Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
It's no surprise that in a game about death, there are more than a few moments that can make you shed a few tears.
Main Story
- All the victims in Chapter 0 are shown to have been upstanding detectives, so it's absolutely sad that their lives were cut short by a ruthless hitman who had killed the real Zilch and impersonated him, and that hitman was Yomi's hitman, who sadistically assassinated anyone who posed a threat to him. This hurts a lot especially because you were around them long enough that you probably grew attached to one of them, at least. It's like your first Danganronpa case, except with the despair cranked up to 11.
- Chapter 2 is full of tragedy, with pretty much everyone a victim.
- Aiko, Kurumi's friend, was killed six months ago, and her death was deemed to be a suicide. But in actuality, Karen had killed her impulsively, and she had managed to get away with it for months because of her father's connections to Amaterasu.
- Yoshiko, Waruna, and Kurane were good friends of Aiko's, who was their inspiration and good friend, so they plotted to kill Karen after realizing that her death was not a suicide. It's easy to understand why they felt compelled to kill Karen since the Peacekeepers had refused to look into Aiko's case because of Karen's father and his connections to Amaterasu. No wonder Yuma felt conflicted when he had to let Shinigami reap the three girls' souls to destroy the Mystery Labyrinth.
- Even in the GOD Shinigami part, each of the three girls begs Yuma to believe she's the only culprit in an attempt to protect the other two, showing that even when completely desperate they put each other above everything else.
- Even Karen, easily the least sympathetic figure in the case, can be seen as a tragic figure. It's pretty clear from her use of a brick in the garden as a weapon that she never intended to murder Aiko and only killed her in the heat of the moment. According to Kurumi, Karen had been stressed ever since Aiko's death, so it's heavily implied that Karen had been afflicted with guilt over what she had done.
- Chapter 3's victim, Shachi, is shown to be a virtuous man who refuses to use violence to achieve his goals and even shows no displeasure toward Yuma's decision not to join the Resistance. Unfortunately, this kind of idealism ends up making him the target of Icardi's ire, who kills him as part of his plot to create chaos throughout the city and the Resistance, rob the bank, and flee Kanai Ward.
- Icardi's Unwitting Pawn Servan had no clue what he was doing was gonna cost lives. He clearly had no intention of hurting anyone and is very remorseful over it. Fortunately, he lives and manages to make amends with his surviving comrades.
- In Chapter 3's Mystery Labyrinth, Shinigami is completely enraged by Fubuki's incompetence, to the point that she callously insults her non-stop, in contradiction to Yuma, who actually tries to help her regardless. It gets to the point that Fubuki ends up crying over herself from Shinigami's constant insulting. One can only feel bad for her.
- Chapter 4 shows full well why the truth can be hard to accept.
- First, right after discovering Dr. Huesca's corpse, Yuma and the others hear Yakou scream. Yuma runs out to the hallway, only to see Yakou stabbed and Fink the Slaughter Artist walking away from the scene. The very fact that Yakou is about to be killed off is already shocking enough, but then Yomi comes in, refuses to provide medical aid, and kicks Yakou's body several times all because Yakou is about to die before Yomi himself can deal with him personally. Meanwhile, Yuma, who is crying, but cannot do anything because he is detained by a Peacekeeper, screams and begs for Yomi to stop, only for his pleas to fall on deaf ears and orders the Peacekeepers to kill him, Desuhiko and Fubuki.
- After Halara and Vivia arrive to save Yuma and the other detectives, they escape to another room with Yakou's body, and the detectives try to save Yakou. But it's hard to find solace in this moment since earlier, Shinigami made it clear that Yakou was not long for this world...
- And then in the Mystery Labyrinth, Yuma discovers the Awful Truth: Yakou, the one who had been on Yuma's side for a lot of the game, is the culprit all along. It's already a hard enough truth for Yuma to accept, but then Vivia challenges Yuma's resolve to accept this truth, and the whole showdown between Yuma and Vivia is just hard to watch. Those entire moments of seeing Vivia of all people actually struggle and even debate on clashing blades with Yuma and possibly do him in just to keep the truth under wraps... can be very heartbreaking.
- Then we get to the motive: Dr. Huesca apparently was responsible for the death of Yakou's wife four years ago. We've seen Yakou look at a certain photograph throughout the game, and the Mystery Labyrinth shows what it is: a picture of Yakou and his wife. All these years, Yakou had wanted to wreak revenge, and he avenged her death by deceiving everyone, even his own subordinates.
