And you thought its first form was bad.
Nightmare Fuel in Sonic Unleashed.
- The very first, and rather graphic transformation of Sonic into his Werehog form, complete with close-ups on his fangs and claws sharpening, as well as his arms violently swelling up and no small amount of agony on Sonic's part as he's forced to depower, is pretty scary if you're further down the suggested age range, though thankfully, future transformations simply show Sonic getting enveloped in a cloud of purple smoke. Eggman calls it "festive", although it might be better to call it "seasonal". Painful Transformation at its finest.
- Also — Eggman not only manages to DE-POWER SUPER SONIC, but he succeeds in firing a giant laser at the Earth and splits it apart into seven pieces (akin to Sonic Advance 3).
- And the way that we see Super Sonic struggling and getting forcibly de-powered by being electrocuted and having the Chaos Emeralds ripped from his body then drained. The fact that Sonic is screaming in agony (equally disturbing in both the English and Japanese dubs) as this happens really doesn't help matters.
- Oh, and it could have been far worse: a beta version of this cutscene was found
— where you can see Sonic's skeleton as he's being electrocuted. Lovely. - What also doesn't help is that the aforementioned Painful Transformation follows right after this.
- Also — Eggman not only manages to DE-POWER SUPER SONIC, but he succeeds in firing a giant laser at the Earth and splits it apart into seven pieces (akin to Sonic Advance 3).
- Eggman himself is at his most frantic as the game reaches its conclusion. In his eyes, he's already won, and now that that victory is actively being undone, he's come ever so closer to snapping completely during the Egg Dragoon fight. He's grown so desperate to end things quickly that he has long since stopped with the pleasantries, opting to not just fight Sonic directly, but repeatedly attempt to drop him directly into the Earth's core. Sonic's reaction suggests that he's rarely ever like this.
- On the flipside, by the end of the fight Sonic absolutely brutalizes the Egg Dragoon to disable it, tearing it apart with his bare hands, smashing the bulkheads holding the Eggmobile in place, and hurling it, with the genuinely terrified Doctor inside, out into the stratosphere.
- Take too long to defeat the Egg Dragoon, and Eggman will laugh manically and taunt Sonic one final time before dropping him to his doom. The scene itself, as well as the fact that Eggman (the same Large Ham that was impossible to take seriously back in Sonic Adventure) was willing to go that far is rather disturbing and surprisingly brutal for a Sonic the Hedgehog game. Even worse is Sonic's exhausted/hopeless reaction when hitting the final platform, as if he knows that he's already doomed.
- DARK GAIA. The game's Final Boss and Monster of the Week, it's hands-down one of the scariest things in the whole franchise!
- Just the sheer size of the Dark Gaia, for starters. "Gargantuan" doesn't even begin to describe it. Chip can even the odds by assembling the Gaia Colossus, but Sonic is still facing a monster countless times his size.
- With Solaris' erasure, Dark Gaia was canonically the most powerful being in the Sonicverse until The Titans and THE END came along 14 years later. It exists for the sole purpose of shattering the world and plunging it into darkness, is cleverer than it looks, and can never be permanently destroyed because the balance of nature hinges on its (and Chip's) existence. Unsurprisingly, putting it back to bed is easier said than done.
- As if Dark Gaia's immature form wasn't powerful enough, Perfect Dark Gaia is able to match Chip's Gaia Colossus and Super Sonic simultaneously. By the time it finally keels over, it has exhausted Super Sonic to the point where he faints. No other Final Boss in the series—before or since—has ever replicated this feat.note
- Dark Gaia's true form, Perfect Dark Gaia. When it transforms, it bursts arms out of its body filled with blood, and its eyes come out of its mouth filled with mucus. Now, it resembles a cross being Starfish Alien and Eldritch Abomination. Its head is a Venus flytrap filled with eyes, the whole thing enclosed in tongues with two huge ones hanging down. Yuck!
- And when Sonic attacks Dark Gaia's eye, causing it to leak green blood... this is also the reason why the game received an ESRB rating of E10+.
- Except the short pre-battle FMV and in gameplay, all of Dark Gaia's scenes are rendered in full-CGI. This means you get to see its emergence from the planet in the opening, its Big Entrance during the climax, its grotesque One-Winged Angel transformation, and its equally gruesome demise all in Pixar-esque graphic detail. Lovely...
