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Nightmare Fuel / Kirby

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Necrodeus, one of Kirby's most dangerous adversaries. His name translates to Death God.
"You know, for such a cute franchise, Kirby's villains are pretty messed up."

Kirby is cute, his world is cute, so clearly it's all just a Sugar Bowl where nothing scary ever happens, right? But in the depths of space, many creepy things exist.

Who knew a place called Dream Land could be so nightmarish?

Entries with their own pages:

In accordance with Spoiler Policy, Nightmare Fuel pages are Spoilers Off.


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    General 
  • Scarfy is a cutesy flying creature that resembles a floating cat head, until players turn their backs to it, try to eat it, or get too close to it, at which point it shows a demented mouth and a single eye and tries to eat them. If not killed soon, it explodes. It gets worse in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards and Kirby's Return to Dream Land. In the former, they serve as an alternate skin for Mumbies and the model of their transformed state looks genuinely creepy here, not helped by how realistic their faces look compared to most of the other enemies. In the latter, pink Scarfies are introduced and act similar to Phantos when collecting keys, sometimes forming groups, and they do this all the time in Extra Mode.
    • In a similar vein, the Propeller (Bomb) enemies in Dream Land 2 are upsetting. If approached alone, they're not bad. If approached with Rick/Coo/Kine, they don a Nightmare Face and make a beeline to attack. Platforms and obstacles do not stop them. If they make contact, the animal friend instantly disappears. There are no indications why it does these things, but the whole shock of it all can be unsettling.
  • Club Nintendo (the German version) had a special Kirby comic, wherein Kirby (and likely Dedede/"Nick") is a detective; it starts off with a human woman named Annett giving him a case. At one point he, Dedede, and Bluefish investigate an old castle; they sit down at a table expecting to be served dinner, but instead the lights go out. When they come back on, they've been joined by Annett's corpse.
  • Dark Matter. For starters, they are a species of Eldritch Abominations whom want to snuff out positivity to extinction, essentially turning whatever planet they migrate to into a Crapsack World just by being there regardless of how saccharine they were before they came. They do this by taking over their prey's body and sometimes morph them into destructive monsters, but that's all we know about them. The scariest part about them is that we don't know what they're truly capable of. One of the very few tidbits of lore we get of these monsters is that they're connected to a murderous Cult shown in Kirby Star Allies. Even a Supercomputer on par with Nova was stumped on how to comprehend these things, and when it tried to retro-engineer a perfect clone from a specific specimen (a task which pushed the AI to its limit, mind you) that should be the easiest to clone, the resulting clone is still flawed. These creatures are just so utterly alien that trying to truly comprehend or even explain them is practically impossible.
  • The Soul bosses. In each game starting from Kirby: Canvas Curse, the final boss is able to come back in a stronger form that has a recurring set of moves (firing cutters, turning into a ball of flame, bouncing across the battlefield and crushing the opponent beneath them, bursting into a rain of paint) which mostly homage Drawcia Soul but as it turns out originate from Void. Each of them are nightmarish in their own way:
    • Drawcia Soul is the first final boss, effectively kickstarting a new series tradition. With the last frays of her sanity disappearing, Drawcia transforms into a screaming ball of paint who tries to kill Kirby as her world literally and metaphorically falls apart. Her battle theme even sounds like a mental breakdown in musical form.
    • Marx Soul is a zombie brought back from the dead by absorbing the remains of a Galactic Nova. To reflect Marx's twisted mind, his body is now magenta with sharp tipped wings and a necklace made of Nova's remains, not to mention the addition of a terrifyingly distorted cackle. During his fight, Kirby fights him in a dark dimension with an ominous distorted background and when defeated splits in half with a piercing scream.
    • Magolor Soul is a puppet of the Master Crown created from Magolor EX's remains. In contrast to Magolor's candy coloured palette, Magolor Soul has a dark grim looking teal with spikes and claws with a prominent red eye in his mouth.
    • Soul of Sectonia turns the tables on Kirby by absorbing four Miracle Fruit to resurrect herself, somehow holding on long enough to find them. With this, she attacks Kirby and when defeated, forcefully tears herself from the Dreamstalk and tries to finish the fight herself. After failing to take vengeance on the pink puffball, she explodes violently into a shower of blue petals.
    • Star Dream Soul OS, though an imitation of a soul boss, works just as well. With a new dark colour scheme to match the gash in its chest, it can still merge with the Access Ark. What really seals the deal is after its third form is defeated. It inhales Kirby within itself to trap him before its heart is revealed. What ensues is a reconstruction of the original Galactic Nova fight with a corrupted, twisted version of its battle theme to set the tone. Worse still, the heart can fight back and eventually tries to take Kirby with it.
    • Void Soul may seen anodyne at first with its baby blue colour scheme but it's still the dangerous Destroyer of Worlds. Fought inside the body, Void Soul can still take on a Dark Matter-like form and make different faces but can now hit harder and can even bring up water before electrifying it with its laser beams. As Soul Melter EX proves, that wasn't even its strongest form. As Void, it really pulls out all the stops with several of it's moves referencing various final bosses, tying it to Zero, Dark Mind and Drawcia.
    • Chaos Elfilis already has a lot going for it. It manages to absorb Morpho Knight's power to become stronger and manages to pull a few new moves out for its last battle. Upon being defeated and attacked with Kirby's Mouthful Mode, it reveals its final form. A yellow and cyan orb with a blood red covering, turning its previous form into several blobs that orbit it and fire lasers. The music really sets the tone: the first half reuses the disturbing ambience from the last stage of Forgo Dreams before losing enough HP for the tone to change. Chaos Elfilis makes its predecessors proud by turning into a giant ball of flame and trying to kill Kirby and homaging several of their attacks. When it finally dies, you can see several of the animal souls moving in and out before disappearing for good.

