History NightmareFuel / FinalFantasyIX

* Atomos can be extremely unnerving and more than a little frightening. Especially during the scene in which it destroys Lindblum.

* Before you hear about the Super Soft and helped Marcus track down the stuff to save him it's very easy to believe that [[EnsembleDarkhorse Blank]] was dead. Then again seeing him as a stone statue still in posture of throwing you the map of the world was still unsettling.
* For some reason, the first quarter of the game despite its moments of brief darkness including the Black Waltzes and Blank's petrification was still pretty cheerful and gave the player a sense of a light-hearted and fun fantasy adventure. And then following Garnet and Steiner's departure BACK to Alexandria and your visit to Gilzalmaluke's Grotto, the game takes a sudden extremely [[DarkerandEdgier dark turn for the worse]]. And that's not even including Burmecia and your first fight with Beatrix...
* [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen Brahne]] is one of the most horrifying and hideous villains of the main series, and for good reasons. Queen Brahne, with thanks to Kuja's manipulations, develops a insatiable thirst for power and dominance towards the other kingdoms of the Mist Continent, and is ultimately responsible for the destruction of Burmecia, Cleyra, and Lindlum. Had Kuja decided to not backstab her and use her own eidolons against her in the Outer Continent, Brahne would have likely ''succeeded'' in ruling the entire world.

* The concept of Necron is beyond even CosmicHorrorStory. You beat Kuja, who wanted to destroy the essence of life itself, then you're faced with the {{Big Bad}}, Necron, who is the essence of ''eternal death'', who comes to finish off where Kuja failed. It's a floating statue with a half-destroyed face in a colosseum that ascends into the sky. The colosseum has eyes that blink and watch your party take blow after blow of unpredictable attacks that cause all sorts of status abnormalities.

* The extraction of Garnet's eidolons in Disc 2 at the hands of Zorn and Thorn is greatly unnerving, especially with that creepy Arabian/Sorcerer music playing in the background. The fact she is completely helpless and in a trance unable to do anything makes it so much worse.
* Despite her {{Heel Face Turn}} later in Disc 2 and the fact she's undeniably and cool, [[ThatOneBoss Beatrix]] is without question the most terrifying character and has the most difficult boss fights in the early parts of the game for many players. Even before you fight her in Burmecia, Freya recounts a story her love Sir Fratley told her about Beatrix. Apparently she's the most feared knight in the realm that even he, a seasoned warrior is quite reluctant to fight and she's slaughtered more men in war than most can ever hope to achieve. She also led the assaults on Burmecia and Cleyra which left both utterly decimated and littered with corpses. She's so ruthless one can see her as this series's version of [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Tywin Lannister]] . It's a pretty chilling backstory and then before you fight her she says something along the lines of [[BadAssBoast "I've once slaughtered a hundred knights single handedly; to me, you two are nothing more than insects]] . You may think she's just acting tough... and then she uses that dreaded move "Shock" which more than likely will one hit KO you...
** [[http://youtu.be/uzi8XKbKZDE Her theme]] alone is enough to imprint just what kind of a threat you are dealing with. Again if you're a fan of ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' you may think of this song as depressing and unsettling as "The Rains of Castamere" minus the lyrics.
** Who's Lani then? Y'know, Vargo Hoat?

** One throwaway line from Kuja makes it all worse: "They're not really twins, by the way." [[NothingIsScarier Then what ''are'' they?]]

** The creepiness doesn't stop there... While inside the building, you suddenly enter a gigantic dark room with scores of creepy stone faces on its walls. Your party members utter a few confused comments about the situation, and right at that moment, one of the stone faces suddenly comes to life (it kinda edges out of the wall, and its color changes to fiery tones) and says something in an alien language. The statues turn out to be a recording device with animated faces (which doesn't answer the question of WHY besides to impress on visitors the seriousness of the data). It seems that Oeilvert wasn't creepy enough, so they made the boss of the place a demon airship in the basement... which turns into a HumongousMecha.
* The entire mission to stop the mist at the Iifa Tree is greatly disturbing. First your traveling this maze of roots all whilst facing Zombies and sentient trees. Then you have to travel deep within the tree itself in which your riding on this leaf down a green, hellish spiral of which you get attacked by zombie dragons three times. Then you reach the bottom and you land on this harp-like structure with strings of some green liquid running down to a seemingly bottomless pool of green. Then the boss and the maker of the mist Soul Cage, drops down, explains it's behind the mist and that the mist itself and the green fluid and surroundings of the tree itself is composed of SOULS. You then have to battle it. What makes this worse is that even while you manage to stop the mist now, it'll be back soon enough.
** Imagine what happened to numerous airships on Mist Continent right after Soul Cage has been vanquished...!

