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Nightmare Fuel / Star Fox

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We will answer. We are the ultimate existence. You cannot resist us. You will join us.

You couldn't expect a game franchise about anthropomorphic animals piloting spaceships to be a possible source of Nightmare Fuel... until you remember it's made by Nintendo.

Then you manage to understand the reason behind such Mood Whiplash, Surprisingly Creepy Moments, and Surprisingly Dark Villains. Because, well, it's Nintendo after all.

Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.


  • In Star Fox 64, Pigma loves to bring up his betrayal of James, and in the worst way possible.
    Pigma: Daddy screamed REEEEAAAAAL good before he DIED!
  • When you blow up Andross' face in Star Fox 64, it turns into one of two things: a robot head (on easy route) or his true form: a giant brain with tentacles and floating eyeballs (on hard route). Both are terrifying in their own respective ways.
    Andross: Only I have the brains to rule Lylat!
    • This should not in any way suggest that his first form - a giant, disembodied monkey head with floating robotic hands - is not damn unsettling in its own right. Because it is.
    • A Huge Holographic Head floating in space is pretty much routine in Star Fox, but the one in the very first game may rank as the creepiest due to the untextured polygons and basic early 90s geometry, not helped by the core of it bearing the unnerving image of Andross with Prophet Eyes. In addition, when taking the hardest path to this fight it will blow up and then reassemble into a face that looks either like a devil, a bull, or even Bowser for a bonus battle. As scary as Andross is to look at in 64, his original incarnation may just make that redesign look Lighter and Softer in comparison!
    • Star Fox 2 has Andross using a rather unsettling looking twin-colored mask in the battle against him, which you break apart by shooting the eyes (as it retaliates by firing what looks like beams of lava at you, and it likes to fake you out by seemingly ramming into you, only to teleport away). On the higher difficulties, the head and hands combo makes its debut in the series proper, with Andross eventually attacking you by shooting his actual eyes out.
    • After you kill Andross's brain, the entire lair starts to collapse, and Andross, in the most menacing tone, declares "If I go down, I'm Taking You with Me!" Andross EXPLODES afterwards, the screen fades to white, Fox screams, and for several seconds there's...nothing. Not even music. Several seconds of complete inactivity, long enough to make the player wonder "oh no, did Fox survive?" Thankfully the silence is broken by James's intervention soon enough.
    • The Escape Sequence. Explosions line the tunnels and you have to follow James out for a safe escape. Doubles as a Moment of Awesome, but the trouble is, he will boost periodically, forcing you to do the same lest you lose track of him, and if you take a wrong turn, you'll fly into a cloud of explosions and die instantly. With Fox's horrifying scream, for good measure.
  • Also in 64, whenever Fox is killed, one of his teammates either cries out his name or a Big "NO!", unless all of his wingmates are down, or he dies in the final Venom stage, where all you hear is Fox's screaming. He's truly alone...
  • The RedEyes in Star Fox Adventures. Words cannot describe the brix that were shat by the players when they stepped out of the Arwing for the first time and saw freaking enormous T-Rexes roaming everywhere! And for half the level you can't even kill them! And don't even mention the RedEye King.
  • Also in Adventures, Dragon Rock. The music and visuals alone are very unsettling, and then there's the imprisonment of dinosaurs, the enemies within, and the boss Drakor. Moon Mountain Pass is also really unsettling, with it being a meteor that crashed into Dinosaur Planet and was the origin of the SharpClaw tribe, having a bizarre alien-looking landscape, green fire, and creepy as heck music and enemies.
  • Out Of This Dimension from the original. Mind Screw doesn't even begin to cover this... The intro to that level is Pepper trying and failing to reach Fox and co. as if they just disappeared. And then at the end of the level, the words THE END pop up in front of Fox, who's just stuck there. Until the player dies. You literally get trapped in another dimension with no way out and Corneria is doomed. This level may very well be a Downer Ending or a Nonstandard Game Over.
    • A popular fan theory for Out of This Dimension is that when Fox flies into the secret space bird that brings him out of the Lylat System and into the level, what actually happens instead is that the canopy of Fox's arwing gets smashed from colliding with the bird and his oxygen supply begins to leak out quickly. This causes Fox to hallucinate from brain damage and drift aimlessly into space until he eventually dies.
    • Many contemporary cheat/code guides tell players how to enter OotD. What most of them don't tell you is that you get locked into this stage with no way out. So a kid who reads these guides does all the steps to enter the level, thinking it'll be some sort of cool Bonus Level they can enjoy before returning to the main game (similar to the Black Hole), but instead, they're greeted with an eternity of flying through a weird dimension with cartoon moons and a slot machine, having mistakenly abandoned their mission of liberating Corneia.
  • The horrible grin of the "laughing meteor" from the SNES original — the thought of a giant, evil looking grinning 'thing floating in space is extremely unnerving for some. Doubly unnerving about them is that in Level 3's Asteroid Belt, they actively home in on your ship.
  • Speaking of Star Fox 2, that game might very well be the darkest one in the franchise. After his first defeat, Andross has completely snapped, wanting nothing more than to destroy Corneria instead of conquering it. And if you aren't quick enough with the objectives, he will. You're treated to the sight of Andross's forces bombarding the capital city as a female voice desperately tries to call Star Fox for help, only to be cut off mid-cry as the city explodes. And instead of the standard game over screen, you're greeted with grim music and the words, "Coneria Fell." Andross is victorious, and everyone's dead.
  • The Aparoids. They are able to possess not only machines, but organic life forms as well. They start out pretty tame: they're brightly colored and have a few funny-looking forms. Then in the later levels we see them assimilating everything. More and more they resemble techno-organic hybrids that just seem disturbing. Then there's what happens to Pigma... sure, nobody is going to miss him, but holy crap, that is not a pleasant fate. There's a reason a picture of Aparoid Pigma is the page image. And what he becomes has the following exchange in a deep, almost demonic voice:
    Aparoid Pigma: Do not resist. You have been warned.
    Fox: Looks like Pigma's already gone... who or what are you?!
    Aparoid Pigma: We will answer. We are the ultimate existence. You cannot resist us. You will join us.
    • Then there's the Aparoid Queen. She speaks in the voices of the deceased or assimilated... including James McCloud. The psychological horror she's inflicting on the heroes by this is evident in their reactions. And the things she says in her true voice?
      Aparoid Queen: All for us. Everything in the universe exists for us! Bow before us! Submit to us!
    • Seeing Corneria City almost entirely ruined is either this or depressing as heck.
    • What's more is that you have to gun down infected Cornerian troopers patrolling the streets. A prelude to what happens at the end of the mission...
    • Speaking of the mission's end... General Pepper's flagship gets overtaken, forming the boss of the stage. Most of his dialogue is him either begging Fox to kill him before the Aparoids fully convert him into one, or apologizing for attacking, fully aware of what's going on but powerless to stop.
      Pepper: Is that you, Fox? Too late... the Aparoids.. [...] They.. took me. My body's no longer under my control. [...] This is my final request. Destroy this ship! Destroy me!
      Pepper: I'm sorry... I'm powerless... shoot! Shoot me!
      Pepper: No reason to wait... I'm already an Aparoid...
      Pepper: Let me die in battle! Do not let me transform! Honor! Let me keep my honor, Fox!
  • Aquas from 64. The level quickly gets very dark (you can use your unlimited torpedoes to brighten things up slightly, but it doesn't always help), with endless quantities of hostile sea life appearing out to the gloom to attack you. Even the boss of the level, an enormous clam called Bacoon, manages to be pretty scary when you first approach it and can't quite make out whether or not it's actually an enormous mouth. That's even without the depressing/horrific backstory of the planet mentioned in the official strategy guide: Bacoon, the boss of this level, who existed long before Andross was even born, commanded thousands of the starfish enemies to the planet's polar caps and had them explode, instantly melting the polar caps and flooding the entire planet, killing all non-aquatic life.
  • As seen on the main page for the original game, the Star Fox team is depicted looking like realistic animals in artwork. Needless to say, they do look kinda freaky. Thank goodness Nintendo stuck with the more cartoony look in-game afterwards. In particular, Fox looks like he's going to maul you in this picture.
  • How can we forget about Vulcain? This... thing has 3... things in its face. Are those goatees? Mandibles? Let's not forget it bleeds when you destroy an arm (it's technically lava, but still). Speaking of which, it still goes on without them, and uses lava blood to attack you. The monster's death isn't too pretty, either - Its head pops off, with that same lava blood spurt, and then it explodes on top of that. Have fun sleeping tonight. Even Falco and Peppy are pretty unnerved by it, if their quotes are any indication.
    Peppy: This is the enemy's bioweapon?!
    Falco: Andross is an insane fool!
    • Hell, just the mere implication that Andross' knowledge in genetic engineering is so finetuned that he's capable of not only designing life capable of directly inhabiting stars, but also create a super-predator with the same adaptations is horrific in of itself.
  • There's something intimidating and a bit depressing about the Sector X boss, Spyborg, in 64. It's an unfinished robot that's gone haywire and managed to destroy the entire base holding it. Earlier in the level at certain points you'll come across its arms flying through and you're wondering "What the heck was that?!" Then you reach the boss and you find it staring at you with those blank...soulless eyes...
    Spyborg Destroy. Destroy. I will terminate all enemies.
    Spyborg: You are an enemy.
    Spyborg: (After its mid-fight fake-out) The view is clear. Destroy. Destroy.
    Spyborg: (At low shield) Where is the enemy?! (spins around wildly, arms outstretched)
    Spyborg: (As it dies) I must be complete...
    • Falco's freaked-out commentary certainly helps set the tone.
      (upon reaching the base, only to find it a space wreck)
      Falco: Somebody beat us here. It's all gone!
      (while flying through the route with the warp gates)
      Falco: Something's not right here. Who took this base out?
  • Leon Powalski himself. As noted, he is the most formal Star Wolf member, but the most sadistic too. He likes to torture his victims. In Star Fox: Assault, he is the assassin of the team. He is actually the most feared member of Star Wolf.
    Leon: I think I'll torture you for a while!
  • The music for the Black Hole in the original. Even scarier, Pepper refers to the Black Hole as a "space graveyard" created by Andross's experiments, and this is also the place where Fox's father had vanished...
  • The Warp Zones in 64 are pretty damn freaky. They're psychedelic and weird and have all kinds of strange shapes floating through them...and if you crash your ship into any of them enough times, you die.
  • A small one occurs in Area 6 and the lower Venom path with the calls you can answer. You answer, expecting it to be ROB 64 sending you supplies or lending you the Great Fox's firepower, but instead it's Andross, who then taunts you as you continue your mission. His text box is red instead of blue too (even Star Wolf gets blue text boxes!), just to make his dialogue more menacing.
    Andross: Ah, the son of James McCloud! Those tin cans are no match for me! I'm looking forward to this...
  • If your shields are low, after he claims your "tin can of a ship" can't beat him, he says this.
    Andross: Ha ha ha! You can never defeat me! I'll make those fools pay!
  • The Game Over theme in 64. It truly gives you that sense of feeling that you have indeed failed...
  • In the original game's space levels, you can sometimes see a pilot that has apparently ejected from or somehow survived his ship's destruction. He doesn't appear to be wearing any kind of space suit, so all that remains for him is to slowly suffocate and freeze to death in space. Unless you ram him with your Arwing that is.

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