Things in video games that made you unreasonably scared

[Numubunde]

Hi everyone! So, I've been playing video games since I have a memory. Video games have always been present in my life and I think they've been a major factor during my formative years. I think I've learned a lot from them and I wouldn't change all the precious memories I have about video games in my childhood. However, I was always kind of a scaredy cat. I could get spooked by the silliest thing, even if it was meant for children. Add to the fact that my I didn't have an strict parental supervision and I often got in contact with things targeted way past my age! I remember I once saw an image of Saw's movie's doll Billy and I had nightmares about it that night (imagine if I had watched an actual scene from the movie lol). Even nowadays, I'd say I've grown pretty used to horror and I can watch horror films, read horror stories, watch horror videos, etc without much of an issue, but when it comes to horror video games... oh boy, I still get paralyzed with fear and it takes for me a fair amount of psyching up to make any progress!

So, as the title says, this time I'm focusing on things that apparently weren't meant to be scary but you felt otherwise. I'll start by sharing some so you can see how wimpy I was :

- Tomb Raider's butler on Lara's Mansion. This guy freaked me out so much. The way this old crooked guy followed you everywere making eerie noises was so scary to me, I dreadded the thought of seeing him coming out from a corner and walking towards me. And I loved the cozy vibes of Lara's home so much too . To be fair, I was afraid of practically every enemy on Tomb Raider, specially animals, but I guess that's a bit more justified than your own butler.

- Spyro 2's Agent Zero. Yup. This guy from the beloved PS1 classic was another source of my terrors. His disproportionate dimensions and specially his hollow, void eyes were so uncanny to me. But the worst thing was the following objective. You basically had to slowly follow him to his secret base (where he had some lovely flowers :D) while hiding behind covers so he wouldn't spot you. This was so tense for me. The thought of him finding out I was following was too much for my nerves.

- Clark from Rayman 2. This big guy's supposed to be Rayman's old buddy, but again, I guess I was pretty judgmental as a kid because his appearance and just the way he moved and acted just freaked me out as a kid. There was a part in the game where and that was so scary to me.

So those are some of the examples of things I was really scared of as a child for not really much of a reason. What would you?

 

[psvitaforever]

Since you mention "Tomb Raider", I remember TR2 has been my first real videogame ever when I got my first pc (excluding a fake gameboy with fake tetris on it, or a those old mini consoles with a single game on it, in my case a racing game, also I didn't own any "real" console).

It was a shock everytime Lara fell from high places and broke her neck (or at least I remember a creepy noise when her body fell on the ground and stayed there motionless).

I still would not play/read/watch horror, but I managed to play (and enjoy) "Darkest Dungeon 2", and after that I've read some pages from a Lovecraft novel (since I've read DD had Lovecraft influences, so I got curious). In the years I got used to some "brutal" scene, like I've played and enjoyed "Killzone Mercenary" on Vita but I've put the " " on BRUTAL because, for example, I would not play "The Outer Worlds" because I saw people ripped in pieces in the trailer

Also, as a child/teen, I never really tried to read/watch/play things beyond my age, so I can't really remember examples.

 

[Numubunde]

Since you mention "Tomb Raider", I remember TR2 has been my first real videogame ever when I got my first pc (excluding a fake gameboy with fake tetris on it, or a those old mini consoles with a single game on it, in my case a racing game, also I didn't own any "real" console).

It was a shock everytime Lara fell from high places and broke her neck (or at least I remember a creepy noise when her body fell on the ground and stayed there motionless).

I still would not play/read/watch horror, but I managed to play (and enjoy) "Darkest Dungeon 2", and after that I've read some pages from a Lovecraft novel (since I've read DD had Lovecraft influences, so I got curious). In the years I got used to some "brutal" scene, like I've played and enjoyed "Killzone Mercenary" on Vita but I've put the " " on BRUTAL because, for example, I would not play "The Outer Worlds" because I saw people ripped in pieces in the trailer

Also, as a child/teen, I never really tried to read/watch/play things beyond my age, so I can't really remember examples.

