5 Times Non-Horror Games Spooked Me

Hey there! This post is part of a game testing project I am working on. There’s a lot more to it than what is covered in this post so check out the full project here.

When you fire up a horror game like Alien: Isolation or Five Nights at Freddy’s, you know what you’re getting yourself into. But some of the biggest scares I’ve had in gaming have come from games that weren’t even supposed to be scary to begin with.

This is a pretty widespread phenomenon believe it or not. Many gamers have spent time discussing these out of place horrors. And given Halloween is just around the corner, I’ll be counting down a few of my own frightening experiences in the world of video games.

Luigi’s Mansion black out

In all fairness, Luigi’s Mansion is a game about traversing an estate full of ghosts. So I had no one to blame but myself for the fiasco that ensued.

Over the course of the game you travel through the mansion’s creepy hallways and suck up ghosts into your vacuum, turning the lights on as you go. This gives you a sense of power. Ghosts hate light, so you’re gaining ground against them with every room you clean out. Until you near the end of the game.

At a certain point, lightning strikes the mansion, causing a total power failure. But hey, there’s a breaker switch in the basement! Great! But guess what? When the black out occurs, you’re in the attic. Crap.

It might sound odd that progressing through the newly darkened rooms would be unnerving after I already did it once before. But something about having to go back through the rooms I thought were ghost-proof really put me on edge. It doesn’t help that the ghosts wage an all out assault on poor Luigi. Where before they appeared in manageable groups, they now come out in swarms to punch our overalled hero’s lights out.

If I reach this portion nowadays I just smirk and say, “Oh goody! More ghosts to catch!” But back in the day this got my 12-year-old heart racing.

Ocarina of Time’s graveyard surprise

You might look at The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s E rating and think you’re in for a wholesome fairytale experience. You’re mostly correct. Except for the fact that you’re not. Despite being a typical quest to save the princess and beat the big bad, Ocarina of Time has some surprisingly terrifying moments.

As a seven-year-old boy playing the game on a sunny Saturday afternoon, I hadn’t yet found out about its darker side. I stumbled into Kakariko Village’s graveyard where the sounds of gentle music were replaced with rain. No big deal. I was in a town! A bastion of safety away from the main villain’s army of monsters. How wrong I was.

Upon stumbling into a dark hole in the ground I excitedly made my way forward through what anyone else would have realized were catacombs. Then I saw it. Off in the distance was a strange figure standing completely still. Thinking it was a new character to talk to, I ran toward him without a care in the world. And then I heard it: the terrifying low moan of a restless spirit. I had encountered one of the game’s Redeads.

This scared me so much that I stopped playing the game and ran outside beneath the calming warmth of the sun. But I was a considerate little boy! I made sure to guide Link out of the catacombs and back into the main part of the village before switching the game off.

The worst part is, that was just a taste of how terrifying the Redeads are. If you come too close, they let out high-pitched screams that freeze you in place. If you are unable to get away from them in time, they’ll latch onto you and proceed to suck the life out of you. Fortunately, I had the good sense to flee before I was traumatized even further that day.

Uncharted’s zombie uprising

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is a game about good old fashioned treasure hunting. Over the top action sequences? Check. Wise cracking main character? Check. Hoard of zombies that rush out at you when you’re confined in an underground bunker? Che- wait what?

In a strange turn of events, your adventure through ancient ruins finds you suddenly trapped in a dark and damp bunker. No problem. Simply activate all the switches to open the way out. Only you have to do so while hoards of feral humans chase after you.

(Snapshot taken from iB3NDRO on YouTube)

Up until this point, the enemies have all been generic bad guys that you mow down with Uncharted’s various assortment of guns. You’re used to it. But the zombies don’t seem to care about any of that. They charge straight at you with reckless abandon and eat your ammo like I would cereal.

I wouldn’t call this part of the game traumatizing. But running through dark and cramped corridors all alone with limited ammo was a very creepy shift from the usual action. And every step you take closer to escape only stirs the hive of zombies even further.

Skyward Sword’s silent terror

Oh look, another Legend of Zelda game gave me nightmares! This franchise sure is good at that. In The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, you must become a hero worthy of combating the demon king’s army.

Apparently, proving your worth is equivalent to being hounded by possessed and invincible suits of armor carrying sharp weapons. To progress the game, you’ll have to occasionally enter the Silent Realms, dreamlike versions of areas you’ve already visited.

It’s surprisingly peaceful at first. You collect tears of light and try to return to the starting area with them. The only catch is that if you take too long, the guardians will awaken. They will chase after you relentlessly as you desperately try to find another tear to quiet them down.

The whole time they’re awake, panic inducing music plays. The sounds of metal slamming together over and over again signal your impending doom. And the worst part is, if they hit you even once you have to start the trial all over again. All of that combined with the horrifying noise that plays when your time is about to run out turns what might be a serene walk down memory lane into an anxiety-ridden nightmare.

Some of the close calls I’ve had with the Silent Realms still stick with me even 11 whole years after the game first came out. So naturally, I think they’re a pretty great addition to the game.

Mario’s merry-go-round of doom

If Super Mario 64 was any less scary, it’d be Yoshi’s Story. But that didn’t stop it from having a few unsettling elements. I’m talking about the Big Boo’s Haunt level of course.

It’s a pretty standard ghost level. You’ve got dark lighting, some disembodied eyeballs, and a flesh eating piano. But one part of the level that creeps me out even as an adult is its merry-go-round. If you make your way down to the basement you’ll find a spinning platform complete with cheery music and a flamethrower (merry-go-rounds have those right?). It’ll occasionally spit out boos, but other than that it just exists.

Some might think this is a bit lame, but I still can’t get past how out of place it is. Everything else in the level fits the theme except for this one room. Why is it there? The obvious reason is that you can obtain one of the game’s power stars (items needed for progression). But from a thematic standpoint it just feels wrong. And I love that about it.

Why so frightening?

It’s strange to think that games (especially Nintendo games) have scared me more than horror games have. After all, aren’t horror games specifically designed to be scary? It comes down to what I said earlier: when you play a horror game, you know what you’re getting yourself into. You expect to be scared!

But when you buy a bright and colorful game like Mario, why should you have any reason to brace yourself? That’s why scary moments in non-horror games are so much more memorable. The fact that they caught you off guard with something strange and disturbing is a big part of why they were so frightening in the first place.

Personally, I’d like it if more non-horror games had horror elements in them. They might give you nightmares, but boy are they fun to revisit!