10 Game Over Screens That Pissed You Off The Most

5. Sonic The Hedgehog

There's perhaps no Game Over state more famously anxious than Sonic the Hedgehog's death-by-drowning.

When Sonic is traversing an underwater environment and starts to run out of air, a pulse-quickeningly urgent piece of alert music will play out, increasing in tempo as Sonic's situation becomes more dire until, if the player can't resurface, Sonic dies.

This is followed up perfectly by the game's signature miserable Game Over music, laid over the somber visage of the loveable hedgehog's final resting place at the ocean depths. Grim.

Dying underwater in the earlier Sonic games stressed some players out enough that they'd actually play these levels with the TV muted, in the hope of side-stepping the Pavlovian anxiety created by that damn music.