Line #3 NightmareFuel/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky


1	! First Chapter
2	* The end of FC's Chapter 1 has Don Capua, who's the first indication that this game isn't as saccharine as it seems. While Josette and Kyle Capua, his underlings and younger siblings, were almost [[Anime/PokemonTheSeries Jessie and James]] levels of goofy, non-threatening criminals, you first meet Don when you walk in on him planning to kill ''all'' the hostages from an airliner because [[HeKnowsTooMuch they know too much]], and he proceeds to go AxCrazy on your party, complete with a disturbing gritted-teeth portrait and hunting metaphors. This is the first time in the game a villain has threatened you with death, a stark contrast to the lightheartedness of everything before. Possibly making this worse is that he's BrainwashedAndCrazy, and genuinely doesn't remember any of this after you beat it out of him. Imagine if he ''had'' killed someone, only to wake up and not remember doing it.
3	* '''Weissmann.''' The BigBad and resident CompleteMonster of the series, who, at the end of FC, is revealed to have been manipulating everyone- and especially Joshua- since ''before you even get control of the game.'' The most disturbing thing about him is his "alter ego," Professor Alba. Calm, friendly, cheerful, '''[[TheDogWasTheMastermind and playing you like a fiddle from day one.]]''' The portrait he starts using once his EvilPlan really kicks into high gear, with BlackEyesOfEvil and a SlasherSmile, is especially notable.
4	* The DissonantSerenity as Joshua describes a child committing horrible acts of murder day after day, treating the whole thing like a child's fairy tale.
5	! Second Chapter
6	* FC's laid-back pacing and cheerful tone work wonders to make the threats introduced in SC feel that much more realistic. After two games of rich world-building, the thought of Weissmann succeeding in his plan to have [[AssimilationPlot all of Liberl mind-controlled]] is depressing to say the least.
7	* Most of the Enforcers are varying degrees of creepy, but Walter the Direwolf deserves a special mention.
8	--> '''Tita:''' Wait...B-B-But...If the buildings collapsed, all the people inside would get hurt!
9	--> '''Walter:''' Heh. You catch on quick, little girlie. Some of 'em would get crushed under the rubble, their arms and legs mashed into jelly, left screamin' like pigs...Others? They'd get quick deaths. Heads shattered like eggs, spillin' their brains out on the road for everyone to see. Heeey, I've got an idea! How about we do that to you instead? That blond head of yours looks pretty fragile to me.
10	* While Bleublanc is normally too [[LargeHam hammy]] to be scary, he can be pretty terrifying when he wants to be, and some of his actions have disturbing implications, such as his IHaveYouNowMyPretty attitude towards Kloe. The report on him in one of The Third's Star Doors also contains some creepy elements, such as noting that one of the "unappreciated treasures" he once stole was the TrophyWife of a famous general. While it initially seemed like he had good intentions, rescuing her from an abusive marriage, the report then notes that ''[[FridgeHorror she was never seen or heard from again.]]''
11	* Renne's [[AxCrazy true]] [[PsychopathicManchild colors]]. Much like [[VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}} Albedo]], her insanity is chillingly realistic, as almost all of her dialogue post-reveal and pre-HeelFaceTurn is deranged babbling rather than simply stating her love of carnage and death.
12	** Renne's past before joining Ouroboros didn't help. It was so bad Falcom had to censor it from ''every'' release after the original release. Had [=XSeed=] not decided on localizing the PC version (they thankfully only localize the PC version), the truth would be left unknown to the western fanbase.[[labelnote:brief explanation(spoiler!)]]She was forced to be a prostitute while also becoming subject of the human experimentation of a cult later revealed in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsFromZero''. The experience was so agonizing for her, she had to create imaginary characters and ''physically cut her own skin'' to cope with it.[[/labelnote]]
13	* The doll replicas of Joshua look mildly unsettling, but having to fight them is strongly implied to be outright traumatic for Estelle, who has a nightmare about it afterwards.
14	* The Aureole is a weirdly grave part of what has been, on the whole, a pretty classic JRPG. A treasure from the Goddess that goes on to more or less break mankind's will by giving them unlimited wishes, to the point of trying to kill off a rebel effort to free humans to live and make friends again, all out of what appears to be good intentions is juicy and oddly terrifying in a low key, background info sort of way. The number it does on Weissmann doesn't really make things much better.
