ALL spoilers below are UNMARKED per wiki policy. Read at your own risk! You Have Been Warned.
- The fortresses in the game are dark, gloomy and expansive labyrinths that impart a feeling of hopelessness and despair, thanks in no small part to the creepy, ambient music
provided by composer Hip Tanaka. Driving home the effect are the centurions, turned to stone by Medusa's magic, which litter the fortresses. Oftentimes, stone centurions will be placed in unusual locations such as inside walls, as though the villains of the game took it upon themselves to use these formerly-living creatures as a macabre decoration. Sometimes, Pit has to use the petrified bodies of centurions (fellow members of Palutena's Army and, likely, his former friends) as a platform to reach new areas. - Collin, an enemy featured in Skyworld, is a centurion under the control of Medusa who is surrounded and protected by the Phils / EelEyes, poisonous worms that emerge from his body. As the manual puts it, the EelEye "lives in Collin's body" - leaving readers with the impression that Collin is a living corpse being eaten away by worms.
- Another enemy, Erinus, is a cloaked monster that makes its home in the final stage, where it paces around and gesticulates its hands, occasionally firing a projectile at Pit. If shot, Erinus splits into three pieces, which then float across the screen a la paper, threatening to ram into Pit - all while the monster's two-frame gesticulating animation continues to play. Although the effect was probably intended to be humorous (and is, depending on your perspective), the idea of getting split into three pieces while still living and moving is none too pleasant.
- The sudden creepy noise that plays, along with a Reaper changing its expression every time one spots Pit. The distorted sound won't go away until Pit gets rid of the Reapettes that a Reaper summoned. What makes this even worse is that the noise would play over the current stage music.
- The chiefest of the many examples of Body Horror in Kid Icarus is none other than Medusa herself, who was transformed from a relatively normal-looking (even somewhat beautiful) goddess into the massive, cycloptic monster seen in the game. Despite her villainy, Medusa's situation can be interpreted as somewhat tragic, especially after you get to see her original body after defeating her in the final battle. Never mind the implications that Palutena was the one responsible for Medusa's transformation.