- And the worst part is that Yakou was an Unwitting Pawn. It was Yomi who had sent him a map of the secret lab as part of his plot to get rid of Dr. Huesca, and as Yuma finds out later in Chapter 5, it was also Yomi who had actually silenced Yakou's wife by having the fake Zilch kill her. So in the end, Yakou ended up killing the wrong man, even if the victim was already a piece of work for other reasons. If Makoto had not stepped in and taken down Yomi with evidence of his corruption, Yomi would have gotten away with everything.
- When Yomi's revealed to be the driving force behind Yakou killing Dr. Huesca, even Vivia notes that he's actually experiencing anger the first time. It shows that even though Vivia doesn't really show it, he DOES care for his comrades.
- Once Yuma and Halara tell the other detectives of Yakou's passing, poor Desuhiko and Fubuki sob uncontrollably over their chief's death.
- Something association-based regarding Chapter 4 but it counts when you realize it. Halara, who happens to find Yakou's heart rate slowing down as he slowly dies in the research lab, begins to perform CPR on his dying body in a desperate attempt to keep him alive. At the same time, however, due to the situation, Halara also orders Yuma, Vivia following after, to investigate Dr. Huesca's critical lab for the security logs in order to verify the killer's idenity... and the Mystery Labyrinth just so happens to be requested at the same time as their arrival at that critical lab, while Halara is still performing CPR on Yakou. Yes, this essentially means that the entirety of Chapter 4's Mystery Labyrinth plays out during a time-stopped moment when Halara is performing CPR on the Nocturnal Detective Agency's dying chief.
- As a second layer, little to Halara's knowledge (if they aren't faking pretending to not know the truth of his role as the culprit of the case, that is), Yakou's death is inevitable regardless as the Mystery Labyrinth would require his soul to be reaped, therefore making their efforts in performing CPR pointless in the end since he was bound to die when Yuma and Vivia returned from the lab anyway.
- Though it only happens for a brief moment, you can't help but fear for the Master Detectives when, even after their chief Yakou Furio has died from someone else's manipulations and they no longer have anyone to support them in their agency, they have to suffer even more, including the dismissal of said chief's death in favor of the investigation, the potential that Number One, their only guide, has suffered a Cruel and Unusual Death, and the depiction of the possible event that the WDO, their organization of employment and the faction the story focuses on, has fallen from a terrorist attack... and then immediately after all of that, Makoto strikes them all with sleeping gas and imprisons everyone besides Yuma and Kurumi to prevent them from interfering with his plans.
- Chapter 5 reveals Kanai Ward's Ultimate Secret and the tragedy behind it.
- First of all, all the Kanai Ward residents that Yuma has met throughout the game are homunculi. That includes Yakou and Kurumi. So what happened to the original residents? They were all slain and eaten by the homunculi. Once Makoto came up with a rain machine and soothed the homunculi, all the damage done to the city was left unexplained, hence the Blank Week Mystery, and the homunculi continued on with their lives, unaware of their true nature and the tragedy that they had caused. And the sad thing is that not all the Kanai Ward residents were replaced. Some people like Kurumi's grandfather avoided Amaterasu's blood test, and as a result, they had no homunculi to replace them.
- What happens when a homunculus dies? The answer is that it doesn't stay dead for long. Homunculi regenerate a day later, healing from whatever injuries they got while alive. But most of the undead homunculi essentially become mindless zombies, hungering for flesh and incapable of conversation. Only a few of the zombies such as the fake Zilch are lucky enough to retain some ability to speak. Makoto ends up sending all corpses to the restricted area and letting the zombies reside there. It hits even harder to realize that all the deceased characters such as Shachi and the three culprits from Chapter 2 have to endure being zombies.
- Surprisingly, Makoto Kagutsuchi of all people proves an incredibly tragic figure. The homunculus of Number One, Makoto has a deep, enduring love for Kanai Ward and its homunculi, hence creating the rain machine and taking over Amaterasu to protect them...and also isolating the city from the rest of the world and executing dozens of criminals to procure human flesh for them to eat (since homunculi can't get nutrients in any other way). That in of itself is more nightmarish than anything, but what pushes it into Tearjerker territory is that, for all his claims otherwise, Makoto is haunted by what he's done, but sees no other way to keep the homunculi safe and happy, and his insistence on shouldering all of it alone is eating away at his psyche. By the end of Chapter 5, it's all but stated him following Yuma into the Mystery Labyrinth was less a Kill and Replace attempt and more a Suicide by Cop—and, by the end of his boss fight, he outright pleads for help, unable to bear the weight of what he's done anymore.
