Kirby/Nightmare Fuel



The people at Nintendo and HAL Labs just love their Mood Whiplash, don't they?

As the Kirby games often take place in Dream Land, it makes sense that many of the antagonists are literal nightmares - but they're not the only thing about the series that'll fuel your nightmares.

General

 * The final bosses of the Kirby series tend to be really creepy: it's appropriate that a series that started in Dreamland would have nightmarish villains.
 * An enemy named Scarfy is a cutesy flying creature that resembles Kirby, until players turn their backs to it, try to eat it, or get too close to it, at which point it shows a demented mouth and a single eye and tries to eat them. If not killed soon, it explodes. It gets worse in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, where the pink/red ones act like Phantos when collecting keys. And they do this all the time in Extra Mode.
 * The enemy-possessing Ghost ability and the miniboss that provides it in Squeak Squad make some truly eerie sounds, and have an attack where the miniboss grabs Kirby and doesn't really seem to do anything to him but make creepy sounds. The player is left to assume that Kirby just suffered a serious assault on his psyche.
 * Also, when possessing Scarfy and forcing it into the water, its eye bulges in the most eerie way before it bites the dust.
 * The Holy Nightmare/Nightmare Enterprises Theme from the Japanese version of the Kirby anime sounds more fitting for a horror movie than Kirby.
 * Club Nintendo (the German version) had a special Kirby comic, wherein Kirby (and likely Dedede/"Nick") is a detective; it starts off with a human woman named Annett giving him a case. At one point he, Dedede, and some fish who isn't Kine investigate an old castle; they sit down at a table expecting to be served dinner, but instead the lights go out. When they come back on,.
 * Kirby is a Sugar Bowl of happiness, but the occasional Sugar Apocalypses being occasional doesn't diminish the fact that Dedede is a king who never does a whole lot, a race of eyeballs trying to take whatever happiness there is in the galaxy, Kirby eating everything that walks and maybe even doesn't, a race of mice who steal things and there's no police force to stop them.

Kirby Super Star / Ultra

 * In Kirby Super Star Ultra's subgame Revenge of the King, all the enemies are given different sprites. Scarfy is replaced with a grinning Granny Smith apple when happy, or a laughing red apple corpse-face with empty eye sockets when angry.
 * Kirby Super Star features the minigame "Revenge of Meta Knight" in which Meta Knight attempts to take over Dreamland. After defeating Meta Knight, you have a time limit to get off the ship while Meta Knight is chasing you, flying into a huge rage as he angrily hurls big electric sparks at you. He enters this segment by shouting "YOU'LL NEVER ESCAPE!". It was toned down in the remake.
 * Kirby Super Star's subgame "Milky Way Wishes" features the final boss: Marx, who is at first a cute guy bouncing on a ball. Once Kirby awakes Nova to wish for the Sun and Moon to stop fighting, Marx transforms into a relatively demonic form and attempts to take over the planet. However, he isn't as bad as Kirby Super Star Ultra's final boss: Marx Soul, who is an updated version of Marx, looks more demented and insane than regular Marx, and attacks in a similar attack pattern as Drawcia from Canvas Curse (reusing her Paint Barrage and Big Bang attacks). He splits in half to use these attacks, and when you defeat him, he lets out a horrible, ear-bleeding scream as he splits in half, and each half explodes.
 * And if you corrupt the battle against Marx.. (You can find the battle halfway through the video.)
 * Super Star Ultra's Bonus Boss is Masked Dedede, where Dedede goes crazy and attacks you wearing a mask and wielding a upgraded hammer that shoots rockets. How can you tell he's snapped? The equipment is faulty and keeps giving him electric shocks, and he shrugs them off like they're nothing. Also, rockets, and the arena is electrified - he really means to finish Kirby this time. It's distressing to see a normally Affably Evil villain use such drastic measures.
 * From The True Arena, there's the rest area for the Final Four. As if the overcast sky with lightning and menacing coliseum in the background weren't freaky enough, the music could probably be described, actually fittingly, as "Ruins of Alph radio signal cranked Up to Eleven". It must be heard to be believed.
 * Wham Bam Jewel, who appears in the background and attacks after defeating Wham Bam Rock in Helper to Hero (where he's fought right off the bat). His face is living rather than made of stone, and every time he gets hit, his face goes to a distressed look before going to an evil look.
 * Galacta Knight. He is the series badass like Meta Knight, but Nova's description of him said "He was sealed away because of his great power"; it's a godlike being (who, upon defeat, he flies around as if having a seizure before blowing up).
 * The implied fate of the sailor Waddle Dee from Revenge of Meta Knight is sort of a Fridge Horror. He doesn't evacuate with Captain Vul and the knights, as he is there to witness Kirby and Meta Knight's fight. After that, he is never heard from again, and it seems very likely that he was forgotten and drowned in the sea when it plummeted; however he shows up in Mass Attack.
 * Heavy Lobster wouldn't be scary at all, if only his theme wasn't essentially despair in musical form.

