The Lavender tower in the original Pokemon games, was a creepy tower full of ghosts that your own Pokemon were afraid to battle (even Mewtwo), scary music, and old channelers that shout creepy things at you when they engage you in a Pokemon match (because they're possessed).
This troper was personally scared the most by the line "Give me blood!"
This troper was deeply disturbed by the fact that the ghost Pokemon's Curse attack involved shoving a nail, slowly, into its own face, then doing the same thing to its opponent.
Learning that Cubone's headgear is the skull of its dead mother is illogical but a very disturbing experience for a Pokemon player.
Given the events of the Tower, however, it seems likely that the implication is that Cubone took up its mother's skull and femur IN THE NAME OF VENGEANCE, which immediately takes the situation from Nightmare Fuel to freaking awesome.
So...if you had a male and a female Cubone, and you put them in a daycare, and you returned to the daycare to find a baby Cubone waiting for you, would the female Cubone still be alive? *shudders*
This troper thought that female Cubones/Marowaks that lay eggs shed their skull masks to protect their children and grow new ones for themselves. Of course, that's just a different flavor of Nightmare Fuel.
This troper is very much scared of the music used in the Old Chateau (among other places) in the Diamond and Pearl games. Not to mention that the aforementioned location actually has non-Pokemon ghosts, as well as a painting that has red eyes if you turn away.
The Old Chateau really freaks this troper out; the old man and little girl (in the hallway, no less) ghosts hit far too close to The Shining to be comfortable.
The little girl may be very much alive- if you look, the old man has no legs, or isn't moving them and floats like a ghost. The girl looks rather normal (as she has legs, and moves like a regular NPC). She may be a trainer who's smart enough to not challenge the player, and considering the fact of where you are, So Yeah.
Also, while it may not be intentional, the Old Chateau has a dining area which is split into an adults dining table, which is unreasonably large, and childrens table. An item you can find at the childrens area in a trash can near the table is an antidote. Stop for a moment to consider why the antidote would be in the trash.
It's a Kitchen, not a "Children's Table". The Antidote is still in the trash.
The fact that the only time you can catch Rotom is at night is not cool with this troper, as you are forced to go into the Old Chateau at night. Real time night.
At least you can change your DS clock to avoid a change of pants. (And wait a day)
Banette, while creepy enough in appearance (a maliciously grinning, red-eyed, ghost-creature with a zipper for a mouth), are explained in the in-game Pokédex as being possessed dolls seeking revenge on the children that threw them away. If that's not scary, this troper doesn't know what is.
Also, you wouldn't be able to tell if it's the doll you threw away. So children, if you've thrown away a doll, and you find a bannette, don't risk it and hope it's someone elses problem, run away screaming and peeing your pants.
The animation and music used for trading in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl is inexplicably disturbing.
Of a more subtle yet no less horrifying (to this troper) bent is Red's ultimate fate revealed in Gold/Silver. Has cut off all ties with humanity, even with his own mother; and when you face him in the Silver Cave, says nothing before or after battle. (Yeah, Silent Protagonist, but creepy) It's a good thing Ash never quite achieves that level of mastery.
This troper recalls that she cried after defeating him.
Attempting to capture Kyogre in Pokemon Sapphire is surprisingly scary enough, but the analogous bonus stage in the Ruby/Sapphire pinball game is much worse. The stage is frightening because it's nearly as dark as the ocean floor would be in real life, and the player initially only sees Kyogre's eyes, leading to the feeling of being menaced by an invisible predator. The minimalist eerie music aggravates the uneasiness.
This troper just got startled by the discovery of books in the Diamond and Pearl games that discuss people killing and eating Pokemon (Canalave City Library, third floor).
Relax, they get resurrected. Provided the humans put them in a lake afterwards, of which there are three in the game. And there are few people that even seem like they would do it. And the pokemons souls are in their bones
The music played during the fight with Arceus in Diamond and Pearl is a mess of dissonance and thunderous MIDI-timpani. If that isn't scary enough...
You ARE fighting God.
Drifloon, a cutesy balloon Pokemon, apparently tries to drag people to Hell. Shedinja, which looks like a cicada skin, will steal your soul if you look in its back.
You know, that would be scary. If it wasn't, like Invader Zim, so very bad at it. Little kids it tries to kidnap use it as a balloon for pete's sake.
Within the world of the game the Shedinja thing is just an urban legend. However, that doesn't make it any less creepy that Shedinja is a ghostly insect skin with a giant hole in its back where the rest of the insect escaped.
Dusknoir is especially scary and not just its looks! It sends inocent people to Hell, or the spirit world. The markings on its chest are actually a second mouth. Hope no one has nightmares.
While Shedinja's soul-stealing nature has been comfirmed as a myth in-game, it's very likely that Drifloon and Dusknoir's supposed tendency to send people to hell are myths as well. Since so-called "ghost" Pokemon are more like living masses of gas, it wouldn't be surprising if there were tons of myths and misconceptions about them.
There's a Team Galactic guy in Diamond and Pearl who mutters to himself about "setting off" some "package" that'll "make an impact". Apparently the new evil Team isn't just a Mafia analogue, it's a terrorist syndicate!
And at Celestic Town, another Galactic Grunt has said Package- and he's open with it! He states that he's going to blow the town up with it!
The package turns out to be a terrorist bomb designed to drain one of Sinnoh's sacred lakes.
Gengar who appears at every full moon and scares people by pretending to be their shadow.
Haunter, however, especially in Gold/Silver, is much more sinister looking. One haunter in the manga adaptation of the show was, to this troper's horror, the size of a skyscraper.
Check out the Pokédex entries for Haunter: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Haunter_(Pokémon)#Pokédex_entries (link only works with copypasta) On second thought, don't check them out if you're planning on sleeping tonight. Maybe the broken hyperlink is a warning.
Darkrai. The pokemon that locks a small child in a perpetual nightmare until you find a Mac Guffin. That's right, it's in-game ability is acting as literal Nightmare Fuel. It was a downright wall banger for this troper when he learned that he's a good guy in the tenth movie.
You forgot to mention what you have to in order to capture Darkrai. You have to go into the previously locked Harbor Inn, where a creepy man hotel manager from hell says that he has been waiting for you. You are then forced into a bed and fall asleep, where you are transported to an island where you'll have to battle Darkrai to escape. When you wake up, the man is no where to be seen. And when you walk out of the inn, a sailor will walk up to you, tell you that you were asleep for a long time, and mention that no one's lived in that inn for 50 years.
Which raises an rather interesting, if not creepy, question: If no one's lived there for fifty years, then how did the sailor know how long you were asleep?
The Item that gets you there mentions the 50 years thing...
This troper personally thinks Darkrai dishes out a little bit of nightmare fuel in Explorers of Darkness and Time when Darkrai poses as Crescelia to convince you and your partner to commit suicide. Thank goodness the real Crescelia interfered as your partner was ready to go through with it. That game is scary!
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2! Three disturbing words: into the future. It's like hell without the brimstone and is complete indescribable nightmare fuel.
This guy who wrote that in the first place, doesn't want the reminder and thinks it should stay in nightmare fuel unleaded.
