For as long as many of us have been alive, Nintendo have proven themselves as one of the preeminent game developers for fun, accessible experiences. The kind that can be enjoyed by the whole family, you know? Yay, children! Let’s play the Nintendo thing… Does it have the bowling?

With that being said, sometimes even the friendliest franchises can drift into sinister territory. And so, to cap off spooky month for the year, we’re paying homage to Nintendo’s creepiest, kookiest, and altogether ookiest moments.

Can you Boo-lieve it??

Mad Piano

Super Mario 64

It’s the one you were probably expecting, so we’ll get it out of the way now.

As the game that ushered in Nintendo’s 64-bit era, Super Mario 64 reimagined what the Mushroom Kingdom would look like in 3D, and for whatever reason, Shigeru Miyamoto and the team decided to stray from the staples that made the franchise famous.

Sure, familiar foes like the Thwomps and Pokeys are here, but they look more menacing, more threatening. It’s enough to give longtime Mario fans a sense of unease, but the shit well and truly hits the fan once you enter Big Boo’s Haunt.

This haunted house already has a foreboding atmosphere and chilling musical score as it is, putting you on edge as you enter a small room with a grand piano. It seems like an odd inclusion, as furniture has been scarce in the game up to this point. The moment you get too close, the piano comes to life, bearing razor sharp fangs as it lumbers towards you to the chorus of off-tune musical notes.

It’s so bizarre and out of place in the Mario universe, and it has only had minor background cameos in Mario Party games ever since. It’s considered by many to be the most traumatising moment in the rotund plumber’s N64 debut, but for me personally, it pales in comparison to one of the later entries we’ll get to on this list…

The SA-X

Metroid Fusion

The Metroid series has long been a highlight of Nintendo’s narrative efforts, however it wasn’t until the fourth entry on the Game Boy Advance, Fusion, that we were treated to absolute cinema.

Despite being a handheld console, the GBA was more than capable of blending gameplay with cutscenes so seamlessly, you weren’t even aware that they were going to happen until they had already started. Case in point: the grand arrival of the horrific SA-X.

Taking the form of Samus Aran in her fully souped up power suit while she herself is still recovering from her parasite removal surgery, it is made very clear that you have no chance in hell of competing with it. Not only does it have all of your cool toys like the Ice Beam (dur-hur, cool toys), but your Metroid vaccine treatment has made you deathly weak to the cold.

You never know when you’re about to run into it, and you can only hope that it won’t spot you when you’re in close proximity. The SA-X won’t just wreck your shit, it will obliterate it so badly, you’ll forget you even had shit to begin with. That musical sting is the stuff of nightmares.

About the only thing I can’t quite abide is the letters that make up its name. I read it as “sax” every time, so whenever I think of the threatening notion that “the sax approaches”, I just picture it as being a particularly unpleasant brass musician.

Clanker

Banjo-Kazooie

That’s right, we aren’t just including in-house games for this list, but also those that were published by Nintendo. If that feels like a reach, consider that not even Fire Emblem or Pokemon are technically Nintendo games, either. Good enough for you? I sure hope so.

Banjo-Kazooie is one of Rare’s finest creations, offering a viable alternative to the ubiquitous Super Mario 64. Loaded with the studio’s penchant for British humour, it had just a little more edge to it, so it didn’t seem out of the ordinary when you reached Clanker’s Cavern and dove into the murky depths.

After navigating a long, winding system of underwater pipes, you came to a clearing where a new character introduced themselves to you. This was Clanker, the apparent garbage disposal system for the villainous Gruntilda, and he was seeking your assistance. The dialogue indicated that he was a friendly fellow, but the way in which he suddenly appeared was anything but.

Clanker is a huge, mechanical whale shark with a mouth full of pointy teeth, and a greeting animation that made it look like he was ready to gobble you up in one snap. After the initial fright, you’ll likely cotton on that he’s good people, but I can say with absolute certainty that he made me physically recoil at first.

As series creator Gregg Mayles would later explain on Twitter, “the original design had a straight pipe so that Clanker was (just) visible from where you entered the world. The idea was to intrigue players. But the hardware couldn’t cope! So I changed it to a kinked pipe, which changed the emotion from intrigue to shock”.

Allow me to state for the record, Gregg, you successfully shocked me. Perhaps just a little bit more than you had intended.

