Moment pages are Spoilers Off by default, so all spoilers were removed. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned
For the nightmarish Pokédex entries, check here.- Any fan who grew up with Ruby would tell you that even if the infamous Drought music
didn't absolutely terrify them, it still creeped them out. Despite being a very minimalist track, it's still a very disturbing tune that puts Lavender Town to shame.- The Drought music manages to be even worse in the remake than in the originals. They didn't even change much of the track. It sounds very similar to the original, albeit more "remastered" and with an ominous choir added to it. One YouTube commenter had pointed out that the remastered version uses the same 8-bit effects used in the original version.
- On the topic of the Drought, the remake even manages to make it look like a much more threatening situation. While in the original game the screen was just bright and flashing, in the remake it literally looks like the sky is on fire. And don't think playing that part of the game at night will help — the same thing will happen, and it will still be day in-game.
- This comment manages to summarize the feeling well:
Alpha Sapphire: You still have time to save Hoenn! Get moving! - The Drought music manages to be even worse in the remake than in the originals
- When you reach Sootopolis during the apocalyptic event, all the doors to the houses are locked. It's because the Sootopolis citizens are so scared that they locked themselves in their houses. The only people who you can talk to at this point are the ones in the Pokémon Center and Pokémart, and they'll comment on how scared and confused they are.
- In the original game, the Sootopolis citizens are oddly the only people in Hoenn who are terrified, despite it also affecting Lilycove and Mossdeep. The remake fixes this by having the Lilycove and Mossdeep citizens terrified too and commenting on the ordeal.
- While a lot of people say that the flooding situation in Sapphire doesn't have the same creep factor as the drought situation in Ruby (possibly because of the fast-paced, less-minimalist music and a rainstorm being considerably less scary than a land becoming desolate and shriveled up), it's still disturbing to think about what exactly would happen to Hoenn in that event. You think dehydration and heatstroke is bad? Try an entire region drowning in a constant maelstrom of rain.
- Meteor Falls and Cave of Origin share the same theme. The theme by itself means little in the former, where you visit in the mid-game. But in the latter, it becomes suddenly ominous thanks to story-related context. You come to the Cave of Origin in the end-game to stop Groudon or Kyogre. Up until this point, the only music you've heard is the Drought or Flood themes, but the moment you enter the cave, you're treated to the Meteor Falls theme. The ground of the cave thuds and you can hear the cries of the Box Legendary as you go down each floor while the theme plays in the background. Once you make it to the final floor, there is suddenly no music whatsoever and you're completely alone with the apocalyptic monster. Basically, what was once a simple, mysterious melody now sounds like an anthem to signify that the player character is marching to their death. The impact of this scene is much less in the remakes however thanks to the remastered soundtrack softening the theme.
- The conclusion of the O-Power quest is still pretty disturbing: all the O-Power givers merge themselves into one other man, turning him into Mr. Bonding, making a character who already had a creepy reputation in Pokémon X and Y even worse.
- Courtney, a character who originally had very little personality of her own in Ruby (she didn't appear in Emerald, oddly enough) now has an incredibly unnerving, almost robotic speech pattern that is interrupted from time to time by monotone giggles. Not helping at all is her ...Strange, to say the least, Yandere-like interactions and attraction towards the roughly 12-year-old player character. And then there's her Villainous Breakdown during the Delta Episode...
- The Fairy Tale Girls from X and Y are back and just as disturbing as ever. One of them feels the need to warn you about the flammability of fairies, another says that her claims of being able to talk to her Pokémon are causing immense distress for her peers, and the younger member of a pair of Mysterious Sisters downright states she got her Pokémon to cast a spell on a Hex Maniac in her neighbourhood and hypnotise her into believing that they were sisters. Fortunately, in the latter case, the Hex Maniac seems to only be going along with it to humor her neighbor. Though this is likely to compensate the Hex Maniac on Mt. Pyre who says one thing that will make every X&Y Players shiver:Hex Maniac: No, you're not the one.
- A Freeze-Frame Bonus when fighting Phoebe of the Elite Four for the first time features a random girl appearing in the chair behind her and behind the neck of the protagonist (in relation to the camera). This is not talked about at all in-game, and you do not see this scene in rematches against her. A ghost? In the comments for that clip, one person pointed out that in the second scene, when Phoebe is talking to the player, the camera is slowly zooming towards them. As if the ghost-girl is walking up to them and it's from her point of view. It doesn't help that the way the scene is shot, looks like the point of view from a monster stalking someone in a horror movie.
- Deoxys appearing at the end of the Delta Episode. Between the freaky way its tentacles emerge from the triangle, its rather creepy battle music starting during the aforementioned tentacles scene, and the realization that it's level 80, ten levels above Rayquaza.
- Though it is worth noting that Deoxys can't touch Shedinja (as well as Sableye and Spiritomb), who has type advantage, until it runs out of moves and is forced to Struggle, making it only a little less frightening. It's still very intimidating, as it still has an awful catch rate that means it can KO itself even if you do nothing but chuck Pokeballs at it the entire time.
- The Mauville Corporation as a whole is a nightmare fuel refinery (literally), seeing how many hidden layers of creepy every single place named Mauville has. Some notable examples:
- Sea Mauville’s 10 slogans for a cheerful and fun workplace. The first two? Relatively rational. And then come the statements that working overtime is mandatory, that the only source of leave is retirement, that employees should risk their lives during safety checks, that the upper management must be praised and obeyed absolutely, and that the crossing of the Despair Event Horizon in order to become almost mindless and work at maximum productive efficiency is outright encouraged by the sadists running the place. A Fate Worse than Death doesn’t come close to describing what that place would have been like when it was still operational. It's no wonder why it led to Raizo Cozmo losing his wife and becoming the broken man he is.
- Sea Mauville also has a song — and the lyrics discourage days off, overtime pay, and unionization. Did the workers really have to sing it?
- Sea Mauville also has the room with an invisible-until-you-notice-it Spiritomb. You walk in and feel like you're being watched, and simply investigating the room is not enough. You have to see specific papers and open your menu, and even seeing the Odd Keystone doesn't lessen exactly how creepy it is. It can even startle a player if they have no idea it's coming and open the menu for a different reason. Not helped by how big the Odd Keystone looks on the overworld; it's almost the same size as the player. So you open your menu, and then suddenly there's this giant... thing... right behind you, and you're immediately thrust into a battle.
- Sea Mauville's sheer lack of anything regarding safety precautions in the present is pretty terrifying. There's holes in the decks that anyone could fall through, and the upper decks have no safety railings whatsoever, so all it'd take is one accidental trip or stumble and someone could easily fall to their death.
- Mauville Hills has a general atmosphere of despair, but Apartment 16 (the one with the "great deal on the lease") is especially creepy. Normally the game tells you when nobody answers the intercom, but ringing it just gives you "..."
- Ever thought Kyogre's cry was freaky in the original? Well in the remakes...it's worse. DWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-UUUUUUUH!!!!
- Getting to and confronting the legendary mascot Groudon/Kyogre is pretty unnerving. Ok, so you are already pretty paranoid after awakening the beast and triggering unrelenting heat/downpours all while listening to the admittedly frightening Drought/Heavy Rain theme as you get to Sootopolis City. Once you get to the city, enter the Cave of Origin, and proceed down to the bottom-most part of the cave where there is fog, you are constantly treated to moments of when the cave starts to shake as you hear the version mascot's roar during it, which builds up your paranoia of what is about to happen. Once down there where the energy source is, the music stops and your bottom screen is running wildly with electricity from all the energy in the room, and in the center of it all is the awaiting version legendary for battle.