This troper doesn't ever want to surf up and down the eastern shores of Cinnabar Island or Seafoam Island in any version of Pokémon, due to the glitch "MissingNo," from Pokémon Red and Blue, who on top of looking like a garbled tower of pixels has the potential to corrupt one's save file and graphics. Also terrifying to this troper is the Glitch City, a garbled mess of pixels which, if traveled into too far, will cause the screen to freak out and the game to freeze. These two glitches kept this troper terrified throughout Pokémon Red.
This Troper also finds those two terrifying, albeit more on an existential/Cosmic Horror level than on an "oh sh** I just lost my save file" level. Imagine being a 10 year old Pokemon trainer and actually encountering a "glitch" like MissingNo. in real life. Now imagine finding yourself in Glitch City, and realizing as you stare at it more and more that the whole place simply should not be... and then realizing that you can't get out again.
No sleep for me tonight. Although, the idea of Missingno and M as Cosmic Horrors does sound like excellent Fan Fic Fuel...
Never thought it that way before, but MissingNo can easily be considered a Pokemon analogy of Yog-Sototh. That glitched mess you see is but a meres fraction of a being so vast and incomprehensible it spans through the space-time continuum, simultaneously existing in every possible place and time at once. It's mere presence will cause the reality to twist and bend and mortals to lose their sanity.
Even more freaky was the fact that one could sometimes encounter not just Missingno. and Pokemon over level 100, but glitched trainers as well. This troper remembers fighting a Channeler outside Cinnabar island whose Pokemon were a mess of glitched names and graphics. The Pokemon also glitched the background music into a neverending stream of horribly distorted, random sound effects. The glitched trainers neither said anything nor rewarded money when defeated.
This troper has literal nightmares about the Glitch Pokemon, especially 'M/Missingno. and Glitch Nidorino, the game-freezing pokemon used by the above trainers. Just imagine waking up in the middle of the night and seeing Missingno. staring at you. Oh, and Missingno. sometimes takes the form of a skeleton or one of the ghosts from Lavender town.
Missingno. takes on the form of the Pewter Museum fossils, you mean. It's always scared this troper on a Cosmic Horror level. Also, the twisted and tinny mess that the Hall of Fame network in your Pokemon Center computer becomes after encountering the Old High One pokemon puts me in mind of reality having been twisted badly by the encounter.
This troper is so afraid of Glitch City that he won't go into it, period, for one reason: even though he always carries a pokemon with Fly with him, saving in Glitch City without one means that you have to restart your save file. Just the thought of that experience for the trainer being stuck and (hence effectively dying) in Glitch City scares him so badly that he's afraid he'll accidentally save and somehow have his pokemon forget Fly. (Yes, this troper is a pussy. What makes you ask?)
This Troper spent a great deal of time investigating the MissingNo. phenomenon, and it's not MissingNo. and 'M you should be scared of. It's MissingNo's darker cousins... summonable only by the Mew Glitch, or a Game Shark.
MissingNo just wants to *play* with the *campers*, but the *campers* break too soon... Yes this troper is terrified of Yellow version's MissingNo.
You can learn more than you ever wanted to know about MissingNo., 'M, and a ghastly array of other glitches here. Somehow, knowing exactly what causes some of the glitches does nothing to alleviate the horror.
This troper was terrified of Parasect, because it was a cute little Paras becoming consumed and controlled by a fungus. A certain board's display of a comic that shows this take was horrible.
It really doesn't help there are parasites in real-life that does this.
This doesn't seem to be the case in the anime or even the manga. No trainer with any sort of compassion would let their Paras evolve into a Parasect if they knew that was going to happen. In all likelyhood it's a mistaken observation that got left in the Pokedex. Unless somehow the Pokeball overrides the will of the Mushroom and returns the insect to control, which would pretty much make it your best friend forever.
The music from the Sylph Co. building in the original Pokemon games used to make this troper want to run and hide under the bed.
This troper got freaked out from wandering around the Ruins of Alph in Gold and Silver. As if the faceless Unown popping up all over wasn't bad enough, there's also the extremely creepy radio signal that picks up when you're inside. . . .
Between that and the third Pokemon movie, the Unown are truly Nightmare Fuel and the canonCosmic Horror of the Pokemon universe...
Mewtwo. This Troper is a Mewtwo fan, and yet even she can't deny the fact that he's essentially a genetically mutated feline created for the sole purpose of fighting cute monsters. To be fair, all Mewtwo wants is to be left alone in peace. Though, making him angry is still never a good idea.
Don't forget escalation of the villainy of the various Teams. Team Rocket were generically nefarious, but mostly dim. Team Aqua wanted to expand the oceans (which would have drowned coastal cities), and Team Magma wanted to expand the landmass, mostly by causing a volcanic eruption. These two were bad enough. Team Galactic, on the other hand, wanted to SUMMON A MYTHICAL BEING TO DESTROY THE UNIVERSE. They wanted to end existence and create their own universe as rulers.
The Zelda games made for the Phillips CD-I system featured animation that wasn't just Off Model, but downright bizarre and distorted, almost designed to frighten children. Brace yourselves and watch this example. The bizarre, bellowing, amorphous Ganon in particular reminds this editor of a shrieking, indistinct being who terrified him in the worst childhood nightmare he ever had.
This troper has been numbed to all things CD-i through the wonder of You Tube Poop.
The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, despite being quite bright, contained some enemies and locations that were particularly disturbing to many. These include the Re Dead, a tall, seemingly innocuous zombie-like being that suddenly makes paralyzing shrieks which freeze the player character, Skulltulas, the sound of which still give this editor the creeps, and Wallmasters, brown, hairy hands that drop down from ceilings and grab the player. The Forest Temple featured a particularly creepy musical theme and atmosphere, and the Shadow Temple contained, among other things, blood-stained walls, torture devices laying around, and what seemed to be piles of fecal matter. And this game was rated E for Everyone.
Some people may consider the Forest Temple scarier than the Shadow Temple, but this troper must disagree. This troper will probably never beat Oo T, because he can't bring himself to cross the 'rift of the dead' or whatever it is in the Shadow Temple. And the music. Oh God, the music. The Forest Temple and its theme were eerie, yes, but this troper can handly eerie. But when the walls start talking about massacres when you walk up to them...augh. Quite literally, reading the walkthrough of the Shadow Temple inspired nightmares.
I can recall a particularly disturbing encounter with a Redead where I tried to defeat one using Din's Fire. The monster was already partially facing Link so after the first wave of fire hit, it was quickly ready to attack. I then used Din's Fire a second time to finish it off. While Link was casting it, a blood curtailing scream rang out and froze Link in his tracks. This is the equivalent of being attacked during an anime transformation sequence where I did not know it was even /possible/ for this to happen. After unfreezing Link continued to cast where his he was just about to slam his fist into the ground completing the spell where another scream let out a fraction of a second before it was done. The spell finally released a wall of flame that defeated the monster just as it was about to wrap it's decayed hands around him.
This troper was afraid to go into the southern half of Hyrule Field during the day as Child Link, due to the presence of Peahats.
