Line #20 NightmareFuel/EndlessOcean


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6	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_1939_2_4.jpg]]
7	[[caption-width-right:350:"He's taken a liking to you..."]]
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9	Bet you didn't think a pair of tranquil, budget-priced games about scuba diving from Creator/{{Nintendo}} could get your blood pumping.
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11	'''Unmarked spoilers below.'''
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14	[[foldercontrol]]
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16	[[folder: General]]
17	* The ocean itself is terrifying. There are many areas throughout both games where, in front of you or beneath, there's just... [[NothingIsScarier nothing.]] Just a big, blue or black void. What's down there? What could possibly be lurking? We don't know. We simply do not know.
18	* Both games have sections of maps where you must go deep, deep, DEEP under the waves. This means pitch blackness, only a flashlight to guide you. If you're afraid of the dark, have the lights on.
19	* These games might be tough for anyone with a fear of deep water and/or darkness. Swimming out into the open and then looking straight down is not a wise decision if that sounds like you. The abyssal zones are just as bad - the one in the second game a bit less so, with a bit more light and less open space.
20	[[/folder]]
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22	[[folder: ''Endless Ocean'']]
23	* It's pitch black down there in The Abyss, with only a little bit of light coming from your flashlight in the area right in front of you; the music that is introduced in that area, Hayley Westenra's "Benedictus", is initially very quiet and tranquil, and then blasts out in a loud crescendo of brass, drums and vocals without warning; and two very large animals -- the Sperm Whale and the Giant Squid -- make their homes down there, and love to appear in front of you when that crescendo hits.
24	** ''Praya dubia'' also tends to show up about that time. At least the whale and squid are fairly well-known and you're kinda expecting them; the first time you see a whacked-out jellyfish THING that you've never even heard of may freak you just a bit.
25	** A player not versed in marine biology may also occasionally run into the goblin shark. These creatures look weird enough on their own, but the model used in Endless Ocean is based on an [[ScienceMarchesOn outdated idea of their appearance]], so you get a shark that not only has what looks like a giant horn, [[http://images.wikia.com/endlessocean/images/b/bc/Goblin_Shark.jpg but looks like it got the most botched facelift in history]].
26	** When you swim through the narrow hidden caves in The Abyss, the Megamouth Shark has a bad habit of swimming towards you. Because of the way the caves bends, there is no warning of the creature before you see its utterly insane mouth and eyes appear in front of you. And dear god, if you have the first-person view on...
27	* Ship's Rest is bad enough just wandering around it at night, but then when you activate the [[ThreateningShark cutscene]], where the Magu Tapa shark emerges with a sinister laugh heard, good thing the shark doesn't attack in-game...
28	* Finding cursed pieces of an idol around Mo'ia Atoll causes ominous music to play briefly aboard the Gabbiano in brief cutscenes. And then you go to check your mail, and find that an email without a known source is warning you about what this will bring, warning that your hair will turn white from fear. While these emails mainly serve as a way to unlock white hair for your player, it doesn't help how unsettling they may be. The final message from this mysterious emailer has him realize the curse is watching both them and you, and he pleads for help, but his last cry for "please" only stops at [[KilledMidSentence "plea"]].
29	[[/folder]]
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31	[[folder: ''Blue World'']]
32	* Since you can get attacked in ''Blue World'', the game uses a rather unnerving siren to warn you of the proximity of any dangerous creature, be it aggressive, blithely meandering, or stationary. You'll be rushing for your pulsar or the B button in no time.
33	* When you first arrive at the Zahhab Region Depths as part of the main story. You are literally clinging to the bottom of the ocean, in the pitch black, desperately searching for the next air station, as the intense pressure is causing your air to just about speed out of your air tanks. When you find the cave you have to evict its current owner, a giant squid. And then, you find what you are looking for... The wreckage of a submersible, where the son of one of your dive partners supposedly died. Inside, you find an artifact and a letter. The son apparently spent his last moments in the cramped, non-functioning submersible writing a letter to his father, telling him that he was sorry for all of their arguments and that he still loved him, along with other heart-breaking things. It then mentions how he, when he is done writing the letter, will open the hatches to the sub and try to swim to the surface. From over a thousand feet down, where the water pressure will crush an unprotected human body into a fine paste. The game also takes plenty of time to pull you aside and explain with bright eyed enthusiasm how anything that dies in the ocean (and isn't eaten at the surface) will sink down here, to be picked apart by pill bugs the size of cats.
34	* Okeanos's Guardian. Oh, dear god, ''Okeanos's Guardian''. What is it? See above in the first game's folder about the goblin shark, and then imagine a grotesquely mutated one, as if it was infected by [[Franchise/ResidentEvil the T-Virus]]. And there's a period of time where you're ''trapped'' in a room with it.
