00:10Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we are tracing our lifelong anxiety back to the games of our
00:15childhoods. Whether you flinch every time you see a fast-moving object in your peripheral vision,
00:19or you start sweating when you hear the Mario theme song, it's probably because of a stressful
00:23moment in a kid's game. These are the top 10. Let's do it. Before we continue, we publish
00:28content all week long, so be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to get notified of our latest
00:33videos. Let there be light, Rugrats Search for Reptar. Rugrats Search for Reptar was a surprisingly
00:50fun and engaging game released in 1998, and based on the fact it was a Rugrats game, it was aimed
00:55at a
00:55younger audience. But for some reason, it included a horrifying mission that rivaled Silent Hill.
01:01The mission Let There Be Light is stressful because players must navigate dark, maze-like areas using
01:07a flashlight, avoiding obstacles and enemies while racing against a clock. But it's the ghosts that
01:12chase you that truly bring the stress. These ghosts as a kid were so unbelievably scary,
01:18they single-handedly gave me nightmares for weeks. Shadows hide hazards, enemies appear suddenly,
01:23and the flashlight controls feel clunky, creating constant tension.
01:32Giant Eel Super Mario 64
01:36For some reason, Nintendo has a soft spot for trying to make gigantic, potentially terrifying
01:41creatures friendly. Take eels, for example. Creepy enough for anyone who grew up near rivers or oceans,
01:47or the internet. If you know, you know. Enter Super Mario 64's jolly Roger Bay and behold Unagi the
01:53Eel. Suddenly, you're hit with every water-related phobia imaginable. Cellophobia, fear of eels,
01:59megalophobia, fear of big things, sub-mechanophobia, fear of submerged stuff, and of course, agoraphobia,
02:05fear of the outdoors. Because there's no way I'm going out if there are giant eels out there.
02:09Spoiler alert, this isn't our final Mario entry. It's like Nintendo secretly moonlights
02:13as a childhood trauma consultant.
02:21Being mutilated at Earthbound
02:29Earthbound is a wonderfully weird SNES RPG based on the game director's childhood,
02:34or if you read between the lines, a convoluted therapy session about psychological trauma.
02:38Things take a turn for the stressful in summers, where a new-age woman gives Ness some magic,
02:43cake. Eating it sends him on a vision quest to watch Prince Poo endure medieval-level torture.
02:49Every body part is methodically taken away while Poo is asked,
02:53do you accept this? And yes, players have to answer, yes, please continue mauling me,
02:58ghost, over and over. The game really leaned into it. Lose ears, lose sound, lose eyes,
03:03lose vision. Simple tech tricks, but terrifyingly effective for enhancing stress through gameplay.
03:14Sleeping Girl, Zack and Wiki, Quest for Barbarus's Treasure
03:25Zack and Wiki is a delightfully cartoonish point-and-click adventure for the Wii about a pirate
03:30boy, his flying monkey buddy, and a gang of treasure-hunting pirate bunnies. Sounds fun,
03:35right? Well, for the most part. Enter Bell Tower of Requiem, which naturally houses a fountain shaped
03:41like a sleeping girl. You climb the tower, find a matching bell, then pull the chain. Suddenly,
03:46the girl starts bleeding from her eyes and screaming like a banshee. Yeah, it's rough. For 10 minutes,
03:52you were living in a My Little Pony fever dream, and now it's Saw 3D Wii edition. After enduring the
03:57horror, you casually grab the moon from the fountain, and the victory screen pops up. Your bunnies
04:02celebrate with sparkly fireworks right in front of the still-bleeding screaming statue. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool,
04:08cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
04:26Considered by many fans as the hardest game in the franchise, Sonic Unleashed is up there on the
04:31list of most difficult kids' games, and among its many trials, Eggman Land stands out as the level
04:36designed to crush souls and test patience. Eggman Land isn't just hard, it's long. First-timers can
04:42spend hours hopping across tiny platforms suspended over lava or dizzying heights, wondering why they
04:47didn't just play Manhunt. Sections keep changing, tricks keep coming, and death comes frequently,
04:52like Sonic himself is shaking his head and saying, seriously, dude? It's not the absolute hardest
04:57level in Sonic history, but it's certainly one of the most likely to make you throw your controller
05:01into a wall. At Sonic speed. See what I did there?
