Nightmare Fuel / Persona 4

"Then I will grant you one truth... You will all die here."

Despite being Lighter and Softer than other Shin Megami Tensei games, Persona 4 still manages to have a lot of Nightmare Fuel, due to centering around a murder mystery in a quiet rural town. The horrific portrayal of the Shadow Selves in comparison to previous entries doesn't help.

WARNING: As per Nightmare Fuel guidelines, all spoilers ahead are unmarked!

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• The first example in the game is your first visit to the TV World. Ominous music plays while you find an empty room filled with posters of a woman with her face torn out, splotches of blood which the Persona series seems to love so much, and a classic chair and noose arrangement. While this is nothing compared to the crazier things that will happen later in the game, it still makes a striking change from the everyday rural life, minus a murder, up until now.
  • Even aside from the Room Full of Crazy, the whole sequence wandering around in the TV world for the first time is frighteningly eerie, the closest the Persona series has ever come to being an out-and-out horror game. You, Yosuke and Chie wander for hours through a nonsensical eldritch landscape absolutely choked with Ominous Fog, getting tired and slowly succumbing to despair as you can't find a way out, and all the time you have this creeping feeling that you're not alone in this terrifying place... It doesn't help that the area they first wind up in has a floor that is covered in dozens of chalk outlines seen at murder scenes.
• The calls you get if you fail to rescue someone will probably haunt your dreams. Special mention goes to the final call wherein failing to confront the serial killer before the deadline results in a call from Naoto, wherein she is murdered by Shadows while on the phone with you; the blood-curdling scream she lets out as she's being torn to shreds is the icing on the cake.
• ALL of the Shadow Selves are disturbing in one way or another, whether it be their incredibly unsettling voices or the often terrifying expressions on their face. No matter whose Shadow it is, you will dread having to face it once it shows up.
  • Shadow Yosuke is your first exposure to the reality of what exactly a shadow is: it's a manifestation of all of your worst flaws and suppressed dark thoughts, and if you deny it, it will kill you.
    • As for Shadow Yosuke in general, he doesn't seem that bad compared to the other Shadows until you realize that his motives for attacking you are eerily similar to the Killer's.
  • Shadow Chie's Psychotic Smirk is so deeply unsettling to look at that you'll breathe a sigh of relief whenever she switches her expression, even if for just a brief moment.
    • Even after transforming, she still has a smile drawn on her mask in what looks like blood.
  • Shadow Yukiko, upon transformation, is a giant bird with Yukiko's human face. And her face looks soulless.
  • Shadow Kanji, despite being one of the sillier Shadow Selves, is still pretty scary due to his default expression. Compared to the real Kanji's portrait, Shadow Kanji's portrait just looks wrong, to say the least. It's like he's perpetually having an orgasm.
  • Shadow Rise's monstrous battle form is a giant multicolour girl tangling herself around a dance pole, with a satellite dish for a face. Her attacks involve her screeching "FEAST YOUR EYES!" or moaning, while humping the dance pole between her legs with a very audible squelch. It doesn't help that because of her inherent powers, you can't beat her; scary thought if you don't know that the fight will eventually cut to a scene where Teddie goes apezoid to defeat her.
    • Even Shadow Rise's human form is quite creepy, which is an achievement for a tantalizing girl wearing a bikini. The other Shadow Selves wandered around their dungeon and pitted the heroes against minibosses because they just seemed to think of it as the right thing to do. Shadow Rise, however, is notably more hostile: she deliberately tries to lure you deeper into the striptease, turns out the lights on you, and when you locate her again, pretends to cooperate before splitting the scene and leaving a giant snake in her place. Add her wide eyes and creepy grin to that, and she ends up one of the most unpleasant Shadows the team has to deal with.
    • Shadow Rise doesn't actually have an "angry" expression; the implication is that she's had so much work done to her face that she can't actually do more than furrow her brow a little bit.
