Testament's 1st ending in GGXX where Dizzy DIES. They murder Johnny, who did his best to protect Dizzy (since he considered her part of his crew) right in front of May, and it's implied that they'll massacre the whole Jellyfish crew next before proceeding to commit genocide on the human race.
Zato's treatment of Millia. Their relationship is screwed for many reasons especially that they were in a sexual relationship in the past. Not only did they break up, but Zato turned into a Psycho Ex-BoyfriendHe-Man Woman Hater who swore to hunt Millia down to her grave. Millia's only solution to be at peace is to kill Zato. Even after his death, Zato's dead body, now under the control of his shadow familiar Eddie, still haunts his ex-lover. Millia's solution? Kill it too. Considering that Millia was an orphan and was only coerced to kill people, it's horrible that she'll have to live with the guilt of what she had to do for the rest of her life. Because of Zato, she fears forming relationships and has no known friends.
The reason Eddie's in a frantic search for a new host is because Zato-1's body is now decomposing, and if he doesn't jump to a new host in time, he'll die too. Just imagine what Venom and Millia feel seeing the reanimated, rotting corpse of the man they loved (and later feared, in Millia's case).
The ever-kind and pacifist Dizzy is now an Ax-CrazygenocidalMagnificent Bitch who wipes out half the aerial fleet of the Holy Knights with a Gamma Ray. And feel shivers down your spine when the Dizzy you know schemes her evil plan with an evil voice, then gets really, really angry later on. She truly is her mother's daughter....
To boot, all of this was caused by I-No's borderline cruel prank of befriending a teenage Ky, driving him into saving her in a hopeless situation, watching him suffer a nasty death all while she laughs her ass off at how foolish he was. And where is she in this timeline? Still walking around and trolling people, including an Ax-CrazyMad DoctorDr. Baldhead before killing him later on. It was a very good thing that That Man decided that this kind of timeline won't do and basically told I-No to stop screwing around and fix her mess...
Even the existence of the current timeline qualifies as Fridge Horror as you realize that every piece of happiness and hope mankind regained during and after the Crusades is thanks to I-No's time trolling. What if she goes back in time and changes stuff again for kicks?
If the games are any indication, take solace in the fact that That Man will most likely rein I-No in, clean up after her, and punish I-No for mucking thing up again in the first place.
The Crusades that took place prior to the events of The Missing Link. Imagine a 100 year war against the worst Eldritch Abominations you can ever imagine, with sizes ranging from that of a cow to that of Rhode Island. They don't have mercy, they don't get tired, they don't feel fear and they are specially designed by your fellow humans to kill you with fire, claws, teeth or poison. One of them could also be your loved one, just converted into a Human-type Gear and having lost all ability to reason. And before the Crusades, nations were already warring with each other using these monsters as weapons.
The sheer scale of carnage left by the war is terrifying to even try and comprehend. The United States, which now covers two continents, has a total population of only around 100 million. And then there's Japan, which no longer even exists; all that remains is a massive hole in the ocean where the archipelago used to be.
Some of the stages are outright scary, such as Nirvana and Hell's Prison. Creepy crosses? Check. Freakishly huge monsters? Check. Atmosphere with bloody tint? Check. Skulls on rocks? Check.
Xrd continues the trend of frightening stages with the Opera, Venom and Zato's stage. It just screams surrealism, with what appears to be people strapped to chairs with numbered boxes on their heads circling a giant clock in the background, all while being watched by an enormous skeletal giant on its throne. Just what the hell is going on here?
Also, the Nightmare Theater; possessing multiple wonderful images that show on the screens in the background, ranging from a faceless girl hugging a creepy wide-eyed dog plushy, moths covering the screen, a murder scene with some sort of face drawn into the wall with blood, and a shot of a dark hallway that is eventually entered by a giant, dog...creature...thing. With those soulless, blank eyes and Freddy-Krueger esque claws. Lovely.
Robo-Ky's Early-Bird Cameo in Guilty Gear X Plus is a far cry from the goofy character he would later develop into. His first appearance has him launching a surprise attack on Ky, causing Ky to lose a portion of his health before the fight. Robo-Ky appears visually identical to the real Ky but is differentiated through his creepy animations involving him taking a Limp and Livid stance and sluggishly crawling on the ground, complete with mechanical whirring noises. Even after defeating him, Ky has to lose his shoulder cape to the robot just to divert him long enough to hide and escape.
