Nightmare Fuel / Kid Icarus: Uprising

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

For the Chaos Kin, this is just another Tuesday. For Pit, it's a living hellscape.

Pit: I get what Viridi has against Hades. He's destructive and evil. But what does Hades have against Viridi?
Palutena: I think you answered your own question. Destruction is fun for him.

— Chapter 12: "Wrath of the Reset Bomb"

The world of Classical Mythology is known for being unforgivingly disturbing, and Kid Icarus: Uprising, while being Lighter and Softer, isn't any less scary with what divine intervention has in store for humanity.

---

General

• Clubberskulls. While the rest of the enemies are Ugly Cute at worst, Clubberskulls resemble walking human hearts with one eye in the middle. Oh, and they're one of the strongest enemies in the game.
  • Similarly, the Forces of Nature has the Clobbler, which is the counterpart to the Clubberskull. At first glance, it looks like a cute little walking flower... until Pit foolishly attacks it. At which point, it morphs into a puffy, monstrous... ''thing'' with multiple eyes and attacks Pit in a rage. Like the Clubberskull, it's one of the toughest enemies in the game. And according to its idol description, once angered, it takes three days for it to calm down.
• The Orne. Besides the fact that this enemy will One-Hit Kill you if you touch it: an ominous 8-bit song plays when it's present, the screen shakes when it gets close, skulls pop out of its mouth whenever it screams, and according to its idol, anyone who touches it has their mind shattered before dying. Some Ornes will move in a pattern, making them simple enough to avoid if you take the time to watch their movements, but others will chase you—slowly, yes, but stall long enough and the next thing you'll see is a destroyed Life Meter. Your only comfort is that you can destroy them with the Three Sacred Treasures in Chapter 9 and Chapter 23. The Ornes also appear in Super Smash Bros.. for 3DS and Wii U, as if one game of them appearing was bad enough.
• The Tempura Wizard. He's like the Eggplant Wizard, except he turns Pit into a giant tempura that's constantly tired and chases after him, his single eye morphing into a colossal, hungry mouth. If he catches Pit, he is devoured alive for a One-Hit Kill!
• Mimicuties and Pandora's Boxes are both potent forms of Paranoia Fuel. The former is a Chest Monster that looks harmless at first glance, but attacks with powerful kicks if you get too close. It's also one of the toughest enemies in the game. The latter also looks harmless, but will unleash a flurry of energy blasts when opened. Pit lampshades the scariness of Mimicuties in Chapter 15, when he encounters several in a row and screams for his life each time he comes across one. And then there are chests that have no loot and are used as bait for trap rooms. The worst part of all this is that there is no way to tell which chests are harmless unless you open them.
• The game does not stop you from shooting forces that have allied with you (e.g. Forces of Nature and Underworld troops in the Aurum arc) if they have target markers over them, and will even reward you for it. If you're trying to not shoot them, it's easy to do so by accident if actual enemies are present.
• While most of the villains in Uprising are lovable, quirky, and outright hilarious, two of them manage to be a cut above the rest in terms of sheer evil.
  • Hades, the Lord of the Underworld. While he's definitely entertaining, he also proves to be one of the most evil characters in the game. He's an endlessly cruel and sadistic being with a warped sense of humor and total disregard for all life, who views other beings as mere playthings. He masterminded the entire plot of the game, tricking the humans into fighting each other over a fake Wish Seed to harvest their souls. It's later revealed that he uses the collected souls to either create his underworld monsters or to eat them, an act that removes them from existence entirely. He reveals in death and destruction and gleefully admits that it's his idea of a good time. Even when he helps out during the Aurum Arc, he can't resist taking opportunities to torment Pit, and he openly admits that the only reason he's helping is that so he can have the Earth to himself.
  • The Chaos Kin. A malevolent, parasitic manifestation of chaos and evil that is mindlessly driven by a singular desire to spread anarchy and disorder. It resembles a grotesque mix of a scorpion, spider, and a moth. It can possess its victims and feed on their souls while controlling them. It was once sealed in the Lunar Sanctum by Viridi prior to the game. Having been inadvertently freed by Pit, the beast possesses Palutena and has her seal Pit's soul in a ring while using Pit's lifeless body to attack the human world. In the span of three years, it managed to do more damage to the world than even Hades, and unlike him, it has no humorous traits to detract from its villainy.

