Tear Jerker / Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam

• The one Paper Toad in Twinsy Tropics wondering about its destiny in Mario & Luigi's world and how he'll survive can be considered this at how deeply concerned about his philosophy on life and he misses his friends.
  • But can be considered a funny moment as Mario and co. interrupt him a few seconds later.
• The two Bowser Jr.s become best friends early on in the game, but this becomes Harsher in Hindsight when you realize that in the end, the trio will inevitably win and reseal the paper characters back into the book. This friendship Jr. now has, combined by the fact that they're both lonely, makes this absolutely heartwrenching, and instantly gives them Woobie status.
  • And their last appearance... While it turns into a heartwarming scene with the Bowsers protecting their respective children, what makes it worse is that the two were probably still unconscious when all the Paper characters were sent back into the book, meaning they didn't even get the courtesy of saying goodbye to each-other. Someone just give these two a hug...
  • Probably more Fridge Sadness than anything, but the fact that the Bowsers ignore the boys when they try to tell them about the book, even while they're barely conscious, makes this scene worse.
• The final boss theme played when you fight Shiny RoboBowser sounds rather depressing.
• Paper Kamek uses magic to force Wiggler to fight the heroes. When they beat him, it looks like they've killed him. Luigi is shown crying, while the others are very sad, and Mario himself, while attempting to confort his brother, can't hide his sadness either. The music and Starlow begging Wiggler to Please Wake Up especially bring this moment on the list. Fortunately he survived and turned into Flutter Wiggler.
• Toadette's reaction to the Bowsers burning down all her Papercrafts. She cries for a solid minute in front of the still-burning ashes while Luigi tries to console her.
• The music that plays on the "Thanks for playing!" screen. Give it a listen and you're bound to jerk a little tear.
• Also Good-Bye Sadness, the music for Wiggler's Please Wake Up scene above as well as the post-boss battle scenes for the Bowser Jrs. and Kameks. Simple, but lends more than enough gravitas to all three scenes.
• Unless the series is picked up by another developer, this is the last original Mario & Luigi game after AlphaDream went bankrupt in 2019. It was released in 2015, and even almost five years after sad bankruptcy, there has been no news of the series since then. The games were usually released with a 2 or 4-year gap between them: Superstar Saga in 2003, Partners in Time between 2005 and 2006, Bowser's Inside Story in 2009, Dream Team in 2013 and finally Paper Jam in 2015, with the remakes of the first and third game being released in 2017 and between 2018 and 2019 respectively. With the release of Superstar Saga in November 2003, the series celebrated its 20th anniversary, and the remake of Super Mario RPG was released in this time period, but the fate of this series remains uncertain, with no mention of another developer to pass the torch to. Even worse, the other Mario RPG series, Paper Mario, is only an RPG in name for more than a decade, as while Super Paper Mario downplayed the series' RPG elements, it still kept them, being a unique platform/RPG hybrid that while criticized for its gameplay style, was still generally praised for its story, but the last three games in the series removed them altogether, with Sticker Star and Color Splash throwing whatever remained of the RPG elements out of the window, and the former was notorious for being the black sheep of the series, as it alienated fans by creating a new experimental direction that completely altered the gameplay and everything else about the series, which is made worse by the fact that other games in the franchise that came out for the Switch introduced several original characters and character designs in forms of alternate costumes, but Origami King, while an improvement over both its predecessors, keeps following the formula established by Sticker Star, with Intelligent Systems ignoring the negative feedback from fans across the last three games in the series and the swarming requests to go back to the classic style, and while Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle and its sequel are both RPG games, they are crossovers that do their own thing. Ever since AlphaDream filed for bankruptcy, people questioned if Paper Mario would ever return to its roots since the other RPG series is gone, even though both series coexisted for over 15 years. As a result, since the Mario & Luigi side was unable to pay the debts after the commercial failure of the remakes and the increasingly high budget of developing games, while the Paper Mario side had chosen to be experimental with no intention to turn back, there are no more true Mario RPG series, to the point that people are uncertain that the remake of Thousand-Year Door would convince Intelligent Systems to change their mind and go back to the series' roots for good.