"Hi, I'm Mad Jack, and I'm your friend to the end. Hidey-ho... ha ha ha..."
- Compared to his past appearances, King K. Rool is shown throughout Donkey Kong 64 to have suffered from Sanity Slippage. While he was insane and demented before, he’s been consumed with such a strong desire for revenge after his previous defeats that he ends up wanting to basically commit genocide to get back at his sworn enemy. While it’s still cartoony and over the top, K. Rool’s menace is played very seriously throughout almost every cutscene he’s in. He kidnaps the Kongs as well as threatens and executes many of his minions offscreen for the slightest failures. For (arguably) being the silliest game in the franchise, K. Rool is played very straight as a no-nonsense villain to be feared.
- The Game Over screen (thankfully skippable though and, most importantly, thankfully not showing the results) has King K. Rool activating the Blast-O-Matic as he's about to blow DK Isles up while laughing evilly, which was pretty intense for some back when they were children, joining the ranks of Banjo-Kazooie in the "save and quit is not an option" territory.
- 19 years later, come Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and we finally get to see every single detail just what the Blast-O-Matic could do as K. Rool completely obliterates his opponent (alongside DK Isles) with it. As epic as it is, to say the least that it wasn't pretty would simply be a massive understatement.
- Angry Aztec has an eerie temple with ominous music that just makes you feel uncomfortable, and once you grab the banana at the end, a demonic voice suddenly says "GET OUT!" and a crosshair starts following you. You then have 25 seconds to get out of there before getting shot. Said "GET OUT!" comes from an assassin who tries to kill you once you get the bananas. In certain Crystal Caves challenges and in the greenhouse in Creepy Castle, he returns if you fail a challenge and gives you only 10 seconds to escape this time.
- Made a tiny bit worse in Crystal Caves: a Chunky specific challenge in which you're only given one second to exit if you get caught in a light. And unlike the Temple where it only takes one unit of health, this one is an OHKO. Thankfully, it only resets that room but it's still a scary thought.
- Mad Jack: a giant Jack-in-the-Box resembling a demented cyborg crocodile with Donald Duck's voice and part of its paint job chipped off, revealing a glowing red eye. What'll really get to you is his introduction: he drops out of the reject chute (in a factory already creating evil toys, no less) pops out, does the standard boo scare, then laughs snidely at you. Not only, this Wake-Up Call Boss has everything: a dark room, small platforms raised to great heights, a Monster Clown Creepy Doll, and Evil Laughter in the accompanying music. In other words, every single childhood phobia in the book in one single boss.
- The DA Nintober event put Mad Jack on their list, and part of his description was: "King K. Rool's Frantic Factory puts out dangerous toys unsuitable for all ages. When health and safety is of no concern, it takes a very special toy to end up in the reject chute".
- An early design for Mad Jack, called Junk-in-the-Box, depicted him as a humanoid Monster Clown with a bear trap for a mouth. While this version is a bit more subdued than the final product, there's no denying the fact that no amount of springs can save it from the depths of the Uncanny Valley.
- The wind-up Kremlings from Frantic Factory. Everything about them is unsettling: glowing red eyes, squeaky noises, circular walking pattern when not seeing you, and their mad dashes at you when they do see you.
- Frantic Factory in general is pretty unnerving. In addition to the evil toys, it's full of cavernous rooms and even darker connecting tunnels. The main theme only adds to the unsettling nature of the factory, starting out with a creepy wind-up music box tune then slowly building up into a menacing, dismal tune.
- One mercy of the game is that it gives you Super Not-Drowning Skills, as per Donkey Kong Country tradition. However, Rareware seems to have used this as an excuse to make some very deep, aquaphobe-unfriendly water areas, such as those in Gloomy Galleon. Beyond all of that, there is something genuinely unsettling about this level from the get go. The tense music and sheer enormity of the stage gives one a sense of claustrophobia and keeps players constantly on edge.
- The sunken ship rooms of Gloomy Galleon, thanks to the bad lighting, killer starfish and exploding (and creepy looking) pufferfish (both of those enemies can't be fought due to the Kongs lacking underwater combat moves). Some of those rooms actually feature jail cells and skeletons of prisoners chained to walls, because it can always get worse.
- Fungi Forest at night is pretty scary to those unfamiliar with the level layout. Actually, it's pretty scary even when you do know the layout. You hear wolves howling in the background, followed by owls sounding off and a very ominous reprise of the level's daytime music. The atmosphere is just incredibly spooky.
- The rematch against Dogadon starts off fairly normal, though he has added a shockwave to his attacks. But damage him enough, and he'll soon breathe fire to create a WALL of fire that you can't dodge unless you jump off the platform and get back on.
