NOTE: All spoilers for the Nightmare Beginning remake, Eye of Three Part 1 (excluding secret cutscenes) and the Nightmare Wiki will be unmarked!
- Accidental Innuendo:
- The way Negagen endears Amy can come off like he has a thing for her, when according to the developer, JaizKoys, he's actually doing it out of politeness and harbors no feelings for her.
- One of the things Amy says to Negagen in Star Light Zone certainly counts as this as well.
- Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Some people see Sark Cream's Alpha Bitch personality as a front to hide her true self.
- Ever since the scene at the end of Nightmare Shorts episode 4, some people in the fandom have portrayed Negagen as a person who doesn't mind wearing a dress.
- Base-Breaking Character: Sark Cream is a controversial character in the fandom. On one hand, she is a character that people love to hate because of her personality, while others have been disgusted because of her Extreme Libido at such a young age.
- Broken Base: While most people don't mind the rewrites that Jaiz constantly adds to the story, other people have been critical of this decision because they see it as the plot becoming more and more convoluted.
- Crack Pairing: There are quite a few people in the fandom who ship Exetior and Stich-Lite together.
- A similar thing can be said for Sark and Sark Cream.
- Cry for the Devil: The "Ex-aitor" ending has the potential to make you feel sorry for Exetior, especially with how he apologizes to Mobius in the end."I'm sorry, Mobius..."
- Evil Is Cool: All four of the Demons (Exetior, Negagen, Pervision, and even Sark) have their fans.
- Fan Nickname: Due to her... personality, some fans have called Sark Cream the "purple horny rabbit".note
- Fan-Preferred Couple:
- Exetior and Rosy after Episode 2 of Nightmare Shorts came out. That is, before it was confirmed by the developer that the episode isn't canon.
- Friendly Fandoms: With Sonic.Exe: Spirits of Hell. Many characters that contributed to the Nightmare Series also contributed to Sonic.exe: Spirits of Hell.
- Funny Moments: Surprisingly enough, even a game of this caliber can have these.
- There are some funny things about the End of Hope ending, specificially how Exetior was so calm about the situation. Averted in the scene after the credits.
- Harsher in Hindsight: Following the release of Sark's Reasoning, people were understandably getting concerned about Jaiz's direction with the series, even if the flaws weren't as evident beforehand. It ended up coming to a head in 2020, when he and his girlfriend, Diana Gamenote , broke up, which itself led to another animation focused on Diana's two characters appearing one last time.
- Heartwarming Moments:
- In a twisted way, the Thrio-Orever endings can count as this. The Sole Survivor, whoever she may be, is reunited with her friends.
- Anything involving Amy and Cream.
- Similarly, anything involving Cream and her mother until her eventual death.
- Les Yay:
- Sally clearly has deeper feelings for Amy, even after death. Her Origins have her outright state that she's in love with Amy. And in a special cutscene after one of the Thrio-Orever endings, Sally even confesses her feelings to Amy.
- Merely and Jennifer. Jennifer is already very close to Merely, to the point where Christy calls her "Aunt Jenny", so it wouldn't be surprising if the two were actually a couple.
- Memetic Mutation: Negagen wearing a dress out of lack of knowledge of the laws of Mobius at the ending of Episode 4 of Nightmare Shorts has become sort of a meme in the fandom, with some people portraying him as a Wholesome Crossdresser.
- Mentor Ship: Some people ship Exetior and Negagen, who are mentor and apprentice. The pairing only really got bigger after Episode 4 of Nightmare Shorts, but they were shipped even before the episode came out. Doubles as Ho Yay.
- Moment of Awesome: The best ending of Part 1, when the girls escaped Demonized Tails and Knuckles. But once you open Part 2...
- Narm:
- Sonic apparently dying of a heart attack in the "End of Hope" ending. It comes out of nowhere and seems kind of mundane compared to everything else. The secret part of this ending also feels pretty cheesy. Lampshaded by Exetior, who states that Sonic's death was "stupid, but somewhat reasonable."
- The game is translated from Russian to English, and there are a couple of times when the grammar just isn't quite right. One notable example during the "Madness" ending: "...She (Sally) thinks she's won. But she cannot procede reality anymore." Shouldn't it be "perceive"?
