Nightmare Fuel / Paper Mario

As a Nightmare Fuel page, all spoilers are unmarked as per wiki policy. You have been warned.

Oh, you want to make things ugly, huh? Well, that's super. Let's get ugly.

The Paper Mario series is filled with lovable characters, vibrant locations, lots of memorable humor and some truly awe-inspiring moments. In spite of all of that, the series contains quite a lot of scary stuff, especially where The Thousand-Year Door, Super Paper Mario and The Origami King are concerned. You're likely to find yourself unsettled, whenever you're not laughing at what's unfolding on-screen or having fun fighting one of the series' many Awesome Bosses.

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Paper Mario

• Forever Forest, with its creepy laughing trees, giggling flowers, and Bootler's Nightmare Face.
  • There's also the music that plays right outside Boo's Mansion. It only plays in this one area, but it's much creepier than any other song in the game.
• Tubba Blubba himself is pretty frightening, especially since he really is invincible and almost all of that part of the level centers around hiding from him. The Boos are all terrified of being caught by him and at one point, when Mario searches Tubba Blubba's house, he finds a Boo who came in with a group and ended up hiding after they got separated. It's all somewhat mitigated by the fact that Tubba Blubba turns out to not be such a mean guy and spits up the unharmed ghosts he ate, but anyone who doesn't know that will be pretty on edge throughout the level.
  • It gets to the point where even Bowser's own guards are scared of him, particularly when a duo of them, a Hammer Bro and a Koopatrol, both of whom are members of the Koopa species' designated Demonic Spiders, tell a story about Tubba while Peach and Twink were eavesdropping, the other guard, the Koopatrol, freaks out and fears that he might pull a Starscream and eat them as well.
  • That's not getting into the fact that Bowser made him invincible by cutting out his heart.
• Huff N Puff, while not outright terrifying, has definitely crossed the Moral Event Horizon for not only blocking out the sun in Flower Fields but going a step further by taking their source of water away as well. Flower Fields is a living garden, meaning he was trying to commit total genocide of sentient plants. Not even Bowser has gone that far. And this is on top of him being one of the hardest bosses to deal with in the game. ^note  The same argument can be made for Tubba Blubba eating Boos above; however, he has a Freudian Excuse of being scared by the Boos endlessly and eating them was his way of getting revenge.
• Crystal Palace has an unsettling atmosphere, thanks to the isolation, subdued music, and plentiful doppelgangers.
  • Then there's the Crystal King himself, who's shrouded in mystery. He isn't a boss variant of any other enemy in the series, nor is it known what he is or where he came from. To this day, there has never been a being that exists nor existed like the Crystal King, which adds to the whole unnerving cosmic feel of the Shiver Region.
• The music that plays while sneaking in the corridors of Peach's castle in the sequences between chapters isn't too creepy, but when you arrive there as Mario just before the game's finale, it's downright sinister. Not helping matters is the dark lighting, the emptiness, and that it's an eerie, slowed-down remix of the final showdown with Bowser after he's fully powered by the star rod.