  • Shadow Teddie, of course, is probably the absolute WORST of the Shadows you fight in terms of sheer horror, which is really saying something. He's a twisted perversion of Teddie, the lovably corny pun-spewing teddy bear Shadow, with eerily glowing eyes and two giant holes in his face (upon transformation), revealing that there's nothing beneath the monster's husk. His VOICE alone will send shivers down the spines of even the most steely-hearted players, which just adds fuel to the fire. To top it all off, he spends his introductory scene going on about how futile your quest for the truth is in a frighteningly eloquent manner. All of this puts Teddie's Shadow on a different level of terrifying from the other Shadow Selves, which is no mean feat whatsoever.
    • Shadow Teddie is no mere Shadow, either; he is the shadow of a shadow. An eldritch form of something already pretty eldritch. Could Shadow Teddie be even more of an abomination? The fact that it's implied that Ameno-sagiri is either possessing or has spawned this thing doesn't help. And finally, Sam Riegel actually manages to make Shadow Teddie even Creepier then Dave Wittenberg did, if that's even possible.
    • Persona 4 Golden actually makes it worse in a way other than the creepier voice acting. All the Shadows fought thus far have kept the same voice effects in their base and rampaging forms. Shadow Teddie's voice on the the other hand drops enough octaves to sound absolutely demonic. It really drives home how wrong he is compared to the others of his kind, given that he's a Shadow's Shadow.
    • It says something about how downright horrific this thing is that Chie and Yosuke express genuine shock and concern that something like this could even exist inside someone like Teddie.
  • Shadow Mitsuo's glowing yellow eyes, Creepy Monotone and downright life-less manner of speaking easily make him one of the creepier Shadow Selves the team encounters. The fact that Mitsuo is warped enough that he doesn't need to accept his Shadow for it to disappear doesn't help at all.
    • His battle form is quite unsettling, too; a demonic baby encased inside a giant 8-bit video game character called "Mitsuo The Hero". Fittingly enough, the voice he speaks with in this form is... far from pleasant, to say the least.
  • Shadow Naoto, the final Shadow Self the team deals with, definitely doesn't disappoint in terms of terror; her Kubrick Stare in her human form will definitely freak you out when you first see it, and that's before she starts Mood-Swinging like a lunatic. Then there's the fact that her ultimate goal is to forcibly change Naoto into a man via a sex-change operation, and air it on live television. Needless to say, it's no surprise that the real Naoto freaks out after a certain point into her Shadow's introduction.
• The Void Quest dungeon. Everything's a game! Hurting people just lowers their HP and entertains you! And, of course, you're playing a game just like the one in his mind a couple generations down the line, and grew up on games exactly like the ones that make up his id. Thanks, Atlus. The dialogue in between floors is also really creepy; one is just a single, long "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA".
  • Then there's the boss of the dungeon, Shadow Mitsuo. As explained above, after its introduction, it transforms into a floating baby that speaks in a very creepy, empty-sounding voice. Its line of dialogue before you fight it is also subtly creepy, due to it being an indication that Shadow Mitsuo is so hollow on the inside that it doesn't care enough to get angry over whether or not he's a part of the real Mitsuo; this thing attacks the party pretty much for the sake of it.
    I am a Shadow. Come... I'll end your emptiness.
  • All Shadow Selves say a variation of the phrase "I am you, and you are me" to their regular selves. Shadow Mitsuo, however, is so utterly bereft of anything that he instead says...
    I am nothing... And you... are me...
  • Another start-of-floor quote is a jumbled, slightly incoherent reprise of an earlier quote that causes Rise to suspect that Mitsuo is insane. And then there's the start-of-floor-9 quote that devolves into complete gibberish then ends up as "killkillkillkill", pretty much confirming that he is.
