Nightmare Fuel / Sonic Frontiers

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"Since time immemorial, I have languished here. The locks are broken. Now I shall tear down the walls between dimensions and consume all."

—THE END

Sonic Frontiers is notable for breaking the series' decade-long streak of Denser and Wackier installments, and it shows. Between the post-apocalyptic setting (which we get to see the destructive backstory of), a surreal villain that caused the entire franchise, and segments chock-full of Mind Screw material, this is easily one of the Blue Blur's darkest outings yet.

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• When Eggman uploads Sage into the Cyber Space portal in the game's opening, it activates the island's technology, followed by some absolutely horrifying howls and screams that definitely do not sound like machinery. Later on, it's revealed that the Ancients had uploaded their memories into Cyber Space, and it was actively recording until the very end—when THE END wiped them all out. That horrific noise was the dying screams of an entire civilization.
• GIGANTO utterly trounces Sonic in their first encounter by throwing him through stone structures and into a cliffside, knocking him unconscious almost instantly. Compared to Infinite, who effectively jumped Sonic with an entire group, GIGANTO only needed a single hit to leave Sonic knocked out. This is the point where things start getting serious. Perfectly punctuated when Sonic comes to after this; the normally-fearless hedgehog bolts awake, briefly hyperventilating, and decides that he's not taking GIGANTO on again without the Chaos Emeralds... "and maybe a little bit of luck," in his words. In fact, after this, he doesn't even consider fighting WYVERN and KNIGHT directly in his first encounters with each of them, instead running away from them immediately when they attack him. Yes, Sonic the Hedgehog— a character well-known for and used to facing overwhelming odds and massive foes head-on without thinking twice and not just refusing to back down from them, but defeating them, often in his base form— comes in believing he'll repeat history with GIGANTO and is proven wrong so thoroughly, it's implied to have shaken his usual confident attitude, if only briefly, and convinced him to avoid fighting its ilk when unpowered for the rest of the game. That experience made him well aware that if he does so again, the odds are high that he won't come out of it alive that time. What a first impression...
• The various minibosses scattered around the islands just mill around in a docile fashion, but as soon as Sonic gets too close, the camera suddenly gets yanked over to the enemy to focus on them while their Battle Theme Music suddenly kicks in, Scare Chord style. If you're just running around freely, it can be quite a Jump Scare, especially if it's one of the bigger ones like the CATERPILLARS and SQUIDS.
• Normally when Super Sonic runs out of rings, he would lose his transformation and have a standard death animation, falling from the sky as the screen fades to black. Losing to GIGANTO results in a cut-scene where Sonic falls out of the sky, only for the massive titan to lunge forward and eat him.
• A special mention goes to the Action Commands during the battle with the Titans. While all of them lead to insanely awesome moments, failing them leads to moments that have Super Sonic be killed. GIGANTO can crush and devour the Super Hedgehog in its jaws, WYVERN crushes him in a ton of missiles before blowing him up into nothingness, and KNIGHT can outright slice/crush him with its sword.
• At one point, Sage decides to stop messing around and attempts to straight-up kill Sonic. Knuckles jumps in front of him at the last second and blocks her attack, but it's unnerving that Sage would attempt to murder him herself, as opposed to summoning the Titans to stop him.
• The Titans in general feel like the Sonic equivalent of the Eva Units from Neon Genesis Evangelion or the Titano-Machina from Little Tail Bronx. They're robots that come across like Noodle People in regards to their limbs, which are often spindly compared to their more bulky bodies. They are enormous, and Sonic can't do anything at all to them in his base form, as his first encounter with GIGANTO shows; he needs to use his Super Sonic form to stand a chance. And even then, they can all take a massive beating, while maneuvering through the world with physics-defying agility and grace. They all look incredibly haunting, with all of them sporting a seemingly Eyeless Face, only having either a blank mask or humongous teeth-filled maws, instead having eyes scattered on part of their bodies (the sides of GIGANTO's shoulders and the top of WYVERN's head). They feel less like Humongous Mecha and more like a Mechanical Abomination species.
  • For a deep-cut Company Cross-Reference, they are also eerily similar to the Virtuaroids from Virtual-ON. Their gigantic, heavy frames belie their true capabilities, and they're powered by the souls of those who piloted them once before.