35	** Even before that, a bunch of powerful currents blow you and your friends across the temple, and trap them in an area: "Uh, guys, where'd Hayako go? ... Gaston? ... Oceana, [[BigNo NOOOOOO]]!", you might wonder, as the currents separate you all like in a horror movie.
36	* Just about anything big that attacks you in the sequel (mostly sharks). Thanatos and the Okeanos Guardian definitely qualify as nightmare fuel. It gets even worse when you explore their respective dive spots ''at night.''
37	** Thanatos takes the cake, story-wise. He's nothing more than a KingMook CoveredInScars who's also [[PlotArmor immune to the pulsar because of his involvement in the story in-game]], but his lore, dear god... He ''kills people not because of mistaken identity, but because he knows they're human and [[ForTheEvulz it's an evil thing to kill them.]]'' His trivia entity implies that he is ''the'' [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Thanatos]], trapped in shark form and killing sailors and divers for sport. Considering Ciceros Strait is full of legendary creatures who are either literal FishOutOfTemporalWater or other spirits/gods meeting a fate like his, this isn't too far-fetched.
38	*** To further worsen things, Thanatos can randomly stalk the player from outside the windows in Valka Castle. Kind of like the Grim Reaper stalking those about to kick the bucket.
39	* A cutscene triggered in the Triton Village (again, at night). You see this massive shark silhouette slowly approach you from behind at the Triton Village entrance, and it keeps getting closer until its ''right next to you''. Thankfully it only turns out to be a harmless basking shark who completely ignores you.
40	* It can be very unnerving to be swimming in deep water or at night and have one of the larger creatures suddenly appear out of nowhere - like the Leviathan, who swims at a fairly deep level either by some low cliffs or out in the open. He won't hurt you, but it's still enough to make one jump.
41	* The game mentions that the Ciceros Strait is famous for its sharks, and almost every edge of the map that goes to the open ocean has Great Whites swimming around it. Now go there at night; the place becomes lousy with sharks. Every part of the map has sharks in it, save for Triton Village. And the darkness makes it almost impossible to tell them apart, so you won't know if you're swimming towards a group of Great Whites until it's almost too late.
42	** The Zahhab Abyss region has a rather nasty surprise for you in that respect; bluntnose sixgill sharks. They don't show up in great numbers, but the constant darkness and the disorienting nature of the environment mean that if you don't see it right away, you end up swinging around in the dark until the shark attacks you. If you don't keep your eyes on it either, it will slip back into the darkness.
43	* [[HellIsThatNoise The Song Of Dragons]] is rather unnerving. The legend that it causes misfortune to those who hear it is bad enough, but just the way it SOUNDS. It sounds... wrong.
44	** Special mention must go to the distorted sound that plays when looking for the porpoise in the Weddell sea, which the characters mistake for the Song of Dragons at first. It manages to sound even WORSE.
45	* Many of the legendary creatures can be this.
46	** The aforementioned Thanatos, a giant great white with battle scars that is incredibly aggressive. You WILL freak out.
47	** The Leviathan, a colossal albino sperm whale based on the very similar one from the legendary novel, Literature/MobyDick. It's just so huge, and you have to go so deep to find it that you're in an endless blue void until he pops up. It can make for a good JumpScare if you turn at the wrong time.
48	** The also aforementioned Okeanos Guardian. Yes, it is a heavily deformed and massive goblin shark. Yes, it is hostile. [[OhCrap Yes, you have to face it in the main plot.]]
49	** The Phantom, heavily implied to be the ghost or reincarnation of Prince Valka. It's a big, completely jet black Manta Ray that can only be found in Valka Castle at night after fulfilling a special request.
50	** There are three creatures that aren't even in the encyclopedia until you've found them. These three creatures are long-extinct dinosaur-era creatures that can't even be focused on because they're outside the map. These include the sea serpent, a long-necked aquatic reptile, the Camerocaras, a giant horn-shelled squid... [[BuffySpeak thing,]] and the Anomolocaris, an insectoid creature with big, black, unflinching eyes.
51	*** While the Anomolocaris is well and truly off-limits by virtue of being behind glass, it's possible to get a bit closer to the other two than the game likely intends by persistently staying at the edge of the map and waiting patiently for them to get closer (Camerocaras in particular can actually bump into your character). While very cool, this is also ''freaky as hell,'' especially since it requires you to hang out in open areas far from cover.
52	* Your team's escape from the Cavern of the Gods. The Song of Dragons plays at a higher than usual pitch, which causes the whales surrounding, and inside, the cavern to go berserk and start head butting the cavern walls. This causes a cave-in, naturally, but that's not the worst of it. The worst is perhaps just how unnatural the whales look. Slamming their heads into the walls like that. Repeatedly.

Context NightmareFuel / EndlessOcean