    Dream Land Series (1, 2, 3, and Crystal Shards) 

Kirby's Dream Land 2

  • Kirby's Dream Land 2 has the grand debut of Dark Matter, the black eye that possesses things, and hoo-boy, what a powerful first impression he (and by proxy, his kind) left for the franchise. He possesses Dedede as the fake final boss. If players don't get the good ending, Dark Matter is only shown as a silhouette and listed as "!?", while Kine looks to the sky knowing something isn't right.
  • The possessed King Dedede can be somewhat bizarre, if not downright unsettling — as he seems to be battling normally while sleepwalking. Not to mention his Turns Red phases, where his attacks are much faster, and even more explosive; to the point where he spews out a sphere of… something, which explodes into gigantic stars.

Kirby's Dream Land 3

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

  • Adeleine's vicious-looking Nightmare Face from when Kirby, Ribbon, and Waddle Dee find her to be possessed by the Dark Matter in the cutscene "Art Attack"; complete with more detailed, creepier-looking eyes and a wide Slasher Smile. It just looks flat-out wrong on her, and doesn't help either that it's revealed by her suddenly turning to glare directly at the camera with a Scare Chord.
  • Kirby 64 features 02 (Zero Two), who is the reincarnation of 0, and mimics the bleeding out of his eye, and the floating white eye design, only he is an angel now. Not to mention that, after destroying his halo, his green cactus-like "tail" with thorns around it that "bleeds" poisonous gas will extend from below him, giving you an opening to shoot it. Also, although he now shoots explosive lasers at you instead of blood, his concept art still shows his eye bleeding. The platforms in his stage are made out of hexagonal, cell-like structures. And the place where you fight him is a dark red vortex reminiscent of Giygas with inexplicable swirling bar codes in the background. Also, the official strategy guide refuses to mention the final battle (even going so far as to call 02 "a friendly inhabitant of Shiver Star" in the Enemy Info Cards section), leaving players who just got all 74 Crystal Shards desperately shooting at 02's eye and wondering why the hell its health meter isn't going down, until finally being blown to pieces...
    • It gets even worse when you realize that those aren't bar codes, but WHEELS, specifically the wheels of Opahanim. Given that Ophanim is usually stated to be the throne of God, or at least the wheels on his chariot, it's safe to assume that 02 is not just an angel, but a GOD, and given how Dark Matter are a species made of malevolence, it wouldn't be surprising to see what type of god he is.
    • And, for those thinking they can cover their losses and end the game, they are unable to quit the game during their time in Dark Star without turning off the console. The Pause Screen reads off one single line:
      Pause Screen: "Tough it out!"
  • Shiver Star. At first, the stages make it look like a cheery winter-themed planet, but then comes a factory stage featuring evil machines with demented smiles, enemies from ''Kirby's Dream Land 3'' in containment capsules, and one segment where Burnis, a giant phoenix miniboss, is fought in a lava pit.
  • Ripple Star's second stage had a very scary theme, to the point it's not even found on the official soundtrack! Here it is, for those curious.
    • In the game's sound test, Kirby appears, wearing headphones, and will dance and make faces based on the song. For example, if you play the boss battle music, he gets an intense look on his face. If you play this track, he gets a terrified look on his face, and it's really quite disturbing, especially combined with the music. This track, the traditional "Done In" jingle, and the bad ending music are the only ones to scare Kirby.
  • The "death" sequence as Kirby. The scenery fades to black and Kirby stumbles around, then falls down... and during this, a loud, slow version of the regular Kirby death music appears out of nowhere. Losing the Boss Rush is worse: there's something terrible about a red-tinted screen showing Kirby and his allies looking depressed.
    It's hopeless...
    • This is somewhat negated, at least in the normal game, by the loud and well-pronounced “OW!” Kirby yells before getting knocked out, even more so if it was from something like running into an ordinary enemy.
  • The bad ending, which is made incredibly creepy by the last couple of notes that play near the end as the Fairy Queen turns to look at Ribbon with a demented, evil expressionor alternatively at the player, as if to mock them for not getting the 100% completion.
  • The final Ripple Star stage before the boss has good music, but that final room with the N-Zs in it has that ominous dark cloud where the ceiling should be. Kind of eerie, thinking Kirby's right beneath Miracle Matter himself at the moment.
    • Miracle Matter himself is a Sinister Geometry (a 20-sided die, to be exact) with red eyes on each side. He shapeshifts into different forms to launch one of the 7 powers' attacks, and as you beat it little-by-little, he'll lose his eyes one by one. The background of his battle arena is also very eerie and confusing.