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

• The intro was originally Nightmare Retardant in the original GameCube version. But the remake makes it worse, with the intro being fully animated which shows details of the city crumbling and falling into the sea with sound effects.
• The Happy Lucky Lottery is, for the most part, a very fun and bright interpretation of the lottery run by a big, enthusiastic Bob-omb named Lucky. It also happens to run based on the console's clock. Try to exploit it or accidentally change the time in some way, and Lucky will look frustrated when you load the game. Talk to him, and he'll reveal that there were shenanigans with the lottery and ask if Mario/the player was responsible. If you say yes, then Lucky will go absolutely crazy, repeating the same phrases over and over in manic distress as he comes very close to exploding in your face before he shuts the game down. Or at least, so it seems. In reality, he'll charge you 500 coins for a new ticket and warn you not to do it again.
• Due to Super Drowning Skills / Border Patrol, there is a large chain chomp-esque pirahna/shark called Nibbles in every body of water in the game - including the park fountain in West Rogueport and the swimming pool in Poshley Heights.
• The 'victory' music that plays at the end of a battle if your partner has been knocked out. Ugh...
• There's an odd house that's isolated from everything else in the room leading to Petal Meadows in Rogueport Sewers. Said house is completely empty other than a single star piece, and the house's owner is never seen or revealed. The fact that there is no other information about this house or why it's there raises some disturbing implications.
• Halfway through Hooktail's Boss Battle, she tries to bribe the characters into sparing her; if you refuse to accept all three of her bribes, she begins to flee. At first, you think the battle is over and she's getting away, but then she lunges for the audience and eats them alive. Complete with the eaten audience's dying screams while the others are panicking and fleeing. The fact that this happens completely out of nowhere doesn't help at all.
  • Oh, and a few of the later bosses^note namely Cortez and the Shadow Queen; Magnus von Grapple 2.0 does a variation by using the audience as ammunition. repeat this stunt, in case one incident of audience slaughter wasn't disturbing enough.
• Beldam's abuse of Vivian is disturbingly realistic; it's not just childish insults, either. Some of the shit Beldam says to Vivian is just straight up nasty, including getting outright transphobic in certain translations of the game. That's not even getting into the fact Beldam straight up gaslights her twice. While the ending of the game does show them making up, to some, that only makes things worse, because it's eerily similar to tricks abusers pull in order to lure their victim back into their grip...
• Chapter 3 as a whole slowly becomes terrifying, the moment you get sucked into a mystery about the strange things that happen in the ring, and keep receiving mysterious emails from someone simply called "X". Each successive Reveal just makes things worse.
  • At one point, a Koopa who befriends you called King K tells you he's retiring, and you see nothing more of him. A character called Bandy Andy, who tells you about the urban legends of the ring, also stops appearing. You don't pay it much thought at first, beyond a subtle feeling of dread, until you're instructed to go into the storage room and find a secret staircase. When you enter the locked room at the top of the stairs and destroy the box in there, you find King K and Bandy Andy, lying unmoving on the floor with a fly buzzing around them. King K manages to weakly acknowledge Mario, and Bandy Andy tells him not to go to the ring at night. Then, they just stop responding to you. They get better after the Chapter is finished, but it's very creepy nonetheless.
  • Additionally, the jingle that plays whenever X messages you. It sounds like something straight out of a horror film.
  • Grubba being revealed as the Arc Villain responsible for sapping the energy from the Pit fighters is not only INCREDIBLY shocking, but pretty disturbing, considering his friendly and boisterous demeanor right up to the point where he's exposed. The fact that his dialogue immediately switches from jovial to dickish and self-gratifying is the icing on the horror cake.
    • The eerie music that plays during the scene preceding the battle with him perfectly compliments how scary the scenario is, especially once the gritty-sounding synth around the 8-second mark kicks in.
• Chapter 4 is chock-full of disturbing elements, from the atmosphere of the town it takes place in to the story arc:
  • Functionally, how Twilight Town works isn't too weird in its own right. You must have a name and have it attached to you to both enter and exit… except what do you do when a supernatural enemy steals your very appearance and even manages to steal your name? Now you're trapped in a world of perpetual twilight where said invincible villain can use everything you know and can even convince your allies to fight against you. Worse yet, the villain can apparently even steal entire letters right out of the alphabet, so even if you did know his name in order to be able to make him vulnerable, you'd be supernaturally unable to defeat him without realizing this detail, and finding a way to speak the letter you need.
