History NightmareFuel / PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers

* The Dark Future. '''ALL. OF. IT'''. This is easily one of the bleakest moments possible in a Franchise/{{Pokemon}} game and the sentiment is not putting it lightly.
** In the [[BadFuture Future]], the sun never rises and time never passes. [[MadGod Primal Dialga]] is top dog. Thus, if you die, you will be stuck in that dying state for eternity. Given the fact that the world has become ''morbidly peaceful'' from the cold, still, lifeless silence that comes with the destruction of time itself, death is more welcome than trying to survive and eventually going insane from the dark, depressing atmosphere.

* The Dark Future. '''ALL. OF. IT'''. This is easily one of the bleakest moments possible in a Franchise/{{Pokemon}} game and this is not putting it lightly.

* Think about it: in the [[BadFuture Future]], the sun never rises and time never passes. [[MadGod Primal Dialga]] is top dog. Thus, if you die, you will be stuck in that dying state for eternity. Given the fact that the world has become ''morbidly peaceful'' from the cold, still, lifeless silence that comes with the destruction of time itself, death is more welcome than trying to survive and eventually going insane from the dark, depressing atmosphere.
* Soon after you and your partner are dragged into the BadFuture, you're set up for ''execution''. And it's not a quick and easy sort, either - the method involves Sableye using Fury Swipes, meaning that you would've been ''torn to shreds'' by their sharp claws. Fancy being stuck in ''that'' state for all eternity, or worse, ''dying'' there.
* The Future Spiritomb in general. Not only does he torture Grovyle, he does the exact same thing to Celebi during Special Episode 5. [[FutureBadass Grovyle]] being [[ColdBloodedTorture tortured]] by that Spiritomb, which went ''up his nose'', and the expression of pure agony on his face. It really makes you wonder what that Spiritomb was doing to him to cause him so much pain. Makes you glad that you defeated him.
* The thought of being hunted in a [[CrapsackWorld dark, future world]] by a creepy ghost like abomination and razor clawed beasts is not a pleasant thought. The thought gets even less pleasant when your partner warns that Dusknoir could come back to the present and hunt you down... meaning Dusknoir could easily chase you down again, meaning you're not safe ''ANYWHERE''.
* Time/Darkness also has the little issue of you dying. YOU. The game works hard to get you to imagine you truly are the MC in the game and then it kills you off, and [[TearJerker you watch other characters mourn over you]]. Yeah, you come back, but geez.
* During the post-game, a Cresselia (of course not the real deal, but you won't know) asks you ''kill yourself'' for the "stability of the world". Once you decide that you're not going to kill yourself, Palkia, the god of space (as in the time/space variety) decides that he's going to kill you anyway, and takes you to the Spatial Rift, which is almost as bad as the Future is, even though you don't spend as much time there as you do the future.
* Dusknoir's backup plan in Special Episode 5 involves [[DeaderThanDead literally destroying]] Grovyle's [[OurSoulsAreDifferent soul]], possessing his now-[[EmptyShell empty body]], traveling back to the main time period, befriending the Guild members, and then destroying them in one fell swoop. Of course, he doesn't thanks to a foreshadowed HeelFaceTurn, but the implications are not good at all.

* You probably know that you can turn around and talk to your teammates right? Well, in the fifth Special Episode in ''Sky'', Dusknoir joins you (playing as Grovyle) for a while. If you turn around to talk to him, what's one of his lines? "Feeling nervous? [[ParanoiaFuel Having your back exposed to me]]...".

* The dark future is bad enough by itself, but the worst part about it is the Sableye's methods of executing prisoners. They tie them to pillars and about two or three of them gang up on you and use their Fury Swipes attack until death eventually occurs.