    Kirby Super Star/Ultra 

Both games

  • The minigame "Revenge of Meta Knight", in which Meta Knight attempts to take over Dream Land. After defeating Meta Knight, you have a time limit to get off the ship while Meta Knight is chasing you, flying into a huge rage as he angrily hurls big electric sparks and sword beams at you. He enters this segment by shouting "YOU'LL NEVER ESCAPE!" ("I won't let you escape!" in the remake) as he spreads his wings and bears down on you with everything he's got left, accompanied by incredibly intense music.
  • The subgame "Milky Way Wishes" features the final boss: Marx, who is at first a cute guy bouncing on a ball. Once Kirby awakes Nova to wish for the Sun and Moon to stop fighting, Marx knocks Kirby out of the way and wishes to rule Popstar, transforming him into a bizarre, demonic jester bat.
    • Speaking of Marx, the cutscene that shows it is also fairly disturbing. First off, in the original Super Star, it has no music, instead opting for nothing but the void of space and the noise of a siren that presumably Nova is making.note  Second, the fact that Marx appears right out of nowhere to shove Kirby out of the way so he can make his wish to Nova may be a bit of a Jump Scare to some people, and third, the fact that he leaves Kirby to die alone in the freezing atmosphere of space. Good thing the Starship rescues him! See the cutscene for yourself here.
    • One of the first form's attacks has Marx split in half and open a strange black hole like gate in-between the halves. While Kirby can run away from it if he's far enough, what happens if he is drawn in? He's briefly sent to a world made out of pain, where he takes a third of his health in damage before Marx spits him back out. Ouch.
  • In the original SNES version of the game, the opening cutscene to Gourmet Race probably frightened a lot of kids back in the day, when Dedede arrives out of nowhere and tauntingly looms over Kirby from Kirby's point of view after he's exhausted from flying up the mountain. The way he looks much bigger than normal and partially in-shadow with a creepy smirk on his face — combined with a scary, dramatic musical sting as he reveals himself — gives the impression he's about to eat you or worse.
  • Speaking of Gourmet Race, if you happen to lose the minigame, you're treated to a black screen where King Dedede is pinching Kirby's cheek — or bonking Kirby's head repeatedly with his hammer in Ultra. It doesn't seem bad, except for two things. First off, Kirby's face in the original looks a little creepy, and then there's the music, which is just downright depressing.
  • Just like the American Kirby commercials for Dream Land 1 and 2, the original Super Star has its own disturbing commercial. It starts out with somebody being rushed into the emergency room inside a hospital as a doctor labels their condition as "Too Much Kirby" promptly before zooming out on the poor person being inflated and colored pink, not unlike Violet Beauregarde's fate in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. After some gameplay footage, he's rolled into an observation room where multiple other victims are also there, and just to make things worse, the stinger has a nurse popping one of the victims with a pin saying "NEXT!" before laughing maniacally as the kid in the background deflates like a balloon while screaming.

Ultra exclusive

  • Super Star Ultra has Masked Dedede at the end of "Revenge of the King", where Dedede goes crazy and sets out for revenge against Kirby for his previous defeats; culminating in attacking him while wearing a metal mask and wielding a upgraded hammer that has various weapons built into it. How can you tell he's snapped? Well, even before the fight, he's sending Mini-Boss after Mini-Boss after Mini-Boss after Mini-Boss in an absolute panic. When he runs out of minibosses, he sends a poor defenseless Waddle Dee after you out of sheer desperationnote , after which he suddenly becomes eerily calm. When he begins the fight proper, his equipment is faulty and keeps giving him electric shocks... and he shrugs them off like they're nothing. Also, rocket launchers, a flamethrower, and even the arena itself is electrified — he really means to finish Kirby this time. It's distressing to see a normally Affably Evil villain use such drastic measures.
  • From "The True Arena", there's the rest area for the Final Four. As if the dead trees and the menacing coliseum in the background — set against an overcast sky with lightning and thick fog — and the window displaying the next boss rendered in a sinister black and crimson against a snarling stone gargoyle face weren't freaky enough, the music could probably be described, actually fittingly, as the "Ruins of Alph radio signal cranked up". It must be heard to be believed.
  • Music has been added to a few cutscenes that lacked it in the game, such as when Kirby summoned Nova, only for Marx to promptly steal his wish. The music for this cutscene note , dubbed "Marx's Ambition" by the official CD, has three parts (four if you count Nova being summoned as that would technically be the first part of it). The first part emphasizes on his malevolent plan and how he managed to trick Kirby into getting his wish, complete with a Scare Chord as he becomes his boss self and just before it moves onto the second part, which in question is a lot more depressing as Kirby floats helplessly in space until the Starship is formed, starting the third part as it becomes a lot more epic, telling you to "stop Marx's mad plan" (as the game quotes in the pause menu) before he goes too far.
  • Did you think Marx from Kirby Super Star was bad? It turns out that he isn't as nightmarish as Ultra's final boss: Marx Soul, who is an updated version of Marx, looks more demented and insane than regular Marx, and attacks in a similar attack pattern as Drawcia from Kirby: Canvas Curse (reusing her Paint Barrage and Big Bang attacks). He splits in half to use these attacks, and when you defeat him, he lets out a horrible, ear-bleeding scream as he splits in half, and each half explodes. Does it help that the place you fight him appears to be some sort of void while you stand on multi-colored hexagons?
    • Regarding the scream, the horror might not always be from the scream itself, but from anticipating a suicide attack, only to be relieved to see the victory screen after a barrage of "boss-death" explosions.
    • Speaking of Marx Soul, the introductory video that plays before the fight, showing his creation after Kirby first defeated him is rather... unsettling. It begins with creepy music and a flashback to Marx being exploded with Nova in sepia. Then, we see Marx's limp, discoloured corpse floating in the debris before he absorbs some of Nova's pieces in order to transform into Marx Soul and fly off to seek Kirby. See it here at 0:05-0:43.
    • In the remake's sound test, check out the 347th sound effect... Or if you don't have the game, watch this video.