    • To make it worse, think about it from Mario's perspective, this creep has just stolen his identity and the only way he can get it back is to guess his name… which he doesn't know and has (seemingly) no way to find out. If it hadn't been for Vivian, Mario could have been stuck there forever.
  • In the start of Chapter 4, every time the bell tolls, somebody in town gets turned into a pig. The citizens of Twilight Town live in constant fear of this fate, and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it.
  • Twilight Trail is very similar to Twilight Town, except that it leads into a coniferous forest which becomes darker and darker as you venture further in. The music in this area just makes it even creepier.
  • Creepy Steeple is at the very end of the trail, and although small as compared to other dungeons within the Paper Mario series, it's a classic example of Big Boo's Haunt. Add to that the dimly lit hallways and stained-glass windows, and you've got a very unsettling dungeon overall. As with Twilight Town and Trail, the background music helps in establishing the atmosphere.
    • The singular Boo that Jump Scares Mario in response to the latter promising not to hurt him or his friends. Even if you know it's coming, it's hard not to be as freaked out as Mario is in response.
  • Mario's body when Doopliss takes it over becomes pretty unnerving, thanks to its noticeably different facial expression and posture. His eyes become wider and hollow, and do not blink, his body becomes more hunched over, and his voice warps into something far more disquieting. To make matters worse, Doopliss uses this exact form when he copies Mario during the last fight with him in the final Chapter.
• Cortez's appearance is pretty unnerving, for much the same reason the Shadow Queen's is; the usage of Cel Shading-style techniques to animate and present him. He's one of the game's more Affably Evil villains at heart, but that doesn't change how creepy he is to look at.
• The Smorgs that appear near the end of Chapter 6 are pretty damn freaky, to say the least.
  • The day when the Excess Express is supposed to arrive at Poshley Heights, Mario finds the train eerily quiet, with no other passenger in sight except for the shop Toad, who is found knocked out on the floor. Mario has a talk with the Engineer at the front of the train, when one of the Smorgs appears on the windshield. The Engineer and Mario don't pay it much mind, then a swarm of Smorgs suddenly covers the whole windshield and the train. Mario is told to check on the other passengers, only to find most of them were kidnapped by the Smorgs and he has to fight through the whole swarm of Smorgs and their combined form to save them.
  • The aforementioned shop Toad alone is enough to unnerve you, even before shit hits the fan. When you try to talk to him, the bubble text just says "..........". His mouth doesn't even move like normal, which could lead to some first-time viewers thinking he actually died during the night invasion. It's revealed in a later visit (on your way to the boss battle) that he was just knocked out, and he's able to sell you items (or allow you to access your storage) just before the battle, but it's still pretty disturbing.
• Ghost T., from cabin 004, is one of the most infamous examples of this trope in all of the franchise. Not much is known about him except for the fact that he died in this cabin and now haunts it. He appears when you're on a quest to get a blanket, but only if you hide with Vivian for a few seconds. Shortly after you tell him your true objective, he scares your characters while demanding Mario to give him his life in exchange... But he was just kidding. He only wants you to find his diary he kept during his childhood, and asks you to not read it or else...
  • If you do decide to read the diary anyways despite the three warnings the game gives you beforehand, you're treated to an entry of the diary... only for the ghost to appear on top of Mario with a Scare Chord calling him out for reading it despite his warnings, then he flips the stage around a few times, as the screen goes black... Cue the Game Over screen.
    • The ambience that plays when he appears is one of the most unsettling in the whole series.
    • Should you hack the Ragged Diary into your inventory and read it in any other place, Ghost T. would still get to you. Granted, he isn't going to let you read it, even if you're away from the train.
• Riddle Tower, thanks to the ominous music and the cryptic text on the signs in each room — the middle line in all of these is unrelated to the other ones, and together these middle lines spell out a mysterious, cosmic message.
• The Shadow Queen in general is one of the scariest antagonists found in any Mario game, and is responsible for frightening a lot of kids during the game's initial release. There's quite a number of reasons why:
