Pokémon Mystery Dungeon/Nightmare Fuel

Everyone's familiar with Pokémon, right? Maybe you're familiar with the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon spinoffs. You know, the delightful little game with the creatures everyone knows and loves, a partner who will be there when you need them (and when they need you), colorful, happy environments, and... enough Nightmare Fuel to rival the works of Lovecraft? Was Nintendo's radar turned off or something?

• Think about it: in the Future, the sun never rises and time never passes. Primal Dialga is top dog. Thus, if you die, you will be stuck in that dying state for eternity.
  • What might be the worst part of "Into The Future". Soon after you and your partner are dragged into the Bad Future, you're set up for execution. And it's not a quick and easy sort, either - the method involves Sableye using Fury Swipes, meaning that you would've been torn to shreds by their sharp claws. Fancy being stuck in that state for all eternity, or worse, dying there.
  • Don't forget Grovyle being tortured by that Spiritomb, which went up his nose, and the expression of pure agony on his face.
• Almost the entire story of Time and Darkness.
  • Special mention goes out to the Itemizer Orb, a combat item that, when used, forcibly transforms an enemy Pokémon into a common item. Which you can then eat.
    • Then, if you dare, you can eat the X-Eye Seed.
• Time/Darkness also has the little issue of you dying. YOU. The game works hard to get you to imagine you truly are the MC in the game and then it kills you off, and you watch other characters mourn over you. Yeah, you come back, but geez.
  • And not long after you come back, the game asks you if you want to kill yourself.
    • And don't forget that once you decide that you're not going to kill yourself, THE GOD OF SPACE (as in the time/space variety) decides that he's going to kill you anyway, and takes you to the Spatial Rift, which is almost as bad as the Future is, even though you don't spend as much time there as you do the future.
• The entire story mode has this, but especially Darkrai. While usually he's portrayed as misunderstood and maybe even heroic with a self-defense mechanism, this version's Darkrai isn't. He's a cunning, ruthless nightmare master who's behind all of the above and admits it. He also sent poor Azurill into an infinite nightmare for the fun of it, and his plan is to send the world into an infinite nightmare so that he may rule. His first attempt was the bad future, in which he essentially corrupted a god. He then sends another god after you, and lures you into a final battle in which he gangs up on you.
• Dusknoir and his second mouth.
  • His backup plan in the third game involves Literally destroying Grovyle's soul and then possessing his now-empty body, traveling back to the main time period, befriending the Guild members and then destroying them in one fell swoop. Of course, he doesn't thanks to a foreshadowed Heel Face Turn, but the implications are not good at all.
• Time/Darkness/Sky doesn't always even need the storyline in order to be scary. Ever picked up an Itemizer Orb and used it on an enemy Pokémon? What did it turn into, and what did you do with the resulting item?
• And while it's pretty tame compared with all the above, ceiling Kabutops can give you a bit of a start.
  • Given what happens right after aforementioned ceiling Kabutops shows up...
• So! You've just been told that to save the world, you and your best friend should kill yourselves! And talking to your dear friend and trusted confidant about this, your partner wavers back and forth, wondering whether or not to do just that. Come the next morning, you wake up and they're not in bed anymore.
• It's implied Team Skull was killed by the ceiling Kabutops, depending on how you interpret the scene. Either way, they never reappear.
• Team AWD has renown for being cunning and devious, willing to do anything for treasure. They're also all dark or poison types.
  • This leads to some fearful dissonance for another reason entirely. Simply put, even after the Team Charm episode, the player still doesn't know how much of it is true. Some of the NPCs were part of the subterfuge; others weren't. Weavile denies almost nothing. All you can really be sure of is that they don't intend to freeze the world. While knowing that someone is greedy and malicious is scary in itself, it's an even worse fate to never be sure about it... because then you can't be certain that defeating them is the right thing to do.
  • Ultimately subverted. They're actually nice people (though Weavile is a bit of a bitch) and only fought Team Charm due to a misunderstanding, and when Ditto reveals the truth of the treasure to them (its a Time Gear) they agree to leave in peace and neither side seems to hold any grudges. Hell, in the post game, they actually end up giving you helpful tips and advice for tackling Zero Island.
• Right before the final boss battle, your partner seemingly has a Face Heel Turn and asks you to join him. He clinches it by saying "The world of darkness is going to be wonderful, [Player Name]."
  • This sentence was just as bad. "Darkrai won't want just me... he'll get rid of me..."
  • Despite the fact that it was an illusion, the idea that your trusted partner, who's been to Hell and back with you, just gave up and went over to the Big Bad and begged you to rule with them because they know that without you they'd be killed, but they weren't going to go back on it.
