Line #10 NightmareFuel/DigitalDevilSaga


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7	In case ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' didn't freak you out enough already, this one adds cannibalism into the mix and cranks the eldritch dial to 11. Good luck sleeping...
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10	'''As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
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12	[[folder: General]]
13	* In both games, you learn new abilities by [[CannibalismSuperpower eating your enemies]] for atma points. Though, it's slightly mitigated by the fact that you can be afflicted by the "Ache" status ailment by overeating. Yes, it's actually possible for the characters to [[CrossesTheLineTwice get a stomach ache from eating too many people]].
14	* The consequences of the Demon Virus. [[HorrorHunger Endless hunger]]. [[AxCrazy Mindless rage]]. [[FakeMemories Losing]] [[LossOfIdentity yourself]]. ''[[DemonicPossession And that's if you're lucky]]''. When you gain extra atma points if you use Hunt skills to finish your enemies. Rather than killing them and ''then'' devouring them, ''[[EatenAlive you eat them alive]]''. Once infected, you can never stop eating, or you risk the demon inside just going berserk, overruling whatever higher brain functions you may still have in working order beyond the maddening hunger, and wantonly attacking anything. In rare cases, the demon virus will go so far with you, it will literally overwrite ''everything'' in there. [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie And then, there's nothing left in there, but a demon]]. Problem is, if the virus has gone this far, it's likely it's a strong demon with ideas and intelligence of its own, and it's gonna go find food and shelter - AKA your friends, family and home...
15	[[/folder]]
16	[[folder: Digital Devil Saga]]
17	* The NightmareFuel begins right in the opening cutscene of the first game when the main characters and their enemies are given their Atma brands by a strange capsule that appears out of nowhere and subsequently turns them all into demons. It's not long before the organized war devolves into a grisly bloodbath that ends with Serph's team dismembering and eating their defeated enemies in a mindless, hunger-induced frenzy.
18	** Speaking of which, imagine being emotionless for as long as you could remember in a seemingly endless war, and when you suddenly gain the ability to feel, it's at the same time your first genuine emotional experience was something truly horrific and gruesome. This happens to one of the survivors on the enemy's side, Harley Q, who was understandably traumatized into a shaking, terror-filled wreck from the whole experience of seeing his team get slaughtered and devoured by demons. It was to the point where his actions after that were motivated out of a desperate fear for his own life, repeatedly fleeing in terror of the party (the same people who transformed and ate his comrades) until he was cornered, and even then, he didn't truly succumb to his own demonic hunger and become hostile until after [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Heat's needlessly cruel interrogation]] caused him to finally snap.
19	* Anahata's Citadel area has a few sections where you must face a variety of busts with GlowingEyesOfDoom. Blue-eyed statues are safe, but the red-eyed statues will drop you into a basement if you stand in front of them, and yellow-eyed ones will change to blue- or red-eyed once as you approach them. There's one room where [[JumpScare there's a red-eyed statue in front of you and nothing else!]] The basement itself is also pretty creepy - nothing is down there except corpses and a few pre-set demons, as well as the random encounters. Every now and then, the poison gas in there will disorient you. It gets even worse at the end of a New Game Plus as it's where the Demi-fiend hides out.
20	* Coordinate 136 is an [[AmusementParkOfDoom abandoned amusement park castle]]. To start, the music that plays in it is creepy as all hell, and gradually changes as you go up the floors. One section has you trying to spot a portrait that's different from the others; running past the other portraits will instead [[JumpScare drop you into a basement]]. One later floor has you solving a light puzzle in near-pitch darkness. As you progress, you're told the tale of a "good prince" and an "evil prince" trying to win over the heart of a princess, and later excerpts of the story are drowned out in convenient static, and [[NothingIsScarier start mentioning things like a "truly good prince" and a "truly evil prince" without explicitly describing what's going on]], implying that there's more to the story than what you're coherently told. When the truth comes out in the second game, it's every bit as horrifying as expected.
21	* Beelzebub's fate is this for everyone involved. Whichever sap unlucky enough to be [[DemonicPossession his host]] was transformed before [[MrExposition Angel told the leaders about Atma]], so suddenly the Vanguards had to deal with one of their own turning into a monster and eating their comrades without [[NothingIsScarier a lick of explanation]], on top of their own newfound demonic transformations. Beelzebub is sealed by accident by a red wall, ''with his guards trapped inside with him''. When Serph can finally break the wall, the player finds out exactly how Beelzebub was imprisoned: trapped inside a completely dark room, with his jailers hoping that [[ApocalypseMaiden he'll]] [[AndIMustScream die of starvation sooner or later]]. His jailers are still terrified of him, especially because they have [[ParanoiaFuel no way of knowing]] if he's dead or if he escaped.