    Kirby Mass Attack 
  • The villain, Necrodeus (seen early in this trailer), is not just frightening in looks to the point that his design is much more fitting to a medieval Dark Fantasy instead of a Kirby series, but he nearly kills Kirby at the very beginning of the game while the latter is just having a nap in a field as part of a visit to the Popopo Islands, an archipelago in the south of Pop Star. Then, he wakes up to being zapped by Necrodeus's evil magic, which splits him into 10 completely defenseless smaller Kirbys — and shortly afterwards, Necrodeus actually proceeds to murder almost every Kirby, with only one managing to escape his massacre by following his (literal) star-shaped heart.
    • The game's goal is essentially that of survival: quoting NoA's Twitter account for this — "The new villain is so powerful that he almost wipes Kirby out of existence". During his boss fight, he can devour your Kirbys alive, with no chance of recovering them like in the regular game, meaning they don't turn into angels — they just stay dead for good (until the ending, that is).
  • Dying in this game is surprisingly brutal and disturbing compared to a typical Kirby game — usually, it results in Kirby being comically knocked out and falling offscreen to a fairly cheerful tune. In Mass Attack, however, if a Kirby is killed, he just dies: his body will lie there for a moment, and then turn into a spirit and begin to drift away. The cute little angel wings and being able to bring them back by dragging them down again do little to lessen the shock of seeing Kirby's lifeless and broken body for that brief moment. And that's assuming there are any remains in the first place — as if a Kirby catches fire and doesn't get to water before the timer runs out, he'll burn alive and then disintegrate into ash.
    • And then there's the Game Over screen, which is this and Tear Jerker. It's a dark background with a spotlight, with Kirby...dead. No, not sleeping peacefully, not knocked out, just a dead, gray angel. To see Kirby, one of the most cutest and pure characters in Nintendo's history, in this state is outright horrifying. The depressingly creepy music doesn't help one bit. For the first time in a Kirby game, it feels like the game itself has lost hope.
  • Zombons. They seem like just a regular case of Night of the Living Mooks and it isn't too hard to escape from the red goo they cover your Kirbys in, but not freeing a trapped Kirby in time causes them to turn into another Zombon. Yes, an honest-to-gods zombie transformation in a Kirby game. Thankfully, you can revert any turned Kirbys by having your living Kirbys pummel them.
  • The music of Skull Tower. This is a downright scary theme fitting for the final quarter of the game with its odd tune moving between the left and right speakers and ghost like wails.

