I personally have problems naming my all-time favorite, but one that springs to mind are the ninja enemies from Oboro Muramasa.

They really give me the feeling I am actually fighting ninja's, and not some random moving sprite. I think they give me that feeling because of their use of smoke bombs to disappear and reappear, which really adds a feeling of realness and intelligent behavior on top of plainly throwing ninja stars.

In fact, I think I like Oboro Muramasa's AI design in general, most of the bossfights really suck me in

The only game I can actually recall any enemy is in Metal Gear Solid. The fact that I cant remember any other enemy just goes to show how crap they all were. MGS enemies were awesome. They had character, uniqueness, dialogue, some sort of history with the protagonist almost like 007 but much less tacky and more profound (yes I find the entire 007 series shit)

I haven't played mgs2/3/4/whatever bullshit they have out now. MGS and Matrix have one thing in common, there shouldn't have been any sequels.


Isn't this all just a matter of personal preference? I also tend to like semi-enemies that have the cute recurring failure like characteristics that most games have for comedic value. (e.g The 3 dude in FF7 I forgot their name, Turk was one of them)

My favorite is Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII.  It's all about build up in this case.  The fact that Sephiroth is a seriously powerful force is built up in so many ways.  The beginning of the game you are fighting against Shinra, and the person representing the evil aspects of the company is president Shinra.  He is found dead with Sephiroth's sword in him, even though Sephiroth was thought to be dead.

This first build up is great because at the beginning of the game your impression is that the whole world is Midgar, and it's all about fighting the Shinra.  And this guy does away with all that in one swoop.

Fastforward a couple of hours, and there are snakes on a field, and you can't fight them because they're far too powerful, so you need to outrun them.  To push the point, if you want to you can in fact fight the snake, and it is ridiculously powerful.  When you get to the other side, you find that Sephiroth has killed one and left it impaled on a giant stick.  Again, this is a powerful man.  This basically happens again in again in surprising ways.

Also, there's the aspect of imagery and emotional response.  Aeris' death was widely considered the most emotional moment in a video game at that point, at the hands of Sephiroth.  The imagery and music was pretty damn powerful for all us preteens who were watching.  He also kills the main characters mother and destroys his town, and you get to watch it all.  Him walking through the fire was a nice touch, and visually conveys his badassness.

The last fight is done in the style of any other fight.  To make it powerful, the camera moves in a way that it never has before at the beginning of the fight, zooming in on Sephiroth and Cloud.  No music plays, eerily.   It's a badass fight (and there's not even a fight, you win if you attack).

So, it's mostly about amazing build up in this case.  You can find similarly built up villians in Xenogears (just a year later) with Graft (sp?) and ID, and a few others.  Also really well done.

Runner up would have to be the fight in Half Life against the many legged monster that can't hear.  The badass thing about the fight is you need to avoid him by being quiet, but he kills you instantly and can do so at any time randomly.  It's psychologically thrilling to crawl by him as you could get hit at any time.  You can also trick him by throwing things.  The concept is simply enough to understand easily, but he's still hard to defeat, and it's very effective psychologically.  This is an enemy which is great solely based off of game mechanics.

Second runner up in Glados from Portal, but I don't think I need to explain that.

Last edited by Tzadeck (2010 February 07, 9:02 am)

The environment of the Tomb Raider series.

This game series is unique in that you control Lara and you find your way around the environment. It's easy to focus on Lara and think that the game revolves around a pretty heroine and that's behind the sales. It's certainly part of the appeal of the game, but there's much more to it.

I'm always amazed at the simplicty of the UI in this game. In Tomb Raider Underworld, to further emphasis the you & the environment, there is not even a health bar or ammo displayed, unless you press a key and it appears for a brief moment.

In Tomb Raider, there are "bosses" which help with the story going forward, but almost every other kind of enemies are filler: spiders, tigers, bats, .. they're just there to change the rhythm of the game.

