Kingdom Hearts/Nightmare Fuel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


FEEL THE DARKNESS!

Aww, Kingdom Hearts, you have it all: your own page for awesome moments, great soundtrack, a variety of hard bosses, and .... what's missing?

Oh, a page for Nightmare Fuel.

What else did you expect from Nightmare Fuel and Square, though?

Multiple Games

  • In the first game, when Ansem, Seeker of Darkness possesses Riku, he speaks with the voices of both himself and Riku. Riku's own voice is dull and flat, and all the inflection comes from his "passenger".
    • Vanitas does the same with his own voice and Ven's at the end of Aqua's story in Birth by Sleep.
  • The Japanese version of Axel's kamikaze death was bad enough that it had to be censored for Western audience. To clarify, Axel's element is fire, so he essentially burned himself alive.
    • Similarly, Axel executing a kneeling Vexen from behind after Vexen begged him to stop in Chain of Memories could be upsetting. The modifications made to that scene in Re:Chain of Memories made it even worse by immolating him on-screen as Sora watched in horror.
    • Zexion's death, like Vexen's, was made much more horrifying in Re:Chain of Memories. Instead of having the life drained out of him off-screen, Riku-Replica holds him by the collar as he begs for his life, and the camera watches from behind as he stops resisting and his feet are left to dangle lifelessly.
    • Larxene's death isn't as graphic, but when she realizes she's fading away, she starts desperately grabbing at the pieces of her being, trying to keep them in. It may be worse in the Japanese version because her voice actor sounds absolutely terrified while it's happening.
    • Nobodies, despite all their claims to feel nothing, often seem as if they actually do have emotions, but only negative ones, such as anger and fear.
  • Neoshadows, more poweful version of Shadows, made their debut in - Sequel Hook trailers aside - the Japan-only updated re-release of the first KH game. While their Chain Of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II counterparts behave like regular enemies, their original self are more cunning, as they actually plan during battle. One of their most unsettling tactics involves a Neoshadow pinning Sora down while the others do the rest.
  • Some of the little details in the way dying or pained characters are animated are pretty upsetting upon closer inspection. Among the worst include Roxas involuntarily twitching as Ansem-Riku choked him into unconsciousness, Zexion's feet swaying around like a hanged man's as the life was drained out of him, Riku-Replica looking very much like a corpse when his heart was broken, and Master Eraqus falling forward towards the camera with unblinking eyes when he was killed in Birth By Sleep.
  • There's a section in the End of the World called the World Terminus. You go through, fighting through small sections of the other worlds in the game, all familar areas (The Third District, Rabbit Hole, Agrabah etc). Then you come to Hollow Bastion, and access what is implied to be the freak-lab where most of the Original Generation villains' Start of Darkness happened. Just for context, here's a Let's Play showing said lab.
    • Other frightening locations include The Heartless Manufactory and the secret basement laboratory operated by Xehanort and his fellow apprentices. The Manufactory is a location in Kingdom Hearts II where the MCP starts mass producing Heartless in order to invade Radiant Garden, and is also, according to KH3D the place some of the original members of the Organization lost their hearts. The basement laboratory contains a prison-like area in which the doors are chained shut, which is implied to be where Xehanort's human test subjects were held, as well as the Chamber of Repose, in which Aqua's armor is placed. Xemnas is not to be disturbed while he is down there, under any circumstances.
  • Terra's Lingering Will in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix + would be scary enough without any dialogue due to being a nigh-unstoppable force of destruction in battle, but he becomes far more unsettling because, presumably due to being a living armor, the guy's voice sounds like a distorted, metallic echo. Witness the fight here.
  • That One Bonus Boss, Sephiroth's Unflinching Walk towards Sora makes him quite intimidating, since it implies he doesn't see the latter as a threat to him in the slightest.