Medusa Arc

• Chapter 1: Twinbellows' design◊ in this game is quite frightening compared to his 8-bit version.
• Chapter 2:
  • Dark Lord Gaol looks quite intimidating due to his Non-Standard Character Design, looking like a Final Boss out of a RPG game. His demonic voice does not help. The scariness goes away at the end when Gaol is revealed to be a human woman and a close friend of Magnus who was brainwashed by the Underworld. She later appears in Ch 24 to help test Pit for the Great Sacred Treasure.
  • Magnus' backstory. It's implied he became a mercenary because he lost a child to the Underworld Forces.
• Chapter 4:
  • The chapter is part Stealth-Based Mission, with several hallways where you try to sneak past Reapers patrolling the area, under threat of a Reaper ass-kicking if you get caught. Most of the scare comes from the suspense.
  • The chapter also introduces us to the Great Reaper. When first encountered, it looks like a regular reaper, but the moment it spots Pit, it quickly reveals its true form, which is massive and much more intimidating. Also, according to its idol description, it gained its strength by eating souls.
• Chapter 5:
  • Pandora's Labyrinth of Deceit, a maze with an unsettling Art Shift full of textureless polygons that would not be out of place in a Super NES game using the Super FX chip. The Labyrinth also messes with Pit's and Palutena's senses, showing a cheerful landscape before suddenly blacking it out and revealing that they're still trapped inside. The threat of running out of the Power of Flight is encountered for the first time here, thanks to Pit and Palutena coming across several dead ends trying to find a landing point, although fortunately no such scenario happens.
  • During the invisible path section, there's an easy-to-reach chest. Feel free to open it... if you can outrun the Orne that pops up out of nowhere when you approach it.
• Chapter 7: The Air Battle has Pit flying through a parted ocean by Lord Poseidon to get to the Seafloor Palace where Thanatos resides. There, Pit comes across the remains of a human city. When Palutena asks what happened, Poseidon calmly says that he sunk it long ago when the humans got too unruly. It's a cruel reminder that the Gods in this game are capable of turning on humanity at any time. At the least, he's more calm about it than Viridi.
• Chapter 8: The Space Kraken◊, a monstrous squid that inhabits the Galactic Sea that eats practically anything. The monster makes its entrance by eating the Space Pirate Captain before turning its sights on Pit.
• Chapter 9:
  • The Underworld Castle, Medusa's base of operations, is a hellish, gothic nightmare factory filled with Clubberskulls, Ornes, Tempura Wizards, Alien Geometries, and all other sorts of nasty surprises.
  • The final battle with Medusa. After taking extensive damage, Medusa is forced to use her full strength and reveals her true hideous appearance before ripping her head off her body and sending it flying after Pit! The final leg of the fight is Pit being chased by her living, decapitated head as it fires lasers from its eye and dark energy blasts.
  • Hades revealing himself by literally ripping the credits away. It's Played for Laughs mostly, but given the No Fourth Wall nature of the game, it's more like he's threatening you as well as Pit and Palutena.
    Hades: (during the fake credits) Now wait just a second!
• Chapter 10:
  • Phoenix Mountain. A hellish volcanic region that, according to its idol description, is so hot that it's nearly uninhabitable. The only reason Pit is able to venture there is due to Palutena's Power of Cooling.
  • Hades' story as to why he wants the Wish Seed. He claims he wants to use the Wish Seed to revive a girl's parents, who he killed in a chariot accident. The story is completely false, of course. But it's the casual way he talks about it that makes it so frightening. The fact that he can so freely talk about killing someone, accidental or not, is truly horrifying and shows how much respect for life he lacks.
  • The Reveal that the Wish Seed is a fake and Hades had spread the rumor about it to tempt the humans into attacking the Phoenix. By the time Pit and Palutena realize this, it's far too late to turn back. If Pit defeats the Phoenix, the humans will go to war with each other. If Pit spares the Phoenix, it will attack humanity itself. Either way, millions will die and Hades will get more souls for his realm.