* Right before the post-credits final boss battle, your partner seemingly has a FaceHeelTurn and asks you to join them. They clinch it by saying "The world of darkness is going to be wonderful." And then they follow-up by saying "[[BigBad Darkrai]] won't want just me... he'll get rid of me..." Despite that's just an illusion, the idea that your trusted partner, who's been to Hell and back with you, just gave up and went over to the BigBad and begged you to rule with them because they know that without you they'd be killed, but they weren't going to go back on it is really nightmarish and it's hard to tell that it was just a nightmare. Not only was it scaring you as the character, it was scaring Cresselia as well.
* During the battle near the end, Darkrai can sometimes stand there and ''stare at your character, watching carefully''. Though this is a normal consequence of the Status Checker IQ skill, it takes on a new meaning here.

* ''Time/Darkness/Sky'' doesn't always even need the storyline in order to be scary. Ever picked up an Itemizer Orb and used it on an enemy Pokémon? ''What did it turn into, and what did you do with the resulting item?''
** Also the misspelled items (such as the Oren Berry) in Sky. Imagine your character getting hungrier and hungrier every move, starting to lose HP. You eat those items to keep your hunger calm, only to realize that they nailed a status effect on you. Then, if you dare, you can eat the X-Eye Seed.

* The fact that EVERY SINGLE BOSS has the desire to murder you, and none seem to have any problem with it. Even Team Skull at the ''very beginning'' of the game because your partner has a weird rock. Not to mention the Trio of Protectors (Mesprit, Uxie, Azelf) will basically do anything to protect the time gears, Uxie summoning a Mirage Groudon, while Mesprit prefers up and fighting you head-on, and the clan of Electric Pokémon in the Amp Plains just want to kill you for stepping on their land. Even after you defeat them all, they ''still'' want to slaughter you and your partner! And they would've, too, if Dusknoir hadn't stepped in.
** ''And that is just in the first half of the game.'' The second half and post game is far darker. Alright, Azelf doesn't, but played straight for everyone else. And then we have the Dark Future, with Spiritomb. And then the Hidden Land and Temporal Tower, with Dusknoir and Primal Dialga. The Graduation Exam is a nice break from the death, but then we have Froslass, who wants to freeze you like she did Scizor. Next, there is Cresselia (actually Darkrai), who attacks you after Azurill's nightmare. And then there is Palkia in the Spacial Rift, followed by a second illusory Cresselia who try to ''erase you from existence'', with you only being saved by the actual Cresselia. Then there is Darkrai, the real one. So about ten bosses all want to kill you.

* The entire story mode has this, but especially Darkrai. While usually he's portrayed as misunderstood and maybe even heroic with a horrifying and uncontrollable self-defense mechanism, this version's Darkrai isn't. He's a cunning, ruthless nightmare master who's behind almost all of the above and admits it. He also sent poor Azurill into an infinite nightmare for the fun of it, and his plan is to send the ''world'' into an infinite nightmare so that he may rule. His first attempt was the bad future, in which he essentially corrupted a god. He then almost convinces you and your partner to ''[[DrivenToSuicide kill yourselves for the sake of the universe]]'', sends another god after you, and lures you into a final battle in which he gangs up on you.
* '''The fake Cresselia.''' She enters the dreams of the protagonist, initially seeming like a gentle figure, and given her first scene you might think she's here to warn you. Nope, she's here to tell you to commit suicide, makes multiple attempts to murder you, tries to get Palkia to do it, then when that fails, tries (and succeeds) at mentally breaking your partner and making them accept their demise. Sure, it was Darkrai all along, and the real one was GoodAllAlong, but it doesn't change that this thing was extremely eerie and OutOfCharacter.

* Your first assignment as a guild member is to retrieve Spoink's lost pearl. No big deal, right? Unless you [[AllThereInTheManual remember that one of its Pokédex entries]] states that if a Spoink doesn't keep its pearl balanced on its head, ''it dies''. [[FridgeHorror No wonder]] the little guy was so frantic...

* According to Bidoof's Diary, Croagunk sneaks into the men's bedroom and watches Bidoof sleep while smiling creepily.

