Valentine’s Day is upon us, and in true gamer fashion, the only real way to celebrate is by living vicariously through fictional characters. So here are a list of the top five games that have touched our hearts, sometimes forever.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

Part of the mystique of Link and Zelda is that they never outright admit their feelings for one another, and the games intentionally create an ambiguous air of love, friendship, or devotion. Skyward Sword may have been the game that came closest to addressing actual feelings, as it seems to be Link’s devotion to Zelda, not anything else, which drives the plot. Similarly, Breath of the Wild features the duo once again separated, but through flashbacks and diary entrees, it seems like the only thing missing is the word love. In true Nintendo fashion, the closest we get are vague thoughts in Zelda’s diary: “Words so often evade me,” but Zelda also adds “And perhaps I, too, will be able to bare my soul to him.” Across different timelines and universes, Zelda and Link are always together, and as long as Nintendo exists, they will continue to be.

MASS EFFECT

It might not seem like such a big deal anymore, but Mass Effect was the first game to throw out many of the rules of love in video games. Alien love? Same sex love? Whatever. Anything flies in Mass Effect. The player was in control of not just the sex of the hero, but who they chose to love, and as the series went on, these options only became more advanced and more a huge part of the experience. However, for many players, Liara is the only true answer to who Shepherd loves, especially since she is available for either sex and a prominent character in all three games. Constantly kept apart (because they kept making new games), the culmination of their relationship in Mass Effect 3 was the end to a romance five years in the making.

THE WITCHER

Like Mass Effect, The Witcher’s romance is complicated. Unlike Mass Effect, players also have options to sleep with quite a few other people since Geralt is sort of a horndog. However, despite Geralt’s philandering nature, his constant companion across all three games is Triss. Plagued by memory loss and a habit of having people use and lie to him, Geralt has a complicated relationship with all the females of The Witcher series, but the tale of Triss and Geralt spans a three game romance of love and adventure, with the two of them saving each other’s asses on more than one occasion. No other game captures so well a feeling of adventure and love that seems never-ending and also endlessly complicated, and the culmination of their love in the third game is worth the wait.

SHADOW HEARTS

What makes the romance of Shadow Hearts so special is the depth of it. The beginning of the game features Yuri as an anti-hero so dark he is nearly a villain. The only thing holding him back is a voice in his head (it’s complicated) and Alice, the innocent and vibrant love interest. Eventually, Alice breaks Yuri’s cold exterior to make him a better person, but she also sacrifices herself to save him, performing the ultimate act of love.

Shadow Hearts 2 then follows a much kinder, gentler Yuri on his quest to resurrect his lost love. His new personality reflects all the good that Alice has inspired in him, and while he is still a bit crude, he is far kinder. What makes the romance so special is how center stage it is, and how deeply it shows the transformative powers of love and loss. It’s also one hell of a tear jerker.

FINAL FANTASY 7

A contentious one for sure, but for many gamers, the death of Aeris was their first real experience with loss. Sephiroth, in perhaps the biggest dick move in the history of gaming, first controls Cloud and forces him to brutally beat Aeris, causing her to run away. When Cloud catches up to her, Sephiroth once again tries to force him to attack her, but Cloud overcomes Sephiroth only to be forced to watch as he kills her moments later.

In one of the most touching moments in gaming, Cloud interrupts Sephiroth’s big-evil-monologue to explain how little he cares about the entire conflict of the game, only that he has lost his love. The culminating boss battle is overtaken by Aeris’s Theme, a song that became iconic for generations. This moment steers the game in an entirely new direction, one not about heroics, but about overcoming loss. The love and loss of Aeris was a moment that rippled across all of gaming, forever changing how seriously games were taken.