* Burmecia. There's just something about the droning music, [[WhenItRainsItPours the endless bucketing rain]], the dismal scenery, and, oh yes, ''the Burmecian corpses scattered all over the place''. Oh and by the way, those bodies include children too. You can only imagine the terror that went through the minds of those poor Burmecians when Brahne sicced those Black Mages upon them.
** And then there's the attack on Cleyra, the neighbouring settlement, culminating in Queen Brahne calls out to Odin, an eidolon that was forcibly extracted from her daughter Garnet, to ''annihilate'' Cleyra with a single thrust of his spear. [[ShootTheShaggyDogStory The remaining survivors of Burmecia who sought refuge in Cleyra had likely ended up being finished off in Cleyra, the one place they had thought they would be safe from Alexandria]].
* People say that [=FF9=] is one of the [[LighterAndSofter cheerier games in the tone]] for the series, but, [[FridgeHorror when you think about it long enough]], you realize that's it's not true. Through the events of the game, you will witness the deaths of ''millions'' through war and genocide. The entire summoner race is immolated to death by a giant death ray. Both Burmecia and Cleyra are destroyed, nearly wiping out the rat people. Thousands die in the attacks on both Lindblum and Alexandria. Kuja kills all the sleeping Terrans by blasting everything to hell. And god knows how many died thanks to the introduction of the Mist. Garland planned to kill every living person on Gaia and he did ''a very goddamn good job'' at it. In short, IX probably has the highest body count of any Final Fantasy game to date - and that's just the deaths we ''see''!
* The poor Black Mages. It's not just that they have such a tragically short lifespan - their deaths come with absolutely ''no warning''. They just 'stop'. The black mages are essentially a dying race; not only are they incapable of breeding, but the factories that produced them no longer function. Sooner or later, that village is going to be pretty much empty except for the Genomes and a chocobo.

* Sections of Memoria are seriously horrifying. A special mention goes to the room that looks like it was designed by Salvador Dali, in which you have to climb over the melting fragmented remains of still-ticking clocks... but the hands-down freakiest room is the one that reenacts Garnet's memories of the power core of the Invincible as it destroyed her village. Since it's her childhood memory and operating under a child's view of the world, the core manifests itself as an ''enormous staring monstrous eye'' in the sky, red as blood, and surrounded by a swirling vortex of clouds. It is ''right there'', glaring at you, all the way through the boss fight that ensues... and then you have to climb a staircase [[EyeScream directly into its giant glowing pupil]] to get to the next room. That isn't the worst one in terms of lose of life. The coolest and probably the one with the worst fridge horror is the "memory" of Gaia and Terra colliding. While it seems funny that two planets named after Earth are colliding, the "memory" shows that the planet's are about the same size (well, Earth and Mars sized) and hit head-on. For people who don't realized the implications of that, both planets would be blasted into dust by the force of impact which would kill everything down to the microbial level. Then the moons would collide and anything that was on them would be destroyed. The only good thing to come out of this would be the dust would form a new giant planet with a decent sized moon.
** Actually, a very similar event (Earth which was about the size Venus is now and a Mars-sized planetesimal colliding) happened early in the Solar System's history. Earth survived, but shat a brick, which is currently known as the Moon.
* Depending on your personal philosophy Kuja can be seen as worse than almost every other Final Fantasy {{Big Bad}} because of one [[MoralEventHorizon extremely heinous act]] we learn he committed in Terra: He has committed a massive {{Your Soul is Mine}} on thousands upon thousands of souls previously trapped in the Invincible. Those souls include Queen Brahne and possibly Garnet's real mother and father and it is implied he has ticked them into "becoming his energy" voluntarily. He destroyed people's souls and got away with it!

