Tear Jerker / Soul Series

aka: Soul Calibur

• Siegfried's story in general. He killed his own father and his mind broke to the point where he had to convince himself someone else did it just to stay sane. Despite being billed as The Hero and even being named after one, he takes a very tragic and hard fall to darkness. He grabs hold of Soul Edge, only for it to mutate his body and shatter what little sanity he had left, transforming him into Nightmare. Once he's freed from the sword's control, Siegfried is left wracked with guilt over the thousands of innocent people he murdered. Even then, however, his freedom is short-lived, as he still kept Soul Edge around him so that no one could find it and that he could dispose of it later, but he ended up back under the sword's control eventually. He has to be freed again, but by this point he's become a Death Seeker who thinks his sins can never be redeemed, and he pushes away everyone who tries to help him, out of fear they'll get hurt or end up dead. He gets better in V, but VI appears to Retcon his somewhat-happy ending away.
• Sophitia's ending in Soulcalibur IV. Despite the initial Narm, Algol's words to her conveys his sadness over being forced to kill his own son.
  Algol: "Time is cruel. Even with all of this power, I cannot undo the past..."
  • Sophitia's whole motive since SCII has also been to protect her very young children. Becomes Harsher in Hindsight in SCV.
  • Parts of Tira's ending somehow make the psychotic, bloodthirsty, Magnificent Bitch... into The Woobie. It's just so sad and pathetic, as she's begging Nightmare not to leave her alone... Considering how Tira always sought companionship, it's even sadder. After her time as a member of the Bird of Passage, she was more or less adopted into a family for a short period—but her insanity caused her to Leave No Survivors when she got into a small squabble with them.
• Lizardman's backstory in Soulcalibur III is heartbreaking when you discover that he is a man stuck as a reptilian killing machine who can't speak, forsaken by everyone, even by his god, and desperately (and vainly) trying to get his humanity back while his monster side engulfs him more and more. By the later entries in the series he's so far gone that all that's left is the instinctual desire to find Soul Edge, which he once thought was the key to curing himself, but an inability to understand why he wants it anymore.
• The ending cutscene in chapter 11 of Soulcalibur V's story mode is also heartrending. Yes, Patrokolos is understandably very rattled by multiple revelations regarding his old employer and the missions he went on at said employer's orders, and yes his newfound sister did look rather creepy with the new arm/eyes/voice she had going... but the boy shoving a sword in the face of, then fleeing in terror from, the young woman who had finally found the family she had been deprived of all her life just after she saved his idiot hide was far too cruel for words (probably just as Tira planned)....
• Pyrrha shields Patroklos from an ambush from Nightmare. She proceeds to transform into a malfested to protect him and Patroklos runs away from her.
  Pyrrha: We're family. Right, Patroklos?
  Patroklos: We are a family. But why is this happening to OUR family?!
  • Also, this.
  Pyrrha: You can't accept me if I'm malfested?
• Pyrrha after being slain by her own brother in the "original" timeline. Doesn't help that she herself sheds tears.
  Pyrrha: I'm alone... again?
  • Pyrrha Omega's artwork where she's clutching her arm and crying in pain. It basically sums up what the Alexander family has been through.
• Something about Raphael's bio in V is just somehow... sad. "Wandering For His Lost Love..."
• Also from the Heartwarming page: Talim's ending in IV. While most of the other fighters either kill Algol or strip him of his powers, Talim doesn't. Instead, she reunites him with his dead son!
• Xianghua's ending in IV where she stays by Kilik's side as he begs her to live a normal life while Soul Edge tries to consume them both.
• Li Long's ending in the original Soul Edge. He had finally succeeded in defeating both Cervantes and Inferno (known at the time as Soul Edge), but unexpectedly falls down to the ground via his own critical wounds after trying to recite one of his win quotes. His story epilogue then shows him trying to reach the cursed sword itself, but failing in the end and then shouting out the name of his beloved Chie before supposedly succumbing to his wounds and dying although it would be revealed later on that Li Long had actually barely survived his battle against Cervantes and spent the next few years as a Broken Ace before finally reuniting with Chie and their son Riki. The music that plays from within his story epilogue of both the original Arcade and the PlayStation port's Edge Master mode, titled "The Last Bit of Hope - Dragon's Gasp" does not help one bit when it comes to the tear jerking of the entire scenario.
• Go ahead, have Patroklos fight against Pyrrha Omega. You'll net some special dialogue, with a more depressed and horrified Patroklos.
  Pyrrha Omega: [screams in rage/terror]
  Patroklos: Malfested? My own sister!?
• Even the guest characters can have some sad moments, namely in their introductions or victory poses before or after fights. Of note are:
  • Spawn, in one of his victory poses after he wins a fight in II. Asking his wife, who he hasn’t seen in so long, if they still have a chance together, gives off the feeling that Spawn is losing faith in what he’s doing.
  • Yoda even manages this in his special intro against Darth Vader. Igniting his lightsaber, his solemnly acknowledges that the young slave from Tatooine he accepted into the Jedi Order is now a threat that he must stop. He sounds... off, as if while he knows he has to stop Vader, he doesn’t really want to.
  Spawn: Wanda, is there still hope...?
  Yoda: My task it is, to stop you.
• Siegfried's alternate ending in the first game has him destroy Soul Edge rather than taking it. While it may sound like a happy ending at first, what makes the ending sad is that it then cuts to him standing on a mountain near a village that also appears in his bad ending, Siegfried apologizes to his Dad for killing him and admitting that he's unsure of what to do now that he's come out of denial about killing his father.

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