Alundra is a game that repeatedly punches the player in the gut, so much so that one might think that George R. R. Martin wrote the script.note
Warning! Unmarked spoilers below as per Spoilers Off wiki policy!
- Every character death would qualify, but Sybill and Jess most of all.
- The game's audio and the progression accentuate this. Each time a character dies, you'll either come back to Jess' house or wake up in it, and hear the distinctive clanging of another burst of imagination from the smith, which both grants you another weapon/item, and is his personal tribute to those who have passed. When Sybill is murdered, there's no music when you wake up to the clanging, and it's slower than usual implying no small amount of grief this time. And when Jess finally passes as well, you'll never wake up to the sound of his work again.
- And the death of the young girl Sybill is a massive Player Punch. Everyone has been tormented by their dreams or manipulated by Melzas, giving the player at least an anticipation of the grief the village will suffer. This time? Ronan, in a fit of mad, hateful spite for Alundra, and his staunch belief in Melzas, snapped a child's neck in the middle of the night. And very shortly after she'd grown to trust Alundra on a personal level to boot. You don't even find out until the following morning, as it's the first time Jess is smithing without any pre-empted context.
- In particular, Giles' death has more Tear Jerker than just your typical Redemption Equals Death. Basically, once he bites it, the mayor Beaumont barged in and asked what's going on and at this point, Meia finally blurted out that the whole village has been tricked into worshipping and empowering Melzas. Beaumont didn't believe it, until eventually he noted the possibility that maybe she's right and if that's the case, the whole village is screwed. It's not enough to tamper Meia's anguish, she ends up storming off to the night and lamenting that in the end, she and Alundra will always be untrusted outcasts that no one is going to believe.
- All of the tombstone inscriptions, and they get even more heartbreaking later in the game.
- When the Murgg burn Inoa Village and kill several villagers in the process. Even worse: Some of the people that end up dead in the attack are ones who you rescued from their nightmares before.
- The ending: Melzas is finally defeated, but Inoa Village remains devastated, and more than half of the inhabitants were killed during the story.