22	** It gets worse. The Embryon fight and defeat his first form, Baal Zebul. He proceeds to escape ''anyway'' and make his way to the sewers, slaughtering and consuming as many people as he can. By the time he's confronted, he's reached full Beelzebub form and lost all traces of sanity.
23	* Compared to the overt horror of Beelzebub, there's the more subtle horror of cases such as Metatron where his human host undergoes a LossOfIdentity, being torn between avenging his fallen girlfriend Laura and Metatron's personality asserting itself.
24	[[/folder]]
25	[[folder: Digital Devil Saga 2]]
26	* The second game reveals the real world is in ruins, stuck under a sun that always shines black, and the ''sunlight turns anyone not infected with the demon virus to stone!''
27	* New to the second game is Berserk Mode, where triggering a battle at high Solar Noise levels cause the party to enter in a PartialTransformation. As the name indicates, the music is chaotic, and you have no choice but to attack. Seeing the human party members with their demonic limbs is unnerving, hearing their victory screeches come out of their human voices is worse.
28	* ''Everything'' about the Meat Factories in the second game. To wit, Madame Cuvier's "plan" for the salvation of Humanity goes like this: "[[WithUsOrAgainstUs Anyone who wants to follow me]], will transform into [[CannibalismSuperpower Tun]][[HorrorHunger ers]]. Anyone who disagrees with me, ''[[ImAHumanitarian will transform into dinner]]''."
29	** It also contains an entirely different kind of horror in it's warden, Kumbhanda. Not only does he look like the creepy horseman that he is, he's also practically invincible, and will chase you down so long as your on the same floor as him. It becomes a very scary game of keep-away that will almost always find a new way to give you a heart attack.
30	* Jenna Angel on the other hand, just wants to turn ''everyone'' into Tuners, and plunge the world into a slaughterfest.
31	* [[EldritchAbomination Vritra]] is bad enough on its own, but it's worse when you know that it's a corrupted and transformed Heat. He's a gigantic, be-tentacled monstrosity with too many heads and mouths that seems to grow from the floor, and those tentacles look an awful lot like Agni's two heads.
32	** The EGG facility on the second visit in the second game is like a horror game. The few people standing around are terrified, and one of them mentions someone crying inside. When you go in, you find that your map doesn't carry over from the last time you were there, and the electricity's been cut. It seems like just a gimmick, until you go down enough levels, and find that everything's been turned into an EldritchLocation. MeatMoss lines the walls, and some of it is still-living people. The enemies in the facility aren't Tuners or soldiers; they're scientists with corrupted data. Some of them are Legions, implying that they fused together. There are entire chunks of floor missing, and inexplicable portals of darkness that jump around the facility. One of the scientists currently fused with the wall says that he heard someone crying, and ran to help, but ended up like that. And when you get to the room where someone is weeping bitterly... you get Vritra, or a corrupted and mutated Heat.
33	* The real [[GreaterScopeVillain Serph Sheffield.]] Namely, the fear of an amoral adult manipulating the feelings of a small child and promising things like treats in exchange for "favors" (specifically unethical and harmful medical experiments). His manipulations and casual murder caused the entire planet to suffer under the Black Sun.
34	* Meganada. Where do we begin? The fact that it had to be frozen to be kept under control; the fact that it has extendable [[BuffySpeak bitey-boobs]] that try to bite Argilla's arm off and nom on the already severely-injured Roland; the fact that you have to face in on The Sun, and it's a ThatOneBoss; or the fact it mindlessly says "INDRA" over and over.
35	* Serph's DisneyDeath in 2 is essentially the prelude to EVERYTHING going south for the heroes, in particular the moment Sera ''screams'' in horrified despair. Remember: she's still hooked up to God, and the Big Guy Upstairs feels everything she does. Also remember that he's committed at this point to killing humanity with [[TakenForGranite Cuvier Syndrome.]] He hated humanity before: now, he ''DESPISES'' us. Tearing control of the HAARP away from Cuvier while the thing isn't even connected to Him, He begins more or less disintegrating the entire planet. No thunder crashes or booming voices are necessary: it is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt how FURIOUS He is.
36	[[/folder]]
37	[[folder: Other]]
38	* The black ooze from the novels. Basically a writhing black mass that devours everything that comes near it and that constantly forms the pained faces of everyone it has devoured. In the end it is revealed to be a mass of pure karma given form that knows naught but fear and hunger and proceeds to devour both the Embryon base and even the Karma Temple, killing named characters left and right.
39	[[/folder]]

Context NightmareFuel / DigitalDevilSaga