Dream Land (1, 2, 3, Crystal Shards, and Return)

 * Kirby's Dream Land features Mt. Dedede as the final level, where remade versions of the levels can be found: at the end, there's a clone of Kirby pacing back and forth, and in order to move onward, players must walk into it for some reason.
 * Kirby's Dream Land 2 features Dark Matter, the black eye that possesses things. He possesses Dedede as the fake final boss. If players don't get the good ending, Dark Matter is only shown as a silhouette and listed as "!?", while Kine looks to the sky knowing something isn't right.
 * When fighting Dark Matter, he first appears as a samurai, and shoots energy swords and throws an orb. After defeating the samurai, he turns into his eye form and attacks with black lightning from his pupil. If not killed quickly, it results in crashing into Dream Land and dying.
 * In later games, a possessed King Dedede will open his stomach forming a mouth with part of his clothes becoming teeth. It's not just a mouth, however: at times, it also is an eye that shoots out blobs of darkness.
 * Kirby's Dream Land 3's false/bad end concludes with an upward camera pan to a far bigger, more ominous silhouette hovering in the sky only listed as "?", which then opens its single red eye to glare directly at you, the player. It turns out that this time, Kirby doesn't only fight Dark Matter, but also fight 0 (Zero) who is a large white sphere who attacks by cutting slashes across its surface and shooting blood (as seen in the current page image). After depleting his health bar the first time, his pupil bursts out of the body in a fountain of blood and begins chasing Kirby.
 * The original Zero may in fact be even worse than Zero Two (see below). The thing shoots its own blood at Kirby. Thankfully, Kirby's Dream Land 3 has so many Nintendo Hard memory games and Guide Dang It moments that most children won't even see Zero until they're older.
 * Kirby 64 features 02 (Zero Two), who is the reincarnation of 0, and mimics the blood shot attack, and the floating white eye design, only he is an angel now. Also, his concept art shows his eye bleeding. His stage is made out of a hexagonal, cell-like structure. And the place where you fight him has inexplicable bar codes in the background; not to mention that, after destroying its halo, a green root-like spike with thorns around it that "bleeds" poisonous gas will come out from below it.
 * Shiver Star. At first, the levels make it look like a cheery winter-themed planet, but then comes a factory stage featuring evil machines with demented smiles, animal parts in test tubes, and one segment where a fight a bird on fire is fought in a lava pit. Upon closer inspection on the map, the layout of the continents on the planet look suspiciously like Earth, and the planet even has a single yellowish moon orbiting it.
 * Ripple Star's second stage had a very scary theme, to the point it's not even found on the official soundtrack! Here it is, for those curious.
 * In the game's sound test, Kirby appears, wearing headphones, and will dance and make faces based on the song. For example, if you play the boss battle music, he gets an intense look on his face. If you play this track, he gets a terrified look on his face, and it's really quite disturbing, especially combined with the music. It's the only track where he makes that face.
 * The "death" sequence as Kirby in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. The scenery fades to black and Kirby stumbles around, then falls down... and during this, a loud, slow version of the regular Kirby death music appears out of nowhere. Losing the Boss Rush is worse: there's something terrible about a red-tinted screen showing Kirby and his allies looking depressed.
 * The bad ending in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, which is made incredibly creepy by the last couple of notes that play near the end as the fairy queen turns to look at Ribbon (or at the player, as if to mock him for not getting the 100% completion).
 * Kirby 64 also has the scene right before fighting a possessed Adeleine, sporting the ultimate Nightmare Face. Pretty much every cutscene before fighting a Dark Matter-possessed friend is quite frightening.
 * In Kirby 64 cutscene "Art Attack", Adeleine's facial expression the moment she is shown to be possessed by the Dark Matter is a true nightmare, combined with the dark theme at the end of the cutscene's music.
 * The final Ripple Star level before the boss has good music, but that final room with the N-Zs in it has that ominous dark cloud where the ceiling should be. Kind of eerie, thinking Kirby's right beneath Miracle Matter himself at the moment.
 * There's an enemy in Kirby's Dream Land 2 called Propeller Bomb. Not a threat without animal friends, it becomes a Phanto-level menace when approached with one.
 * In Return to Dream Land, the dimensional portals have what appears to be a void that players must outrun. (Thankfully, it doesn't kill you - it can only crush you.) The Sphere Doomers featured at the end of each don't look too friendly, either.
 * One-Winged Angel form is pretty frightening.
 * (first) death cry, and its two unused variations give the infamous Marx Soul scream a run for its money.
 * In Return to Dream Land, a lot of the bosses look much creepier in.
 * There are sometimes statues in the path of Monster Flame Kirby. They are very creepy, and quite possibly their faces resemble ReDeads from the Wind Waker.
 * The fifth stage in Return to Dream Land spawns Kirby on a cloud walkway leading to a tower in the sky, with only an ominous wind in the background (which, if played long enough, will eventually add a whispery version of Nutty Noon's map theme playing in the background). After the obligatory, gratuitous Suspicious Videogame Generosity, Kirby's then greeted by  Surprise.