So yeah, I'm not even sure calling the environment of Tomb Raider an "enemy" but in a way it is there as the challenge, and the only thing between you and the end of the game. There are many games I think which also focus on the "background", perhaps more frequent in puzzle games? But in First Person games, Tomb Raider is quite unique.

One of my favorite games on the N64 was Mischief Makers. Particularly, because it had absolutely awesome boss fights. It had so many awesome ones, that I honestly don't think I could pick a single one of those enemies as my favorite.
They aren't particularly memorable for their personalities, or anything like that. But just the pure awesomeness of the ass-kicking that you were about to lay down on them.

Here are a few of my faves:
Migen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAiyp7MzRXo
Cerberus Alpha: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZBEMaERzyw
Final Boss: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XW47ZpLXN4


But lastly, I would like to mention the poor goomba from Super Mario bros. The most common and basic enemy. He offers little resistance, and is more there to prey on the players carelessness than anything else. In later games like super mario bros 3, he actually becomes a *tool*, as you can jump on him to reach heights that you normally wouldn't be able to. He is also rather cute and non-threatening looking. You almost feel sorry for him.

Goombas :-p

shirokuro wrote:

The first thing that's coming to mind is that I liked all the boss battles for the different temples in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the N64. I like enemies and boss battles where it's not immediately clear what you need to do to defeat them. Having to figure that out makes it more fun for me.

But... in zelda games, the weak spot is always glowing or something... and you always need to use the weapon that you just found in that dungeon. I'd hardly say that it's not immediately clear how to beat them :p
They ARE pretty fun and exciting though.

My favorite enemies were probably any of the weird things in Dead Space.  The main reason was because you had to take unconventional approaches to deal with them which really added on the pressure.

After that would probably be the thugs with guns in Arkham Asylum.  You can't approach them directly so you have to sneak around to deal with them.   Watching them freak out as they get more and more paranoid really adds to the atmosphere also.

Head-crab zombies from Half-Life 2. The enemy itself is pretty standard fare for a Half-Life game, or really any game with a zombified enemy. I think what really makes the encounter interesting is that if you set one of the zombies on fire you can hear the guy screaming. So then you suddenly realize that the head-crab leaves it's victim alive and only controls the functions.

I also like the enemies from Dynasty Warriors. No reason, just that they're so stupid they just stand around you so you get tons of kills. I love Dynasty Warriors.

TheVinster wrote:

Head-crab zombies from Half-Life 2. The enemy itself is pretty standard fare for a Half-Life game, or really any game with a zombified enemy. I think what really makes the encounter interesting is that if you set one of the zombies on fire you can hear the guy screaming. So then you suddenly realize that the head-crab leaves it's victim alive and only controls the functions.

I also like the enemies from Dynasty Warriors. No reason, just that they're so stupid they just stand around you so you get tons of kills. I love Dynasty Warriors.

That's so true about the HL2 facehugger zombies, that was freaky. Gotta triple tap them or behead them, it's a mercy-killing. ^_-

Last edited by nest0r (2010 February 07, 8:08 pm)

Mcjon01 wrote:

liosama wrote:

I haven't played mgs2/3/4/whatever bullshit they have out now. MGS and Matrix have one thing in common, there shouldn't have been any sequels.

That sort of seems like the kind of judgment that's less than absolutely meaningless coming from someone who hasn't actually played the games in question.  Heck, I'd say MGS3 was probably one of the best in the series -- it's definitely on par with the first one in my book, maybe even a little better.

Can't actually comment on the topic on hand, though, my netbook's about to run out of batteries, and I don't have an adapter for these damnable Korean outlets.  Just wanted to get my two cents in here before I'm cut off from the internet for a few days.

Well I have 'played' 2 and 3, but no I haven't finished them. I usually walk out when I'm watching a shit movie, like-wise I stop playing when I believe I'm playing a shit game.

I don't know if can call it an enemy, but Id in Xenogears is one of the coolest "characters" I've encountered playing too many RPGs to remember.