My Five Scariest Moments on the NES

I'm going to start by saying that these may not be the scariest things that ever appeared on the NES. In fact, there's a good chance that nothing that appeared on the NES was legitimately scary. When you're only five or six years old, however, "scary" has a different definition. With that in mind, here are five things that scared the crap out of me as a kid.

I don't know a lot of people that ever played this game, but it was fantastic. It was much along the lines of the much more popular Shadowgate. Deja Vu's disadvantage, in terms of attracting kids anyway, was that it was much more grounded in reality. While the game itself wasn't scary, there was one character I was afraid of: the mugger. As shown in the picture above, you can just punch the mugger in the face and be done with him, and every time you see him you see his face more and more beat up. Eventually, however, he'd get sick of being punched in the face, and that's what scared me. If you ran into the mugger too many times, eventually he'd just kill you. The idea of dying in a video game isn't very terrifying, but the idea that I could suddenly and unexpectedly lose all my progress since I last saved with no way to prevent it was pretty scary.

Castlevania 2 doesn't get much love, and I think that's rightfully so. I know Syd appreciates this game, but I'm really not a fan. One of the reasons I'm not a fan is the day/night mechanic, and that's also the part of this game that scared me. If you can't tell, my "fear" revolving around these games is mostly a fear of losing, because apparently even at six years old I was needlessly competitive. This game got a lot harder at night, and even the towns weren't safe because the doors would lock and monsters would roam the streets. Just like New York City.

If I recall, the angry sun only appears in two levels in this entire game, but he's fucking annoying. I was afraid to even enter the levels where he'd be because it was an indestructible enemy that followed me for the whole level. What's not scary about that? Bubble Bobble

It's like Jaws, but bigger and less fierce

Baron von Blubba. How could someone with such a sophisticated name be so terrifying? This seems like a largely irrational fear, except for the fact that it meant you were pretty much guaranteed to lose a life, but there shouldn't be anything scary about the Baron. He's a whale. Sure, he's a ghost whale and looks really pissed off and looks like he has much sharper, vicious teeth than whales do, but he's like an inch tall and only exists within the confines of this video game. For whatever reason, however, myself and Syd would scream very loudly whenever Baron von Blubba made his appearance.

I thought Medusa was supposed to be hot?

Castlevania is a great game, but it also very seriously scared me. Specifically, Medusa. This thing actually gave me nightmares. When you enter the room where you fight Medusa, she's just a statue. Then after you walk past, the statue comes to life and starts attacking you. Maybe it was the combination of being startled by the attack and the fact that Medusa, while not real, isn't something made up just for this game like the Baron. I spent weeks imagining that every inanimate object in my house was going to come to life and try to kill me thanks to this game. Then I beat level two and got over it.

So there you have it! As a child, Dr. Jeebus was both easily started, and unnecessarily competitive.

dr_jeebus@sydlexia.com

I'm so startled!