- The TERRIFYING part comes in when he lands on the platform before jumping up and down, CAUSING IT TO SINK INTO THE LAVA! And this time, hitting him with the barrels only daze him, forcing you to become a giant and wail on him. What makes it so scary is that the music gets faster as the platform sinks, filling you with a sense of panic.
- And should you run out of time, you get to see Chunky Kong sinking into the lava while screaming in pain.
- The cutscene that plays upon entering Creepy Castle has King K. Rool all but explicitly execute a Kasplat for their failure to stop the Kongs from obtaining the blueprint pieces (and for calling him "fatso"), taunting him as he tries to flee Hideout Helm. The cutscene ends as the obviously terrified Kasplat accidentally backs into a giant red Klaptrap, with the obvious implication that it eats him while he's still alive, since he's never seen again.
- Creepy Castle has rotting hands as platforms. Inside the actual castle, there's a torture chamber after a dark maze and the crypt below has a very realistic skull-shaped portal leading to a red maze made completely out of detailed bones. Worse, the music has an unseen individual moaning constantlynote , causing many players to speed through this part or turn off the audio to not have to listen to it.
- The Ballroom's soundtrack consists of nothing but scary orchestral music and ghostly laughter.
- Creepy Castle's mine cart section. It's bad enough with the loud chase music and random sirens going off constantly, but how about the tombstones that fly out the ground — with accompanying insane laughter — as you approach or the giant skeleton demon thing shooting explosive fireballs at poor DK? Worse still, it comes directly after you have to go through the above mentioned bone maze.
- The fact that the entire Hideout Helm level is a Timed Mission, considering that if time runs out, it's an automatic Non-Standard Game Over; and the DK Isles and all their inhabitants are destroyed by the Blast-O-Matic.
- There's also the intro to the level, which implies that K. Rool doesn't even care if the unfinished Blast-O-Matic blows himself and his minions up along with the DK Isles, with him literally mashing the Fire button like a maniac despite his minions' desperate warnings.K. Rool: It's the Kongs! Wake up, you fools, and activate the machine!Chief Technician: B-but it's not fully tested. It might explode and destroy us all!K. Rool: DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T DO!Chief Technician: P-please, Master, just give us a few more hours...K. Rool: NO! The time has come. Goodbye, DK Isles!
- The majority of the final level is a Race Against the Clock where the Kongs must all work together to quickly deactivate the Blast-O-Matic before it destroys the DK Isles. The music,
while awesome, embodies urgency, especially if the Kongs haven't given Snide that many blueprints. And the cherry on top? You know how you're usually safe in a Tag Barrel? Well, not only time is still going in the Tag Barrel, even the level music replaces the Tag Barrel music! Finally, you know how you can press start and choose the option to exit the level? Well, in Hideout Helm, while the Blast-o-Matic is still active, you can't exit the level. You can only give up. - K. Rool's evil mocking laughter that occurs throughout the game — mostly when you use a barrel or animal ability where it isn't allowed — is heard within every ten-minute interval in the level. By the time you reach the last ten minutes, the laughing becomes even more frequent; it occurs again at five, three, two, and one minute remaining, and at 30 and 10 seconds remaining. All of this while your remaining time is counting down right there at the bottom center of the screen. The one-minute warning, the 30-second warning, and especially the 10-second warning really hammer in the fact that unless you're right at the end of the stage, you've failed, and the DK Isles are well and truly doomed.
- There's one more thing. You have to find at least one blueprint to even have it be theoretically possible. Barring glitch skips, it's impossible to win with just the basic 10 minutes. This person played Hideout Helm perfectly with 11 minutes on the clock and only had 7 seconds left at the end. They went on to show that you can only barely get Diddy's games started with the base time.
- There's also the intro to the level, which implies that K. Rool doesn't even care if the unfinished Blast-O-Matic blows himself and his minions up along with the DK Isles, with him literally mashing the Fire button like a maniac despite his minions' desperate warnings.
- The minigame, "Peril Path Panic" has Klaptraps potentially eating (and thus killing) the very humanoid Banana Fairies, who make awfully terrifying shrieks upon being eaten.
- If you try to take certain abilities somewhere they're not supposed to be, you are abruptly met with a large slashed-circle sign (🚫), you hear a bizarre Evil Laugh, and your ability is turned off. It isn't always clear where these no-ability zones are, which can easily startle players. In the case of Diddy's jetpack, this can happen high off the ground, not only frightening acrophobic players but also causing Falling Damage just to rub it in.
GET OUT!