• Throughout the game, Sonic becomes more and more corrupted by the cyber energy he's been absorbing. By the third island, dark red and black energy covers most of his body, and he begins to cough and splutter while barely being able to keep his balance. It's almost reminiscent of someone succumbing to a terminal illness. And when he does end up fully corrupted on the conclusion of Rhea Island, after struggling to resist it before finally succumbing, he's left standing in place, slumped over, a lifeless, blank stare on his face. While Tails notes his mind is trapped between reality and Cyber Space, Sonic is effectively comatose in this state. Compared to when Mephiles killed him (and unlike then, there's no Narm to make it easier to consume), the sheer lifelessness of Sonic's condition here is downright horrifying to see.
  • Doesn't help that the red and black energy makes Sonic look a little like Sonic.exe.
  • Right before he becomes unresponsive, you can hear Sonic clearly in agonizing pain, almost on the verge of screaming but retaining enough composure to stop himself. Admirable though it may be, it's still terrifying seeing him suffer like that and still trying his absolute damnedest to hold it together through the corruption. And the scene showing up in general is quite startling, as while a player may be caught up in unveiling the mysteries of Rhea Island, they're almost instantly greeted to the scene with a flat blood red background, as if a bad ending was triggered.
  • Idling or exploring for too long without progression triggers lines not normally heard in gameplay. What do you get for your curiosity? Sonic audibly fighting back the pain and distortion of his memories, remarking that his body is growing cold and numb, and potentially being brought to the brink of losing everything he can even recognize about himself. Most of the franchise depicts Sonic as an unwavering Determinator — managing to hear these is in and of itself a pool of horror for long-time fans seeing their hero degrading before their eyes.
  • In The Final Horizon, Amy, Knuckles and Tails each endure a form of the Cyber Corruption themselves, and although Knuckles is able to easily endure it and shrug it off, Amy and Tails are both shown to be clearly in pain once they reach the second Chaos Emerald of their runs. Despite this, they each make a resolve to not back down and just endure it as long as possible for Sonic's sake, but it's still hard to watch, especially when Amy actually sounds like she's in absolute pain from it all.
• This is the first Sonic game in a long time that outright averts Never Say "Die". Death is not only openly mentioned throughout the story, it's seen and felt. Nearly every single bit of the Starfall Islands, from the technology you come across, to the Koco, to even the Titans themselves, all of them are Soul Jars for the Ancients who created them. Flashbacks shown throughout the game openly depict the horrible deaths of countless members of the Ancients. Even Sonic's cyber-corruption is treated as serious as it looks, and him succumbing to it and being trapped between worlds is treated as equivalent to death.
• Starting with Rhea Island, a new enemy called the BALLOON appears, the first encounter with it being something of a Jump Scare as it envelops Sonic within itself and the oxygen meter appears. If you don't jump and stomp your way out in time, it digests Sonic entirely. Oh, and just for good measure, the Colors rendition of the drowning theme plays as you struggle to escape.
• Everything about THE END, the true antagonist of the game, is absolutely nightmarish. In its raw form, it's best described as a malevolent emptiness, a void; It simply isn't there, because it's everywhere. However, when freed from Cyber Space and the Titan SUPREME, it becomes able to assume its original shape: a gigantic, dark moon that drifts about the cosmos obliterating anything it comes across with a mind-bendingly powerful assault of Kill Sat beams from beyond the sky. One day, the heavens simply open up, and everything you love is annihilated. And the worst part is, it doesn't even need to expend that amount of effort. Its primary blast can simply carve a planet in half in a single sweep. If it even bothers with the effort to attack your civilization independently, letting you believe there may be a faint hope to survive if you just hold on, it's doing it for fun because it can end all that you know anytime it wants.
  • There's also a rather terrifying implication of just how powerful this thing really was during its prime: It was basically unbeatable despite fighting against four Titans, and needing to be sealed away inside of the Titan SUPREME instead. Each of those Titans individually were so powerful that Sonic needed to go Super Sonic just to level the playing field, and he still had a rough time, given those Titans were still capable of killing him. If THE END hadn't been weakened from being sealed for so long, and he had to fight it alone without the aid of Sage, Sonic very likely would have lost against it, no matter what he tried.
  • The fact that the damn thing even knows so much about Sonic and his adventures, and was able to meticulously plan out everything that happens makes it even scarier. Assuming this thing is still alive, it's likely got another trick up its sleeve to cause utter destruction to the universe as we speak.
  • The Echidna Tribes were wiped out by Chaos, but that game tried to be incredibly vague about how it happened, besides implied flooding. We get to see what THE END did to the Ancients' homeworld, and we also get to see the last moments of several of the Ancients before they were wiped out. But by keeping its true form a mystery, it makes it that much more visceral how terrifying it had to be for all of its victims, seemingly appearing without warning and destroying everything without discrimination.
  • THE END might flat-out be the darkest Sonic villain since Erazor Djinn or even Mephiles/Solaris, due to its attempted level of destruction and the fact that it seems to be mostly destroying planets, stars and the people on them for fun. In the monologue in Hard Mode, it even states that it's killed an incalculable amount of people, all without a single care for the lives lost. Even the likes of Infinite doesn't cause as much destruction as THE END does, and Infinite was also a very evil villain in his own right.
  • Note that THE END was able to peer into Sonic's memories and considers all of the other villains he's fought thus far to be beneath it. It even lists "gods" as part of that list. To compare:
    • In the early days, Eggman had been able to craft robots that forced Sonic to rely on the Emeralds. While he needed to use them due to his inexperience, and he would later be able to take on such super-weapons without the Emeralds, the fact that his creations could keep up with Super Sonic is no joke.
    • His greatest creation, Metal Sonic, attained a form that required all twelve characters of Sonic Heroes to work together, on top of Super Sonic and a boosted Tails and Knuckles.
    • Chaos quite literally carried the moniker of “God of Destruction”, capable of wiping out civilizations, destroying cities, and swatting aside Eggman’s armadas.
    • The Biolizard/Finalhazard was a creation fueled by a weapon that could eradicate half of the moon, and its descent onto the planet was meant to wipe out all life.
    • Black Doom was the head of a hive mind capable of overwhelming the earth with his forces, and his final form was comparable to Chaos and Metal Overlord.
    • Erazor Djinn’s Eldritch Abomination form, Alf Layla Wa Layla, and Merlina’s god-like transformation thanks to Arthur’s scabbard could both alter and change their realities and required alternate super forms to beat.
    • Dark Gaia goes out of his way to shatter the planet every time he gets out, and he could take on both his light counterpart and Super Sonic.
    • The Time Eater could erase all of time and even pull from deleted timelines like those of Crisis City and Stardust Speedway. It took two Sonics to beat.
    • The only being that THE END might have a challenge going up against is Solaris, who existed simultaneously in past, present, and future, and was consuming all of time and space— a being that took three whole Super 'Hogs to beat. But considering Solaris had to be wiped from existence entirely to be defeated, it says a lot when that’s the bar that might be too high for THE END, who can exist through incarnations and multiple forms, and who, in the end, could only be dented by Super Sonic charging into it (although the damage was enough to make it decide to blow itself up, likely due to being hurt for the first time in its existence). Additionally, Solaris was capable of devouring all of time and space. THE END was capable of destroying all of existence itself. As well as that, THE END takes the combined effort of Super Sonic (who was already stated to not be enough to defeat it) and the Titan SUPREME possessed by Sage, with even a single Titan being able to give Super Sonic (and, in worst case scenario, outright KILL him near-instantly) a hard time due to being powered by the Chaos Emeralds and their energy. While Super Sonic and the Sage-possessed SUPREME managed to "destroy it", THE END's moon form was only one of its many incarnations and forms.
    • Even then, the reason this one is so ambiguous is because of how Solaris had an original comprehensible form that it could even be erased by with its destruction (the Flame of Hope originally given to the Soleanna Royal Family). Whereas THE END, as stated by director Morio Kishimoto, while possessing a true form behind all the illusions it casts on peoples' perception, is still borderline incomprehensible outside of what people perceive it to be. Which also extends to the real world players who see the Purple Moon, while Sonic and Sage see something else entirely!
• In Hard Mode, during the final boss fight, THE END gives a terrifying SHODAN-esque monologue about its inevitability and power, and how it surpasses all threats known and faced by Sonic before.
  THE END: Mortal, you have served your purpose. Now face your End. I am the all-consuming void. What can one mote of golden light illuminate within the abyss? Countless stars. Countless worlds. Countless lives. All fell to me, all brought to nothing. All the teeming chaos of creation? Brought to order. To neutrality. To nothing. I saw your mind as you ran through my prison. You have fought machines and gods. They were mighty. They were finite. I am infinite. I am nothing. You struggle as so many have done before. You will be consumed like all those before you. I saw your mind. Your courage never wavered. Why? Arrogance? Ignorance? Stupidity? I was contained once. Once. Is that why? My captors bent time and space. My captors built a whole reality to contain me. My captors burnt their souls away to fuel their engines. And you? You glitter; you fly above me like a gnat. I am inevitable, I cannot be denied. You strike this incarnation with all your might. It changes nothing. You are not brave; you are not victorious. No matter what form I take...THE END comes for you all!
  • For an extra bit of creepiness, if THE END is in the middle of its dialogue if the player dies, it continues talking anyways.
  • When it does its wall of lasers attack, all of the lasers emit from two energy balls that almost make it resemble a pair of eyes, almost as though this is the closest thing to a face this monstrosity could have.
• The sheer Oh, Crap! nature of Sage having to perform a Heroic Sacrifice, compared to someone like Chip's more dignified final sacrifice. THE END is so destructively refusing to fall that it's about to pull a Taking You with Me, and before Sonic even has time to process what he must do, Sage had to dive into it and die so that the entire world wasn't consumed with destruction again. It happens so fast that it borders on an Undignified Death for her. Add to that that THE END is immortal, and all she essentially did was prolong the inevitable.
• To top it all off, we never even learn anything about THE END's origins despite all it's done. Where did it come from? Who made it? What made it? Was it even made by anyone at all? And are there more like it out there? We may never know. THE END is the franchise's Greater-Scope Villain—the one responsible for the entire story—and we don't even know where the hell it came from!
• But nothing tops the Definitive Final Boss of the game: after Super Sonic defeats SUPREME in The Final Horizon DLC, THE END decides to possess the Titan, linking itself with it and transforming it into an nightmarish mechanical abomination that can launch attacks that even Super Sonic can't parry! Only after the hedgehog manages to completely dominate the Cyber Corruption can he actually fight the SUPREME/THE END hybrid.
  • Worse: Every successful orb attack from SUPREME/THE END reduces Sonic's maximum ring cap by thirty. If this happens to place his max above his current ring count, he will lose rings equal to the deficit. This can pose a massive problem considering the "one ring lost per second" rule still applies- taking a lot of hits in rapid succession can lead to Sonic running out extremely quickly- ESPECIALLY if you haven't been increasing Sonic's maximum rings stat.
  • Occasionally, SUPREME/THE END will do a series of swipes at Super Sonic. Mistime a parry, and he's knocked far back... only for SUPREME/THE END to unexpectedly scuttle at the screen like a roach and grab him. Which only adds to the wrongness of the thing.
  • Usually the Cyloop specials tend to hold bosses in place for a beatdown, and then the extra loop takes it right back down to the earth below. SUPREME/THE END can manage to hold this off just barely, contained between two swirling vortexes of energy. Super Sonic 2's solution for finalizing the Cyloop special is a Badass Fingersnap — followed by crunching his foe between both energies like a body in a hydraulic press. Cue the gigantic titan gushing purple blood everywhere combined with a Sickening "Crunch!" of its limbs thrashing and horrifically bent in a gory moment more akin to Sonic bursting out Dark Gaia's eye. And it gets back up from this.
  • In the final phase, SUPREME/THE END launchs an attack that depowers Super Sonic 2 and takes nearly all his rings—even after Sonic regains Super Sonic 2, he has only 100 Rings to face the last round! And that's only if you have enough rings: If you don't have enough by the time the cutscene starts, it's an instant kill on the poor hedgehog.
  • During the course of the final blow, Sonic goes all-out and become Cyber Super Sonic, and we see him jerkily thrash around in a creepily robotic way, literally glitching out as he tries to focus his immense power. And if that weren't bad enough, during his final charge to destroy THE END there's the briefest glimpse of Sonic's teeth bared into fangs with silver-and-black bullseye-like irises, bearing a very strong resemblance to the demonic Fleetway Super Sonic, altogether demonstrating what happens when Sonic isn't just angry, but well and truly enraged in a way that makes the Werehog's brutality look quaint. Thankfully for everyone, Sonic still retained his heroic personality to only obliterate the Big Bad.
  • Once Super Sonic has pierced through THE END and it explodes in the background, we get a lingering shot of him floating in space — unconscious. He didn't simply take damage, he didn't just strain himself, and he wasn't pulled out of the form either. For the first time in the franchise, by pulling on power far beyond what he was ready for and was clearly not supposed to be pushed so far, Super Sonic was knocked clean out and looks near-dead from the result.
• Throughout "The Final Horizon", as Amy, Tails and Knuckles are collecting the Chaos Emeralds, they slowly begin suffering from cyber corruption as well and it's clear that all three of them are in complete agony as they try to fight it off, with Knuckles even outright collapsing at one point.