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Nightmare Fuel / Street Fighter

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Under Bison's rule, the world was wrapped in the darkness of one man's evil.

While not nearly as violent or horrifying compared to Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter is no slouch in the Nightmare Fuel department either.

The following entries have their own page:

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    The Games 

General

  • M. Bison. The man is, without question, one of the most terrifying characters in the entire series. He's a literal nightmare in every sense of the description. He's not just a tyrannical dictator hell-bent on world conquest; he's evil incarnate. He willingly purged himself of any and all good qualities for a power that turned him into a Physical God and is fueled by every negative emotion under the sun. Sorrow, hatred, despair...you name it, he gets stronger from it. As Long as There Is Evil, so too shall there be Bison, and the Shadaloo crime syndicate is his engine. The horrible atrocities he commits are nothing more than a means to strengthen, sustain, and entertain himself. The only thing that can stop him is if his body is either destroyed by someone else or by his own power exceeding its limits, at which point he just hops into another body. And if story details of V are to be believed, despite his current body being the last known existing one and having all avenues of getting a new body destroyed, he may not actually need one anymore, since he's now a ghost that may be able to live without a corporeal form.
    "Anyone who opposes me will be destroyed!"
  • All of the Shadaloo fighters have some frightening aspects, but Vega is easily the worst of the lot, seeming more like a slasher villain then a martial artist. Setting aside his mask and vicious claw, the man is a completely ruthless Ax-Crazy killer who can go from calm, refined (though condescending) conversation to screaming, raging bloodlust over even the slightest contact to his face. Worse, when he's not fighting in tournaments or carrying out Bison's orders, Vega passes his time with serial murder; stalking and killing innocent people whom he deems ugly with no Supernatural Martial Arts to protect themselves with. Eventually, he becomes unhinged to the point that he openly fantasizes about mutilating his female opponents and even expresses a desire to bathe in Chun-Li's blood, ala Elizabeth Báthory.
  • Akuma's Shun Goku Satsu. The screen turns black, you see a flurry of Hit Flashes, and, if the attack finishes off the target, you hear a distinct scream, the kanji for "Heaven" appears in the background (now the kanji for "God" as of V), Akuma stands with his back turned to the camera, and his opponent just lays there. To top it off, most games will NOT call out "K.O." when this happens; the implication is that the victim isn't just knocked out, they're dead. Then there's the lore behind the technique: all users of the Shun Goku Satsu allow the Satsui no Hado to flow freely throughout their body as they channel it into a myriad of deadly strikes that occur in an instant. Already scary enough for the target who will likely leave the mortal world for good in a few seconds, but also consider that the user can kill themselves with this technique, or be driven completely insane by the murderous energy they are harnessing and cease being human. It's a good thing that Gameplay and Story Segregation ensures that in in-game matches, the worst that can happen to the user is that they leave themselves open for a typical counterattack. V finally gives a glimpse of exactly what the move entails: teleporting at the speed of light while brutally striking the opponent's vital organs and rending their body with the Satsui no Hado.
  • Some aspects of Dhalsim can be nightmarish. For one, the fact that he wears the skulls of children as part of a necklace. His official bio says that he does this out of remembrance for the children in his village who died in a plague, but you're not going to know that at first glance. To newcomers, he'll probably appear less "Martial Pacifist who fights to save his village" and more like "Jungle tribe cannibal with freaky powers who eats children for breakfast". Second, the fact that a martial artist who looks emaciated is fighting among muscled and physically healthy opponents. If it weren't for his Supernatural Martial Arts and Reed Richards-esque stretching power, he's gonna get pummeled very quickly. Third, his establishment as the series' Nice Guy can make his "I will meditate, and then destroy you" victory quote from the original SFII extremely jarring.