  • Not only was it scaring you as the character, it was scaring Cresselia as well. It was hard to tell that it was just a nightmare.
  • During the battle near the end, Darkrai can sometimes stand there and stare at your character, watching carefully.
• Consider how the Adult Fear sequence must seem from Azumarill's point of view. Just think about it: You have two darling children, your pride and joy. But then you get sick. So sick that you're bedridden and can't take care of them. Your dear, sweet boys comfort you as best they can, insisting that they can run errands for you and take care of things while you concentrate on getting back on your feet. And you might be a bit leery, but you've got to trust them. And besides, you know the town is safe. it's a pretty close-knit community, and you trust the shopkeepers and the locals enough to know they'll look out for your kids. but despite all that, your children are still abducted in broad daylight, right in the middle of town, by a seemingly friendly and helpful stranger who singles out your youngest for his own nasty intentions. And all this happens while you're so ill you can't do anything about it, and you only find out after it's all played out.
  • Somehow the fact that the abductor is a Drowzee makes the tone of the whole situation a bit creepier, somewhat funny, or a little of both.
• This fan-made video (an homage of Higurashi Matsuri's opening) seems to hit most of the creepiness of the Time/Darkness story. (Spoilers ahoy.)
• As pointed out in the Just Bugs Me page, if Caterpie and Azurill are considered children in the game's universe, does that mean that all unevolved mons are children? That children are being sent down into incredibly dangerous dungeons?
  • It doesn't help that the guild's theme song is marching music.
• "I cant hold on much longer... help..." The message that occurs when you talk to a companion near defeat.
• In Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky, some wild Pokémon explode upon defeat.
• The fact that EVERY SINGLE BOSS has the desire to murder you, and none seem to have any problem with it. The Trio of Protectors (Mesperit, Uxie, Azelf) will basically do anything to protect the time gears, and the clan of Electric Pokémon in the Amp Plains just want to kill you for stepping on their land. Even after you defeat them all, they still want to slaughter you and your partner! And they would've, too, if Dusknoir hadn't stepped in.
• In Red/Blue, if you go to Pokémon Square just before you flee as fugitives, you can still use the various shops while the shopkeepers sleep. If you talk to Gulpin and ask for information about remembering moves, he mutters about how you, the player, are quite forgetful and how he wants you to forget a lot of moves so you have to see him a lot. Then he remembers that everyone decided to get rid of you... That's right, Gulpin was dreaming about killing you.
• The fact that you can occasionally receive eggs from missions marked with "???" as the reward in Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky can be a bit of Fridge Horror all on its own; but add in the fact that said egg is usually from a species in the dungeon you just visited as opposed to your client's species...
• Azurill's nightmare was creepier than it could've been. There's no food, your hunger increases faster, and there are Pokémon to fight in his dream...
• Your first assignment as a guild member is to retrieve Spoink's lost pearl. No big deal, right? Unless you remember that one of its Pokédex entries states that if a Spoink doesn't keep its pearl balanced on its head, it dies. No wonder the little guy was so frantic...
• There are some dungeons, particularly the Northern Desert, where the cracks on the walls are shaped like certain holes in a certain story...
• So you're walking around a dungeon, and what's this? A Kecleon shop! Hey, wouldn't it be so funny to steal some stuff from the sucker? You're level 100 and already saved the world, so they wouldn't attack you, knowing that it's just a player having a little fun, right? WRONG! More and more of them come up to swarm you in ridiculous numbers. They will catch up to you, and gang up on you so they can slaughter you! A seemingly innocent Pokemon becomes a shopkeeper so determined that he will defeat anyone who steals from him in a violent manner! And where did all the other Kecleon come from?
• The first time you have a vision can be freaky, especially if it's the first time you play the game. Your just talking to Azuril and Drowzee, then all of a sudden the screen flickers a bit. Then, cue the Scare Chord slashing noise, when all of a sudden the screen goes black, and the screen gets cut in half diagonally, showing you a soundless scene. This keeps happening throughout the game, but at least you'll know what will happen.
• The beginning of the game itself. It shows a black screen, with a storm sounding in the background. There's a ominous dialog between two people, one telling the other to hold on. Then, the other person screams, with a large thunder noise/teleporting noise.
• The thought of being hunted in a dark, future world by a creepy ghost like abomination and razor clawed beasts is not a pleasant thought. The thought gets even less pleasant when your partner warns that Dusknoir could come back to the present and hunt you down...meaning Dusknoir could easily chase you down again, meaning you're not safe ANYWHERE.

In Gates to Infinity, Quagsire, there's unknown what he does to pokemon that commit crimes. But by Scraggy's reaction says a lot.

• • The Bittercold which was formed out of negative emotions.