** What might be the worst part of "Into The Future". Soon after you and your partner are dragged into the BadFuture, you're set up for ''execution''. And it's not a quick and easy sort, either - the method involves Sableye using Fury Swipes, meaning that you would've been ''torn to shreds'' by their sharp claws. Fancy being stuck in ''that'' state for all eternity, or worse, ''dying'' there.
** [[FutureBadass Grovyle]] being [[ColdBloodedTorture tortured]] by that Spiritomb, which went ''up his nose'', and the expression of pure agony on his face. It really makes you wonder what that Spiritomb was doing to him to cause him so much pain...
*** Spiritomb in general. Not only does he torture Grovyle, he does the exact same thing to Celebi during Special Episode 5. Makes you glad to defeat him, doesn't it?

** And not long after you come back, the game asks you ''if you want to kill yourself''.
*** Once you decide that you're not going to kill yourself, THE GOD OF SPACE (as in the time/space variety) decides that he's going to kill you anyway, and takes you to the Spatial Rift, which is almost as bad as the Future is, even though you don't spend as much time there as you do the future.
* Dusknoir and his ''second mouth''.
** His backup plan in Special Episode 5 involves [[DeaderThanDead literally destroying]] Grovyle's [[OurSoulsAreDifferent soul]], possessing his now-[[EmptyShell empty body]], traveling back to the main time period, befriending the Guild members, and then destroying them in one fell swoop. Of course, he doesn't thanks to a foreshadowed HeelFaceTurn, but the implications are not good at all.
* So! You've just been told that to save the world, you and your best friend should kill yourselves! And talking to your dear friend and trusted confidant about this, your partner wavers back and forth, wondering whether or not to do just that. Come the next morning, you wake up and they're not in bed anymore...
** Add onto the fact that you live in the face of a cliff, which hangs over an enormous body of water. Let that sink in for a while.
* And while it's pretty tame compared with all the above, Brine Cave's [[CeilingCling ceiling Kabutops]] can give you [[JumpScare a bit of a start]].
** Given what happens [[AlasPoorScrappy right after]] the aforementioned ceiling Kabutops shows up...
* Right before the post-credits final boss battle, your partner seemingly has a FaceHeelTurn and asks you to join them. They clinch it by saying "The world of darkness is going to be wonderful."
** This sentence was just as bad. "[[BigBad Darkrai]] won't want just me... he'll get rid of me..."
** Despite the fact that it was just an illusion, the idea that your trusted partner, who's been to Hell and back with you, just gave up and went over to the BigBad and begged you to rule with them because they know that without you they'd be killed, but they weren't going to go back on it.
** Not only was it scaring you as the character, it was scaring Cresselia as well. It was hard to tell that it was just a nightmare.
** During the battle near the end, Darkrai can sometimes stand there and ''stare at your character, watching carefully''. Though this is a normal consequence of the Status Checker IQ skill, it takes on a new meaning here.
* Consider how things must seem from Azumarill's point of view. Just think about it: You have two darling children, your pride and joy. But then you get sick. ''So'' sick that you're bedridden and can't take care of them. Your dear, sweet boys comfort you as best they can, insisting that they can run errands for you and take care of things while you concentrate on getting back on your feet. And you might be a bit leery, but you've got to trust them. And besides, you know the town is safe. it's a pretty close-knit community, and you trust the shopkeepers and the locals enough to know they'll look out for your kids. But despite all that, your children are still abducted in broad daylight, right in the middle of town, by a seemingly friendly and helpful stranger who singles out your youngest for his own nasty intentions. And all this happens while you're so ill you can't do anything about it, and you only find out after it's all played out.
** Somehow the fact that the abductor is a ''[[MemeticMolester Drowzee]]'' makes the tone of the whole situation a bit creepier, somewhat [[CrossesTheLineTwice funny]], or a little of both.
* Azurill's nightmare was creepier than it could've been. There's no food, your hunger increases faster, and ''there are Pokémon to fight in his dream''... Not to mention the fact that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTxyFBMZ9IU the song that plays in little Azurill's nightmare]] is disturbingly calm and sounds like a creepy remix of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBdSn4KwVmI Heartwarming, the song of Azurill and Marill brothers.]]
** It [[FridgeHorror may take you a while to catch on]], but pay attention to just which species of Pokémon are in the nightmare -- among others, Wigglytuff, Chansey, Spoink, Spinda, Croagunk, Skitty, and Meowth -- All of these are either friendly residents of Treasure Town or members of the guild, or Pokémon the player and the partner can potentially be. Yep, in Azurill's nightmare, ''his friends are out to kill him''.
*** Just the fact that almost every Pokémon in the dungeon are cute 'Mons generally associated with happiness and fairies (Many being retconned to Fairy in Gen VI) adds a weirdly disturbing aspect to it.

