Japanese gamers vote Final Fantasy 10 the most tear jerking JRPG of all time, but it seems the emotional appeal of Western indies like Undertale and Omori is universal

Final Fantasy 10 HD Remaster — (Image credit: Square Enix)

Can a video game make you cry? That's probably a silly question to ask anyone who's sampled some of the best JRPGs the genre has to offer, so perhaps the better question is this: which games made you cry the most? That's the question that was recently posed to Japanese RPG fans, and the responses run the gamut from expected favorites to some pretty surprising consensus picks.

Final Fantasy 10 is the RPG that made gamers cry the most, according to a survey held by Dengeki Faminico Gamer. The survey got over 4,700 responses, with 498 votes putting the 2001 PS2 classic at the top of the list. Personally, I always found the English dub to be a big roadblock to emotionally investing in the plights of Tidus, Yuna, and the crew, but I suppose that's not an issue if you're enjoying the game in its native language.

The sheer volume of Final Fantasy titles you'll see on the list probably shouldn't be too surprising, given the popularity of the series, but I was still a bit surprised to see FF7 spin-off Crisis Core as the list's number two pick, just narrowly beating Persona 3 in third place. I'm certainly glad to see the emotional highs of Final Fantasy 14 recognized in 16th place – I'd put the most dramatic bits of Shadowbringers and Endwalker up against any story-driven game out there.

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Perhaps the most surprising part of the list is that the RPGs here aren't all Japanese, with the rankings putting Undertale at 13th place and Omori at 18th place. Both indies are widely beloved by their respective fanbases and draw no shortage of inspiration from classic JRPGs, but it's still good to see that their appeal is a global one, and notable that these are the only titles on the list that don't come from Japanese studios.

You can check out the full list at the link above, and your browser's built-in translator will likely give you a decent idea of where each game sits. Another notable pick is Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, Darkness, and Sky, the three versions of the DS Pokemon roguelike. It's only today that I'm discovering these games had such an emotional ending, but suddenly I'm a lot more interested in going back and playing them for myself.

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.