Video games are a lot of fun when you're a kid. Without the adult life requirements on your time, it can be a true joy. Sometimes, however, things that aren't intended to be terrifying in games are terrifying for kids. At a young age, we aren't quite ready to handle stressful situations or jump-scares, which some game designers love throwing at gamers.
These moments stick with us, and even as adults, we can feel the pain when we play through old games. Who knew video games were part entertainment, part childhood scary memories? Look what you've done to us, Nintendo!
9 🅘 💛 The Ghosts In Mario Chasing You
One would think Boos are a cute little enemy you come across in the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mario Bros. games. For a kid, a spirit always following you can be pretty creepy. Some can remember when they first came across boos in one of Bowser's castles in Super Mario Bros. 3, realizing the darn things stalk you. We didn't need this sort of horror as children.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario World on the SNES ratcheted the supernatural horror by making huge sprite Boos and increasi🅰ng the number of Boos in the haunted house levels. Combine that with someꦆ creepy music, and it feels more like horror than we care to admit to as adults.
8 🤡 Anytime Darth Vader Shows Up
Darth Vader has been terrifying from Day One of walking through that white corridor in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars: A New Hope. Since kids naturally gravitate towards Star Wars games and🦄 game designers like to throw the Sith Lord in as a main baddie - the two runni🐈ng into each other is inevitable. Star Wars: Fallen Order did a fantastic job portraying just how powerful Vader was, and your only choice is to run.
In the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Battlefront games, anytime Vader showed up on the battlefield playing against you, the hair raised a little higher on your neck. Having run behind the couch as a kid during scary Va🐈der scenes before, we know when he shows up as a video game baddie - the anxiety tends to spike.
7 When Your Sibling Messed W♔ith Your Saves
Nothing is more terrifying than seeing someone playing on your game system. Then if you dare boot up your favorite game only to see your save file, inventory, and progress messed with, it's a sinking feeling like no other. Little siblings love messing with your stuff, and after countless times of being given a controller not plugged into the console, this is their payback.
Sometimes they like to delete your save file altogether. They may have gone to the town merchant and pawned off all your gear. Maybe they moved the character to a spot on the map that's hard to escape, or they destroyed that Minecraft house you had been working on for ages. Either way, it's all sadness and pain in the "messing with your saves" zone.
6 The Sewer L💃evel (Shadows Of The Empire) 🎉
You know, that creature that pulls down Luke in the trash compactor of the Death Star? He and about 50 of his friends are in the N64 Shadows of the Empire. The sewer level of Shadows has to be one of the muddiest, darkest 3D messes ever, but it's also scary as all get out.
Known as the Dianoga, these guys are everywhere on the level. If you have heart👍 issues, do not play this. At the end of the sewer level, the designers decided the main boss would be a gigantic Dianoga - which is both disgusting and horrifying. As much as the first level of Shadows of the Empire gets praise, this level gets a "nope, nope, nope."
5 ꦦ ꦦ Creepers (Minecraft)
Sure 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Minecraft is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:great for kids, but it has a dark side. There are terrifying things in Resident Evil that look like something from a Lovecraftian nightmare. There are zombie video games that are full of body horror and jump-scares. Half-Life 2 depicts an oppressive alien invasion where the human race slowly dies. None of this, however, is nearly as scary as turning around in Minecraft and seeing a Creꦕeper roll up to your house like a young scout trying to sell cookies.
Considering these green mobs can kill you and ruin your hard-built projects in one instance, it's no wonder people hate them passionately. Their quick fuse means that things can go from peaceful to "why is my bedroom now a gigantic hole" in a hurry. While most mobs come out at night, these walking blow-ups are like the postal service and show up rain, shine, or snow.
4 🐬 The Giant Eel (Super Mario 64)
For some reason, Nintendo likes making large creatures friendly. Eels are creepy for us kids who grew up around rivers or oceans. When you're going through Jolly Roger Bay in Super Mario 64 and see Unagi the Eel for the first time, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:it triggers a plethora of phobias.
Which phobias? Where do we start? Cheliphobia - the fear of eels; Me🎐galophobia - the fear of big things; Submechanophobia - the fear of submerged things (since the eel is hanging out in a shipwreck). Nintendo is secretly in the business of giving children a hard time because every water level in their games seems to trigger people.
3 🐻 Waking Up A Guardian (Zelda: Breath Of The Wild) 𓆏
As much as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a masterstroke in almost every aspect of game design, they hit it out of the park with the sound design. This aspect makes getting spotted by Guardians jolting for kids. The music abruptly changes, and the tone changes to "you'd better do something, or you're going to be in a world of hurt." If you hear a kid go "no, no, no, no" while playing this game, they're probably getting sniped by a Guardian.
The laser-wielding Guardians can sometimes deplete Link's health bar in one shot, and the laser sight zeroing in on you makes the situation tense. As former kids, we would rather fight 1,000 Goombas, 100 Zerglings, and 50 Bowsers before taking on three-or-four Guardians because that stuff is stressful.
2 The Sun Chasing You (Super Mar🅺io Bros. 3)
In the levels of Super Mario Bros. 3, we would ask dad or mom to do one of them — the sun level. As a kid, we typically never liked the thought of a burning ball of gas swooping down at us. By all accounts, the sun attacking Mario is one of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:most terrifying non-monster things in gaming.
And if you're a kid experiencing this? Hooo boy. Let's say this made us suspicious of the blue sky afterward. This may have been our first experience in a predator-prey relationship, and it lasted an entire level, which felt like an eternity. We almost felt like moving to Pluto after this childhood memory.
1 𝓰 Any Boss Battle (Mega Man)
Remember in the 1990s when you would reach the end of a Mega Man level, barely getting by with a slim health bar? Then the boss would show up, and its special attack would devastate you. Every time the boss music would start playing, we'd jump back in bewilderment as robot baddie unleashed some mega doomsday weapon on us.
Typically bigger sprites than Mega Man himself, these guys were always intimidating and scary, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:except for Bubble Man. Any kid who said they weren't scared going down that boss hallway was lying.