Video games are my comfort. I can always take a moment to escape the stress of real life, for at least a moment through them. Well, for the most part, at least. Some games' whole purpose is to do the exact OPPOSITE of that. Though I will admit I'm a total wimp so I don't play that many horror games. But even outside of horror games I can feel quite disturbed. And, whaddaya know, it's Halloween. Does this mean I'm forced to relive my gaming nightmares? Yes... yes it does... well, here they are.
Well, where else to start than with one of my favorite childhood games! Super Paper Mario! And, yeah, I know. If you played this game you already know where I'm going with this. Yep, it's River Twygz Bed. How original! Okay, fine, I guess I also have World of Nothing as an honorable mention. What do you mean that's not making me that much more original!? Ah, whatever, I still have some things to say about these two.
To be honest, I just wonder how this even made it to the game. Not even just the song, either. Just this whole section of the game including the song. Okay, well honestly, the rest of the Underwhere isn't that bad, and this really is a brief section, but STILL. Dead disembodied hands in the purple water, the fact that this is so out of nowhere, as well as the incredibly creepy and strange music makes such a brief area extremely memorable and terrifying.
Tippi's information for the Underhands (yep, that's what they're called in case you didn't know) details desire to drag the dead deeper into oblivion (whatever THAT means), as well as their desire to do the same to the living. And for what reason? Well, I don't remember if there was any reason, but still, really uncool of you, you freaks! Speaking of the music, I can't even describe it, but something odd about it is that it sounds like there's... voices? They're really hard to make out due to the distortion, but there is an amazing video on YouTube that cleans up the audio to make the voices easier to understand. Some things I can hear are "save us... save us," "save us please," "I can't," "No..." "(Everything's under?) control," and what I honestly find the most disturbing, "I love you dad." Okay, well, maybe I just find that more sad than anything. But if those are indeed hidden messages in the song, what does that tell us? Well, the name River Twygz is apparently based on a river in Greek mythology that was basically hell, so these are probably the cries from the people in Mario hell. Yes, Mario hell. I am aware of how silly that sounds, but this is still some pretty disturbing stuff, especially for a Mario game. Guess they're getting influenced by Kirby, huh? Or maybe it's just Morshu trying to speak underwater, hell if I know. That's about all I have to say about this absolute horror.
As for the world of nothing, or as I like to call it, Squidward's Nightmare, because now I know how he felt when I went through this area. It's just so... empty, and the music doesn't help much either. There's also the fact that it's just ruins of an entire world, reduced to a white void. However the Mr. L boss fight, as cool as it is with the music and everything, really changes the vibe of this part of the game, so for that reason I don't find it nearly as disturbing and I don't have as much to say about it either. Damn though, it's pretty insane how disturbing and dark this game is at times. This is definitely the creepiest Mario game out there, which, well, isn't saying much because it's still Super Mario, but I still really liked it's more uncomfortable moments, including the ones I didn't mention here, and it really makes the game stand out from others in the series. I should really play this game again!
What is the most disturbing video game enemy you can think of? Well, off the top of my head, the most disturbing enemy I can think of is a ReDead from the Zelda games. When I first played The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, these were easily the things that terrified me the most in that game. Of course, they're also terrifying in Ocarina of Time, but for a game like Wind Waker, which is, let's just say, a *little* bit more lighthearted than, I dunno, Twilight Princess, another game released on the same console as The Wind Waker, they are *pretty jarring.* I mean let's compare them to the other spooky enemies in the game, shall we? For example, there are the Poes, those masked multi-colored ghosts that frantically run around in a goofy fashoin once you shine light onto them. They also make a sound when they're about to try to possess you that I just can't take seriously. They're more like ghost teletubbies or something. There's also the BADASS FLAMING SKULL KEYBOARD WALLPAPER NEW 2017 ***G***- ahem, I mean the Red Bubble and Blue Bubbles, who just run into you and then laugh at you if they hit you like some little troll, who are rather a bit more annoying and somewhat amusing than scary. ReDeads on the other hand? If you even get close to them their eyes will turn red and they will screech at you and slowly approach you, leading to Link even shaking in fear, which is the only thing he fights that scares him this much in this game from what I remember. And I can't blame him! If you get too close to them, they just grab Link and start biting him. Could you imagine a skeleton moving on its own, grabbing you and biting you? Their movements are also very disturbing, although their slowness makes them pretty easy to kill, even if it is scary to approach them in the first place. I also think that them being able to see you without even having eyes is pretty disturbing, as well as them lingering for a while after getting killed by Link, which is something no other enemy does. So yeah, these things are pretty out of place for this game and behave in unnerving ways and also just look creepy. Could you imagine waking up in the middle of the night with this thing standing by your bed? If that happened to me I would move far, far away from where I lived. But even if that would make me safe from them, that screech will forever haunt me in my nightmares...
I am lumping these two things together because they're pretty similar. There's most of Yume Nikki and there's Black Space in OMORI. First of all, Yume Nikki! A game I really love, well, when I'm not lost for 30 minutes, that is.
I think a game about dreams is an amazing concept, because I find them really interesting. When I first played this game, though, I got really disturbed. In fact I got overwhelmed so I stopped for a while. I'm not entirely sure why I reacted to the game this way. Nothing extremely horrifying happened back then. I didn't even find Uboa! Yume Nikki just unsettles me in a way I don't really understand. If I had to guess, it's how easy you can get lost and how alone you are in the game. You cannot even talk to anyone. There is no dialogue. It's just you, all these weird worlds, and the occasional uninteractable NPC (outside of stabbing them and probably some other random action specific to certain NPCs). It is also extremely cryptic, and it's hard to decipher any meaning from it, although there are some theories out there. I suppose it's fitting for a game about dreams. It's also why I really like this game so much. It gives you NO answers, just nothing but vagueness. But it doesn't feel like nothing but random bullshit either. Most of it has to have meaning, it's just very vague. It makes the game very fun to speculate about, and that's probably how things will be for the rest of time. I mean, after all, we barely even know anything about the creator. The one interview they ever had was with Toby Fox, creator of Undertale and Deltarune, and it was just a bunch of yes/no questions as well as... uh... what they wanted from Denny's? You have some interesting priorities, Mr. Fox... I doubt they even went to Denny's together either. Though if they did, that's pretty cool.
