Moments in video games that scared you

[GigaLem]

in terms of things that scared me....

Discovering the Dark Chao garden in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. It was a bit much for me.
And the manta storm mission in Super Mario Sunshine, this "Big lipped alligator moment" of a boss is one of the most unsettling things in that game, and it comes more out of nowhere than the dark matter stuff in Kirby.

And the final boss of Earthbound....I couldn't sleep because of when I saw it for the first time and it comes from a quirky rpg of all things

[kaywhyn]

I apologise if it was upsetting. I'm actually extremely squeamish myself, and to this day I not only won't use the icicle trap, I make sure I never have to watch it happening.

Not your fault at all. Curiosity killed the cat and I wanted to see if it was indeed a trap and if it is how it kills a lemming. It's far gorier than I thought it would be. Fortunately, the bloody body is not left on the screen, it will disappear after a few seconds. Would had just been easier for me to use CPM to confirm that it's a trap, but even then I think I would had still let a lemming walk into the trap trigger to see what happens

[Crane]

For me, the one time that I remember being legitimately scared from a game - in that my adrenaline raced, my heart pumped and I just froze in fear (and died in-game) - was when I found the Pac Man ghost in E6M10 of Wolfenstein 3D.  I hadn't found the secret level of Episode 3 yet, and this moment just completely freaked me out because it was completely une unlike anything I had seen in the game (and that's alongside mutants and the fake Hitlers in E3M9).

[Nessy]

One memory that I have that fits this thread perfectly has to go to the "alien invasion" from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

Well, I say "alien invasion" but the game never really states what they are exactly, but they are at least and most definitely not from this world. To give some background for anyone that doesn't know and doesn't care about spoilers (I mean I know the game is old but just in case because you never know ) you have to reach Romani Ranch on the first day in order to reunite with your missing horse in order to continue the main game, but a sidequest is offered to you while you are there. The sidequest is to help Romani keep out mysterious creatures that appear at the ranch yearly (the "aliens"). Once you come back to the ranch during the night of that same first day those aliens will appear and start to slowly approach the barn. While the look of these creatures is not the scariest thing ever, it's a combination of the very eerie music that plays during this event, the urgency of the situation as they just keep coming and respawning even if defeated, and the consequences that occur if you fail to keep them at bay that made this a rather memorable and above all scary moment for me as a kid.

[mobius]

How could I forget: The green monster *hand* from Lem Paintball!

One memory that I have that fits this thread perfectly has to go to the "alien invasion" from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.

Well, I say "alien invasion" but the game never really states what they are exactly, but they are at least and most definitely not from this world. To give some background for anyone that doesn't know and doesn't care about spoilers (I mean I know the game is old but just in case because you never know ) you have to reach Romani Ranch on the first day in order to reunite with your missing horse in order to continue the main game, but a sidequest is offered to you while you are there. The sidequest is to help Romani keep out mysterious creatures that appear at the ranch yearly (the "aliens"). Once you come back to the ranch during the night of that same first day those aliens will appear and start to slowly approach the barn. While the look of these creatures is not the scariest thing ever, it's a combination of the very eerie music that plays during this event, the urgency of the situation as they just keep coming and respawning even if defeated, and the consequences that occur if you fail to keep them at bay that made this a rather memorable and above all scary moment for me as a kid.

Interesting; I never finished Majora's Mask and never knew about that part. Sounds like thats a reference to the "Skinwalker ranch" and similar urban legends from America.

[Liebatron]

I think this one speaks for itself...

https://youtu.be/D30r0iRH73Q?t=2737

in a recent example; how about in Breath of the Wild the dark forest area? [Typhlo ruins]

That place was cool! Creepy for sure, but I thought it was a cool idea. Super Dark Land. I couldn't really get very far carrying a torch, and I couldn't see the lanterns, so eventually I just started running around everywhere with the move-metal-objects ability ready to use so it would draw little lines all over the terrain. It's not the same as having things lit up, but it was enough for me to navigate.

Everything scared me when I was a little kid,. There was one particular game that got to me; I think it was "Castlevania" for N64. It wasn't any particular thing that scared me, it was looking at this world and thinking "Is the whole world like this?" Imagining a world where *everything* is just spikes and evil and blood and junk. I was fine with Gauntlet Legends because I felt like the world had some cool areas still, and I had this sense that we were slowly fixing it. In Castlevania though, a lot of the gameplay is centered around getting through places, rather than fighting. From what I saw, there weren't even any enemies, it just felt like a big hollow world full of death and evil without a face or an identifiable form that you could fight back against.

As far as more immediate, concrete types of 'scary' go, the moment that comes to mind is a level in the N64 Star Wars game "Shadows of the Empire". There's a level with a former Imperial base and a bunch of catwalks, and those probes from Empire Strikes Back are one of the enemies. Unless they're firing, they're mostly silent, but they do occasionally make that weird 'comms' sound effect from the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60ML-X0r9Jg

I heard one in the distance, but I couldn't find it. So I keep going through the level, and a minute later I'm pretty sure I'm past it. Then I'm on this catwalk, and I see something out of the corner of my eye, and I turn to the right, and there's... Nothing. So I turn to go ahead again, and to my *left*, one of these things is just silently floating *up* from below the catwalk, and its horrifying eye thing is staring into my soul, and it makes that creepy noise super loud right as I'm turning towards it, and it just scares the heck out of me. I think I just panicked and died

I'm sure I could think of others, but that's the one that comes to mind first.

Revisiting:

How could I possibly forget?

ReDeads!

Being 6'ish and thinking "Oh hey, Zelda" at cousin's house; you turn on the N64 and hit play, open a game, not realizing your cousin is much farther ahead than you. Your cousin is no longer in Happy Tree Land, and you go into Hyrule Castle Town thinking "This place seems scarier than usual, I'm going into town", and everyone you know is dead, and a horrible moaning creature made of rags jumps on you and starts biting the life out of you. That one got me.

And uhhh... In Wind Waker, they seem to have made it their goal to make the things as scary as possible, and they succeeded. I think my least favorite thing about them, aside from the scream, is how utterly *still* they are before you encounter them. Even if you hit them with a boomerang or an arrow or whatever; they just sit there. It makes a dull thud, and they turn only their head to look at you with their empty eyes. Then they turn away again silently. On a sidenote, what evil developer decided to stick one of those in the labyrinth under your cabana house? I wouldn't mind if I could at least turn the fireplace back on, but since I can't, I always have this irrational fear that once the fireplace it out, a ReDead could come out of the hole in the floor any time. Once the fire is out, playing the puzzle game makes me nervous. It forces you to stand with your back to the fireplace hole for an extended period of time. I know it's just a game, but once the fire is out, I don't like playing the wall puzzle... That fireplace is just wide open, and there's a ReDead in the basement. For all I know the thing is right behind me at any moment.

[jkapp76]

Back in 1982 my dad got me the original castle wofenstein.
I was 6 years old.  I would wake up super early when it was still dark and play this game alone. I was so afraid of those SS stormtroopers that would follow you and burst into the room yelling in German that I wore a blanket over my head while I played. I loved and hated this game. But I manage to still load it up on dosbox once in a while still.