Forces of Nature Arc

• Chapter 11:
  • Seeing human armies savagely destroy each other over the fake Wish Seed is simultaneously terrifying and depressing, and reminds the player that Humans Are Bastards. In a way, it's basically World War III.
    Pit: It's like they've lost their humanity, and all they have left is... brutality!
  • The result of the Reset Bomb: the blast radius is turned into a purple, sickly-looking spherical forest full of monsters, with some humans still alive and bound up.
  • The Reset Bomb in general. It is, for all intents and purposes, the Kid Icarus equivalent of the Atomic Bomb! And the one controlling it is a genocidal nature Goddess who views humanity in the worst possible light and will not hesitate to use it when she feels it necessary. Who knows how many people were killed by the blast.
  • Viridi's Establishing Character Moment. After dropping her Reset Bomb and killing nearly the entire human army, Viridi's Astral Projection appears, gleefully laughing at the destruction she caused. Makes it hard to believe that this is the same character that would end up pulling a Heel–Face Turn later in the game.
  Viridi: Good riddance, human scum! The world's better off without you!

Invasion Arc

• Chapters 15-17 introduce us to the Aurum. Having fought Underworld and Forces of Nature troops, the Aurum in contrast are creepy, soulless, geometric abominations that try to make copies of the aforementioned factions' troops, and they seek to devour the Earth and everything in it.
• Chapter 17:
  • Palutena tries to bring Pit out after Pyrrhon takes over the Aurum Brain, but it doesn't work! As Pit goes beyond the 5-minute time limit for the Power of Flight, he almost falls hundreds of kilometers out of the sky to his death. Thankfully, he's caught by Viridi's forces carrying a platform.
  • The original platform to Pyrrhon. It's piloted by noble centurions that can be killed if they take heavy damage. Luckily, Palutena's reserves have two extra, but if those guys go, it's a Non-Standard Game Over.
  • Pyrrhon nearly frying Pit alive with a Pyroblaster. Had Viridi's Nutskis not performed a Heroic Sacrifice, he would have been killed right then and there.
    • Pyrrhon in general in this chapter. Last two chapters, he was an affable, eccentric, somewhat egotistical fellow who seemingly wanted to help the gang, but then it's revealed that he was using everyone to help him reach the Aurum Brain so he could take it over and control the Aurum to become the strongest God in existence. It's quite frightening how he was able to pull the wool over everyone's eyes while masking his true nature. It gets even worse when the Aurum Brain outwills him and retakes control, using his fire powers to enhance the Aurum.