And this troper had to have her uncle get her to Hyrule Castle Town as Child Link because she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to get to it before nighttime. While she's fine with them now, Stalchilds used to freak her out when she was younger. (Re Deads did too.)
This troper was so paralyzed by the Stalchilds the first time they appeared that he spent the entire game's night standing on a bridge where they couldn't reach him.
This troper used to break out in a sweat every time she made a desperate run from the drawbridge to the stairs of Kakariko. Imagine the horror when she realized that the Stalchilds could pop out of not only the ground, but also the stairs. Beneath her feet. Shudder.
I'm not the only one! This troper was terrified of not getting to the town in time, because the drawbridge would go up and Stalchildren would never stop coming. (There is also the mention that people who get lost in the Lost Woods are turned into Stalchildren. Urgh.) She actually had a dream about getting locked out, waiting for them to pop up out of the ground. She and a few other people just stood against the wall of Hyrule Castle Town at night, shivering and waiting, until she woke up.
THIS troper had to get to the forest temple in one go after he became adult Link, and get the warp song. Only with the warp song secure was it safe to teleport back to the temple, otherwise he would have to face the redeads in the town again...*shudder*
This troper used to be extremely afraid of Re Deads. They rendered him afraid to go into a dark room. It didn't help that they were the FIRST enemies he'd ever seen in the game. That horrible, horrible moaning... And when Stalchildren would appear, his heart would beat uncontrollably and he'd get so scared and nervous he couldn't press a button.
The third dungeon, Jabu Jabu's Belly, involves Link being swallowed whole by a giant fish while desperately screaming, and then having to explore their inside, completely with disturbing goo, weird organic enemies and in a couple places giant jellyfish that would fall from nowhere to squish you. In the Master Quest edition, this dungeon now held undigested cows trapped in his stomach lining, still alive. Ocarina's designers have issues.
And did I mention the cows act as switches?
Are you serious? That's just messed up. Of course, these are the people who designed the Shadow Temple...
Nah. Jabu-Jabu is the Zoras' god. The cows are obviously sacrificial victims.
Is anyone else freaked out by the expression on Big Octos' face? Those sad-looking eyes and that "mouth"...
Most gamers will agree that the Re Deads of the E-rated Ocarina of Time are significantly more disturbing than those from the T-rated The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Sure, the Twilight PrincessRe Deads may have had rusted, blood-stained greatswords resembling nightmarish butcher's knives, but at least they didn't apparently try to rape you.
Oh gods, the Re Deads. When this troper and her brother bought Oo T used there was a glitched-out save file that we decided to play. The glitches were weird, but not as bad as when, after playing from a new file a little ways, we tried the glitch file. "Hey cool, adult Link! Let's go out of the Temple of Time and see the marketplace! Huh, the sky's weird... AUGH!" We were both turned off from playing Zelda for several months.
And for that matter, there is definitely something horrible about TP's Re Deads. Just... Look, they move so slowly, but that long, horrible scream freezes you, always for way too long, and the armored skeleton sloooowly hoists its BFS up...
The Re Deads in Ocarina of Time didn't have backup though. The Re Deads in Twilight Princess have 'minions.' Zombies. With minions. (You can choose from phantom rats or pygmy skeletons!!!)
When those very same Re Deads showed up again in Majora's Mask, this troper didn't know whether to laugh or break down in fear at the sight of them eerily dancing (while still moaning the same way as before) when Link approaches them with one of the undead ally masks.
The designers of Oo T and MM obviously went out of their way to make sure that the Re Deads were efficient sources of Nightmare Fuel. They stand out among other enemies in that, when defeated, their motionless corpses lay on the ground for a long while, before eventually vanishing. In addition, if other Re Deads are in the vicinity, they'll slowly lumber towards their fallen kin and hunker down next to it; it's unsure whether they're paying respect, or possibly feasting on the other zombie.
Personally, this troper was freaked out by the the Skulltulla family. An entire family, partially transformed into giant spiders in the worst way imaginable, that shriek horribly when you approach them... *shudder* When you switch into first-person mode and examine them closely, you can see fragments of human face peeking through their bony spider exterior (which is, in turn, shaped like a human skull), except for one that is somehow wearing a mask behind THAT, and said mask features a single, ever-staring eye.
This troper was terrified of that place as a kid, to the extent he would beg his brothers not to enter the house when we played.
This troper knew it was no longer the Zelda of his childhood when he first saw one of the cackling drag queen Great Fairies rising, with a piercing, high-pitched laugh, out of her unholy abyssshallow grave pond with gifts for our poor little hero. Wind Waker reimagines them as Hindu goddesses, which is far less disturbing, at least unless the player got the fairy queen figurine (blurry image here◊), then it's nightmare city all over again. Here's◊ a clearer image which is creepy for the same reason.
The scariest Zelda moment of this troper was, with only half heart left, pulling a statue away in OoT. And discovering it was a living one. After it trampled me for a easy death, I turned off the game completely shocked.
This particular troper was terrified of Phantom Ganon, the boss of the Forest Temple. After exploring what looks like a rotting, overgrown castle and beating a quartet of ghosts (named after the sisters in Little Women, of all things), Link enters an unsettlingly vacant circular room filled with Van Gogh-esque landscapes of dead forests. When Link tries to leave the room, the door slams in front of him, and he turns around to see...Ganondorf, the King Of Evil, on horseback! And in the very first temple, too! But no—"Ganondorf" then proceeds to tear his own face off, revealing a demonic skull-head with horns. Just reading about it in the player's guide was enough to keep me from reaching the end of the temple for several months.
The whole freaking Forest Temple in general still scares the hell outta this troper.
This troper received a nasty shock while playing though the Forest Temple for the umpteenth time. When he returned to the main room to fight the last of the Poe Sisters, he took a closer look at the Poe and realized that the reason she was making that sound was that she was crying for her sisters. Way to make the Hero of Time feel like a murderer!
I tried to stop playing the game for a while at that point... when my best friend and Zelda obsessed freak practically forced me. I simply kept repeating to myself that I could do this... and then screamed when a wallmaster grabbed me. Yes, screamed. Loudly.
This troper personally always had to have someone else do the Bottom of the Well for her because it scared the bejeezus out of her. (She also had this Thing about the Water Temple and Lake Hylia and using the iron boots, but she hates swimming in deep water.)
That's because the Bottom of the Well is like an early warning system for the Shadow Temple. I read somewhere that a lot of fans suspect that the Bottom of the Well is in fact connected to the Temple, because they have the same theme, similar architecture, similar monsters, and, of course, the Dead Hand just lying in wait to rape you. Come to think of it, the Dead Hand's room under the well is exactly the same as the Dead Hand's room in the Temple...
Not to mention the Dead Hand, a set of six skeletal arms reaching out of the earth trying to grab your head. If one did, you then had to deal with a burrowing, long-necked, bloodstained, jaw-unhinging zombie with more than a passing resemblance to a certain Evil Dead beastie.
Of course, one shouldn't be led to think that Twilight Princess is bereft of Nightmare Fuel; the invisible rats from the same dungeon you encounter the ReDeads can freak one out something fierce. Especially when you suddenly find yourself covered in them.
