I've always seen them as eyes and arms... and YES. They scare the shit outta me too. So much so that I don't like to play Sandopolis as Knuckles...
Fucking Sandopolis Zone. I always get stuck on the quicksand escalator thingamabobs (maybe there's a more official name for them, I dunno). I get all the way back up to the top then forget to jump onto the ones that go downward to the right (I think that's what you have to do, I can't even remember now). If I had 20 minutes I still couldn't get through the damn place.
I rarely bother with Sandopolis, but if I do I find it much more enjoyable if I never turn the lights on.
I am one of the one who wish I could see them as arms, but I simply can't no matter what. Sandopolis have always been my favorite Sonic & Knuckles level ever, especially Act 2. And on the topic of "scareness," come on, people! I was afraid of Alien 3 back in the time, but the Sandopolis ghosts?! Never. I always found them commical (my brother would laugh when the ghosts killed me, and I would laugh when the ghosts killed him, and so on).
I just looked at the ghosts and was like, "Yeah, there's a ghost, that's a ghost thing or something.. yeah ghosts get outta my way mang". Never really a big deal to me, in fact I'm not even sure how they'd be found scary. Those SA2 ones though in Pyramid Cave / whatever, though, yeah.. I found them super creepy as a kid, if not only for the way their eyes and mouth looked. You know which ones I'm talking about; not the smaller Boom Boos but the ones with the sewn up mouths and black eyes, and how they used to just jump out of nowhere and hop around in this unsightly manner. Not scary nowadays, but they still slightly weird me out.
Yeah, same here. I hated those damn things when I was younger. The worst for me though was that bit of Aquatic Mine when you're swimming through a tunnel and ghosts jump out at you without warning. Holy shit I actually still hate that, mainly because I have an extreme fear of deep water and don't cope very well with water levels in 3D games at the best of times, let alone with things jumping out at you x_x
Easiest way to do it? Just ride them all down until you reach the point with the platform between two slides, and then jump over to the other side. It's not the most obvious solution but the platform's not there for no reason!
The Sandopolis ghosts aren't that bad, you guys. They scared me as a kid, but Pac-man ghosts, on the other hand, scare me even as an adult. Seriously, the point when the power pellets don't even make them turn blue anymore but just make them reverse direction, is truly terrifying. They move so fast and there's so many points at stake, when you're on your last life the suspense is unreal. Easily the most frightening ghosts for me, even all these years after their inception It's too bad Sega/Sonic Team didn't opt to color Sandopolis ghosts similarly, it coulda been a nice little homage to another iconic title in video game history.
Eventually you can advance so far in the game, to the point where the turnaround time for the power pellets become merely milliseconds long.
They still scare me, but not because they're scary. I guess 'annoy' would be a better word. The sun thing in SMB3 bugs me for the same reason. They're enemies that seek you out and attack you, and you can't just kill them. They'll keep coming back until you're done with the level. Temporary fixes just ain't good enough for me. I want them dead, not hiding until the lights go off again.
You just need to learn some patterns :v: http://nrchapman.com/pacman/ Anyway, according to this the first time the effects last less than 1 second occurs at the 17th board, or the 5th key. Then on the 18th board it lasts for 1 second, but from then on, from boards 19-256, there is no longer any noticeable blue time from the power pellets.
Man I hate those things! I always remember being scared shitless on Sandopolis Act 2 when those things turn into their final form as a kid, they still creep me out with that eerie music.
When I was younger, I had a general fear of about four video-game enemies. First off, Klepto the Condor in the desert level because he'd steal your hat and make it so you took extra damage until you'd get it back. I was afraid I'd forget to retrieve it and be forced to play the rest of the game at a handicap, and somehow that evolved into an actual fear. Second was the damned eel in Jolly Roger Bay. (same game) I'd found the hole where the eel comes out, but didn't know what was going to happen, and he went straight for the camera and clipped through it. Freaked the hell out of me. I never got to play the second ice world either, because I had forgotten about the Lakitu holding the camera and the mirror room freaked me out as well. Finally, I was told that the fish enemy in Tiny-Huge Island was an instant-kill, and I was already made extremely nervous about water enemies because you generally don't have any way to fight them when in water in most games I played then. Between all the levels I actively avoided, getting the stars I needed to finish the game was really hard to do. Speaking of the ghosts in Sandopolis, I wasn't bothered by them too much once I realized that the lights were spaced out enough to never let them get to that point. I just made absolutely damned sure that I never missed a single light switch. It seems the enemies I was afraid of were all ones that you didn't have a way to fight back. I was afraid of the friggin Mario 64 bird, but had no problem with things like Dead Hand in Ocarina of Time. (I was a Nintendo kid growing up, and my only experience with Sonic up until Mega Collection was a Jack-in-the-Box disc with Sonic 3 and Knuckles on it, plus the separate games. I managed to beat that one, and I'm still convinced that it was supposed to be a timed demo or something and the code got screwed up. We bought that thing for less than five dollars, and I saw the game at Wal-Mart later going for around 20 bucks. Only difference was I got a paper case with the restaurant's logo on it.)
There was a lingering fear I had since my childhood... Redeads/Gibdo's from Ocarina of Time. These Japanese people must be on, like, so many drugs to come up with putting the creepiest enemies in a children's game... Now I don't have any fears. I since then ignored it. I hate video games. It's like drugs. Makes you have Aspergers Syndrome. My fear was also the Gameboy starting up by itself and having evil messages in it. Since then, no fear of any of that stuff. Pathetic as fuck.
