YMMV / Atmosfear

• Awesome Music:
  • The Background Music is arguably the scariest part of the games.
  • Baron Samedi's music video, "Thrill Me". Yo, Baron, we can dig it! It's used as the title theme for the SNES game and still manages to sounds cool without lyrics and a simpler instrumentation.
  • Khufu's Tomb in the SNES game has a cool rock track with Egyptian motifs.
• Best Level Ever: Of a sort. Sometimes in the final three minutes of the DVD game, the Gatekeeper will decide that the players are such losers that, on his mark, he will let everyone take all the keys they want, no strings attached. What follows can be one of the most hilarious, chaotic, and satisfying finales to a board game you'll ever play.
• Creepy Awesome: Most of the hosts get creepier designs and get nastier as the game goes on, but this doesn't prevent them from looking decently intimidating or being entertaining, especially Elizabeth Bathory with her odd purple coloration and Scary Teeth.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Baron Samedi is likely as well-remembered as the Gatekeeper himself, as he figures prominently into the advertising for the game, shows up in the "how to play" section of the Harbingers video and has his own music video, "Thrill Me".
  • The Soul Rangers in The Harbingers were so popular that they got their own Spin-Off. Ironically, they were created as another way to punish the players, but likely ended up infusing the spirit of the game in a way never intended: when the host gleefully insulting and screwing over the players is a way of life, a style centered around antagonizing other players has a certain mean-spirited appeal.
• Even Better Sequel: The Harbingers, which featured the return of the original Gatekeeper and more developed game mechanics, and Atmosfear: The Gatekeeper, which brought the series into the DVD era and featured randomized games, allowing for much greater replay value.
• It Was His Sled: The infamous twist in Nightmare IV (one player is banished from the game in the last five minutes of the tape) is more well-known than the rest of the expansion, and may have contributed to waning popularity and the game's eventual reboot in the form of The Harbingers.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "I BANISH YOU TO THE BLACK HOLE!!!". Or "BLAG' 'OLE", based on the Gatekeeper's unidentifiable accent"
  • The Gatekeeper's Large Ham antics in general, such as "ANSWER ME, YOU MAGGOT!!!" and, in The Harbingers, interjecting any of his SadisticChoices with an "OOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRR...!"
  • Pretty much all of Baron Samedi, but in particular, this exchange between him and the players:
  Baron Samedi: Come on, babe, THRILL ME!!
  Players: Yo, Baron, I can dig it!
• Memetic Molester:
  • Near the end of the original game, The Gatekeeper suddenly tells everyone he wants "to play with the young one again".
  • When Baron Samedi's in charge, halfway through he starts calling the youngest player his "main squeeze".
  • Bathory dips a bit into this because of her constant seductive behavior, even after revealing her true Vampire form. The fact that her ending involves her telling the players she hopes they wake up with her in their faces doesn't help.
• Narm:
  • In the Harbingers rule section of the VHS, Baron Samedi dramatically strangles the transformed Elizabeth Bathory for what seems like several minutes, while the rest of the Harbingers/Soul Rangers keep playing and Elizabeth's wings pitifully flap up and down.
  • The Soul Rangers. Mastiff's almost always on-screen in a bunch of goofy video effects, so his popping up and messing with you doesn't have the same impact that The Gatekeeper and the other hosts did. Also, when he does give you commands, he just spouts off a bunch of dumb catchphrases.
  • "I love scum. It tastes so good... YOU SCUM-SUCKING MAGGOTS!!"
• Narm Charm: One of the main selling points of these games. The various hosts are all Large Hams that yell vicious insults at the players and don't even pretend to play fair. Of course, this is all a part of their silly charm and the games wouldn't be nearly as fun without them.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The cancelled SNES game is quite decent, managing to keep the original feel of the game and having a catchy soundtrack. The main issue with the game is that its cancellation left some parts lacking polish, like Bathory's Castle which is blatantly unfinished.