- The song played in the "Trappy Hap" ending of Part 2 is a somewhat sad, but happy song, but the effect is taken away when you realize that the song is a cover of GFRIEND's "Love Whisper". No, we're not kidding
.
- Nausea Fuel: Sark Cream is only a teenager, and yet she wants to have sex with Sark, and it's heavily implied that she does have sex with him. This is considered disturbing by a lot of people.
- Nightmare Fuel: As to be expected in a series called the "Nightmare Universe".
- A secret cutscene in the level "Kind of Fair", where it's revealed that Tails ate Cream's mother. Doubles as Tear Jerker.
- In the Everything's H A P P Y ending of Eye of Three Part 2: Cream's sprite after being shot in the face by Metal Amy is unnerving enough. And then, a close up drawing of it appears, face and ears torn up. And she still has a wide grin on her face after having gone crazy. This is one of the few times a drawing appears in-game. The original could be considered worse.
- Taken even further in Death Mark 2, where the entire top half of her head is gone. And then there's the song that plays during the whole video, and the Dissonant Laughter near the end. Sweet dreams.
- Taken even further in Death Mark 2
- In the Madness Ending in Eye of Three Part 2: The sudden change in expression when Sally goes crazy. Her pupils contract and she has a creepy Slasher Smile. Like with the above example, her original expression when this happens could be considered worse.
- Sally's fate in the end of said ending is no better. She thought she had won, but she had gone permanently insane. Even Exetior laments how he would have to explain to Amy and Cream that Sally was never coming back with them. Doubles as Tear Jerker.
- Overshadowed by Controversy: Sark Cream was always a contentious character within the fandom, with detractors of the game criticizing how she is a minor in a sexual relationship with a person much older than her (that being Sark himself). However, this would turn into full on scorn when her backstory was revealed on December 25, 2021. After her mother Violet was demonized by Sark, she became a prostitute, sleeping with men for money, and even tried to sell her daughter into sex slavery. This doesn’t sound bad at first glance, until you factor in how Sark saved Cream, only for her to be one of his many personal sex slaves. This part of her backstory drew ire from both the Sonic.exe fandom and the general public, with some pointing out how tasteless it was to make Sark a rapist just to show how evil he is. In addition, many child sexual abuse victims saw it as Jaiz downplaying an already serious issue, and fact that the comic was previewed less than a few months after the original author of Sonic.exe was exposed for pedophilia doesn’t help matters either. The fallout from this controversy was so bad that Sark Cream's voice actor YuriHaru567 left the project (and now looks back on their stint on the Nightmare Universe as a source of embarrassment), and Jaiz, Kostas, and a number of their supporters doubled down and attempted to justify the actions (including a tweet from Jaiz where he called his critics "social justice warriors"), which led to many in the Sonic.exe fandom severing ties with them.
- Tear Jerker: Depending on which ending you get, it can be this to some people.
- The moment Cream and the other girls see Vanilla's severed head.
- The Dissension ending has Sally accidentally killing Amy while she was being controlled by Negagen. Cream sees this and becomes horrified, running away from Sally.
- As Narmy as the End of Hope ending of Eye of Three Part 2 was, the very end cutscene had everyone mourning Sonic's death, with Tails crying on the floor.
- Death Mark 2's main theme takes from the rhythm of "Escape from the City", making it even sadder considering Cream's first appearance was indeed in the Adventure duology.
- That One Level: A lot of levels in this game, as well as others in the Nightmare Universe developed after it, are infamous for being very hard, with a multitude of traps and death paths riddled in unnecessary places. However, the first part of Carnival Pursuit sticks out as one of the most annoying levels to try and beat. To begin with, Cream is thrown straight into the race with "Knuckles" without any tutorials present, the whole race is vertical, so players are likely to lose their way, and the worst thing is that a super strict time limit is in play, where even one mistake could cost you the entire race, and by extension, Cream's survival. Coupled with the need for Cream's speed boost ability and the fact there is nothing to hint at how far Knuckles is ahead of Cream, this comes off as a very big Guide Dang It! in the end, which can cause many players to Rage Quit out of frustration.
- The Woobie: Rosy, who gets constantly abused and called useless by Sark himself as well as his Cream.exe and Sally.exe for simply not being violent like them. In addition, she gets called useless by Sark and his other servants, gets raped by Sark, and is given bad food.