15	** The most terrifying thing about this comes from the fact that lots of ancients at the time had grown dependent on Aureole. Breaking the will of the people back then resulted in them not knowing how to survive on their own, so much so that 90% of the remaining population in what ended up becoming Liberl ''died''. Having to survive without such advanced technology must have been chaos back then.
16	** How did this societal degradation even start? The inhabitants used the Aureole to essentially grant them everything they ever wanted with its power over Space, essentially mentally turning the Liber Ark into a '''giant farm''' due to the eventual overuse. Imagine the state of the humans in ''WesternAnimation/WallE'', replace the robots and flying couches with an omnipotent, highly misguided genie that serves everyone and you can pretty much imagine what humans were like back then.
17	** It bears noting that '''a man who orchestrated a massacre of an entire village just to prove how sinful man was then turned one of the survivors into a TykeBomb did a FusionDance with a LotusEaterMachine.''' Imagine what would have happened to not only Liberl but Zemuria as a whole had he not been stopped.
18	* The Hamel incident. An entire village was destroyed in a horrifyingly realistic depiction of RapePillageAndBurn, with the "rape" part not being an exaggeration. Joshua's description of what happened to him as he was fleeing is the worst part. HarmfulToMinors doesn't even begin to cover it. (As Joshua fled with his sister, they ran into a soldier, who attempted to sexually assault her. Without thinking, Joshua grabbed the soldier's gun and shot him ''in the throat''. And the soldier didn't even die instantly, he spent a few minutes sputtering and bleeding out, which the text [[{{Gorn}} lovingly describes]]. Joshua was just a child at the time, and these events rendered him nearly catatonic... which allowed Weissmann to mold his personality as he saw fit.) It's telling that this incident serves as the StartOfDarkness for multiple characters across the whole ''Trails Series''.
19	* Weissmann's S-Craft, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vMW5m52Dh4 Another Dimension]]. It looks more like something from a horror game than a JRPG: it has the party falling into a blood-red sea of faces, grabbed by bloody hands, then impaled on bloody spears.
20	* The brief glimpse of Kevin's true personality at the end of SC. Especially given how he acted like a lovable jokester the rest of the game, and unlike Olivier gave very few hints he was ObfuscatingStupidity. His face portrait changes make it worse. The only thing that mitigates it is [[AssholeVictim his target totally had it coming.]]
21	! The 3rd
22	* The Salt Pale incident, which is revealed to the player in the 3rd. Basically, a giant tower of salt appeared out of nowhere in the state of North Ambria, turning ''[[ApocalypseHow half]]'' of the country into a sea of salt. If that's not terrifying enough, the text implies that the only reason the damn thing didn't end up covering [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt all of Zemuria]] was the giant river between it and the rest of the continent.
23	* The moment when Kevin's backstory is fully revealed. Firstly, ''his own mother went insane and tried to commit murder-suicide with him''. This is easily one of the greatest moments of fear in the series. Nothing fantastical involved here, no DemonicPossession, just a normal human pushed to the edge. We even see a still image of her, faceless, with a SlasherSmile, moving in to strangle Kevin. After ''that'' we find out what really happened with Rufina. When Kevin's orphanage was attacked by Jaegers, one of them kidnapped Ries and Kevin chased them to a sealed room housing an ArtifactOfDoom. The Jaeger touched it and transformed into a horrible monster, but Kevin's Stigma triggered and absorbed the artifact's power, shooting out a barrage of spears. We don't see it, but according to Kevin's narration, [[NotEnoughToBury what little was left was barely recognizable, just chunks of flesh splattered across the room]], and Kevin was still in a state of uncontrollable bloodlust and was poised to attack Ries, so Rufina [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificed herself.]] We get another artwork, this time of Rufina impaled on several spears, blood smeared across the floor. No wonder Kevin is so messed up after all that. ''[[HarsherInHindsight You will never see Kevin's second S-Craft the same way again.]]''
24	* The Gehenna section of ''The 3rd'' is fairly disturbing. Kevin has to face several demonic versions of the people he killed, such as a corrupt clergyman who caused his StartOfDarkness and a boy he had to MercyKill. The last miniboss is his mother turned into a ghost, since he feels guilty over her death even though he didn't kill her.

Context NightmareFuel / TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky