Yes, even Super Mario Sunshine contains examples of Nightmare Fuel. Vacations exist to help one escape their stressful main lives, but if Bowser and Bowser Junior terrorising Mario's vacation spot wasn't enough, he also now meets some terrible tropical terrors.
- Phantamanta. It's a large, paper-thin orange shadow in the shape of a manta. Wherever it goes, it leaves a trail of goop and emits a really creepy shriek when you try to spray it. The worst part is that it's an Asteroids Monster and divides into smaller and faster shadows as it is destroyed. When you've finally destroyed half of the original manta, the remaining 64 mantas stop fooling around and all converge on your position at once with incredible speed at a time when you're probably almost out of health. You may think that going in the lake would protect you from it, but it just hovers over any water, so nowhere is safe.
- What makes it worse is that it's referencing a passage from The Shining.
- Phantamanta has a remixed version of the Goopy Piranha Plant/Plungelo battle theme
that is pretty unnerving.
- While King Boo was already frightening in Luigi's Mansion, this game has him look just as bad, if not worse, for the same reasons as the other Boos.
- Sirena Beach in general, and Hotel Delfino in particular. Even setting aside Phantamanta and King Boo, this twilit locale is the closest thing Super Mario Sunshine has to Big Boo's Haunt. What makes it especially eerie is the juxtaposition of the ethereal enemies against the backdrop of Sirena Beach's laid-back, serene atmosphere.
- The game features a stage in Noki Bay where you have to go underwater (thus, making it a Timed Mission), and clean the teeth of a giant eel; complete with poisonous bubbles and a whirlpool that threatens to suck you in. Doesn't help that the eel lunges up out of its cave at you and you have to get close to its mouth to clean its teeth. It's huge and you have to fight it in a dark, underwater trench, it attacks by trying to eat you, and you have to get close to its open mouth to attacknote , especially bad if you're not good with water.
- Even worse is that looking at it in a model viewer reveals that it's hollow with a highly detailed esophagus and stomach area◊. It's unviewable in normal gameplay but it's still unnerving that they made those.
- Even worse is that looking at it in a model viewer reveals that it's hollow with a highly detailed esophagus and stomach area
- The game uses bitmap images for generating goop on maps. The bitmap for an older version of Bianco Hill's goop shows what looks like "Kug" (a Dummied Out enemy), a Piranha Plant, and... a Nightmare Face with what looks like hexagonal teeth, big eyes, and a weird-looking wisp-hand sticking out. See it for yourself: here,
- Hacking will grant access to test rooms... one of which contains a Pianta, a soccer ball, and a huge yellow abomination (called "HinoKuri," meaning "Fire Chestnut", and nicknamed "Tramplin' Stu" by English-speaking fans) with long legs, big feet, torso and head that look like P-body from Portal 2, and no arms, not to mention its walking animation and the fact that it was originally supposed to wander around Delfino Plaza.
- It gets worse: There's another version of this unused enemy that has a giant creepy-looking skull over its head. You find it in Delfino Airstrip, the first location in the game.
- It gets worse: There's another version of this unused enemy that has a giant creepy-looking skull over its head. You find it in Delfino Airstrip
- The bees. Unlike the bees in most of the other Mario games, these bees have a more realistic design to them that can be rather unnerving, especially for those who are afraid of bees in real life. You can hear them buzzing around their hive if you approach it, and if you get too close, they will start attacking you until you back off. If you dare to knock the hive down with F.L.U.D.D., Yoshi's juice, or by stomping on it, a huge swarm of bees will suddenly rush you, and they won't stop unless you run away far enough or if you're on Yoshi and have him eat the bees.
- The kicker? You actually have to do this to get 100% completion since some of the bees will drop blue coins once the last one in certain hives is eaten.
- Episode 8 of Pianta Village is a red coin mission, and one of the red coins is under one of the beehives that's next to a cliff. You'll have to be fast when getting the red coin to avoid getting knocked off the cliff by the bees.
- From Episode 6 onward in Gelato Beach, a beehive will appear under the hut next to the Shine Tower. If you try to stand on top of the hut, the bees will fly through the roof and sting you, which can certainly be a nasty surprise for those not expecting it.
- If you collect a Shine Sprite after knocking down a beehive, the bees don't despawn and will continue to swarm Mario while he does his victory animation. Also, if you talk to an NPC while the bees are attacking you, the bees will actually push Mario around in random directions. Even though he won’t take any damage, it's still unnerving to see the bees up close since the camera zooms in for both cases.
- Some of the ways the bosses are defeated are pretty unnerving.
- Petey Piranha’s defeat has him slowly turn into goop before melting and dissolving.
- Wiggler turns into sand before sinking into the ground.
- King Boo lets out a rather terrifying screech before exploding.
- While more akin to a mini boss, the way the Monty Mole shrieks and groans in pain before exploding is creepy. His last appearance also has his base of operations sent flying into parts unknown cause why not?