I-No's ending in Accent Core where she gets frozen in time for screwing That Man's plans.
Though it may look comical on the surface, Zappa is practically spirited away into the world of the supernatural, and most likely will be stuck there forever with a creepy ghost woman who's madly obsessed with him. Luckily, there's no proof that this is canon.
Zappa's instant-kill really does just look like something out of a horror movie.
Zappa's situation in general. Possessed not only by a crazed stalker, but a bunch of other spirits as well, and constantly blacking out and attacking people, and then coming too later covered in injuries that he has no idea where they came from.
In the Lightning the Argent novel, several villagers are violently killed with several parts of their bodies missing. Ky goes and investigates and meets a crippled girl named Marina. Due to circumstances, Marina accidentally drank the "miracle drug", Vitae, that Ky brought and it cured her disability. But when Solaria, a Commander Gear, sings, Marina's legs explode into anaconda-ish Gears that begin to eat her. Luckily, Ky is able to hack off the Gears (or her legs!) and carries the girl to Faust. However, others who drank the drug, which comprises the rest of the village, aren't so lucky as they are eaten alive by their own mutated body parts, just like what happened to the earlier villagers.
In Guilty Gear Judgment, a sorcerer named Raymond turned all the inhabitants in the island of Isene into underworld monsters. The monsters violently killed a considerable portion of a kingdom's population, enough for the UN to declare an international emergency. In the story, you will meet a hot chick fused with a monster plant that is screaming in pain, and she'll thank you when you kill her. Also, one stage boss is a rotating pillar with four different, demonic human faces attached to them, and their expressions are not pleasant.
Dizzy's second story ending in Accent Core Plus. We hear Dizzy crying for help until she slowly get's immobilized by Crow. She is captured and cloned and the ending picture shows naked Dizzy copies floating in capsules while Crow is watching. The scientist told another guy that he would keep for himself the "beautiful" original. Horror levels up when Crow creepily says that Dizzy is his forever while the poor girl is unable to respond.
Something must be said for Valentine's defeat animation in Overture. While the rest of the characters simply fall over she is instead sucked into a hole of distorted space as her limbs contort, while nonchalantly stating "My body is disappearing."
In addition to this is her stunned animation, while everyone else just stands there stunned, she takes it a step further by having her head continuously spin around like some sort of malfunctioning animatronic until the effect wears off.
And now Xrd gives us the literal Nightmare Fuel that is Bedman. Bedman is a kid strapped down to a rather demonic-looking mechanical bed. That alone is nightmarish enough, but it gets much worse. He's an evil little bastard who likes to trap people in nightmare worlds of his own creation, and he has a lot of Zappa-like static effects while fighting as well as during his win pose, and he can also summon a monster to stun the opponent, which can potentially lead into what it by far the scariest Instant Kill in Guilty Gear history. The scene switches to a movie theater, and the loser appears on the screen, forced to relive their worst memories and fears (which we very fortunately don't get to see) as a bunch of shadow demons suddenly appear and swarm the opponent as "BAD END" appears on the screen. Bedman's reaction is a Psychotic Smirk and Sarcastic Clapping.
Even worse are the characters' reactions. Here are Faust's, May's, Elphelt's, Raven's, and his own to get the ball rolling.
His stage is also pretty disturbing, looking like a demented movie theater. Also pay close attention to the story that the movie screen plays which essentially details a girl getting a dog-like doll which comes alive and kills her and the family before burning the house down.
Even after his death in -REVELATOR-, Bedman's bedframe is somehow still running around by the time of STRIVE's Another Story. Even though all it does is try to protect his sister Delilah, there's something about the way it continues to act like Bedman is still in it, along with the mechanical creeks and clicks it makes whenever it moves, that's... unnerving.
Ramlethal can also be slightly unsettling, with her goal of killing everyone, her living cape, her occasional sudden Slasher Smiles, and her bestial fighting style during her Instant Kill. Also, like the first Valentine, she has a creepy Lucifero, which during her victory screen, she commands the Luciferos to kill, and most likely eat, the opponent right after giving another Slasher Smile.