  • To start with, she looks very unnerving due to her cell-shaded-esque appearance and downright unsettling movement animations. The worst example of the latter is when she's possessing Peach, since she just droops down while holding her hands in place, almost like a puppet. Even just hurting her during the final phase of the battle is enough to creep you out, due to how she shakes. All in all, she just does not look like she belongs in a Paper Mario game, nevermind a REGULAR Mario game, in any way whatsoever.
  • She's also among the most irredeemably evil villains in the entire franchise. In the prologue alone, she destroys an entire city by sinking it into the ground with her omnipotent powers, killing loads of people in the process. She later goes on to create three dragons and use the Pit of 100 Trials as a torture chamber to those who would oppose her. If it weren't for the four heroes, she would have probably gone on to conquer the entire world. When she's finally defeated, she curses the four heroes by locking them into black chests for a millennia. You later have to go through her palace during the final Chapter, which gets more and more disturbing the longer you go through it. Then Grodus releases her, unaware of just how horrible she is...
  • And then there's what happens when Grodus actually does release her. All of the light gets sucked out of the room as her coffin opens and her spirit emerges from the depths. Before she even does anything, her mere presence shrouds the entire world in darkness, one area at a time while the civilians look on in confusion and fear. Then, she possesses Peach's body, causing a massive earthquake in the process. And when Grodus gets too uppity with her, she blasts him with lightning, reducing him to a disembodied head in an instant before blasting him away. He deserved it for being an asshole, but it's still horrific to watch.
  • The simple fact that she possesses Peach, of all people, is both disturbing and heart-breaking, especially if you've grown up with the Mario franchise and are used to her just being kidnapped by Bowser and others. The fact that her appearance changes once the possession is complete just makes it even more jarring.
  • As if all that wasn't scary enough, the Queen's body wraps around Peach's body during the final battle, once she decides to unleash her true form. It just doesn't look right at all. The eldritch, supremely creepy music that plays shortly thereafter does a VERY good job of hammering in that she's this close to killing Mario and co., as well. It's as panic-inducing as it is disturbing.
  • Let's just say that there's a very good reason why the Rogueport citizens feel uneasy whenever they're near the Thousand-Year Door. It's fabled in legend as the door leading one to a grand legendary treasure. It's actually the gateway to the Palace of Shadow, where the Shadow Queen has remained sealed for a thousand years.
  • If Mario actually chooses to join the Shadow Queen, it’s implied that she brainwashes him and his party to be her eternal servants, and then afterwards we get a narration text box describing how the Shadow Queen engulfed the world into eternal darkness. It's even worse in the Japanese version; Mario's sprite changes into the exact same sprite that Doopliss uses when duplicating Mario.
• The Pit of 100 Trials. According to Grifty, the Shadow Queen created this dungeon and filled it with powerful monsters. She threw people she didn't like into the pit and left them to the mercy of the monsters down there. Sometime after her defeat, the pit was closed off from the public. However, it can be personally experienced at any time of the game. Though it starts off as easy, the pit will reveal its true nature at about floor 50 as the floors get darker, the air gets "super-dank" as Goombella puts it, and worst of all, the cryptically brutal enemies. To top it all off, there are no save and heart blocks whatsoever.
  • The creepy and mysterious music heard throughout it complements the experience once the Difficulty Spike takes place.
  • Bonetail, the eldest of the "tail" siblings and the strongest enemy in the game who's at the bottom of the pit. Unlike its siblings, it's an undead, skeletal dragon, having died of old age and starvation. This only further demonstrates how nasty the Shadow Queen is… whether or not it's harder than her and how well you'll do in the fight depends on how many HP, FP, items, star power, etc. you have left.
    • It's also creepy how Bonetail, unlike its siblings, only communicates through roars and howls.
    • If you dare return to the 100th floor again after Bonetail's defeat, it's NOT a pleasant experience, to say the least. The only thing that awaits you is a very unsettling ambience,^note Which is reused in SPM when the player refuses to search for Luvbi and Queen Jaydes kills them. proving that it's even worse with Bonetail absent. No one's there anymore; only you, your partner, this track, and that feeling. It's one of the creepiest moments in the entire series, bar none.

