* DemonicSpiders: If Sinistar himself isn't killing you, the Warriors are probably sniping you to death with ludicrous precision.
* FirstInstallmentWins: ''Sinistar Unleashed'' isn't considered ''bad'' by most accounts, but it's nowhere near as famous or iconic as the original game.
* FountainOfMemes: Everything Sinistar says is meme material.
* GoodBadBugs: The game had a bug where if you managed to get shot by a Warrior on your last ship just before the player gets killed by Sinistar, in effect killing the player twice, the game would think the player has now [[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne 255]] ships.
* NightmareFuel: A giant, flying skull, taunting you in a perfectly intelligible nightmarish voice in an age when few games could talk, that would generally kill you within seconds of appearing on-screen with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv5Oo0BwQw8 an utterly terrifying roar.]] And he doesn't appear right at the start of the game. You may hear him before you see him.
* ThatOneLevel: The "Warrior" and "Void" levels are the tougher of the four types of levels: the former is filled with DemonicSpiders, while the latter is a DroughtLevelOfDoom that players need to stock up on sinibombs for.
* WatchItForTheMeme: "Beware! I live!"