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 them yet and was fortunately spared spoilers from all the titles. So it came as a huge shock to me when the big bad Kefka of the sixth game seemingly fulfilled his purpose and became ruler, destroying the world. 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 species of animals. That event in itself was shocking, but what left an even deeper impression on me was when Celes, who after this event gets stuck on an island with Cid dying shortly after, decides to commit suicide. Final Fantasy VI became so incredibly dark in such a short time that I had to lie down in the fetal position and scream. I would never have believed that Square would dare to tell such a mature story about both the end of the world and the suicide of a protagonist. For me, these events completely changed storytelling in game form.

Cole Phelps washed out in L.A. Noire

One of my favorite games ever is L.A. Noire, which completely enchanted me almost 15 years ago. For my part, it was incredibly exciting to follow former war veteran Cole Phelps, who started out as a simple cop who was then promoted to investigate murders while destroying his private life. To me, Phelps was an incredibly well-written character who was basically decent but still cheated on his wife, which definitely changed my mind about him as a player. Yet I was so stunned when he sacrificed his life at the end 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 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 terrible way.

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 various assassins. What they all had in common was that we followed the main character, Desmond Miles, from the present, and I assumed myself that he was the glue that held the entire game series together. It turned out, however, 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 Earth, but at the same time free the man-hating god Juno. Perhaps I was naive 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 riddles of the day. I never expected Ubisoft to decide to go in a completely different direction and focus more on the ancestral story and much less on the contemporary characters. I was completely taken by surprise when Desmond was erased from the DNA of Assassin’s Creed and there and then we had no idea in what direction the series would go next.

The hat thief in Super Mario 64

Super Mario 64 is one of the earliest gaming memories I have, and that’s probably because I played a lot of it as a kid. I can’t have been older than six or so when I started playing it, and today I have many memories of it. None of them, however, have stuck with me like the damn monkey that stole my cap. I remember him holding it for days, not understanding how that was possible. I assumed Mario would get his headgear back when you left the level, but no. The cap was gone and I was so baffled by it. For a while I thought it was gone forever and I chased it 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 it had caused me, and from that day on, I felt no more fear because I had thrown the baby penguin over the edge to a miserable death.