When Faust meets Zato in Xrd, he seems to become uncharacteristically angry and bloodthirsty. He still fights in a wacky manner, but he sounds absolutely furious, and one of his reactions to winning a round is screaming at Zato to not die yet. One might even say he begins to regress into his old Serial Killer self whenever he's dealing with the assassin directly responsible for ruining his life, driving him to kill innocent people out of psychosis and guilt, and for murdering an innocent little girl. To put it into perspective; imagine seeing a man you know as a good, kindhearted doctor, who has proven time and time again his own wisdom and generosity, earned your respect because of it, and then you get to see him in his darkest moments as he indulges in a little Revenge and just barely avoids falling down the slippery slope.
Ky getting shot. Yes, he survived. No, it doesn't make the imagery any less horrifying. When their big plan is going to hell, Ky immediately attempts to rush to the others' aid...BANG! The music stops completely, the camera then pans down to show Ky bleeding from his stomach. Camera pans behind him to reveal the shooter: it's Axus of the Conclave, who has just shot him with a revolver. Another gunshot. Camera fades back in to show Ky's bullet-ridden body on the floor, bleeding everywhere. Axus delivers some biting comments and one-liners before walking off.
-REVELATOR- finally shows what happened to Elphelt after the events of -SIGN-, and it is NOT something to look forward to. Her hair is now white, she has a spiked collar around her neck, giving her the appearance of a slave or a dog on a leash, and her outfit has received a Darker and Edgier color scheme. Her Arcade Mode reveals that her appearance is due to a combination of Bedman's abilities and Ariels' machinations: Elphelt is trapped inside a dream-state which consists of fighting simulated impostors of the main cast, all while she has no memory of -SIGN-'s events. After she starts remembering, Ariels steps in and creates a copy of Sol who acts nothing like the real thing, but Bedman decides that even that is too cruel and takes matters into his own hands. Elphelt finally remembers everything and defeats Bedman, but awakens to an awful revelation: she is being used as Justice's core.
Raven is to this series as what Izanami is to BlazBlue. That is to say, he's practically a creepypasta character. To start things off, his very existence is profoundly wrong in a way that causes time and space themselves to bend simply because he exists. He's completely immortal, incapable of dying in any way, age or otherwise (the spike nailed viciously through his skull is evidence enough of this). His skin is deathly pale, and his hair has whitened, which gives him an eerie, zombie-like appearance. In previous games, Raven's skin was blue-toned, as if he had died of suffocation. Perhaps most disturbing about his character design is his personality: he's a batshit insane Combat Sadomasochist who gets stimulated from receiving pain as well as dishing it out, and he gleefully licks his own bloodstained claws in ecstasy. He's one of the most powerful characters in the franchise, with dangerous dark magic that distorts reality. In fact, Raven is so powerful that he can consistently go toe-to-toe with the infamously overpowered and unfazed hero, Sol Badguy, who is completely terrified of him even if he doesn't show it. Despite these facts and his allegiance to That Man, Raven isn't evil, since That Man isn't evil either. Both of them are working towards creating a brighter future for mankind where both humans and gears can live in peaceful coexistence. In-game, he moves and contorts in extremely odd ways and has very deranged facial expressions.
His Instant Kill, the former image provider, is even more disturbing than Bedman's, and that's saying something. He slowly walks towards the opponent as his entire body is suddenly engulfed in blue fire, giving the horrifying visage of a burning shadow walking towards the opponent with no eyes and no mouth, instead having ones made out of said fire. He then chokes the opponent and lifts them high as His eye sockets turn a terrifying, glowingred and the flames proceed to swirl up into a twister and incinerate him and the opponent alive. When it finally subsides, both him and the opponent have been reduced to nothing but ashes. Then his hand suddenly rises up from out of the ashes.
Ariels. Good God, Ariels. The moment she reveals her true, bug-fuck crazy personality, she becomes the series' most terrifying character, even moreso than Raven. Her facialexpressions go straight into creepy territory and the lighting changing around her just makes it worse. There's also the fact that her voice changes to what can only be described as an older woman trying to imitate a 12-year-old schoolgirl, in the most unsettling way imaginable. Worse still is the revelation that she's only taking human form. Ariels is actually The Universal Will, an Eldritch Abomination made out of pure information who was driven mad from its directive to make humanity happy and prosperous without harming them. She then proceeds to nonchalantly shoot an innocent civilian in front of both Ky and Leo while letting her true personality slip and betray Bedman in one of the cruelest ways imaginable.