Kingdom Hearts

  • In Hollow Bastion, the Disney Princesses were imprisoned in the People Jars intended to essentially suck their life force out. They're implied to have been in there for years, aside from Jasmine, Alice, and Snow White.
  • After his friends vanish, Winnie The Pooh starts wondering how he can "say goodbye to Pooh" when he disappears too. It comes off as a metaphor for death, which is rather disturbing given the source.
  • The minute Sora enters the Second District of Traverse Town, he watches as some guy fades away with a horrified grimace on his face after his heart is freed from his body. Said heart then immediately turns into a Soldier Heartless.
    • The manga has another interpretation of this scene. A Soldier Heartless rips out the heart from a woman (who's implied to be a whore) while she's flirting with Sora. Then the Soldier crushes the heart within his claws.
  • On the night Destiny Island is destroyed, Sora sneaks outside only to find a storm, invulnerable Heartless devouring the whole world and Riku being swallowed by darkness. Even after he obtains a Keyblade capable of destroying the Heartless and defeats the giant being of darkness that towers over his islands, he's blown away as the world gets destroyed.
    • Kairi's Dull Eyes of Unhappiness coupled with Creepy Monotone when she appears in this sequence makes it feel even more like some kind of nightmare. All she can say is "Sora..." before wind blows her away like a ghost, she fades through Sora, and disappears.
  • One part of the final fight with Ansem in the first game had players fighting in almost complete darkness.
    • The final boss itself can be best described as some kind of organic ship, connected to a giant-sized version of Ansem by thick, fleshy cords that may or may not be its entrails. Despite Ansem controlling it, said ship also sports a Nightmare Face of its own.
  • Pinocchio's world in the first KH game is represented as Monstro. The inside of the whale is basically a Womb Level, and everytime it's accessed, the Gummiship doesn't land gets eaten whole.
  • Dying in the original "Kingdom Hearts" can be rather startling. When the HP bar reaches zero, several things happen in rapid succession -- Sora groans, the camera zooms in and circles around him, the screen fades to white, and the Game Over screen appears. In future games, it's slowed down, which makes it come as less of a shock.
    • In the G.O. screen itself, Sora is dead, floating limp in complete darkness, with his heart floating outside of him.
  • Xemnas' Early-Bird Cameo in Kingdom Hearts Final Mix as a Bonus Boss is even more ominous than his proper Boss Battle in the second game. Watch it here.
  • When the shark from The Little Mermaid appears out of nowhere in the haunted ship in Atlantica, it can be quite startling.
  • In the first Kingdom Hearts, the battle against Chernabog is equal parts Nightmare Fuel and Crowning Music of Awesome. To clarify, the guy is the Slavic equivalent to Satan -- he's a giant black demon, whose face is bigger than Sora is tall, and he's known as one of the most terrifying beings in the Disney canon.


Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

  • Sora slowly losing all of his memories in CoM, specifically replacing Kairi -- one of his best friends -- with Naminé, was rather disturbing. The depth of his brainwashing was made most explicit when Sora begged Naminé to break his heart to save herself, knowing that she'd been manipulating him the entire time and that he'd probably end up catatonic, staring at nothing just like the Riku-Replica.
  • Naminé is deathly afraid of her captors, Marluxia and Larxene. Larxene is known to revel in cruelty, and Namine's reaction suggests that it may not all have been shown on-screen. Even more disturbing is her obvious terror whenever Marluxia is around. The way she jerks away when Marluxia touches her on the shoulder just makes it worse.