* [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/c/cd/BandersnatchFFIX.png/revision/latest?cb=20121201164223 Bandersnatches]]. You wouldn't think a giant rabbit-like dog would be creepy, but their demented, toothy grins and beady little green eyes turn them into something straight out the UncannyValley.
* The fog seen early on in the Mist Continent is simply known as Mist. You're only told that Mist makes the air stale and somewhat difficult to breathe while it also makes the monsters more frenzied and dangerous. Despite the setbacks from Mist, Alexandria and Lindblum are able to create airships that run on Mist. The origins of Mist gets question when the party discovers a factory beneath the village of Dali that is producing black mages with Mist. Later on, you find that the source of the Mist comes from the Iifa Tree, whose purpose isn't known at the time other than a creature at the bottom is harvesting the souls of the dead. Beating it makes the Mist disappear from the world. By the time the party reaches Terra and confront Garland, they discover what Mist really was; souls of the dead that should have returned to the planet's crystal were instead forcibly expelled into the atmosphere. All the black mages you slain were made up of dead souls and air travel were using the same souls as fuel. Not only that, Garland had created the Iifa Tree to block the souls from the planet's crystal so that they could linger and fester in the world, creating monsters and conflict/war between nations for many generations. Why did Garland do all this? To weaken the planet so that his planet could merge and take over. Because Gaia and Terra are connected, when Kuja goes on a rampage and destroys Terra, all of Terra's souls get expelled onto Gaia and covers ''the entire world in Mist''. People of the Mist Continent are used to Mist to begin with, but imagine the people on the other continents seeing an ominous fog covering their lands and have no idea on what it is.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsxGy1OK-yw The boss fight music]] of this game is perhaps the most terrifying out of all boss themes in the series. From the moment the music starts, you just know you're in a fight for your life, and it does a good job of giving the feeling that there's a very real chance it could be your last. To make matters worse, there are some places in the game where the boss battle initiates without prior warnings like the Hilgigars in the Mountain Path and the Four Guardians in Memoria. Imagine the terror when you're just walking along and the screen cuts away into blackness and you're expecting that it's just another random encounter, only for this ''[[HellIsThatNoise boss theme]]'' to play instead. Shivers...
* You guys are weird. Getting scared at the boss battle music. On the the other hand, after defeating the plant boss (after hearing in depth about how the seeds hatch inside of people and eat them), the ground collapses and hundreds plant-bug hybrids chase after you before the entire forest closes in and petrifies.
* The "infiltration" of Kuja's palace. Zidane's entire party is captured and held in separate cells. Kuja asks Zidane for a favor and allows him to take three along with him (You can choose whoever you want.) En route to the errand's destination, Zorn and Thorn threaten to kill Zidane's companions should he divert from the errand. Keep in mind that one of his companions is [[AdultFear only six years old.]]

[[caption-width-right:350:This is the face of a man [[StrawNihilist who wants to watch the world burn]]]]

* Admit it; before [[spoiler: you heard about the Super Soft and helped Marcus track down the stuff to save him]] you actually believed [[spoiler: that [[EnsembleDarkhorse Blank]] was dead]] didn't you? Then again [[spoiler: seeing him as a stone statue still in posture of throwing you the map of the world]] was still unsettling wasn't it?
* For some reason, the first quarter of the game despite its moments of brief darkness [[spoiler: including the Black Waltzes and Blank's petrification]] was still pretty cheerful and gave the player a sense of a light-hearted and fun fantasy adventure. And then following [[spoiler: Garnet and Steiner's departure BACK to Alexandria]] and your visit to Gilzalmaluke's Grotto, the game takes a sudden extremely [[DarkerandEdgier dark turn for the worse]]. And don't get me started on Burmecia and your first fight with Beatrix...
* [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen Brahne]] is one of the most horrifying and hideous villains of the main series, and for good reasons. Queen Brahne, [[spoiler: with thanks to Kuja's manipulations]], develops a insatiable thirst for power and dominance towards the other kingdoms of the Mist Continent, and is ultimately responsible for the destruction of [[spoiler: Burmecia, Cleyra, and Lindlum]]. Had [[spoiler: Kuja decided to not backstab her and use her own eidolons against her in the Outer Continent]], Brahne would have likely ''succeeded'' in ruling the entire world.