Street Fighter I

  • While not as well-known as its successor below, its defeated portraits were nothing to sneeze at, either. A prime example would be poor Joe, who apparently had one eye completely gouged out.
  • When it isn't unintentionally hilarious, the heavily digitized voice acting can be somewhat creepy, especially the Evil Laugh at the end of the quote that plays when you lose to any of the opponents.
    • Geki's distorted, echoing cackle — which he does as part of his regular win pose — is particularly creepy. He sounds less like a ninja and more like a demon.
  • For some odd reason, whenever you lose against an opponent, the game sticks a BOMB at the player ala the original Final Fight. Geez, that seems a bit extreme, don't you think? Like, are we fighting in a tournament or a death match!?

Street Fighter II

  • The defeated portraits in both the original SFII and its sequel versions show the characters suffering injuries ranging from bumps and bruises to bleeding wounds, along with expressions of pain on their faces. A notable example is Blanka in the CPS1 games, as two of his portraits made it appear as if his eyes were falling out of his head.
    • While the Super Nintendo and PC Engine ports use the calmer and more basic portrait, the Sega Genesis port actually uses Blanka's more expressive portrait for some reason. If that weren't enough, just like the arcade version, the Genesis port actually fully animates the original 8 characters' portraits for the continue screen.
    • Guile's portrait suffers from a bloody, broken nose, is clutching onto his chest as if he's going to have a heart attack, and is breathing as if he's gasping for air.
    • In Super Street Fighter II, take a good look at Zangief's defeated portrait. His left eye (or right, depending on which side Zangief on) looks like it's about to pop out. To add to this, the socket's bloody as well. Ouch.
    • While Bison's portrait in the CPS1 games was already disturbing, his defeated SSFII portrait is among the freakiest things ever, with fucking Tears of Blood and a blue flame background.
      • The portraits in the SNES version of Super Street Fighter II were censored, similar to the first Mortal Kombat. All of the animations removed as well (an exception of the blue fire behind Bison). The Sega Genesis keeps all of this.
  • M. Bison's ending in the original Super Street Fighter II is rather infamous for terrifying kids back in the day. The ending image depicts Bison's visage gleefully overlooking a burning city, wreathed in blue flames. The burning city isn't the thing that gets your attention though. It's Bison himself, who looks like a fucking demon straight out of Hell, with Red Eyes, Take Warning and the very first instance of his signature Slasher Smile within the games. Then, as the image pans down to reveal said burning city, he opens his mouth wide as though he's engaging in Laughing Mad.
  • Akuma's first reveal in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, where he suddenly sneaks up on Bison and kills him before challenging you to a fight. It's well known for being a completely unexpected "Holy shit!" moment. But when you think about it, knowing Akuma's motives in hindsight, he may have been keeping tabs on you the entire time, hiding in the dark unnoticed until the boss battle, where he decides to judge you worthy of a duel to the death. And if you fail to defeat him... well, you might as well sign your own will.
    • In the Japanese version of the game, Gouki can be seen holding Vega/Dictator by the hair as he says his trademark line.
    Gouki: "I am the Master of the Fist. You shall learn how weak you are!"
    • The perfect example of seeing what kind of person Akuma is, is beating the game with him yourself. After the match, he'll pick up either the Dictator (or himself if you got the Akuma fight conditions too), and proceed to Shoryuken them wordlessly as the game then cuts to the credits of seeing every fighter's beat up face from your playthrough. Without a single line of dialogue, it infers he'll mercilessly kill anyone in his path, never mind himself if he had to fight such an occasion.

