Tear Jerker / Tactics Ogre

• The scene in the Chaos Route where Vyce is blamed for the assassination of Duke Ronwey... and sentenced to death by hanging. He may have long since fallen from grace by that point, but his desperate pleading for Denam to save him while he's on the gallows still stings.
• Denam finding out he wasn't a Walister but actually a Bakram from his father...who then dies in his arms, having been horribly tortured beforehand.
• If you pick the wrong options while talking to Catiua, it's entirely possible for her to kill herself right in front of Denam.
• In the neutral path, Gildas dies and is reanimated by Nybeth.
  • In general, how little Nybeth cares for his son Dievold and daughter Oelias. If you think that’s bad, he’s indirectly responsible for their deaths in one of the new scenarios for the PSP remake. Also, the man even tries to kill his other daughter Cressida once she’s had enough of the family business.
• Accidentally letting Cerya die... right in front of Cistina.
  • Letting Folcurt die on the way of saving Cistina. She just tried acting like it's all right, but you KNOW she's pretty sad about the whole thing.
  • If you somehow forgot to save Cistina (which was easy to do because saving Bayin to unlock the rescue quest (and even notice her distress) is kinda hard as it is), you never knew about her relations with Cerya and never met her again. But then, when Denam reunited with Olivya and Cerya, then she finally asked about Cistina. The answer from Cerya? She got sold into another person because no one rescued her and as a result, she's Killed Offscreen, horrifying Olivya (they're down one sister needlessly because you Failed a Spot Check).
• Finding out the canonical ending in its Prequel-Gaiden Game Knight of Lodis was the ending where Rictor is possessed by Shaher and then killed by Alphonse, then when he faced Shaher, Eleanor grabbed onto Shaher's hands when he was dying and died with him, thus sending Alphonse back to Lodis to have his name changed to Lanselot Tartaros...and raid Denam's home village. The ending where Cybil, Eleanor's older sister, dies with Shaher and Alphonse and Eleanor are never heard from again after they elope was preferable.
• Accidentally continuing the path where Catiua commits suicide in front of Denam and then watching as Denam, the new ruler of Valeria, is assassinated by a gunner.
  • Even if you manage to avert the latter by gaining the approval of the three clans, Lodis is preparing to launch a full scale invasion of Valeria.
  • It's not advisable that you take the chaos path in the PSP Version if you grew attached to Ravness. She always refuses the Duke's plan no matter what. In the Chaos route, Vyce kills her right there after her Galgastani heritage is revealed.
• The very scene where you recruit Sherri is heartwrenching. After being abandoned by Brantyn for her failure in Banhamoba Shrine, she's hiding in Balmamusa. Denam and Olyvia get into a shack to escape the heavy rain and find a broken and desperate Sherri waiting for them in there. Sherri then goes to assault Denam with a knife, perfectly willing to die in the process or even after that. Denam does nothing, rather taunting her into being done with it, despite Olyvia trying to stop her. Seeing Olyvia scream for Sherri to not do it shows Denam's point: Sherri drops the knife and breaks down crying as soon as Olyvia says she's not alone, reminding her she still has her family.
• Some of the death quotes make you think My God, What Have I Done?. One enemy wants revenge because you killed her husband in another battle, and reveals that she's pregnant as you kill her. For this particular someone, if you think of sparing her in case you don't want to kill her, well get ready to be punched in the gut way in the future when you thought she'd be just another afterthought: You fought her because you attempted to save Cistina, whom this pirate planned to sell to someone else since they are pirates. Therefore, not killing her means learning that Cistina was sold off and then murdered shortly after, because you chose not to save her when you could. The PSP version did give you the option to spare her by dropping her health to less than 10%, but if you land a critical hit even when trying this…
  • The PSP Law version has a wizard you fight in chapter two who wants to kill you because after all, you killed his twin brother in Chapter 1.
  • On the Chaos route you face a bounty hunter, who upon dying reveals that he needed the money to save his daughter from illness.
    • The Warren Report also has info on quite a lot of the generic commanders that you kill. For example, the aforementioned wizard and brother were a philosopher and a professor.
• Lanselot Hamilton's music box that his wife gave him, which the now wheel-chair bound knight tries to reach for after Lanselot Tartaros had completely broken his mind and body after months of torture.
  • If Catiua is present in your party, she gets immediately upset and runs off in tears even after she picked up her resolve as the future Queen of Valeria. After all, she was present during Tartaros' taunting of Hamilton, having impulsively joined the Dark Knights to spite Denam for what she viewed as him abandoning her. She could have used her newfound authority to stop the torture, but she didn't lift a finger, and now she gets the feeling that the Holy Knight's broken status was partially her fault.
  • Not to mention what happened to Lanselot Tartaros in the Gaiden Game, which takes before Tactics Ogre. Losing the ones he cares for changed him from a Wide-Eyed Idealist to the bitter cynic we see in Tactics Ogre.
• Going into a certain path or failing to recruit a character generally has them ending up in a horrible fate in a cutscene. One example would be Ozma's, where she winds up in a vegetative state.
• Leonar's death in the Chaos route, even more so in the PSP remake because there is an extra dialogue if you brought Arycelle with you, which makes it hurt more because this would be the last time they speak and it's each berating the other for their choice of side. And right after he revealed Ronwey's plan to align with the Dark Knights and before dying, he declared that he still loved Arycelle. Damn it.
• The second time you fight alongside Azelstan, and his not-quite-adoptive daughter is killed offscreen.

---