Mother 3/Nightmare Fuel

Inside the mailbox is absolutely nothing.

Nothing after nothing came bursting out.

—MOTHER 3

• MOTHER 3 would have a terrifying (even for adults!) scene at the final boss fight, but it is cut off. You still can see the unused scenes by special code (or by this link) if you dare...
  • What role was it meant to play in the game?
• The Ultimate Chimera. After the duel with the Almost-Mecha Lion in the Chimera Laboratory, your fellow Pigmask co-worker alerts you to pretty much get the hell out of a room if you see it, and for good reason: RUNNING INTO IT KILLS YOU. INSTANTLY. NO IFS, ANDS, OR BATTLES. If that warning doesn't scare you, the next part will: the creepy music will cut out, replaced with background sounds of other Pigmasks fleeing for their lives only to get devoured by that thing. Can you confidently traverse from one room to another knowing that such a powerful creature is loose inside the lab?
  • Perhaps even more horrifying, if you DO run into it, you get to witness the Ultimate Chimera chomping and crunching on Lucas while the screen turns red.
  • In the last section of the Empire Porky Building's Restroom Level, knock on the right-most men's room door and you'll hear an all-too-familiar Ba-DEET! noise. Knocking on it again will result in something banging the door from the inside. Go inside the room, and you'll see THE CHIMERA, INCHES AWAY FROM YOU, ON A TOILET.
• The rather horrific changes that Fassad undergoes. It may look funny to some, but he's been turned into a cyborg who can't even speak anymore because they've replaced his mouth with trumpets. The second time around is even worse.
• The horrible change that occurs to your hometown. In the beginning, no one locked their doors, there was no crime, and everyone helped one another if the need arose... there was no concept of 'money'.
  • By Chapter 7, everyone is gone. All the doors are locked, and the only people left behind are complaining about their lot. The town is still there, but its soul is sucked away bit... by bit... by bit until everyone's gone. Shudder.
• Tanetane Island. Oh God. The trip went bad, the trip went bad, the trip went bad...
  • To clarify if you haven't played: you have to eat the funky-looking mushrooms, which send you into a trippy world of pink trees and creepy music, plus the occasional mailbox (see page quote). Oh yes, and all the enemies look like people you know, most notably your father and your dead brother. They spout insane dialogue ranging from funny, "I'm going to lick you all up, ice cream!" to threatening, "I'm gonna beat you, boy. Daddy's gonna beat you." to batshit insane. "Touch my heart. See how it beats in and out? Lucas! There's noooothing to worry about now."

"Everyone's waiting for you, Lucas. Waiting to throw rocks at you, and spit on you, and make your life Hell. Who's everyone? Everyone you love."

• • More specifically your father and your allegedly dead brother.
  • After waking up from the mushroom-induced trip, you can backtrack to an area where a healing hot spring is located. It's essentially a toxic waste dump.
  • The script for this was rewritten, because the original terrified its creator... So if you thought this was horrifying, imagine what the original script could have been!
• The People Jars in the Empire Porky Building. Made all the more disturbing by the fact that you can talk to them, and they're all quite 'happy' being there. There's even a cow, who will say he's going to become a wonderful steak. Yeesh.
• If you've seen the unused sprites, you can pretty much tell what happened between the prologue and Chapter 1. As seen in this vid here. To make matters worse, this happens BEFORE the twins were found in the river WHILE they were still with Hinawa.
  • There is also Porky/Pokey Minch's original (or unused) death scene. While some people like to see what's coming to him for all he's done, others might find it disturbing when they see him in a sympathetic light. His machine crashes into the ground after his supposed defeat, breaking the glass on it. Pokey tries to reach out to get out of it, but he starts to go limp and he dies. What a way to go.
• How about the zombies from the canceled Nintendo 64 version? Here's what they originally looked like. Compare that to what we eventually got on the resurrected GBA final version of the game, and many will agree they were toned down greatly.
• Lucas gaining access to his PSI abilities by having his head shoved underwater and held there in a hot spring by Ionia, one of the Magypsies. While we aren't shown the actual act, Ionia's dialogue (as well as what occurs afterwards, with Lucas emerging out of the water) makes it obvious as to what they did to him...
  • The Empire Porky Building can create a deep sense of unease. The floors are extremely varied in their contents and layout, ranging from indoor pools of hippos (complete with grass and vines), a game show, a futuristic area, dozens of toilets, and even including a large area still under construction. The whole building seems to be an Eldritch Abomination. Compounding how disturbing it is, the player is repeatedly told that whatever floor they are on is the 100th floor, their goal. An air of futility begins to seep in as the player may begin to wonder if they'll be trapped in this product of Porky's twisted imagination forever.

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