    Kirby's Return to Dream Land/Deluxe 
  • The Grand Doomer has an attack where it disappears into a small shadow on the floor. Not too frightening on its own... unless you step on it, causing a huge pair of black jaws to suddenly erupt out of the shadow and swallow your character whole! To make matters worse, this is a "grab" attack, meaning you'll have to shake the Wii Remote or mash directions with the Control Stick if you don't want to lose too much health.
  • The cutscene "Let Me Explain Everything" after Kirby and friends defeat Landia. Just as the four heroes celebrate their victory, Magolor floats down, clapping and congratulating Kirby for his bravery in defeating the dragon. He then grabs the Master Crown, and transforms into a more terrifying form. After getting some shocked looks from Kirby and his friends, he reveals his Evil Plan to trick them into fixing his ship and allowing them to defeat Landia for him to get his hands on the Master Crown and conquer the universe, starting with Popstar.
  • Magolor's boss forms are quite unsettling, to say the least. His Traitor form after putting on the Master Crown turns the egg-shaped, blue-robed wearing mage into a fiery wizard with red eyes and a larger Master Crown which grips onto his ears who towers over Kirby and his friends. His second boss form makes it even worse; his body turns pitch black, his ears become massive and curve downward, his mouth turns white and becomes a fixated Slasher Smile, and the Master Crown gains a much stronger grip on his body, with its claws wrapping around his ears, and sprouting wings with blue and red flames under them, most likely the remains of Magolor's previous form after his defeat. Not only that, but after knocking down his health, he reveals an eye in his mouth.
    • The EX version of the boss, Magolor Soul, manages to be scarier still. It's along the same lines as Magolor's second form, but it replaces the original bright color scheme with blacks, grays, and dull blues. The Master Crown's mutations are far more grotesque—the crown has two pairs of twisted, demonic horns, its tendrils are covered in spikes that make them look like thorny vines, and its wings are so tattered that they don't even look capable of flight. Magolor Soul's hands are now tipped with claws, his body appears to be decaying with splotches of dark goo growing on him, and his eyeball mouth is visible much more often—including at the very start of the battle.
    • His (first) death cry, and its two unused variations give the infamous Marx Soul scream a run for its money.
    • Magolor Soul's death cry deserves a mention, too.
      • If one listens to it closely, it almost sounds as if he's screaming Kirby's name, either in rage or as a genuine cry for help. According to the Deluxe version's True Arena, the latter situation (Magolor calling for help) is the case.
  • The music for the final five enemies of The True Arena, Where the True Enemy Lies. If you were expecting the normally tense "Dangerous Dinner", instead you're treated to an arrangement of the Iceberg stage select theme from Kirby's Dream Land 3 which foreshadows a sense of dread and impending doom as you go on to face both Galacta Knight and Magolor Soul, and the fact that the door is replaced with a dimensional rift — high enough for you to be unable to reach with the Maxim Tomato box — doesn't help make it any less tense.
    • Deluxe ups the ante by giving Magolor Soul a unique rest area theme. INTERNAL STRUGGLE is a creepy, tense theme that uses motifs from Magolor's theme and sets the tone for the final fight against Magolor Soul, serving as a warning that he isn't like the other opponents you've faced up to this point, including himself from Extra Mode. It doesn't help that his icon has a much darker lighting, and his eyes have a red glow to them.
  • The Master Crown itself. It just seems like Landia's Cool Crown at first, though its significance is unveiled alongside Magolor's Evil All Along twist. Beyond it giving the wearer supreme power, it's all but announced to have some level of sapience: not only can it be seen creepily wriggling around on Magolor's head during his first phase, but after his first defeat, the Crown revives him to horribly mutate him into an ungodly roaring beast, with an occasional eye in its mouth that appears far more frequently in the Magolor Soul variant. The pause description in the latter declares Magolor as a mere "sad shell" controlled by the Crown, that is little more than a manifestation of the artifact itself. Another terrifying factor is how very little info is given: it's never truly stated what it actually is. It's only implied that the reason why Magolor wanted it so badly is because it possibly drove him into a desperate hunger for power, and given its aforementioned eye motif, it's possible that the Crown might also be tied to the Dark Matters.
    • Magolor Epilogue gives a small bit more information on what the Crown does; according to its flavor text, it drives the wielder mad and then takes control of them completely, utilizing their transformed body as a shell. But still, no information on its origins were given.
    • The above seems to happen in full during the very final Magolor Soul fight in the True Arena. At first he merely seems like a Turns Red variant of the original...but once you beat him, his eyes vanish as he recoils in agony. Then, the eye-mouth reappears. His health refills. It's all but stated that in that moment, the Master Crown is in full control now, and it's DONE toying with you.
  • During the fight with the Master Crown in the Magolor Epilogue, you can see what appears to be a city being destroyed by a meteor storm. If you notice, one of the buildings in the background has rings on it and resembles one from the background of the Metal General fight, implying what you are witnessing is Egg Engines being destroyed long ago in the past. Recall in the Metal General EX fight that his pause menu description mentions his creator dying long ago...
  • Mixed with a Tear Jerker, the background music for the Magolor Soul fight in the True Arena adds Magolor's voice blips for the second phase, which sound like Magolor desperately calling out for Kirby to end his pain and suffering.
  • Magolor Soul's defeat in Deluxe's True Arena is downright disturbing; instead of shrinking and dissipating back to regular Magolor, he rises into the air, flares up, begins trying to reach at the camera (or in this case, Kirby) and doing his iconic death cry. Not only that, but while this is happening, a star-shaped portal in the background is pulling him in limb by limb until he fully disappears into it - a portal just like the ones Kirby and his friends use to leave the pocket dimensions, implying that at this moment, Magolor is being banished deeper to Another Dimension. As an extension, a lot of fans tend to consider this defeat scene to be the Bad Ending of Return to Dream Land; instead of being freed from the crown, Magolor remains possessed, loses his soul and is banished to the depths of Another Dimension with the Master Crown now in complete control of his body note .

