What's the creepiest 2D game you've played?

[Matsunaga]

Berserk. I was scared of the smiley face.

[Shatterhand]

When I was a little kid (about 3 years old), I used to be really scared with an Atari 2600 game called "Frankstein". When you lose your last life, a big monster appears and keeping get bigger and bigger until it takes the whole screen, with some loud and creepy sound effects on the background. That shit scared the hell out of me when I was a kid.

[Gespenst]

Episode 1's ending of Tyrian made me never wanted to touch that episode anymore (BTW, the skull looks cool )
and that stupid SPAZ logo (Raystorm) always surprised me <_<

[BrianC]

Berserk. I was scared of the smiley face.

Evil Otto. Frenzy tops that. There's a huge Evil Otto in that game that gets angry and kills you with a bunch of fast moving Evil Ottos if one of the Evil Ottos is destroyed (they are killable in Frenzy).

Stealing from the shop in Link's Aweakening and then having the shop keeper electrocute you and everyone calling you "THIEF" was creepy.

[Ruldra]

The dark caves in Legend of Kyrandia deserves a mention. If your light source dies out, the screen becomes pitch black and some red eyes appears all over the place, and then they all attack you.

[Elixir]

Yume Nikki.

So it's a game where you play as a hikikomori/rape victim who won't leave her house and the gameplay consists of only her dreams?

This game is seriously fucked up. Going with this.

[Herr Schatten]

Does Dungeon Master count as a 2D game? That one really made me jump. The stereo sounds of enemies moving somewhere near were scary as hell.

[CFO]

Dead of the Brain 1 & 2
Harvester (3d models but creepy and disturbing as hell)

[Thunder Force]

Bio Hazard Batlle, mainly due to the eerie soundtrack.

I played this again today after a long time (pretty good emulation of it on http://www.playsega.com), and previously I too thought the audio was the defining characteristic of the game. But now I'm noticing part of the creepy factor also comes from an odd sprite animation style on some enemies, almost like a pseduo-rotoscope effect, it makes the motion of some of the parasitic-like things more disturbing than old 16-bit graphics usually are.

[ZOM]

^^
You talking about the meta-blob sprites? Yeah they're creepy. And I love the whole atmosphere in this game.

[Milkgoat]

Nobody's mentioned Monster Party yet? The first level used to petrify me when I was a kid. I'm glad I never beat it when I was younger, because the ending is fucked up too.

[gs68]

Eversion is great on a first-time run. I eventually finished though.
I can't do shit in Yume Nikki without stopping every few steps from paranoia.

[RoninBuddha]

galshell

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Could a Galshell type of arcade shmup PCB do well in them current Japanese gaming centers? ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[handsome_rakshas]

Fucking ARCADE SPLATTERHOUSE!

The sound effects and music were insane.

[Gespenst]

3rd stage of In The Hunt. It made me traded the game

[handsome_rakshas]

Can anyone hook me up with Galshell? The only one I found had viruses.

[Stefan_L]

The Detective Game on Commodore 64 was very scary for me when i was young
http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php?ID=680

Also Dungeon Master (Atari ST) had some scary moments.

[SuperGrafx]

In all honesty, probably Adventure or Haunted House on the old Atari 2600.
Crude and primitive, the feeling of being constantly hunted kept me on the edge of my seat. And when the the dreaded dragon or ghost did make an appearance, the resulting sound effects were enough to make my heart race.
It was almost a relief to turn the console off at times!

[shinsage]

Metroid II immediately comes to mind. It helps that the screen's cramped; helps with the claustrophobic feeling.

[Cthulhu]

Metroid II immediately comes to mind. It helps that the screen's cramped; helps with the claustrophobic feeling.

Was a great game when it came out but I found the screen size a huge limitation upon a more recent replay attempt.

[Ruldra]

Phantasy Star isn't scary but there's a way to make it terrifying. Just follow these rules:

- Once you enter a dungeon, do not save
- Do not use spells/items to get out of the dungeon
- Do not use maps of any kind

Enjoy getting lost in a dungeon filled with monsters and desperately look for the exit while you slowly run out of HP/MP.

[unsane]

Phantasy Star isn't scary but there's a way to make it terrifying. Just follow these rules:

- Once you enter a dungeon, do not save
- Do not use spells/items to get out of the dungeon
- Do not use maps of any kind

Enjoy getting lost in a dungeon filled with monsters and desperately look for the exit while you slowly run out of HP/MP.

Heh i remember some old NES/SNES rpgs with a few dungeons that felt that way. This was an archaic time, a time with no saves in dungeons, no exit spells/items and no maps (except what you'd draw by hand).

[MadSteelDarkness]

I'm probably alone in this, but seriously, Rygar (NES)

Something about the music and the weird monster designs just gave me the heebee-jeebees!

In fact, until I got back into the games of my youth in the early naughties and found a copy, I was convinced that the game was just a strange fever dream, never having actually existed.

[unsane]

I'm probably alone in this, but seriously, Rygar (NES)

Heh that reminds me, more so than Rygar, Faxanadu's storm level and last level felt pretty creepy as a kid.

[BIL]

Faxanadu did have some pretty evil-looking monsters. Even moreso with Falcom's usual pitiful early-game hero. I distinctly remember marauding blue demons beating my ass in the first dungeon.



Holy crap, it's Dobkeratops on his smoke break!

[EPS21]

Demonophobia

[Enhasa]

Faxanadu is so awesome. For some reason, the evilest-looking monster for me was that regular enemy that shot deluge at you. I called it "Irish washerwoman" as a kid although I know that just makes no sense at all. I guess he/she/it looks like it's doing a jig.

There's no 2d game I would say really creeped me out, and there are probably better examples I'm forgetting, but since nobody's said it, I'm going to bring up the SFC's Majuu Ou. Seriously, just play it, it's too awesome. In fact, it might be more awesome overall than creepy, and sometimes like on bosses the music is too rockin' instead of creepy, and I don't even think they were going for creepy... so it could theoretically be more creepy if they tried, but it still rules. And yes, some things about it are creepy. Just play it.

Edit: Oh yeah, there's a translation available too.

Double Edit: For the guy who said Monster Party, yeah, Monster Party stage 1 has the single creepiest 2d moment I've seen at that one part, but the rest of the game is more wacky (seriously, fighting onion rings?) than creepy, so overall it can't place that high. Worth a play though. Stuff like Demon's Crest and Abuse are too flatout awesome to really be creepy.

[Gespenst]

BTW, is there's anyone who have the skull picture of Tyrian's Episode 1 ending? *complete pic & no text, if possible*.
I wanna try using it as my avatar
Really scared me that time (uh, 7 years ago)

[evil_ash_xero]

Probably Symphony of The Night. I'll always remember the lower levels, and the big ball of corpses. Ah yeah.