Tear Jerker / Ghost of Tsushima

"Your friend died. For you."

Moment Subpages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.

Considering that it takes place in a time where an island is under siege from foreign invaders, there are more than a few moments in which you're guaranteed to spill a few tears.

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• The opening act of the game, which can potentially double as Nightmare Fuel. An army of samurai is gathered at the beach to repel foreign invaders, yet Shimura doesn't believe they'll be able to do much against them. All he can do is hope that their deaths will mean something and hopefully slow the invaders down. He's fully aware the samurai will not win this battle, and that many of them are going to die on the beach. One can only imagine what must be going through the man's head, especially since Jin is going to be right in the middle of it all.
• Several records you found in your journey can be heartbreaking since some of them were written about the loss of other people's close ones.
• One sidequest called "A Father's Choice" is about a father who the Mongols punished by making him choose which child to murder and kidnapping the second. When Jin rescues the second child he reveals he was the one his father chose to sacrifice without a second thought and would rather Jin report his death to his father. You don't even get to choose what to do as the father drowned himself out of guilt by the time you reach him.
  • In another sidequest - "Empty Baskets" - a starving woman asks Jin to recover her rice from the bandits that stole it. When Jin returns with it, the woman joyfully cries that she hasn't seen rice in days - inadvertently revealing that she lied to Jin about the bandits stealing from her, and that she felt they didn't deserve what they had while people like her were going hungry. She apologizes to Jin for the deception, which he accepts before moving on. Returning to her home later shows it overrun by bandits, with her bloody corpse inside.
• Ryuzo's betrayal hits hard both for Jin and Ryuzo himself. Jin ends up keeping Ryuzo's hat as a memento and will comment at the end of the game that he wishes Ryuzo was on his side. Ryuzo, meanwhile, has a breakdown when he is forced to set a hostage on fire, before he screams at the defenders of Castle Shimura to open the gate.
  • Ryuzo's death, for that matter. Jin duels him again in Castle Shimura, winning once more, and moments before he is killed, Ryuzo lets out a plea to Jin, who simply bids him farewell before killing him. One can only imagine the emotions that Jin must've felt when killing his oldest friend then and there.
• Yuna revealing her backstory to Jin and how she hates herself for having brought her brother to the Black Wolf and leaving the one person that kept her alive in the slave camp behind during their escape.
• Jin's overall character arc. All of his life, he's been trained in the art of bushido and has been taught about the value of honor; facing one's opponent one-on-one in battle with no trickery or dirty tactics whatsoever. Yet all of it goes flying out the window when he's faced with the fact that no amount of honor will win them the day against the Mongols. He has to abandon everything he knows if he wants even so much as a hope of winning. And the worst part isn't what Jin's willing to do; it's the reactions of everyone around him. Lord Shimura's reaction to Jin's "dishonorable" tactics is a tear jerker in of itself as he sounds less like he's admonishing Jin and more like he's begging his son in all but blood to stop what he's doing.
  Shimura: I trained you to fight with honor!
  Jin: Honor died on the beach. The Khan deserves to suffer!
• Taka's death. He is given the chance to save his life by killing Jin, after Jin refuses to surrender to save Taka's life. He chooses to fight the Khan, and promptly gets killed and then his corpse is beheaded, just to torture Jin. For the first time in the story, Jin looks close to crying and all he can do is scream in anguish for being unable to save his friend's life.
  • And then after Jin has freed himself and defeated the Straw Hat ronin guarding the fortress he was captured in, he runs into Yuna at the front gate. She's gone after Taka, and as Jin tries to tell her that he's gone, she rushes past him. Before Jin can stop her, Yuna finds Taka and lets out an absolutely gut-wrenching Big "NO!". Immediately after, Yuna screams "You shouldn't have made him come!", despite the fact she saw Jin order Taka to listen to his sister and Jin immediately tell Yuna that he tried to dissuade Taka only for Taka to be adamant on trying to help him. Very noticeably, the fight after is one of the very few times Jin completely loses it in combat and outright roars in rage at the Mongols over Taka's death.