    Kirby: Triple Deluxe 
  • Pyribbit's death seems needlessly graphic — it flails painfully in lava, struggling to remain at the surface before being hit by its own levitating boulders dropping out of the sky, forcing it under the lava and crushing it at the bottom. For a comparison, imagine being smashed into the bottom of a pool by four heavy objects — drowning and crushing all in one. HAL Laboratory even reused that animation for when you defeat him again in the Team Kirby Clash games. Ain't that sweet of them?
  • In the second ghost house stage - a more traditional Haunted House - the entrance has a stained glass eye that follows your every movement. Not to mention the entire entrance looks incredibly creepy and the design of said eye is creepily realistic.
    • There's a certain area with a key where you pass by these giant statues or inanimate knights. They don't do anything but stand there, of course, but there's this sense that they'll come alive and chase you or attack you with their huge weapons... and of course, some of them actually DO. Luckily, you have Hypernova by your side...
    • Later on, the Mini-Boss of said second ghost house, called King Phanta, possesses a few objects. One of said objects is a piano, which essentially turns into the infamous Mad Piano of Mario fame. The kicker? It's now in higher definition, so one can see the fleshy roof of its mouth and a reflectively slimy tongue hanging out the side.
  • Dark Meta Knight's Flavor Text reveals that since the events of Amazing Mirror, he's become a Rōnin — remaining alive solely for the purpose of wreaking bloody vengeance upon the ones who defeated him.
    Flavor Text: He's back — with a vengeance. The darkest shadow of the strongest warrior. Sealed in the labyrinth of the mirror for aeons, this dark knight returns with one thing on his mind... REVENGE!
    • It's also established that Dark Meta Knight's anger, hatred and lust for vengeance is so great that it corrupted the Dimension Mirror he's sealed within, causing Queen Sectonia (who acquired it from Taranza) to slowly change from a kind, benevolent ruler into an evil, narcissistic despot from simply gazing into it for too long. He could possibly be the true villain of Triple Deluxe's story!
    • Dededetour!, in which Dark Meta Knight appears is considered by many to be non-canon (especially since Dark Meta Knight has been able to leave the Dimension Mirror in Amazing Mirror where the flavor text says he was sealed for aeons). If Dark Meta Knight was not involved in the corrupting of the Dimension Mirror, this would mean that it was Dark Mind, Dark Meta Knight's late master, who had corrupted it. The idea that the mirror would remain corrupted by Dark Mind's darkness even after his death, and that this same corruption on Sectonia was also permanent so that only death could release the person she used to be, is pretty unsettling.
  • Remember that Dark Matter-possessed King Dedede bit mentioned above? Well the King's Mirror World equivalent is pretty much that, but in full 3D. Even worse, his pause screen description implies that he is being possessed and now fully controlled by some dark force. You could call it a frightening look into what Dedede would have ultimately become had Kirby not saved him from being possessed by Dark Matter in Dream Land 2 and 3 — even still wearing Dedede's old spiral logo from his more villainous days.
  • The second half of the fight against Soul of Sectonia in the True Arena. After her first health bar is diminished, she rips herself out of the Dreamstalk (which looks painful as she struggles to get off) and fights Kirby as little more than a head and a set of wings. What follows is a hectic battle disturbingly reminiscent of Drawcia Soul, complete with Teleport Spam, breaking up into a rain of nectar, turning into a fireball and rushing Kirby from the sides of the screen, and manic giggling. The Pause screen text stating that she's gone completely insane at this point does not help matters.
    • The after-images her soul form leaves behind while flying at the screen are a little unnerving as well, especially because she slowly gets closer to the platform.
  • It outright states in the pause menu during the cannon segment that Sectonia's species survives by absorbing energy from their victims so that they can be "controlled" (and the developers' talk in Miiverse confirms that, by "controlled", they mean "body possession"). This confirms that the enemies in Royal Road are just husks of types of enemies like Waddle Dees and Bronto Burts.

    Kirby: Planet Robobot 
  • The ultimate fate of President Haltmann. After his assistant Susie betrays him and steals the helmet that allows him to control Star Dream, he gets absorbed into the machine's consciousness, giving it sentience. During the final fight against the Star Dream Soul OS's core, you can hear his last thoughts in the pause menu, cursing himself for trying to use the machine to bring back his daughter (see below). Then, once the final phase of the fight starts... the pause menu states that Haltmann's mind and soul have been deleted. Everything the poor guy did was in an effort to bring back his daughter, and in the end, he ended up betrayed by the very daughter he sought to bring back, trapped inside the mind of a mad computer, and erased from existence. Haltmann ends up being one of the very few Kirby villains to be Killed Off for Real.
  • President Haltmann's last monologue as he's being completely erased from existence by Star Dream Soul OS. It's not only incredibly sad, but it's somewhat chilling as well — in that whilst beforehand he'd been acting out of grief-induced madness over his daughter's death, he's eerily calm regarding his fate, ironically musing how foolish it was of him to reactivate Star Dream in the first place. The incredibly dark and hopeless-sounding boss music that accompanies it makes it even worse…
    Haltmann: Why did I reactivate such a terrible machine? Oh, I remember... I wanted to see her just one last time. How foolish! I should have known that no machine could make such a dream come true.
  • Although it was pretty obvious by this point, this game gives further credence to the idea of Galacta Knight being a bit off the deep end. Before summoning him, Star Dream even says how Haltmann refused to summon him under any circumstances, despite having no such reluctance with the likes of Queen Sectonia and Dark Matter's clones, and says how he "may destroy a nearby planet or two". While it was always a popular idea and makes sense, the fact that such an unhinged being has so much raw power is more than a bit frightening.
    • Shortly after they're summoned, Galacta Knight shows how powerful he truly is by one-shotting Star Dream — and if it wasn't for its Soul OS, it probably would have been Killed Off for Real.
  • The sheer implication that the Haltmann Works Company somehow managed to get control of and possibly even reverse engineer a Galactic Nova, making this the second one in the franchise to be corrupted by a villain. Just how many more of these things are there?
  • The moment you realize Star Dream is counting down during its last phase can be cause for panic. Especially if you get to see it unleash waves of unavoidable "Fatal Errors" at you. Sure, Do a Barrel Roll still works, but you know you're screwed if you get to this part.

