Tear Jerker / Guilty Gear -STRIVE-

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Head here for the main Guilty Gear Tearjerker moments.

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Gameplay/Arcade mode

• Faust's redesign is not only terrifying, but also really sad and depressing when you think about it. That lovable, crazy bag-headed doctor who always seemed to be in high spirits you once knew? Gone. It's very clear that Faust has seen better days. He's traded in his doctor's uniform for that of a surgeon's, which evokes his very tragic backstory as Dr. Baldhead. His entire body looks like it's in awful shape, like at any moment he could just suddenly fall apart at the seams. Quite literally in fact, because upon closer inspection his body has a bunch of stitches in it. It's also horribly emaciated and skinny, looking like it's been stretched WAY out of proportion. His entire character model is framed in shadow regardless of the stage's lighting, giving off very gloomy vibes. He walks like a zombie, seemingly aimless and without purpose. Even his moveset has taken on a much darker turn. He no longer cheerfully pops in through doors made out of thin air or swims through solid ground. Instead, he morphs into scarecrows and eats the opponent alive before releasing them through a plain-Jane dimensional hole. Whatever happened to Faust in-between games, it's not pretty.
  • His new voice and dialogue doesn't help either. Gone is the jovial, funny doctor we all came to know. In his place is a depressed, broken shell of a man that is very noticeably losing his humanity. And whatever turned him into...that has left him unable to speak anything but sentence fragments of things he used to say. He has become the same type of being as that of a character from Guilty Gear's sister series BlazBlue: Arakune. And all his attempts to retain the person he used to be fail tragically, as shown in his Respect where he pulls out a flower and tries to give it to his opponent, but it withers, causing poor Faust to cry.
    • Another Story finally reveals what happened to the good doctor to turn him into what he is now, and not only is it not pretty, it's also very tragic. Faust nearly died. And how did he almost die? By redeeming his greatest failure and saving Bedman's sister Delilah from the same overexertion that did in her brother, expending so much of his power that he burned out his life force, expressed in the image of his spirit ascending to the next world. While Word of God confirms Faust did indeed survive, he is somewhat close an Empty Shell still carried by his will to save people.
• The new character themes in -STRIVE- are all in Image Song format, and there's quite a few sad moments in several of them.
  • Faust's theme, Alone Infection, at first is a standard heavy metal track, but during the chorus changes to a more melancholy melody with lyrics that are unusually somber. It mixes in a sense of dread fitting to his sudden insanity, but also hints at Faust struggling with himself. In addition, the lyrics are both deranged and very depressing, with copious amounts of distorted, dual-toned Metal Screams that give the impression that Faust is struggling with his own identity. Lastly, after the 2nd verse, the song suddenly cuts to a quiet, sad-sounding ballad. Another Story makes the song even more somber by essentially revealing that each "verse" is a reflection of each persona that Faust has had over the years, right up until the soft piano section which is essentially him accepting both halves as a part of himself before sacrificing his life to redeem his past sins.
    "I tried to run away from here
    Before the storm hit
    We see eye to eye
    We see eye to eye
    I told me
    WITHOUT YOU"
  • Zato's theme, Let Me Carve Your Way, describes how deep down, Zato yearns for the lost memories of his previous life. Why? Because even though he doesn't know how evil and insane he was back then, he still loved Millia with all his heart. And now because of his resurrection, he's lost his emotions in addition to his memories, except his love for Millia. Yet, because he has no emotions, he no longer understands why she drives him forward. The end portion also states that no matter what happens, if he finds out about his past and is displeased with the person he used to be, if he never regains his emotions or memories at all, or even if Millia herself does not reciprocate his feelings, he will always love Millia and support her.
    "I once had some sweet memories
    Its worth remains all the same
    How can I remember those moments, sweetheart?
    Tell me
    TELL ME"
  • Leo's theme, Hellfire. The lyrics reveal that underneath Leo's facade of a proud warrior and king is a man suffering from heavy PTSD and Survivor's Guilt because his pride ended up getting his entire squad killed during the Crusades. The somber, military march-like bridge states that he compares himself to The Grim Reaper after having led his men to the afterlife, and wonders if he'll be remembered on the right side of history.