    • In the Japanese dub, instead of sounding furious with Jin, Yuna sounds more heartbroken as she demands why it had to happen.
  • Usually, the loading screen after the main story event or side quest will be that of tips on how to play or Japanese cultural lore. The screen after Yuna and Jin wipe out the Mongols and Straw Hats? Simply that of a dragonfly sitting on Taka's headband, nothing else.
  • The hidden achievement "Dirge for a Fallen Forge" requires you to pay a Due to the Dead. You get it by playing the song "Lament of the Storm" at Taka's grave.
• In Act 2, one of the main quests is to retrieve the armor of Clan Sakai. There, you meet Jin's caretaker and mother figure, Yuriko, who gets your armour ready and aids you with crafting poison. The Tearjerker sets in during the two sidequests that follow where she begins to get sicker and sicker and starts to mistake Jin for his father. The last quest ends with the two of them in her family's cemetery in the mountains, looking out over the island as Jin describes what he sees while the old woman talks about the happiest day of her life... before passing away peacefully.
  • During the aforementioned conversation about the happiest day of Yuriko's life, when she mistakes Jin for his father, he simply goes along with it to make Yuriko happy in her final moments.
  • At the end of the tale, Jin has his head down and his hand over his face before his horse nudges him. It's one of the only times in the entire game he cries.
• The end of Act 2, and the beginning of Act 3, where Jin has to bury the first horse you chose from the beginning of the game after the horse gets pierced by arrows trying to help you escape from captivity in Castle Shimura. The soft, slower, and even more melancholic version (with vocals!) of "Way of the Ghost" that plays is an extra twist to the knife.
  • Watching how Jin's horse died was nothing short of tearjerking, especially to those who've had pets. When Jin escaped from captivity, his horse was running nonstop, dedicated to giving as much distance between its owner and his captors. When the next scene comes, his horse wasn't even able to run anymore, merely walk as it succumbs to not only its wounds, but also exhaustion. Even while dying, his horse was trying its best to help its master. Eventually, it was too weak to even stand up and despite its best efforts, crumples to the ground, its wounds too much to bear. Despite being unable to move, the horse still had life left within it, its eyes blinking as Jin kneels besides his loyal steed that's been within him for more than half of the game, apologizing for being unable to protect someone that's been with him. He already lost Taka as well as having to kill Ryuzo for his betrayal. Now, Jin has lost yet another one of his beloved companions.
    • Making this even more painful is whenever Jin mounts his horse, he sometimes tells it, "One day we'll go for a peaceful ride". Now that wish can never be granted.
  • If you visit a hot spring after this, you have an option for Jin to reflect on his horse, calling him a brave companion.
  • After Jin buries his horse, the grave is marked on the map as "Loyal Friend's Grave".
  • Another little detail that adds to the heartbreak: there was no spade, no shovel, no type of tool for Jin to dig the grave with. He had bury his horse entirely by hand.
• Lady Masako Adachi's entire arc is one Tearjerker after another. Her husband and sons die fighting the Mongols, and opportunistic traitors take advantage of the chaos to slaughter the rest of her family, all the way down to her newlyborn granddaughter. She's understandably bitter, consumed by revenge and grieving. And the person responsible for doing this? Her own sister, bitter over Masako getting to marry the prestigious Lord Adachi while she got stuck with an abusive drunkard from a small clan.
  • Remember the samurai in the opening scene of the game who was set on fire and then beheaded by Khotun Khan? That was Masako's husband. During one of Masako's missions, you go along with her to beach at Komoda to find the bodies of her sons. When you finally do find them you see that the Mongols decide to string them up on nooses and Masako completely breaks down at the sight.
  • She's so consumed by revenge that it comes to a head in her eighth mission; Masako and Jin track down Junshin, a monk who's been nothing but helpful, so they can talk to him, since he was implicated in the plot to kill Masako's family. After Jin saves Junshin from Mongols who attacked the temple he's staying at, Masako is so blinded by anger that she refuses to even consider that Junshin might be innocent, forcing Jin to duel her so she'll back down.
  Jin: If we fight, the Mongols win.
  Masako: They already won.
  Jin: You were my friend...
  Masako: Give. Me. The monk.
  Jin: No. (they fight)