And of course, the fact that Midna starts slapping at herself and freaking out. You know you're in trouble when Midna freaks out.
This troper tried for several minutes to cross the soldier-ghost room in the final dungeon, unable to comprehend why she was only managing a sickened staggering motion and there was furious, eerie chittering surrounding her.
There's also Ooccoo, what's essentially a chicken with a weird human head and what appear to be saggy breasts, and whose child is a head with stubby little wings. They appear to be based of creatures in an M.C. Esher painting called "Another World". However, their role as helpers (they teleport you out of dungeons) and the adult Ooccoo's sweet personality defuses most of the Nightmare Fuel.
This troper found Zant's mask to be the most scary part, and the game doesn't help things by playing an eerie sound every time it's on full display. And the semi-final dungeon features giant versions of it teleporting around...
And the scene where Link completes the Water dungeon, turns around, and Zant and his creepy mask are right behind him. Link jumps. The player jumps. It's just creepy.
The Goron Mines. One wrong turn and you fall INTO MOLTEN LAVA. And Link screams in agony as he gets incinerated. Just.....horrifying....
Well, THIS troper is surprised no one has mentioned the final "bug" to be killed in order to restore light to Lanayru Province. The "Twilit Bloat" was hands-down the most disgusting villain she had ever experienced up to that point. It has pus-filled sacs on its underbelly! And you have to POP them! Eugh!
That thing was Nightmare Fuel on crack. And I always feel cheated after I finally kill it. I mean, it's the size of a freaking bus, and yet you only get one measly Tear of Light out of it. One.
Don't forget the face-revolving yeti.
Made all the worse by the fact that the character had been entirely sweet and gentle up until that point.
And the fact that it was my favorite charrie from the game. At the beginning of the cutscene I was like "Awwww, I don't wanna fight her!". Of course, the heart cutscene afterwards more than made up for it.
The Hand? The giant floating hand in the Palace of Twilight that phases through walls and pursues you with horrible theremin-like background music to get the Sol? This troper, after successfully getting the first Sol from the Hand's grip, refused to play Zelda for months after that. Almost had a heart attack facing the Hand for the second time. Hasn't quite finished that yet... That Hand is Nightmare Fuel incarnate.
Never really found it that bad myself outside of the "Oh snap I meant to go left holy crap I have to start over" factor. I suppose it would have been worse were they not so easily debilitated by the clawshot IIRC.
Arrows work well too, if you have trouble with it. And if it gets too close, you can use your sword on it. But yes, that thing's music is terrifying. I was shaking the first time I went through the rooms. (If it makes you feel better, as a friend of mine pointed out to me, the hand looks like it's making the 'rock on!' sign.)
Guess what? The reason it looks like that is more nightmare fuel. The reason it looks like that is because that's actually how the lengths of the fingers of the Twili work. If you ever manage to get a look at Zant's hands, they look like that, only gray and bony.
Are you serious? Wow, that just...oh wow...that just makes the thing even scarier now.
Gods, I hated that hand!
There is something deeply wrong with any game that leaves the player cheering with relief after finding a spider enemy that's only the size of a labrador. The Skulltulas in the Forest Temple were bigger than the game's horse—and said horse is a Clydesdale!
A much more horrifying thing for this troper was the boss in the Temple of Time. She knew it would be a spider boss, but... when she actually saw the size of the thing, she shrieked.
This troper couldn't help but wince at the Jabu-Jabu's Belly level, when most of the monsters are electrified, and you get zapped if they touch you or if you use your sword on them. Link is ten, remember, and spends most of the level screaming in agony as he gets fried.
This troper was freaked out by the bird-like enemies in the Twilight areas...they have trumpet-bell-like things in place of heads. They also make a distinctive creepy noise. At one point in the game, you are even confronted with a giant one, making it even easier to see its lack of head...
This troper occasionally hears the sounds of those things just by thinking about them...
Those things are nowhere near as terrifying as the sumo wrestling scene. The dark glee at the sight of Link was without a shirt was completely and utterly butchered by the fact that you're wrestling the mayor, who is fat and nearly naked. And groping Link.
But...shirtless Link...
Ok, shirtless Link was hot. But still, he was groping a fat old man. Ugh.
Need I remind you who Link's NEXT sumo opponent is? If you thought the mayor was a major turn-off, wait until you indulge in hot Link-on-Goron action. If the mayor wrestling freaked you out, sumo wrestling a Goron will haunt your dreams.
For this troper, one of the single most disturbing incidents in Twilight Princess happens toward the end, after your conversation with a very calm, even relatively pleasant, Ganondorf. That's when you begin the first of your three Final Boss battles...which requires you, as Link, to attack Princess Zelda. Granted, it's not really Princess Zelda, because she's been possessed by Ganondorf while her soul is safely being stored in a different body (as you eventually learn), but still — it's Zelda's body. As a Link/Zelda shipper, the idea of Link being forced to attack his beloved princess made this troper severely uneasy.
The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask is typically regarded as one of the darkest and most bone chilling of the Zelda games. Some examples of the prime nightmare fuel presented in the game are the evil looming moon and its nihilistic effects on the people, the strangely disturbing world on the moon itself, and the very odd "Happy Mask Salesman".
The "Happy Mask Salesman" is an evil otherworldly entity. This troper has two things to prove this theory. One: He wants Majora's Mask. Nobody good ever wants the mask. Two: Note the Mario mask on his backpack. Fun and harmless, yes. Just Nintendo having fun. Until we stop and think about how Link gets the masks of people's faces. He kills them. The "Happy Mask Salesman" killed Mario. He's eviler than evil.
Link's transformations with various masks are no better, as the transformation involves crunching noises, followed by an agonized scream. When he screams, his face is about as much mask as face, and is wide with agony, mouth open and eyes bloodshot and veined/cracked. This editor could not have been happier when she discovered how to bypass the Transformation Sequence.
You can watch them here, if you really want to. *shudder*
This particular editor recalls being frightened to tears when dropping to the bottom of the Woodfall Temple's lobby after failing to fly across... only to be attacked by the hundreds of glowing eyes that are the Black Boes.
The alien abduction minigame. You're sitting on your horse, alone, in the dead of night. Suddenly, balls of light appear out of nowhere, surrounding the area, and turn into floating things that relentlessly bob towards the barn you're guarding. You shoot at them with a desperation normally reserved for Resident Evil, but for every one you shoot, another takes its place, and all the while you're shooting and looking at the clock and praying with all your might that your arrows hold out and you remembered to snipe the one sneaking behind your back...
Almost as bad is what happens to Romani, the sweet little ranch girl, if you fail to fend off the aliens. She ends up getting abducted along with the cows (the aliens tear the thatched roof off the barn and take everything inside), and though she is returned to the ranch the next morning, she acts like she's been lobotomized: mouth hanging open, eyelids drooping, and unable to talk. The contrast with her usual effervescence and optimism is deeply distressing.
That is what happens if you fail the minigame?! ...This troper has never been more thankful for his skill with the bow - I have the luck of never having seen that. Brrr... that would have given me nightmares for weeks.
That is what happened to her?! I... I always thought... I thought she was just traumatized, and crushed by her failure... gah! Yet another nightmare fuel scene for that game. I hope you're happy.