Kirby's Epic Yarn

 * At first, it looks like this is going to be avoided completely, what with Yin-Yarn, aka Mariachi Man, as the final boss seen here. However, just because the game's cute, the Big Bad looks silly, and the game doesn't take place in Dream Land doesn't mean there aren't nightmares sewn in: those aren't maracas, they're knitting needles (living ones, at that). Given what the world of Epic Yarn is made of, Paranoia Fuel can only be rampant.
 * Incidentally, Kracko might just be the scariest-looking enemy in the whole game. The fluffy cloud's big bright watery eye has been replaced with a lifeless button.
 * There's something just wrong about seeing Kirby unwrap to go through those narrow tubes, turning into a long piece of string with a pair of eyes. Claustrophobiacs might find it unsettling.

Other games
Feel free to separate into more folders if a certain section gets big enough. Make sure so put a game example under its own section.

Kirby's Adventure/Nightmare in Dream Land.

 * Kirby's Adventure (And the updated version "Nightmare in Dreamland") features Nightmare, an entity that King Dedede himself had been keeping at bay. At first, you fight Nightmare as an orb which attacks similar to another boss in the series (Kaboola/Kabula), only, this fight is timed. Taking too long results in the orb escaping, and Kirby crashing into the planet. The music played in the NES version is creepy as well.
 * In the GBA version, when you get close to hitting the ground, the background turns into a creepy forest eerily resembling a famous painting.
 * The second form isn't much better, looking like a vampire/genie thing with a tornado for a torso. Its death cry can be quite jarring on the NES, being a rather loud buzzing sound.

Kirby: Squeak Squad

 * Kirby: Squeak Squad has an enemy that only appears in two stages, yet is still creepy enough to warrant a mention: a black, floating hand that moans. In one of the levels it appears in, it's accompanied by a sword with the exact same features. It might not be as bad as any of the Cosmic Horrors Kirby's had to deal with, but it's still unexpected.
 * Kirby Squeak Squad features Dark Nebula, which is an evil black star that possesses Daroach. After defeating Daroach, he attacks for real: his Japanese name is "Dark Zero", another reincarnation of the recurring villain.
 * This music pops up in some levels for no reason other than screwing with the player, only for the sake of making gameplay unbearable. Essentially, it turns any level into Nightmare Fuel for the sake of it.

Kirby: Canvas Curse

 * In Canvas Curse, the final boss, Drawcia, is a paint-themed witch, who isn't scary  Mere words don't suffice.
 * Her entire stage as well. The first room has large empty spaces, and long platforms colored with surreal blotches of paint. In the final room, there are snickering paintings with distorted facial expressions. All with very minimalist music in the background. And if Old-School songs are enabled, the stage's background music is a very creepy version of the "Museum" song from Nightmare in Dream Land. Additionally, in the Japanese version, it's explained that Drawcia got the power to start messing with Dream Land by making a pact with the very same Zero from older games, who, by this point, has made it clear that it wants Kirby dead at all costs.

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror

 * Dark Mind's second form in Kirby and the Amazing Mirror first mimics Nightmare, but then attacks as a flaming version of 0.
 * Kirby and the Amazing Mirror also features Dark Meta Knight, who attempts to kill Kirby, splits him into four, seals the regular Meta Knight in Dark Mind's realm, and then challenges, and is defeated by Kirby. The creepiest thing about him, is when he dies, he shatters like a piece of glass.
 * In Amazing Mirror a gray-colored Kirby occasionally appears with a creepy musical entrance. Hitting him yields an item. The ending implies

Kirby Mass Attack

 * The villain, Necrodeus (seen early in this trailer) is not just frightening in looks. He nearly kills Kirby at the very beginning of the game while the latter is just having a nap while visiting some nation nearby Dream Land. Then, he wakes up to being zapped by Necrodius' attack, which splits him into 10 completely defenseless Kirbys and then he actually proceeds to murder nine of them with only one managing to escape his massacre by following his (literal) star-shaped heart. The game's goal is essentially that of survival: quoting NoA's twitter for this: "The new villain is so powerful that he almost wipes Kirby out of existence.". During his boss fight, he can.
 * Dying in this game is surprisingly brutal and disturbing compared to a typical Kirby game. Instead of being comically knocked out and falling offscreen to a fairly cheerful tune, in Mass Attack, if a Kirby is killed, he just dies: his body will lie there for a moment, and then turn into a spirit and begin to drift away. The cute little angel wings do little to lessen the shock of seeing Kirby's lifeless and broken body for that brief moment. And that's assuming there are any remains in the first place, as if a Kirby catches fire and doesn't get to water before the timer runs out, he'll disintegrate into ash. Seeing it through Kirby's eyes is pure Fridge Horror.
 * Something to really cringe about is the Soarar egg that players must break in one level: not only it was an unhatched egg, but breaking it releases undeveloped Soarars. Abortion and murder for the sake of a medal.
 * In the fourth level, some of the stages feature a purple, blob-like ghost. It does not harm your Kirbies (it only sends them back to the beginning), but just the look of them is frightening.