An in-universe moment of horror for Ky is when, early in -REVELATOR-'s story, he speaks with Ariels on how to deal with the ongoing threat to humanity. He already had his suspicions that she may not quite be what she appears to be, but in her haste to move on with her plans and end the conversation, Ariels lets it slip that she doesn't give one iota of a damn for the people they're supposed to be protecting. Ky has to loosely point this mistake out to her for her to realize she stumbled briefly, resulting in a blatant excuse and fake smile. The camera then cuts to a slow pan of Ky's horrified expression as he realizes humanity's greatest threat is lying to his face, is in charge of all of it and has been since before he was even born. Think of that from Ky's perspective; all the atrocities he's witnessed, all the countless lives lost, all the chaos the Gears committed in their rebellion against mankind, all stem from humanity's greatest hope and leader that he serves and has killed in the name of, and she can't even properly hide her contempt for the species to his face.
The purpose of putting the Japaneses inside the Colony is to turn them into gigantic living bombs and teleport them right into the middle of Illyria. Just when you think erasing an entire country isn't enough...
And as the Release Date trailer for -STRIVE- reveals, Ariels is still kicking, albeit imprisoned. The shot of her hoisted up in a containment unit by her arms like she's being crucified while giving off a chillingKubrick Stare will send chills down your spine.
Another thing to note is that the containment cell she's held up in looks identical to the weapon used by Elphelt when she became Brainwashed and Crazy at the end of Sign.
Dizzy's Instant Kill, while hilarious, is a terrifying display of her power. She can create energy blasts that are as powerful as nuclear warheads. Making this worse is that the way she can do this is through Necro, who has a proven track-record of being both very aggressive and violent. He also doesn't listen to Dizzy on occasion, so there's not much stopping him from just nuking everyone. Also an in-universe example, as the opponent is so horrified at what just happened that they surrender.
Faust may be a bit of a goofball now, but it's easy to forget he didn't used to be this way. Before becoming Faust, he was Dr. Baldhead, a miracle worker whose ability to cure and heal people was said to be out of this world. One day, however, a little girl he was operating on suddenly died without any reasonable explanation. This drove him insane, and he became a serial killer who used his Reality Warper powers to brutally and gruesomely murder innocents. It was only thanks to a talk with the spirit of said girl, who revealed that it wasn't his fault that she died, that he was able to reform himself. Now, he's still plenty crazy, but in a more benign way. Or, at least, he was...until -STRIVE-, that is. Gone is the hilarious, mildly crazy doctor who swam through the floor and teleported through doors that appeared out of thin air. In his place is...something...that looks like a man in a surgeon's uniform, but very clearly isn't. His entire body is now unnaturally shaded, like he came straight out of a manga or comic book, and looks horribly emaciated and stretched out beyond normal proportions. He walks and lurches around like a zombie. Instead of making and appearing from doors that lead to other places, he eats his opponent alive through his bag mask, then vomits them out when they resist by tearing a dimensional hole in reality. He disturbingly morphs his body into looking like a very creepy scarecrow that pops out of the ground and can seemingly turn his legs into a tornado. Whatever this...thing calling itself Faust is, it isn't the Faust you knew from 20 years ago. He has somehow managed to make Raven of all characters look tame by comparison.
And now with newly released footage, it gets even worse. Not only has his appearance taken on a more terrifying tone, but so has his voice and sound effects. He now speaks in a Creepy Monotone that sometimes slips into a Voice of the Legion whenever he uses his dimensional magic, and his dialogue has become stunted fragments of his former lively quotes. This all but indicates that Faust has started to relapse into his old "Baldhead" persona, and is literally coming apart at the seams.
Perhaps the worst part of it all? One of Faust's new respects, in which he offers a flower to the opponent, only for it to instantly wilt and cause Faust to start weeping, seems to suggest that whatever warped Faust into what he's become, the doctor is nothappy with the situation he's in.
Another Story finally reveals what happened to Faust to make him turn out the way he is now. The playable version of Faust in -STRIVE-? That's his zombified corpse. It's literally just an Empty Shell running only on Faust's inherent instincts as a doctor to save people while he was alive. The man once known as Dr. Baldhead ends up dying for real redeeming himself by saving another little girl, expending so much of his power that he burns out his entire life force, his spirit leaving his body and ascending to somewhere beyond.