- Bordering on Nightmare Fuel as well, seeing the other Master Detectives' "corpses" in Chapter 5 for the first time can be pretty jarring, since they are the very same detectives that Yuma had worked with in prior chapters. The idea of them having been stripped down completely by the homunculi can seem quite distressing, especially if their cause of "death" is being devoured by zombies. Thankfully, of course, their profiles never say that they died in such a brutal way... and as it turns out, they didn't.
- Shinigami's last moment with Yuma. She decides that she can't let Yuma stay in the labyrinth, so she uses the emergency exit... which he can use at the cost of breaking his pact with her. As a result, he will lose all his memories of her. It's very sad to see them part, especially when Shinigami has grown closer with Yuma over time, and the moment when Shinigami gives him a kiss on the cheek only makes the parting more sorrowful.
- In a Bittersweet Ending of sorts, watching the remaining members of the Nocturnal Detective Agency, that being everyone besides Yuma and Yakou, leave Kanai Ward officially, luggage and all, after completing their assignment fully, and having no further priorities since Makoto revealed the truth to the residents. It makes sense for them to leave, of course, considering they're agents and not residents, but it still feels upsetting seeing the detectives the player has come to know over the course of the game leave to who knows what their next assignment will be.
- Halara Nightmare, in general. Halara seems like an absolute mess of a person in hindsight, even with their combat capabilities and wisdom stemming from their life experiences, despite having Nerves of Steel, obviously. Halara has been deceived and betrayed so much in life that, not only does no one believe them on anything they say, for the most part, but they don't care enough about their own life to be concerned about possibly dying, due to being desensitized by the countless life-threatening situations they've faced beforehand. Halara has turned to a desperate need for money by the means of being good at what they do, not trusting their clients for free unless they're given or promised money for their work, and the only reason for that? Apparently, they want that money to help cats, because of the way they've healed them through life, though Halara has allergies to them despite being so enthused, which also means if they finally do create a program to save cats, it will not be of any help to themselves, since they can't even touch cats despite loving them so much.
- The worst part is this isn't even Halara's true self. Halara's more of an All-Loving Hero broken down by who knows how many negative experiences, not just the one stated in their Gumshoe Gab. Halara's true self comes out during Chapter 4 where it's shown that Halara really does care for people, but can't bring themselves to show it unless under extreme circumstances.
- Vivia Twilight's DLC reveals a tragic cause behind his cynical personality. His forte's side effect consists of him constantly hearing voices of the undead taking to him and seeing ghosts constantly, to which they're all beyond his control, depraving him of his mental well-being overtime, making him the cynical death-seeker we know today. It makes you wonder if Vivia will ever get the help he needs regarding his forte, IF there will be a sequel.
- Vivia: I've always been able to see the dead... And what they tell me is always true. The truth has been exhausting me for as long as I can remember. Even when I cover my eyes and ears, their voices continue to whisper it to me. "Please... be quiet". No matter how much I beg for it, the calm will never come. Where is the perfect peace...? It's found... in death.
Gumshoe Gab
- Halara's Did You Think I Can't Feel? moment in Vol. 3 of the Gumshoe Gab. They believe Yuma tricked them into revealing what they were doing, that being looking at cat photos, immediately thinking that he had pulled a bluff on them and sounding as if they're about to cry in response to it. This is especially telling as it shows that, underneath their not-so-acceptable attitude towards others, Halara still wants to trust people. They don't outright say it by this point, leaving it until Vol. 5, but it's implied that Halara still trusts Yuma as a friend, meaning that thinking that he'd trick Halara at all would be the last thing they'd expect from him.
- Halara expressing their deep regret and despair over blaming themselves for trusting someone in middle school who ended up digging information out of Halara to pull a scam on their parents. It's the one moment in the game where Halara actually sounds unambiguously sorrowful.
- Yakou's fifth and final Gumshoe Gab has him sternly telling Yuma that if he ever finds himself in love with a woman, he needs to do whatever he can to protect her. Given that this particular volume can't be accessed before Chapter 5, the player already knows that Yakou is speaking from experience - namely, the death of his own wife.