05:10Tricky 14 Menacing Lemmings
05:18Lemmings was supposed to be safe. The original box art was basically a where's Waldo of tiny
05:24lemming chaos, and the game itself kept the adorable chaos going. Sure, half the fun was watching the
05:29little guys meet their doom, but they just exploded into pixels. Nothing too gruesome. Then came Tricky 14
05:34Menacing, the level that apparently made someone at DMA Design go, you know what this game needs?
05:40Tentacle hell and blood-soaked skulls. One moment you're guiding cutie pie lemmings across fluffy
05:45forests, and next you're in a Cthulhu-themed nightmare. Turns out it was just recycled graphics
05:50from an old Amiga game called Menace, a little inside joke for hardcore fans, but for me,
05:54I thought I'd been hacked by angry Russians who now had my address and bank details.
06:06Stormy Ascent Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
06:17I couldn't do a list of stressful moments in kids games without including the original stress-making
06:22G-rated gaming mascot Crash. The legendary, so brutally hard it got cut from the original Crash
06:27Bandicoot level, Stormy Ascent, storms back in the N. Sane Trilogy like a nightmare you actually
06:33asked for. It's basically slippery climb on steroids. Castle walls, moving platforms,
06:38bouncy birds, and scientists who throw vials at you like chemistry class went horribly wrong.
06:43The margins for error are non-existent. You'll be tiptoeing along ledges like a caffeinated
06:48tightrope walker for what feels like forever. Many fans begged for its return, and I'd like
06:54a list of their names, for personal reasons.
07:06Lingering Will Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix
07:17Kingdom Hearts was the warmest, souls-touching tale for kids back in the early 2000s, and
07:23secretly some adults. And sure, Kingdom Hearts 2 did enhance the plot intensity from the first,
07:27but it was still aimed at a younger audience. This being said, it had some of the toughest boss
07:32fights in gaming history. The toughest boss in the second game shows up after you've already
07:36finished the main story. None other than Lingering Will, Terra's sentient suit of armor. This guy
07:42doesn't mess around. He's basically Terra but with zero patience and infinite spite. The fight is brutal
07:47from the start, especially when he whips out his keyblade glider or casts a binding spell that
07:52makes Sora feel like he just accidentally hit airplane mode on himself. Your best bet, learn
07:57his attack patterns, dodge like your life depends on it, and strike when he lands. It's basically a
08:01dance, if the dance partner was trying to murder you with a giant magical key.
08:04Yeah! This is it!
08:14Creepers Minecraft
08:26Forget the Lovecraftian horrors of Resident Evil, the body-snatching zombies, or the alien
08:31oppression in Half-Life 2. In 2009, nothing was as terrifying as turning around and seeing a
08:36Minecraft creeper roll up to your house like an over-enthusiastic scout selling cookies.
08:41Why was this stressful? Maybe because you just spent three days building the perfect home,
08:46gathering the perfect resources, maybe you're playing hardcore where one wrong move means game
08:51over forever, and then this green stick of TNT can erase hours of hard work in a single explosion,
08:56turning cozy home sweet home into why is there a crater where my bedroom was?
09:07The Sun Chasing You Super Mario Bros. 3
09:16This is embarrassing to admit, but in Super Mario Bros. 3, there was one level I'd beg my mom to
09:22help
09:22me with, the dreaded sun level. As kids, the idea of a giant burning ball of gas swooping down to
09:27roast
09:28us alive was terrifying. Shock horror. And let's be honest, this may be the most horrifying non-monster
09:34encounter in gaming history. Afterward, we eyed the blue sky with deep suspicion, wondering if the
09:39sun had it out for us personally. That level felt like a predator-prey relationship that lasted forever,
09:44experiencing it as a child. Pure trauma.
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