  • Mitsuo himself is such a creep that there's little difference between him and his own Shadow. He is so desperate for attention that he is not only claiming to be a murderer, but in order to make it more believable, he kills King Moron and makes it seem like another murder. Even King Moron being generally hated amongst Yasogami High School's student body does little to lessen the horror. Another factor is that unlike the real killer, Adachi, who simply let the Shadows in the TV world kill Mayumi and Saki for him, Mitsuo killed Morooka with his bare hands; he didn't even have the temptation brought upon by the sudden acquisition of great supernatural power, he just did it. It's little wonder that Mitsuo is regarded as just as much of a scumbag as Adachi.
• The entirety of the arc involving Nanako getting kidnapped, Namatame being suspected as the killer, the boss fight of the dungeon, and the dungeon itself. It's a contender for the scariest part of the game as a whole, and for good reason:
  • To wit: you're a cop still trying to chase after the criminal who killed your wife, leaving your daughter without a mother; the concept alone is horrific in a variety of ways. Then you get caught up in a case of mysterious murders, only for YOUR OWN DAUGHTER to be the next potential victim.
  • Then, there's the dungeon, named Heaven. At first, that doesn't sound too bad, as it has great music, design, and atmosphere. The disturbing (and depressing) part comes in the fact that it partly comes from a deeply disturbed and depressed guy with a messiah complex, the fact that even though it looks heavenly, the monstrous Shadows still invade it, and it also partly comes from a girl who misses her dead mother and wishes to be with her once more.
  • The boss, Kunino-Sagiri, is the cherry on top of the horror cake. How it enters the scene ALONE is terrifying: the Shadows present starts merging with Namatame, his body bulges with every Shadow that enters his body, as his body turns red and Namatame lets out one of the most blood-curling screams in the game. Once the transformation is complete, Kunino-Sagiri descends to the ground in front of the team with an appearance that'd make a religious avant-garde art student have a heart attack: he looks like a cross between a Muppet and a giant, animated fetus, has gears coming out of its head, and bulging, yellow eyes that lack pupils. It looks like it's dressed up in hippie garb, complete with heart and peace symbols on its angel-like robe, and even flashes "peace" symbols with its gnarled, rotting fingers. When its HP gets low enough, it goes limp and slacks its jaw like some sort of bug-eyed corpse. Its battle theme, while awesome, also sounds droning, grating, hopeless, and rather alien-sounding. To top it off, this freak of nature is found at the very top of Heaven, something Yunalesca would be proud of.
  • As if all of this wasn't bad enough, if you do not make the right choices after Kunino-Sagiri is defeated, you could get the Bad Ending: the team gets caught up in the heat of the moment and kills Namatame soon after they confront him in the hospital, while he's shaking in pure terror at the circumstances he's found himself in. Not only is Namatame ultimately innocent, the truth is still undiscovered and the real Killer is still at large. Congratulations; you had the heroes kill the wrong guy, Yu's little surrogate sister is now dead for good, and the fog continues to grow thicker as you've stopped reaching out for the truth. The music that plays as the credits roll just hammers home how horribly wrong everything ends up.
  • There’s also the state of Dojima in this ending, doubles as a Tear Jerker. His voice sounds absolutely pained about the events that unfolded (keep in mind that it was more than 3 months since Nanako's death, meaning he still hasn’t moved on over what happened), and told Yu that, once he’s gone, he’s going to be all alone. But would truly cement this is how Dojima told him that, if evil has to be dealt with, but with no one else willing or able to deal with them, then it’s up to the person to put a stop to this. In other words, he had a hitch that the heroes had something to do with Namatame‘s death, but decides to cover it up because he feels that no one else is willing or able to punish him, and that it’s the only way to punish him. in other words, he’s become as corrupt as the rest of the police force, being no better than the very same force he butts heads with because of their corruption and incompetence.