    Other games 
Feel free to separate into more folders if a certain section gets big enough. Make sure to put a game example under its own section.

Kirby's Adventure

  • Kirby's Adventure (and the updated versions Nightmare in Dream Land and 3D Classics: Kirby's Adventure) features Nightmare, an entity that King Dedede himself had been keeping at bay by shattering the Star Rod. At first, you fight Nightmare as an orb which attacks similarly to another boss in the series (Kaboola/Kabula), only, this fight is timed. Taking too long results in the orb escaping, and Kirby crashing into the planet. The music played in the NES version is creepy as well.
    • Nightmare's second form isn't much better, looking like a vampire/genie hybrid with a tornado for a torso. Its death cry can be quite jarring on the NES, being a rather loud buzzing sound. After that, the screen becomes white as the ending cutscene plays showing a part of the Moon explodes with Kirby escaping from it via the warp star.
      • In Nightmare in Dream Land, it's even worse. While thankfully it's not screeching at you upon death, its said death animation is more disturbing as it seems to be withering away as its mouth and eye sockets become entirely white and it releases beams of light up into the sky from its empty eyes before exploding, and when it's officially dead, the moon starts to explode too! While Kirby escapes just fine, it's still kind of disturbing to see him basically do nothing on a place that's exploding.

Kirby & the Amazing Mirror

Kirby: Canvas Curse

  • The very fact that Kirby is rendered limbless and thus completely helpless. If Drawcia's paintbrush hadn't decided to help Kirby out of its own accord, Kirby, and by extension, everyone, would have been utterly doomed.
    • If you know that Lololo & Lalala, Dark Matter, Zero and Nightmare were considered to be playable characters, Drawcia's power over the world becomes more horrifying because it implies she'd strong enough to force a being of darkness and it's creator who nearly consumed the world in darkness and a being who intended to corrupt the Fountain of Dreams to play by her world's rules.
  • The antagonist of the game and final boss herself, Drawcia, is a paint-themed witch, who resembles Dark Matter Blade isn't all that scary (asides from the fact that she turned the entirety of Dream Land into a painting)... at least, until she goes One-Winged Angel and turns into herself a living, screaming, multi-eyed paint monster as her last line of defense. Mere words don't suffice.
    • Her One-Winged Angel form... oh, where to start. Not only has she entirely scrapped anything that made her resemble her former self (she's now just an entire blob of paint with five eyes and a large gaping mouth), this also extends to her voice, in which her cackles have degraded into demonic screeching. Her attacks are to send Para Matters at the screen, turning herself into paint blobs that rain down on the screen, and dashing across the screen. You may think that these attacks are rather odd as they don't seem to mostly be focused on damaging Kirby, but she's actually attacking you, the player, the one wielding the Power Paintbrush that has helped Kirby get through the worlds of the game. It doesn't help that her battle theme is incredibly bizarre, and not in a good way. It really just shows how off the edge she's gone and is just trying to outright stop you from winning no matter what. Listen for yourself. Alongside that, she's also the very first boss in the series to have a "soul" form, something which most of the following Kirby games had, and unlike them, has little to no resemblance of her previous self. She shares this similarity with Void Termina, both of their souls just being odd paint-like spheres.
    • Her death is also pretty uncanny. When you finally defeat her, she teleports around the screen frantically for a few seconds as the background tints itself into a crimson tone before stopping in the middle of the screen. Then her face slowly distorts into disturbing shapes, and the painting that warped you to her boss arena drops down from the middle of the screen as she is slowly sucked in towards it, all the while as the background warps around in a manner not unlike the final boss from EarthBound. When she is finally stuck in it, a beam of light flashes from the middle of the screen as it shatters and the realm presumably destroys itself. The ending also reveals Drawcia's original form to be an unknown painting, the frame of which was actually the frame of the painting she was trapped in.
  • Speaking of Drawcia, the entire stage she lies in (and the very final one as well), fittingly enough called "The World of Drawcia," is also this. Upon starting the stage, you're greeted with her perfect envision of a world, "a world made of paint," which is represented by bizarre sketches in the background and abstract paint blotches creating the rather blocky terrain in the first room, all the while as disturbing and very minimalist music plays in the background. In the second and final room before fighting Drawcia herself, there are snickering paintings with distorted facial expressions which you can tap to dispose of, not that they're much of a nuisance to Kirby since they don't damage him note  at all.
    • Her stage's music... What little music that is in it is just static and occasionally what sounds like a distorted melancholic organ. Listen for yourself.
    • If the Old-School songs feature is enabled, the stage's Background Music is the normally cheerful "Museum" song from Nightmare in Dream Land, which can make it even more uncanny.