Tomb Raider could get pretty out there for sure! I never got to beat them on my PS1, and good thing I didn't because I would be scarred for life if I had seen the atlanteans back then .

I haven't played Darkest Dungeon 2, but I really liked the first one! The art and ambience are really cool, but I never beat it either because it was really difficult

 

[Soma_Shotgun]

The skyboxes of Mario 64.
Actually started playing the Render96 version today which has even more detailed skyboxes. Messed around with the infinite jump cheat at the castle entrance and felt so uneasy as the skybox of endless ocean and few far away islands started surrounding me.

 

[Numubunde]

The skyboxes of Mario 64.
Actually started playing the Render96 version today which has even more detailed skyboxes. Messed around with the infinite jump cheat at the castle entrance and felt so uneasy as the skybox of endless ocean and few far away islands started surrounding me.

I didn't see this coming but I totally get what you mean! I love the feeling I get when watching 3d platformers' skyboxes, specially Spyro's, but it always felt so off the thought of being in a piece of solid ground in the middle of an infinite expanse of void or nothingness... pretty freaky. At the same time, that make's Mario 64's wet dry world's skybox very mysterious too. There's a civilization inside a painting way beyond the place where you are? Kinda reminds me of that Arthur C. Clarke's quote of “two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

 

[Soma_Shotgun]

Speaking of Spyro.

This is also scary as hell. Swimming in the empty blue void.

 

[Flamebeard]

The final boss fight with Baby Bowser in Yoshi's Island scared me as a 3-4 year old that I had my dad beat him for me as I cowered in fear behind a chair and held my hands against my eyes.

 

[RustySK]

Treasures of the Deep: This. Fucking. Eel.

This thing was the reason I refused to learn how to swim as a kid. Utterly terrifying to my younger self - I remember running out of the room when I saw it burst out from that shipwreck for the first time.

I love swimming and diving these days, but even just this video still gives me goosebumps.

 

[Numubunde]

The final boss fight with Baby Bowser in Yoshi's Island scared me as a 3-4 year old that I had my dad beat him for me as I cowered in fear behind a chair and held my hands against my eyes. View attachment 83035

Hahaha that's a classic. That reminds me of another time when I was a kid and I got a demo disc for the PS2 that included Silent Hill 3's demo. A friend came over to my house, and we decided to try it. We both cowered in fear as well behind my bed while the intro played and we quit the game . That time I wouldn't call it "unreasonable" though, it definitively was super scary haha.

Post automatically merged: Today at 11:58 AM

Treasures of the Deep: This. Fucking. Eel.

This thing was the sole reason I refused to learn how to swim as a kid. Utterly terrifying to my younger self - I remember running out of the room when I saw it jut out from that shipwreck for the first time.
I love swimming and diving these days, but even just this video still gives me goosebumps.

DUDE. I had a demo for this game on my PS1, and I was both fascinated and terrified of it at the same time. If this eel was on the demo I think I would have had a heart attack.

 

[ZeromusVX4]

Idk if it's that unreasonable but I remember being so scared of the shadow temple in OoT as a kid that for my first playthroughs I always used a level skip cheat to go straight to the boss.

 

[Soma_Shotgun]

Treasures of the Deep: This. Fucking. Eel.

This thing was the reason I refused to learn how to swim as a kid. Utterly terrifying to my younger self - I remember running out of the room when I saw it burst out from that shipwreck for the first time.

I love swimming and diving these days, but even just this video still gives me goosebumps.

Reminds me of a story a youtuber told. So as a kid he was terrified by the barracuda that was in the beggining of Finding Nemo. Years later as a teenager he went on a Holiday trip. He was swimming underwater when he noticed that above him was a barracuda looking at him menacingly. He was like oh hell naw.

 

[Numubunde]

Idk if it's that unreasonable but I remember being so scared of the shadow temple in OoT as a kid that for my first playthroughs I always used a level skip cheat to go straight to the boss.

Yeah I'd say that's pretty much justified hahaha. For a children game they went pretty hard with the shadow temple's spooky factor.

