The Legend of Zelda Games: Filled with Creepy Moments
The Legend of Zelda games are filled with some pretty creepy moments. There’s a certain je ne sais quois that tingles our spines in those moments; those magic milliseconds that send chills over us and make us jump in fright. The moments in the Zelda games below have all been plucked from their own games and plonked into an imaginary horror movie – one that you would avoid in deepest, darkest Mexico (not a slight at our friends south of the border). Each Zelda game can contain a moment that puts the player on edge – there are, after all, more Zelda games than your average John Green book, with the main series including 20 of the fattest and, we would argue, finest survival horror games on PC. While some titles have a few more than others, there are a few creepy moments in particular throughout the series that warrant a jump or a woah. In the spirit of Halloween, it’s time to rank some of the best.Here are the 23 scariest moments in The Legend of Zelda:
23. Redeads in The Wind Waker
In The Wind Waker, the sailing segments were filled with relaxation, excitement, and wonder. There was also some murderous redeads crying out in the night. Necromancy is nothing new in the Zelda games, but these zombies brushed up against a creepier tone by appearing out of boring caves, emerging from graves, and magically appearing from the ground. They’re a sprinkle of horror (while still cute and timeless), making them perfect for the mood of the game.
22. Thief-murdering shopkeeper in the Game Boy version of Link’s Awakening
Poor young Link, with his only method for randomly attacking enemies being through bombs, has a hard time defending himself from enemies by default. Unless he had a helper monkey, which is not on the short list of things that make Link’s Awakening better than Wind Waker, anyway.
The Game Boy version has screen-filling shopkeepers intent on punishing those who dare steal from them. They encounter enemies, yank them to the side, and then drop a skeleton on their poor victim – just in case those two bombs weren’t enough. All the better to knock you off a cliff with. This moment wasn’t included in the later versions, making poor shopkeepers a little less murderous.
21. Hands come out of the walls in Tears of the Kingdom
Tears of the Kingdom is cute and colourful, like a painting by Bob Ross, but with a murderous poison running through its veins. It sold the silence of Lon Lon Ranch and the rain in Zora’s Domain (admittedly both somewhat ably) by silent and shocking execution. This game likes to sneak up on the player and stab them in the back. The game does this by first luring the player around each corner with some nice music.
This music will either greet the entirety of the player’s party with a group photo opportunity that is immediately interrupted by attacking enemies, or it will invite the player alone towards an innocuous voice stating some pretty convincing pleasantries. Then, after a brief casual encounter, these voices will materialise into well-mannered (but very large) adversaries who attempt to crush the player’s very bones by hugging them (from the inside!) while they screech garbling curses. This happens twice: the first two were two stalfos, and the second two were the Blue and Red Iron Knuckle, but they can all be considered equally terrifying.
20. Stalfos and Iron Knuckle in Ocarina of Time
Ocarina of Time introduced several monsters returns from either the original or Link to the Past, but most were welcomed with open arms and open gauntlets. Yet, when Castle Town gets destroyed by Ganon, burying its citizens under rubble, the town becomes suddenly unrecognisable. Link wanders La-la land in a daze, passing burnt-out buildings covered in vines. Suddenly redeads scream from caves in familiar locations. They weren’t there before – now they hunt for flesh. This moment, isolated from the rest of the game, could have easily fit into any horror game.
19. Wind Fish as Distant 1993 Game Boy game of the same name
When you consider why the facts about the original game are so twisted, you have to remind yourself that this all stemmed from an augmented reality fad popular in the 1990s. If interpreted in the right way, this cutscene is outright disturbing.
The opening to TheLegendOfZelda: Link’s Awakening, Link wakes up to find that he is on Koholint