• Norio's tale is a long trial for the good hearted monk as his friends, mentor and brother die as it progresses. Then it's revealed his brother Enjo did survive, but was dismembered and tortured to the point he asks for a Mercy Kill.
• In the Act 2 mission "A Message in Fire," Shimura tells Jin that, other than the petition for reinforcements, he also included an announcement in his letter to the Shogun; that announcement being that he wishes to formally adopt Jin and have him become his successor as the next jito of Tsushima, which he intends to make official once the Mongols are driven out. It sounds like a genuine heartwarming moment, especially considering the two's relationship...which makes the later events of Act 2 all the more heartbreaking as their relationship becomes strained. And that isn't even going into Shimura being ordered to kill Jin for his actions in giving the commoners the strength to fight back against the Mongols and potentially overthrowing the caste system in Tsushima keeping the samurai in power.
  • The scene where Shimura slaps Jin is one. After Jin calls out Shimura on his callous disregard for the casualties of the common soldiers and points out that he was the one who rallied the people of Tsushima, Shimura responds with a harsh slap. The look of unmitigated horror on Shimura's face and the clear sense of guilt says it all, and the fact that this is the event that destroys any respect Jin has for Shimura and drives him to fully embrace his identity as the Ghost makes it even more tragic.
  • A Tearjerker within the tearjerker comes after Jin refuses to renounce the Ghost and is arrested at the end of Act 2, with Shimura dejectedly dropping the letter formally naming Jin as his heir into a fire.
• When you're exploring, you'll run into bandits accosting civilians, and they will kill them. It just really hits home that no matter how many Jin saves, there will be those he cannot simply because he wasn't fast enough.
  • Adding onto this, if Jin bows to the bodies of dead civilians, then he will say a brief eulogy. Notable examples are Jin saying "The Mongols will pay for the agony you endured," "You deserve more respect than this," and "May the dead find peace."
• During a moment with Jin late in the game, Sensei Ishikawa confides in Jin that while his study of the bow led to an extraordinary life, his devotion ultimately cost him a greater one, and asks Jin, not to let the Ghost consume him as mastering the bow did him.
  Ishikawa: Family is more important.
• The Tale of Lord Shimura, the final story mission of the game. It starts off somber enough, with Jin already wanting to know why his uncle wanted to summon him. It starts with Jin waiting for Lord Shimura in their old sparring ground, playing the flute, followed with Jin and Lord Shimura helping a peasant who is traveling north to help supply the Ghost's Army, a group that Jin is completely unaware of, in their mission to fight the Mongols back in mainland China. It then ends with Jin and Shimura at the cemetery of Clan Sakai, where Jin has to write a final haiku reflecting on the loss of his honor and the only family he's ever known. After a final duel with Lord Shimura, Jin's choices are to either retain what honor he has left by killing his surrogate father, or fully abandon his code of honour and spare his uncle. Both outcomes are incredibly tragic. If you kill Shimura, Jin will promise to meet his uncle in the next life, then he'll let out the most heart-wrenching Death Wail after plunging the blade through his uncle's heart. If you spare Shimura, he tearfully reminds Jin that the Ghost will be hunted to the end of his days. Despite that, Jin chooses to press onward, in open defiance of the Shogun. Regardless of which ending you choose, Jin's fate is set in stone. He will be known as a hero only to the people of Tsushima, and a reviled traitor to the rest of his country.
  • Losing against him is one of the only times a duelist does not finish Jin off, even Masako will stab Jin but Shimura only apologizes to his nephew as the screen fades to black.
  • Shimura is weeping just prior to the fight as he handed Jin a paper to write his final haiku and again, as he is writing his own final words.
  Jin: (if you choose to spare Shimura) I have no honor. But I will not kill my family.
  Shimura: The Ghost will be hunted for the rest of his days.
  Jin: I know. (Jin puts on the Ghost Mask and silently walks away)
  • Even worse? If you kill Shimura it means that Jin has lost both of his father figures and both of which were partially his fault (losing his father because he didn't intervene and losing Shimura due to his actions as the Ghost). And after Jin kills him, he breaks down and lets out a heartbreaking cry of grief while cradling his uncle's body.
  Jin: (kneeling in front of Shimura, near tears) I will make sure you are remembered. As a great warrior...a wise leader...(chokes up)...and a father.
  Shimura: Thank you, my son. Find me...in the next life.
  