This troper was so traumatized by the outcome of losing the minigame, she spent several days practicing on the ranch until she could shoot each and every balloon from so far away, it was visible only as a speck.
Perhaps more subjective than obvious, there was the fact two of the aforementioned masks were created by healing the souls of the deceased (one of whom died in front of you), meaning you literally become that goron (Darmani) or zora (Mikau), and take their place in society. That's not the disturbing part. The disturbing part is... what happens when you leave? Mikau vanishes off the face of the planet, and Darmani, who's been elected the next Goron chief, and who everyone thought survived after all...
That's how Link deals with the emotional trauma! He mentally scars a tribe of Gorons, thus making them endure what he has to put up with!
This troper was creeped out by the speculation about the Deku Butler's Son he found on the internet. Remember that the other two transformation masks are from dead people, and the deku butler says you remind him of his son. What was that sad tree at the start of the game...?
As the Deku Butler is seeing sobbing at that tree on the finale, it's his son. (This game is considered the saddest even more than it's considered the creepiest.)
Judging by the song of healing animation, You are wearing Mikau's face as a mask.
Speaking of which, the Song of Healing animation shows Mikau going off with the (very much alive) rest of his band, making you wonder just what it is you're sending these spirits off to. Fluffy Cloud Heaven... or an unending illusion? They seem happy, but...
Despite the entire Ikana Valley part of the game being incredibly eerie, no one would ever suspect the pure, unadulterated horrors that could arise from inside the creepily cheerful sounding Music Box House by the river. You enter to what seems to be a normal looking home...until you go downstairs. Having a distorted half-man, half-Gibdo leap out at you, groaning in unholy agony, then limping across the room is hardly what you would call a treat. Needless to say, this troper is wary of opening ANY type of wardrobe doors since.
Let's not forget that before you can even enter the Music Box House, it's surrounded by a group of circling Gibdos (mummy-like monsters who resemble the Re Deads mentioned earlier) moaning for the inhabitants of the house to come out and become one of them.
It doesn't make it any better that when you burn the Gibdo's mummy wrappings with a Fire Arrow, it reveals the Re Dead underneath. It also takes four Fire Arrows to kill them. Who said that the best method of killing undead was with fire?
The entire sequence in the Moon. It's creepy enough to be suddenly teleported into this blurry, pleasant, peaceful meadow with cheery kids playing as the apocalypse rolls in, but then you find out all the kids are wearing the masks of the monsters you've been killing....creepy in a very hard-to-define way.
The fashion in which the Skull Kid calls the moon forth: he shivers violently, then releases one of the most haunting, nightmare-inducing screams in the history of games. The hideousness of the scream is compounded by the limited sound capabilities of the N64. Don't believe me? Look it up on You Tube (at 1:17); this troper did so to make sure it was still as terrifying as she remembered and confirmed that, to this day, it makes her want to lock herself in the bathroom.
This troper frikken loves the scream. Creepy in just the right way. (She just watched that clip repeating "I love this bit...")
Three words: Moon Opens Mouth.
Having seen the moon, but no scene where it does this, this troper noticeably shuddered two—wait—three times in a row at the thought of this. In fact, they were more like convulsions.
It's as bad as it sounds. And worse. The moon gets very animated near the end...
How about the mask itself? This Troper had nightmares about it's Incarnation and Wrath forms until he beat the game a second time, sans the Oni Mask. Cosmic Horror Unleaded.
This troper had nightmares of the Elegy of Emptiness clone for normal Link.
This troper shivered when he realized that the statues/clones didn't look exactly like Link's current form, but like the person whose body Link "borrows" when he transforms. All of them have empty, white eyes, and the Goron sports a large scar that goes from shoulder to waist...
Like the above, take a look at Mikau!Link's Elegy of Emptiness clone. It has that same vacant white stare and a wide-open, presumably screaming expression. Now I'm thankful you can't use this with Oni Link...
This troper got severely freaked out when she first walked into the inverted version of the Stone Tower Temple and found that one misstep could cause Link to accidentally fall into the sky.
This troper found the levels themselves to be severe Nightmare Fuel. The gigantic, mazelike labyrinths you find yourself in during the game would be creepy or mildly annoying normally, but adding a time limit is horrible, even when it's slowed down. This troper was driven to tears when they spent a full in-game day trying to find a staircase in the Snowhead Temple, finally find it, and have the moon crash during the boss battle on their first run through the game.
The clockwork beavers. How!? WHY!!?
Darmani, the Goron warrior. When you first meet his ghost, he's overjoyed, because the wise owl Kaepora Gaebora told him that you could resurrect him. You can't though. His look of disappointment is...very crushing. What really sends this troper over the edge into nightmare territory is when you return to his people in the Goron mask, and they're all so happy that their hero has returned from the dead, when he really hasn't..*shudder*
Ooh, and how could I forget the dojo master guy? Throughout the three days, the dojo master confidently states that he's going to "cut the moon in half". Hmm. However, at the end of the three days, if you visit the dojo, it seems empty, the dojo master has left a note saying:"I have received a sudden business engagement, and must leave immediately. Please do not come looking for me." Not too bad is it? Yes. Yes it is. He's actually hiding in a secret room, curled up, rocking back and forth muttering "I don't want to die!" He's completely doomed, and terrified, and it's horrifying!
This must be the scariest game ever made, because I've just thought of yet another example. There are a cute family of monkeys who help you out. One of them has been captured by the Dekus. The Deku King decides to REPEATEDLY DUNK A MONKEY CHILD IN BOILING OIL. Torture in a game that was rated "E for everyone"!!
The All-Night Mask has got to be the least "Happy" mask in the history of ever. The All-Night mask is actually a torture device that prevents the wearer from sleeping, no matter how much they may want to. Just imagine the hell that prisoners of that mask would go through, unable to ever sleep again until they die a slow, agonizing, maddening death of fatigue.
Both of the Spider Houses were creepy, what with the paranoia of constantly hearing the scritching of the Skulltulas moving around, but the Oceanside one takes the horrific cake. This troper was just thinking how spooky the house was when she went into the room with the constantly twitching Stalchildren, just... sitting there, convulsing, while spiders crawled around them, and those damn masks stared at you... the one in the library wasn't any better, either!
Speaking of the Stalchildren, if they're the soldiers of Ikana, did that mean they were child soldiers? Why is this game so terrifying?!
The completely unexplained screaming face on the back of the Mirror Shield. It's little touches like that that put Majora's Mask in the ranks of Silent Hill and Eternal Darkness.
The entire world starts to become nightmare fuel when you hit the last six hours of the third day, what with the moon getting really close and the ominous music.
The lethargic, crying people and the depressing music just made it that much worse. This troper had tears pouring down his face during that entire sequence, and refused to play the game for a full year afterwards.
Don't fail the Anju and Kafei quest series. Just don't. Especially if you don't reach the last mask in time, and have to abandon Kafei to his fate.
