Painful Transformations in Video Games.
- The power-up item Rage Box in American McGee's Alice will do this to Alice. If approached, the box sprays a red mist into Alice's face, causing her to scream in agony as she becomes demonic in appearance, with red skin, clawed hands and horns. The resulting transformation increases her striking power immensely.
- In Bendy and the Ink Machine Chapter 4, some prolonged gurgling audio implies that this happened to Grant Cohen. In the game files, this audio is even labelled "Grant Transformation".
- Presumably the case for most of the Body Horror-laden transformations in Bloodborne, but one explicit case is Vicar Amelia, who goes from a simple holy-looking woman to a humongous, mutated wolf with huge antlers that barely fits inside the cathedral you fight her in, with a Gory Discretion Shot. And screaming the entire time, including during the actual battle.
- In Cuphead, during Cala Maria's boss fight, she is transformed into a gorgon by two electric eels, who bite and electrocute her. Judging by her initial reaction and her screams, it was a very unpleasant experience for her.
- In Diablo II, the Dark Wanderer assumes Diablo's true form in the cinematic between Acts 3 and 4, and Marius describes the transformation as "not meant for mortal eyes": Lumps move under his skin, horns sprout from his brow, and his face stretches and twists as he howls in pain. Thankfully, he collapses and the rest of the transformation occurs hidden under his cloak.
- Digital Devil Saga has the initial horrific demon transformation. With additional Cannibalism Superpower sprinkles for added taste.
- Final Fantasy Dimensions:
- Vata of the Wind renders an intangible enemy vulnerable by allowing it to possess him. In the ensuing boss fight, half his body has been overtaken and transformed into the dark flames that made up the bodies of the Blades of Nil, while his still-normal face is locked in a grimace and he is gripping one transformed arm with his normal one as he begs the party to finish him before his mind is consumed. (It is not likely that they will, and partway through the battle, the rest of his body is overtaken.)
- The final boss has three forms, all of which are horrible fleshy mutations. The "normal" and "light" forms have a face locked into a Thousand-Yard Stare. The face on the "dark" form is screaming—and it's screaming so much that it's sprouted extra faces beneath its chin to scream with.
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses:
- Transforming into a Demonic Beast via Crest Stone is demonstrated by Miklan, who tries wielding the Lance of Ruin without a Crest, to be both physically agonizing and terrifying.
- In the Azure Moon Route, the same can also be said of Edelgard's transformation into Hegemon Edelgard, but she thinks of the pain as nothing compared to the torture she suffered in her past.
- In Folklore, Keats Transcended form basically has him beefing up and changing skin and hair colors. And from the way he screams and writhes around every time you activate it, it's rather unpleasant for him.
- inFAMOUS 2:
- Kuo's Conduit powers are activated in this manner. Among other things, Bertrand activated them by draining her blood and replacing it with an unknown liquid.
- There's also Betrand using his powers to convert a man into a Corrupted. While his body slowly mutates, the poor citizen is clearly shown screaming in agony, and when the transformation is complete, he just collapses on the ground, breathing heavily.
- Jak and Daxter:
- Jak being forced into his dark form, either by the Oracle or due to an overexposure of Dark Eco. The way he jerks and spasms as The Corruption takes over makes clear it's no picnic. Reverting back, though rather quickly, will have him grabbing his head and shuddering violently. In TLF it's implied that due to the massive amounts of Dark Eco present, even changing voluntarily will cause him so much pain that it will kill him.
- Downplayed with Daxter's change from human to ottsel. "Man, that stung!"
- Killer7 features Heaven Smiles as its regular enemies. While some of them are transformed humans, you rarely see the transformations. When you do, they usually feature an instantaneous transformation or an offscreen one. THEN we have Andrei Ulmeyda, whose transformation goes like this: The army, wishing to experiment on him to try and use Smiles as their own weapons, injects potent Heaven Smile tumors into him. The army triggers a small explosion for some reason, but then an even larger explosion occurs and Ulmeyda asks why you didn't kill him at the injection and saying he "can't control this urge to kill." Then he screams, his head flies off, his blood (which is acidic because of all the diseases he infected himself with to create vaccines) kills all army personnel present, and then his blood grabs hold of his head and tethers it back to his body BY HIS AFRO. Needless to say, Ulmeyda was in GREAT PAIN in his last moments of sanity.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- Whenever Link uses one of his transformation masks in Majora's Mask, it triggers a short cutscene in which he screams horribly as the transformation occurs
. One Nintendo employee provided an explanation that Link's scream may be from emotional pain rather than physical, saying that Link is being overcome by the sudden and overwhelming feelings of sorrow residing in the mask. These cutscenes can be skipped with the press of a button once you've seen them for the first time. - Twilight Princess, given its tone, has two examples:
- Link's initial wolf transformation seems to be a dual homage to the transformation scenes in Majora's Mask and the transformation in An American Werewolf in London, but after that, no further cutscenes of that nature occur.
- Midna's first transformation with the Fused Shadows has her being thrown around and screaming painfully.
- Whenever Link uses one of his transformation masks in Majora's Mask, it triggers a short cutscene in which he screams horribly as the transformation occurs
- The original Sega-CD version of Lunar: The Silver Star has Ghaleon transform into a demonic form after the heroes initially defeat him. While the camera pans to his feet just before he transforms, the fact that blood drips on the floor (seemingly from his eye based on the focus there seconds before he transforms and the fact that the sequel has a resurrected Ghaleon who has a prominent scar over his eye) and he's screaming in agony speaks for itself. But once the transformation finishes, his screams seamlessly transition into a deep Evil Laugh.
