Emotional scars from video games as a child?

[AtariLeaf]

Probably the red dragon/duck in Adventure. Mostly the jump scare when he would pop outta nowhere and chase you. Traumatizing to a bunch of little kids back then

[Newsdee]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned yet what happens to Yoshi in SMW, or to Typha in FFVII ?

 

Joke aside, not so much a scar but a nice surprise, was when I beat Karateka for the nth time to show a cousin, and I go "so check this out, now the chick will kill me in one shot"... but I ran to her instead, so we got the true good ending (which I didnt expect).

[doctorclu]

I always wondered in Karateka if she could kill you with one shot, how did she get captured in the first place and/or rescue herself?   Yep, even at ten I wondered that.

 

Things that scarred me...

 

Rescue on Fractalus, the jumpstart alien...

 

The SS Stormtroopers in Wolfenstein (Here is the Apple II version, I played on the Atari 400)

and the way they would bust into a room and track you down till they caught you or you killed them.   Truly suspenseful and fear inducing!

 

And finally, later on the PC games, this revealing scene from Seventh Guest shocked my friends and I as we were playing it...   (spoilers)

 

[Steven Pendleton]

Only recently did I become less terrified of the drowning music in Sonic.

[Tempest]

23 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Only recently did I become less terrified of the drowning music in Sonic.

Any game that has that warning music kind of puts me on edge.  The time running out noise in Frogger II on the Atari 8-bits also freaked me out a bit as a kid.

[Steven Pendleton]

1 minute ago, Tempest said:

Any game that has that warning music kind of puts me on edge.  The time running out noise in Frogger II on the Atari 8-bits also freaked me out a bit as a kid.

!

 

 

[Lord Mushroom]

Doom was scary. Ominous atmosphere, monsters popping out of nowhere, yelling and screaming. And the blood. I might be misremembering what the game is like, though, because I stopped playing after a short while. It was too scary.

 

But the game, which scarred me the most was Soccer for the NES, because I bought it against my brother´s strict advice not to buy a soccer game. And it sucked.

[Lord Mushroom]

Another haunting memory is playing Double Dragon with my brother. He would always kill me at the end. I would get closer and closer to killing him, but I never managed to do it. I still haven´t completed that game.

[bluejay]

Nobody mentioned the moon is Majora yet? That thing is creepy.

[Tickled_Pink]

I loved and absolutely hated Fractalus in equal measure because of the alien. Every time I went to pick up a pilot on later levels, my head would be down as I wouldn't look at the screen, and I'd steel myself for the noise. Nearly fell of the chair and had a heart attack first time I saw it.

I think it's because of this game that I don't like playing games that have unpleasant surprises in them. There was a Doom-like game (actually, I think it was a later Doom sequel) where everything was very dark and you never knew what was lurking around the corner. Don't think I bothered finishing that one.

Edited April 19, 2020 by Tickled_Pink

[Ramses]

Birds. Ninja Gaiden birds. And their theme song.

[+GoldenWheels]

The closest I ever came to being scarred was dialing a 1-900 number over and OVER to get enough hints to solve James Bond: The Stealth Affair as a kid.

 

How I avoided getting a few scars when my Dad saw the phone bill, I have no idea. I think he was just relieved it wasn't "that" kind of 900 number...

 

Also, wtf Interplay. I need to grab a random RUBBER BAND from like the third damn level  (which is an UNDERWATER LEVEL BTW) to use on the FINAL boss? And if I don't grab that rubber band...I need to restart the whole game again to get it? $!^$#*$($#*&&*$**!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bluejay]

Cuccos. I actually just decided to bully one because I was bored and saw nothing else to do(and I like to mess around with things in game) when about 3 trillion chickens flew at me until i died. The first thing I said was, "What the-" and then I started laughing so hard, and I learned a lesson not to mess with chickens.

[Steven Pendleton]

I played Sonic 3 Complete the other day and I remembered something else that used to terrify me: the last boss in Sonic 3. Not Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic 3, because I didn't get Sonic & Knuckles until like 1997 or 1998 or so and I don't remember ever renting it.

 

Anyway, the last boss in Sonic 3. It was something about the music combined with the screen turning dark like that. Mostly the music, I think. When you're just a stupid kid who didn't read the manual and didn't care about getting the Chaos Emeralds because you don't know Super Sonic exists, that last boss is interesting. Then I got the Chaos Emeralds and discovered Super Sonic, only to find out that that boss can actually damage Super Sonic through either a glitch or an oversight and cause you to lose your rings, which of course causes you to revert to regular Sonic and then you can get killed like normal.