- Just LOOK at Akane's face during the Sudoku puzzle.
- The MUSIC during the Sudoku puzzle amplified the sadness even more. Good lord, the music...
- That moment is the definitive point where the player realizes that, even after surviving, Akane's life will never be the same again. It's bad enough that she was traumatized by being kidnapped, but the second half of her situation is because of an administrative oversight that put her in the wrong group!
- The MUSIC during the Sudoku puzzle amplified the sadness even more. Good lord, the music...
- Aoi's face when he finds his sister's body in the incinerator in the true ending, though Akane's death is subsequently undone, and Seven's story wherein Aoi found his sister's body may have been... less than honest.
- Young Junpei and Akane's farewell on the hilltop in the same ending.
- Similarly, the full flashbacks in the True Ending to the Nonary game of 9 years ago. The music coupled with the images of terrified young children and Snake mentioning that it was Clover's 9th birthday when this all happened is heartwrenching.
- The Safe Ending: Snake, upon learning of Clover's murder at Ace's hands, endures getting shot six times in order to restrain Ace long enough for them both to die in the incinerator. Part of it is to atone for not being able to protect her, and partially so Junpei, Seven, and Lotus can get away, despite the fact that all three of them are begging him not to.
- Consider the way everyone reacts to Santa taking June hostage. Clover is especially hurt, since Santa knew about the leaf words that gave her hope. Santa's response is to threaten to put a bullet in her head, spit flying from his mouth. Of course, it's all part of the plan, but that doesn't make it any easier.
- Santa's conversations with Junpei become heartbreaking in hindsight, particularly considering that Akane is merged with Junpei's consciousness. His Good Santa/Bad Santa story takes on whole new meaning after the ending. He seems to be asking Akane if what they're doing is right. Even more normal conversations, such as the one about how he played the stock market, is harder knowing that he's telling Akane that everything went to plan along with trying to give Junpei clues.
- The Safe Ending has a retroactive one that players won't understand the first time around.Zero: No. You misunderstand. You haven't lost. I have lost.
- Should you choose to force everyone to go through Door 3 regardless of this leaving more people behind than was intended, the result will be a short but intense life-or-death race to the door between Santa, and Lotus and Clover. The former wins and as they go through the door, Junpei takes one last look behind him, the defeat and desperation clear on Lotus and Clover's faces. Particularly harsh in case of Clover, who already has a Heroic BSoD as her brother is missing and most likely dead, and now you have seemingly doomed her, too.
- The Reveal in the True Ending that the only reason Akane got trapped in the incinerator was her wanting to retrieve the present that "Jumpy" had given her during their last meeting.
- The "Axe" ending, while mostly just Nightmare Fuel, also has shades of this. When Clover tosses Santa, Seven, and Akane's bracelets on the floor, Junpei crosses the Despair Event Horizon hard. Made worse when Clover says that Akane tried to protect Seven and Santa, so Clover decided she had to die too.
- And this also extends to Clover herself. She killed them as revenge for her brother's murder, and she has no idea he's still alive. By killing them, she's guaranteed that no only will he starve to death inside that coffin, but Ace will get away scot free. Talk about All for Nothing.
- Whether you dislike Gentarou Hongou or not, Ace ends up being a tragic character regardless. There's no excuse for some of his actions or the horrible way he treated Akane and other players, of course. But as a younger man, he seemed much more unstable and angry, and seemingly mellowed out overtime. When the current game happens, he genuinely tries to get along with the others in his own way, even "sacrificing himself" by taking soporil (though this was really to prevent the group from seeing what was behind Door 3), but it comes back to bite him. As the CEO of a major company, Gentarou probably felt a great deal of doubt and self-loathing in such an important position, questioning his motives all the while, and chose to overlook it because he was promised by Cradle Pharmaceutical that getting involved with the Nonary Games would cure his prosopagnosia. It never happened. He lost all his coworkers, including Nagisa, who he killed purely by accident. All of Gentarou's hard work effectively lead to nothing, resulting in his capture and imprisonment by the end of the game.
- It's no wonder he has a BSOD and barely reacts to anything at that point, responding miserably to questions the others ask him when he's tied up in the car.Ace: "I... I only wanted to see the faces. Human faces. I thought... I thought that if I could gain the ability to access the morphic fieldset, then perhaps I could see faces... By peering into people's minds, you could understand how they were processing the expressions of others."
- It's no wonder he has a BSOD and barely reacts to anything at that point, responding miserably to questions the others ask him when he's tied up in the car.