 

[MemeAlert]

The Boom Boo Jumpscares from Sonic Adventure 2.
The attack animation of the spiders from Spyro: Heros Tail.
When Big Daddy's textures don't load in properly in Bioshock 1.
When sneaking in the building and outta nowhere the Revenant starts screaming and dart towards you in Resident Evil Revelations 2.
When you accidently ended up in Ryoshima Coast's waters and some giant invisible thing is swimming towards you in Okami.

 

[Cardboardtubeknight]

The shark in Banjo Kazooie which I recently learned you can actually kill

 

[MemeAlert]

The shark in Banjo Kazooie which I recently learned you can actually kill

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[Cardboardtubeknight]

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[MemeAlert]

Can he respawn?

 

[Cardboardtubeknight]

Can he respawn?

Probably

 

[Kamako]

In Devil May Cry there's that bonus mission called Water Cell where you're forced to fend off Blade enemies in the middle of an endless underwater plain with nothing but vertical cast iron columns stretching infinitely downwards surrounding you.
When I played that I got hit by this wave of fear.

Bloodbourne's Hunter's Dream and Elden Ring's final boss arena use the same effect, but those settings illicit more positive feelings from me like "oooh, cool!".

 

[Aziamuth]

The Alpha Headquarters in Beyond Good and Evil had me hyperventilating when I was a wee babby

 

[RustySK]

In Devil May Cry there's that bonus mission called Water Cell where you're forced to fend off Blade enemies in the middle of an endless underwater plain with nothing but vertical cast iron columns stretching infinitely downwards surrounding you.
When I played that I got hit by this wave of fear.

Oooh hell, I remember this one! Always made me feel like there was something giant just beneath or above me, staring at me. Creepy as hell.

The Four Kings fight in Dark Souls 1 has a similiar effect on me - disorienting and intimidating.
Especially when one of the kings zooms right at you, I can never tell how far away they are with the way they just float in front of you.

 

[bjork]

As a kid, I had the game Impossible Mission on Commodore 64. You had to go around these rooms and search furniture to find puzzle pieces, which you'd then assemble to get the letters for this password, which would then let you access the final room and you'd win the game. A normal room looks like this

You have to avoid the robots that are always fixed to the platforms they're on but can move at different speeds and patterns, and also avoid this sphere which can have a set pattern, but more frequently will home in on you. So, the first summer where I stayed home alone, I was maybe 8, I'm playing this and I get to a room I've never seen before:

I cruise in like, "oh cool, a free room. No enemies!" Then

That damned death ball thing comes from out of the ceiling and scared the shit out of me. It's easily avoided and when you know it's coming, it's no big deal. But to a goofy little kid home alone for one of the first times, it got me good.

 

[Numubunde]

In Devil May Cry there's that bonus mission called Water Cell where you're forced to fend off Blade enemies in the middle of an endless underwater plain with nothing but vertical cast iron columns stretching infinitely downwards surrounding you.
When I played that I got hit by this wave of fear.

Bloodbourne's Hunter's Dream and Elden Ring's final boss arena use the same effect, but those settings illicit more positive feelings from me like "oooh, cool!".

That's some prime quality nightmare fuel over there but I'll be honest it goes hard asf. I guess they place those pillars to give some kind of sense of orientation? But that makes the vibes of the scenery so perfect lol

Post automatically merged: Today at 2:36 PM

The Alpha Headquarters in Beyond Good and Evil had me hyperventilating when I was a wee babby

I've never played Beyond Good and Evil, but looking that part it totally seems like something where I would crumble to the pression as a kid haha. It also reminded me of another level from Rayman 3, the Desert of the Knaaren, where there were these terrifying monsters wandering around the dark tunnels. I was loving the game, never played again after I reached that level

 

[Dyne]

The door-opening transitions in Resident Evil (the first one).
A close-up of the door opening... who knows wtf is gonna be on the other side!

 

[freebie#47]

Not really had a scary moment, not even even watching horror movies or playing horror games. In fact, I actually enjoy them very much so. Also Resident Evil 2 had way too many jump scares of things busting through walls and windows that just lost the surprise effect. The excitement of playing games is what gets my blood pumping.