2021 Halloween Special: Scary Moments in Non-Horror Retro Games

Content Warning: Violence and Gore, Flashing Lights and Colors

Some games intentionally utilize the horror genre to great effect. But other games outside of the genre occasionally foist unexpected, and unwelcome, surprises and situations upon the audience. So much so, that they become what the game is best known for. What examples can we come up with here?

The World of Drakkhen Hates and Really Wants to Kill You, No Matter How Disturbing It Has to Get

Drakkhen is a clunky medieval RPG that originated on PC and Amiga, and was then ported to the venerable Super NES early on its life cycle. Looking at the game’s box art and some of its screen shots, it appears generic and unremarkable. But the game is like a mullet of sorts; clichèd fantasy in the front, unspeakable horror and weirdness in the back. Part of this is owed to its day-night cycle, ambitious for a title of its age. However, it used its powers to menace and confound players. Even Wikipdia cites:

“Drakkhen’s gameplay is colored by its early-game brutality and surreal enemy encounters, the former especially in the SNES version. One special enemy is relegated solely to appearing when the player kicks one of the many urns in the ground. Upon doing so, a black, stationary canine head rises from beneath the floor to shoot bolts from its eyes. These encounters are quickly fatal to new players who don’t know any better.”

There is also the deadly and invincible Shadow Man, AKA the Shade of Doom, who lives up to his name by appearing as a tall and lanky black silhouette with a red symbol in his chest (though some posit that this is not a completely random monster design, but rather a fine art reference); Some of the constellations in the game will form monsters to menace your party; There is a strange encounter with an “unburnt”, indescribable monster in a fireplace in one area that does immense damage to the party while making strange noises, almost like a frog ribbiting; And then… then there’s the “I Love You” monster in the Fire Area. Clearly an eldritch abomination of pure evil, it looks like a human silhouette that dances on a loop. What really makes it unsettling is what it says: “I Love You” over and over, with the pitch changing up and down randomly. This is only in the PC version, however; in the SNES port, it just… moans, which some say is even worse.

Perhaps the developers of Drakkhen missed their calling in horror, but they later made a spiritual successor called Dragon View to more acclaim. This screenshot LP is pretty positive.