    "I woke up one morning, strangers say "hello" to me
    Tomorrow their names will be carved onto stones
    "We're going home alive"; I'm a terrible liar
    Forgive me, that's not the Arc de Triomphe!"
  • I-No's theme, Requiem, is a dramatic and bombastic tune normally, but the lyrics describe I-No's true motivations behind her actions. Beneath her two-faced personality is a deeply hurt woman who only wanted to use her powers to create a bright future for all of humanity, but the more she used her powers the more disaster and tragedy she caused. The numerous alternate futures she created eventually drove her to despair and insanity, to the point where she's all but given up on her ideals. The song becomes even sadder after you play the Story Mode, as the lyrics turn into a Musical Spoiler that foreshadows her death.
    "The time that passes, tells me many lovely things
    But I can't feel it..."
    "CUT IT OUT!"
    [...]"If I am to be swallowed by fate I must have fought well,
    Praying that it will become a seed of... new life..."
  • Happy Chaos's theme, Drift, is essentially what happens when I-No and Zato's themes have a baby. While the song itself is lively and bombastic, the lyrics describe just how utterly broken and insane the man formerly known as the Original has become due to having so much knowledge and power contained within himself while being isolated from everyone else. The words paint his story in a somewhat tragic light, with one possible explanation being that all the isolation combined with people's expectations of him due to being a god among men, much like with Raven, slowly eroded his mind to the point where he just stopped caring and now only wants to entertain himself, stating that it is because he is now free from worldly attachments and no longer cares about anything that he can find everything about the world and humanity beautiful. And he's more than happy to play whatever role will provide for another great chapter in history.
    "Can you hear it?
    The pulses of the living
    The ironic rhythm is a grand orchestra!
    It's never the same tone
    Who wants to stop this?
    There can be...
    When the violent storm is over
    The blue sky is more beautiful than ever!
    You see, I want that! I want that!
    THAT'S ALL I WANT!"
  • Baiken's theme, Mirror of the World, especially after the events of Another Story. Baiken has lived her entire life for only one purpose: getting revenge on the one who destroyed her country and killed her family - Happy Chaos. As cool a character as she may be, it's easy to forget that she's a Broken Bird who's essentially been living just to kill someone and then resign herself to whatever fate may come afterward - including death. It's only after she meets Delilah, someone who's also lost her family to the same man she's after and is willing to do whatever it takes to avenge her brother and feels that Baiken is a kindred spirit, does she finally realize that there are people who care for her that she's pushed away and that throwing away one's humanity and life is never a price worth paying. In the end, Baiken finally finds the companionship which she has denied herself for so long, abandoning her quest for vengeance in order to truly live her own life, with Delilah by her side. Much like Sol, Baiken can now finally let go of the guilt she's been carrying for so long.
  • Testament's theme, Like a Weed, Naturally, as a Matter of Course, is both a happy and a sad one when one takes into account Testament's backstory. They have spent their whole life fighting on both sides of the Crusades, as a human and as a Gear, and all those years of war left them in despair, a broken shell of the idealist they used to be. Then, at their absolute lowest point, they met Dizzy, who left such an impact on them that even after their eventual separation, they still never forgot about her and her dream of peaceful coexistence between humans and Gears. Now, after all these years, that beautiful dream has not only been made a reality for the world, but for Testament as well, as humans later came to accept and befriend them. The song is an expression of their gratitude towards Dizzy for redeeming them and finally giving them a reason to live on. Even though Ky ultimately was the one to be with Dizzy in the end, she will always be Testament's eternal friend and savior.
  • Bridget's theme The Town Inside Me has peppy delivery of the lyrics, but the song's lyrics spin a story of Bridget's listlessness after achieving her goal of ending her home village's superstitions, her mounting dysphoria and fear of loneliness. Every time the song gets to the chorus, the peppier delivery of the song starts to falter and even sound downright upset at times as Bridget clashes with her feelings internally, changing the justification or realization between repetitions.