• Scrappy Mechanic: These games have several that can quickly put a damper on the player's enjoyment:
  • First and foremost, the simple fact that the whole game is based on a one hour VHS tape with various time stamps connected to the cards and how they are played. Getting all the components to activate even one good effect only to lose it to an expired time restriction can be infuriating. Even worse, if nobody wins within the established time limit everyone loses and the host wins.
  • The overly complicated rules regarding activating effects and gathering keys. Many cards require other cards and/or certain events to be used and acquiring all the necessary parts to do anything productive can be an uphill battle.
  • Nightmare IV in particular is infamous for this. Not only can players be turned into antagonistic vampires without warning, there are a whole host of powerful cards to support them and make it that much easier for them to harass the surviving players, including a card that instantly ends the game in the host's favor if it's played. As if all that wasn't bad enough already... Elizabeth can instantly claim a player after the 42-minute mark if they haven't got a card that protects them from her, and can have a player eliminated completely within the last 5 minutes, making it that much harder for any of the players to actually win the game. To call it horribly unfair would be a massive understatement.
  • The simple fact that the entire game is completely paused whenever the host shows up is another big one. The players are all on a very strict time limit and having the game stop dead in its tracks often denies them the chances they need to remove or recover from bad effects such as banishment to the Black Hole. During the first half of the game this isn't too bad as the host only shows up every few minutes and is usually pretty brief with their demands. During the second half of the game (and especially during the last 10 minutes) this small kindness is thrown out the window and the mechanic is ramped up into high gear with the host going out of their way to pop up several times per minute to screw the players out of as much time as they can. When adding in the sheer abundance of time wasting effects present during the endgame such as skipping turns or forcing players to roll certain numbers the finale of any Nightmare title can quickly turn into a massacre in very short order.
  • Many of the more random and arbitrary events and effects in the game are heavily disliked due to the fact that they give rewards and penalties based on things none of the players have any control over and rely purely on luck. Getting a bad dice roll and being punished for it is one thing but losing valuable progress or being denied an extremely useful item or effect because of things like the number of letters in your name, your age, the month you were born in or what day of the week it currently is can be infuriating, especially if one of these events occurs when you're the lead player.
• Shocking Elimination: Two variations inflicted by Elizabeth Bathory in Nightmare IV.
  • When there are about under eighteen minutes left, Bathory would automatically turn a player into a vampire unless they were carrying a card that could protect them.
  "I have come for you. I want you. Bad! And I always get what I want. Unless you have a card that can protect you from the curse... you are mine! Turn to Page 8."
  • In the last five minutes (assuming anyone has survived by that point), she would ask whoever's turn it is to roll a die and the number they roll means that whoever has that number is eliminated completely for the remainder of the game.
  "Ever played a pretend game? Roll the dice. What is the number? Let's pretend that number no longer exists. And that means the scum pig that is marked with it no longer exists either! Yes. YES! You are out of the game! Finished! Extinct! Get lost."
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Whereas the original game and its expansions relied heavily on makeup transitions to sell the effect of the hosts transforming, the 2004 relaunch has the Gatekeeper sporting a fake-looking rubber mask.
  • Certain high-res captures of Nightmare III make it extremely obvious that the final form of the Witch is sporting a fake latex mask, as it's possible to see the actress' lips moving independently underneath it, ruining the illusion. It's most notable when she tries to enunciate or draw out certain syllables.
  • If one looks carefully during The Soul Rangers, it's possible to see the mouth of the actor playing Dr. Mastiff inbetween his jaws.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The "Thrill Me" song cribs some of its lyrics from the song "Gimme Dat Ding".
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Both in terms of the format and the execution. The game screams mid-90s, with the action relying on commands displayed through on-screen text prompts and host segments as opposed to interactive DVD menus, which would take off at the turn of the century. The post-roll advertisements, dodgy makeup being used to sell the transformations of the hosts and Totally Radical catchphrases on the part of Baron Samedi complete the package.
  • The 44:50 Time card has the question for the youngest player "How old were you in 1986?" With each passing year, the amount of players who have to answer "I wasn't even alive" grows significantly, and eventually no-one may get to give a different answer without lying.

---