* Atomos can be extremely unnerving and more than a little frightening. Especially during the scene in which it destroys [[spoiler: Lindblum]].
* The [[spoiler: extraction of Garnet's eidolons]] in Disc 2 [[spoiler: at the hands of Zorn and Thorn]] was greatly unnerving, especially with that creepy Arabian/Sorcerer music playing in the background. The fact [[spoiler: she was completely helpless and in a trance unable to do anything]] made it so much worse.

* The entire mission to stop the mist at the Iifa Tree is greatly disturbing. First your traveling this maze of roots all whilst facing Zombies and sentient trees. Then you have to travel deep within the tree itself in which your riding on this leaf down a green, hellish spiral of which you get attacked by zombie dragons three times. Then you reach the bottom and you land on this harp-like structure with strings of some green liquid running down to a seemingly bottomless pool of green. Then [[spoiler: the boss and the maker of the mist Soul Cage, drops down, explains it's behind the mist and that the mist itself and the green fluid and surroundings of the tree itself is composed of SOULS. You then have to battle it]]. What makes this worse is that even while you manage to stop the mist now [[spoiler: it'll be back soon enough]].
** Imagine what happened to [[spoiler: numerous airships]] on Mist Continent right [[spoiler: after Soul Cage has been vanquished...!]]

** And then there's the attack on Cleyra, the neighbouring settlement, culminating in [[spoiler: Queen Brahne calls out to Odin, an eidolon that was forcibly extracted from her daughter Garnet, to ''annihilate'' Cleyra with a single thrust of his spear. [[ShootTheShaggyDogStory The remaining survivors of Burmecia who sought refuge in Cleyra had likely ended up being finished off in Cleyra, the one place they had thought they would be safe from Alexandria]]]].
* People say that [=FF9=] is one of the [[LighterAndSofter cheerier games in the tone]] for the series, but, [[FridgeHorror when you think about it long enough]], you realize that's it's not true. Through the events of the game, you will witness the deaths of ''millions'' through war and genocide. [[spoiler: The entire summoner race is immolated to death by a giant death ray. Both Burmecia and Cleyra are destroyed, nearly wiping out the rat people. Thousands die in the attacks on both Lindblum and Alexandria. Kuja kills all the sleeping Terrans by blasting everything to hell. And god knows how many died thanks to the introduction of the Mist. Garland planned to kill every living person on Gaia and he did ''a very goddamn good job'' at it]]. In short, IX probably has the highest body count of any Final Fantasy game to date - and that's just the deaths we ''see''!
* The poor Black Mages. It's not just that they have such a tragically short lifespan - their deaths come with absolutely ''no warning''. They just 'stop'. The black mages are essentially a dying race; not only are they incapable of breeding, but the factories that produced them no longer function. Sooner or later, that village is going to be pretty much empty except for the [[spoiler: Genomes]] and a chocobo.

* Sections of Memoria are seriously horrifying. A special mention goes to the room that looks like it was designed by Salvador Dali, in which you have to climb over the melting fragmented remains of still-ticking clocks... but the hands-down freakiest room is the one that reenacts [[spoiler: Garnet's memories of the power core of the Invincible as it destroyed her village]]. Since it's her childhood memory and operating under a child's view of the world, the core manifests itself as an ''enormous staring monstrous eye'' in the sky, red as blood, and surrounded by a swirling vortex of clouds. It is ''right there'', glaring at you, all the way through the boss fight that ensues... and then you have to climb a staircase [[EyeScream directly into its giant glowing pupil]] to get to the next room. That isn't the worst one in terms of lose of life. The coolest and probably the one with the worst fridge horror is the "memory" of Gaia and Terra colliding. While it seems funny that two planets named after Earth are colliding, the "memory" shows that the planet's are about the same size (well, Earth and Mars sized) and hit head-on. For people who don't realized the implications of that, both planets would be blasted into dust by the force of impact which would kill everything down to the microbial level. Then the moons would collide and anything that was on them would be destroyed. The only good thing to come out of this would be the dust would form a new giant planet with a decent sized moon.

