A good game doesn’t just affect you while you’re playing it; it influences you long after you’ve put it down. That’s easy to say, but every game tries to do this to some extent, and very few actually pull it off. From RPGs to open-world games to horror games, every story wants to blow your socks off and will try everything to make it happen.
That said, when it really does happen, it’s impossible to forget. That’s the case with these next RPGs. Some of them are all-time classics, but not all of them. What they all have in common is one scene, one moment, that you’ll play through and realize you’ve just experienced something that you’ll remember for the rest of your life.
While there will be no spoilers in the entry titles below, the entries themselves contain Heavy Spoilers.
GreedFall
Can You Trust Your Friends?
GreedFall plays it pretty straight for the first 5-10 hours. It’s a relatively familiar Mass Effect-like RPG set in a fantasy world full of pirates. You gather a group of companions, explore each region while completing main and side quests and fighting baddies, unlock new gear, and level up your stats and skills. It all feels pretty expected, until it doesn’t.
Greedfall: 15 Tips And Tricks To Get You Started
Greedfall is a game that can take some getting used to, but if you follow these tips before starting, then you’ll definitely have a headstart!
One of your companions, Kurt, is a member of the Coin Guard, a mercenary group taking contracts in the city of Gacane. If you fail to complete Kurt’s companion quests before progressing too far in the main story, specifically “Missing in Action” and “Among the Ghosts,” Kurt will join a Coin Guard coup, betray you in a crucial moment, and then die in the ensuing fighting (if you don’t kill him first). There is virtually no indication this coup is going to happen beyond a pair of small hints delivered through Kurt’s dialogue, and his betrayal isn’t foreshadowed at all. It’s a shocking backstab, and even though it can be avoided, it’s all too easy to lose one of your companions early in the campaign.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
The Protagonist Isn’t Who You Think It Is
Right from the start, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 feels like it’s about Gustave. He’s the first character you play as, he’s the focus of the deeply affecting opening chapter, and he just consistently has “main character energy” as you play through the first act. All that changes when you reach the Stone Wave Cliffs.
Drag weapons to fill the grid
Drag weapons to fill the grid
EasyMediumHard
Right after defeating the area boss, Lampmaster, and Lune and Sciel jump on Esquie’s back, Renoir shows up. He traps Maelle in a bubble and forces Gustave to fight him one-on-one. You actually have to play out the fight, too, but it’s clearly a losing battle. In the end, all you’re left hoping for is that someone will show up to save Gustave, but it doesn’t happen. Renoir kills the “protagonist” right there at the end of act one, completely changing the tone of the game going forward.
Fallout 4
Your Son Isn’t Exactly A Model Citizen
You play as a character known primarily as the Sole Survivor in Fallout 4. They come from a pre-war era but were cryogenically frozen in a Vault, along with their spouse and son, Shaun, at the start of the Great War. Then, 150 years later, the Sole Survivor wakes to see a pair of mysterious figures kidnapping Shaun, but are unable to do anything while trapped in a cryotube. The Sole Survivor is then refrozen, and awakens 60 years later.
Obviously, their goal is to find Shaun (assuming he’s still alive), and so they set out across the Wasteland to seek him out. Throughout that journey, you hear talk of the Institute, a mysterious scientific faction using the Wasteland for experimentation while hiding in a secret underground bunker. Acting as the game’s main antagonists, you actively seek them out, only to discover that the Institute’s director is Shaun. He’s an old man by this point and barely recognizable, but it’s him. You spent all this time seeking Shaun out, and when you find him, he’s become a tyrant.
Digimon Survive
Not All Dgimon Bonds Work Out
Shuuji is a hard character to like in Digimon Survive. He’s arrogant, feigns courage while hiding the moment danger strikes, and blames others for his failures. Worst of all, he not only behaves this way towards his friends; he does so to his Digimon partner, Lopmon, too. After one particularly embarrassing failure, Shuuji lashes out at Lopmon physically and emotionally, triggering Lopmon’s dark evolution.
Best Digimon Games, Ranked
Digimon Story: Time Stranger is fantastic, but is it the greatest Digimon game of all time? It might just be…
Lopmon digivolves into Wendigomon, a hulking figure with horns sprouting from his shoulders and back, and bright red eyes peering out from under a helmet. After the evolution is complete, Wendigomon then picks Shuuji up in one hand and eats him. Digimon Survive is a much darker game than you’d expect from this franchise, but this moment is so shocking that it will leave you sitting there, just taking a moment to process what happened. Here’s the darkest part: Digimon Survive frequently establishes that Digimon disappear when their partner dies, but Wendigomon sticks around after this scene. That likely means that Shuuji is still alive… in its stomach.
Final Fantasy 7
A Legendary Demise
While this moment is well-known by now, it’s iconic for a reason. Aerith’s death in Final Fantasy 7 is considered one of the most significant moments not just in the Final Fantasy series, but in gaming history. It’s in part because it comes out of nowhere, and in part because, just moments before, it seems as if Sephiroth is going to fail to stop her from using Holy to counter his Meteor Materia.
