Nightmare Fuel / Sonic Adventure 2

An execution scene in a Sonic the Hedgehog game?

• Gerald Robotnik's speech in the Last Story. With the voices set to Japanese, he talks in a Creepy Monotone. In English, he sounds like he's going even more insane.
  • This is culminated with a military official asking if he has anything else to say. He replies he has nothing more, at which point the soldier orders his men to prepare themselves. The video cuts off just prior to what is blatantly Gerald's execution.
    Gerald Robotnik: ...I plan to give you a taste of my revenge, once all the seven Chaos Emeralds are collected. Once I initiate this program, it cannot be disabled. All of you ungrateful humans who took everything away from me, will feel my loss, and despair!
    GUN Officer: Is there anything else you want to say?
    Gerald Robotnik: No...
    GUN Officer: Ready! (Tape rewinds to the beginning)
  • The image of Gerald Robotnik tied in chains, facing the camera and about to face an execution squad in the video that's sent out to the entire world creeped a lot of kids out back in the day. It was just something you never thought you would see in a Sonic game.
  • Gerald's diary isn't a basket of roses either, describing his descent into madness from his grief over losing Maria. First he seems confused and sad, then scared, a vicious, hateful growl, and finally when outlining his intentions for Shadow, he seems eerily calm, almost cheerful in his annunciations, as if giddy in his belief that his actions will lead to the end of the world.
    Prof. Gerald: Based on my original projections, I completed my project, Shadow... I designed its mind to be perfect, pure. I will leave everything to him! If you wish, release and awaken it... TO THE WORLD!
    Rouge: (finishes reading the entry) ...if you wish to fill the world with destruction.
• The trailer for the Last Story. Nothing but a cacophony of various characters reading the words on the screen relating to all the mysteries of the plot so far. Nearly indistinct except for the last line.
  Rouge: The end of everything...
  • And then after a quick recap of Shadow's past, with the Narrator revealing the existence of a last episode, it rewinds. All in three disorienting seconds to one last hopeful sentence turned sinister by the minimalist trailer. Given the destructive nature of Gerald Robotnik's last wish, it has every right to be so.
    Narrator: Wishes are eternal.
• The scene with Eggman's demonstration of the Eclipse Cannon was full of this. Arguably, the scariest part wasn't watching the laser pass close by the skyscrapers and blowing a large chunk out of the moon, but the timer counting down 24 hours seen at the end as Eggman laughs maniacally.
• The boos from Pumpkin Hill and other haunted stages have frightened some players of the game. They have creepy yellow eyes, sharp-toothed Slasher Smiles, and they will pop up unexpectedly at the character, in which the character screams while falling on the ground for a second before getting back up. (Unintentionally, it would seem as if the ghosts are looking directly at the player whenever they pop up.) The boos will pop up from walls, on the ground, various objects, and even in their smaller forms. Players have admitted they were so scared of the ghosts that they would either quit playing the game or have one of their friends or siblings play the haunted levels for them.
  • In the Aquatic Mine stage, there is a section called "The Ghost Room" which can be seen by looking at the "CAUTION" sign to your right at the starting point of the stage. The room is infested with boos jump scaring you every few seconds. There's a reason why the mine was abandoned for so long and why caution signs were placed. It also doesn't help that a Master Emerald piece is sometimes either seen or hidden in this area, which can give those who are quite very fearful of either ghosts or jump scares a very hard time to progress through the game itself.
  • From the Death Chamber stage (and the Hard Mode versions of other haunted levels, except for Rouge's one and only haunted level) are the Boom Boos, big ghosts with stitched-up mouths and black eyes that blink every few seconds. While it only takes three hits to kill them, with every hit reducing them in size, hitting them once will turn them into larger-scale versions of the yellow-eyed, sharp-toothed Boos as mentioned above, making them just as creepy as the jump scare Boos.
  • There's King Boom Boo, the ghosts' leader, who even scares Knuckles. Also, when it chases you during the boss battle, it tries to eat you and it's even more unsettling when it gets closer to the screen. The battle's music is also chilling with its "Psycho" Strings... and if you listen closely, right at the beginning, you can hear a voice whisper "Who's there?" Very unsettling.
• The Pumpkin Hill stage. Along with the ghosts, the area is surrounded by mountains with creepy pumpkin faces, skulls that blow out fire from their mouths, and there are ghosts trains that go around in circles and you can't destroy them, but you will take damage if you touch them.
  • Other than the stage, just looking beyond the horizon is unnerving alone. There's just nothing else to be seen but a black void below.
• Eggman's threats if you take too long on Crazy Gadget are surprisingly harsh, and he holds a gun to Amy's head in the cutscene following the level.
  Eggman: You're too slow! Sonic, if you don't come here, she will die!
• Sonic comes the closest to permadeath he's ever been when Eggman traps him in a self-destructing escape capsule. If you play the Dark Story first, there is no indication that he survived until Shadow's final boss battle.
  • Eggman's recap on the following boss fight is even worse. During the scene proper, his final words for the hedgehog convey solemn, begrudging respect. However, his recap shows that internally, he's reveling in every second of it all:
    Eggman: Hahahahahaha! I finally did it! I've defeated Sonic! That annoying hedgehog is now gone forever! He's nothing but floating chunks in space, now!
