Deep Nightmare

"Powered-up versions of the Nightmares: a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger."

- Description of the Deep Nightmares in Sonic Unleashed (Wii)

The Deep Nightmare (ディープ・ナイトメア) is one of the types of Dark Gaia's Minions that appears in Sonic Unleashed. They are a stronger variant of the Nightmare and is one of the strongest members of the Dark Gaia's Minions footsoldiers. They only appear during the game's nighttime stages.

Overview
The Deep Nightmares were born in the beginning of Sonic Unleashed. When Dark Gaia fell apart from its premature awakening, many of its fragments became Deep Nightmares by the influence of the negative energy from people's dark feelings, specifically from people's grief and anger, much like their Nightmare cousins, but rather from the deeper wellsprings of these feelings. They first appears in Windmill Isle Night Act III: Hill Beneath Starry Skies on on the Wii/PS2 version and Windmill Isle Night Act 1 on the PS3/Xbox 360 version.

The Deep Nightmares have much faster movements, can deal much more damage and are more tactical than the regular Nightmare. They also have more health than the regular Nightmares as well, making them harder to take down. Unlike the normal Nightmare, the Deep Nightmares can appear alone or are spearheading a group of the lesser members of their kind. They also come in a stronger variant called Red Deep Nightmares.

Upon the reconstruction of Dark Gaia by Dr. Eggman, all of the Deep Nightmares along with the other of Dark Gaia's Minions were returned to the beast, who was later defeated and sealed within the planet's core.

Physical Appearance
The Deep Nightmares look much like the regular Nightmare, but have some distinguished traits as well. While they appear as humanoid lizards with thick forearms and have purple smoke emitting from their back like the Nightmare, they are slightly taller, their horns and tails are larger and more jagged, they have several more teeth with tusks in the corner of their mouth, and they have larger and more spikes on their back than the Nightmares. Their skin is colored a darker blue and their marking glow in a darker electric crimson.

Powers and Abilities
The Deep Nightmares are able to move around by either teleporting into an area in a puff of purple smoke, or emerging from black puddles on the ground. As a Dark Gaia Minion, the Deep Nightmares can possess people by latching onto the deepest, darkest part of the heart, and generate despair, negative emotions or even erratic behavior that are completely opposite to the person's personality.

Being an evolved form of the Nightmare, the Deep Nightmare possesses strength, speed, durability and intelligence above the regular Nightmares. They possess elastic bodies, allowing them to stretch their limbs over a slightly larger area. They can even enlarge their limbs and amplify the power of their physical strikes with dark energies, though doing so exhaust them and leave them weak and invulnerable afterwards for a few moments.

The Deep Nightmares have a certain degree of skills and cunning in terms of hand-to-hand, being able to fighting opponents with combos and guard against attacks with their arms.

Attack Patterns
The Deep Nightmare fight in the same manner as the Nightmares, meaning they fight with hand-to-hand combat, but they do so in a more refined and aggressive way.

Like the Nightmares, the Deep Nightmares usually strike the opponent with their stretchy arms, and make flips and jumps that can cause damage to the player if they hit. They are also capable of aerial attacks; if Sonic jumps into the air, the Deep Nightmares can jump up and knock him down to the ground. On the PS3/Xbox 360 version of Sonic Unleashed, the Deep Nightmares can slightly enlarge their arms and attack while spinning, much like Sonic the Werehog's Were-Tornado and Were-Cyclone, but after performing it they will shrink down from exhaustion and be vulnerable to attack.

In terms of defensive maneuvers, the Deep Nightmares can guard against the players attacks, nullifying any damage they may receive, and can do so with great efficiency. These guards can only be bypassed if the player breaks the Deep Nightmares' guard with the right combo or waits until the Deep Nightmares put it down. They can as well jump backwards to avoid the player's attack.

As they player advances to higher playable stages, the Deep Nightmares will become faster, stronger and more refined in their defensive maneuvers.