Scariest Mario enemies

[Retriever II]

Everyone who says the Piano is the worst never played Luigi's Mansion when it came out, or if they have, they never fought Bogmire or got to the blackout.

Bogmire in hindsight isn't that bad, but is extremely creepy as a kid because of the way he casts these super long, dark shadows everywhere and how completely abstract and different he is from most other Mario enemies, but the blackout...

Oh boy the blackout.

When you were playing this game on an old CRT, it got extremely dark, and the blackout single-handed undid everything you spent the game doing, while simultaneously cloaking the entire house in darkness, spawning ghosts EVERYWHERE. Every enemy in Luigi's Mansion became terrifying beyond what the Piano was the second those lights go out, because not only do they jumpscare you, they're everywhere.

I thought Bogmire was more cool than scary. And while the blackout was a scary situation to be in, it was still all the same enemies which in and of themselves weren't particularly scary. The whole ordeal with more annoying than scary.

The piano was scary because it was a jump scare paired with an unsettling anthropomorphism of an unlikely object. The banging keys just kicked it up another level.