Chaos Kin Arc

• Chapter 18, the Wham Episode:
  • There is something seriously creepy about a little girl having her body hijacked by Pit. The music doesn't help.
  • The Reveal that Pit's body has been mindlessly rampaging and slaughtering the human race for three years while his soul has been trapped in the ring. It begs the question, how many people were killed in those three years?
    Magnus: Yesterday? Try three years, buddy! [...] How's this, for starters? You've become the enemy of mankind!
  • The Air Battle section. Viridi escorts Pit to Skyworld, where Pit discovers, much to his horror, that Skyworld has been turned into Scenery Gorn, featuring dry, lifeless masses of land with cracked structures and a perpetually cloudy sky. At the very end of it, Pit sees Palutena, only to discover that she's apparently performed a Face–Heel Turn and tells Pit that she's tired of dealing with humans and especially with Pit. It's both terrifying and heartrending to see Pit's Goddess behave like a mother snapping at her child, and for no apparent reason. The only solace is that it turns out that Palutena is Brainwashed and Crazy, which is another kind of NF together; see the Chaos Kin entry above.
• Chapter 20: The thought of fighting Palutena's troops is terrifying, as they're Unwitting Pawns in the Chaos Kin's plan and probably have no idea what they're doing. There's also the matter of accidentally killing Palutena — which you can do by attacking her instead of the Chaos Kin too much — as well as the reveal that Palutena has been acutely aware of everything she did over the three years the Chaos Kin was controlling her, but unable to control herself the whole time. Her reaction to being hurt by Pit make it even worse.
  Palutena: (whimpering) Pit... why?
• Chapter 21:
  • Welcome to the Chaos Vortex! It's one massive Eldritch Location that is essentially the Labyrinth of Deceit on steroids, with Living Shadows, clones of the Chaos Kin, and recreated enemies of all factions you've encountered so far.
  • Eyes! Eyes everywhere! Watching you.
  • At one point, a few Underworld troops will block the camera. Given the game's No Fourth Wall nature and the Chaos Vortex's anomalous properties, it feels as if The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You.
  • At the end of the Air Battle section, Pit has to finish off the Chaos Kin right as his flight time runs out, and if he fails, Viridi informs Pit that she can't pull him out, leaving him trapped in the Chaos Vortex.
  • There's two freaking Ornes in the Land Battle section!
  • Did you think the chapter was over? Suddenly, the Chaos Kin, with its remaining strength, drags Dark Pit off the platform, forcing Pit to risk his wings and fly down to save Dark Pit. Fail to catch Dark Pit, and they're finished. Succeed, and Pit catches him... only to nearly die from toasting his wings.
    • And after the ordeal is over, we get a lovely view of Pit's burned wings, complete with blood and bones showing.
  • Palutena's soul was held captive by the Chaos Kin for three years, fighting with all of her strength to remain intact. The Chaos Kin is one of the biggest threats in the series if it can keep one of the big three Gods on the verge of being completely destroyed for so long!

Grand Finale Arc

• Chapter 22:
  • The whole premise of the level. Pit is dying and the only way to save him is to use the Rewind Spring to heal his wings. After everything he's been through in the previous arc, it's both horrifying and heartbreaking to know The Hero of the story will die unless you help him. And it doesn't help that Hades shows up to make things a little harder for Dark Pit, as well as Pandora.
  • The Soul-Eating Monster. A grotesque, whale-like creature with a multiple eyes, a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, and sacks on its back to carry the souls it devours.
  • The Reveal that Hades has been using the souls of fallen humans to either create his underworld monsters or to eat them, an act that removes them from existence entirely. And it takes multiple souls to create one monster. This is a being that is sadistic enough to not just kill you, but torture your soul for eternity. And at one point, he lusts after Dark Pit's soul.
• Chapter 23:
  • The entire fight with Hades, which shows just how powerful he is. At first, Pit is as confident and cocky as ever as he enters the Underworld, then Hades appears out of nowhere and the two fight it out. However, despite being armed with the Three Sacred Treasures, Pit can't hurt him. Keep in mind, these were the very weapons used to slay Medusa and they have no effect on him. Hades then destroys the treasures. For the rest of the fight, Pit can barely fend off Hades until the latter swallows him whole.
  • Pit gets Eaten Alive by Hades and has to fight his way out of Hades' innards, full of pools of what looks like blood, gelatinous platforms, and grotesque versions of the Underworld forces. Also, Pit starts to lose his mind from being cut off from Palutena. Thankfully, it's Played for Laughs and he gets over it, but considering what happened to him in the previous chapters, it's not hard to assume he's really lost it.
• Chapter 25... on max difficulty. It gets insanely hard to fight Hades, especially during the Bullet Hell laser array, and then you have to avoid everything until Medusa comes. Oh and there's no heart containers.

---

I'M FINISHED!

CONTINUE
RETURN TO MENU

---