    "I've been patient, but it was bearable
    I've had a gray haze for a long time though
    I never found out, what it was I—
    It's my stress, that's for sure/Tastes like vegetables I don't like/I hate the alarm clock I chose"
  • Bedman?'s theme, The Circle. It's effectively a funeral dirge sung from Bedman's point of view, describing his experience after death. Namely, that his soul is trapped within another dimension, possibly the Backyard, and he likens the experience to Hell because he knows full well the sins he's committed and no matter how hard he tries, no matter how much he yearns to be with his sister Delilah again, he simply cannot escape his imprisonment. All he can do is ask God for forgiveness and desperately reach for the border of the dimension (the titular circle), using his bed as a conduit in order to communicate with his sister in some way and convey through it that he'll always be there for her.
    "I may not be able to make you smile (but)
    But I'll never make you cry even once, never!
    I struggled
    To go outside of the circle
    Consuming ten billion years in an instant
    And I'll come to you without a second thought
    I'm here, I'm here…"
• Asuka's theme, The Gravity. Befitting his ever-cryptic nature, the lyrics are written almost entirely in metaphors for his story and the reasoning behind his actions. His intentions were pure and he genuinely held no ill will towards anyone. Everything he did, he did for the sake of scientific progress, and all he wanted was to find the meaning of existence. But somewhere along the way, he lost sight of the people who cared for him and didn't realize until it was too late that his actions hurt them. In the end, and by the end of the -STRIVE- story itself, he finally accomplishes his goals and finds the answer he was looking for: there is no definite meaning of existence. It's about living your life to the fullest and cherishing the friendships you make along the way.
  "Words know the morning light
  No, it is not truth that you divine
  And love embraces the darkness of the night
  All things as they are
  And the universe turned black
  Did the Sun ever defy fate?
  Beyond hope, do you recognize me?
  Gravity holds all the answers"
• "The Name of Heaven". The final Arcade Mode ending theme of Sol's story arc, it's a tragic ballad whose lyrics describe someone who has suffered and is on the verge of death, pondering what the afterlife is like and if they can finally be free from all their pain. At first, you may think this song could apply to Sol and Aria just like all the other ending themes... until it plays in Story Mode and you realize that it's not just describing Sol and Jack-O' (Aria's reincarnation who, in the moment the song plays, is planning on sacrificing herself), but also I-No. She's been broken so much by the trauma of creating and erasing so many timelines yet never finding one that she herself could find happiness in, that the only two things that matter to her now are either sharing the experience of "heaven" with everyone else just to feel like she belongs, or for someone to Mercy Kill her. Combined with the references in the scene that follows her ascension to godhood, this song is basically Daisuke Ishiwatari's answer to "Komm, susser tod".
• While Bridget's arcade mode story is a heartwarming Coming-Out Story, it doesn't shy away from touching on the struggles caused by gender dysphoria. And Goldlewis, who has his own Mysterious Past, is able to recognize Bridget's pain as similar to his own, leading to him having an emotional heart-to-heart with her after stage 7.
  Goldlewis: Lemme guess. You’re hidin’ your true self for the sake of other folks.
  Bridget: (gasps) How... How did you know?
  Goldlewis: I’m ridin’ that horse too, hoss. I keep tellin’ myself this is what’s best for my family. I’ve shied away from my true feelings for years and years. Look where it got me. Separate homes. What a joke.
  Bridget: I always thought that, as long as I kept quiet, things would work out... But it hurts too much.
  • Bridget's dialog at the end of stage 8, just before she comes out, makes it clear she's known who she is for a long time. But out of fear of admitting the truth and losing everything she had, she kept her feelings a secret from her family and lied to herself. The moment she affirms her identity is the first time she's ever had control over who she is.
    Bridget: I... I don’t want to run scared anymore. If I keep on faking it like this, I know I’ll regret it... So from now on, no matter what... no more lying to myself.