No mention of Pamela's story yet? You find her barricaded in the music house with Gibdos surrounding it, unable to escape since the river's dry and their one line of defense is down, screaming that her father's not one of them. All while her father's a half-Gibdo, locked in a closet, slowly losing his humanity. The thought of a little 10-year-old girl locked in a house with nowhere to run where her father's slowly becoming a flesh-eating mummy is rather unsettling.
The Legend Of Zelda II: Adventure of Link has a fair amount of Nightmare Fuel, as this troper remembers having nightmares about several of the more bizarre monsters when younger, as well as the game over screen.
The town of Kasuto (the haunted one, not the hidden one) in Zelda 2 creeped this troper out. On the map screen, it looks just like any ordinary town... but once you've entered it, it's dark, the buildings are all destroyed, and there are creepy eye-shaped ghosts flying around. And even the music is different; yes, it's just the "inside of a building" theme rather than the "outside of town" one, but it's still creepy when one's not expecting it. Add to that that you can't even SEE the ghosts without a certain item (a cross), so it looks like you're attacked by the air itself.
The later towns in Zelda 2 where at least half of the villagers turn into Goddamn Bats.
The Seahats (huge helicopter-anglerfish things) from The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker were scary as the tended to ram into you and knock you off you boat, which to many inspired fears of being stranded in the middle of the ocean whenever it happened. Add to that the fact that you bound to eventually run into them during the night. Taking into account the fact that where there's one Seahat, there's usually at least ten others nearby, and the eerie sight of a group in your way, and...
in fact this troper remembers having the camera zoom on link's face and watching glee suddenly change to grim determination. I quickly spun the camera to find a humonguous seahat glaring into the camera smiling with razor teeth. i screamed. after getting to my destination and contiuning on I made sure not to go past there. as I told this this idea to my brother a GIGANTIC KRAKEN WITH 24 EYES popped up exactly after I said that. then multiple smaller kraken began showing up afterward.
In addition to that, this game also featured its own, equally creepy rendition of the ReDead. This version had a grotesquely elongated head, an emaciated, tattooed body, and enormous hoop earrings (odd as they were, though, they were hardly the scariest part). The worst part, by far, though, had to be their faces. Their huge, dark, empty eye sockets suddenly glowed bright red when the ReDead spotted its prey, and it emitted a horrifying, inhuman shriek as it slowly shambled toward you. Such a scary creature certainly seems more than a little out-of-place in the game's otherwise bright and cheery environment.
A subtle yet quite eerie touch was included by the designers, regarding the ReDeads; if Link shoots an arrow at them from a distance, the zombie quickly lifts its head, its empty eye sockets staring straight at Link for a moment before it resumes its former drooping position.
This troper still considers finding a room full of Re Deads (which was necessary to finish the game because it was part of finding one of the Triforce shard maps) the most terrifying moment of his gaming history.'
Not to mention the Fridge Logic of why Re Deads are found in the basement of the teacher from Windfall Island. What exactly did she do on her vacations?
This troper made the mistake of going back to the Forsaken Fortress after beating the boss there. Needless to say, the vast emptiness was more than a little disturbing.
The ghost ship. The main source of creepy in there is the mask overlooking the treasure chest. Huh. Just looks like some somber face. Until you approach it or bring up the telescope, at which point it shifts to a fanged Slasher Smile. And then there's that agonized scream when you get the chart...
Puppet Ganon was rather disturbing, too, at least in this editor's opinion. After Ganondorf finishes giving his obligatory evil speech to Link, his arms suddenly grow several feet long, accompanied by a sickening crunch! sound. As a frightened and confused Link watches in terror, he growls loudly and degenerates into huge, pulsing, black blob. When the curtain around him rises, the music crescendos, and Ganondorf is gone, replaced by a freaky-looking giant puppet. Its constantly wobbling eyes and the fact that it transformed into a spider and a snake while still retaining a pig's head didn't help much, either.
Miniblins, as well. For one thing, you can hear them coming a mile away, which is just... freaky. For another, they are absolutely demented looking, and tend to come in swarms.
Often, never-ending swarms.
Oh, and don't forget the ending: HE PLUNGES. THE SWORD. INTO GANON'S HEAD. For some, it's half nightmare fuel, half fucking awesome.
No mention of the Big Octos? Those things scared the piss out of me when I first met them at night time.
Wallmasters and Floormasters, period. They're huge monstrous disembodied hands that grab Link and drag him back — screaming, in the 3D entries — to the dungeon entrance, or some other conveniently irritating location. The worst are probably the ones in The Wind Waker, where, rather than just the usual grotesque disembodied hands, they're puddles of shadow that extend horrifyingly emaciated and grotesquely flexible hands and arms of living shadow from themselves.
Not to mention that the Wind Waker ones can come charging at Link lightning fast, despite looking like they're rooted to the spot. And they can grab bombs you throw at them and throw them back at you. And they grab Link by his head.
And some of the Floormasters in Oo T, when killed, turned into several little floormasters, which grabbed onto Link, sucked out his magic power, and grew into big floormasters.
This troper found the encroaching Twilight Realm to be pretty nightmarish. I don't mean the Twilight Realm itself; I mean the interface, the dividing line between Hyrule and Twilight. The world Hyrule just ends in a black, seemingly impenetrable wall, as though the rest of the world doesn't exist anymore. And if you get close to the wall, you see runes and symbols on it. And if you get closer still, it reaches out and grabs you!
This troper was under the impression that was actually Midna grabbing you from the other side. Still quite surprising.
Usually, it is Midna doing that. The first time, however, is quite clearly a Shadow Beast.
Another bit of creepiness in the Twilight Realm. You know the scene where you're in Zora's Domain, and it's all frozen (again)? This time, your first visit is in wolf form, and you see a bunch of lights under the ice. Of course, to proceed, you have to use your "sense" ability. Immediately after doing that, you see a bunch of Zoras frozen solid in the ice. That with the sound and grainy black-and-white vision that comes with switching to sense mode creates a Nightmare Fuel trifecta.
This troper noticed in the same scene as the one above that Midna has no reflection in the ice. This in combination with the frozen Zoras was pretty much guaranteed Nightmare Fuel.
Actually, just about any time when you're using Sense is creepy. Floating spirits, weird things you can't see otherwise (which means you couldn't see them in real life—who's to say there's not one sitting right next to you?), and the gamer's paranoia of barely being able to see a dang' thing.
This happens yet again when the last shadow bug turns out to be a boss fight in the middle of Lake Hylia. Once again, the effects of switching to sense mode and the image of a giant, glowing shadow bug is just freakier than a boss fight ought to be.
The whole Twilight Realm was terrible. It looked like some gothic version of the Matrix if everything were coming apart.
Well, the Twilight Hyrule did; this troper rather agreed with Midna that the actual Twilight Realm had a "serene beauty".
This troper was freaked out by the giants in Majora's Mask.
This troper is freaked out by the shield- and tunic-swallowing Like Likes. It's a gelatinous worm-like creature, and it doesn't help that in Super Smash Bros Melee 's Adventure mode, the Hyrule Castle stage has several of them.
WE SHALL FIGHT! WE SHALL FIGHT! WE SHALL FIGHT! WE SHALL FIGHT! WE SHALL FIGHT!
