Final Fantasy IV/Nightmare Fuel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Pictured: the Trap Door, the only enemy in the game that is... well, a simple door[1].

The main article for the Nightmare Fuel found in the Final Fantasy series states that somewhere in the franchise's history, all of the pants-crappingly scary stuff, started as something occasional, became the norm.

Given this is the first game in the series to get its own High Octane Nightmare Fuel page, we think it's safe to say this is exactly where shit hit the fan. Final Fantasy V is a Lighter and Softer sequel, but it has its own fair share of frights.

  • Trap Doors. There's a whole dungeon with doors that cause difficult monster battles, although some will open without resistance. Still, a giant door with teeth whose only moves are to target a party member and kill them is kind of disturbing. At least in some types of the game (including After Years) they're vulnerable to Stop.
    • From the DS version, after the first Trap Door dies, if you read Kain's thoughts:

Kain: Please tell me not all of the doors are like that!

  • Calcobrena. From the mere knowledge of the fact that you're fighting possessed dolls, to them cheerily telling your heroes that they are out for their blood (paraphrased oh so slightly,) to their general appearance and movement, to the incredibly apt sound of their theme music. The DS version just takes it up one more notch.
  • Zeromus is pretty scary. It's basically a dark elf with so much hatred that it can continue to live on as a grotesque monster after it dies. In fact, that was its backup plan. Its main plan was to hypnotize Cecil and Golbez into being its puppets. In the PSX version, his response to Fusoya and Golbez fighting him is a simple "Die trying".

Zeromus: My name is Zeromus, and I am the hatred.

  • The Evil Masks you encounter during the final stretch of the final dungeon before fighting Zeromus were only made more horrifying in the DS version.
  • Cagnazzo, particularly in the DS version, where he is disturbingly jittery, and... legs just should not bend that way.
  • Demon Wall. You get the last Dark Crystal, start to walk away, and all of the sudden, a freakin' WALL attacks!!!! It doesn't help that it is a timed boss and once it reaches a certain point, it starts to kill off your party one by one.
  • Has anyone ever given thought about the notion of landing on a moving airship from a large height when that airship is driven by giant propellers?!
  1. ↑ artwork by Yoshitaka Amano, hence the (added) scariness.
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