I think denouement isn't a hot topic for a few very practical reasons. Mainly because it's far from guaranteed that every player will finish the game, even if they enjoy it for multiple hours first. So naturally, game openings have been a hotter and more urgent topic of discussion. There's long been a focus on "game endings" however, though I think that tends to be more about the climactic moments than the period after them.

I wanted to be careful not to project an air here of "hey, no games are doing this" because I don't think that's true. You've identified a few that I agree with. As I mentioned, Earthbound, Ico, and Red Dead Redemption have wonderful denouement. I actually love the ending scene of FF8, despite the climax's goofiness. At some point I'll come back around to do a full study on denouement, after I've tried it out myself!

The best I could come up with were Chrono Trigger – with its neat repetition of the "Good morning, Crono!" motif and a smidgen of interaction – and 2008's Prince of Persia – which came the closest to providing a proper cathartic moment, before subsequently ruining it by rendering what should have been a meaningful choice (unleash eternal evil for the sake of love, or walk away in the knowledge that it's what she would've wanted) as a developer-enforced linear path.

What do you think? Have you encountered any games which have done this sort of thing particularly well?