You know that fifty-level pit with all the monsters that you can slog through in TP to get the Great Faerie's Tears? Something about that gives this troper the chills. It just goes on and on through the dark, infested with creatures, and slowly you run out of healing items.
Also from Twilight Princess: Dark caves. Dark caves which you need the Lantern for. Dark caves which have giant spiders and evil bats in them. It wouldn't be so bad if the Lantern wasn't constantly running out of oil, or if this troper didn't keep getting turned around.
The Temple of the Ocean King from Phantom Hourglass. The very place is cursed so that it drains life from you unless you have the titular hourglass, The phantoms that stalk the corridors are invincible and can strike very hard (knocking you out). Meaning that you need to avoid them for most of the game when you're in that horrible place. And you have to go through it several times over the course of the game.
The phantoms didn't scare this troper until they gained the ability to TELEPORT.
The Ghost Ship Dungeon, the creepy enemies inside of it, and the creepy little girls you have to save in it. And then the creepy girls reveal themselves to be hideous undead Poes...
This troper was creeped out by the scene where Linebeck saves Link, only for Bellum to possess Linebeck and turn him into a Phantom.
Well, at least it's impossible to play the 3D games without encountering some creepy stuff.
This troper agrees, and finds it sad that he can play through The House Of The Dead 3 and 4, as well as any Castlevania that isn't Symphony of the Night or Harmony of Dissonance, without flinching, yet can't even enter a dungeon in a Zelda game without knowing what comes next or listening to unfitting music to cancel out the creepiness.
Final Fantasy Games:
This troper remembers his sister nearing the end of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. She said she was about to beat it. Shortly thereafter, she came running out of the bedroom, scared. At that point, she was deathly afraid of spiders, which is the final form of the final boss. Seeing the transformation resulted in her deleting her save file so she didn't have to see it again.
This troper admits that the Gizamaluke boss fight in Final Fantasy IX was a nightmare for him as he did not have Steiner or Vivi in his team at the time.
The theme that plays when you get to beat Trance Kuja and meet Necron is disturbing as well. That sad, mournful tune that played with all that moaning in the background? Creepy as all get-go when you're ten or so.
In Final Fantasy X, Yunalesca's fight was pretty traumatizing. Particularly because you're basically fighting on a tiny piece of land surrounded by nothing but space, partially the screeching quasi-industrial fight tune, and partiallyalmost entirely since she turns into the creepiest One Winged Angel in videogame history. I dare you to watch the beginning and 4:15 without flinching
Also in Final Fantasy X, Anima. Just...every last thing about her.
On the subject of Final Fantasy IX, Atomos can be extremely unnerving and more than a little frightening. After watching it tear apart Lindblum, this troper never summoned it in battle. Ever.
Frankly, Zorn and Thorn's true form Meltigemini may give Yunalesca a run for her money for creepy One Winged Angels. Their Exorcist-esque spasms when they transform is pretty damn creepy too.
There are two trademark monsters of the Final Fantasy series that are very creepy, Tonberries and Molboros. Tonberries are genuinely unnerving hooded goblin like monsters with typically enormous health, that would slowly stalk the characters with a oversized butcher's knife until it got close enough to immedietly deliver a one-hit kill, while Molboros are hideous and monstrous masses of tentacles and eyeballs with enormous gaping mouths that would either breath a horrible gas attack that would more often than not wipe out an entire team with status effects or would simply devour and digest characters whole.
This troper curses Final Fantasy VII's flawless emulation of a slow, pulsing heart in "Those Chosen By the Planet." He still fears that Sephiroth might jump out of his television and choke him to death any time the tune plays.
This troper was deathly afraid to use the submarine out of a fear of running into Emerald WEAPON.
Also, he spent very little time in the Forest of the Ancients, mainly due to the huge Venus flytraps within the area. He tried to walk by once, and SNAP! Screen flashes red, Cloud gets chewed for a few seconds. This troper's reaction? "AAAAAHHHHH!!"
The freaking Yin-Yang that you have to fight in the room where you find Vincent. Not only does it look like a zombie, but anytime it uses an attack, you have to sit there for a minute and watch it twitch in a disturbing fashion. A number of the other Shinra Mansion monsters were also freaky.
Kefka in Final Fantasy VI isn't too nightmarish aside from the Monster Clown fashion, as even his Rape The Dog moments are done with gleefully over-the-top flair and humor. But during the final battle, he's a little... excited. Say what you will about some final bosses' nightmarish One Winged Angel forms, at least none of THEM are sporting a poorly concealed erection during the climactic battle. Behold.◊ Or don't, we completely understand.
Still, his laugh SFX does not fail to bring chills even 14 years down the line.
Speaking of SFX, the scene after the three-team battle in the fields of Narshe provide a bit of Nightmare Fuel. Right after the fight, your team goes to examine the esper they just saved. However, everyone aside from Terra is blown away by the esper's power, all of them either knocked out or hanging off the edge of a cliff. Then a faux battle starts, complete with creepy music, and Terra transforms into another being entirely. Battle ends, Terra spins around a bit, and then unleashes a BLOODCURDLING scream and flies away. That last part scared the living SHIT out of This Troper on his first time playing the game, as he had been listening to it on headphones, and had the volume cranked way up. The fact that the scream was preceded by several seconds of absolute silence did NOT help one bit.
This troper is afraid to open chests in Final Fantasy IV due to a few instances of opening a chest, expecting an item, only to be met with "Monsters!" and an enemy battle.
Also, Moogle Jugglers have the Monster Clown thing going for them.
The animation for the doom and death spells has taken a turn for the traumatizing, in the first FFTA the animation would involve a spooky but cartoony-looking Grim Reaper to come and attack them. In the second game? The character's soul would rise out of their body and 3D inky black spectres with real looking skulls would sweep in from the bottom of the screen while speaking backwards and whisk the soul away! Also try casting the Scion's wrath ability Condemation without flinching.
It doesn't help that if you've played FFXII and read the lore in the monsterpedia, you know that the woman attached to Zalera was some sort of shamaness that the esper fused to himself and is now using as some sort of grotesque puppet. The chilling scream that rings out during the animation for Condemnation is the aural manifestation of her never-ending torment at the hands of her Cosmic Horror master. Happy nightmares.
Kingdom Hearts 2:
The Nobodies in Kingdom Hearts 2 are severely disturbing, as they move with a strange boneless gait and tend to resemble humanoids made of cast-off gray and white clothing. Especially in comparison to the Heartless, which are the cutest Cosmic Horrors this troper has ever seen.
You think the Berserkers are creepy? Take a good, long look at the Dragoons. Their faces aren't where you think they are.
In fact, the whole premise of the Kingdom Hearts series is potential Nightmare Fuel. The bright and cheerful Disney worlds give the game a happy, child-friendly feel... until you get to the end, where things suddenly get rather dark. Very dark. This includes a fight with the aforementioned Maleficent (in dragon form, of course), and a fight with Chernobog, the god-demon from the "Night on Bald Mountain" section of Fantasia. It's akin to Cosmic Horror in that The Heartless can only be pushed back for a time and will never truly be defeated.
