gets stuck on an island with Cid who dies shortly afterwards, decides to commit suicide. Final Fantasy VI became so incredibly dark in such a short time that I had to lie down in the foetal position and scream. I would never have dared to believe that Square would dare to tell such an adult story involving both the end of the world and a protagonist's suicide. For me, these events completely changed storytelling in game form.

Cole Phelps washed away in L.A. Noire

One of my favourite games ever is L.A. Noire, which completely enchanted me almost 15 years ago. For my part, it was incredibly exciting to follow the former war veteran Cole Phelps who started as a simple constable who was then promoted to investigate murders, while destroying his private life. Phelps, to me, was an incredibly well-written character who was basically decent but still cheated on his wife, which definitely made me as a player change my mind about him. Yet, I was so utterly dismayed when at the end of the game he sacrificed his life to save Elsa and Kelso. I never dared to believe that he would be swept away by the violent torrent of water and drown. His "goodbye" stung terribly and at first and I couldn't believe it and hoped that he would survive. Rarely have game developers managed to create a story where we follow a character over many years and see them go through the trials of life and then have to say goodbye to them in the most horrible way imaginable.

Desmond's sacrifice in Assassin's Creed III

In the early years of Ubisoft's acclaimed Assassin's Creed series, we got to play as several different assassins. What they all had in common was that we followed the protagonist, Desmond Miles, from the present day and, in my own mind, I assumed that he was the glue that held the whole game series together. However, it turned out that I was so very wrong when Ubisoft chose to end his life at the end of Assassin's Creed III where he sacrificed his life to save the Earth, but at the same time free the man-hating god Juno. Perhaps I was naïve to think that Desmond was the obvious protagonist of the series who would always return as each game gave us new answers (and questions) to the enigmas of the day. I never expected that Ubisoft would decide to go a completely different way and focus more on the ancestral story and much less on the present-day characters. I was completely caught off guard when Desmond was erased from Assassin's Creed's DNA and there and then we had no idea in which direction the series would now take.

The hat thief in Super Mario 64

Super Mario 64 is one of the earliest gaming memories I have and it's probably because I played loads of it as a kid. I can't have been more than six years old or so when I started playing it, and today I have lots of memories of it. None of them have stuck with me like that damn monkey that stole my cap, though. I remember him holding on to it for days, not understanding how that was possible. I assumed that Mario would get his headgear back when you left the level, but no. The cap was gone and I was so stunned by it. For a while I thought it was gone forever and I chased him for days but could never get it back until the day I actually did. I wanted to beat the monkey to a pulp for the pain he had caused me and from that day on I stopped feeling anguish for having thrown the baby penguin over the edge to certain death.