  • And before that, you have the aforementioned Dark Story cutscene where Eggman gets the drop on Amy while she's alone, taking her hostage while pointing a particularly large handgun at her head so he can use her as a bargaining chip for the last Emerald:
    Amy: (complaining and tapping her foot in annoyance) Darn... why do they always leave a sweet, innocent girl like me alone?
    Eggman: (appears behind her) Well, well, young lady. Is there something I can help you with?
    Amy: Doctor Eggman...?!
    Eggman: (angrily, as he points the gun at her head) If you value your life, you will tell me where Sonic and Tails are!
• Egg Quarters. Not because of the ghosts, but because of those floating Scarab Beetle robots. You never know where they are unless one of them is in the same room as you, and turning a corner to suddenly see one in your face can be quite scary- particularly since you can't destroy them, they produce a creepy beeping noise when they spot you, and if you don't get away from them ASAP, they'll summon four holograms of themselves that shoot unavoidable laser beams at you.
• Rouge, who's implicitly too tired to fly after her battle with Knuckles, slips on a support beam above a pit of molten metal and nearly falls to her death. Thankfully, Knuckles swoops down and saves her life in the nick of time.
• The Last Story's scenario where Sonic and Knuckles (and eventually Shadow) make their way over to the Eclipse Cannon's core to stop the ARK from colliding with Earth... the core itself has some sort of multi-tiered filter above a make-shift-Master-Emerald Shrine... and YOU SEE THE THING LITERALLY BEAT LIKE A HEART.
  • The heart-like core, along with the core of the ARK and the surrounding areas looking more like an ancient temple than a high-tech space-station, raises questions about the nature of the place. Is it Magitek, or perhaps even Organic Technology? Something about it just feels wrong; makes you wonder if Gerald was always "all there" or not.
  • The scene where the Biolizard emerges and suddenly roars at the camera can be a Jump Scare moment too.
  • Also on that end, the Biolizard (the Ultimate Life Form Prototype) appears out of nowhere to try and stop them, and there were entries in Gerald's records hinting that it was sealed within the core for being far too difficult to handle and/or dangerous for quite a long 50 years ever since Project Shadow's conception... it doesn't help that during the fight with it vs. Shadow, one of the water streams on the arena can wash the latter away into a bottomless pit if not jumped out of quickly enough.
  • The Biolizard itself is also the Eldritch Abomination of the game. It's a gross feral lizard whose own strength forces it to be in constant pain, so much that it has to have life support fused to its body. Despite being only an animal, it still feels hate as an instinct, will kill anything that invades the ARK core and is hellbent on crashing Space Colony ARK into the Earth at the cost of its own body. Its theme music is also full of screams and eerie tones akin to a haunted house. Oh yeah, and did we mention it's also on life support? Which also happens to be its weak spot in the first battle?
  • The sheer creepiness of Supporting Me is hard to overstate. The theme is full of rushing sounds, much like the dark matter that the Biolizard attacks with and the water that runs in the chamber. The entire theme sounds muffled and surreal, with distorted singing in the background that, which has lyrics about how the situation feels like an illusion and the singer will be "losing you". Perhaps Shadow knew that one way or another, he'd die soon.
    To the pressure,
    Everything's just like,
    An illusion,
    I'll be losing you
    Before long.
  • The second and true final battle with its next form, the Finalhazard; when it fuses itself with the ARK's Eclipse Cannon to literally drag it towards the Earth. If you happen to delay on that battle for long enough—specifically, three minutes or more—the Timed Mission nature of it becomes apparent; showing the screen starting to slowly turn red, and the Finalhazard starting to get bathed in the re-entry flames. Basically, the ARK at that time is getting very dangerously close to Earth.
  • After the four-minute mark, Sonic and Shadow become engulfed in re-entry flames, too...
• There's something creepy about the gigantic GUN Military Truck chasing you in City Escape. Up until then, Sonic was dealing with bog-standard combat 'bots; then out of nowhere comes this massive truck that plows through dozens upon dozens of civilian cars (and Big the Cat) with ease. It makes new players wonder: if this is what they're willing to deploy to capture a single fugitive, what kind of threat are you really up against, and what else will GUN do?
  • The truck also reappears in Sonic Generations, where it's learned some new tricks.
• If you take exceptionally good care of your Chao, they'll reincarnate—with a sudden and loud scare chord. Thus, the Chaos Chao is born, resembling a certain God of Destruction. This is downplayed, though, as Chaos Chao remain friendly (and are immortal).
• During Security Hall, Dr. Eggman will get progressively angrier at Rouge the longer she takes, to the point where his voice noticeably starts crackling from the sound of his yelling. By the time you get to around 1-2 minutes left on the timer, he starts angrily screaming nonstop at Rouge, which is rather harsh and comes completely out of nowhere. Notably, it's the only time in the game where Eggman is that terrifyingly enraged.
  Eggman: ROUGE! THAT'S NO GOOD! YOU'VE SPOILED MY PLANS!
• While they do clean up their act later, in their debut, G.U.N. acts downright vicious. The events of the game were set in motion by their massacre of the Space Colony ARK (and even though they were only after the research staff, their body count still includes one civilian, Maria Robotnik); fifty years later, after Shadow escapes Prison Island, G.U.N. relentlessly chases after Sonic (and soon after, his friends) with seemingly little regard for civilian casualties.

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