Tear Jerker / Ys IX: Monstrum Nox

• Gllia's defeat at the hands of Romn's army 8 years ago left a deep scar within many characters:
  • Poor, young Iris got the front row seat to her father's murder by enemy soldiers while she was hiding, leading to her spending most of her life trying to assassinate those she think is responsible out of deep-seated hatred despite not even reaching teenage yet.
  • Yufa's adoptive parents both died during the war against Romn, as has been left to saddle both the grief and the burden of supporting her younger siblings all alone.
  • Chante's previous job was one of Gllia's famous gladiator duo, who made a vow with his partner to enliven the lives of people under Romn's occupation through their performance. Unfortunately his partner died saving Chante's life from gladiatorial accident before he could see the dream of Gllia flourishing once again come true. It's clear that the death of his friend deeply affected Chante before Carla reached out to him.
  • Chatelard once personally took part in the war against Romn and gets to witness his comrades dying right at the city's gate due to Gllia's General Bordon not sending the support he promised. The event left him utterly bitter to the point that he's willing to take part in Zola's extreme plan to create an army of Homunculus and take back Gllia, not even realizing he already is one with the real Chatelard being dead on the battlefield all those years ago.
    • Chatelard's changes and death hit hard for his subordinate Lucien, who always kept Chatelard in high regards only for the commander to turn around and arrest Lucien when the Seneschal starts protesting unjust imprisonment of Gllia's citizens. The reveal also disturbs Credo the Feral Hawk on some level (not that he let it show), being the very person who took Credo under Hieroglyph Knights' wing after the murder of Sister Lisa; one of the few people who stick around Credo in orphanage years despite Credo's difficult altitude.
• The "Nail in the Coffin" notebook Jules always carries. It is a bucket list of things Jules set for himself to do before his ailing body fails him. He is essentially forcing himself to grow up in the face of his father's abandonment and the death by disease at young age hanging over his head, never making friends and living a proper childhood life before Adol shows up.
• Marius' final request: killing the remaining inert Homunculus in the prison lab just so nobody can abuse them for their own gain any longer, himself included due to being a clone of current Romn emperor under the spell of Chatelard/Zola. In his dying words, he told the red-haired stranger who became fast friends during their brief captivity that they "had a good run" and requests that Adol tells "the current me" to 'go see the world more' before expiring. Possibly foreshadowing the nature of the Romn Emperor as well.
• The story of Saint Rosvita during the earlier Hundred Years' War is a sad one: despite successfully leading Gllia to victory over Britai, Gllia royal family became jealous of the Saint and conspired to have her prosecuted and burned at stakes by the enemy. But it does not end there. The proxy war between the gods Grimnir (who favors Gllia) and Luki (of Britai) cause the negative human emotions to accumulate into Lemures. Driven by love and longing, Rosvita's second-in-command Zola engineered Monstrum Homunculus based on the Saint and her closest comrades to deal with the threat, while subjecting Gllia nobles responsible for Rosvita's death to endless agonizing experiments within the prison, eventually leaving his final batch of infant Monstrums behind altogether to pursue the way to permanently free Rosvita from the Grimwald curse no matter the cost. The Homuculus Rosvita, now goes by the name Aprilis, gets to watch her close friends dying over and over and losing their former selves in the eternal conflict against manifestation of human emotions for more than 500 years.
• Adol's decision to put an end to Grimwald Nox in spite of the remaining Monstrums' desire to continue their duty, and the uncertainly of letting human emotion run free once again. What the Hundred Years War and Erdlingen War did to Gllia is awful, but so is choosing to avoid reality and never move on. One of dialogue options in the ending lets Adol flat-out apologizes to his party for his actions, but its all for the better to grow up and strive to make the future a better place. It's bittersweet at best.