* Depending on your personal philosophy Kuja can be seen as worse than almost every other Final Fantasy {{Big Bad}} because of one [[MoralEventHorizon extremely heinous act]] we learn he committed in Terra: [[spoiler: He has committed a massive {{Your Soul is Mine}} on thousands upon thousands of souls previously trapped in the Invincible. Those souls include Queen Brahne and possibly Garnet's real mother and father and it is implied he has ticked them into "becoming his energy" voluntarily. He destroyed people's souls and got away with it!]]
* The music "Far away in the Twilight". It is fucking ''horrifying''. It plays whenever Brahne is involved in the conflict. The most notable instances of it playing are the revelation of the Black Mages in Dali, and the attack on Lindblum in Disc Two by the Alexandrian Army. To make matters worse, it ''never stops playing'' during the visit to the ruined Lindblum. The music comes to a chilling end with a ScareChord at the end, then loops again. If this music was used during the [[spoiler: Kuja absorbing the souls of everyone who died in the world]] then it would make that scene even worse.

* The fog seen early on in the Mist Continent is simply known as Mist. You're only told that Mist makes the air stale and somewhat difficult to breathe while it also makes the monsters more frenzied and dangerous. Despite the setbacks from Mist, Alexandria and Lindblum are able to create airships that run on Mist. The origins of Mist gets question when the party discovers a factory beneath the village of Dali that is producing black mages with Mist. Later on, you find that the source of the Mist comes from the Iifa Tree, whose purpose isn't known at the time other than a creature at the bottom is harvesting the souls of the dead. Beating it makes the Mist disappear from the world. By the time the party reaches Terra and confront Garland, they discover what Mist really was; [[spoiler: souls of the dead that should have returned to the planet's crystal were instead forcibly expelled into the atmosphere. All the black mages you slain were made up of dead souls and air travel were using the same souls as fuel. Not only that, Garland had created the Iifa Tree to block the souls from the planet's crystal so that they could linger and fester in the world, creating monsters and conflict/war between nations for many generations. Why did Garland do all this? To weaken the planet so that his planet could merge and take over. Because Gaia and Terra are connected, when Kuja goes on a rampage and destroys Terra, all of Terra's souls get expelled onto Gaia and covers ''the entire world in Mist''. People of the Mist Continent are used to Mist to begin with, but imagine the people on the other continents seeing an ominous fog covering their lands and have no idea on what it is.]]

* Atomos can be extremely unnerving and more than a little frightening. Especially during the scene in which it destroys Lindblum.

* People say that [=FF9=] is one of the [[LighterAndSofter cheerier games in the tone]] for the series, but, [[FridgeHorror when you think about it long enough]], you realize that's it's not true. Through the events of the game, you will witness the deaths of ''millions'' through war and genocide. The entire summoner race is immolated to death by a giant death ray. Both Burmecia and Cleyra are destroyed, nearly wiping out the rat people. Thousands die in the attacks on both Lindblum and Alexandria. Kuja kills all the sleeping Terrans by blasting everything to hell. And god knows how many died thanks to the introduction of the Mist. Garland planned to kill every living person on Gaia and he did ''a very goddamn good job''. In short, IX probably has the highest body count of any Final Fantasy game to date - and that's just the deaths we ''see''!

* The music "Far away in the Twilight". It is fucking ''horrifying''. It plays whenever Brahne is involved in the conflict. The most notable instances of it playing are the revelation of the Black Mages in Dali, and the attack on Lindblum in Disc Two by the Alexandrian Army. To make matters worse, it ''never stops playing'' during the visit to the ruined Lindblum. The music comes to a chilling end with a ScareCord at the end, then loops again. If this music was used during the [[spoiler: Kuja absorbing the souls of everyone who died in the world]] then it would make that scene even worse.

* The whole forgotten continent is creepy, despite it being a pretty big continent, it is very desolate and almost devoid of any type of civilization. The only way to get there is by airship, and by the time you go there for the first time, you are thrown off at the northern part of the continent. Then you have to travel south, encountering extremely weird enemies, until you get to an ancient building named Oeilvert. Oeilvert is a weird place with an anti-magic barrier that seems to be some sort of museum for an unknown civilization. Oh, and the music is very gloomy.

** Imagine what happened to [[spoiler: numerous airships]] on Mist Continent right [[spoiler: after Soul Cage has been vanquised...!]]

* The poor Black Mages. It's not just that they have such a tragically short lifespan - their deaths come with absolutely ''no warning''. They just 'stop'. The black mages are essentially a dying race; not only are they incapable of breeding, but the factories that produced them no longer function. Sooner or later, that village is going to be pretty much empty except for the Genomes.