- In Mega Man Zero 4: Dr. Weil, when undergoing his final transformation, has tubes being jammed into him (with copious amounts of blood in the Japanese version), and shouting something that roughly translates from Japanese as either "Can you see this Pain?! You'll never understand any of it!" or "Can you understand pain such as this?!" The drama tapes even include him screaming and grunting in pain as he transforms in such a way that could be considered Nightmare Fuel.
- Meanwhile, in in the second game, Elpizo gives off an impressive (and horrifying) shriek of pain as he transforms into his One-Winged Angel form.
- The Parasite Eve series has a handful these transformations to emphasize just how unnatural the game's monsters are; in the first game, the first actual non-boss encounter is a rat which is put through a thoroughly traumatic transmutation; later on, a poor German Shepherd is given the same treatment. Not recommended for the weak of stomach.
- Persona 5: Transforming into a Phantom Thief and awakening one's Persona is not a fun experience: the character gets a splitting headache as their Persona gives them a Dare to Be Badass speech, while a mask forms on their face. They then have to tear this off, which invariably involves a lot of blood. Thankfully, this is a one-time deal.
- Pokémon: If the Pokedex entries in Pokémon Sun and Moon are anything to go by, Mega Evolutions are this to quite a few of the Pokémon if not all of them. The worst part is that unlike other Pokémon evolutions, Mega Evolutions are always reversed once the battle is over, meaning that the very same Pokémon is very likely to undergo the same painful transformation over and over again.
- During Wheatley's transformation in Portal 2, he constantly asks GLaDOS beforehand if it's going to hurt. When she says yes, he, knowing GLaDOS, questions whether or not she's just saying that before learning that, for once, she isn't. It's even more painful for GLaDOS, who can be heard struggling and crying in agony.
- The main character in Altered Beast (2005). The Cut scenes that happen during several of his transformations have such lovely features as his eyeballs bursting, his teeth falling out, his arms exploding to make way for wings and so forth. You can watch them all here.
- In Quake IV, the player character gets "Stroggified" into one of the enemy zombie-cyborgs, but is rescued before brainwashing and becomes a Phlebotinum Rebel. The Stroggification involves getting his legs cut off on a Conveyor Belt o' Doom. Made all the worse by the player still having some control during the transformation but are unable to free them, as well as having to see (and especially hear) one the fellow Marines undergo the treatment first.
- Resident Evil: The various transformations different characters undergo in the series almost always feature the victims at the most moaning in pain. After being infected with Las Plagas in 4, both Leon and Ashley experience gruesome chest pains and cough up blood as the parasites slowly take over their bodies, and in 6, the C-Virus infectees actually burst into flame before being encased in cocoons.
- In The Secret World, it's not made explicit in the actual scenario, but lore clarifies that turning into one of the Bee-Imbued is excruciatingly painful — not that shooting laser beams out of your eyeballs during the initial stage of Power Incontinence looked pleasant. Worse: it's implied that pain never goes away, just characters grow accustomed to it and stop paying attention, and that's just the beginning.The Buzzing: Breathe, sweetling. This too shall pass. Pains are relative, and this one will become very small, in time.
- For the first half of the game Shadow Hearts, Yuri Hyuga convulses and screams when using his "Fusion" ability to combine with demons; whether the pain is mental or physical is unknown, but the former is implied. Partway through the game, he experiences an epiphany, whereupon he no longer suffers the Freak Out on using his power. The sequel repeats this pattern, with another epiphany.
- The protagonist's transformation into the Demi-Fiend in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne fits squarely in this trope, as does Chiaki's.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Just about every transformation sequence with Sonic turning into the Werehog in Sonic Unleashed looks kinda painful for Sonic. However, transforming back to his normal self is almost instantaneous and looks completely painless, with Sonic looking relieved and content afterward. There's a nice touch in that every time you change the time of day while in the Next-Gen version's hub worlds (either via Pause Menu or with hourglasses) it plays the appropriate transformation sequence as a Loading Screen. Averted with one cutscene — near the end, Sonic transforms into his Werehog form, and he barely even flinches. It's implied that he's used to the transformations by now.
- Sonic and the Secret Rings: During the Final Boss, both Sonic and Erazor Djinn go super using the World Rings. Judging by the screaming from both of them, as well as the straight-up Body Horror that Erazor endures on his end, it's not pretty.
- When Rick puts on the Terror Mask for the first time in the Splatterhouse remake, it effectively destroys and remakes his muscular structure. He's in agony the entire time, and his flesh tears apart in the process. In fact, it causes so much damage to him that after A Taste of Power, the Terror Mask has to turn it down out of risk of killing him.
- In The Surge, the opening sequence shows the paraplegic Player Character literally Strapped to an Operating Table: The Auto Doc that is meant to be fitting them with their robotic exoskeleton has somehow failed to notice that the anaesthetic failed to take, and there's no emergency stop button. The results are not pretty. Nor are they the worst thing to happen the PC that day.
- Jelanda's transformation into a monster was offscreen in the original Valkyrie Profile. In the Updated Re-release for the PSP, however, it's rendered in CG, and you get to see this innocent (if bratty) teenage girl screaming and crying in pain and fear as her skin mutates into scales, and her limbs move of their own accord to slaughter the soldiers sent to rescue her while she's utterly helpless to do anything, until the monstrous flesh finally swallows her face.
- Primordius◊, a boss in World of Warcraft uses transformations as his main fight mechanic, gaining powerful evolutions as he comes in contact with the mysterious flesh-altering substance that can be found in the boss room. On the other hand, he makes it perfectly clear that he does not enjoy the process.
- The High Entia's transformation into Telethia in Xenoblade Chronicles 1. Particularly notable for Melia, who had to watch one of her own family members do so and even attempt to break free and attack the Big Bad's squad. Especially when she then had to kill him (with his face still visible, even) while on the Bionis Interior.Chuggaaconroy: I don't say this enough, but... poor Melia!
