As someone who grew up with the SNES and N64, man some of Nintendo's stuff back then was kinda spooky; like parts of Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, even Mario 64 are almost horror at times.

On SNES too, there was stuff that would raise an eyebrow in a Ninty game today

This isn't really a "Nintendo is worse now" thing mind you, just looking back now in the light of Starfox and reportedly Ocarina getting remakes, some of the stuff they got away with in "kid's games" back in the day was really something, the Bottom of the Well in Ocarina for instance really freaked me out back in the day, in a good way.

As a horror movie fan, I couldn't enjoy those spooky stuff in games more. My profile has the Courage the Cowardly dog picture, for pete's sake! I specially like and those stuff appeared in normally friendly and light franchises like Mario. The contrast of they make with the happy upbeat world makes them even more interesting and memorable. How can we forget about the terrifying eel or the teethed piano in Super Mario 64? Ocarina of Time is about a boy adventure in this fantastic world that is Hyrule just for, some times, face some weird things like those skull spiders and spooky forests. The Donkey Kong Country and Pokémon franchise also have their fair share of creepyness with them. The more, the better!

I still have nightmares.

Donkey Kong is the perfect example. The trilogy on SNES during RARE days had quite a few dark moments.

In DKC 1 we have the mines levels, the scary looking bosses, the overall dark graphics...

In DKC 2 we have... I would say the whole game, but things like the violence stuff (DK being tortured by K.Rool and Klubba hitting the Kongs with a spiked mace for example).

In DKC 3 we got the scariest bosses in the series, and K.Rool screaming after being shocked at the final battle can be a bit... Out of place for a kid-friendly game.

The lack of this stuff iis one of the things that made modern Donkey Kong games worse in my opinion.

But this isn't exclusive to Nintendo or gaming, I feel like a lot of "all ages" things are getting more and more on the soft side. Cartoons, movies and comics used to be much more "dark" when I was a kid.

i even dropped one of my favorite comic books because in modern days it feels like the authors are scared of "hurting" the kids, so the stories are all about "colorful things", "good messages" and not even true adventures anymore.

Yeah, this got me thinking about how terrifying the Shadow Temple could be in OoT Remake. I hope they don't go light on it.

It's not just limited to Nintendo. Even kids movies for example could be a lot darker back then and still get a low age rating.

These days even Mario Odyssey can't get a Pegi 3 but some of the early ratchet games full of innuendo and more violence than mario did lol.

Stuff marketed to kids had a lot more room to breathe 20+ years ago.

Yeah The Neverending Story comes to mind; that got a G rating for all ages here in Australia back in the 80s but holy shit some of the stuff in it is nightmare fuel.

Sensibilities change due to generation gaps. Those games were made by young baby boomers and gen-x'ers who were raised in a completely different set of values. What you're seeing is a reflection of that.

They were quite a lot darker than they are today. More violent and atmospheric, but the violence had a lot less realism.

Can't say I found those games spooky or dark. Not when they were launched around Silent Hill. Resident Evil, Splatterhouse, Night Trap, etc.

For me, Nintendo has always been cartoon and family friendly, and my favorite developer.