Them

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

Compared to Mario, The Legend of Zelda could be considered a more mature franchise. Even with this in mind, few were perhaps prepared for the second N64 entry, Majora’s Mask, to introduce us to an entirely new sensation: depression.

The faces around Termina are familiar, and yet there is a certain perversion to their lives, as if everything they do is futile. This is true even of the plucky Romani, this realm’s equivalent to Hyrule’s Malon. When you first meet her, she is taking pot shots with her bow at a balloon that she has fashioned with a mean face. Oh, how cute!

She explains that she is training in preparation for the arrival of “Them”, a band of mysterious invaders who visit the ranch on a yearly basis to take the cows hostage. Her older sister won’t believe her, and now it’s up to you to help her fend off these foes in the dead of night. …Shit got a lot less cute real fast, didn’t it?

While the arrival of Them is mechanically similar to many other Zelda mini-games — the ghostlike figures spawn around the map, and you must prevent them from reaching the barn — the presentation is absolutely ghastly, with their glowing eyes and an eerie musical score.

They more closely resemble ghosts than aliens, but if you fail to stop them, they will successfully abduct the cows, alongside a shrieking Romani. Should you have the gall to return to Romani’s Ranch afterwards, you’ll find her there completely disoriented, and occasionally shaking the cobwebs from her head. It’s my favourite little part of my favourite Zelda game, and I’d love for future entries to dabble with the macabre in the same way Majora’s Mask did routinely.

Unagi the eel

Super Mario 64

There he is. Over the years, I’ve spoken relentlessly about how impactful I found the gargantuan eel lurking in the depths of Jolly Roger Bay, typically in conjunction with how much I love Super Mario 64 as a whole.

As aforementioned, the Mad Piano gets top billing for jump scares in this game, but to me, it’s a spooky obstacle in a spooky level. You may not be prepared for it to come alive, but you’re at least conditioned to expect surprises waiting around every corner. This surely isn’t the case for Jolly Roger Bay, with its gorgeous musical score and calm, blue waters.

Taking the dive into the cavern on the far side of the bay reveals a sunken ship down below, and poking out of its broken window, a dead-eyed stare accompanied by rows of jagged teeth. This is Unagi the eel, and it does not want to be your friend.

Aside from being a significant hazard to Mario’s health, the reason why Unagi is so distressing is because it is practically unrecognisable as a Mario character. There’s no friendly grin or beady eyeballs, just the face of a coldblooded deep-sea killer.

The fact that the next star requires you to provoke it to emerge from its next hiding place, causing it to lurch out in a furious lunge, was enough for me to nope out of the entire stage. Mario wasn’t for kids anymore, or at least, not this particular kid.

Nighttime expeditions

Pikmin 4

Throughout Pikmin’s long history, it has been made clear that the strange planet you’ve landed on becomes more dangerous at night. And so, the formula was established: you race against the clock to achieve your tasks during the daylight hours, and then flee back to the safety of your spacecraft once the evening hits. Any Pikmin left behind are unfortunate sacrifices to eldritch gods.

The very notion that Pikmin 4 would introduce a game mode dedicated entirely to nighttime expeditions, then, is intimidating enough to veteran explorers. Few of us could have foreseen just how horrifying it would be, however.

During these expeditions, you are equipped with a unique type of Pikmin found only at night, the Glow Pikmin, and you must spawn as many of them as possible to defend a base against the oncoming horde of creatures. Pikmin is all about planning and execution, but the nighttime expeditions devolve into something of a melee, with you desperately darting around the map and trying to fend off red-eyed encroachers.

It’s like the return of Them from Majora’s Mask on steroids, complete with a soundtrack that ranges from eerie to discordant based on how badly everything is going to shit.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been spooked during a Pikmin game, and hell, it won’t be the last. It certainly is the time my expectations of the franchise felt so corrupted and desperate, and for that, it has left its mark.

Tarantulas & Scorpions

Animal Crossing series

Compared to the nightmares we’ve seen on this list so far, Animal Crossing is probably the furthest thing from your mind for scary moments. Perhaps that’s exactly why it’s so damned jarring the first time you run afoul of a deadly arachnid.

This sleepy, cosy series of games progresses with hardly a care in the world, aside from trying to look fashionable to your therian friends and working out how to get Freckles to move out of your town as soon as possible.