Super Paper Mario

• Every place where you can actually see the purple Void in the background, especially considering that it grows with time.
• Megabites, as well as their variations, are flying skull-like enemies that can randomly, and suddenly, appear in almost any level, with the earliest known sighting being 1-3, simply flying in from off-screen. While they aren't especially scary looking, there's a certain creepiness in their appearance, especially the basic Megabites, with their large, red eyes. Especially jarring is encountering them while in 3D.
• Mimi's transformation sequence into a giant spider is one of the scariest things in any Mario game. She twists her head entirely around, The Exorcist-style — complete with the sounds of her spine cracking in multiple places — and grows extra legs with her head hanging upside down. If you flip while Mimi is in spider form, you can see the gears inside her, too. Even worse, in Chapter 2-4, if you slouch for too long in an area while being chased by her spider form, she spawns at your location. With the change of music, this can very well be a Jump Scare. It's even an In-Universe Nightmare Fuel moment as most people around her when she's in her spider form get scared or feel intimidated.
• The first time you go into the Sammer Kingdom, it's increasingly obvious that the huge void in the sky is growing and there's not enough time to save the place after recovering the Pure Heart. What's even worse is that the inhabitants are completely aware of their imminent demise and even allow Mario and company to bypass the Duel of 100 in a desperate attempt to get the Pure Heart into their hands in time. The party doesn't even come close to getting the Pure Heart before they're forced to evacuate. You go back after it's destroyed, and all that's left is an endless white void with occasional monochrome debris. Nothing Is Scarier at its finest. The music makes it even worse.
  • Speaking of the music, there's the sound of a heart monitor flatlining in the background. It makes sense in-game too, since the Pure Heart in this level has been turned to stone.
  • Even Bowser, the main villain of the first game who, despite being one of Mario's allies at this time, hasn't truly reformed yet, will express utter shock if you're playing as him while entering the World of Nothing for the first time:
    "This is messed up! I'm all for being evil, but this is just overkill!"
• Remember Captain Gills, that little fish you set free into the reservoir in Flipside? Checking on him between chapters reveals that he's been getting bigger, he now has giant fangs, and there are bones littering the bottom of the reservoir — and they only continue to accumulate as the game goes on. It's never explained what, or whom, those bones belonged to. The most reassuring explanation that could come from these would be that they could just be the bones of some animals that live nearby the reservoir, but it can't be certain.
• The Underwhere has one particularly disturbing enemy and one of the most deranged places in the game:
  • The Underhands are disembodied hands that slowly pursue the player when they are in grabbing range. They are found either in deep water or in dark areas; in the latter, they are usually hidden away in out-of-the-way places, ready to sneak up on you.
  • The River Twygz. Pretty tame if you stay near the surface; go any deeper and be prepared to encounter Underhands and to listen to this masterpiece. The "music" has a bunch of garbled voices in the background. Most of it's either backmasked or too distorted to understand, but there is one clear line:
    "Save us, please!"
  • Even the Overthere Stair, which is pretty much the path from the underworld to heaven, has a disturbing surprise: you can see The Void in the background covering the blue sky — indicating that it was not just going to destroy every world of the living, but also erase the afterlife, thus not just killing everyone, but completely erasing them from existence.
    • It should be noted young girl in the game does speculate a slightly better fate, where the souls of those killed by the void are to drift aimlessly in the World of Nothing.
• The Final Boss, Super Dimentio, which Dimentio created by merging with Mr. L and the Chaos Heart, a giant monster who has a fairly disturbing face that resembles Luigi's, and is initially unable to be harmed just like Count Bleck. When he's defeated, he ends up being decapitated and still surviving for a brief period of time before his head explodes. Even though the game doesn't go into detail, it's clear that Luigi is in a forced fusion with Dimentio and the Chaos Heart. Sure, Luigi survives, but because of said fusion, there was the risk of killing him, right?
  • The theme music (of Super Dimentio) 'The Ultimate Show' begins close to Dimentio's own theme (Affably Evil at its finest), before the music seemingly "cracks" to reveal the rest of the tune, a remix of the aforementioned Dimentio's theme, the Chaos Heart, and Mr. L.
  • Can we say Dimentio in general? He is probably the evilest character in the entire Mario franchise. Hell, he's arguably one of the most vile and dark characters in any Nintendo game. He forces you to kill a peaceful dragon, betrays Count Bleck, turns Luigi into Mr. L, and tries to destroy all of reality, all because of a vague prophecy. His evil plan and status as a jester almost make him into a kid-friendly Kefka (likely his inspiration). At least the similarly evil Shroobs can be interpeted as a species of Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds for wanting to save their race from imminent extinction. Dimentio doesn't have even that excuse.
    • His most infamous act— transporting the cast to the Underwhere —is this for a reason. His casual attitude while shocking your whole party, and Mr. L by throwing explosions all over his transportation would make a casual player think he's straight up slaughtered them. Luckily this isn't the case, but it made a damn good fakeout.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star