** [[http://youtu.be/uzi8XKbKZDE Her theme]] alone is enough to imprint just what kind of a threat you are dealing with. Again if you're a fan of {{A Song Of Ice and Fire}} you may think of this song as depressing and unsettling as "The Rains of Castamere" minus the lyrics.

* Despite her {{Heel Face Turn}} later in Disc 2 and the fact she's undeniably and cool, [[ThatOneBoss Beatrix]] is without question the most terrifying character and has the most difficult boss fights in the early parts of the game for many players. Even before you fight her in Burmecia, Freya recounts a story her love Sir Fratley told her about Beatrix. Apparently she's the most feared knight in the realm that even he, a seasoned warrior is quite reluctant to fight and she's slaughtered more men in war than most can ever hope to achieve. She also led the assaults on Burmecia and Cleyra which left both utterly decimated and littered with corpses. She's so ruthless one can see her as this series's version of [[ASongOfIceAndFire Tywin Lannister]] . It's a pretty chilling backstory and then before you fight her she says something along the lines of [[BadAssBoast "I've once slaughtered a hundred knights single handedly; to me, you two are nothing more than insects]] . You may think she's just acting tough... and then she uses that dreaded move "Shock" which more than likely will one hit KO you...

** Actually, a very similar event (Earth and a Mars-sized planetesimal colliding) happened early in the Solar System's history. Earth survived, but shat a brick, which is currently known as the Moon.

* Despite her {{Heel Face Turn}} later in Disc 2 and the fact she's undeniably {{Bad Ass}} and cool, [[ThatOneBoss Beatrix]] is without question the most terrifying character and has the most difficult boss fights in the early parts of the game for many players. Even before you fight her in Burmecia, Freya recounts a story her love Sir Fratley told her about Beatrix. Apparently she's the most feared knight in the realm that even he, a seasoned warrior is quite reluctant to fight and she's slaughtered more men in war than most can ever hope to achieve. She also led the assaults on Burmecia and Cleyra which left both utterly decimated and littered with corpses. She's so ruthless one can see her as this series's version of [[ASongOfIceAndFire Tywin Lannister]] . It's a pretty chilling backstory and then before you fight her she says something along the lines of [[BadAssBoast "I've once slaughtered a hundred knights single handedly; to me, you two are nothing more than insects]] . You may think she's just acting tough... and then she uses that dreaded move "Shock" which more than likely will one hit KO you...

** Yoshitaka Amano's [[http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081107203351/finalfantasy/images/c/ca/Necron-art.jpg vision of Necron]] is far more terrifying than the in-game model.

* People say that [=FF9=] is one of the [[LighterAndSofter cheerier games in the tone]] for the series, but, [[FridgeHorror when you think about it long enough]], you realize that's it's not true. Through the events of the game, you will witness the deaths of ''millions'' through war and genocide. The entire summoner race is immolated to death by a giant death ray. Both Burmecia and Cleyra are destroyed, nearly wiping out the rat people. Thousands die in the attacks on both Lindblum and Alexandria. Kuja kills all the sleeping Terrans by blasting everything to hell. And god knows how many died thinks to the introduction of the Mist. Garland planned to kill every living person on Gaia and he did ''a very goddamn good job''. In short, IX probably has the highest body count of any Final Fantasy game to date - and that's just the deaths we ''see''!

* The theme that plays when you get to beat Trance Kuja and meet Necron is disturbing. That sad, mournful tune that played with all that moaning in the background? Creepy as all get-go.

* The entire mission to stop the mist at the Iifa Tree is greatly disturbing. First your traveling this maze of roots all whilst facing Zombies and sentient trees. Then you have to travel deep within the tree itself in which your riding on this leaf down a green, hellish spiral of which you get attacked by zombie dragons three times. Then you reach the bottom and you land on this harp-like structure with strings of some green liquid running down to a seemingly bottomless pool of green. Then [[spoiler: the boss and the maker of the mist Soul Cage, drops down, explains it's behind the mist and that the mist itself and the green fluid and surroundings of the tree itself is comprised of SOULS. You then have to battle it]]. What makes this worse is that even while you manage to stop the mist now [[spoiler: it'll be back soon enough]].

