10 Video Game Characters Who Got Undeservedly Brutal Deaths

This could be gaming's most devastating deaths, and that’s no hyperbole.

Since we first meet Final Fantasy VII’s Aeris(/Aerith), a jostled flower seller in the slums of Midgar, we feel an affection for her - a liking for this good, pure, kind woman. As the hints pile up about her nature as an Ancient and her potential importance to the overarching fate of humanity, these feelings intensify sevenfold.

It all leads, tragically, to that encounter at the Forgotten Capital. Cloud hurries to the goodly Aeris on the altar, only to see Sephiroth (or rather Jenova in his guise) plunge towards her from above, the Masamune in hand, and… everybody knows what happens next, and it ends with Cloud releasing her into the surrounding waters.

This much-discussed death was a shocker for its time, and remains so. It’s rare for the Final Fantasy series (and indeed RPGs in general) to kill off a main party member, and to present her death in such a fashion was a powerful move. Later in the game, the party and Bugenhagen watch a projection of Aries’ Materia falling from the altar, in agonizingly slow fashion, as Aries’ Theme begins to play. It’s profoundly affecting and still painful to watch.