• In the last month of the game, Inaba becomes shrouded in fog. The player, and the residents of the town, will probably just dismiss it as regular post-rain fog. However, the fog does not cease, it has a sickly shade of green, and the weather forecast indicates that the remaining days will be foggy. It progressively gets thicker, and the new town "music", Omen, isn't really music so much as a quiet composition of ominous droning, percussion, and other electronic sounds. Various people start falling ill, some of the adult residents begin to wear gas masks, students start to talk about some pretty outrageous things like a "healing club" and the idea of being turned into a monster (and talking about it like it's nothing), and class gets progressively more on edge. On top of that, if you fail to finish that month's dungeon in time, it's not just one person getting killed this time, the Shadows from the TV World are heavily implied to have come into the real world, bringing about The End of the World as We Know It.
  • If you tune in to Tanaka's Amazing Commodities after 11/27, instead of offering any usable items, he's selling gas masks and first aid kits to cash in on the dread. Also, he sells out before you can even choose to buy anything — this is how bad the public is panicking.
  • By the time the Killer is identified, the fog starts to sport rather sizable black particles. It's unknown what they are (Shadow spores, maybe?), but it helps to convey the idea that people are getting sick from the fog.
• The lead up to 12/3, with the group at their Darkest Hour. Nanako seemingly dies, and the Investigation Team is looking for vengeance on Namatame. The real kicker is that it's Naoto, usually the most level-headed member of the group, who makes a suggestion on the best way to kill Namatame.
  • Naoto's starting Persona is Sukuna-Hikona, a revenge killer who tried to wipe out a city in this same continuity. The upgrade, Yamato-Takeru, had such a rage problem that he committed second-degree fratricide during a trivial argument, and his own father was desperate to keep him out of the house fighting distant wars. In the base game, Naoto can only learn spells for making things extremely dead. With all this in mind, it makes a frightening amount of sense that Naoto's the one to suggest plausibly-deniable homicide in this situation. Thank GOD she's on the side of good.
• The Reveal of the Killer's identity as Tohru Adachi makes things a LOT more disturbing when you realize that you've had dinner with him, he's been in your house, he's behind all of the madness, facilitating the deaths of several people, including your surrogate little sister, manipulating a guy into doing the dirty work and then watching everything unfold, and you had no idea up until the moment he's exposed. Even after Nanako and Dojima are hospitalized, what does he do? Smiles to your face and tell you to go home, while he watches Dojima. He was alone in Dojima's room, and watched him sleep. He could have killed him at any time, but it would've given him away. And to make matters worse, when you actually fight the killer, the familiar Persona critical cut in shows up flashes on the screen with a red background, revealing that this psycho also has a Persona. Finally, it's very chilling to hear Johnny Yong Bosch audibly go from a bumbling, incompetent detective, to a twisted, terrifying villain, especially to anyone familiar with who he usually voices.
  • Golden manages to make Adachi even creepier, by adding him as a Social Link. Provided you get the link high enough by the time the Investigation Team are trying to figure out the killer's identity, you get the option to protect him. Doing so initiates a Time Skip to the Protagonist's final day in Inaba, at which point he privately confronts Adachi and asks if he's the killer. However, he continues to play dumb, right up until you choose to burn the letter that he sent you that was the only thing linking him to the crimes, at which point he makes this face◊: before not only admitting to his crimes, but pointing out that destroying evidence is a crime. He then tells the Protagonist that whenever he calls, he must pick up and not to try to change his number, because Adachi will track him down. Worse yet, you still get the "Social Link Complete" sequence, in a pretty terrifying Mood Whiplash. In any case, enjoy the Accomplice Ending.
    The Killer: Goodbye, partner.
  • Not to mention his reasons for him becoming a killer. Why'd he do it? He was bored and jealous. Seriously. Adachi was dissatisfied with how his life turned out, annoyed by everyone around him, and so blamed them all for his failures and shortcomings, especially the one that got him sent to Inaba in the first place. MOMENTS AFTER you arrived he saw this gas station attendant who taught him all sorts of wonders of the TV World to relieve his Small Town Boredom, then just like what he did to you, he gave a handshake to him... and all hell runs loose. When word got out that the woman he "had his eyes on first" was sleeping with Namatame, he killed her by accident and then he found out that he can kill people with this power. He then did the same to Saki for the awful crime of talking to the guy^note Never mind the fact that it was Namatame who approached Saki first, as well as rejecting his advances, this time being deliberate.^note Yes, the 27-year-old Adachi tried hitting on a teenage girl He maintains that they were both "stupid bitches" who were after Namatame for money, so they deserved to die and he did nothing wrong. In short, it's all one long look into the Insane Troll Logic that some people actually use to justify murder.