Street Fighter Alpha I-III

  • One of the bad endings for Street Fighter Alpha 3 has the face of a statue in the background of the Thailand stage opening up to reveal a Shadaloo superweapon. Quite a creepy surprise.
    • If you lose to M. Bison in Alpha 3's arcade version, you can't continue. You're forced to watch as he stuffs your beaten character into a machine to power his Psycho Drive, which kills them in the process. He then proceeds to take over the world, destroying cities with the weapon. The music for the fight with him, titled "Brave or Grave," really sets the mood.
    • Matter of fact, some of Bison's endings show how horrific The Bad Guy Wins can be. In Street Fighter II and its revisions, without anyone left to face him, he goes on to conquer the world. Pretty standard-fare for a villain, but since Super gave the bosses illustrated endings, we could see in effect what Bison's brand of world takeover amounts to: he destroys entire cities with his power alone. Then, in Street Fighter Alpha 2, he kidnaps Ryu and subjects him to experiments entailing mental torture. And Street Fighter Alpha 3 doesn't need introductions: it's the same as the other characters' Bad Ending, except you fight Ryu in the final stage, and Bison uses him to power the Psycho Drive and destroy entire cities.
    • Birdie's ending, where he decides NOT to kill M. Bison and try to use the Psycho Drive to gain M. Bison's power. Birdie ends up getting trapped in the Psycho Drive as it slowly drains his strength, and he can't do any thing but scream for help and beg for someone to stop the machine. Fortunately, he ends up rescued by Chun-Li and Charlie Just in Time, but still.
  • The story of Bison's elite assassination squad, the Dolls, is a fucking nightmare. Twelve teenage girls kidnapped by Shadaloo agents from around the world (one of them from T. Hawk's tribe), with their families and relatives never knowing what happened to them, and subjected to heavy brainwashing and experimentation in order to turn them into the perfect killing machines. They have no personalities whatsoever, save for complete devotion and loyalty to Bison. They're even mindlinked to Bison so that if he dies, they'll die, too. And despite their high success rate, when they manage to locate and capture Ryu for Bison, he rewards them not with promotions or vacations and all that jazz, but by commanding them to die, which prompts all of them to betray their master. But when they're finally freed from Bison's control, they don't even get to enjoy their newfound freedom because their brainwashing goes so deep that they literally can't function without Bison, which crosses into Tear Jerker territory. And it's widely believed by the fandom that Bison might have been doing a lot more than just brainwashing those poor girls...

    Anime and Manga 

Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation

  • The OVA's Big Bad Sadler kidnapping and using the young Shun to power the cyborg Rosanov and then siccing him upon Ken and Ryu so they can be provoked into unleashing the Satsui no Hado, knowing that Shun will get severely hurt during the fight.
  • Vega has a cameo appearance where he slashes, stabs, and impales Dan so badly it's a mystery as to how he survived.
  • Shun in general is walking Nightmare Fuel when more of his true colors are revealed.
    • Him brutally beating down thugs that were picking on him and Ryu, it's not really that pleasant to watch even if it's a little boy beating up a group of adults.
    • Activating the Satsui no Hadou during the arena match against Zangief, complete with a demonic scream mixed with a child's voice.
    • When Ryu finds him Sadler's lab, he responds to him calling his name by turning around and attempting to fire a hadouken with a dead-look on his face, and then began screaming and thrashing about while Ryu just watches in horror.
    • When he is fused with the cyborg Rosanov, inside his abdomen and poking his head and hands out with a Slasher Smile on his face and talking in a monotone almost the entire time.

Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind

  • Imagine rejecting an interview from a pretty woman due to being busy. That's nothing outta the blue, right? Well, then imagine that said pretty woman is actually a Manipulative Bitch (with a Hidden Heart of Gold and her own agenda, but you won't learn that for a long time) who then goes after your pregnant spouse, gives her an apparently innocent doll (which is rigged), and later kidnaps said spouse to manipulate you and your best friend, who also is dealing with a powerful Enemy Within of sorts and you cannot do a lot to help him. And also said woman ends up torturing another friend of yours and provoking your best friend into a Roaring Rampage of Revenge caused by said Enemy Within, which only another of your friends can stop though at great risk to herself. The Ties that Bind proves to be quite the nightmare on the already stressed out Ken Masters; now, try putting yourself in his shoes, and you'll see how it's sheer HELL and massively fucked up.

Super Street Fighter IV: Juri OVA

  • We get to see firsthand how dangerous, sadistic and unhinged Juri is. Her first mission is to take out former SIN personnel, but she takes it too far and gleefully massacres hundreds of innocent people as well, with a young child being the only survivor. There's also her beatdowns of the Dolls as well as Guile and Cammy, and the fact that she used Juni as a human shield when Cammy tries to attack her.

    The Film 
  • Bison's conditioning of Charlie into a monster is done by transforming his body and bombarding him mentally with real-life images of war, pain, and death. No one under his employ except Dhalsim cares, and Bison's plan was to make entire armies of soldiers just like him to conquer the world. Guile's first reaction on seeing him is to try a Mercy Kill. It became heartwarming when Dhalsim replace the mental imagery with calming ones, such as kids playing, love, and marriage, saving the good inside Charlie.
  • The film's famous But for Me, It Was Tuesday line named a trope, but in-context it's terrifying. Chun-Li explains how Bison and his minions were stopped from destroying her village by Chun-Li's father. As Bison was forced into retreat, he had Chun-Li's dad shot by a sharpshooter, purely out of spite. She's wanted revenge/justice ever since, and it's clearly driven her life. Bison then genuinely apologizes and bluntly informs her that he can't remember the incident at all. It drives home how senseless Bison and his plans really are; he's done so much evil that it's all blurred together.

    Comics 
  • The UDON comic book has a cameo of Dr. Wily under Bison's employ, studying a captive T. Hawk.
  • Decapre's unmasked face is heavily scarred on one side, and she suffers from Clone Degeneration.
  • The final step in Bison's mental conditioning of the Dolls? Send them home to kill their grieving families.
  • Vega in the UDON series. We already know he's a vain narcissist who kills people for being ugly, but it's how easy it is to set him off that's disturbing. When tracking Ken to his Japanese hotel, he murders everyone he meets in the hall and corners Ken's fiance in their room. When he's momentarily distracted by Ken's arrival he gets a slap in the face from Eliza and immediately snaps and attempts to run her through for touching his face. He also murders his own butler simply because his butler tried to make him feel better about the scar left from crashing through the window, saying that it's hardly noticeable.
    • Later he attacks Ken and Eliza at their wedding, toying with Ken as the slashes he inflicts make him woozy from blood loss before going in for the kill. If not for Guile's intervention, he'd have killed Ken, and Vega still puts up a decent fight against Guile before retreating.
    • In the Ultimate series, Vega successfully captures Chun-Li and forces her to dress up in something more suiting to his tastes, along with electrical handcuffs to keep her compliant. He's shown to kill people for fun at parties, and the courtiers are perfectly fine with it, cheerfully apologizing to Guile for not being able to clean all the blood in time. Vega then sics 12 Doll-like copies of himself on Chun-Li's rescue party and cheerfully bids them farewell, never losing composure the entire time.
  • We all know the effects the Satsui no Hado has on Ryu... now imagine that happening to Sakura. Oh wait, we don't have to.
  • In The Life and Death(s) of Charlie Nash, a suspected Shadaloo agent blows himself up to escape capture by Nash, and a panel later we're treated to the very lovely sight of his charred corpse while Nash and his allies try to keep the agent's very young daughter from looking at her father's body.
  • In the SFIV OVA The Ties That Bind, we only get mentions of the fates of the victims who were subjected to the BLECE project. UDON's comic adaptation, however, shows what happened full-stop. At least one victim developed Body Horror.
  • The death of Dan's father Go Hibiki at the hands of Sagat in Street Fighter Legends: Chun-Li. First mentioned in Street Fighter Alpha II, UDON's interpretation shows what happened in its full graphical detail, with every panel detailing everything from Sagat's loss of his eye, to the brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown Sagat dishes out in retaliation.

    The Animated Series 
  • "Getting to Guile" had Bison captured and brainwash Guile into attacking the heroes by giving him surreal nightmares.
  • In "Cammy and the Bachelor," Bison awakens Cammy as his sleeper agent with a deadly glare, completely turning the tide of battle in his favor.

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