Red Dead Redemption/Tear Jerker

• Speaking of westerns, Red Dead Redemption. "Dead Man's Gun." You cried, admit it.
  • Kind of a Fridge Horror Tear Jerker: when John confronts Dutch, he tries to convince Dutch to stop fighting and just give up, but Dutch says it's not possible. When John says that mean he has to kill Dutch, Dutch tells him "when I'm gone, they'll just find another monster". And just before throwing himself to his death, in a weak and defeated voice, he says "Our time has passed, John". When you see the ending, that scene becomes way more painful.
  • Another retroactive one: after killing Dutch, you return to Beecher's Hope and do a series of ranching missions. Pretty much everyone gets sick of them in a hurry, as it's just John talking with his wife and son while hunting wolves, rangling cows and delivering supplies. Play those missions again after beating the game and listen to the dialogue. Ouch...
  • The game Foreshadows it a lot...Even if you don't know, You will feel unrested and unhappy with this new life.
• "Compass", as you return home.
• The simple piano piece in the song Exodus in America, which makes its reappearance in the credits.
• Nastas' abrupt, pointless death. It doesn't help he's one of the few decent characters in the game.
• The fact that you can wipe out all the bison. Its far from the saddest thing in the game, but its kind of depressing gunning down a lone bison and realizing that you've killed them all and that bison, at least in the scope of the game, was the last of its kind.
• John Marsten's death is sad enough as it is, then Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie plays during his funeral and...I'm sorry, I have something in my eye...
• It's telling that out of all of the Stranger missions, the happiest one has you reunite a zoophile with his favorite horse. Almost all of them are grim and depressing, and even when you do the "right" thing, you often end up making people's lives worse. Probably the saddest is the "California" mission. You meet a friendly man, Sam, traveling in the wilderness, looking for California. Marston does his best to help him on his way, but he keeps wandering. Marston keeps running into him, and he looks more and more haggard, eventually threatening Marston with a gun. Marston eventually finds his corpse being eaten by vultures. In his possession was a letter to his wife. He explains that ever since his ancestors left the Black Sea, his family has been travelers and explorers. He that California would bring him hope, but America is a land of broken dreams. He says that he loves his wife and leaving her was the stupidest thing he ever did.
• The ending.
  • Also, John's last heart-to-heart with his son. The player doesn't know it yet, but after watching it a second time...
• Tethercat Principle: The game takes place over three years. Some of the "Stranger" side-missions are open from the beginning (almost) and can be finished at any time, even after the game is completed. This could mean that guy on the Mexican cliff has to work on his flying machine for a very long time... and that poor Jenny will be withering away alone in the desert forever.
• Now, this only happened to me, but it still got to me: Jack was on his way home to see his family, and Compass was playing in the background, and everything seemed hopeful...then I agreed to do a side mission to help find some thieves, and as soon as I found them, as if on cue, Compass ended, and less than a second after it ended, I was shot to death. It was hard to watch something awful happen on the way to what should have been a joyous moment.