While much darker than the main Pokémon game, Pokémon Rejuvenation is still relatively lighthearted... which makes the sad bits even worse. SPOILERS AHOY.
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The Dimensional Rifts
As Tragic Monsters, the Dimensional Rifts are pretty much equal parts this and Nightmare Fuel; hence, a separate tab was created for them.
- The Dimensional Rift Gyarados is actually a school of Magikarp taking the form of a Gyarados. Normally pretty freaky, but this gets really depressing when you read the Rift Dex and discover that it took this form because it never got to evolve on its own.
- The Dimensional Rift Galvantula is entirely fueled off the rage of being slain prematurely, and despite being a monster fiercely wants to protect its children. Even worse, the Rift Notes make it clear that its Joltik children may not have survived.
- It gets somehow worse when you discover in a flashback that Crescent put the poor thing there as a scapegoat to cover Melia's escape.
- The Dimensional Rift Volcanion is perhaps the worst of them. According to the Rift Notes, it's actually an infant who was stolen from its mother. It was intended to be made into a Shadow Pokémon, but when it resisted it was transformed into a Dimensional Rift that was used to power Madelis' lab by turning Carotos Mountain into a volcano. The poor thing is completely helpless to do anything about it. When you get to it, it's already fused with the mountain using its many limbs, and the only way to shut it down is to kill it. Wow.
- The Dimensional Rift Chandelure. Disregarding the fact that it's Narcissa's old partner who was mortally wounded fighting Dufaux, then denied peace in death, prior to V9 its only dialogue once it revealed its true form was to beg for death, and in all versions since its introduction its last words are to thank you for giving it a Mercy Kill.
- The Dimensional Rift Garbodor, full stop. It's actually the shiny Garbodor Melia created, who was transformed into a Dimensional Rift by Zetta as a punishment for helping Melia escape him. It wandered the world for months in search of Melia, just so it could know its efforts weren't in vain and so it could apologize. It doesn't even try to attack you once it realizes Melia's with you. The worst part? Unless you've met the right conditions (which are rather tricky to meet if you don't know them beforehand), you're forced to put it down.
Other
- The Haircut sidequest in Gearen City is a mixture of this and Heartwarming at the end. Sasha and Rosa talk things out with each other, with the daughter swearing to her mother that she understands, loves her, and would have helped her if she'd asked... all of which brings up a lot of bittersweet memories for the Player Character, who will automatically head for the door.
- Melia's death. The reactions of Venam, Ren, and even Zetta (Especially Zetta, since he's Melia's clone and thus she was the closest thing he had to family) are all incredibly sobering.
- In the Chrysalis Manor arc, Venam's friends Luca and Lenny, after escaping with her and the player character from the mansion, sever all ties with her. While Venam's stubborn insistence on exploring the manor was part of the reason they almost died, it's still heartbreaking to watch two of her (apparently) closest friends drop her like a hot potato shortly after her friend Melia died.
- Meeting up with Zetta (or more accurately, a nightmare with his memories and personality) in Nightmare City. He opens up to you and Aelita about how Team Xen treated him as just another tool in their arsenal instead of like a human being (even considering destroying him at several points), how he wishes he could have connected with Melia, and how he regrets being bad enough in Melia's eyes to manifest as a nightmare she had. He ultimately begs you to tell Melia to remember him, so he won't fade away. Aelita even compares him to a troubled child. It gets worse during your final fight with him. His Pokémon are all nicknamed; looking at their nicknames in order gives the following message:
Please
Do
Not
Forget
About
Me note - Nancy sacrificing herself to save the protagonist. Her own child gets to see her getting cut in two by Madame X's blade.
- The Amethyst Cave sidequest in which you team up with a Team Xen grunt who's living on borrowed time and just wants to find his mother's grave. At the end of the quest, he finds the grave and dies about a minute later, but he dies happy.
- Venam finally spits out her feelings to Melia... except she actually does it as her last message to Melia before Nim/Lorna turns her into stone.
- The revelation in Chapter 13 that Kanon as the player knew him never existed. Kanon is a Servant, a being created by Garufan magic to serve Nymiera's family, who was only pretending to be a teenager. Huey breaks down at this, begging Kanon to act like his friend again.
- Florin’s death in the route in which you tell Cassandra everything you saw in Darchlight Woods. During her trial, a vengeful Flora decides to frame her innocent brother as Bladestar’s co-leader, which ends in him getting executed after she escapes. It’s especially tragic because he never knew anything about Team Xen’s involvement in Cassandra’s government, which he was involved in, and died because of his own remorseless sister.
- The sidequest where the player helps Mosely break into the Hospital of Hope. She wants to steal medicine to cure her adopted mother, but when she does so, Isha turns up and reveals that the medicine is the only vial they have, and there's another girl in the hospital who'll die from the same disease as Maman if Mosely takes the medicine. Mosely's forced to leave the medicine and watch her mother die.
- The protagonist's entire situation in general is extremely depressing once you stop to think about it. Only since the start of the game their mother is kidnapped, they are thrown into an unknown region with nothing more than a Starter Pokémon to go forward, a friend they make along the way dies shortly after meeting them, they try to soothe Keta's soul only for him to get killed too, they are almost lynched at Goldenleaf Town, they are kidnapped by Team Xen and forced to work at their castle, their mother gets murdered right in front of them, another one of their friends is turned into stone and thrown into a pool of lava... And yet in spite of all this, they never even talk about this to their companions even though some dialogue choices later on clearly show that it's taking a heavy toll on them.
- In the Renegade route, if you visit Tesla after you delete Amber, she's undergoing enormous amounts of mental, physical and emotional stress. She knows that something is horribly wrong, but she doesn't know what it is. Amber's deletion has completely shattered her life, and she doesn't even know why.
- What happens to Talon in the Renegade route. It's bad enough that he gets a letter telling him that his sick mother's condition became even worse because after hearing that he'd been turned to stone, she wanted to visit him, fell and is now in hospital. It's even worse that Karma itself chose him as a pawn and told him to stop the player on repeat, which did a number on his sanity. But what happens to him in the end depends on whether or not Florin is dead: if he's not dead, Talon and Florin confront the player and M2, lose to them and the player deletes them both despite M2's objection. If Florin is dead, then Talon, having nothing to live for, turns into a Rift that looks like a Braviary-esque abomination. The player has to defeat his Rift, and then goes inside and deletes him, knowing that there's no way to save him.
