Final Fantasy V/Nightmare Fuel



It has been said that most of the fun in Final Fantasy V comes from the way it doesn't take itself too seriously. This doesn't mean the cheery tone can be taken for granted.

After Final Fantasy IV's utter horrors and after its After Years, this is the next step into the darkest depths of the ass-stabbingly popular pants-shittingly scary Final Fantasy series.

The fact it's a short walk compared to the rest of the series barely reflects the game's nature as a Breather Episode for the series - just as the sequel will quickly tell you.


 * Although Final Fantasy V is one of the goofier games in the series, it still managed to creep out with Exdeath's Castle. It turns from a fairly standard looking building to an outright Womb Level when you dispel the illusions surrounding it, complete with freakish creatures that breathe making up the walls with visible beating organs. The fact that it's also the background for random battles doesn't help much either.
 * Making the castle all the more creepy? It's constructed entirely of corpses. More specifically, corpses of Exdeath's victims. Making it creepier still? It's 13 floors tall. Meaning Exdeath slaughtered, and fused together a mound of corpses 13 stories high, and wide enough to be considered a castle. This also emphasizes the next point...
 * Exdeath himself pretty much darkens the tone of the game whenever he's around, despite having a second-in-command who is a walking, talking Crowning Moment of Funny. He's a tree. Seems harmless enough. Except that he's a tree that was used to seal countless monsters and demons. The souls of these demons became so smashed together and compact that they fused into one blasphemous warlock who built a castle out of the corpses of people who pissed him off. Then, after he gains the power to erase existence with a thought, he reveals his true form: an Eldritch Abomination tree with bark that looks more like brain matter than actual wood, a barely-human face on the trunk, and his torso on the top. And after he's weakened, and his power turns against him, his body implodes, the monstrosities that make up his soul only partially spill out, turning him into a giant Legion made of flesh, bone, and various horrors that take up most of the screen. Quite possibly one of Final Fantasy's creepiest final bosses.
 * Mirage Village is a village that is trapped between dimensions. No time passes inside, and the village itself is hidden in a lush forest with no sprite on the overworld that indicates its existence. But, if you go to the place through the Rift, you will see every single being that lives inside are frozen; not by ice but by time. And from some NPC, it can be indicated that their frozen selves are their original form and they are aware of the phenomena. The village is one big habitat of the And I Must Scream!
 * Moogle Eaters. Does somebody have to explain why they might have that name?
 * In the Deep Sea Trench, there are four types of enemies you can fight. All four are called "Unknown". Here's how they are. What are these?!?! Undead, mutated corpses whose main attacks are to vomit on you, and kill you instantly! Them coupled with the hazard floor of that dungeon and the annoying boss compound to make the area terrifying.