• Bedman?'s arcade story. Now without its occupant, the Bed suddenly begins to go berserk inexplicably, forcing Delilah to chase after it. In the end, they encounter Ramlethal, who fights the Bed to a standstill before Delilah finally gets it to stop. Ramlethal then reveals why the Bed started acting up in the first place - it was seeking powerful opponents in order to be destroyed, believing its existence was causing Delilah suffering. Delilah accepting that the Bed is the only reminder she has left of her brother finally gets it to understand that it's important to her, and it ceases its rampage. If you manage to beat Stage 9, Ramlethal will explain how she knew Bedman, and Delilah is able to ask her the full details of his life and what happened to him.
• Asuka's arcade story, once you get past all the Mind Screw involving his clones. He created these clones of himself as part of yet another experiment. These clones effectively act as "mirrors" of the various aspects of himself, separated into their own individual counterparts, as he tries to come to terms with his own existence and what his master, who became Happy Chaos, had been espousing to him during their battle in the main story of the game. He effectively took the concept of "confronting himself" literally due to carrying over 100 years of regrets, and coming to hate himself for the mistakes he made.
• A.B.A's arcade story nearly ends on a sour note, with her realizing that she's been toxic to Paracelsus, and with her breaking down in tears apologizing to him, believing that they need to cut it off. Even if Paracelsus says that he doesn't want to part ways with A.B.A, it's still sad to see A.B.A in this state.

Story mode

• Sol's fridge-raiding Noodle Incident may have been Played for Laughs, but you get a sense that deep down the man still longs for the time before the Universal Will tore his life apart. He may be hailed as a hero with all the privileges it entails, but his heart has never truly known rest all this time.
• Asuka's backstory. He does admit he was the one who had Japan destroyed to contain Justice, but the Gear rampage afterwards wasn't his doing. His mentor of all people was the reason the entire world, possibly including his best friend Frederick, wanted him dead for over a century.
  • The reveal of Asuka's key personality trait, namely that he has trouble understanding people and properly conveying his emotions and intentions, retroactively makes everything he's ever done and many plot details a lot sadder. Like Frederick, he didn't want to lose Aria to her disease. But rather than simply tell Frederick that she didn't want to live in a world without him and get his opinion on how to proceed, he went ahead and forcibly mutated him into a Gear against his will, causing Frederick to hate Asuka over a perceived betrayal for over 100 years. Because of the Prototype Gear project being labeled a "failure" due to Frederick's escape, the military seized control of the Gear Project and there was nothing Asuka could do to stop the Gears from being used for war, so he had no choice but to try and subvert those plans by implanting Aria's soul into the first Commander-type Gear: Justice. This resulted in Japan's destruction and Aria's effective death, leaving only a rampaging Justice to wage war on the world for over 100 years. The world was brought to the brink of destruction all because of one man's desire to see his friends happy together yet utter failure at interpreting his friends' will, on a level of Poor Communication Kills to perhaps rival Major Zero and Big Boss.
• The forcing of Asuka's hand for Sol to either accept losing the Flame of Corruption or popping Dragon Install right there and ending Asuka's life. As Asuka stated, his goal was to "erase Sol Badguy", but in the sense of freeing Frederick Bulsara from those chains. However, it's not a decision entirely of guilt. In case the audience forgot: Sol's Power Limiter is starting to fail. It may be sooner, it may be later, but his power is still growing and it can barely hold it back anymore. And, when it fails —when, not if— Sol will become a rampaging, unstoppable monster. But Asuka's thoughts aren't towards the damage that would do, but what that would do to his friend.
  Vernon: Tell me, who is Sol going to hurt?!
  (Asuka thinks to a vision of a gigantic silhouette of Sol looming over a barren, lifeless desert city)
  Asuka: Himself.
• A rather literal one from the story mode: when I-No effectively becomes "God", she uses her newfound power to give humanity all of their desires, effectively fulfilling Ariels' original directive. When she does this, the entire world starts to cry.
  • What I-No says when she becomes a god. As she is the collective will of humanity's wishes for a brighter future, she asks one final question for humanity, to see if this is what they really want and if she finally did one good thing in all of her existence.
    "Free...dom. Freedom. All of you are now free. From old age, hunger, and disease. From power, standing, appearance, location, and even time. I've freed you from all of these shackles. Now, what is your answer?"