Kingdom Hearts II

  • The Dusk Nobodies move with a strange boneless gait and tend to resemble humanoids made of cast-off gray and white clothing. Organization XIII is made of the same Nobodies, just humanoid in form.
    • Also potentially frightening is the fact that Organization members are constantly threatened with being turned into one of the aforementioned Dusks as a punishment.
  • It was easy to get Mood Whiplash when entering "The World That Never Was" at the end of the game. It gives off this bizarre feeling of family-friendly existentialism, with creepy background music and floors with names like "The Altar of Naught", "The Hall of Empty Melodies", and especially "Proof of Existence" -- the Nobodies aren't supposed to exist, and they believe their death means absolute Cessation of Existence, so that graveyard-like room is the only proof they ever existed.
  • The game started with Roxas essentially losing his own individuality, forced to re-join Sora in spite of his desire to be his own person.
  • Saïx, during his boss battle, tends to yell "All shall be lost to you!" with the voice of a complete psychopath. The guy's pretty much The Berserker, mostly due to his moon-based powers inflicting him with literal lunacy.
  • The final boss from the first time you go through Beast's Castle, Shadow Stalker/Dark Thorn, actually (temporarily) eats Sora during the fight.
  • One of Sora's transformations in KH 2, Antiform, is essentially a Heartless. It's triggered at random.
  • Right after Sora and Riku are left stranded in The World That Never Was, the entire world they are in begins essentially caving in on itself.
    • The final part of the final battle takes place literally nowhere, in a place that doesn't exist. Go with it.
  • The battle against Twilight Thorn at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts II. That boss is the Nobody counterpart of Darkside, and holds Roxas captive at any given possibility.
  • Oogie-Boogie's first demise is just like in the movie -- his burlap skin unravels, and zillions and zillions of bugs start crawling out all over the place. The whole "bugs-in-Oogie's-shape" part, however, is thankfully scrapped.
  • Xemnas's OHKO attack in Kingdom Hearts II: he's trying to forcibly tear away Sora's heart.


Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days

  • Xion from Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days is more pitiable then scary, but once her neuroses get into full gear, she shows what a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds can do. Fighting her as the final boss cranks her Humanoid Abomination aspects Up to Eleven.
      • Xion's comments during battle imply that she wants Roxas to defeat her. It's implied that she is still in there, and wants Roxas to kill her so she won't have to destroy him.
    • Right before said battle, Roxas goes up to the Clock Tower to angst, when Xion joins him. For some reason or another, she has her hood up. After a rather cryptic monologue, she takes off the hood... cut to Roxas, with a look of shock on his face. Xion continues talking, as we pan up to her face... and she looks just like Sora now, except for the voice. Then she steps off the clock tower into thin air, and turns around, hood up again, with only her eyes visible. Light starts flashing around her and she says, in Creepy Monotone, "You're next, Roxas. I have to make you a part of me too." Then the fight starts.
  • In 358/2 Days, Halloween Town has a coffin-like boss, Leechgrave, whose realm of terror extends to that world's entrance -- its Combat Tentacles ("Tentaclaws") are everywhere, and it eats heartless through them. Now consider that Leechgrave is actually a Heartless itself...
  • "Snarl of Memories" is perhaps one of the most infamous mind screws in the entire franchise, which is saying something. There are no proper ways to describe the cutscene without it being Natter Bait, so this link will speak for itself.
  • "IT'S THERE... IT'S HUNGRY... DON'T TURN AROUND!!" is an inscription in one of the Twilight Town tunnels in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. It actually had nothing to do with the mission -- it was randomly thrown in just for the sake of screwing with the players.
    • Not exactly, the sign could be referring to the first powerful Heartless you fight down there, or the heartless in general, it is nontheless unnerving.
  • A random glitch can occur at Curly Hill in Halloween Town in which the player can fall inside the hill thanks to Hitbox Dissonance. The free-fall in the void that ensues is thankfully stopped when hitting the bottom, which results in instant death for the player character. Something similar reportedly happened in Agrabah too.
  • 358/2 Days also has Anti-Saix. Instead of normal Saix, the Mission Mode version of Mission 91 features his shadow counterpart. It's a lot like Anti-Sora, just without the animal-like movements.


Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep

  • At the end of the game, Aqua almost goes mad from the isolation, to the point that she's on the verge of letting the Darksides finish her off.
  • In the first trailer for Birth By Sleep, Ventus' No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at the hands of Master Xehanort ended with the former being frozen alive and aware of it. Then he falls off a cliff, parts of his Keyblade and armor shattering as he collides with the cliff's face. If Aqua didn't catch him, he could have shattered like glass.
    • It's worse when this happens in the actual game, since you get to see the aftermath. Being frozen sounds quite painful.
  • In Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, the secret ending implies that Xehanort's heart eventually swallows up Terra's heart, giving him dominance over the body at the cost of Terra's individuality.
  • Vanitas is both sadistic and insane at the same time. The fact he looks and sounds exactly like Sora if he had black hair and yellow eyes makes it a thousand times worse.
  • The fate of Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters harkens back to fairytales of old as their crimes are punishable by fiery death at the hands of the Unversed. The camera cuts away before we see anything, but judging by the look on Cinderella's face, the result wasn't pretty.
  • The Unversed, while not as disturbing as the Nobodies, have the colorful appearances of the Heartless, but none of their cute aspects. Several Unversed take on the appearances of harmless items (like a pumpkin) apart from their creepy features and powers. Their only consistent features are their red eyes, dagger like appendages, and the Unversed symbol.
  • The Magic Mirror in Disney's Snow White wasn't very noteworthy. However, his Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep incarnation is pretty damn creepy. Watching that soulless, eyeless floating mask fully rendered in 3D is pretty self-explanatory. Getting to fight it as a boss is even worse due to the illusions it creates.
  • As the Keyblade Graveyard is a Field of Blades in which each blade represents a Keyblade wielder's heart, it's essentially a graveyard for Keyblade wielders. The number of lives that must have been lost in that place is staggering.
    • The tornadoes chasing players down don't help matters. They're massive, difficult to avoid, and each one of them leads to a battle in a freaky alternate dimension with some of the most powerful standard enemies in the game.
  • The ruins of the Land Of Departure are quite creepy, especially if you run into them in Ven or Aqua's story first and have no idea how it got that way.
  • The secret ending of Birth by Sleep Final Mix. After an entire secret episode spent in isolation in the Realm of Darkness fighting Heartless, Aqua runs into something rather startling -- the Castle of Dreams, corrupted by the darkness and surrounded by evil-looking clouds. It doesn't help that a somewhat distorted version of Destati starts up at that exact moment.
    • The Hunter of the Dark boss from the secret episode is fought in total darkness. It stalks Aqua from the darkness when it appears, only its red eyes visible, before the camera shifts to its perspective as it attempts to pounce.


Kingdom Hearts: coded

  • Sora's Heartless is somewhat disturbing, considering how nice Sora himself is.
  • The data version of Castle Oblivion is in some ways even more disconcerting than it was in its original form, because the illusions don't actually work on Sora
  • In Agrabah, Jafar gets a hold of a glitch-created copy of Genie's lamp, and promptly uses it to freeze time. Sora then has to race against time in a monochrome-green, almost completely silent Agrabah.


Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

  • Judging by the Dream Drop Distance trailers, Ienzo turning into his nobody form was forced upon by Terra-Xehanort.
  • Reportedly, in the first trailer for Kingdom Hearts 3D "[... stuff gets crazy. The sky starts raining Soras. No, seriously. A dozen unconscious Soras slowly float down from the sky like a cute boy meteor shower.".] That's a simple trailer; in comparison, the game is bound to be worse.
  • The end of the trailer for KH3D. Xehanort re-obtains his keyblade, which he immediately drives into Braig's chest.
  • A leaked spoilerous scene from Kingdom Hearts 3D has Sora talking with Roxas in the wrecked ruins of The World That Never Was[1]. When Roxas holds Sora's hands, he starts transferring his memories to him. Thus, various screens from Days and Two pass by, implying Sora's experiencing the whole Trauma Conga Line at once. It even seems the poor guy's having a seizure from it.
  • Master Xehanort's latest plan combines Ven's fate and Terra's. In short, not only is Sora comatose from his Heart being broken, but Xehanort wants to turn him into Soranort. And even after Mickey and Riku rescue Sora from Xehanort, he's left comatose, in the same position (metaphorically and literally) as Ven. Knowing he gets better doesn't really help.
  1. ↑ (Before wondering why the world is in that state, remember what happened during the skyscraper-slicing final battle of Kingdom Hearts II.)
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