Happy Chaos. The man who was once the Original, the creator of magic in the Guilty Gear universe, corrupted by the Backyard and driven mad by being sealed in it for over a century. He no longer cares about concepts such as good and evil, leaving him an amoral psychopath who only does things for drama and amusement. Having forgotten most of his past, his only objective now is to complete his final creation I-No, whose other half is sealed within him. To that end, he infiltrates the G4 Summit and takes the White House and several world leaders hostage, brainwashing any unfortunate guard that crosses his path, all while they're fully conscious and aware of what's going on but unable to do anything about it. After he gets in, he uses his fundamental knowledge about how literally everything in the world works to effortlessly hack security systems and launch weapons of mass destruction across the world.
"God" I-No giving her Reality Warper power to everybody on the planet near the end of Strive story mode, allowing humanity to get quite literally everything it has ever wanted at its fingertips. The scary part isn't what happens when she does, but the implications. Mankind may not be ready to use that newfound wonder wisely. Things could very much end up just like what happened with the Gear project, except on a far grander scale and much worse. Civilization nearly ended because of the Crusades, and if humanity is thrust into a war among gods it could very well end up destroying the planet itself. This also draws heavy parallels with real life, examples including nuclear power and the internet. As the opposite of Ariels, I-No doesn't give a shit if the freedom she grants humanity ends up causing them to be consumed by it, using it for their own selfish purposes, and eventually destroy each other and the world itself if it means the new ideal universe can be born. Because after all, she was created to make humanity happy, and they all got what they wanted... right?
You thought Bedman's nightmare was over? Wrong. "Bedman?" appears as the 3rd character of Strive's 2nd DLC season. That is to say, Bedman...except there's no "Man" anymore, with only a fully-sentient, violently-protective, malfunctioning Bed fighting in his place. And after the events of Xrd, the Bed has certainly seen better days. Venom's final attack did a very noticeable number on it, as it's still wrecked from that encounter. It's dirty, scratched up, and both its head and its arm have been smashed like it got hit by a cartoon hammer. Its smashed up head also reveals an unnervingly fleshy interior that does not look in place with a machine. It shambles and twitches violently and uncontrollably in zombie-like fashion its animations, as if it's possessed by the ghost of its former occupant. It's not even known for sure if its actions are simply its own programming, if Bedman himself has some influence over its actions, or even if something else entirely is controlling it. Even its own moveset doesn't even really know what it is, as evidenced by the fact that its move "names" are merely lines of assembly code and hexadecimal strings, as though they were merely computer programming sequences. Haunted Technology at its finest.
Even Faust's normally hilarious wheelchair Overdrive is quite scary when used on Bedman?. When struck, it reveals a rather horrifying Call-Back to XRD, in which one of Bedman's Overdrives revealed that the bed has a terrifyingly organic set of teeth, much to Delilah's horror.
A.B.A is a homunculus who looks like she just barely checked out of a hospital after a major accident. She has Creepy Shadowed Undereyes and is covered in bloody bandages, The "key" she wields is actually a cursed battle axe named Flament Nagel which she renamed Paracelsus, an Evil Weapon that brainwashes its wielders into becoming bloodthirsty berserkers that are forced to fight for eternity until they drop dead. Whenever Paracelsus is bathed in blood, it changes its shape into an outright demonic form, and A.B.A's demeanor suddenly changes, becoming violently unhinged and aggressive. Their Instant Kill even takes a page out of Fullmetal Alchemist and summons a doorway similar to the Gate of Truth that sucks the opponent into it, which Paracelsus then cuts cleanly in half.
Their return in -STRIVE- manages to really ramp up the creepy and pushes the boundaries of the Uncanny Valley. Something has happened to A.B.A's hair which has resulted in it as well as certain elements on her body and outfit changing color to a shade of teal. Given that she's a homunculus and that this is a real life phenomenon called copper oxidization, it's entirely possible that she's made of copper to an extent. By far the most terrifying parts of the pair's upgrade to three dimensions are their animations, especially Paracelsus's. All of their moves now border on Deranged Animation, with Paracelsus constantly changing shape and A.B.A's facial expressions becoming more and more disturbing with each frame. Once A.B.A enters her Jealous Rage, she gets Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises and a Slasher Smile for the ages, while Paracelsus is suddenly covered in black ichor with a very unnerving expression making it look like he's melting. Adding to this, the shape of the bladed portion, originally shaped like a key, has suddenly degraded into something unrecognizable.
The implication that Paracelsus' (lack of) shape during A.B.A's Jealous Rage is directly tied to her emotional instability. With how A.B.A keeps Paracelsus tied to her at all times, that poor key likely barely gets a moment to rest.
and Hell's Prison