Kirby: Squeak Squad

  • There's an enemy that only appears in two stages, yet is still creepy enough to warrant a mention: Uja, a black, shadowy rendition of Master Hand that buzzes. Look closely and you can see that the creature is actually a whole mass of tiny black insects taking one of the aforementioned forms. In one of the stages it appears in, it can morph into a sword with the exact same features. It might not be as bad as any of the final bosses Kirby's had to deal with, but it's still unexpected.
  • The enemy-possessing Ghost ability and Tedhaun, its respective miniboss that provides it, make some truly eerie sounds. In battle, it has an attack where they grab Kirby and oddly, it doesn't really seem to do anything to Kirby (asides from hurting him) but make creepy sounds before letting go of him.
    • Also, when possessing Scarfy and forcing it into the water, its eye bulges in the most eerie way before it bites the dust.
    • Tedhaun is also incredibly hard to beat without the Triple Star weapon. He's basically a Ghost God!
    • Before Kirby can get the Ghost ability, he needs to collect the 7 pieces of the Ghost Medal. On it is Tedhaun's design, but what does the description of this medal say? "KIRBY'S A GHOST..."
  • Dark Nebula itself. Once Daroach steals the chest Kirby took back from Meta Knight, he opens it... only for black smoke to emerge from it and possess the leader of the Squeaks, taking him into outer space. Then, when Kirby finally encounters Dark Nebula, it emerges from the defeated Daroach's body and flees before finally being cornered and fighting Kirby itself. What cements it as this? The ending cutscene right after defeating it.
    The treasure chest was the prison of Dark Nebula, ruler of the underworld.

Kirby's Epic Yarn

  • Kracko's first appearance in Cloud Palace has him coming 'completely' out of nowhere without warning to rain lightning bolts onto Kirby and Fluff before leaving just as abruptly. Once you get over the initial shock, you will likely end up being paranoid for the rest of the stage in case he comes back (in which he does, but you finally get to fight him properly).
    • Incidentally, Kracko might just be the scariest-looking enemy in the whole game. The fluffy cloud's big bright watery eye has been replaced with a lifeless button.
  • Those freaking huge Danglerfish in Deep-Dive Deep that chase after you invincibly.
  • How about Weird Woods? Its music is incredibly calming, indeed, and holds a little homage to a certain other colorful franchise, but what you have to go through to clear it is nightmarish at best, and it just doesn't look right. The Wicked Willows you fight occasionally throughout the stage take the cake.

Team Kirby Clash Deluxe

  • The final boss, King D-Mind. We've seen what Dark Matter possessions can do to poor Dedede. The fact that the worst case of it comes from a being that resembles both Dark Mind and the aforementioned Dedede is something special, however. When its eye manifests here, the entire body is withered away into nothing to make room in the stomach for it, giving you a familiar, piercing orange eye set in a gnashing set of jaws that pinballs around the stage trying to kill anything that poses a threat and then fires giant beams from above.
  • What's the first thing King D-Mind does when he is summoned to the battlefield? Kill Dark Taranza in cold blood.
  • The Decisive Battlefield itself. It's a dark landscape with dark, hyperspace-like background with planets and black holes. And when you're fighting King D-Mind as the True Final Boss, it adds the dimension meteors from Return to Dream Land's Another Dimension to the mix.

Super Kirby Clash

  • This game gives us Parallel Nightmare. Sure, he's already terrifying enough seeing how many similarities he shares with the main universe's Nightmare, but his Revenge form takes it to a whole new level, showing his shoulder plates, shades, and horns to be broken to the point that pieces of his shoulder plates and horns are floating about and his shades show a sparking eye. Not to mention, he's now scowling with seething rage instead of sporting the usual cocky grin worn by him beforehand. And this just happens to be part of a Villainous Breakdown that Parallel Nightmare is having by the end of the story quests. Hell, the narration even states that he's given up on his dreams of ruling the Dream Kingdom and is now obsessed with defeating Team Kirby more than anything. Now, imagine what it would be like if the main universe's own Nightmare had a similar breakdown to how Parallel Nightmare did...
  • If you didn't think that the Decisive Battlefield is nightmarish enough, then meet the Dreamscape, where all the final bosses are fought. It's an EXTREMELY trippy, hyperspacial dimension that combines elements from the Fountain of Dreams and Another Dimension. And if you're fighting Aeon Hero (mentioned below) in his Light or Dark forms, it's all in ruins, with a dark, spiraling vortex in the background.
  • The True Final Boss, Aeon Hero, has a few moments of Nightmare Fuel, possibly more of them than Parallel Nightmare himself.
    • What's the very first thing he does after being summoned? Slash Parallel Nightmare right out of existence. It's honestly quite comparable to Sephiroth's arrival in the Smash world, especially when you don't see it coming.
    • His Light and Dark forms. Picture this: a deranged and maniacal warrior already able to destroy planets with ease raises his power to near-Physical God proportions. With the alarming implications settling in, it kind of gets you wondering what would happen if he is set loose in these forms.
    • Just his mere existence into the Dream Kingdom. With the above-mentioned destruction of the Dreamscape (if it was actually caused by him) and his alternate forms, Aeon Hero has proven himself to be much more dangerous than even Parallel Nightmare. It’s no wonder why Bandana Waddle Dee regarded him as a "terrifying enemy".

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