OMORI is a game that is FAR less cryptic, though it is still vague in some parts. I will be focusing on Black Space, though, as it's the most prominent example of the game's obscurity. I highly recommend playing this game blind though, it's truly an amazing experience. Alright, now that that's out of the way, let's begin. It's basically the main character Sunny's repressed thoughts and fears, with many layers that gets deeper and deeper. And as you get deeper, the more disturbing things get and the more Sunny tries to repress them. It gives you a lot of insight into his character and how he feels about his life, his relationship with the ones he cares about, how he feels about himself, and his fears while also being up to interpretation, which also leads to entertaining speculation. Sounds pretty similar to Yume Nikki, right? Well, unlike Yume Nikki, there is a lot more to work with for speculation, especially after you finish the game. Things get especially freaky on the OMORI route because you've essentially reached the point of no return. Although it has the less satisfying ending (although absolutely well made), I think it's absolutely worth playing. It gave me a whole new appreciation for Sunny's character when I already thought he was an amazing one (even when he says next to nothing throughout the whole game)! I also want to just mention the music. It sets the tone for all of the areas perfectly. In fact, one of the songs on the OST, Come and See is probably my favorite song in the game. They're perfectly atmospheric. Hell, this has to be my favorite part of the entire game as well! It just really makes you think.
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Alright, now that I am almost through the main things I wanted to talk about, why not have a few lightning rounds for fun?
N's Room (Pokemon Black and White): The disturbing broken music box sets the scene really well when you consider how messed up N's childhood was. How generous of him to leave a Rare Candy lying around, though!
Earthbound's Giygas Final Battle: Now, I have not played Earthbound. For more than 5 minutes, anyway. I vaguely know what the ending's like, though. The music and visuals are extremely disturbing, especially when the peaceful part of the song kicks in but is quickly transitioned to something unpleasant.
Super Mario 64 glitch: I am certainly fascinated by video game glitches, especially creepy ones. In Wet Dry World, if you ground pound on a star box at 0 health and collect the star, the game will softlock and the camera will shake over Mario as his death animation begins and freezes abruptly. Yikes...
CTGP-7 Model Glitch: This technically happened in a mod of a game, but it still happened. Sometimes when I pick Dry Bones, his pupils disappear. Nothing horrifying, but still kind of creepy, because this isn't supposed to happen...
My Burden is Dead: nooooooooooo poor nikooooo :( Good thing this isn't in the Steam version...
Creepy Brawl model glitches: If you hack the game to swap a model to another character, creepy things can happen. Most famously, for example, giving Ganondorf Pikachu's model will make him look like a deformed Pikachu with stretched limbs.
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I genuinely wonder if anyone remembers this last one. After all, only one person ever got to experience this. It may just be something that lies deep in the minds of those who read this...
Before I get into it, I just want to say that I am a big fan of creepypastas. Good, bad, borderline unreadable, I find them entertaining regardless of quality. My favorites are typically the ones involving video games. But no matter how scary they might get, the truth is that they're fake. I bet you know that already. But what if I told you that there is one out there that was real? I know. That sounds ridiculous. But it's true, and it's more complicated than simply a cursed game. Nor is it even some ROM hack, either. What could it be...?
The following images shown may bring back memories of something forgotten long ago. And if you know about the Brawl model glitches and thought they were shocking, you haven't seen a damn thing yet.
This is the cursed Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Game. Every character's model is horrifically distorted. Some are affected in different ways than others. This is something I forgot about for years, but I remember seeing this around the time that Smash 4 was the big new set of games in the series and I remember being terrified of it. And, wow, it's honestly even more disturbing than I remembered. If there was any real creepypasta game, this would be it. Some characters look screwed up (like Yoshi), others look REALLY screwed up (like Mario), others look absolutely unrecognizable (such as Link and Sheik.) I probably couldn't even tolerate playing a Smash Bros game that looked like this. But you may be wondering... why? Why is the game so messed up like this? What's the problem with the game that's ruining the character models? Well, it's not actually a problem with the game. Rather, it's a problem with the game owner's old console. Upon buying another copy of Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U, the same issue happened again with the new copy. That can't be right, can it? There's no way they got this unlucky. Well, they both did and did not. They did because they wasted their money trying to fix an issue they did not understand, and they didn't because they didn't buy a horribly glitched copy of the game. You see, it was an issue with the console's hardware. Defective Wii U's may have problems with the GPU that can lead to this. Of course, this had to be incredibly unlucky for the owner T-MAN... but at least there was a happy ending out of this. But wow. Even if this isn't really *that* horrifying, it's the closest thing we have to a cursed video game creepypasta. But as unnerving as it is, I also find it fascinating how this can even happen in the first place. Let's just hope they didn't have the same thing happen to them in Ultimate though! Although, I guess there is a chance this whole thing was fake, but I doubt it because it would be a difficult feat. Although, I guess that wouldn't stop some people...
Whatever the case may be, you're welcome for bringing that nightmare fuel back into your life!
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Thank you for reading! I think I am going to really enjoy writing these. It was fun going on a trip down memory lane and revisiting these creepy things in video games. They're really interesting to think about to me. But that's all I have to say now. I hope you have a wonderful Halloween!
-Mirage (10/31/2024)
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