    • Even creepier is that his primary motive, outside of boredom, is misogyny - he felt justified in attacking both Mayumi and Saki because he felt that they were "easy" and that they shouldn't have been able to say no to his advances. There are a few hints dotted throughout his social link that he has appalling views about women - the biggest one being the conversation you have with him where he details going after "bombshells", while also wanting a woman who could cook for him (showing that he thinks of women as being useful for their looks and because they could serve him) - but the disturbing thing is that these red flags are so difficult to pick up on. Why? Because of how similar they are to things other characters in the game say, including/especially Yosuke. Adachi's a creep and an attempted rapist, and all the signs of this are easy to ignore because he doesn't sound like he's a danger to women; he sounds like he's just taking part in "guy talk".
  • If you get far enough in his Social Link by the time you learn he's the Killer and discover his dungeon in the TV world, you can confront him alone in a bid to reason with him. In the room, where you're at his mercy, he puts a gun to your head, toys with you, casually mentions how willing he is to kill you, and comes this close to shooting you in the head, only missing because he wanted to toy with you some more.
  • Some of the various◊ expressions◊ he makes◊ after he's outed as the Killer are so morbidly disturbing that it's unbelievable he managed to string along Yu, Dojima and the others for so long. The SMILE he makes, in particular, becomes even worse once the Final Boss of the game possesses him.
• The Reaper is back! Though this time, he's only a Chest Monster, and the game not only alerts you if you try to open a Reaper chest, it will even confirm if you want to open it or ignore it instead.
  • Golden makes it worse. Originally the Reaper could only show up on New Game Plus. In Golden, he shows up on the first playthrough. He'll be summoned if you open too many chests on a single dungeon floor. And how do you know he's arrived? Deep, animalistic roars and the sound of dragging chains. You're still warned if you find his chest, but getting away from that fucking sound is reason enough to get to the stairs.
    • Even worse is the fact that that sound? That's the same sound that The Reaper makes while hunting for you in Persona 3. People who played that game might go into an instinctual panic just remembering how fast the Reaper could catch up to the player in that game.
• The manga often forgets to draw faces on the characters in some panels. It's unsettling when you read it for the first time and aren't expecting it.
• The Midnight Channel theme, catchy as it is, also highlights the horror of being trapped in the TV world. You're completely alone, no one can hear you, you're powerless to escape, and the real enemy comes from deep within your own mind. Without a Persona, you're totally helpless.
• The random fridge events can be this for those who are easily freaked out by spoiled food left in the refrigerator for too long. While nowhere near on the scale of the main events of the series, it can make you think twice about busting open the fridge for a quick snack.
• The occasional small chests in certain dungeons (such as the final dungeon before the normal ending) that make a thwack! sound and damage you rather than giving you an item make for a good Jump Scare and a dose of Paranoia Fuel.
• The girls' Lethal Cooking. Even if they are all literally Played for Laughs, they're still pretty horrible. Especially in Golden.
  • The infamous "Mystery Food X/Mudoon Curry" incident in the camping trip, where Chie cooks up a "curry" that is less like a curry but a purple, sludge-like concoction. In the anime, Yu and Yosuke even pass away eating it.
  • In Valentine's Day, if you decide to go in and meet Marie, she will give you chocolate made from ingredients from the Velvet Room. However, the Chocolate is moving and gives an unpleasant odor. While it looks terrible and smells terrible, the chocolate indeed does taste delicious and you cannot resist eating them all. However, something begins to squirm in your stomach. This basically means that Marie is using your Compendium Personas to make Chocolate, and the chocolate you ate are now becoming into Jack Frosts, Pixies and whatnot running around inside your stomach.