The Mood Whiplash was just as bad in Kingdom Heart II when you enter "The World That Never Was", which has the whole feel of family friendly existentialism. The creepy background music is chilling enough, but the floors even have names like "The Alter of Naught", "The Hall of Empty Melodies", and "Proof of Existence" (a graveyard for the Nobodies).
Kingdom Hearts II started out as nightmare fuel! What with Roxas totally desperate to save himself, and doomed to fail...And his 'death' is followed right away by Sora's awakening. And Sora is just so happy and carefree and dancing with Goofy and Donald, and he has no idea what just happened.
Further into in the category of "this is a kids' game!?" is the eventual discovery of just who Ansem of the reports is, and what he's really up to. And WHERE he is. If you are like this editor, and neglected to read the Reports all along, you will not see this coming, and you may scream. Riku's double voice is especially terrifying when you realise that his proper voice is very dull and flat, and all the inflection is coming from his 'passenger'.
Admittedly, this series stopped being a kid's game the minute Sora enters the second District of Traverse Town and watches as a Heartless sucks out some guy's heart and eats it, the victim fading away with a horrified grimace on his face.
The secret videos at the end of both games are creepy, thanks to the atmosphere alone, and the fact that Mickey Mouse is featured in them somehow makes them even creepier.
Axel's Death, with him bursting into flames was bad enough that it had to be censored for the western audience.
Apparently Vexen getting stabbed in Chain of Memories was so bad that they had to change it to getting burned alive in Re:Co M.
That's not better infact it's the most grusome KH death of all. Even Sora was shocked by such a horrific demise here.
A lot of the battles in I and II would have freaked out this troper when she was ten. Saix's and Xaldin's boss battles jump to mind. And a vast majority of the boss battles in the first. And one part of the final fight with Ansem had you fighting pretty much in complete darkness.
In "Birth by Sleep", an upcoming KH spinoff, a new enemy type will be introduced, oh-so-delightfully named "unbirths". Creepy enough for you?
The second fight with Darkside is also nightmare inducing in that it occurs after you've spent a few hours running around the bright and cheery Destiny Islands to have both of your best friends disappear AND have your WHOLE HOME sucked into a dark vortex of doom.
A glitch with a codebreaker is really creepy. full party: 40340C9C 00130001 03020100 00000000 and Illuminator's digit: 166. Put these on during the first fight with Xenmas and it will be in complete darkness. Everything will be uttery deranged and downright creepy. More codes are here.
Despite never playing Final Fantasy VII, this troper knew enough about Sephiroth to be rightly freaked out when he showed up in Kingdom Hearts. He scared her so badly that his very theme music caused her to freeze up whenever she heard it. She could barely get through the battle scene of Advent Children because of it.
In the new Birth by Sleep trailer, one of the Keyblade wielders is in a fight with an evil wizard who holds him up by the helmet, cracks it open with his nearly bare hands, then freezes him solid and drops him off a cliff. Once the poor guy's helmet breaks off completely, it reveals that his eyes are both still open and moving. Meaning, HE'S STILL ALIVE AFTER ALL THAT. Just one example of death being the option which is less gruesome.
Not to mention the thought of the death he nearly suffered; as he falls you can see bits of his frozen armor being smashed off as he bounces off the cliff. Thank goodness his friend caught him; otherwise he'd have shattered like glass...
Psychonauts is mostly fun and humorous, but some things in it are quite disturbing. The most egregious example, of course, would be the horrible Meat Circus level, but there is definitely more than that. For instance, the chest in Milla's mind that contains a "fiery" cage, surrounded by nightmare figures whispering sinister accusations about Milla not saving them in the voices of children (granted this place is supposed to /literally/ be a nightmare room); the two peppy "cheerleader" campers casually discussing their various suicide attempts; and the entire ascent to Dr. Loboto's office, what with the kamikaze rats, gloomy atmosphere, and Shegor constantly peeking out from corners and staring at you, just to name a few.
Some of the "memory vaults" in the game, found while traversing the mental landscapes are very disturbing.
This troper thinks this is intentional, and that it's a great tool for providing atmosphere. Considering part of a psychonaut's job is going into people's heads, they're bound to run into some Squicktastic stuff once in a while (more often if they're unlucky).
The entire game runs on Nightmare Fuel, quite literally in a number of places. Every in-brain level is, in spirit if not in body, a Womb Level. Brains are yanked from children's heads by a strait-jacketed dentist with a metal claw and a shower cap. It gets so traumatic that they Hang a Lampshade on it in the last level—if you ask for advice, Raz will calmly sum up the rabbit enemies as "hellish nightmare bunnies spawning from meat grinders", and Cruller will respond with "Well, at this point you might as well just whack 'em", equally unruffled.
Inexplicable is this example, as it takes place in the real world. Later in the game when talking to the suicidal duo (who like to talk about how powerful they will be after they die, creepy in itself) they'll comment on how beautiful the sun is. If you go to "visual mode" and turn the screen to look up at the sun; you'll see it looks like a skull. Gah. There's no reason for this.
This Troper has not done this, as he was wise enough to believe the opposite of everything those two creeps believed by that point. Nonetheless, the image kept him awake at night for three days, before he remembered that he sucked at visualizing skulls. He then started imagining more and more Narm-tastic skulls, culminating in the perfectly spherical Kingdom Of Loathing skull. He ain't scared no more.
Another real-world example - the clouds right on the horizon in the outside area of the Asylum at night appear to be in the shape of human faces. Based on their expressions, this troper could only interpret them as screaming in terror.
This troper just replayed and can confirm they're deliberate human faces with clearly distinguishable features. Almost photorealistic, in fact, which is quite jarring compared to the outlandish cartoonishness of the game style. However, to this troper, they appear to be laughing derisively at the player. Perhaps Psychonauts wiggles deeper into her particular paranoias than even she guessed.
This Troper finds the sobbing of the Emotional Baggage disturbing, especially if said baggage is off-screen, and it takes a while to reach it, with the sobbing in the background all the while...
This troper finds the Emotional Baggage cute, in a Woobieish way. However, she is unreasonably disturbed by the strange pieces of meat in the Brain Tumbler Experiment level that start to quiver and give off green "gas" when you punch them. They're just... deeply unsettling.
Listen to the background music in Milla's "Dance Rave" mindscape. Eventually, you'll realize that what sounds like laughing...is crying. The music is trying to drone it out.
While it's one of the funniest levels in the game, The Milkman Conspiracy has its dark underbelly. It's not just the falsely bright and physics-defying overworld wearing on the nerves, the hinge-jawed Watchers sword-swallowing hedge trimmers, and getting pulled not once, but twice into a nightmare world to fight with dark, gas-masked figuures that vomit chunks of their former victims, then turn to glass and shatter. While silly at first, the paranoia permeating the level eventually warps the player's thoughts just a little bit towards Boyd's mindset. When you start looking over your shoulder for walking mailboxes, it's a good idea to turn off the console and have a little lie-down.
You know what else is scary about that level? A GIRL SCOUT EXPLODES A SUICIDE BOMB. Seriously. She's only a thought, and is evil, but still...
This troper was creeped out when he realized this is how Boyd sees a regular neighborhood. It was especially disturbing when he used Telekinesis on a girl scout (bein