• World 4-3, The Enigmansion. While it later gets quirky and relaxed, when you first enter the house, it's completely silent. Nothing is heard, absolutely nothing...
  • The remix of the original Ghost House theme. The saxophones and xylophones/music boxes just make it sound that much more worse, and it only plays when you first talk to the Toad steward and when you talk to him again while hunting for Boos.
• World 5-3 has a harrowing river chase where you're on a raft and must avoid a giant Cheep-Chomp, who can either ram into the raft and destroy it one piece at a time, or if Mario is slow avoiding it, it will just eat him directly and lead to a Game Over. Worse is that you have to go here multiple times to find the secret exit.

Paper Mario: Color Splash

• Upon arriving at Prism Island, Mario and Peach witness a Shy Guy sucking all the color out of a screaming Toad with a straw, leaving behind a blank Toad-shaped piece of paper that lifelessly falls to the ground. Making it worse is that Mario and Peach interrupt them halfway, and the Toad yells at the Shy Guy to put his color back.
• In the Indigo Underground, Mario finds the sixth member of the Rescue Squad has already been drained of color... and the apparently normal Slurp Guy folds its head backwards to look at you and inches forward using its body, like a worm. The ensuing battle starts with Mario failing to run away, the music is replaced with "Psycho" Strings, and the Shunned Guy can only be hurt by fire.
• The Game Over cutscene. Mario falls flat on the ground. Then, a group of Slurp Guys jump out of nowhere and proceed to suck Mario's color dry, turning the entire screen white as it zooms in on them before fading completely. The Game Over message itself is in black and white.
• If Mario loses the game of Snifit or Whiffit: Seabed Edition, a large urchin pops the air bubble he's in. Mario turns blue and starts flailing his arms as the screen goes white.
• The flashback of Bowser getting covered in the black paint. Notably, after it starts crawling up his legs, Bowser notices and starts struggling to no avail. His last scream becomes distorted as the paint covers his head.
• The fact that Lemmy references Dimentio of all people. his boss theme in particular incorporates the guys leitmotif in a few places, he shares the Charming Magician's attitude of theatrics, and revisiting his circus has a comment that Lemmy might have fallen into another dimension.