** Also the misspelled items (such as the Oren Berry) in Sky. Imagine your character getting hungrier and hungrier every move, starting to lose HP. You eat those items to keep your hunger calm, only to realize that they nailed a status effect on you.
** Then, if you dare, you can eat the X-Eye Seed.

* Team AWD has renown for being cunning and devious, willing to do anything for treasure. They're also all [[DarkIsEvil dark]] or [[PoisonIsEvil poison]] types.
** Thankfully, [[DarkIsNotEvil they're actually nice people]] (though Weavile is a bit of a bitch) and only fought Team Charm due to a misunderstanding, and when Ditto reveals the truth of the treasure to them (its a Time Gear) they agree to leave in peace and neither side seems to hold any grudges. In the post-game, they actually end up giving you helpful tips and advice for tackling [[BonusLevelOfHell Zero Isle]].
** This leads to some fearful dissonance for another reason entirely. Simply put, even after the Team Charm episode, the player still doesn't know how much of it is true. Some of the [=NPCs=] were part of the subterfuge; others weren't. Weavile denies almost nothing. All you can really be sure of is that they don't intend to freeze the world. While knowing that someone is greedy and malicious is scary in itself, it's an even worse fate to never be sure about it... because then you can't be certain that defeating them is the right thing to do. Though the fact that Team AWD are wandering around in Treasure Town without people batting an eye and can even enter the Guild (which has its own special security system for scouting out bad Pokémon) suggests that they aren't bad Pokémon, but when you have malicious Pokémon like Dusknoir who could (theoretically) pass off as completely unsuspicious but had ulterior motives in mind, you can't be so sure by their looks.
* You probably know that you can turn around and talk to your teammates right? Well, in the fifth Special Episode in ''Sky'', Dusknoir joins you (playing as Grovyle) for a while. If you turn around to talk to him, what's one of his lines? "Feeling nervous? [[ParanoiaFuel Having your back exposed to me]]..."
* As pointed out in the Headscratchers page, if Caterpie and Azurill are considered children in the game's universe, does that mean that all unevolved mons are children? That [[ChildSoldiers children are being sent down]] into incredibly dangerous dungeons?
** It doesn't help that the guild's theme song is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7srpNcSSGo4 marching music]].
** It actually is canon that you and your partner are considered "kids" (Chatot addresses you as such when you first meet him). However, he also acts as though you are significantly younger than most of the other members of the guild, so at least sending children to do this type of work isn't considered ''normal'' in this 'verse.
** As seen below, you can recruit Pokemon after immediately hatching from eggs, so you pretty much in a sense are "recruiting babies" Which is kind of odd since they are born already fully fluent in speech and preset character traits.
* The fact that you can occasionally receive eggs from missions marked with "???" as the reward in Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky can be a bit of FridgeHorror all on its own; but add in the fact that said egg is usually from a species in the dungeon you just visited as opposed to your client's species...
** Given how the eggs are apparently picked up in dungeons, either 1) your client saved it from all the hostile Pokémon, which makes you wonder what would have happened to the poor newborn Pokémon if it had hatched in there, or 2) your client ''stole it'' from its parents. Neither implication is good.
* In ''Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky'', some wild Pokémon ''explode'' upon defeat. This happens randomly if a Pokemon has the ability Aftermath.