  • Later that day, Nanako gave you a "chocolate" that she made from ingredients that were suggested by the Investigation Team girls; this alone already qualifies as a red alarm to your stomach. Chie suggested that she makes the chocolate with iced coffee and bacon, Rise suggested wheatgrass juice, bell peppers, ponzu sauce, and vinegar, and Yukiko suggested fermented squid and fish sausage. Naoto warned the other girls but it was already too late. The result is a concoction that resembles the Persona Slime, yet surprisingly it has no odor. Nanako then tells you "Big Bro, thank you... I love you!" and you have NO OPTION other than to eat this kitchen disaster. And it was pretty evident that not only it looks like a Mess on a Plate, you INSTANTLY BLACK OUT because of food poisoning.
• The bad ending theme/Izanami's dungeon theme is unsettling and relaxing at the same time. It is the epitome of Dissonant Serenity and basically tells you that you failed horribly in discovering the truth if it's playing in the bad endings and gives Izanami's dungeon a much more sinister vibe.
• Izanami, the Greater-Scope Villain and True Final Boss of the game, is horrifying. Her gas station attendant form (described further below) is quite unsettling in of itself, and that's BEFORE she's revealed to be a manifestation of the collective unconscious of humanity who speaks with the same creepy voice the Shadow Selves do. She slowly reveals throughout the last stretch of the game that she conducted an experiment on humanity in order to discern their true desires, and used Yu, Namatame and Adachi as Unwitting Pawns to accomplish her goals. She tops it all off with a HORRIFYING Death Glare before engaging the team in battle.
  • The first phase of the fight against her isn't so bad, until the Orb of Sight that's been happily sitting in your pocket reveals her true form: a giant red skeleton whose screams rival a banshee and makes a disgusting noise every time she even casts a skill. To make matters worse, if you thought Nyx's Night Queen from Persona 3 was bad, this boss takes it up to eleven, using a skill that inflicts your party with a random status ailment (unless you avoid it) and then slaughtering any unfortunate member unlucky enough to be inflicted. The icing on the Lovecraftian cake is the penultimate attack — A Thousand Curses. First off, it looks like a mass of hands coming out of a blood-red abyss ready to drag its victim down to hell; then your comrades sacrifice themselves one by one until there's no one left to protect you. Uh oh. Worst of all, if you do not know that it is actually scripted, then it is downright panic-inducing to see the long boss battle suddenly take for a worse, just when you think you've won.
  • Her gas station attendant form is also said to be quite unsettling, according to younger townsfolk of Inaba. Nanako immediately points out how suspicious "he" looks, and other NPCs say that he looks like both a man and a woman, not to say that he only appears on rainy days after the introduction. It's almost like "he's" not supposed to be there in the first place... and that ultimately turns out to be the truth.
  • Suddenly, you realized that Izanami only comes out during rainy days, so it is Izanami finishing off the victims using A Thousand Curses as seen in the anime where Yamano and Saki are seen being killed by it.
• While you, Yosuke, and Kanji are doing a pick-up contest, you can come across a woman who's willing to give you her number. When you phone her later on, it's her boyfriend who answers instead and he basically screams at you for daring to hit on "his" girl and to never call again or that he'll rip off your head and spit down your neck! Everyone is understandably disturbed by this and one can only wonder how things went between the woman and that psycho afterwards...
• There's a ghost of a woman who appears at the shrine at night. While she's nowhere near as threatening (she only ever asks politely for you to give her fish) or creepy as some of the NPC's describe her as being, it's still quite chilling to hear this ghost woman ask you for fish to feed herself or her starving children (who are almost certainly also dead). Bonus points that she's standing behind a pillar, which, combined with the camera angle, means that you can't actually see her until you're practically standing next to her.

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