Your heart is in your throat, your friends are screaming, and you are mere pixels away from losing your last life. Everyone’s worst nightmare is a little different, but there are some video game enemies that gave us the spooks when we were young, and still do today.
Phanto (Super Mario Bros. 2)
Forget that Super Mario Bros. 2 opens with you falling from the sky. Forget that, according to the game’s own story, you are pretty much playing a nightmare. The creepiest thing about this game is Phanto. And the creepiest thing about Phanto is perhaps that it wants you to know it’s following you. Why else would it wait till you are physically holding the key before it begins to dive-bomb you in broad daylight?
However, Phanto is not without its mystery: namely, what’s behind the mask? Or is that Phanto’s true face? Is Phanto a ghost? An invisible monster? Since Phanto rarely makes appearances in other Mario games, we may never learn the truth. This enemy just gets even creepier the more you think about it.
Lynel (The Legend of Zelda)
Remember when video games refused to hold your hand? In an era of mid-game difficulty level changing and the Invincibility Leaf, Lynel is one enemy that has not gotten soft with time.
Whether you’re playing Link to the Past or Breath of the Wild, it’s Lynel’s raw power that makes him so enduringly frightening. Lynel can take it as well as he can dish it out, sometimes taking more hits than a dungeon boss. But just because you’re keeping your distance doesn’t mean you’re safe: Lynel has a variety of long-range attacks, from arrows to fire-breath. Not to mention he’s fast: you’d better watch your back, or else you might find yourself with a centaur breathing down your back. There’s no waking up from this nightmare. Just close your eyes and hope it’s quick.
Andross (Star Fox)
Andross is perhaps as close as Nintendo has come to its own Freddy Krueger. Mind over matter is Andross’s game: across the Star Fox series he prefers to confront Fox on the psychic plane, and if you’ve ever seen A Nightmare on Elm Street you know how bizarre reality becomes when you’re playing in someone’s mind. Andross doesn’t disappoint with his variety of bizarre attacks, including the abstract and unsettling polygons he shoots from his mouth in the Super Nintendo version.
As we’ve seen in Ready Player One, most people would prefer to portray themselves as attractive avatars, but Andross is the exact opposite. Although his preferred form seems to be a severed monkey head, he has also fought Fox as a giant mask-like face, a flying alien statue, and a disembodied brain. Having to fight his disturbingly enormous face in a mental playground with little space between the two of you is beyond creepy.
Giant Mosquito (Dark Souls)
If you haven’t played Dark Souls you should know what you’re in for before the Nintendo Switch release later this year. You may think that a little bug is not overtly creepy, but imagine while out camping you encounter a mosquito the size of a baby bear. A poisonous, blood-sucking baby bear. That is the Giant Mosquito of Dark Souls.
If you’re still not convinced, now imagine trying to walk through your campsite with about three of these buzzing right by your head, and it’s the middle of the night. And instead of walking through a campground you’re climbing up and down a maze of ladders with little to tell you which way to go. What had been a beautifully multi-layered and interconnected map has now become a marathon as you try to run and jump through this platformed level without being eaten alive.
Of course, climbing ladders means that you can’t use your arms to swat at these carnivorous bugs. All you can do is let them suck at you until you’ve reached the next platform. And just like the poison that they will inflict on you, the feeling of helplessness the Giant Mosquitos inflict on you will haunt you for a long time to come.
Garg (Keen 1: Marooned on Mars)
The Garg of Commander Keen lurks in a special part of a child’s nightmares. Garg is basically just a giant mouth with huge, white teeth. Those wild, red Martian eyes wiggle around on stalks above Garg’s head like an owl waves its head around to size up its prey.
The most haunting image of the Garg is perhaps one juxtaposed with a small, defenseless teddy bear. At least some monsters, like the Sirens of Greek mythology, will soothe you into death with a beautiful song before they tear you to shreds. No such luck with the Garg: it knows it will either lure you in with the teddy as bait or force you to live with survivor’s guilt if you chose to let up the bear for its dinner.
Add all this to the fact that as Keen you are stranded on Mars with no way to get home. It’s the perfect concoction of nightmare fuel to stay with you until you’re old and grey. And by the way, we still haven’t gotten to Mars so odds are by the time you’re old and grey you’ll probably still be on the Red Planet running from a grotesque mouth with teddy bears and eye stalks.