Sephiroth had previously taken control of Cloud and tried to make him kill Aerith with the Buster Sword, but Cloud resisted. In a typical story, that would be the end of it. In Final Fantasy 7, though, Sephiroth descends from above and stabs Aerith in the back himself. It’s one of those moments in gaming history where an entire collective of jaws hit the floor. Aerith is a main character, a pivotal focus of the plot, and in one instant that’s completely out of your control, she’s gone.
NieR: Replicant
Now You Listen To Them Die
Much like in NieR: Automata, you’re going to want to play through NieR: Replicant at least twice to get the full story. Throughout your first playthrough, you’ll be fighting creatures called Shades: dark, oddly-shaped beings that come in all sizes. According to NieR, they’re monsters that have conquered the dying Earth. However, once you discover the Project Gestalt files, your perspective changes.
On a second playthrough, these Shades aren’t just monsters anymore. Now you know the truth: that Shades are human souls preserved to prevent humanity’s extinction, and so you can see, or rather hear them, for what they truly are. You can hear the humans that the Shades once were begging for help… or mercy. The smaller Shades you fought at the game’s beginning? Those were children. That’s why they drop items like coloring books and schoolbooks when you kill them. It’s one thing to knowingly kill them in a second playthrough, but the first time around, you were told repeatedly that wiping out the Shades was the right thing to do. Maybe not so much…
Mass Effect 3
Mordin’s Last Stand Is One For The Ages
Mordin Solus is a fantastically complex character. He’s a scientist at heart, but also a deadly killer. He loves art, cares for his friends, and also helped sustain the effects of the Krogan Genophage. A lot is going on under the surface with this little alien, but he’s an exceptionally valuable crewmember on the Normandy, and that’s what matters most.
Then comes the mission “Priority: Tuchanka” in Mass Effect 3. Mordin, wracked with guilt over his part in preserving the Krogan Genophage, is determined to reverse it. To do so, he needs to disperse a cure from a large tower, but at the last minute, the tower begins malfunctioning. Someone needs to stay behind in the rapidly combusting tower to ensure the cure is dispersed, and Mordin insists that it be him. In his own words: “Someone else would have gotten it wrong.” It’s one of the saddest moments in the entire series, but its a perfect end for one of Mass Effect’s greatest characters.
Chrono Trigger
Time Travel Really Is Something
Time travel is part of every aspect of Chrono Trigger. It determines how the narrative will play out, what order you complete certain tasks, and even which characters you’re able to recruit to your party in some cases. For a game that’s now 30 years old, there’s a remarkable degree of variety on display thanks to this mechanic. However, by far the most mind-blowing way time travel is used comes after the death of the game’s protagonist, Crono.
30 Years Later, Chrono Trigger’s Influence Extends Across All Time Periods
Widely considered one of the best games ever made, Chrono Trigger remains just as relevant and vital 30 years after its debut.
When fighting Lavos in the Ocean Palace, the party is about to be wiped out when Crono steps in, sacrificing himself to save his friends. Crono isn’t just killed here; he’s obliterated, his body destroyed, and with it any semblance of hope that he might return. Except, this is a time travel game, so maybe there is still hope. The remaining party members gather together and go back in time to the moment of Crono’s death and substitute him with a fake, thereby saving his life. It was an unbelievably cool moment back in the 90s, and even today, it still hits. Maybe the wildest part of all is that you don’t actually have to save Crono at all. You can also finish the game without Crono ever rejoining your party.
Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic
Who Are You?
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic starts like any other RPG. You create a character, choose a class, and then start your adventure. Your character is an amnesiac (also not uncommon in RPGs), allowing you to project your own personality and choices onto them. It’s a tried and tested formula that works very well, but Knights of the Old Republic uses it to pull the rug out from under you.
Throughout your journey, you keep hearing about the disappearance of Darth Revan, one of the most feared Sith in the galaxy. No one knows where he’s gone, including Darth Malak, Revan’s apprentice, who believes him to be dead. Not so fast, Malak. Not only is Darth Revan alive, but you are Darth Revan. It’s one of the most shocking twists in gaming history, and one that few have forgotten, even all these years later.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Welcome To The World Of The Witcher
Plenty has been made about the dark, gritty world of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, but the tutorial area doesn’t really capture it. Sure, it’s still some cool fantasy world-building, but the emotionally devastating narrative elements don’t really come through. Then you make your way to Velen, meet the Bloody Baron, and realize why everyone says this game features some of the greatest writing of all time.
The Baron’s wife and daughter are missing, and he’s hired Geralt to find them. Geralt finds more than that. It turns out that the Baron’s wife was pregnant, but she miscarried, likely because the Baron kept beating her. Worse still, the Baron threw the baby’s corpse in a pit and left it there to rot; he didn’t even give it a name. As a result, it created a Botchling, which now wanders the surrounding countryside enacting its revenge on passersby. Geralt then has to fight and kill the beast, and anyone with a pulse is going to feel conflicted about doing so. This is the true first main quest in The Witcher 3, and it leaves a permanent impression on those who play through it.
7 Games Where Small Decisions Snowball Into Massive Consequences
These games take narrative consequences very seriously, and even minor in-game choices can lead to devastating outcomes.