  • As an added Player Punch to this choice, in the moments leading up to Shimura's death, the Dualshock controller will start to vibrate rhythmically. When Jin plunges the dagger into Shimura, the vibrating becomes slower and slower, then stops at the exact moment that Shimura passes away. It's a Heartbeat Soundtrack that is not heard, but felt.

Iki Island Expansion

• Jin's lingering guilt over his father's death. While we'd only gotten glimpses of it in the main story, the expansion shows us just how deeply it's rooted within him.
• The revelation of Kazumasa Sakai being a ruthless warlord adds another tragic perspective to Lord Shimura's disapproval of Jin's actions in the main story. Now, it's more possible that his outrage towards Jin becoming the Ghost had been rooted in fear that his nephew was becoming as ruthless and vicious as Kazumasa had been on Iki Island.
• Kazumasa lamenting over Jin's softer personality during the latter's first hallucination. It makes it all the more heartbreaking when we see how much Jin had wanted his father's approval, and how hearing his father say such things about him had probably contributed to his guilt over his death.
• Jin's hallucination over his first horse that had been killed at the end of Act 2 in the main story after encountering a dead horse. It shows how much he had loved his horse, and how much guilt he'd felt over losing him back then.
• A side-quest named "The Impact of Loss" sees Jin helping a woman at a survivor camp whose husband and a monk who served as her father figure are both kidnapped. Jin must then make a Sadistic Choice as if he decides to save one, the other will be executed by the Mongols, and there's nothing you can do about it. Regardless of your choice, the woman will admonish you and reveal she was pregnant with her husband's baby, which makes not saving her husband even more of a Player Punch.
  • The aftermath of either choice is no less tragic either way. Save the husband? Too bad the monk was the only one who was capable of providing food to the survivors and without him, they have to either starve to death or leave, and returning to the camp shows exactly that. Save the monk? The woman seeks revenge, and after beating her ambush, she curses you and claims she's lost everything now.
  • If you save the husband and return to the camp at a later point, you'll learn that everyone in the camp had starved to death without the monk to provide food and medicine. Even more heartbreaking, only the husband is alive, as his pregnant wife and unborn child had died from sickness.
• When Jin comes across a headless corpse, it'll trigger a hallucination of Taka's decapitated body. Yuna's voice asking him if Taka had been brave only compounds the painful moment, and once the hallucination dissipates, Jin will reminisce over how brave Taka was against the Khan.
• During "Massacre at Kidafure Village", Tenzo confronts Jin over how his father had slaughtered the entire village for hiding raiders. He then recalls how he'd found the decapitated body of a friend of his, then demands whether Jin understands what it was like to find a friend like that. Jin, however, doesn't say anything; he just remains silent with an utterly heartbroken expression on his face. He doesn't say it out loud, but there's no doubt that he was remembering Taka getting killed and beheaded by the Khan right in front of him.
• Since Jin often hears the Eagle voicing some of his own thoughts throughout the game, we get to learn that he's got some suicidal thoughts every now and then. For example, if Jin chooses to reflect on his hallucinations in the hot springs, he'll hear the Eagle telling him to slit his wrists and slip beneath the waters. It's just downright heartbreaking to realize just how depressed Jin must be if he has these thoughts without even knowing that he's thinking them.
• During the mission to destroy the Eagle's warship, there's a moment when Tenzo mockingly asks Jin about the worst that has happened to him, and there are two options for Jin to choose. If you have him say that it was witnessing his father's death that has haunted him the most, Tenzo will just respond with a quiet and sincere "I'm sorry". While it might not seem like much, the revelation of Tenzo being Kazumasa's killer adds another dimension to his response, as Tenzo had basically realized how traumatizing it was for young Jin to watch him kill his father back then.
• Shortly after killing the Eagle, Jin writes one final haiku on his father's death. After reciting it, we see the spectre of his father dissolving into multiple wisteria petals, symbolizing that Jin has finally let go of the past, and is ready to move forward from the guilt.
• After defeating the Eagle, Fune enlists Jin's help to rescue some hostages taken by the remaining Mongols. One of the hostages is Fune's daughter, Toki, which is kept secret from her raiders that go on the rescue mission along with Fune and Jin. When it is revealed that Toki is among the hostages many of the raiders want her dead, due to Toki getting the raiders' family members killed in a botched raid. After Jin and Fune fend off the would be killers she reveals that she gave her daughter kusuri, a very addictive drug, to help Toki deal with the pain of an injury. Fune did not realize her daughter became addicted until the aforementioned raid and was forced to banish Toki, but eventually went to look for her only to abandon her when she saw how far Toki had fallen into her addiction. By the time they reunite the kusuri has rendered Toki brain dead from the years of abuse.