10 Video Game Enemy Designs You Can’t Unsee

Every once in a while you'll be happily playing through a game - doing normal stuff, like lighting bonfires or shouting at dragons - and something will appear that permanently lodges itself in the back of your cerebral cortex. Some video games enemies are so messed up that your brain registers your horror towards them by logging them helpfully in your head, for you to remember every once in a while just before you go to sleep.

And this is something that isn't uniquely limited to horror enemies. We were all traumatised by Dead Hand while playing through the Legend of Zelda in our youth, or given permanent fears of the water by Banjo-Kazooie's Clanker or Super Mario 64's eels.

Interestingly enough, sometimes this can have the weirdest results, like making you scared of mushrooms, or looking at a camera and bursting into tears. Whether you develop an irrational fear or not, though, you'll always remember these particular baddies - for better or for worse.

Remember: there's no shame in being petrified of the Clock Tower at Disneyland, so long as it's because a game told you to.

Although most folk walk into Corpse Party knowing they're in for a messed up gorefest. However, when you first see the child ghosts that litter the school you are trapped in, you likely consider them a potential source of help. After all, surely they're sympathetic to your plight, and want to avoid you being put in a similar situation to them - right?

As it turns out, the answer to that is a resounding hell no. The kids are just as bloodthirsty as pretty much anyone else in this series, which is to say they'd drink it with a straw from your still-beating heart. As such, the majority of deaths you endure throughout the game are at the hands of these murder-tots.

They steal your face, bury you alive, stab you in the eyes with scissors, and generally treat you in ways you both wouldn't expect from a kid, but also wouldn't be best pleased to see a kid do.

When the gruesome fates of their awful murders are revealed, you do gain a sense of sympathy for them - even if they've made you cut out your tongue like three times by now.

This is exactly what makes them memorable, as while you hate and fear these tortured toddlers, you also ultimately want to save them from their cruel fate.