Ilia screams and drops the knife, and next thing you know Link is alone and he's the one with all-white eyes. What in David Lynch's therapist's name happened there? We don't have time to consider the disturbing implications, because this is when three dark-skinned, red-eyed Link doppelgangers show up and turn you into dust.

Nintendo
After giving you the most half-assed Heil Hitlers ever.

But wait, now Link is one of the doppelgangers, and he's laughing again (albeit slightly more evil-y this time). His good spirits don't last long, though, as the scene progresses and he ends up screaming at the camera.

Nintendo
That, or he's at the dentist.

But, really, it's when countless upside-down, maniacally giggling Ilias begin raining from a darkened sky that we truly begin to suspect we're not getting any sleep tonight.

Nintendo
It's like we're looking directly at Satan's desktop screensaver.

And, again, it's not like this game is devoid of lighthearted moments, like when a kindly Yeti lady takes Link in as he travels to a snowy mountain mansion, and- OH FUUUUCK

Nintendo
You know this game was made in 2006 because the U.N. hadn't outlawed screamers yet.

Banjo-Kazooie is a Nintendo 64 game in which a bear and a bird go around collecting jigsaw puzzle pieces, as bears and birds often do in nature. The game is full of colorful locations and whimsical characters ... which is why it can be a bit of a shock when you're exploring a dark sewer-like stage and come across this jolly face:

"Don't make fun of my speech impediment, Wanjo, you wastard."

Clanker is an enormous mechanical whale monster that finds himself eternally stranded in the middle of the murk, for the sole purpose of serving as a garbage grinder for the game's antagonist. Despite the "mechanical" part of the previous sentence, Clanker is absolutely covered in massive, bloody, fleshy scars. This suggests that 1) he might be a cyborg and 2) he's into some kinky Fifty Shades shit.

Further evidence of the cyborg theory: Robots don't pee in the pool.

Eventually, you end up traveling inside Clanker by shooting out one of his rotting old teeth with your projectile eggs, which is just the saddest video game puzzle we've ever heard. That's when you see his gross insides -- and, surprise, surprise, his belly is covered in red, gooey guts.

And some hula hoops that Pinocchio or someone forgot.

So, either Clanker is the product of some horrible experiment, or he's murdered so many people that his mechanical stomach is literally lined with their flesh. Come to think of it, the discarded hoops might confirm it's the latter. Yeeesh, just when you thought it was safe to go into the horribly polluted water with the giant, bloodied, metal dino-whale thing ...

And then you find out that, yep, that's totally his blood he's showering you with -- the more you smack him around, the more gushes out.

Nintendo
Now we know where all the blood Nintendo took out of Mortal Kombat went.

It gets worse. Most final bosses simply fade away when you defeat them or go down in a series of unjustified micro-explosions ... but that wasn't childhood-killing enough for this game. Instead, the red-pupil violently rips forth from a rapidly bleeding gash and begins attacking Kirby one last time, while the rest of the eye falls off-screen.

Nintendo
Presumably to land on a kid's birthday party.

To beat Gooper Blooper, you need to pull out the cork that's stuck in his mouth and send him jetting away on a plume of ink, because science. The problem is, when you try to get close to his face, he whips at you with his tentacles. What's a frustrated plumber to do?

The answer, of course, is dismember the squid, slowly and with a disturbing and unnecessary amount of realism. It's the only way.

Nintendo
The fact that squid tentacles go well in Italian lasagna is coincidental.

You have to jump on his tentacles one by one to stun them, then tug at each one for a couple of seconds until it finally snaps and flails around noisily in Mario's hands, as if the poor creature's severed nerve endings were misfiring. Once all of his tentacles are torn off, you're free to approach his face and struggle to pull out the cork, which takes another few seconds of tugging and yanking while the now-defenseless animal visibly suffers. Cartoon teardrops gush from its tightly shut eyes as Nintendo's beloved kid-friendly mascot basically tries to pull its face off.

Nintendo
Perhaps a Mario/Splatoon crossover wouldn't be such a good idea.

To make matters worse, this boss reappears two more times in the game, and the only way to dispose of him is exactly the same each time, lending further credence to the well-supported theory that anyone who enjoys Super Mario Sunshine is an awful, awful person.

And speaking of Mario ...

If you looked at the cover for the Nintendo Wii game Super Paper Mario, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's Baby's First Mario Game.

Nintendo
Or just a straight-up coloring book.

In reality, it's part of the Paper Mario RPG series, which means it's full of RPG staples, like HP points, stats, and unbridled insanity. The plot revolves around an evil magical being named Count Bleck forcing Bowser and Princess Peach to get married, which somehow summons a powerful artifact called the Chaos Heart. He uses the Heart to open up a big, black void in the sky that's gonna ruthlessly suck up everything and everyone in its path, bringing about the destruction of the entire (Super Mario) world.

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"Supercalifragilisticexpialidohhhh Shit!"

But that's not the creepy part yet. Bleck, being the wonderfully stock video game villain that he is, has a trio of sinister minions at his disposal: a Scottish warrior called O'Chunks, a dimension-traveling being called Dimentio ... and Mimi, a little girl with two ponytails.

Nintendo
Or two head tumors. It's hard to tell with these graphics.

Awww, ain't she cute? Yep, until Mario finally confronts her, at which point she gets super pissed off and announces that she's revealing her true form. First, she very audibly snaps her neck, then spins her head around Exorcist-style.

Nintendo
Mario's like, "... What the hell was in those mushrooms I took earlier?"

If you haven't already dropped the Wiimote and ran screaming from the room, you get to witness as long, spindly legs sprout out of her neck cavity and she assumes the shape of a huge-ass spider. What was once her little girl flesh is now deformed beyond recognition.

Nintendo
"Hi, Mr. Roberts? It's-a me, Mario. Listen, is it too late to get my plumbing job back?

While in monster form, the bulk of her dialogue is just "mimimimimimimimimimi," which is further evidence that Nintendo writers secretly want to write H.P. Lovecraft fan fiction. Eventually, Mario and friends deal with Spider-Mimi the same way they deal with all of life's problems: by jumping on them until they fucking die.