![]() This structure is a great excuse to have a whole bunch of memorable, challenging, insanely good boss fights. For those not in the know, the No More Heroes games each find an excuse for their protagonist, Travis Touchdown, to fight his way through the ranks of the United Assassin Association to become the number one killer in all the world. Each entry distills anarchy into narrative form, and they each use the franchise’s structure to great effect. I love SUDA 51’s No More Heroes series, and a large part of that is just how downright unpredictable the storylines of each game are. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle-The Fight with Matt Helms It’s a great way to kick off the last two-thirds of the game. It fits perfectly with the theme of the game Link is now a stranger in a strange land, and this echoing and perversion of the Deku Tree’s woodland theme is an incredibly strong way to drive home just how much the world missed Link during his seven-year slumber. It’s much subtler than the later Shadow Temple level but no less unnerving for it. And instead of some upbeat, cherry tune normally associated with grass levels, the music is instead creepy as hell, using what I can only describe as “timed panicked inhaling” and a creepy synthesized flute to give the whole thing this really unnerving, creepy atmosphere. The Forest Temple is actually some sort of mansion in the middle of these woods, complete with a Gothic atmosphere, ghosts to hunt down (the main idea in the dungeon is collecting four Poe souls to get to the basement), and plenty of monsters and puzzles to solve. It’s tradition in video games that the first world or major level or what have you often has this theme, but OoT flips that trope completely on its head. I’m willing to bet that most players expected a fairly standard grass-themed level. Then you reach the Forest Temple itself, and nothing is as you would expect it. The once fairly benign maze to get there now has hulking Moblins in it, and it’s quite challenging to get to on your first play-through. You return to the Lost Woods in Kokiri Village, the place where Link grew up, and travel to the heart of the woods where you first learned Saria’s Song as a child. From a story standpoint, Link has aged seven years and awoken to a much drearier, much scarier version of Hyrule where Ganondorf reigns supreme. But I would like to throw the Forest Temple in that category as well.Ĭonsider the fact that this is the game’s first Adult Link level. Ocarina of Time was the first 3D entry in the series, and its late-game levels Bottom of the Well and the Shadow Temple are rightfully seen as some of the best horror levels in a non-horror video game. The Zelda franchise as a whole has always had fun little scary moments in their titles, from the unnerving vision of multiple shadow Links presented to the player in Twilight Princess to the entire Ikana Canyon sequence in Majora’s Mask, Nintendo has always taken great pleasure in putting players in eerie, unnerving settings in their seemingly family-friendly franchise. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time-–The Forest Temple Lastly, this isn’t a ranking, and these incidents are presented in no particular order. These are all hidden horror elements that I’ve rarely seen discussed in any capacity. So even if you think you might know what I’m about to discuss, think again. As iconic as something like the piano from Super Mario 64 might be, it’s been talked about to death. I have two criteria for this: (1) whatever I’m talking about has to be in a game most wouldn’t consider to be horror and (2) they have to have unnerved me personally in some way.Īnd before we begin, I’m going to lead with this: I’m focusing on lesser-known instances of this developer trend. Today that’s just what I’d like to talk about: some great moments of hidden horror in video games. There’s no shortage of fantastic horror video games out there, but I really think there’s something to be said for the times when a game that isn’t explicitly advertised as horror manages to scare the daylights out of the player.
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