darkSpyro

Since it's Halloween now everyone, I had an interesting question for the users here involving things you find terrifying/nerve-wracking/gives anxiety but in things that aren't categorized in the horror genre. This could be any form of media, from video games, to movies, TV series, even cartoons. What are things that you consider terrifying... But aren't of the horror genre?

And here's how I'll start it off... I find the near whole of Dark Souls to be terrifying, despite it being an action RPG. you might ask why so... For me personally the reason why it is, is because it's grim tone, it's atmosphere, the setting for it's world the look of it. It's not the ideas, but just it's atmosphere, the dreary look that it has to offer, this, in turn works well with it being so big, so open with most of it's areas being so dark and grim looking. It offers to me a sense of foreboding and knowing the Dark Souls series... The reason why it feels foreboding, gives a sense of dread because within the game you are usually fighting things that are much, much bigger than they usually are and also much bigger than you. When seeing those wide open fields, those areas you know you'll be fighting something big there. That a miniboss or huge enemy might be coming up, and although you can know that a boss is coming up when separated by it's fog walls... you don't know what you'll be facing when you go into it. But that dread is less because you know possibly behind that fog wall is something big (but sometimes it's just the next area) so what truly brings forth the dread is when the area is huge, there are no fog walls, and it just makes you feel like something big will come your way. And with how the atmosphere is, it always make you feel that what entails is also something monstrous, grim looking, terrifying and with how the game is it's almost always bigger than you. It makes it so much harder to push forward knowing that such a huge area could be used for an unsuspected huge enemy that isn't a boss.

But this isn't limited to Dark Souls, it's just that Dark Souls has many areas to me that feels like that and it absolutely terrifies me. But there are also areas like this in other games as well, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess also a has a few areas that bring that foreboding dread. There was a few within the first Gravity Rush game that also made me feel like this a few times when flying into open areas, there was this one area especially which was a big, dark hole that you had to fall into that you didn't know how far it went, it looked like something created that hole, it was grim, it was deep, it was huge. And it just felt foreboding as if something big was going to come out that you had to fight.
I think there was one time in Darksiders II that had me feeling like that, but because of the style of that game, it's combat and gameplay generally it was hard to feel terrified when you're... Well... Death.

All-in-all these games aren't considered in the horror genre, but have elements, huuuge areas that give a sense of dread because of how it looks as if you're about to fight something big that could just kill you in one hit, and they terrify me to no end.

So far that's all I have.

Edit: If I was somewhat redundant in the first paragraph, it's because I stay up all night because of the horror games I played, it sounded better in my head but noticed that I had repeated myself a few times. For now I'm too exhausted to change it, and trying to restructure anyways is hard for me because I've now lost my train of thought on it, which makes it harder to formulate and string together words better for the paragraph and to get rid of the redundancies.

Is uncanmy valley part of horror? If not, that, even particularly bad graphical glitches will get me a chuckle but will flash in my mind in more disturbing ways for a day or two.

I also find a lot of Nier Automata's soundtrack to ramp my anxiety to the max, with the whole baggage of watching the game and its more ****ed up moments.

Dark Cloud's shipwreck puts me on edge, just due to the dark atmosphere and the "calming" piano music.

Don't laugh, but the neopets: darkest faerie has a lot of similar moments. There's just something about the atmosphere of the game I can't place that just gives me the shivers.

Neopets has a lot of nightmare fuel even in the site, there's nothing to be ashamed of with Lair of the Beast just a click away.

There was something else I just realized that I found scary and gave me anxiety that most likely wasn't a horror game, it was a old point-and-click PC game where you broke into a house and had to figure out a bunch of puzzles, I think to steal things but I'm not sure. It had a very unsettling atmosphere about it, and it was hard not to get the feeling that the next image the owner of the house might've popped up and caught you being around inside. Because of the look of the game, of it being in-game that it was night, it was thought that you'd be killed if you were caught and so was a bit nerve-wracking moving around in the house.

Quote: Bifrost

Neopets has a lot of nightmare fuel even in the site, there's nothing to be ashamed of with Lair of the Beast just a click away.

I mean, I don't know anything about neopets aside from the PS2 game, but I'll take your word for it.

Oh man.

It celebrates Halloween for a reason. Used to have full events every October but dwindling staff, etc etc.



Spoilers because yes those are real spooks in a game that used to be for 13 year olds.

Yeah uh, that's some interesting stuff...

Beeing pregnant but not