Final Fantasy X/Nightmare Fuel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


In the hair-raisingly popular Final Fantasy series, This is the most possibly frightening out of all of the previous installments.

By the time you finish reading this, you'll be wanting to play with the lights on. And the twelfth installment is no better.

  • Yunalesca's profoundly creepy One-Winged Angel.
  • Yu Yevon. He created Sin as sort of an 'object lesson'; it was never meant to be permanent. He also created Dream Zanarkand. Unfortunately, he did both at once and it wiped his mind clean, overwriting it with his instructions for Sin. He can't stop. Ever. He's been rendered braindead to the extent that he's essentially a machine following a program. He died at some point. He never noticed.
  • Fiends used to be people. For added Squick, consider that when you hear Wakka and Rikku's humanitarian jokes about eating Behemoths and Dark Flans.
  • Sin. A human soul, changed into a monstrous summon to defeat the previous Sin, then forced to kill the person that summoned them, someone they loved enough to die for. And this goes on for a thousand years.
  • The summoners go on long, dangerous journeys with their guardians and cheerfully - almost to the point of brainwashing - accept that they will die by the end of it and will need to kill one of their beloved guardians. What they're not aware of is that all of this will only serve to continue a vicious cycle. And people celebrate it; even children seem excited about it. Made worse by the fact that half of the highest ranking people in the church are dead and unsent, give no care to the sacrifices and pain of the living, AND are only two pegs above being a Nietzsche Wannabe convention.
  • The Dark Aeons, corrupt versions of Yuna's regular Aeons. Specifically:
    • Dark Shiva. She will give anyone nightmares with her ridiculous speed and attacks.
    • Dark Yojimbo. You're just exploring the Cave of the Stolen Fayth, when suddenly it starts CHASING YOU.
    • Anima [dead link]. Just...every last thing about her. A massive, twisted humanoid giant, chained and hideous. Its appearance is disquieting, but the real nightmare fuel comes when you learn what Anima is: Seymour's mother, who gave herself as Seymour's final aeon because she saw no other way to redeem Seymour in the world's eyes - and later, when Seymour made his Face Heel Turn, she couldn't stop him from using her as a weapon. Now look at Anima again, and see the pain and helplessness in her face...and then watch her Overdrive, and see her anger...
    • Seymour summonning her in Luca. When she kills the monsters in the arena, she's crying tears of blood! Her mannerisms are also pretty heart-rending in a disturbing sort of way.
  • Watching Crusaders get reduced to black particles on a white screen at Operation Mi'ihen is extremely disturbing. Then Tidus started doing their autopsies.
  • The Chocobo Eater. Just the idea that there is something out there that eats Chocobos is terrifying, and just before the fight it picks one up.
  • Once you finally get inside Sin, there's a cutscene where the characters marvel at how surprisingly beautiful it looks in there...then suddenly it turns dark, an Evil Laugh is heard and you see a brief-but-horrible extreme close-up of Seymour Guado, complete with Giant Eye of Doom.
  • Sin itself. RPG villains can never be that truly scary - they may be cruel and ruthless, but you just know that, as long as you level up enough and have good equipment, you'll defeat him. Sin wasn't like this. In fact, the game did its best to show the player that Sin is not defeatable - he has a powerful barrier and, if you can pierce it, the thorned up parts of the monster will become new monsters to kill the aggressor. Doesn't help the fact that the only known method of putting him on hold for a couple of years requires the sacrifice of two people. In fact, if no one had noticed that Sin got weakened by the Hymn of the Fayth, the game probably wouldn't have ended well. It's basically comparable to a natural disaster.
  • Final Fantasy X-2's Bonus Dungeon has Elder Drakes which can wipe you out without breaking a sweat unless you've been Level Grinding like mad. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, as there's always the Flee command... except, it doesn't work on fiends you can see before you fight them. You have to time your run perfectly to avoid them, and they keep jumping out at you - and the noises they make as they pounce... *shudder*
  • Listen carefully to the Hymn of the Fayth in each shrine. Near the end of the game, it becomes clear that the singer is the Fayth itself. Now listen to the version that plays in Yunalesca's chamber. It's not only being sung by a full chorus, they're off-key. It's all the guardians who sacrificed themselves to create the Final Aeons. And they're in despair.
  • Occasionally in the Bikanel Desert, you run across a GIGANTIC SANDWORM that is only rivaled by the Nintendo 64 Peahats for scariness.
  • Talk to Maechen at Mount Gagazet after getting the airship. If you take the time to listen to his exposition and put things together, you realize that Yu Yevon basically rules the entire world with the power of fear and death...and he's been doing this for a thousand years, with no one able to stop him completely until Yuna's party comes along.
  • Seeing the characters get Swallowed Whole by the Worm type enemies was really disturbing. Seeing them get regurgitated back out is even more disgusting and nightmare fuel inducing.
    • And this goes double for those freaking Greater Malboros. Giant desert worms are relatively common. Giant flesh-eating tentacular blobs with dozens of eyes? Not so much, outside H.P. Lovecraft.
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