Every now and then, you might have the misfortune of knocking down a beehive, angering the buzzing denizens within. They’d give chase, and should they catch you, you’ll be left with a nasty welt on your face. That’s no fun, but ultimately harmless outside of the funky visual and the indignity of being outsmarted by a swarm of enraged insects.

Then, in the dead of night, you hear something strange. On rare occasions, a scorpion or tarantula may spawn, rustling about while they investigate your town’s aesthetics. Your natural instinct will likely be to pull out your net — a deadly mistake you won’t make twice. These little bastards are ornery critters who will give chase to prospective bug catchers and give them a wicked sting. One bite from these baddies knocks the player unconscious, forcing them to respawn in front of their house.

It’s totally surreal the first time it occurs, because you’ve been conditioned to expect tranquility from Animal Crossing. But no, here it is in the wee twilight hours, and I’ve been murdered by a tarantula. The first time it happened in City Folk, I’m fairly sure I exclaimed “what the fuck?” in utter shock.

Incidentally, I was waiting until 12:30 am for the stupid thing to spawn for the image used above. I had to evict no fewer than 30 mole crickets from their homes until I had any luck.

Foolish monkey

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

Link may be no stranger to animal cruelty, but outright animal torture is a whole new ballpark that he gets to enjoy in the swamps of Termina.

It seems the Deku Princess has gone missing, and the King is convinced that a stray monkey kidnapped her in an attempt to infiltrate the Woodfall temple. By sneaking in the back entrance, you can converse with the imprisoned monkey, who will teach you a charming monkey ditty before you’re ejected from the palace grounds.

You should now proceed to the temple, but if you’re morbidly curious, you can return to the palace to witness the monkey’s punishment as the Dekus dangle him over a boiling cauldron. He writhes in agony as the onlookers do a crazed dance, before going back into the pot. When he comes out, he ain’t moving no more, and he has three entire days of this to look forward to.

I’m not sure what’s worse about this, whether it’s the fact that the monkey is so adorable, or the blank expression he has on his face after being scalded — it just feels so perverse and wrong. I’m tempted to see whether my presence will inspire him to break free of his predicament, but that would take 54 minutes of real-time waiting, and even I’m not sad enough to waste that much of my life.

Hegemon Edelgard

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, players have the option of supporting one of the eponymous trinity of ruling powers, as the continent of Fódlan descends into a bitter war. Depending on which route they select, the other house leaders will descend down a path of darkness, with some instances proving much more drastic than others.

When following the Azure Moon storyline, the major antagonist will be the power hungry monarch Edelgard von Hresvelg, who would sacrifice countless lives in pursuit of her vision. In a final act of desperation, she unleashes the full power of her Crests, morphing into the Hegemon Husk. It could best be described as a… floating, crusty torso of ill intent, and no, not even I would consider taking a crack at it.

We’ve seen final bosses take on menacing forms throughout Fire Emblem, but somehow Edelgard’s transformation is more unnerving than usual. Perhaps it’s because in another lifetime, she could be your closest ally — potentially even your lover, should you somehow pull your eyes away from the legit baddie Dorothea — and here, she is little more than a thing. A creature, barely recognisable from the ambitious young woman you knew so long ago.

Worse still, I swear this is actually the canonical ending, because it really makes the most narrative sense, all things considered. Suck it up, Edelgard stans, at least I threw you a bone in that Smash Bros article…

The moon

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

We’ve already alluded to Majora’s Mask several times in this list (with good reason), but suffice to say, the very premise of the game itself is dread inducing.

Owing to the chicanery of the pesky Skull Kid, the land of Termina is destined to be crushed by the falling moon in three days. Said moon, as you might have noticed, is absolutely fucking terrifying — easily one of the most alarming enemies in Zelda history. But beyond this, there is a real fear in seeing how the residents all react to their impending doom.

Most are petrified, of course, while others are filled with regret. The diligent postman feels honour-bound to complete his duty, the foreman is dismayed that his workers keep fleeing town, and the swordsman boasts that he’ll chop it in half, only to be found in the final hours begging for his life.

It’s oppressively sad, and countless people have attempted to break down exactly how and why Majora’s Mask is so deadset on punishing its characters. It’s exactly why it was my favourite game from the year 2000, as well as my favourite Zelda game overall.