• The ending. If you thought the ending of BlazBlue: Central Fiction was bittersweet, the ending to Strive will give you a similar feeling.
  • Sol Badguy dies. To be more specific, the identity that Frederick Bulsara had built up over the last century as an unstoppable bounty hunter. He is declared killed in action in order to stop the current world from being destroyed by I-No, but this allows him to finally settle down with Jack-O', who has become her own person following Aria's decision to not return.
  • Asuka R. Kreutz has finally accomplished his personal goals, not only as a scientist but also his personal dream of giving his best friends in the whole world a happy life together. With his duty fulfilled, he retires and becomes a radio host, hoping to finally live his own life and grant the world peace in his own way.
  • Aria's soul finally moves on, as Jack-O' acknowledges to Sol that she won't be coming back. Despite that, Jack-O' is able to realize that she loves Frederick just as much as the original Aria did. Sol returns her feelings, having already dealt with his guilt over killing the original Aria and accepting she might never return. Not once after their fusion did he ever refer to Jack-O' as Aria, showing how much he cares for her as her own person.
  • I-No's death. She is finally able to come to terms with what she is in her final moments as I-No. As her current form dies at the hands of Frederick Bulsara, she uses the last of her power to effectively be reborn as Megumi once more via switching places with her, allowing Megumi to take I-No's place in the present and granting her fellow time traveler Axl's wish to meet her again, finally fulfilling her dream of giving at least one person a happy future. A heart-wrenching yet satisfying end to one of the most legendary and iconic villains in fighting game history.
  I-No: Haha... Oh, Axl.. ...You were right all along. I had everything. Both good and bad. But I can't remember any of it now. Even though so much must have happened... Did I somehow just forget...?
  Axl: We... We were drinking tea... And we looked out at the beautiful sea together, right?! I was scared as hell of you, but you heard me out anyway. You... You made me so happy. [cries while smiling] Please, remember something. Anything!
  I-No: Why are you crying?
  Axl: I can't get anything out but tears...
  I-No: [being consumed by Saint Oratorio] Beautiful blonde hair... like a woman's.

Another Story DLC

• Delilah's situation in Another Story. She's only just woken up from a long sleep thanks to the efforts of her brother Bedman, only to find out upon awakening that not only was he betrayed, but he sacrificed his own life so she could wake up. Now without any living family left, all she has left is revenge towards the one who manipulated and betrayed Bedman: Happy Chaos, who was controlling the Universal Will in an attempt to escape the Backyard. Keep in mind that all of this has happened to a 12-year-old girl with Reality Warper powers that are stronger than her own brother's which she cannot control while awake and could potentially result in her own death at any given moment due to her body being unable to keep up with the sheer brainpower it takes to use said powers. She ends up meeting with Anji, who puts her in the care of Baiken, another who seeks revenge against Happy Chaos. Baiken tries to dissuade her from the path of vengeance to no avail, resulting in Delilah teleporting away, only to end up in a snowy mountainside town near Illyria, unable to control her powers, and now unintentionally threatening the end of the world itself due to her turbulent emotional state caused by the conflict between not wanting to be alone anymore and her desire for revenge. It's only after she is finally accepted by Baiken as a friend and surrogate sister that she is able to calm down, and it comes at the cost of Faust effectively performing a Heroic Sacrifice to weaken her dimensional barrier enough for Baiken and Ramlethal to enter it.
  • On that note, Faust's near death. No one saw it coming. Many had suspected that the reason for Faust's different demeanor in this game was the result of some sort of transformation. As it turns out, it's because the Faust we know, the wacky lovable doctor who teleports through doors and creates random items like helium balloons out of thin air, the reformed serial killer once known as Dr. Baldhead, forced to use the maximum extent of his dimensional magic in order to save Delilah, but in the process he ends up tapping too much into the power of the Backyard, which puts so much strain on his body that he almost dies as a result. The Faust we see now is still alive, yet not too far off from a zombified corpse, animated solely by his undying will to save lives. It still feels like a bittersweet but noble end to one of the most recognizable and beloved characters in the series. Rest well, Doctor. You've earned it.