* Imagine if you walked in on the scene where [[spoiler: Garnet cuts her hair]] but couldn't hear what was going on for context. [[spoiler: The princess goes missing in the middle of an important meeting and no one except Zidane can find her. The two of them are talking and then suddenly she takes a knife and puts it to her neck. This girl has been put through such a TraumaCongaLine from losing her family, friends, and country, that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that she was DrivenToSuicide at that moment. Thank god she was only giving herself an ImportantHaircut, instead.]]

* Depending on your personal philosophy Kuja can be seen as worse than almost every other Final Fantasy {{Big Bad}} because of one [[MoralEventHorizon extremely heinous act]] we learn he committed in Terra: [[spoiler: He has committed a massive {{Your Soul is Mine}} on thousands upon thousands of souls previously trapped in the Invincible. Those souls include Queen Brahne and possibly Garnet's real mother and father and it is implied he has ticked them into "becoming his energy" voluntarily. He destroyed people's souls and got away with it!]]

* The entire mission to stop the mist at the Lifa Tree is greatly disturbing. First your traveling this maze of roots all whilst facing Zombies and sentient trees. Then you have to travel deep within the tree itself in which your riding on this leaf down a green, hellish spiral of which you get attacked by zombie dragons three times. Then you reach the bottom and you land on this harp-like structure with strings of some green liquid running down to a seemingly bottomless pool of green. Then [[spoiler: the boss and the maker of the mist Soul Cage, drops down, explains it's behind the mist and that the mist itself and the green fluid and surroundings of the tree itself is comprised of SOULS. You then have to battle it]]. What makes this worse is that even while you manage to stop the mist now [[spoiler: it'll be back soon enough]].

* Depending on your personal philosophy Kuja can be seen as a {{Complete Monster}} beyond almost every other Final Fantasy {{Big Bad}} because of one [[MoralEventHorizon extremely heinous act]] we learn he committed in Terra: [[spoiler: Basically he has committed a massive {{Your Soul is Mine}} on thousands upon thousands of souls previously trapped in the Invincible. Those souls include Queen Brahne and possibly Garnet's real mother and father and it is implied he has ticked them into "becoming his energy" voluntarily. He destroyed people's souls and got away with it!]]

Depending on your personal philosophy Kuja can be seen as a {{Complete Monster}} beyond almost every other Final Fantasy {{Big Bad}} because of one [[MoralEventHorizon extremely heinous act]] we learn he committed in Terra: [[spoiler: Basically he has committed a massive {{Your Soul is Mine}} on thousands upon thousands of souls previously trapped in the Invincible. Those souls include Queen Brahne and possibly Garnet's real mother and father and it is implied he has ticked them into "becoming his energy" voluntarily. He destroyed people's souls and got away with it!]]

* For some reason, the first quarter of the game despite its moments of brief darkness [[spoiler: including the Black Waltzes and Blank's petrification]] was still pretty cheerful and gave the player a sense of a light hearted and fun fantasy adventure. And then following [[spoiler: Garnet and Steiner's departure BACK to Alexandria]] and your visit to Gilzalmaluke's Grotto, the game takes a sudden extremely [[DarkerandEdgier dark turn for the worse]]. And don't get me started on Brumecia and your first fight with Beatrix...

* Despite her {{Heel Face Turn}} later in Disc 2 and the fact she's undeniably {{Bad Ass}} and cool, [[ThatOneBoss Beatrix]] is without question the most terrifying character and has the most difficult boss fights in the early parts of the game for many players. Even before you fight her in Brumecia, Freya recounts a story her love Sir Fratley told her about Beatrix. Apparently she's the most feared knight in the realm that even he, a seasoned warrior is quite reluctant to fight and she's slaughtered more men in war than most can ever hope to achieve. She also led the assaults on Burmecia and Cleyra which left both utterly decimated and littered with corpses. She's so ruthless one can see her as this series's version of [[ASongOfIceAndFire Tywin Lannister]] . It's a pretty chilling backstory and then before you fight her she says something along the lines of [[BadAssBoast "I've once slaughtered a hundred knights single handedly; to me, you two are nothing more than insects]] . You may think she's just acting tough... and then she uses that dreaded move "Shock" which more than likely will one hit KO you...