Paper Mario: The Origami King

• Origami Peach's demeanor is unsettlingly distant, and her mind has been warped to Olly's will as she asks Mario three questions, then drops him down a trap door, no matter how he answers.
  Should this kingdom fold... and then be re-folded unto glory? [...] Should the Toads be silenced... for all of eternity? [...] Will you crease yourself and be reborn, like me? [...] Wrong answer. Right answer. It matters not. Your replies are all paper thin. GoOdByE...
• One scene in the beginning has Mario seeing the shadows of two Folded Soldier Shy Guys drag a Paper Koopa Troopa into the dungeon cell, then throw him onto the Stapler, which turns him into a Folded Soldier.
  • Not to mention Bowser was in the cell and was forced to watch his own men be transformed by Olly’s magic. Bowser at one point even demands Olly to leave his men alone, but he’s unable to do anything since he’s folded up and held by a clothespin.
• Bobby and Mario head to The Princess Peach, a luxury cruise ship which has been wrecked by a Paper Macho Gooper Blooper. The music, the scenery being wrecked, and the toads you find who complain in vague terms about what happened, all add up to a very tense atmosphere, which isn't helped when the thing that attacked comes back.
• Really, the amount of Body Horror this game gets away with thanks to the characters being made of paper and going against living stationery can be very unnerving to see. It's most prominent with Hole Punch and Scissors, who actually damage and remove parts of characters as opposed to just pinning them in place or wrinkling them or similar. It'll make you look at your paper-cutting implements in a different light for sure...
• The Paper Macho Chain Chomp. It can shred Piranha Plants into nothing but confetti in mere seconds, and chases the party at multiple points. Get caught by it, and you'll be treated to a scene where the monster pounces on a terrified Mario before the screen fades to black, followed by audible crunching noises, and there's no way to fight back. Speaking of, there's a really good reason there's a save block just before the third split in the path to the Spring of Jungle Mist. Pick the wrong path, and the Paper Macho Chain Chomp will leap at your party from the trees. The screen then fades to black as a high-pitched scream is heard, followed by the crunching of the monster's jaw. Cue Game Over screen.
• There's a bit in Shroom City where you're searching for Luigi somewhere in town and come across a particularly shady Snifit running a carnival game. It starts out comedic as you have to guess what he's feeling from his completely expressionless masked face, topped off with overly dramatic zooms and pauses. But if you lose three times, he adds in the caveat that you've lost not only your coins, but your freedom as well. The sudden dark turn in an otherwise goofy scene is jarring enough, but should you choose not to play again, which you just might if you're now convinced it's a waste of time, or fail three more times after playing again, the result is Mario being sucked into a giant magic lamp with his brother. Thus, the Mario Brothers are trapped inside of the lamp for all eternity. Game Over.
• In Hole Punch's domain, you encounter Toads that have had their faces punched out by him, leaving a gaping hole that you can see right through. During the battle itself, he can also take chunks out of Mario. It's really unsettling to see Mario with holes in his body, making him look pockmarked and about to collapse if he takes another hit.
• Scissors in a world made of paper equals absolute terror.
  • It first appears as part of a Cerebus Callback to its initial use in Sticker Star: It cuts Bowser Jr. into pieces. Pieces that, given their shuffling, are still aware. It gets worse by the time you actually meet it: It's proud of being (supposedly) invincible and rends all of Bowser's army into assorted minion confetti, keeping their faces to use as mish-mash armor for a Paper Macho Buzzy Beetle with Kamek's used to give it magic because it can. And all of these pieces are sentient and screaming for help. Highlighted by the armored monster's name, Paper Mistake Buzzy Beetle.
  • Given that this is Paper Mario and the boss you're fighting is a pair of scissors, being on the wrong end of its blades leads to exactly what you would expect.
  • Scissors also treats Mario and co. to some of its creations. Cutout Soldiers are one-dimensional black cutouts of paper in the shapes of human-proportioned figures, with the small versions linking together like creepy paper chains in battle and the larger ones looking like zombie-walking skinny humans. Also, your companions get snatched away by an entity called the Handaconda, a coiled snake-like ribbon of paper with a cutout hand on the end. These creatures are probably the spookiest things in the game and they're the only completely original enemies to debut, making them all the more surprising. Non-scripted encounters play the Unsettling Area battle theme to top it all off.
• The 1,000 Fold Arms finisher for Stapler, if only for how... unsettlingly brutal it is in comparison to everything else. Stapler is portrayed as an Angry Guard Dog in the game, and in this finisher, Mario picks it up and snaps it in half with a loud metallic CRUNCH. And since Stapler has been snapping at you throughout the entire fight, Mario just snapped this thing's jaw! If Stapler wasn't… well, a stapler, this kind of violence would never make it past the censors.
• Olly folds Peach herself into a tapestry in the throne room of his new castle, effectively killing her as he talks about how better she is silent. Worse still, to the inhabitants of the Paper Mushroom Kingdom, this would be akin to making a chandelier out of human flesh.
• The revelation of what Olly wishes to do with the 1000 Origami Cranes. He wants to wipe the Toads from existence. Not only is this being done due to a single perceived slight, but it is also disturbingly reminiscent of actual genocides such as The Holocaust.

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